912: Manual Override
| Manual Override |
 Title text: I think you mean 'GNU Info Override'. |
Explanation
|
This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Wiki links are missing on further explain on man pages and GNU info pages. The real joke here is that the pilot has typed "MANUAL OVERRIDE" to manually override the plane's computer and steer the plane to safety, but instead ends up opening the manual page for "OVERRIDE". He did not intentionally open the manual page.. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks. |
This comic makes fun of a trend in documentation for UNIX-like systems, specifically those that use the open source GNU toolchain.
Historically, UNIX systems had a way to access descriptions of the available programs: the "man" (from "manual") command. Typing "man program-name" would output a detailed text, called a "man page", describing the program's functionality, available command-line options, a list of related programs, etc. For many GNU-based programs, however, the output of "man program-name" will be very brief, mainly directing the user to invoke a GNU-specific information system (GNU Info), thus rendering the man page useless and annoying for the user.
In this comic, it appears that the plane's pilot is attempting to read the man page for the Emergency Override System, in an effort to land the plane safely. However, the Emergency Override System's man page has hardly any useful information at all, costing the pilot precious seconds he could be using to save the lives of his passengers. Instead of simply getting the information from the man page, the pilot has to go to the GNU info page for the override system. By the time he types the command in, it'll probably be too late.
Transcript
- [A plane is in a nosedive with smoke pouring from one wing. Text comes from someone reading in the cockpit.]
- "This is the emergency override system, which can be used to regain control of the aircraft.
- Complete instructions for activating this system are available as a GNU info page."
add a comment! ⋅ add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅ 
refresh comments!Discussion
I think that the joke here is actually that the pilot is attempting a manual override (I.E. overriding the automatic pilot and switch to manual control) by typing in 'manual override'(which is also the title, in fact), and the parser instead opens the manual under the 'manual' command for the 'override' program (as explained in this page), not that the manual is too long to be read in that specific situation (while that is a valid argument). 93.144.215.90 12:36, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
- Agreed. Wotpsycho (talk) 02:50, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
- Yup. Sounds right. 183.87.213.90 04:32, 8 June 2013 (UTC)Manan
The info page is overriding the man(ual) page as a source of information, even the name? --Qwach (talk) 23:06, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
- "man override" is giving the (gnu) manual page for the override command. Yes? 108.162.219.223 06:39, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
There is no "man override" on UNIX like systems. And "GNU Info Override" brings up "bash: GNU: command not found...", while "info Override" shows up a full page off standard information, a small line at the bottom indicates that even here this page doesn't exist. Much more funny is: How to close this "Info Window"... There is no intuitive navigation on that window. CTRL+C helped. --Dgbrt (talk) 23:25, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
- I always though that info was designed by people who tried vim and emacs and considered them too easy. Luckily, there are other programs for reading info pages, like pinfo. -- Hkmaly (talk) 00:23, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
Anyone else feel like the comic is going a bit out of its way to make sure people get the joke? The title is the command, and the title text basically repeats the last line of the comic (albeit in the form of a command). 108.162.237.64 06:31, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
- No - if you have never heard of Gnu info pages or man pages, then to have any chance of understanding the meaning the title text might help. Although I'm sure I would never have understood this completely without explain XKCD... (I hope I understand it now). As the explanation now has been changed as discussed above, and which was also asked for in the incomplete box, I have changed this explanation to complete - after having written the line about the title text - which I believe is said to the pilot, after his initial command opened the "man" page! Kynde (talk) 09:01, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
Somehow this reminds me of the movie Hackers, wherein the central character refers to himself as "Crash Override"; Not that such a command exists. 108.162.216.91 08:46, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
I did some edits, but I fear this is still not smooth enough for non UNIX people. (Posted from a Linux Desktop Computer) --Dgbrt (talk) 20:48, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
