Help Desk

The Conversation Takes An Unexpected Turn

Comic Transcript

JIM WASHINGTON: And now we return to our special segment on virtual computing.

INDUSTRY EXPERT: Thanks Jim. Virtual computing has been taking the computer industry by storm. There is an entire industry dedicated to providing virtual computing solutions. But what is it, exactly?

INDUSTRY EXPERT: When you look at your home computer, what you have is one computer. Right there. It’s a single, solid computer that you can touch, because it’s there, and it’s solid. When you install a software application called a “virtual machine,” you still have one computer — but that software application tells you that you have more. Depending on what you do to that software application, it can tell you that you have two, three, ten, or even fifty computers running inside that one, single computer, which is really all you have.

JIM WASHINGTON: … so what is this software application doing?

INDUSTRY EXPERT: It’s pretending, Jim. It’s pretending to be something it isn’t. It’s living a lie, and as long as you accept that lie you’ll both be happy. Things will be going great. But as soon as one of you looks beneath the surface and sees the truth, things will never be same.

INDUSTRY EXPERT: What you thought was a rich, vibrant environment turns out to be a thin, shallow copy of something you realize you never really had, and you spend the rest of your life desperately pouring time and resources into a construct that spends all it’s time and energy trying to fool you into thinking it’s the real thing, but never quite succeeds.

(Silence.)

JIM WASHINGTON: So… how’s the divorce going?

INDUSTRY EXPERT: I don’t want to talk about it.

NEWS TICKERTAPE: Ubersoft denies it placed backdoor into Nifty Doorways 7 for NSA :: NSA denies being spy agency :: Ubersoft claims it ‘would simply never ever do something like that’ :: NSA denies being spy agency :: Ubersoft states ‘we do not work with spy agencies’ :: NSA denies being spy agency

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