1190: "Time"

ctdonath · Postby **ctdonath** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 5:44 pm UTC

Forbidden 403 wrote:Someone make this happen, people will gladly pay money to see, nay experience, this.

It's real. It's called a "beach".

AlexTheSeal · Postby **AlexTheSeal** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 5:48 pm UTC

DSDM wrote:a girl and a guy sitting on a black gnoll

That's pretty kinky. Especially considering your screen name.

kaley · Postby **kaley** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 5:51 pm UTC

Is it over? Doesn't seem to have moved in awhile.

Forbidden 403 · Postby **Forbidden 403** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 5:54 pm UTC

sois_heureux wrote:Has anyone looked into whether the hashes concatenate into some sort of binary data format? Maybe another png or picture or whatever, or a zip, or sound (which would be interesting, given the context of these images).

Initially had tried that when I had not realised that the images are changing. Tried it again now. There doesn't seem to be any file with the hex number converted to decimal or binary.The numbers are also too large to be connected to the unix epoch times.

Someone would have to perhaps hashcat the hex values of all the urls to perhaps make some sense, but I suspect that these are just salted sha256 values just to stop the xkcd minds from peeking into the future.
But i maybe wrong.

tvall · Postby **tvall** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 5:55 pm UTC

kaley wrote:Is it over? Doesn't seem to have moved in awhile.

it last changed for me at 12:30 cdt. give it another 6 minutes. it seems to change every half-hour

Forbidden 403 · Postby **Forbidden 403** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 5:56 pm UTC

ctdonath wrote:
Forbidden 403 wrote:Someone make this happen, people will gladly pay money to see, nay experience, this.

It's real. It's called a "beach".

HAHA.. I meant make the XKCD museum happen. With pieces like an interactive #1110, or this one, or the various other gems on display. The museum would be something to experience.

kaley · Postby **kaley** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 5:57 pm UTC

I'm probably just getting refresh-happy from excitement over sand castles.

Envelope Generator · Postby **Envelope Generator** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 5:59 pm UTC

I just guessed what happens.

Spoiler:

alexthesoso · Postby **alexthesoso** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:00 pm UTC

I saw the latest one (the second sandcastle one) and looked at it for several minutes. I thought it was just that image till I came here, and was going to comment on it, as just that one image made me cry, i don't know why, but... man. If it was just that one(or any of them, honestly) it would be good enough for me. That said, the updating image is cool too.

envelope, id say

Spoiler:

tvall · Postby **tvall** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:01 pm UTC

13:00, hitting refresh every 5 seconds now

edit: sand castle is larger

Prosthetic_Lips · Postby **Prosthetic_Lips** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:01 pm UTC

For those that have looked at the .js file, have you tried to change your url to dump out debugging messages?

Add:

/#verbose

to the xkcd [dot] com URL, and it dumps messages to the console. Things like:
[13:57:00.578] waiting 4 seconds before displaying comic c2e1cc28a59b7184d3c3306a655d048669963412c0cf19f164afdc283ffdaf94.png
and
[13:56:50.091] connection error ({type:"error"})

It doesn't tell me how things are hashed, since it queries the server for the next hash, but it does let you know when it is waiting before retrying.

PS: Registered just because of today's "Time" comic. Brillant!

dbh937 · Postby **dbh937** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:02 pm UTC

It's 2:01 EST, and I'm not seeing a new frame.

goddammit.

Edit: there it goes. b2c52fd7587a8b429a27c0b94aaaec7dda657baa71f8651458440912d6de9049[dot]png

paulmiranda · Postby **paulmiranda** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:03 pm UTC

This morning I was worried I'd miss something but now I just have it up in the corner of my screen quietly updating itself every once in a while

The question is... will it run past tonight? How will it appear tomorrow? What if I had been at the beach today and missed it!?

Forbidden 403 · Postby **Forbidden 403** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:03 pm UTC

kaley wrote:Is it over? Doesn't seem to have moved in awhile.

The last change was a very slight one so it maybe seeming still. In the latest image only the size of the sand structure is a bit larger and the position of the characters is moved.

Here are the image titles:
470d6f2b03fd4b08d4a3f40c1a969ce84ce7b87fefd441a561908f2f5700dc88 [dot] png
c2e1cc28a59b7184d3c3306a655d048669963412c0cf19f164afdc283ffdaf94 [dot] png
b2c52fd7587a8b429a27c0b94aaaec7dda657baa71f8651458440912d6de9049 [dot] png

kaley · Postby **kaley** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:03 pm UTC

It's going to turn into Inception. They'll spend a lifetime building a world from scratch and grow old together. And skip all the sad stuff from the movie.

gladiolas · Postby **gladiolas** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:04 pm UTC

RandomPoem wrote:
gladiolas wrote:DSDM spelled knoll as gnoll, which is a cross between a gnome and a troll. I think he meant a knoll.

A gnoll exists in a lot of fantasy games, such as Dungeons and Dragons and World of Warcraft. He did mean knoll, but shame on you for not knowing what a gnoll is.

Anyway, this is definitely one of the best comics in a while; many accolades to Randall.

Aw, what makes you think I didn't know about gnolls? :roll:

Okay, I don't know much about Dungeons and Dragons and WoW, but oh, well.

Maybe Randall and his wife are waiting for the results of a medical test. Or he's just havin' fun doing something original.

JaSK · Postby **JaSK** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:05 pm UTC

has anyone tried bruteforcing dates and algorithms to find one of the hashes?

maybe the name of the picture is something like sha-256(yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm) + .png

ahammel · Postby **ahammel** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:06 pm UTC

It's probably just the hash of the image itself.

PHDrillSergeant · Postby **PHDrillSergeant** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:07 pm UTC

It keeps resetting back to the start panel for me. :/

dbh937 · Postby **dbh937** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:08 pm UTC

My first impression of the alt-text wasn't what most people think it to be. I was thinking about when you're waiting for something and it's about to happen, you might say "wait for it..." right before what you were waiting for happens. I think that when the comic is complete the alt-text will change to something more meaningful that might give us a clue to what the whole thing meant.

minor edit: I can't english

Forbidden 403 · Postby **Forbidden 403** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:09 pm UTC

JaSK wrote:has anyone tried bruteforcing dates and algorithms to find one of the hashes?

maybe the name of the picture is something like sha-256(yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm) + .png

The problem arises as to which timezone to even begin to consider, GMT, UDT, PST, IST, etc. The whole world is watching it unfold in sync.

FurbyFubar · Postby **FurbyFubar** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:13 pm UTC

Given the size of some the updates for April Fool's previous years, I wonder if this might be this year's April's Fools strip... I doubt it is though.

Whizbang · Postby **Whizbang** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:14 pm UTC

Time is relative to both the speed of the object as well as the interest the observer has in the activity. So, someone watching a pot boil while traveling at near light speed is in for a long eternity.

But what does an animation about two people at the beach at 1 frame per ~30 minutes say about time? Ordinarily watching two people build a sand castle would be extremely boring, but for some reason slowing it down so much and adding in unpredicability for spice makes it much more engaging. Is time going faster because I am interested, or slower because the wait is so long?

JaSK · Postby **JaSK** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:15 pm UTC

Forbidden 403 wrote:
JaSK wrote:has anyone tried bruteforcing dates and algorithms to find one of the hashes?

maybe the name of the picture is something like sha-256(yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm) + .png

The problem arises as to which timezone to even begin to consider, GMT, UDT, PST, IST, etc. The whole world is watching it unfold in sync.

it's either the server's timezone or UTC (just guessing..) but you'll need a script anyway and then it doesn't matter much.
just check all dates vs all hashes...

robxlii · Postby **robxlii** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:15 pm UTC

I understand the strong desire to get to the bottom of Randall's often complicated comics; xkcd is the best kind of nerd-fest, and by its (and Mr. Munroe's) nature it often offers the reader a high level of engagement.

But "Time" is different, I think. We've been provided a simple scene, unfolding in an unknown way for an unspecified length of time. It seems to be less important to get out in front and prognosticate about what will happen than it is to sit back and enjoy. There's something about the ineffable quality of time itself that makes analysis, in this case, pretty impotent.

We've been provided a beautiful place of zen. Like a good Buddhist, let's just take it as it comes.

blendertom · Postby **blendertom** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:26 pm UTC

The title is Time right?
What if it not a sand castle that they are building, what if it is wall.
Like how with time we start to build a wall in our relationship.

I'm getting a really bad feeling from this, I hope everything is okay with his wife.

icebreather106 · Postby **icebreather106** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:31 pm UTC

It's so interesting that there's about a 50/50 split in the comments on this thread. Half of the people are trying so hard to "crack" the code and get to the rest of the story while half are waiting (im)patiently to view it as it is meant to be seen. It is quite the work of art, I'll have to agree on that with those who have stated that previous

YenTheFirst · Postby **YenTheFirst** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:39 pm UTC

ahammel wrote:It's probably just the hash of the image itself.

Given the length of the hash (64 hexadecimal characters = 32 bytes / 256 bits), it's likely that the hash algorithm is sha256.

The sha256 hash of any image so far has not matched its url.

Also, sha256 hashes of unix epochs as strings of digits, or ctime strings in GMT have also not matched a url hash.

communisteggplant · Postby **communisteggplant** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:41 pm UTC

Forbidden 403 wrote:

JaSK wrote:has anyone tried bruteforcing dates and algorithms to find one of the hashes?
maybe the name of the picture is something like sha-256(yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm) + .png

The problem arises as to which timezone to even begin to consider, GMT, UDT, PST, IST, etc. The whole world is watching it unfold in sync.

it's either the server's timezone or UTC (just guessing..) but you'll need a script anyway and then it doesn't matter much.
just check all dates vs all hashes...

The alt-text says "wait for it." Yes, you could try and crack the code to figure out the image titles to find out what happens next...and if you do that, you ruin the entire point of the comic. This comic, and the idea behind it, require the experience of waiting. Reflect on what it means to wait, on a medium in which we're used to immediacy. Notice your own fidgeting. Refresh like mad every half hour. Ponder. Repeat.

YenTheFirst · Postby **YenTheFirst** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:43 pm UTC

also interesting -

The response headers for the redirect list the Server as 'Server:Warp/1.3.7.5' - which is a server written in Haskell.

Does haskell have any unique oddities when accessing / printing the time?

kaley · Postby **kaley** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:52 pm UTC

Maybe that's the point, but it doesn't make it easier.

anian · Postby **anian** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:53 pm UTC

Well, I think

Spoiler:

mschmidt62 · Postby **mschmidt62** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:57 pm UTC

I think they're building a Sand Phallus, which they will worship and then destroy.

reidmefirst · Postby **reidmefirst** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 7:00 pm UTC

Blargh, silly spam trap keeps me from writing anything useful.

The javascript is making queries to c1, c2, c3, c4, etc dot xkcd dot com. The response is JSON, which contains a link to the new image. Probably everyone has figured it out, though

.

Reid

Mallorea541 · Postby **Mallorea541** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 7:01 pm UTC

anian wrote:Well, I think
Spoiler:
it's going to reveal that they are expecting a baby

I think that is entirely possible.

Or a cancer test.

hendusoone · Postby **hendusoone** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 7:02 pm UTC

Envelope Generator wrote:I just guessed what happens.

Spoiler:
They finish the sand castle, leave, and the castle slowly erodes to nothing. No punchline, just Heraclitean existentialism.

Spoiler:

tvall · Postby **tvall** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 7:03 pm UTC

anian wrote:Well, I think
Spoiler:
it's going to reveal that they are expecting a baby

Well, i think

Spoiler:

libra · Postby **libra** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 7:05 pm UTC

nobrainer440 · Postby **nobrainer440** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 7:06 pm UTC

I hope there will be a joke incorporated into this comic about the Pitch Drop Experiment.

FaroCastiglo · Postby **FaroCastiglo** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 7:07 pm UTC

Signed up just to say: Ahhh, so tantalizing!

Listening to Sigur Ros while following this, because it just seems so appropriate.

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