1190: "Time"

[AluisioASG]

It seems that the Bitcoin address has been there for a while.

That or DuckDuckGo is mixing new content with old titles.

[zk2556]

If it's of interest to anybody, the tiny text at the bottom with his regular "The algorithm..." stuff has a new line of encrypted code at the top. Current line reads "BTC 14FHqYSgAi39CEJksUJJsK8JzJzyqFpLVk"

This hasn't updated since the last image. I'm not just noticing this, am I?

[TheNerdMeister]

Another theory:

Spoiler:

They did send away the boy from #1, and the man told the woman that 'We must set the things we love free, and wait for their return" and she has decided to build a fortress to protect herself from hurt, but he knows that she must eventually come to terms (The Ocean).

If so:

Spoiler:

Randall, please let it not be that your wife did not have a miscarriage...
Please...

[QuixoticWonderer]

Over on Explainxkcd, they theorize that we are being used as a bonnet. There is also a Bitcoin address of 14FHqYSgAi39CEJksUJJsK8JzJzyqFpLVk at the bottom. I don't know much about Bitcoin, but I know one can "mine" for BTC by crunching numbers somehow. Could Mr. Munroe somehow be using us to mine Bitcoin? I mean, I certainly wouldn't mind. I like the guy.

[blowfishhootie]

Has the author of this comic ever used the strip itself to announce news about his personal life, particularly horrible news? Why would he do that, particularly in such a long, drawn out way? I find this constant trying to infer horrible things about the dude's personal life based on the comics to be incredibly creepy. Why would you think that? What piece of evidence, at all, suggests that this has anything to do with a miscarriage? Where does that even come from?

[HiReception]

Has the author of this comic ever used the strip itself to announce news about his personal life, particularly horrible news?

Once, in #818. And he later revealed in his Blag that the aforementioned family illness was Megan's Cancer.

[TheNerdMeister]

Has the author of this comic ever used the strip itself to announce news about his personal life, particularly horrible news? Why would he do that, particularly in such a long, drawn out way? I find this constant trying to infer horrible things about the dude's personal life based on the comics to be incredibly creepy. Why would you think that? What piece of evidence, at all, suggests that this has anything to do with a miscarriage? Where does that even come from?

You must be new here...

[pez_]

the suspense is terrible. i hope it'll last

[mexaboy]

Has the author of this comic ever used the strip itself to announce news about his personal life, particularly horrible news? Why would he do that, particularly in such a long, drawn out way? I find this constant trying to infer horrible things about the dude's personal life based on the comics to be incredibly creepy. Why would you think that? What piece of evidence, at all, suggests that this has anything to do with a miscarriage? Where does that even come from?

Dude actually announced his girlfriend's cancer in the comic, made comics about their struggles with it, and made "playing the cancer card" jokes!

[secchimribeiro]

Has the author of this comic ever used the strip itself to announce news about his personal life, particularly horrible news? Why would he do that, particularly in such a long, drawn out way? I find this constant trying to infer horrible things about the dude's personal life based on the comics to be incredibly creepy. Why would you think that? What piece of evidence, at all, suggests that this has anything to do with a miscarriage? Where does that even come from?

Oh, boy...

[Djehutynakht]

Yeah, he does touch upon his personal life somewhat often.

Although I love analysis, sometimes I think we go a bit too far in analyizing these epic and vast meanings for these brilliant pieces of art. I remember a ton of theories about Click and Drag (many "end of the strip" ones) but ultimately it all turned out simply to just be an amazing piece of art.

[secchimribeiro]

Can we come back to the main topic, please? What is that suppose to mean?

[OtherRob]

I had this open in a tab all day at work and then checked it at home as often as I could. It's past midnight now on the east coast of the U.S. I've read every post in this thread and all of the speculation about the possible meaning or message of this comic. And while I will certainly open the comic and the forum as soon as possible in the morning, I've decided simply not to speculate any more. I'm just going to enjoy it for what it is and if there is a deeper meaning or message that Randall is trying to tell us, I know what one I really hope it is....

[TheNerdMeister]

Yeah, he does touch upon his personal life somewhat often.

Although I love analysis, sometimes I think we go a bit too far in analyizing these epic and vast meanings for these brilliant pieces of art. I remember a ton of theories about Click and Drag (many "end of the strip" ones) but ultimately it all turned out simply to just be an amazing piece of art.

True, true, but it is fun to whip out some deeper meaning ideas and speculate. Otherwise this tread would be a lot shorter.

[TheMulattoMaker]

Is anyone else getting red Xs waiting for the 12:30 picture?

[babble]

A broken image is all I see.

[candybrie4zo]

Anyone else getting a 404 for this latest one?

I have
.../time/14fc092adc9f3aeeb7b066fb54ead77b56cfb58eed5f4b736ff94f0207959169.png

which can't be found.

[Exkakx]

...The comic image gives me a 404 error now. Is this happening to anyone else?

EDIT: Apparently, it is.

[Iti]

Re: 1190: "Time"

Post by blowfishhootie » Tue Mar 26, 2013 12:15 pm UTC
Has the author of this comic ever used the strip itself to announce news about his personal life, particularly horrible news? Why would he do that, particularly in such a long, drawn out way? I find this constant trying to infer horrible things about the dude's personal life based on the comics to be incredibly creepy. Why would you think that? What piece of evidence, at all, suggests that this has anything to do with a miscarriage? Where does that even come from?

I'm with blowfishhootie - I think all the speculating-about-horrible-things-in-personal-life-being-announced-in-a-nice-sandcastle-building-comic really is quite creepy.

[candybrie4zo]

...The comic image gives me a 404 error now. Is this happening to anyone else?

Seems to be. Maybe its over. Or maybe we just have to wait some more.

[Goggalor]

Same here. Maybe it's a sign I should go to bed, and check on things in the morning.

[russianspy1234]

as of 9:30pm it is completely blank.
refreshing the page causes an image to appear really briefly and then disappear.

[TheMulattoMaker]

nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Was this just a 24-hour thing, then? I need to see how big the sand castle gets!


...or did we break xkcd?

[CF259]

Yeah, I''m getting a broken image on iOS.

[pete3442]

Wow. This was just incredible. I hope it isn't over yet, but even if it is ... it was enough to get me to watch it all day, follow the fora closely, and register just to post this.

[secchimribeiro]

I like to think Megan and Randall are OK, and this is gonna be the greatest comic of all.

Hope.

[Another Castle]

I finally gave up and made an account. My theory is that Randall is just messing with us, reading the theories we generate and moving as far away from them as he can.

I'm also assuming that the current frame is just having trouble uploading.

I also think that I should've gone to sleep back when Megan finished the second tower...

[Steve L]

FWIW I went to boston dot com (since Wikipedia indicates that at least in 2008 Randall lived in Somerville) and didn't find anything in the Somerville obituaries with keyword Munroe. On the other hand, I didn't find anything for Munroe in the Announcements section (which covers births) of the Boston Globe page either.

I hope we're really reading way too much into this and that Randall intended this as something for us to have fun with, like the Click and Drag comic.

[AluisioASG]

Randall seems to be fixing it. Now it's a 0-byte PNG.
EDIT: Now it's ok: 14fc092adc9f3aeeb7b066fb54ead77b56cfb58eed5f4b736ff94f0207959169.png

[thujaplicata]

Yeah, he does touch upon his personal life somewhat often.

Although I love analysis, sometimes I think we go a bit too far in analyizing these epic and vast meanings for these brilliant pieces of art. I remember a ton of theories about Click and Drag (many "end of the strip" ones) but ultimately it all turned out simply to just be an amazing piece of art.

Whatever the conclusion, this is such a weirdly emotional experience. So many of us follow the strip closely enough to feel personal compassion for Randall, and we're all so scared that something bad happened (me included). The elements of waiting + sand castle + rising tide make for such an ominous mood.

I don't think we go too far in analyzing these pieces and bona fide works of art with deep meaning. Art often wrestles itself free of its creator's intentions and motivations, and applies itself to our experiences by its own power and our own willingness to be open to the experience of art wherever it hits us.

I'm pretty convinced this is his masterpiece. "Click and Drag" took us exploring through space, but this one is literally forcing us reflection on our mortality by experiencing it. In a webcomic. Sheesh. xkcd has gone through a creative dry spell or two, but no one has led the art form to new creative breakthroughs like Randall. Baring some narrative of personal tragedy, I don't even think the ending matters. It's so exciting to watch this medium break boundaries, and it makes me, I dunno, proud?

After years of reading the strip, this is the one that inspired me to register here.

(Full disclosure: I've also been awake for like 40 hours trying to write a paper, so I've got that delirious, manic, hyper-emotional thing going on right now).

[hm8]

[TheMulattoMaker]

I'm thinkin' that we got to see a couple people have a fun day, and now that the day's over, it's gone. I'm thinkin' that the red X is there to stay. And maybe just like any other awesome day, it exists now only in pictures and memory.

Fortunately, we were here to document it minute-by-minute, in thorough detail.

EDIT: Nemmind... I just had to...

Spoiler:

...wait for it...

[hm8]

[JordanTheProgrammer]

I wonder if this will impact on "What if"? Or will he be on time.

[inthemanual]

Randall seems to be fixing it. Now it's a 0-byte PNG.
EDIT: Now it's ok: 14fc092adc9f3aeeb7b066fb54ead77b56cfb58eed5f4b736ff94f0207959169.png

He was fixing the image, now he's fixing the castle.

[Djehutynakht]

Well, you know, this is a comic that's really only for the dedicated, committed viewers. Namely, us. It's a comic for us. Unless you're part of this community constantly tracking its progress, recording it in gifs, etc. it doesn't have quite the same meaning.

[ugmhemhe]

he's now helping rebuild his side

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/time/14fc092adc9f3aeeb7b066fb54ead77b56cfb58eed5f4b736ff94f0207959169.png

[Incognito357]

I started going back through the first comics, to see if there were any more obvious time references, or whatnot that may be related somehow or another:

Spoiler:

#1: if they sent something out, it could possibly be a boy in a barrel. if this is true, maybe there will be 1190 frames to this, one for each comic (ignoring oddities like 404), showing what this couple on the beach has done since the boy has set out. someone not tired can hack out the eta of the last frame, maybe
#6: 20,000 years later, there's a barren landscape. if he's got a script going to add new comics to the server, and all refreshing is automatic already, he could have been making this comic for years off and on or whatever, and even if not for so long, he can continue to draw new frames many times faster than they refresh, and as others have mentioned, this could go on a while...
#13: one guy asks what time it is, and another guy says 'now', with an interesting landscape. they dwell on the 'time' remark, instead of their surroundings
#59: the girl wants to become a lighthouse operator and be able to see and do interesting things, while living on a beach
#73: here's another interesting 'what time is it?', the guy looks at his watch, which says 'zeppelin!', and a zeppelin appears
#77: wasting time on the internet?
#86: perhaps they didn't make a deal?
#96: of course. they're waiting for time to arrive in the mail back at their lighthouse!
that's about it for now... feel free to add to this. these are just the ones that jumped out at me. all just interesting speculation of course

[dawk]

I found a file on this page that is not on others (or at least not on the previous voyager comic). You can see it at imgs dot xkcd dot com slash static slash time07 dot min dot js, and it looks like its rotating the image as some suggested. I saw one image with the girl building a sandcastle. You may have to look at it for a long time to see them all.

[phlip]

I love how everyone is coming up with completely crazy theories from just two people sitting on a beach, and then building a sandcastle. Everything from the strip ending, to Randall is dying, to Randall's SO is dying, to they're expecting, to they've fucking miscarried...
Wait, no. Not "love". What's that other word? "Despise". Yeah, that's it.

Of course, this is the same crowd that takes every event in the comics that's at all romantic or contemplative and assumes it's based on Randall's life. And then often accuses Randall of not being creative enough, or abusing his real-life situation for comics/traffic, or suchlike. The same crowd that assumes Randall's SO is called "Megan", just because that's a name that has appeared often in the comic... and assumes that every one of those "Megan" characters is the same person, and is a representation of his SO (and also assumes that every female character in the comic is this "Megan" unless otherwise mentioned... like in this strip here, where neither character has a name, and that doesn't stop people from referring to the female character as "Megan"). AFAIK Randall has never said what his SO's name is... he keeps his personal life pretty private. Which is entirely his prerogative.

Yes, Randall has made reference to his real-life situation in the comics before. But he's always been much more explicit about it. I don't see any reason to assume that every single strip somehow relates to Randall's life.

Randall is a real person, remember. Not just some character. And so's his SO. Even if they rarely visits the forums and probably won't see it, it's stil fucking creepy to be making with the endless speculation and fanon-theories and fan-fiction stories about real people.