Dark Magic
Computing, like science, used to be clear cut. It had rules, and so long as you followed the prescribed path the results would be predictable. And just as in science there was a gradual dawning that the picture wasn't quite complete, and that the more you looked the more you realised the enormity of what it was that was missing, so it is in computing.
Scientists now think that as much as 80% of all-the-stuff-that-there-is is actually missing. So to contain it and make it sound slightly less frightening to non-boffins they call it "dark matter" and "dark energy".
The computing equivalent is called Dark Magic. Here's how you can infer its existance.
You follow the installation instructions meticulously and it doesn't work. Repeat with the same result. You check the Internet to discover that 254 other people have had an identical problem and that if you want to know how to fix it you have to pay a $30 subscription fee. After subscribing you discover that they fixed it by using different software altogether.
So you phone the techies at the manufacturer and after having checked that you've plugged it in, they tell you it's a conflict with your media-player software.
You remove the media player software and that seems to work. Until you reboot the computer. Or, rather, you discover that the OS won't load because a library is missing named mplayer.lib
And your directors are looking over your shoulder, asking how many more people you need to get it fixed immediately because the business is loosing money. And you are starting to work up a sweat.
So you reinstall, exactly as you did in step one. And it all works. With no troubleshooting or tweaking...
(??????? Eh?) ...So what changed?
Nothing.
Just the Dark Magic that pervades all computer hardware and software silently shifted somewhere else like a swan on the lake that goes gliding by.
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