1190: "Time"

SWuh · Postby **SWuh** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:30 am UTC

Warm fuzzy feelings all round :mrgreen:

KarMann · Postby **KarMann** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:30 am UTC

Cueball's back! (Actually, Cueball's head.)

daef · Postby **daef** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:31 am UTC

KarMann wrote:Cueball's back! (Actually, Cueball's head.)

let's celebrate ^_^

Akion · Postby **Akion** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:31 am UTC

Aaaand Cubeall is back on screen!

Edit: dammit I'm late

squonk · Postby **squonk** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:31 am UTC

HE'S BAAAAAAAAAAACK!

Beidah · Postby **Beidah** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:32 am UTC

Praise! Cueball has return from the void!

SWuh · Postby **SWuh** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:32 am UTC

KarMann wrote:Cueball's back! (Actually, Cueball's head.)

I have never been so joyous to see a simple stick man (well, not since the last time he returned. And the point a while back when Megan returned...

appleGirl · Postby **appleGirl** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:33 am UTC

Excitement!

AussieJono · Postby **AussieJono** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:33 am UTC

Happy to see cueball back. It took me a full 6 newpix to catch up with this since waking up this morning, the pages per newpix (ppnp?) rate increased massively over the European night.

Jonas79 · Postby **Jonas79** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:33 am UTC

Yay Cueball

They've been constructing together all this time and haven't been alone at all.

KarMann · Postby **KarMann** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:33 am UTC

higgs-boson wrote:Still wondering if this year's Western super Mare Sand Sculpture festival (starting tomorrow) is coincidence (link to the festivals picture archive here, great artists at work - I'm wondering how the sculptures survive the Rainy Britain climate for more than a couple of newpix).

You mean, you wonder if the festival was created by adherents of Time, inspired by the sand castle? Could be, could be.

Flotter · Postby **Flotter** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:35 am UTC

KarMann wrote:Cueball's back! (Actually, Cueball's head.)

The rest of Cueball might be attached to that.

Is it still zooming out?

KarMann · Postby **KarMann** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:36 am UTC

tastony wrote:Having only been able to drop in on the thread every 10-20NP at best, I may have missed this, but have we considered whether there may be relativistic effects at work here? That is, could this be the real-time animation of a what is happening on a generation ship travelling at (say) 0.999c (where, of course, c=5.4E11 m/NP ), and we are just seeing the time-dilated version of what is happening?

Or, perhaps, the generation ship is very close to an event horizon? Would be a bit sadder, and I guess the picture would look red rather than black, so I guess I'd go with it travelling very fast.

Oh, and sandcastles! Cool.

I had that idea a while back, but didn't develop it. But, of course, I was keeping an eye out for it, so I'm pretty sure it hasn't been brought up here yet. (Possible exception: If the post was waiting for approval for a few newpices, I could have missed it.)

teelo · Postby **teelo** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:36 am UTC

I cant believe this strip has so many posts about it. A long dragged out changing comic of the building of a sandcastle. Big whoop.

SWuh · Postby **SWuh** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:37 am UTC

teelo wrote:I cant believe this strip has so many posts about it. A long dragged out changing comic of the building of a sandcastle. Big whoop.

Blasphemy! Outsider!

Beidah · Postby **Beidah** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:38 am UTC

teelo wrote:I cant believe this strip has so many posts about it. A long dragged out changing comic of the building of a sandcastle. Big whoop.

It also has a religion based upon it...

silent_death · Postby **silent_death** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:38 am UTC

So, I am another longt-term lurker who wants to have his voice heard in this historical thread...i´ve followed about 50 pages of this thread so I saw most of discussions...I feel quite humbled by being part of this, it truly is a masterful piece of art, unlike anything ever created by Randall (or any other webcomic artist imho), Time truly transcends the mere newpix - it creates a community, a following or even...a religion.

Having said that, I also want to share my experience with it:
Unlike many others, I don´t stay awake to follow every progress of it, the most curios thing is, I tend to forget completly about it as soon as I come home from work, like seriously, I think about it on the way home, and as soon as Im sitting on my computer at home, I don´t give it a second thought. So this of course leads to a rather long timespan (about 8-10 hours) where I miss the new developments.
As soon as I get back to work and turn on the browser at my work computer I see the tab there waiting for me again "xkcd - 1190 - Time" and it all comes back to me. I click it and see the newest state of the universe we are all observing, something new, something I did not see coming, lots of questions. The next stop is of course this thread, seeing that there are 20 new pages of stuff, remembering that I need to get some stuff done today.
What begins then is something quite philosophical as I thought about it today...scrambling to get all the questions answered, to see what history unfolded and what happened with megan and cueball I frantically look over the 20 new pages in the threads, clinging to every new bit of history I can find - all the while forgetting about the present and getting to enjoy what is happening now.
By understanding history we can learn for the future - this is not really true in our case, we don´t have any influence on what is happening, we can only get the most of the things that are indeed happening...thinking about it that way...it kind of also circles to the discussion of destiny, but that shall not be the point of this post - I will probably go back to lurking now.

Jonas79 · Postby **Jonas79** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:39 am UTC

Has anyone calculated the velocity of this thread in "posts per newpic"?

Also, we're still zooming out. Even bigger castle further to the left?

silent_death · Postby **silent_death** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:40 am UTC

*doublepost* Im so sorry :oops:

KarMann · Postby **KarMann** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:42 am UTC

Jonas79 wrote:Has anyone calculated the velocity of this thread in "posts per newpic"? Also, we're still zooming out. Even bigger castle further to the left?

Well, someone did calculate that it was about 0.47 np*/np**, so it's trivial to convert that to about 19 np***/np**.

* newpages
** newpix
*** newposts
Let's not abbreviate these from now on, shall we? Other than newpix, at least.

SWuh · Postby **SWuh** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:43 am UTC

Jonas79 wrote:Also, we're still zooming out. Even bigger castle further to the left?

That's what my money's on.

AussieJono · Postby **AussieJono** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:43 am UTC

Jonas79 wrote:Has anyone calculated the velocity of this thread in "posts per newpic"? Also, we're still zooming out. Even bigger castle further to the left?

I was just thinking about this:

3097/158 = 19.6ppnp (3sf).

Edit - beaten to it. I think the more interesting thing is the change in rate that I've observed at some periods (mostly I believe corresponding to daytime in the Americas).

jaycim · Postby **jaycim** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:46 am UTC

Beidah wrote:
teelo wrote:I cant believe this strip has so many posts about it. A long dragged out changing comic of the building of a sandcastle. Big whoop.

It also has a religion based upon it...

LOL Saw a pic of Rev. Lovejoy from the Simpsons preaching (or singing) with his arms spread wide right after the frame updated. First thing I thought was: 'He's happy that Cueball is back'

Rejoice! For he hath returned!

Mr Moriaty · Postby **Mr Moriaty** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:47 am UTC

Has any one considered there are possibly more people other Cueball and Megan building the castle? There could be more people off frame to the left.

norcimo · Postby **norcimo** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:48 am UTC

I go comatose for a few hours and y'all create a new religion! And a wiki. Ah well. Just spent several NP catching up on the mumbles pages of this thread I'd missed. Work, what is that??

And Ohh, Cueball!

peewee_RotA · Postby **peewee_RotA** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:49 am UTC

Checking in for the morning. I'm very happy with the progress. I feared the end for the sandcastle builders.

I hope the people who wanted flags are happy.

micdi · Postby **micdi** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:50 am UTC

I wish Randall would somehow refer to this thread, who knows how many people are out there, who are genuine folowers of The One Comic but do not know that they are not alone...
(and they miss some great addict culture (also newpix))

Also, even though it would be blasphemy, did anyone try to put NP on wikipedias list of humourous units of measurement?

KarMann · Postby **KarMann** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:51 am UTC

SWuh wrote:
Jonas79 wrote:Also, we're still zooming out. Even bigger castle further to the left?

That's what my money's on.

I'm waiting for a big "Here there be dragons" sign as we zoom out.

micdi · Postby **micdi** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:51 am UTC

KarMann wrote:
SWuh wrote:
Jonas79 wrote:Also, we're still zooming out. Even bigger castle further to the left?

That's what my money's on.

I'm waiting for a big "Here there be dragons" sign as we zoom out.

Me waiting for seagulls

ThatGingerBrit · Postby **ThatGingerBrit** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:52 am UTC

So here I am, long time xkcd reader, and I encounter this comic. Completely and utterly stumped, I decided to make an account purely to take part in this monstrous discussion. Can anybody at all help bring me up to speed of just what the hell is going on?

peewee_RotA · Postby **peewee_RotA** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:53 am UTC

KarMann wrote:
Jonas79 wrote:Has anyone calculated the velocity of this thread in "posts per newpic"? Also, we're still zooming out. Even bigger castle further to the left?

Well, someone did calculate that it was about 0.47 np*/np**, so it's trivial to convert that to about 19 np***/np**.

* newpages
** newpix
*** newposts
Let's not abbreviate these from now on, shall we? Other than newpix, at least.

I'm more prone to call the increment of Frame animation in the comic Time... "Timeframes".

Best part is that it's totally obscure out of context:

"When did you get icecream?"
"Dude, that was like 3 timeframes ago"
"Timeframes? Like the Victorian era?"

Jonas79 · Postby **Jonas79** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:53 am UTC

KarMann wrote:Well, someone did calculate that it was about 0.47 np*/np**, so it's trivial to convert that to about 19 np***/np**.

* newpages
** newpix
*** newposts
Let's not abbreviate these from now on, shall we? Other than newpix, at least.

AussieJono wrote:I was just thinking about this:

3097/158 = 19.6ppnp (3sf).

Edit - beaten to it. I think the more interesting thing is the change in rate that I've observed at some periods (mostly I believe corresponding to daytime in the Americas).

Thanks y'all (which I think was concluded to be an acceptable pronoun?)

Now we just have to calculate the speed over time to calculate the acceleration of the thread over time.

SWuh wrote:
Jonas79 wrote:Also, we're still zooming out. Even bigger castle further to the left?
That's what my money's on.

Maybe the statue of liberty to tie back to "Click and Drag"

(I know this theory has been posted before, so yeah.... I don't remember who said it first though)

micdi · Postby **micdi** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:53 am UTC

SWuh wrote:
KarMann wrote:Cueball's back! (Actually, Cueball's head.)

I have never been so joyous to see a simple stick man (well, not since the last time he returned. And the point a while back when Megan returned...

gotta sig this, so true

Vger2357 · Postby **Vger2357** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:55 am UTC

Just a thought. When Cueball left earlier, did he leave so that he could obtain the flags that are now used on the castles?

truslack · Postby **truslack** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:56 am UTC

I wonder how many people (like myself) have joined purely because of this comic?

micdi · Postby **micdi** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:58 am UTC

Off topic note (probs been mentioned before, don´t have enough newpices to check):
This Thread now has more views than the forum rules...

EDIT: By far

SWuh · Postby **SWuh** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 11:00 am UTC

And we keep building...

Grepus · Postby **Grepus** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 11:00 am UTC

More building!

chem1190c · Postby **chem1190c** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 11:01 am UTC

chem1190c wrote:Ok. Sleeping now. Will check back in about 14*10^15 femtonewpix just to make sure I didn't miss any exciting developments!

Did anyone win any internets during the uncountably large number of femtonewpix it took for me to return?

edit: Oh hey! More sandcastles!

edit again: or a larger section of the same sandcastle?

edit again again: Has anyone mentioned the javascript in the last couple of pages? I feel like I should mention it again just to be properly redundant.

peewee_RotA · Postby **peewee_RotA** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 11:03 am UTC

chem1190c wrote:edit again: or a larger section of the same sandcastle?

This one has flags and cones.

(Must be under construction)

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