1190: "Time"

[KarMann]

This image is different (compared with, say, 10 newpix ago; haven't loaded any from overnight). After loading the pixel data into Matlab, instead of the was-black-now-gray values approaching 255, now the was-black pixels have value 3, and the background is 8. Displaying the image without scaling gives a black image, not a white one. So He changed up the data instead of just scaling the black as before, now counting upon browser properties to produce a white image.

That's probably some automated optimization. Since we only have a few shades of grey left (250-255, plus 0 for the border), the image can be (and is) stored with pixel depth 4 (allows 16 colors) instead of 8 (allows 256 colors).

Interesting. But surprising, since the border is 0 and the background is/was 255, so at 4 bits, dynamic range is lost. Doesn't matter for this image, but since I'm used to treating an image as a collection of scientific data, it seems odd to throw information away like that.

Edit (to avoid double posting): there are 9 pixel values in the image (Matlab loads it as 0,1,...,8). Border is 0, foreground is 3, background is 8, values between 3 and 8 are antialiasing at the edges, 1 and 2 are in the corners of the border.

Remember, 4 bits is 16 values, 2⁴, more than enough for that.

Added: Ah, I think maybe I misunderstood your misunderstanding. The 16 values can be any in the range 0-255; they don't have to be evenly spaced.

[mscha]

That's probably some automated optimization. Since we only have a few shades of grey left (250-255, plus 0 for the border), the image can be (and is) stored with pixel depth 4 (allows 16 colors) instead of 8 (allows 256 colors).

So, how many "Shades of Grey" have we had?

Well, I checked a random newpix before the fade, and all 256 shades of grey were present. (It's in the anti-aliasing at the border of objects.)
24 newpix ago, we still had 188 shades of grey. We were at #464646 back then, #464646-#ffffff is 186, plus #000000 makes 187, not sure where the 188th went.

[BlitzGirl]

I give to BlitzGirl
a hug the size of the sea.
Good to see you Now.

Wow, the Hug is Big!
Here's some Happiness for you:
(I can still breathe - yay!)

congratulations blitzgirl! what a mighty quest you have finished! welcome in the present - i see lots of food have been prepared, what would you like to drink with them?

Ooh, at this point any drink would be welcome! Thank you!

SUPER HUGS, Blitzgirl.

Those hugs are VERY BIG!

[SBN]

It's easy to see by tilting the screen of a laptop.

Easier, maybe. My old eyes need more than that. I was using http://geekwagon.net/projects/xkcd1190/ and the frame comparison, but that isn't working for me this morning. Thank you to those who have posted/will post the darkened versions.

[Eliram]

Time for a sea¹ level update.

This is the sea level rise since just after the trebuchet pan (exactly one month ago, Outside reckoning). There was barely any sea level rise before then, so it's pretty much the sea level rise since the Beginning of Time.

Will the next tower fall while we can still see it? You'd think, but I wouldn't bet on it, since it's been defying gravity for quite a while already.

¹: bigger than ever

If I'm not mistaken, the wall on the leftmost of this image is almost entirely under sealevel now. Weird.

Great to have you here, BlitzGirl! It was a race fitting for an action movie. I wonder who will play your role...

[lane32x]

Greetings Gents and Ladies
I have been following this comic since the beginning and lurking on the thread off and on a few times per week as well. It's been fun catching glimpses of comedy and intrigue as everyone followed this strip. I just wanted to thank the lot of you for providing a very interesting thread. I felt like I should post before everybody runs away.

[Rick_LANL]

This image is different (compared with, say, 10 newpix ago; haven't loaded any from overnight). After loading the pixel data into Matlab, instead of the was-black-now-gray values approaching 255, now the was-black pixels have value 3, and the background is 8. Displaying the image without scaling gives a black image, not a white one. So He changed up the data instead of just scaling the black as before, now counting upon browser properties to produce a white image.

That's probably some automated optimization. Since we only have a few shades of grey left (250-255, plus 0 for the border), the image can be (and is) stored with pixel depth 4 (allows 16 colors) instead of 8 (allows 256 colors).

Looks right to me:

Code: Select all

$ file 13e0f6c7fe59a8f5814efcb0647f2c5ef0979993406ddb7aaf056623d4cb7b02.png
13e0f6c7fe59a8f5814efcb0647f2c5ef0979993406ddb7aaf056623d4cb7b02.png: PNG image data, 553 x 395, 4-bit colormap, non-interlaced

Cool. Older images report "8-bit grayscale" instead of "4-bit colormap."

[KarMann]

That's probably some automated optimization. Since we only have a few shades of grey left (250-255, plus 0 for the border), the image can be (and is) stored with pixel depth 4 (allows 16 colors) instead of 8 (allows 256 colors).

So, how many "Shades of Grey" have we had?

Well, I checked a random newpix before the fade, and all 256 shades of grey were present. (It's in the anti-aliasing at the border of objects.)
24 newpix ago, we still had 188 shades of grey. We were at #464646 back then, #464646-#ffffff is 186, plus #000000 makes 187, not sure where the 188th went.

The corners have that one pixel at 183/0xB7, and two at 33/0x21, each. That's why.

[Bytes]

BTW, congratulations Blitzgirl, I was coma'ing upon your return so I only noticed when you suddenly started posting in the present! Have this high 5 *high 5's* and this bottle of imaginary champagne!

[BlitzGirl]

Great to have you here, BlitzGirl! It was a race fitting for an action movie. I wonder who will play your role...

Oh, I hope it's Summer Glau!

EDIT:
*high-fives Bytes*
Thanks for the champagne!

[Kethryes]

When I first came back I was afraid I lost my sight. Is it a divine punishment? Did we offended Lord Randall?

FTFY

Nothing wrong with my original sentence, we can use synonyms right?

The Great White is upon us! Repent!

[Eliram]

While waiting for the whiteframe, I would ask:
If there is one last non-white (FEFEFE) frame, what would you, if you could control it, have displayed in it?

I thought about:
- LaPetite waving and says "Bye"
- The image starts to zoom out again, just a bit, to annoy us more
- A hidden message with text all over the screen
- The word "IT"

Any other thoughts?

[Angelastic]

The Great White is upon us! Repent!

Has Time jumped the (great white) shark?

[Rick_LANL]

This image is different (compared with, say, 10 newpix ago; haven't loaded any from overnight). After loading the pixel data into Matlab, instead of the was-black-now-gray values approaching 255, now the was-black pixels have value 3, and the background is 8. Displaying the image without scaling gives a black image, not a white one. So He changed up the data instead of just scaling the black as before, now counting upon browser properties to produce a white image.

That's probably some automated optimization. Since we only have a few shades of grey left (250-255, plus 0 for the border), the image can be (and is) stored with pixel depth 4 (allows 16 colors) instead of 8 (allows 256 colors).

Interesting. But surprising, since the border is 0 and the background is/was 255, so at 4 bits, dynamic range is lost. Doesn't matter for this image, but since I'm used to treating an image as a collection of scientific data, it seems odd to throw information away like that.

Edit (to avoid double posting): there are 9 pixel values in the image (Matlab loads it as 0,1,...,8). Border is 0, foreground is 3, background is 8, values between 3 and 8 are antialiasing at the edges, 1 and 2 are in the corners of the border.

Remember, 4 bits is 16 values, 2⁴, more than enough for that.

Added: Ah, I think maybe I misunderstood your misunderstanding. The 16 values can be any in the range 0-255; they don't have to be evenly spaced.

Indeed. I was thinking 4-bit grayscale. Matlab finally let me down; it didn't load the colormap, just the index values. It doesn't support 4-bit indexed .PNGs.

[SPACKlick]

Spoiler:

It's not fair.

La Petite arriving with what looks like a trebuchet, a huge chunk of tower falling off, and we'll never see anything more.

Seriously, this is the Newpix?? I became blind, I cannot see anything and I did not find a way to gimp it to be more seeable

If you want to GIMP it yourself, the easiest way is with Colors -> Auto -> Equalize. A better result comes from Colors -> Levels, with manual intervention required, i.e. best result comes from using the colour of the not-black as the left end of the input.

Thanks to help me in the Linux way ( to mscha ), but Gimp do not allow me to click on the 'Equalize' in the colors -> auto menu, and if I click on colors -> levels, it raises an error...

(gimp:17317): GLib-WARNING **: (/build/buildd/glib2.0-2.32.3/./glib/gerror.c:390):g_error_new_valist: runtime check failed: (domain != 0)

I wonder if the picture I got is not really complete blank...

I've been using msPaint, select Color 1 as the "black" colour and colour 2 as actual black, select the eraser and hold RMB and go over the image (because paint messes with pixels, you'll then want to work with colours between the "black" and the white" to see all the detail.

For instance in the last image the "black" was 250, but there are several pixels at 251() 252() 253() and 254() the crack for instance is almost entirely 253/253/253 in paint.

[katakombe]

Ooh, at this point any drink would be welcome! Thank you!

so, then, here is some mint water to quench your thirst and refresh you


and i got Door from Neverwhere to serve you some Atlantean wine. i thought wine saved from a sunken city is somehow fitting.

[manvandmaan]

Oh my...
My gloom has dissapeared, now that our dearest BlitzGirl (as of now pronounced: su-per-he-ro) has returned!
Congratulations, you brave, brave girl!

Thank you for bringing those hugs and all the happiness with you! We needed it gravely and I am already starting to feel the effects!

And offcourse, as promised!

An ovenfresh Croissant With Creme! With gardenfresh strawberries and some iced fruitjuice! You'll need those vitamins after such a long journey!

[KarMann]

Spoiler:

It's not fair.

La Petite arriving with what looks like a trebuchet, a huge chunk of tower falling off, and we'll never see anything more.

Seriously, this is the Newpix?? I became blind, I cannot see anything and I did not find a way to gimp it to be more seeable

If you want to GIMP it yourself, the easiest way is with Colors -> Auto -> Equalize. A better result comes from Colors -> Levels, with manual intervention required, i.e. best result comes from using the colour of the not-black as the left end of the input.

Thanks to help me in the Linux way ( to mscha ), but Gimp do not allow me to click on the 'Equalize' in the colors -> auto menu, and if I click on colors -> levels, it raises an error...

(gimp:17317): GLib-WARNING **: (/build/buildd/glib2.0-2.32.3/./glib/gerror.c:390):g_error_new_valist: runtime check failed: (domain != 0)

I wonder if the picture I got is not really complete blank...

I've been using msPaint, select Color 1 as the "black" colour and colour 2 as actual black, select the eraser and hold RMB and go over the image (because paint messes with pixels, you'll then want to work with colours between the "black" and the white" to see all the detail.

For instance in the last image the "black" was 250, but there are several pixels at 251() 252() 253() and 254() the crack for instance is almost entirely 253/253/253 in paint.

Actually, I think the problem is just that it's an indexed image now. You'll have to go Image -> Mode -> Grayscale (could do RGB, but why bother?) to convert it to something you can equalize etc. (I load it as another layer in the animated grayscale image, so it's automatically converted for me, and I forget that that might be necessary.)

[AluisioASG]

When I first came back I was afraid I lost my sight. Is it a divine punishment? Did we offended Lord Randall?

FTFY

Nothing wrong with my original sentence, we can use synonyms right?

The Great White is upon us! Repent!

We don't know if they are synonyms. That's a domain-specific problem.
By the way, here it comes!
EDIT: C'mon, let me post!

[SPACKlick]

Is it late? 13e0f6c7fe59a8f5814efcb0647f2c5ef0979993406ddb7aaf056623d4cb7b02 was the previous hash right?

Is it Over?

[AluisioASG]

DONG DONG
DONG DONG
DONG DONG
DONG DONG
DING DONG
DING DONG
DING DONG
DONG

[Shidoshi]

Because using the color selective eraser on MSPaint is all I can do at work.
Is she dragging something?

[Swein]

While waiting for the whiteframe, I would ask:
If there is one last non-white (FEFEFE) frame, what would you, if you could control it, have displayed in it?

I thought about:
- LaPetite waving and says "Bye"
- The image starts to zoom out again, just a bit, to annoy us more
- A hidden message with text all over the screen
- The word "IT"

Any other thoughts?

If I was Randall (which I am not) I think I would do the outpan thing just to annoy us (that is always fun!) and to point out that time goes on whatever we say.
Then I would have an all white page and finally a white page with IT in black. Thereby bringing OTC to some kind of logical endpoint.

Of course I would be tempted to let it loop, or to just keep DONGING out new all white newpix, but the first alternative is a bit defensive and the second just outright cruel

[hezekiah]

It's not quite finished yet, stay STRONG

[XonqNopp]

I've been using msPaint

No no no no no no no!! I've been talking about Linux...

[KarMann]

time-20130429-1300.png (2.84 KiB) Viewed 10754 times

[tastony]

All gone then?

[mscha]

All gone then?

Nope, not yet. #fefefe.
I haven't been able to convert this to something visible (Faststone is abandoning me in my darkest hour lightest newpix of despair), but luckily, KarMann already posted a good version.

[Jonas79]

The latest newpix isn't all white What is La Petite™ dragging?

[BlitzGirl]

Oh my...
My gloom has dissapeared, now that our dearest BlitzGirl (as of now pronounced: su-per-he-ro) has returned!
Congratulations, you brave, brave girl!

Thank you for bringing those hugs and all the happiness with you! We needed it gravely and I am already starting to feel the effects!

And offcourse, as promised!

An ovenfresh Croissant With Creme! With gardenfresh strawberries and some iced fruitjuice! You'll need those vitamins after such a long journey!

That...is the loveliest Croissant I have ever seen! It was totally worth the Wait!

And thank you for the delicious refreshments, katakombe! Quite fitting.

[Shidoshi]

:shock:

time-20130429-1300.png

What is that being dragged in

[Angelastic]

The latest newpix isn't all white What is La Petite™ dragging?

Looks like the heads of Megan and Cueball on a stretcher.

[fhorn]

time-20130429-1300.png

Thank you, KarMann - was blind, but now I see.

[Trurl]

naah...

there must be an explanation both for the fading and for the rising water level: A rainmaker gone berserk. Notice how silver iodine is a finely dispersed white stuff.

[BlitzGirl]

The latest newpix isn't all white What is La Petite™ dragging?

Looks like the heads of Megan and Cueball on a stretcher.

No! She can't be the evil twin!

She can't be. *sob*

[Drakeesh]

*stumbles out of Time vortex*

*blinks*
Wow. So this is Present Time, huh?
...Hi, everybody!

Welcome to the Present! (And I have to say, remarkable timing! You Wait for It like a seasoned professional)


Owing to previous prediction, I am still hoping that LaPetite is dragging a flood light into the scene to light up the castle now that the sun has gone down.

[Magdiragdag]

The latest newpix isn't all white What is La Petite™ dragging?

Looks like the heads of Megan and Cueball on a stretcher.

That was exactly what I didn't dare to speak out...

[r34ver]

Complete whiteout!

I had been viewing the last few newpix with my laptop screen tilted right back to increase contrast. Nothing now though. WHATS COMING AT THE NEXT DONG?

Title text still says "Wait for it."

[Eliram]

The latest newpix isn't all white What is La Petite™ dragging?

Looks like the heads of Megan and Cueball on a stretcher.

My thoughts exactly. Maybe this WAS a promo to Game Of Thrones after all...

[Jonas79]

The latest newpix isn't all white What is La Petite™ dragging?

Looks like the heads of Megan and Cueball on a stretcher.

Maybe those are bags? But wasn't Megan going to get those?