2014-10-22
Explanation
The Joke
The comic is titled "An Elephant Never Forgets" and shows an elephant being used as a data storage service -- because elephants famously "never forget." The elephant stands on a stage advertising itself as great for file storage, promising that emails, documents, and personal photos are securely stored in its brain. However, the "file retrieval" interface is buggy: when asked to produce financial analysis data for the last seven fiscal quarters, the elephant just trumpets loudly ("SWOOO! BWWW! BWOOOOOO!"), outputting useless noise instead of the requested information.
The Humor
The joke takes the folk saying "an elephant never forgets" and extends it to its absurd logical conclusion: if elephants have perfect memory, they should make excellent data storage devices. The comic builds a plausible (within the joke'''s universe) tech startup pitch around this idea, only to reveal the obvious flaw -- just because an elephant can remember something does not mean it can communicate that information back in a useful format. The elephant trumpeting instead of producing a financial report is the gap between "storage" and "retrieval" made literal. It also functions as a parody of overhyped tech products that promise seamless data solutions but fail at the most basic tasks.