Comic Archive

Max: OK, assuming the previous tenants of this building somehow got access to this guy's rejected projects, then what was the black goop?
Heidi: I have a hypothesis. It might be nanotechnology.
Max: Oh boy, we have fully entered the realm of dubious sci-fi movies, haven't we?

Heidi: I have examined components of the first computer that got ‘infected.’ It appears they were altered on a molecular level.
Max: Again sounds like technology that shouldn't exist… yet.
Alana: Now the question is, can this robot be trusted?

Steve: Given that it was eager to defeat many a computer user's arch nemesis, I'd say yes.
Max: Yeah, it clearly does not have murderous intentions.
OIB-A271: Maybe I'm just taking my sweet time plotting your demise, muahaha…
Max: Yeah, right!

Setting: The kitchen/lunch area, Adil, Max and Steve at a table.
Adil: I tried to make a new website, but it was just a blank page!
Max: Sounds like you forgot to HTML yourself!

Max grins, Steve facepalms, while Adil looks confused at Max.

Panel-wide notice: This ‘joke’ has been brought to you by ChatGPT. I hope it is now obvious why no A.I. assistance is being used when it comes to producing this comic strip. Now, back to our regular programming…

Setting: Steve's office.
Adil: Shouldn't we update our password policy? I have found a new set of rules that should make it really hard to guess passwords.
Steve: Really? What rules?
Adil: At least 10 characters, but no more than 16 for compatibility with all systems. Must not contain the same character twice…

Adil: Must not look like a previous password. Must not contain a word occurring in any XKCD strip. Must contain upper- and lowercase, but first character must not be uppercase. Must contain a number, but no obvious replacements like zero for ‘O’ or 1 for I. Must contain a special character, but not at the start or end…

Adil: Must not…
Steve: You may stop there. If I feed all those rules to this validator, the remaining number of possible passwords is so small that it becomes almost trivial to brute force them.
Adil: Are you telling me random people publishing rules on the internet aren't trustworthy?

2 persons are standing behind a computer with a CRT monitor.
Caption: Back in 1998…
Person 1: Damn, selecting text in this Nutscape web browser really sucks, it is near impossible to copy what I want, and all the wrong things get selected together with it!
Person 2: Yeah, but this is all very new. I am sure they will figure it out in a few years, and it will get a lot better.

Caption: A bit later, in 2002…
Person 1: Macroshaft has now managed to make their Internet Exploder the dominant web browser, but selecting text in it is just as awful as it was in Nutscape!
Person 2: Ah well, the next dominant browser will certainly get it right!

Caption: The present day…
Max: Geez, selecting text in web browsers is still total hell! How long can it take to get it at least somewhat usable?
Zhang: Well, more than 25 years, apparently…