According to the reddit comments the world is 165888x79872 pixels, and the guy at the beginning is 40 pixels tall. If we assume he's 6 feet tall, the world is ~25000 x 12000 feet, 4.7 x 2.3 miles, or 7.6 x 3.7 km.
Hence the two miles comment full west from center. I declare Randall and dividuum 1st and 2nd place winners of the internet today. What's the under-over on tech world productivity loss this morning?
you guys have totally destroyed this thing ;) the beauty was that it got me to wander around like a little kid for a while. the little spots by the beach, textures, jokes, wondering which way was out of a mine shaft, the sense of taking a hike for a while. not zooming around like an all knowing cyborg.
After 40 minutes or more of doing that, I think it doesn't take away the wonder if I stitch together a large image just to check if I'd missed anything in the sky or underground.
These sites do make it a bit too easy, but then again, it's a nice display of a piece of technology.
I don't know if you've ever played the 1980s-90s Spectrum/Amiga Dizzy series, but exploring this squirted pretty much the same wonderful cocktail of neurotransmitters as exploring Spellbound Dizzy did when I was a small boy.
Normally a curmudgeon, I love everything about this story. The original comic is brilliant, and the various HN takes on it are getting better and better. Thanks everyone!
Not sure, they don't seem to be falling. I thought they might be a reference to the Star Trek "whale probe" from The Voyage Home [1] but they're too small for that. Maybe just some random fun like the flying or underground jellyfish.
Those aren't underground jellyfish, they are underwater. That part of the word (west of center, where the ships are) is ocean. But yeah, it's confusing at first.
Look like humpback whales. Unlikely to be a reference, but it did remind me of the whale sequence from the second Fantasia movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGZeT07rqlU
There's a serious psychological phenomenon where working in a place with no windows decreases productivity by a lot. This has been attributed to the need to look out into the world in order to imagine solutions that aren't readily apparent.
Scrolling through this was like looking out the window times 100. I've already gotten more done in the last hour after looking at it than I usually do in a day.
If you mean the maps-type interface, just look at the page source - it's a couple lines of javascript. This is just Leaflet's standard behavior. The map itself is a series of image tiles with a predictable naming convention.
If you'd like the full-screen view and ability to navigate using the keyboard, but with tiles that load when needed not just when you stop moving, try http://ares.aylett.co.uk/xkcd/ -- it uses the original tiles, so you've probably got at least some of them cached already :).
Only browser zoom, but I think that helps keep the mystique (and I don't want to try to implement it myself).
Randall is one of those artists that truly enriches (my) life. The IP addressing visual and the other comic that illustrated the size of scale among astronomical objects were two others that impressed me. This one tops them all.
I think this browser is best for making sure you didn't miss anything. Part of what makes the original comic effective is that your viewing window is so small that it makes the size of the world feel very large.
Leaflet wasn't used on the real site though, it was used to here for easier navigation (and it's an awesome JS library). Here's the JS library xkcd.com was using
Reminds me a little of Proteus (http://www.visitproteus.com) which I just came across a few days ago. There's something special about wandering around in a world where you don't know why you're there or when or where it will end.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 169 ms ] threadhttp://dump.ventero.de/xkcd1110/
According to the reddit comments the world is 165888x79872 pixels, and the guy at the beginning is 40 pixels tall. If we assume he's 6 feet tall, the world is ~25000 x 12000 feet, 4.7 x 2.3 miles, or 7.6 x 3.7 km.
not that I'm trying to spoil your fun of course.
Ha ha ha ha!
These sites do make it a bit too easy, but then again, it's a nice display of a piece of technology.
But it recaptured the joy of exploring a new video game world.
I just modified the source to remove the `overflow: hidden` to the `div#comic`. That was enough to find stuff that I would have missed otherwise :)
It's a big world. What are those whales doing in the sky!? Silly whales...
[1] http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Star_Trek_IV:_The_Voyage_Hom...
Did anyone else see the raptor in the grass?
http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0371724/quotes?qt=qt0351054
I assumed this was the reference...
Scrolling through this was like looking out the window times 100. I've already gotten more done in the last hour after looking at it than I usually do in a day.
Leaflet is great: http://leaflet.cloudmade.com/
Only browser zoom, but I think that helps keep the mystique (and I don't want to try to implement it myself).
I do wish the extension somehow captured the first three panels of the comic. The last panel is a masterpiece, but it is part of a larger story.
I'm looking forward to figuring out how you did this.
http://imgs.xkcd.com/clickdrag/1110.js
"Because it's there" is more poetic than, "I'm rich enough that my goals are arbitrary."
'I'm working at a small startup. Our business model is "Taking free drinks from industry events and reselling them." Oh, hey, I should get going.'
"Is anybody up there? If you can hear us, friend us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!"
(for those curious - http://michelgagne.blogspot.com/)