explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:1360: Old Files

2014-04-26T22:29:29Z

173.245.53.129: Gorilla.bas

Actually, the "AIM Direct Connect" is in reference to the file sharing system that the AOL Instant Messenger used to use. A quick Google would have found that. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.32|108.162.221.32]] 22:20, 26 April 2014 (UTC)Slacker

I notice backup and recovery files. I once had a folder on my father's computer that housed everything I did. When the drive crashed, I managed to recover it and store it to a CD-ROM (this was before thumb drives). I copied everything onto my first computer within my main folder (I don't use My Documents), and I continue to move my main folder into a new main folder each time I migrate between computers. I have so many nested memories. I, too, have incomplete fan-fiction and instant message logs. Oh, and a dream.txt. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.218|108.162.237.218]] 04:47, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't have as much of a problem with the "old files room", because I keep nearly all of my files on my laptop, but my hard drive is almost full. Another hard drive replace the CD drive, but this computer won't last much longer (bye cd drive workaround). I'll have to build an "old files room" sooner or later. [[User:Z|Z]] ([[User talk:Z|talk]]) 05:07, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Back in the... early '90s, I think it was... I recall there being someone like a buddhist monk (or someone ''claiming'' to be someone like a buddhist monk, and the religion could have been something else) who set up an internet site (not necessarily a website) as a temple for "all lost data". The files you had accidentally deleted, the floppies that got damaged or otherwise corrupted, forgotten formats on old drives that you'd lost the wherewithall to access them. Between this and the "hoarder" behaviour exhibitted in the above XKCD folder we encompass ''all'' long-term computer users. At the same time. I know I regret the dead USB sticks (with irreplacable content) and yet I stare in hopelessness at the folders "GStick" and "FStick" within My Documents, that really need looking at again. (No, they don't contain the lost material. Datestamped at 2009.) But they're two of fifty-three separate subfolders (and a helluva lot of loose files) in that level. "WebRedo"? I remember that. That site hasn't even been ''active'' for about a decade. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.224|141.101.89.224]] 06:50, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

;Explanation
I think the point of the comic doesn't come across in the explanation. It's not just that he's sifting through files, but that he's finding files nested deeply in his folder structure that just came to pass because he always copied contents of an old computer to some folder on the next computer and then ignored its contents.

I.e. in his "Documents" folder, there is the "Old Desktop" folder from a previous computer, which contains the "Recovered from drive crash" folder from another previous system, which has another "Mu Documents" folder within, ... etc. The nesting aspect should somehow be integrated into the explanation.
--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.57|108.162.229.57]] 09:59, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

The shape of the panel is vaguely reminiscent of a hard drive, this may be intentional, being emphasized by the increasing size of the individual layers. In which case there might be some metaphor construed by the placement of the two characters based on their location in the structure of the hard-drive perhaps involving the catalog index. {{unsigned ip|108.162.216.35}}

It should be pointed out that the AYB folder is directly referencing https://xkcd.com/286/ {{unsigned ip|108.162.238.211}}

I have done this before on my hard drive(s) and I always find my old qbasic programs. Anyone knows of an emulator for qbasic so I could see my old programs running again? [[User:Bigfatbernie|Bigfatbernie]] ([[User talk:Bigfatbernie|talk]]) 13:56, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

:DOSBox will run QBasic programs if you grab the QBasic 1.1 interpreter from either an old copy of Windows 98 that still has it in its dos utilities folder, or just download it from here: http://www.qbasic.net/en/qbasic-downloads/compiler/qbasic-interpreter.htm [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.42|108.162.219.42]] 17:01, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Qbasic was "hardwired" in IBM PC's and/or PC/AT's. If the PC did not find some bootable device,
it would start Qbasic from a chip. {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.55}}

Anybody know what Citadel is? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.42|108.162.219.42]] 16:58, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
Citadel is historically a BBS package. Today it is an open source groupware system, but some people are still using it as a BBS. Google "Uncensored! BBS" to find a well known one. [[User:IGnatius T Foobar|IGnatius T Foobar]] ([[User talk:IGnatius T Foobar|talk]]) 03:19, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

;Can we get some instructions on how to edit the page?

It makes no sense to me whatsoever, and it's unlike every other page on the wiki. I can find the list we use in the transcript, but I can't figure out how to add the explainations [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.204|199.27.130.204]] 18:19, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

:I did remove that templates from this page, the explain is still very bad — but now you should be able to post your adds. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:23, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
: I am the person who added the templates. I figured that on a xkcd wiki of all wikis one should feel free to use some more advanced Mediawiki features, to keep from redundancy (here, repetition of data between the explanation and the transcript)... Oh well. Apparently the definition of "to make sense" is "to make sense to others". Also, semicolons are used for definition lists, not for headers. {{unsigned ip|141.101.89.217}}
:: By the way, the current transcript is wrong. The items listed under "No header" headers belong to the "named" headers on the parallel side. There is no dichotomy like that. If you insist on reflecting the visual layout of the comic in the transcript, I suggest something like this (uncapitalised, unsorted, and unformatted, because it is just a quick illustration):

<table class='wikitable'>
<tr>
<td>
 
<th>
documents <hr>
Megan: "You OK down there?"
<td>
 

<tr>
<td>
* misc.txt
<th>
old desktop
<td>
* video projects

<tr>
<td>
* facebook pics
<th>
recovered from drive flash
<td>
* pics from other camera
* temp
* misc pdfs
* mp3

<tr>
<td>
* temp
<th>
my documents
<td>
* work misc
* audiobooks

<tr>
<td>
* downloads
* ayb
* ev override
* angband
* kazaa shared
* gigs
<th>
high school zip disk
<td>
* fight club.wmv
* aim direct connect files
* elasto mania
* 4chan
* icq logs

<tr>
<td>
* lovenote.txt
* gorilla.bas
* aol
** citadel
* nyet
* jokes.txt
<th>
aaafiles
<td>
* korn midi
* photos3
** prom
* dream.txt
* james.txt
* qbasic

<tr>
<td>
 
<th>
txt <hr>
Cueball: "Oh my God. I wrote poetry."
<td>
 
</table>
:{{unsigned ip|141.101.89.217}}
:Done '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 21:07, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
:: Thank you! In fact, I just noticed that rows didn't reflect one filesystem level! They should be moved one level up. I will fix that (and capitalise and sort the labels.) {{unsigned ip|‎141.101.89.212}}
::: Done. {{unsigned ip|‎141.101.89.212, too--I really don't like this insistence on signing}}
::::The unsigned template contains instructions on how to properly sign your posts. If you are against signing for privacy reasons, at least use five tildes (<nowiki>~~~~~</nowiki>) to mark off each of your messages as distinct comments. Your IP is logged anyways by Mediawiki, but casual observers will not see your IP. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 21:41, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
::::Uh, little question. I just read the source, and the html for your table contains no closing tags. Do you have something against them or something? Also, I removed the bullet points when I added the table to the transcript because strictly speaking, the comic doesn't actually contain any bullet points, so we're adding punctuation that isn't present in the comic. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 21:54, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

;Unsigned IP's producing a great chaos here. No READER does UNDERSTAND. Please keep it simple as possible, NO new template for a single comic. I will bring back some edits I've done, respecting edits have done later. But right now I can't see there is any proper attempt to do an explain other could understand.
:Please focus FIRST on the readers here, then focus on possible editors (don't understand), and then tell a new IP how to behave here. It's not my invention, but please try to keep this page at a basis on some standards. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:22, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Gorilla.bas is a qbasic game distributed with DOS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorillas_(video_game)
[[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.129|173.245.53.129]] 22:29, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

1016: Valentine Dilemma

2014-02-16T17:37:12Z

173.245.53.129:

{{comic
| number = 1016
| date = February 13, 2012
| title = Valentine Dilemma
| image = valentine_dilemma.png
| titletext = The worst resolution to the Valentine Prisoner's Dilemma when YOU decide not to give your partner a present but your PARTNER decides to testify against you in the armed robbery case.
}}

==Explanation==
Both [[Megan]] and [[Cueball]] are agonizing over what to get each other for Valentine's Day. Both panic and do weird things. At the heart of the way they are acting is the {{w|prisoner's dilemma}}, which [[696: Strip Games|has been referenced before]] in xkcd.

The prisoner's dilemma is a canonical example of a game analyzed in {{w|game theory}} that shows why two individuals might not cooperate, even if it appears that it is in their best interest to do so. Wikipedia has a great example of prisoner's dilemma, which illustrates it very well:

:Two men are arrested, but the police do not possess enough information for a conviction. Following the separation of the two men, the police offer both a similar deal—if one testifies against his partner (defects/betrays), and the other remains silent (cooperates/assists), the betrayer goes free and the cooperator receives the full one-year sentence. If both remain silent, both are sentenced to only one month in jail for a minor charge. If each 'rats out' the other, each receives a three-month sentence. Each prisoner must choose either to betray or remain silent; the decision of each is kept quiet. What should they do?

In this way, both Cueball and Megan are kept separate, each not knowing what the other is going to do for Valentine's Day in the Valentine Dilemma as it is named in the title of this comic. And both do weird things for Valentine's Day, which ends up being the perfect result to the Valentine Dilemma as both end up with the same level of weirdness and don't go for the grand gesture.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball standing with hand to mouth.]
:Cueball: Flowers seem so... trite. Something homemade? Easy to look halfhearted.

:[Megan sitting at a computer.]
:Megan: Valentine's day is a corporate construct.
:Megan: But hard to opt out of.
:Megan: I don't want to be a corporate tool ''or'' an inconsiderate jerk.

:[Cueball pacing.]
:Cueball: How do I fight cliche? I could get her a gift on a ''different'' day.
:Cueball: But what am I proving?

:[Megan leaning back with stapler in hand.]
:Megan: It's such a contrived ritual. But maybe rituals are necessary social glue.

:[Cueball panicking.]
:Cueball: Forty presents. No, ''none!'' No, give her five items and then steal two from her.
:Cueball: OK, breathe, keep it together.

:[Megan sweating.]
:Megan: And what if he gets me something and I don't reciprocate?
:Megan: Prisoners dilemma!
:Megan: ''AAAAAAAAAA!!''

:[Cueball and Megan talking. Cueball is holding a basket and a jar of hammers. Megan's hand is stapled to her face.]
:Cueball: I got you Easter candy and a jar of hammers.
:Megan: I panicked and stapled my hand to my face.
:Cueball: We overthought this.
:Megan: Yes.
{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Psychology]]
[[Category:Romance]]
[[Category:Valentines]]

Talk:224: Lisp

2014-01-06T22:58:47Z

173.245.53.129:

I reckon I disagree with this:
<blockquote>
In the comic, Cueball marvels at the fundamental and complete nature of the language of creation that he sees in his dream, the ultimate low level language, before being told by God that the universe was mostly built using a high level programming language, perl.
</blockquote>

But, despite it's age, Lisp is also a high-level language and lispers probably spend more of their time dealing with higher-level abstractions than perlists.

What's causing the narrator's marvel in the comic is that Lisp has a very elegant (almost non-existent) syntax and the language has a very close relationship with the underlying syntactical structure of the program, and that thinking about it does tend to give suitably-minded hackers feelings of awe and reverence, once they grok it. Even Larry Wall, the creator of Perl, will readily concede that Lisp is beautiful.

Perl, on the other hand, has masses of totally unrelated syntactical bits and pieces drawn from almost everywhere (basic syntax from C, a bunch of environment variables from shell or awk, an inline documentation format, inline regular expressions, formats borrowed from Fortran, bolted-on pseudo-OO from god-knows-where, you name it), so the language, is huge, messy, non-orthogonal, and ugly - but it does have the advantage that if you need a small job done, you can usually get it done in perl rather fast, at the cost, perhaps, of maintainability for long-term or large projects.

So the narrator dreams that the entire universe was created using the cleanest, most elegant and beautiful computer language so far discovered, one which allows the user to create software in terms of high-level abstractions if he or she chooses to; but in reality, God tells him it was a quick-dirty hack-job done in the dirtiest, ugliest - but effective nonetheless - language around. {{unsigned|‎86.165.192.2}}

:I think that A) you've missed the point of that statement, and B) If you believe the explanation to be inaccurate or incomplete you are fully encouraged to edit it. Also, Perl is not the dirtiest, ugliest language around. There are innumerable contenders, but I'd say {{w|Brainfuck}} is definitely in the running, and I personally would say that Java is in there too. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 05:03, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

::Perl isn't a bad language. The regular expressions that it offers are fantastic, and it's at least ''consistent''. Java's a slow messy and vulnerability-ridden language, but I'd have to go with PHP for the most awful, broken and incomplete piece of crap you could possibly use. Literally has no redeeming features outside of momentum and inexplicably widespread support. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:44, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

:::I never said Perl was bad. I need to teach myself Perl. and that Regular Expressions as we know them today came from Perl, is evidence enough that Perl is a wonderful language. And, I'll agree with you that PHP is an ugly, ugly, disgusting piece of trash. As someone who's had to do OO-PHP, just don't, run far away. I did. I ran to Ruby on Rails, and my life, as a web developer, has been heavenly. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 07:03, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Lisp, the "ultimate low level language"? Ok, whoever wrote that really does not know what he/she is talknig about.

One of the most valuable characteristics of Lisp is the fact that is can be used in functional paradigm. Perl can also be used that way, but is considered a more hackish language and not as elegant as Lisp.
Perl language can solve problems with different methods, and the phrase "ostensibly, yes. Honestly, we hacked most of it together with perl" means that the universe was created with perl, but trying to use Lisp way of programing (probably functional paradigm), instead of actually doing it on Lisp (probably for speed)

Oh, in case is not clear to somebody, Lisp is a HIGH LEVEL LANGUAGE.

Java and php would have to compete for the title of the "the dirtiest, ugliest - but effective nonetheless - language around"
[[Special:Contributions/189.135.124.172|189.135.124.172]] 18:32, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Ok, somewhat a Perl-head here, but not going to add to the arguments about that. Instead: I think "My God, it's full of stars!" is ''not'' a quote from 2001 (where I'm fairly sure there's no broadcast dialoguge at all after Hal is silenced), but from the sequal, 2010, in the part where they 'review' the final recordings of the 2001 mission. But I really need someone who has these two films at hand to check before amending the explanation.

(Oh, go on then. Can I nominate Ada as the most godawful 'proper' language? Not as awkward as COBOL can be (for a proper programmer who doesn't need the "Business Orientated" tendencies), but has just the right (or wrong) mix of strictness to get my back up even while maintaining a pretence of being readable. Mind you, it's 20 years since I've used it, so memories about it may be distorted or outdated.) [[Special:Contributions/178.98.31.27|178.98.31.27]] 21:50, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Java is much more elegant and far less hacky than C++, and it's much faster than some people like to admit. It amazes me how many people complain about how "slow" it is, but have nothing but praise for languages like Python. Of course, C++ is much easier to optimize where time is critical. </minirant> [[Special:Contributions/72.9.93.56|72.9.93.56]] 13:59, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

There is a direct reference to the "Lisp epiphany" that many non-LISP programmers are said to experience upon realizing how heavily influenced LISP was by mathematical logic. This is explained far better in a later explanation. It could be brought in here. --[[User:Quicksilver|Quicksilver]] ([[User talk:Quicksilver|talk]]) 03:37, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't know whether it's important or not, but the line "My God, it's full of stars!" is the title of a chapter in The Little Schemer, which is considered (IMO) a classic CompSci book. If Randall has, by chance, read the book he may have also pulled the inspiration from there as well as 2001. I don't know whetiher this warrents a trivia block or not. [[Special:Contributions/67.176.146.186|67.176.146.186]] 06:34, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

:the quote comes from the book, not the movie.

Lisp is the best language, unfortunately it's not that widely used.

Lisp is a high and low level language.

The worst programming language ever has to be Kodu game lab. Or possibly Malbodge.