Editing 612: Estimation

| date      = July 20, 2009

| titletext = They could say "the connection is probably lost," but it's more fun to do naive time-averaging to give you hope that if you wait around for 1,163 hours, it will finally finish.

When moving or copying files using the {{w|File Explorer|Windows Explorer}}, a dialog box opens to inform the user of how many of the files being moved have been moved with an estimate of how long the rest of the files should take. However, this estimate is often subject to seemingly random and extreme changes from a time measured in seconds or minutes to one measured in hours or days. This is because Windows bases its estimate on the latest file transfer rate, which exaggerates short-term fluctuations. For instance, transfers of many small files are generally slower than transfers of a few large files, because of per-file overhead (time spent writing data describing the file's title, location, etc. to the disk). A brief slowdown may cause the system to display that the transfer will take a long time (based on the total amount of data yet be transferred and the current low speed), while a sudden burst of data moved quickly between memory caches will give a time that is much too small.

 

The joke in the comic is the idea that this feature was actually purposely implemented and that the person who did so actually talks like that. He tells some friends on the phone how long it will take for him to arrive at their meeting point. However, like with Windows's estimation feature, he quickly changes his estimate multiple times from the extremes of days to seconds due to small fluctuations in traffic flow (like when he has to stop on a red light and then he speeds up on green).

 

The title text refers to the fact that if the connection is lost, and data can no longer be transmitted, the estimation just gets larger and larger as time goes on rather than realizing that no data being sent means there is no connection. This is a behavior that occurs on {{w|Microsoft}} network connections even when the connection is not lost. Kubuntu avoids this problem, but not that of wide fluctuations, by including only the past few seconds in its estimate. If there has been zero progress within the averaging interval, it reports "Stalled".

:[Cueball is in a car, talking on his phone.]

:Cueball: I'm just outside town, so I should be there in fifteen minutes.

:Cueball: Actually, it's looking more like six days.

:Cueball: No, wait, thirty seconds.

:The author of the Windows file copy dialog visits some friends.