10Jun/1126
Permanence
by Jeff
Image text: This hostname is going in dozens of remote config files. Changing a kid's name is comparatively easy!
This one is self-explanatory. Cueball thinks it is easier to change a person's name than to change a hostname of a server because of the number of changes that would need to be made. However, it seems that Cueball has never had to wait in line at the Social Security Administration office or at the Department of Motor Vechicles. Those two name change processes make finding and changes dozens of hostfiles look like a piece of cake.
In the comic, Megan references "epidural" which is a process used during birth that blocks both pain and sensation, which Megan refers to as "drugs".
June 10th, 2011
Does anyone else thinks “Caroline” is a reference to portal?
June 10th, 2011
My thoughts exactly
June 10th, 2011
An epidural is an injection of painkillers directly into the spine.
June 10th, 2011
Is this the first reference (or if not what are the earlier) to the fact that Cueball & Megan have a daughter called Caroline?
June 10th, 2011
Cueball said she was trying to name her, “Epidural” which probably meant that she was screaming for the epidural to be administered while he was trying to decide on a name.
June 10th, 2011
To be honest, that’s some wild guess.
You are thinking too hard for a comic.
June 10th, 2011
Or maybe gynosaur has been present at births and is aware of the things women may do or say at that time, and is aware how different the experience is for the woman compared to the man watching – and thinking about names? Women are often not ‘thinking straight’ during birth, even without drugs.
June 10th, 2011
Or that Megan wasn’t thinking straight because she was too out of it due to the drugs in her system . . .
June 10th, 2011
This seems more likely. She was high on the “epidural drugs” and decided to name her newborn after something that gave her a great relief.
June 12th, 2011
your assumption may sound reasonable. Unless you understand that you failed
You cannot be HIGH on epidural drugs lol. They go directly into the epidural space, not in your bloodstream, thus that sounds insane, yes, but if you actually WANT to remain fully alert during an operation, that’s one way to achieve it (suitable for operations in the lower part of the body, of course).
And compared to e.g. morphines, your post-op recovery is much better as well (read as “no vomiting” and “drinking coffee half an hour after an op”)
June 15th, 2011
I disagree. You are being too literal with your interpretation of high. You’re right that she could not be stoned but it could easily be argued that if she was in a lot of pain, then received an epidural, she would feel as if on a high at the sudden improvement. People often say that they are on a high when something good happens such as a job promotion etc., thus the phrase “High on life.”
Then the point holds that, just as some people name their children after a person who did something important for them such as save their life, she would feel a (jokingly) similar sense of indebtedness to the epidural. I don’t think the ideas of her screaming “epidural” make as much sense.
June 20th, 2011
Plus, epidurals are largely opioids (morphine and its friends). I’m allergic, so I can’t have one… scary, man!
June 13th, 2011
That’s how I interpreted it.
June 10th, 2011
The image shown in the first picture is a reference to the Debian/Ubuntu text installer btw.
June 13th, 2011
Thanks, I knew it was a reference to something, but couldn’t get it off the top of my head.
June 10th, 2011
Sounds like someone needs gethostbyintuition().
June 10th, 2011
It sounds like it needs clarification. An epidural does not contain painkillers “as such” … it is simply a numbing or nerve blocking agent – which can really be injected anywhere, depending on where the nerves that need to be blocked are (i had one in my shoulder for reconstructive surgery in my arm….. which was subsequently bumped out by clumsy OR nurses prior to the surgery). For labor and delivery, it is inserted into the spine in the lower back and numbs off everything below. The “Drugs” part of what you get during L&D is a narcotic agent, stadol (or a new one, i can’t remember the name right now, nubain or something) . these are narcotic pain medications. And yes, you can get both.
June 10th, 2011
In your shoulder? Epidural is the name of the location where the drugs are administered. It is not the blocking agent itself. The epidural space is the space around the spinal chord inside the spinal channel.
June 10th, 2011
The epidural space runs along the entire length of the spinal cord. Drugs can be injected into any place along it, depending which part needs numbing. For birth, it goes in at the lower back, for shoulders it goes in near the bottom of the neck.
June 24th, 2011
bottom of the neck? some women have temporary paralysis of the legs during a childbirth epidural. If you had an epidural further north, don’t you run the risk of not being able to breathe? In other words, it’d be so risky of a proposition that no doctor who has any fear of a malpractice suit would dare engage in.
August 10th, 2011
Not if it’s below C5 (C3-4-5 are the nerves that supply your diaphragm). C5-T1 supply your arms. (I have no idea if the previous commenter is right, mind you, but it’s theoretically possible I guess? Wikipedia says it’s uncommon but known on their epidural entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidural)
June 12th, 2011
Nah, epidural commonly refers (esp. in childbirth, as that one is very common nowadays, not not limited just to that) to an injection of drugs into the epidural space (they puncture it with a needle first).
You couldn’t have “epidural” in your shoulder, for the arms that needs to be done in the neck area, so usually too risky. Epidural is good for operations on abdomen or lower parts of a body. Most ideal for legs. Women in childbirth receive quite a low dosage of painkillers, much more is required for an actual operation, and even that wears off quite quickly I can tell
June 10th, 2011
It’s important to notice that those “dozens of hostfiles” will be distributed along many computers in the network (and not just in one machine), each one potentially controlled by distinct personnel. There’s no easy way to modify them all.
June 13th, 2011
fair enough.
June 15th, 2011
I agree totally about how hard it is to change a person’s name! My son’s name was spelled wrong.. 3 months .. 5 times in line.. grrr…
September 20th, 2011
“However, it seems that Cueball has never had to wait in line at the Social Security Administration office or at the Department of Motor Vechicles.”
However, it seems the author of the article has never had to change a server’s hostname!