Editing 2102: Internet Archive

{{comic
| number    = 2102
| date      = January 23, 2019
| title     = Internet Archive
| image     = internet_archive.png
| titletext = The fact that things like the npm left-pad incident are so rare is oddly reassuring.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT which someone happens to maintain for some reason but which could disappear at any time. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The {{w|Internet Archive}} is a project that is invaluable for internet research. It is a public archive of information, including public domain books and music. It also runs the {{w|Wayback Machine}}, an archive of backups of web pages all over the Web at various times that can be used to see past versions of a page, even if that site has since shut down. The Internet Archive accepts submissions of any type of information, including new backups of web pages and newly-made public domain content.

Ponytail and Cueball first remark upon how weird the concept of the Internet Archive is, commenting that it would seem like an implausible concept if not for the fact that it already existed.

This revisits a point that Randall made in [[2085: arXiv]]: in the title text for that comic, he wrote,

:''Both arXiv and archive.org are invaluable projects which, if they didn't exist, we would dismiss as obviously ridiculous and unworkable.''

Our culture has an overarching theme of equating profit with success, so when efforts succeed due to inherent public benefit, this can often yield surprise.

They then become more philosophical, and wonder about invaluable systems that are maintained by a just a few individuals, meaning that they could disappear if any of those people stopped doing what they were doing. They relate this to the function of the {{w|human body}}, which does contain many {{w|List of systems of the human body|systems}} whose function and inner workings are unknown to the average person.

Again, as in [[2085: arXiv]], the two try not to "jinx things" by drawing attention to the improbability of this system working perfectly. In arXiv, when Megan exclaims that being able to post research papers as free PDFs on arXiv "makes no sense at all", Ponytail responds, ''"Shhh, you'll jinx it!"'' Here, Cueball tells Ponytail, "Probably best not to think about it."  This is ironic as the inclusion of this information in a popular comic like xkcd is drawing attention to it.

As an example of "invaluable systems maintained by just a few individuals", the title text refers to the "[https://blog.npmjs.org/post/141577284765/kik-left-pad-and-npm npm left-pad incident]", a 2016 incident where a package for the {{w|npm (software)|npm}} package manager was removed from the software library by its author. As this particular package was used by many projects, both directly and indirectly, this caused a severe disruption in the software world. Randall is relieved that cases like this do not occur more frequently. This topic appears to stay on his mind for a while, since [[2347: Dependency]] covers a similar theme.

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail and Cueball are walking to the right.]
:Ponytail: The Internet Archive is so weird. If it didn't exist, it would sound totally implausible.
:Cueball: ''Seriously.''

:[Ponytail and Cueball continue walking to the right.]
:Cueball: Do you ever worry about how reliant we are on systems that someone happens to maintain for some reason but which could disappear at any time?

:[Ponytail and Cueball are seen in silhouette from a distance.]
:Ponytail: Yeah - the same thing freaks me out about having a body.
:Cueball: I know, right?? I don't even know what half these parts ''do''!
:Ponytail: And yet if they stop, we die!
:Cueball: Probably best not to think about it.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Internet]]