979: Wisdom of the Ancients

Explanation

There are so many times that someone can find the exact problem using Google, but see no solution whatsoever.

Often, a bunch of responders make well-meaning but unhelpful suggestions, and a few days later, the original poster writes “Thanks guys, I figured it out.” To which a reader might say "NO, DON’T LEAVE ME!! WHAT DID YOU SEE?! AAAGGGHHHGHGHHH…"

The comic seems to draw on the movie motif of exploring a pyramid or some other ancient structure. The protagonist comes across a skeleton beginning to write “Beware of ” and the writing ends. What did they see? How did they die? How will the protagonist ever escape?

Except that, unlike in the movies, life doesn’t always have a happy ending. Sometimes there isn't a solution to the very thorny problem on Google.

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: 937: Tornado Guard If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

 add a comment! ⋅  add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅  refresh comments!

Discussion

"There was uh, a thing called a segfault that made my computer like, all blurry and stuff." Davidy²²[talk] 06:58, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

That was one reason why StackOverflow came to life: main authors fed up with (mis)using forums for query & answer site --JakubNarebski (talk) 23:03, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Just two googling steps brought me here: http://www.mirrorsoferis.com/forum/thread05232003a.html Relevant for "Trivia"? Even the year fits! 108.162.230.89 11:28, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

From the HTML source:

<!-- Well, you got me. -->

<!-- This is a spoof; a reaction to xkcd.com/979/ -->

<!-- Okay? -->

<!-- Apologies. -->

Cute theory, though. -108.162.254.126 12:23, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Even better, looking at other stuff in that source:

<td><input class="button" value="Log in" tabindex="104" title="Enter your username and password in the boxes provided to login, spin round three times, vomit, click your heels together and TA-DA!" accesskey="s" type="submit"></td>

Will this actually enter properly, or will those formatted tags not be input scrubbed? Tables ... Keybounce (talk) 08:34, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Also, someone in 2003 couldn't have asked about a webcomic that was only launched in 2005. 173.245.52.109 18:29, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

The link above seems to be dead now. DNS failed. 162.158.167.15 09:03, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Working now --Keybounce (talk) 08:34, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

2nd paragraph of the explanation is nonsense! A forum post is nothing like a FAQ entry. The problem didn't get solved and was probably put away and forgotten. Happens all the time. 162.158.83.144 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

"The title text is a suggestion to forums to be aware of the fact that people are likely going to come across such posts in the future" My pet peeve is when I Google an error and get led to a post like in the comic, and one of the last comments is a person necro-bumping with new information on the same issue, but then a moderator locks the post because its X years old and needs to be left alone. This is the fucking Internet; data doesn't rot. 108.162.212.83 13:52, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

From my experience the top search result on google usually is a locked post with no answer (other than the polite suggestion to google it yourself). 162.158.203.16 04:16, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

data does rot, though? :P 141.101.103.40 18:19, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Try having a problem that Google has never heared of. My hard drive died last March, and in the process of learning that was what had happened, I had tried reinstalling the OS and got an error that yielded literally zero search results (it was Error 0xb9f3c820, by the way) --172.71.146.65 02:46, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Nice try. 172.70.147.129 05:07, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Well, now there's a search result, but it's this very discussion. 172.71.150.173

That doesn't look like error number, that looks like error address. -- Hkmaly (talk) 18:38, 16 January 2024 (UTC)