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Xkcd's Long-running "Time" Comic: Work of Art Or Nerd Sniping?
Fortran IV writes "Randall Munroe's xkcd webcomic has done some odd things before, but #1190, 'Time,' is something special. It's a time-lapse movie of two people building a sandcastle that's been updating just once an hour (twice an hour in the beginning) for well over a month (since March 25th), and after over a thousand frames shows no sign of ending; in a few days the number of frames will surpass the total number of xkcd comics. It's been mentioned in The Economist. Some of its readers have called it the One True Comic; others have called it a MMONS (Massively Multiplayer Online Nerd Sniping). It's sparked its own wiki, its own jargon (Timewaiters, newpix, Blitzgirling), and a thread on the xkcd user forum that runs to over 20,000 posts from 1100 distinct posters. Is 'Time' a fascinating work of art, a deep sociological experiment — or the longest-running shaggy-dog joke in history? Randall Munroe's not saying."
I found it kind of interesting. When the comic first came up, I waited several seconds thinking it was a slow moving gif, decided it was a waste of time and haven't given it a second thought until now. It's nice to find out what was actually up with the comic, and I wouldn't have heard of it otherwise.
Explained xkcd has a gif that combines most of the individual 'time' comics: http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1190:_Time
If you watch the whole thing up to now as an animation, then go back and review the frame with dialog, it's very clear this is going somewhere.
http://xkcd.aubronwood.com/
I think it's fantastic.
If you can figure out how to predict the next hash (each frame is named [random hash].png, with the website pointing to a new one every hour --- so there are probably a bunch of not-yet-released frames on the server, if you could crack the random sequence generator), you will win at least three internets of nerd credit (and perhaps a job "offer you can't refuse" from the NSA).
Aubron Wood has made a nice web page out of the comic, he was the first one to do so. But I like this one even better:
http://geekwagon.net/projects/xkcd1190/
It also has all the "special" frames (when something changes, when there is dialog,...) listed at the bottom.
You got stick figures? All I get is the word "TIME" all alone by itself. Profound, or hungover?
No Javascript.
Javascript's turned on. Firefox/Iceweasel on Debian wheezy. Refreshed, now I see two miniscule stick figures on a black shoreline looking out over water(?) under a white sky. Zzzzz ...
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
To be honest, the comic copied the musical piece:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_Slow_as_Possible
bickerdyke
Here's the history, in slideshow form: http://xkcd.aubronwood.com/#
You want transcript? Have transcript. You're welcome.
Your time dilation factor is gamma = 1/sqrt(1-v^2/c^2). Thus, to go from 1 frame per hour to 24 fps, you need gamma = 3600*24 = 86400. This means a velocity v/c = sqrt(1-1/gamma^2) = sqrt(1-1/86400^2) ~ 1 - 1/(2*86400^2) ~ 1-6.7*10^-11. As a percentage, that's about 99.9999999933% of the speed of light.
I'm pretty sure it's a server time hash that loads the next image. You can see the progression here
"False hope is why we'll never run out of natural resources!" - Lewis Black
It's about to drop: http://smp.uq.edu.au/content/pitch-drop-experiment
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.