Editing 454: Rewiring

Jump to: navigation, search

Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.

The edit can be undone. Please check the comparison below to verify that this is what you want to do, and then save the changes below to finish undoing the edit.
Latest revision Your text
Line 10: Line 10:
 
At the time this comic was written, most residential buildings in North America were wired for {{w|Analog device|analog devices}} using the old {{w|plain old telephone service|landline telephone service}}s, although thanks to the growth of {{w|internet telephone}} and wireless telephone technologies, including {{w|cordless telephone|cordless}} and {{w|mobile phone|mobile}} phones, this in-house wiring was increasingly redundant. See also {{w|Wireless telephone#Use of mobile phones|Use of mobile phones}}.
 
At the time this comic was written, most residential buildings in North America were wired for {{w|Analog device|analog devices}} using the old {{w|plain old telephone service|landline telephone service}}s, although thanks to the growth of {{w|internet telephone}} and wireless telephone technologies, including {{w|cordless telephone|cordless}} and {{w|mobile phone|mobile}} phones, this in-house wiring was increasingly redundant. See also {{w|Wireless telephone#Use of mobile phones|Use of mobile phones}}.
  
At the time, people who took their internet access seriously would have preferred that at least some of the phone wiring and phone jacks in their residences were {{w|Ethernet}} ({{w|Cat-5}} or {{w|Cat-6}}) wiring and ({{w|Modular_connector#8P8C|RJ45}}) jacks for providing wired internet access throughout their home, or in this case, to their neighbor's home, so that they wouldn't have to resort to {{w|Wi-Fi}}, which was then slower and less reliable than a wired connection.
+
At the time, people who took their internet access seriously would have preferred that at least some of the phone wiring and phone jacks in their residences were {{w|Ethernet}} ({{w|Cat-5}} or {{w|Cat-6}}) wiring and ({{w|Modular_connector#8P8C|RJ45}}) jacks for providing wired internet access throughout their home, or in this case, to their neighbour's home, so that they wouldn't have to resort to {{w|Wi-Fi}}, which was then slower and less reliable than a wired connection.
  
The title text suggests that it shows a fanciful way of converting analog phone lines to {{w|digital}} ethernet lines by simply faxing an ethernet cable, since a fax machine is a tool for {{w|digitizing|converting}} analog content into digital.
+
The title text suggests it shows a fanciful way of converting analog phone lines to {{w|digital}} ethernet lines by simply faxing an ethernet cable, since a fax machine is a tool for {{w|digitizing|converting}} analog content into digital.
  
Since the faxing of the ethernet cable is apparently successful, the comic is not really about the conversion, but is instead a subtle {{w|computer network}} joke about {{w|Tunneling protocol|tunneling}}, whereby you can embed one kind of network access protocol within a very different protocol. Herein lies the humor: [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] are apparently under the impression that they can achieve a faster connection by tunneling a high-speed protocol (ethernet) through a slower (landline telephone service) one. Generally speaking, this is not true. The only exception is when embedding a compressed data stream within a non-compressed standard. The performance boosts, however, are typically modest for {{w|lossless compression}}, and not the orders of magnitude difference our novices apparently hope for.
+
Since the faxing of the ethernet cable is apparently successful, the comic is not really about the conversion, but is instead a subtle {{w|computer network}} joke about {{w|Tunneling protocol|tunneling}}, whereby you can embed one kind of network access protocol within a very different protocol. Herein lies the humour: [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] are apparently under the impression that they can achieve a faster connection by tunnelling a high-speed protocol (ethernet) through a slower (landline telephone service) one. Generally speaking, this is not true. The only exception is when embedding a compressed data stream within a non-compressed standard. The performance boosts, however, are typically modest for {{w|lossless compression}}, and not the orders of magnitude difference our novices apparently hope for.
  
The title text, which is a reference to foonetic user relsqui, was changed to correct their name to "Finn" after they came out as agender. (This comic was presumably inspired by [http://www.xkcdb.com/2001 this conversation] they had over IRC.)
+
The title text, which is a reference to foonetic user relsqui, was changed to correct "Elizabeth" to "Finn" after they came out as agender.
  
 
==Transcript==
 
==Transcript==
:[Cueball is feeding cable into a device on a desk labeled "fax."]
+
:[Cueball is feeding cable into a device on a desk labeled "fax".]
 
:Fax: ''zzzzzz''
 
:Fax: ''zzzzzz''
 
:[Outdoors, showing a plant and a lamp (indicates panels 1 and 3 are separate locations).]
 
:[Outdoors, showing a plant and a lamp (indicates panels 1 and 3 are separate locations).]
Line 28: Line 28:
 
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
 
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
 
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
 
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Phones]]
 

Please note that all contributions to explain xkcd may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here.
You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see explain xkcd:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!

To protect the wiki against automated edit spam, we kindly ask you to solve the following CAPTCHA:

Cancel | Editing help (opens in new window)