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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."
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.
Here's the history, in slideshow form: http://xkcd.aubronwood.com/#
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