Editing 2531: Dark Arts

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[[White Hat]] has presumably just asked [[Cueball]] to perform some task involving {{w|file system|filesystems}}. Cueball responds with an exceptionally melodramatic monologue, referring to the subject as "dark arts" and stating he'd rather not have anything to do with them. This is reminiscent of a fairly typical scene in fantasy novels, superhero movies, etc: a person with supernatural powers explains they prefer not to use them, as their use is likely to have negative effects that outweigh the positive ones. Often this is tied to a tragic backstory of the character, where the use of their powers previously caused them or someone close to them much suffering.
 
[[White Hat]] has presumably just asked [[Cueball]] to perform some task involving {{w|file system|filesystems}}. Cueball responds with an exceptionally melodramatic monologue, referring to the subject as "dark arts" and stating he'd rather not have anything to do with them. This is reminiscent of a fairly typical scene in fantasy novels, superhero movies, etc: a person with supernatural powers explains they prefer not to use them, as their use is likely to have negative effects that outweigh the positive ones. Often this is tied to a tragic backstory of the character, where the use of their powers previously caused them or someone close to them much suffering.
  
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The humor of the comic comes from the parallel drawn; it seems unlikely that knowledge of filesystems could have negative consequences on the scale of, say, leveling a city, so the comparison is hyperbolic. However, much of today's infrastructure does depend on legacy systems that can be very overly complex to work with, having weathered aggressive political conflicts and short corporate deadlines for decades now. An example is the recent shutdown of the pgp keyserver network, or how the developer of the fastest linux filesystem built (reiserfs) was imprisoned for murdering his wife right before it could be merged into linux. Still, this joke is in a similar vein to comics like [[349: Success]], in which Cueball's relationship with technology is shown to have a potential for disaster far exceeding that of a normal person's.
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The humor of the comic comes from the parallel drawn; it seems unlikely that knowledge of filesystems could have negative consequences on the scale of, say, leveling a city, so the comparison is hyperbolic. This joke is in a similar vein to comics like [[349: Success]], in which Cueball's relationship with technology is shown to have a potential for disaster far exceeding that of a normal person's.
  
 
A filesystem is the part of a computer's {{w|operating system}} that handles the organization of data in persistent storage, usually splitting it into files and directories. It can be a very complicated piece of software. Because of this, it is easy to make mistakes in advanced usage, and because it controls practically all data on a given machine, mistakes made can have serious consequences (e.g., loss of data). These properties of filesystems are likely why Cueball is reluctant to mess with them.
 
A filesystem is the part of a computer's {{w|operating system}} that handles the organization of data in persistent storage, usually splitting it into files and directories. It can be a very complicated piece of software. Because of this, it is easy to make mistakes in advanced usage, and because it controls practically all data on a given machine, mistakes made can have serious consequences (e.g., loss of data). These properties of filesystems are likely why Cueball is reluctant to mess with them.

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