Editing 1305: Undocumented Feature

{{comic
| number    = 1305
| date      = December 18, 2013
| title     = Undocumented Feature
| before    = [[#Explanation|↓ Skip to explanation ↓]]
| image     = undocumented_feature.png
| titletext = And it doesn't pop up a box every time asking you to use your real name. In fact, there's no way to set your name at all. You just have to keep reminding people who you are.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Some layout issues, still too many adds after this tag was removed. Language is an other issue}}
An {{w|undocumented feature}} is a part of a software product that is not explained in the documentation for the product. If this features belongs to a joke or something similar it's called an {{w|Easter egg (media)|easter egg}}.

[[Cueball]] has found a chat room, intended to ask for help, accessible through the help page of some unnamed old Windows utility. The people who found the chat room start using it for its intended purpose (helping users of the utility by contacting other users), however as time passes they just become friends and enter the chat only to talk to each other, with no relation with computer problems. After a while, the utility program gets old so that nobody uses it any more, however people in the chat still have it installed only to be able to chat to each other.

A {{w|virtual machine}} (or VM) is a computer program designed to emulate the hardware of a full computer. With such a program, one configures parameters such as the amount of RAM memory the virtual machine will have, the hard disk size, etc. Then, the program creates an environment with those parameters so that one can start to install an {{w|operating system}} as if it were a real machine. Some computer users keep different VMs in their computer with different operating systems, so they can run several operating systems at the same time. In the comic, users of the old chat room create VMs only to have an old operating system installed, with the old utility program (which can be assumed to go funny or not run at all in more recent versions of windows) just to be able to access the chat room.

A chat room like this must be hosted in some outside server, so the narrator of the comic wonders who runs this server. An obvious thought about this is if and when the server will be shut down, effectively cutting all communication among chat users. Another obvious thought is why the utility author is still maintaining the chat server, since its original purpose (communicating users with problems with the utility program) is no longer an issue as everybody has migrated to more modern systems. The comic suggests that the reason for doing this can be a bored {{w|System administrator|sysadmin}}, who is just reading the messages of the chat users and following their lives but never writing anything. This would turn the chat room as a soap opera for the sysadmin.

The {{w|Deep Web}} is a term used to refer to any information which is available online, but is hard to find (usually because there are no links to that information in web pages). The chat room described would be an example of this. From this point on, the comic goes all existentialist (a frequent xkcd trait), talking about how life is short, everything has to end, etc.

The last panel refers to the fact that [http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304403804579263371125671670 Facebook announced it was starting to use autoplaying video ads] just one day before the comic release, and the title text refers to YouTube requiring its users to use their real-life identities instead of just nicknames. These last parts of the comics somehow reveal that the point of the whole comic is just to complain about aggressive money-driven policies used by modern social networks in general and Facebook in particular. It is hinted that [[Randall]] would prefer older technologies, when limited resource would forbid autoplaying videos or huge databases with every detail of every user's life.

The last panel is also a subtle reference to [[90]].

It's possible that the comic is about an actual chat room, but it could also be a complete invention. If it's real, the participants would not want to confirm this in order to protect their privacy.

==Transcript==
:[A support window is shown.]
:An old Windows utility has an undocumented feature. If you open "help" and click on the background, you get dropped into a "support" chat room.
:Support Window: Launching support forum...

:[An active conversation between two people is shown.]
:Only a few of us ever found it. But we became friends.

:[Cueball and Ponytail are at computers.]
:We kept launching the program to check in. Eventually some of us were running VMs just to keep accessing it.

:[Another conversation.]
:As the Internet aged, so did we.

:[Three question marks.]
:We don't know who runs the server. We don't know why it's still working so many years later. Maybe we're some sysadmin's soap opera.

:[A group of people are shown in a bubble.]
:It will probably vanish someday, but for now it's our meeting place. Our hideaway.

:[The bubble is now smaller, and some parts of a web are shown.]
:A life's worth of chat,

:[More of the web is shown.]
:Buried in the deep web.

:[A flat landscape is shown with the sun at the horizon.]
:But even if it lasts forever, ''we'' won't. When we're gone, who will remember us?

:[Cueball and Hairy are shown standing together in a bubble.]
:Who will remember this strange little world and the friendships we built here?

:Nobody.

:[An empty bubble is shown.]
:This place is irrelevant. Ephemeral. One day it will be forgotten.

:[The bubble starts to fade away.]
:And so will we

:[The bubble has almost completely faded away.]

:[The bubble is now completely gone.]

:But at least it doesn't have fucking video ads.

==Trivia==
There are many examples of undocumented features in programs written for old versions of Windows, for example:
* When playing {{w|Solitaire (Windows)|Windows Solitaire}} with the "draw three" option, one can draw single cards by holding <Ctrl+Alt+Shift> while clicking on the card to draw cards.
* When playing {{w|Microsoft Minesweeper|Windows Minesweeper}} in pre-Windows-95 versions, typing "{{w|xyzzy}}" followed by <Enter> and then <Right-shift>, will turn the top left pixel of the windows background black or white to indicate if the mouse is over a mine or not.
* The first releases of {{w|Windows 95}} allowed one to see the "credits" for Win95 by creating a folder in the desktop and then renaming it several times.
* {{w|Microsoft word|Word}} 97 has an embedded pinball game, accesible by a [http://www.eeggs.com/items/763.html weird sequence of strange actions].
* {{w|Microsoft Excel|Excel}} 97 has also an embedded game of a spaceship floating over a planet, accessible by another [http://www.eeggs.com/items/718.html weird sequence of actions].

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Internet]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]
[[Category:Social networking]]
[[Category:YouTube]]