Is this the ultimate XKCD “Dependency” derivative?
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/11/29
Besides the August 2025 XKCD infrastructure dependency inspired cartoon on the right, the more recent and great [Wayback/Archive] XCKD: Dependency derivative below is a monumental piece as it combines the recent:
- fiber outage of the Internet Archive
- DoS of Cloudflare by itself
- AWS us-east-1 dependencies outage
- Crowdstrike DoS of Windows machines
- framework-du-jour mentality in the JavaScript world
- many more¹
Image [Wayback/Archive] 36247840bf294a9d.png (1080×1389) from [Wayback/Archive] xyla 🐀🪇: “someone pls alt text this shit…” – buy shitpost cheap:
xkcd “dependency”-style diagram, starting out at uranium enrichment (nuclear fuel is labelled “cookies for fish”) and ending at a stick figure labelled “You are here” saying “WTF” with everything from electricity production, fish eating nuclear fuel rods, curl, left-pad, and rust devs shooting a rocket at oracle in between
I think the cat inspired image is from, as that is the earliest highest resolution image (1024×1536) image I could find. I could not find any shares that have attribution, so this should do for now:
- [Wayback/Archive] Data Cyborg on X: “Cat vs modern infrastructure #ProgrammerHumor #meme “
Cartoon using XKCD style and typeface: “All modern infrastructure” on the left above a pile of grey blocks; “A cat” on the right above a grey sitting cat licking its right front paw.
Note: the image is 1536 pixels high, but the actual content only some 350 pixels, so I cropped it using CSS (right-click and load the image in a separate tab to get the original).
- [Wayback/Archive] catVsModernInfrastructure : r/ProgrammerHumor or [Wayback/Archive] catVsModernInfrastructure : r/ProgrammerHumor
catVsModernInfrastructure
[Wayback/Archive] Reddit – https://i.redd.it/hxkdo315bkif1.jpeg
Despite the Reddit image being the same size in pixels, the .jpeg file is about twice as large and has less compression artefacts than the Twitter image.
[Wayback/Archive] Ozzelot: “@sushee I believe the very ori…” – Mastodon 🐘
@sushee
I believe the very original was AI-generated and then someone redrew it. Judging by the odd shapes and how one floats weirdly, and also by the letters (differences between the instances of “N” in particular), this sadly might be the original.
I originally got the cat picture from [WaybackSave/Archive] Su-Shee: “obvious take, why didn’t I think of this 😂
(source unknown, let me know if you know :)…” – ohai.social of which a reply referred to the Reddit post above. It had this cropped (and smaller) image with a black line on the left side:
xkcd modern digital infrastructure torn down by a satisfied looking cat
¹ [WaybackSave/Archive] tuban_muzuru: “@xyla @quinn The Modern Digi…” – beige.party, bulleted for readability:
The Modern Digital Infrastructure (Maximalist Edition)
A complex, hand-drawn diagram illustrating the precarious, “Tower of Babel” nature of modern computing. The structure is a vertical stack of dependent technologies, teetering on the edge of collapse, visualized as follows (from the bottom up):
- 1. The Environmental & Physical Layer
- Hydro/Cooling: At the very bottom left, water flows into a cooling system.
- Power Generation: A nuclear cooling tower emits steam. Beside it, a label points to barrels of nuclear waste marked with radiation symbols, captioned “Cookies for fish :3”. A diagram arrow points from the reactor to the water, labeled “This thing turns shiny metal into cookies for fish.”
- Transmission: Power lines connect the reactor to the main computing block.
- The Base: A massive grey slab labeled “ELECTRICITY” serves as the ground for all reality.
- 2. The Hardware & Legacy Foundations
- The Titans: Resting on the Electricity slab are four foundational pillars labeled: “Linus Torvalds,” “IBM,” “TSMC,” and “K&R” (Kernighan & Ritchie).
- The Dangerous Bedrock: Resting directly on these pillars is a shaky, curved platform labeled “C DEVELOPERS WRITING DYNAMIC ARRAYS.” This suggests the entire internet rests on manual memory management.
- The Network Floor: Sitting on the C developers is a platform labeled “Linux Foundation.”
- The Glue: A single, bent pipe labeled “LibcURL” is shown straining to hold up the next layer (AWS).
- The Network Hazards: To the right, a pool of green toxic sludge contains sharks swimming around barrels of radioactive waste. This area is labeled “DNS” (implying the Domain Name System is a toxic shark tank).
- 3. The Cloud & Middleware Layer
- The Providers: Stacked haphazardly on LibcURL are blocks labeled “AWS” (Amazon Web Services) and “Cloudflare.”
- The Human Element: Three tiny figures (labeled with dress icons) stand on the Cloudflare block.
- The Instability: A specific, wedge-shaped block wedged dangerously into the side is labeled “That one C99 project based on behavior of undefined behavior.”
- 4. The Load-Bearing Reality
- The Hero: Underneath the massive, swaying upper tower, a tiny stick figure struggles to hold up the entire crushing weight of the structure. He is labeled “UNPAID OPENSOURCE DEVELOPERS.”
- The Engine: Next to him, a small crank labeled “AI” is being turned, seemingly driving nothing but hype or friction.
- 5. The Modern Web & Application Layer (The Teetering Top)
- The Jenga Tower: The upper section is a chaotic pile of jagged blocks.
- The Components: Visible blocks include “V8” (JavaScript engine), “WASM” (WebAssembly), “JVM” (Java Virtual Machine), and “Oracle” (crossed out).
- The Developer: A stick figure stands on a ledge, kicking blocks off the tower, labeled “WEB DEV SABOTAGING HIMSELF.”
- The Missing Piece: A gap in the tower is labeled “LEFT-PAD,” referencing the famous NPM breakage where a deleted 11-line package broke the internet.
- Current Events: A tiny figure points to the very top of the stack, saying “Why?” A label reads “SOMETHING HAPPENING IN THE WEB.”
- The User: At the very peak, a zoomed-in circle shows a stick figure labeled “YOU ARE HERE,” standing on the precipice of this disaster.
- 6. External Threats & Escapees
- The Attack: A red Angry Bird is flying toward the tower, labeled “WHATEVER MICROSOFT IS DOING.”
- The Outage: A missile labeled “CROWDSTRIKE” is incoming from the right, aimed at the Windows/Kernel layer.
- The Escape Strategy: To the left, away from the tower, a rocket ship piloted by a crab (Ferris the Rust mascot) is blasting off into space. The label reads “RUST DEVS DOING THEIR THING,” implying they are abandoning the legacy mess entirely.
- 7. The Atmosphere
- The Cloud: Floating high above everything is a literal fluffy cloud labeled “LORE ACCURATE CLOUD SERVER.”
- The Summary: A large bracket encompasses the entire teetering tower, labeled “ALL MODERN DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE.”
--jeroen
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 
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