The End of Time

Thanks to everyone for the kind feedback about At Your Own Pace and especially to the contributors who pushed the project way beyond anything I could have done alone. It is flattering to be linked to by the comic.

Just because the comic ended doesn't mean we can't have any more fun with it. I realized I had all this data so I made a chart. It's not the greatest chart, but can be zoomed in by clicking and dragging. Also the chart fills up the window, so bigger the better (there are 3099 frames)

So what does it mean?

Hovering over each point will show some numbers. Here is an example from frame/point 1. Sorry the display is a little confusing.

(1, 37,411) Size: 4,322

Inside the parenthesis, the first number up to the first comma is the frame.

The second number is how much action that frame got according to Google Analytics during the month of July. If it is a large number, like this frame 1 example, the chart library is kind enough to throw in a confusing second comma. In this example fame 1 got 37,411 hits (that would be direct links to geekwagon.net/projects/xkcd1190/?frame=1). It should also be pointed out, frame numbers with four digits do not have a comma.

The Size: is the number of all time Yes votes the frame has received from the vote submission system. I almost deducted No votes, but that returned negative numbers I wasn't sure what to do with.

Bitly also records clicks and shares. I found their data difficult to work with in volume so it is not included on this chart.

Some of the data is predictable, but there are some interesting oddities.

The raw data, available on Google Docs, includes no votes. If anyone has an idea for a better chart or two (shouldn't be hard to get better than this) please share it. I'd like to see it too. I'll update the data in a couple of weeks, no doubt it will get interesting as Time goes on.

AYOP Updates

All my blog posts have been about my At Your Own Pace project, but that's what sucks up most of my free time these days. Today I decided the acronym, AYOP, is pronounced a-ya-op (almost like awop but with a y instead of a w).

Big news today, the database version of the site is now the default. It was set up separately for testing and a number of people sent good feed back on it. It sucked much less than I expected. Now anyone can vote for frames to be special. I've also set up a section below the comic image that shows how many votes a frame has received and whether or not it is a debated frame. Currently there are only a few debated frames; 1503 and a couple in the low 1400's are the only I know of. They're subject to change as people vote.

Photo courtesy of my girlfriend who loves pink.

In addition to that, now there is a mobile site (that link works for desktop users too, but be warned you're going to see some huge stick figures). It's not much but it shows the comic at 100% width and has larger navigation buttons. I've only got two mobile devices to test it on, so it might not be great. Added bonus: it comes with massively reduced features; no preloading, no image difference, no auto play, no nifty panels that open and close.

The mobile redirect uses a script from detectmobilebrowsers.com, which is a nice service. I had no idea how to redirect for a mobile device and that was the first search result I found.

Finally, two new panels at the bottom that show all frames for the last 24 hours or the last week, for quick ketchup.

Lessons Learned on XKCD Time - At Your Own Pace

The frame showing when I started this post.

I started compiling a list of things I've learned from this XKCD At Your Own Pace project. Arguably I've learned more on this than what I learned last semester at school.

The number one lesson learned was an unexpected feeling. I know putting a project on Github is opening it up to the world to do with as it pleases. In my case it was this guy named MaPePeR. I'm somewhat ashamed to admit it now, but my very first thought was "Who's this guy fiddling with my code?" Then I started reading what he changed. My next thought was, "Holy crap all of Github must think I'm a newb," because the changes he made were great. They made sense and I learned something from them. I found I liked it. Social coding  who knew right? I was so excited about it I made my own awful software license. It's bad, don't use it.

That was my big eye opener. I'm more attached to my code than I expected to be, but letting it go has been wonderful. The project is much better for it. I might have to dance with the shift key to type his Github handle, but MaPePeR is a good programmer. I'm glad to have his input.

Some random lessons

• I should have called it "At Your Pace".
• Because that's shorter and I keep typing it anyway.
• Also AYP is a cooler acronym than AYOP.
• I enjoy working with others. Bouncing ideas around, getting feedback. It's a fun way to "refactor" ideas quick.
• Firefox is the pain-in-the-butt browser now (when you choose to ignore IE<=9).
• Web Design, granted plenty more to learn here but I was surprised to get positive feedback from how the site looks.
• Speaking of feedback, user feedback is awesome. Not only does it keep me interested in a project it's a wonderful source of unsolicited ideas.
• The many "step" buttons was from user feedback, so was the linkable frame differences.
• The play back at ludicrous speed was our idea, but everyone was thinking it.
• We were able to troubleshoot a bug that only came up on Mac's because of user feedback. Neither of us own a Mac (okay MaPePeR troubleshooted the bug and I heard about it).

Frame showing when I finished this post

Things I've never had to use before now

• Git merge, because no one forked my junk.
• How to handle a merge conflict. I could really use more practice at this, but at least I've done it once.
• Getting url variables with Javascript.
• Funny story, I was doing this with PHP and having the PHP write Javascript. Yeah that was like the first thing pointed out to me.
• Preloading bunches of images (when necessary), okay I didn't write the script that made it happen, but I get why it's great now.
• Bitly api was watching out for guys like me (see figure 1).
• Google Analytics is cool (I like data see figure 2).
•  particularly data hub activity (I can troll on a new level).

A list of things I never knew existed until I did this project and started working with other people.

• github can close issues by writing in the commit.
• git bisect, still haven't used it but man that sounds crucial.
• jslint (I may have heard of it, but never knew what it was).
• http://toroid.org/ams/git-website-howto
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plenken Really, that's a thing.
• I am the only person who knows about XKCD at my University.

figure 1 - I had a bug in the bitly link creation code.

figure 2 - Google Analytics

This is not a complete list, but it's a start.

Thanks Randall Munroe

I don't know you and you definitely don't know me, but I am a regular reader of your comic XKCD and your What If? blog. Thank you for helping me gain a little confidence.

Guess what day I posted it to explainxkcd.com?

The Time comic has been all around interesting, but for me it's been exciting. It represents a crossroad of my mediocre coding skills and the XKCD fans. For the first time I am decent enough to produce a website people are using. This is the whole reason I started learning to code.

http://geekwagon.net/projects/xkcd1190/

It's a project that has undergone a few changes since it gained popularity. The initial version didn't even use CSS. Aubron Wood's post helped me with the idea of how to grab the pictures. It also represents my first use of github issues--a feature request for previous and next buttons!

I have intentionally chosen not to add ‘Like’ and ‘+1’ buttons because I am tired of seeing them all over the web. Some places make sense, but so many pages are cluttered with "share this".

I don't like to admit it, but I often don't have the confidence to post things for fear of ridicule. I know it’s silly, and it’s taken a long time to change my thinking to "who cares?" So I wanted to thank the creator of XKCD because he has motivated me to share something I did. That is, to step out of my humble comfort zone and show a little pride (yes, I am an Ultima fan). For the first time ever I have accounts on Reddit and Hacker News. My project has earned a few thumbs down ratings, but the feedback from folks who use it has been a wonderful experience.

Update: April 13, 2013
I got a few more hits than my usual 2 or 3 per month on this one, so here is some more about this project.

There is a log file that gets made from the cronjob and bitly (that's new) url shortener code. Some pretty good oops'es in there.
http://geekwagon.net/projects/xkcd1190/log.txt

This is the data file that holds the list of images.
http://geekwagon.net/projects/xkcd1190/data.txt

And this is the bitly data file, admittedly not interesting, but if you ever need to prove someone has used a space separated value file, there it is.
http://geekwagon.net/projects/xkcd1190/bitlydata.txt