
Xkcd "Click and Drag" in a "map" interface - martius
http://xkcd-map.rent-a-geek.de/
======
rm999
Wow, that's... epic.

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.

~~~
glenntzke
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?

~~~
tomasien
Billions. Seriously, 100's of millions in short term losses, but I say we make
up for it in the long run.

------
tomasien
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.

~~~
tomasien
(Wrote a blog about this btw <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4544257>) -
I think it's interesting

------
nostromo
My favorite caption:

"Because it's there" is more poetic than, "I'm rich enough that my goals are
arbitrary."

~~~
yaliceme
I also enjoyed:

'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.'

~~~
lprubin
From a couple trapped deep underground:

"Is anybody up there? If you can hear us, friend us on Facebook and follow us
on Twitter!"

------
ygra
Here's a similar one, made with Seadragon (Deep Zoom):

<http://dump.ventero.de/xkcd1110/>

~~~
bicknergseng
Thanks for using Seadragon. First thing I thought of when I clicked on the
angular.js version also in the top on hn.

------
crucialfelix
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.

not that I'm trying to spoil _your_ fun of course.

~~~
graeme
I did both. Eventually got tired of wandering in tunnels, and zoomed out.

But it recaptured the joy of exploring a new video game world.

~~~
mortenjorck
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.

------
chernevik
The interface is a powerful extension of the piece. Wonderful stuff. Thank
you.

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.

~~~
dividuum
I just added the three intro panels.

~~~
chernevik
Thank you.

I'm looking forward to figuring out how you did this.

------
runjake
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.

~~~
alanfalcon
The movie maps also make the list for me.

------
turshija
I like the Minecraft part ^^ <http://d.pr/i/Ui9J>

~~~
adaml_623
Thank you for explaining that. It looked familiar but not having played
Minecraft I really had no idea.

------
basseq
Here's a 5% version I stitched together: <http://basseq.com/fun/xkcd1110/>

It's a big world. What are those whales doing in the sky!? Silly whales...

~~~
mdda
Douglas Adams reference (though I don't see the Bowl of Petunias...) :
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsK6aRuSBIc>

~~~
AceJohnny2
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.

[1] [http://en.memory-
alpha.org/wiki/Star_Trek_IV:_The_Voyage_Hom...](http://en.memory-
alpha.org/wiki/Star_Trek_IV:_The_Voyage_Home)

~~~
dstorrs
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.

------
chrismorgan
When you're in a region without a matching image (i.e. in the blank sky or
uncarved ground), the tile is only a 1x1 image; in Firefox at least, the
default image rendering technique for this is bad, as it uses something along
the lines of bicubic interpolation to some shade of grey, where what is
intended is that it be a solid block of colour.

My solution was to add this to the CSS:

    
    
        .leaflet-container img { image-rendering: optimizeSpeed; }
    

Note also that the 1x1 blank ground tiles (e.g. <http://xkcd-static.rent-a-
geek.de/converted/4-4-8.png>) are #0a0a0a rather than #000000.

------
AaronBBrown
This is awesome even though it crashed my phone so hard that I had to do a
battery pull! :)

------
andrewaylett
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).

------
reinierladan
Best interface to the full high res image yet. Love it.

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mdanger
Is <http://xkcd-map.rent-a-geek.de/#10/-21.4805/18.7811> supposed to be the
Money Pit?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Island#History_of_the_Money...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Island#History_of_the_Money_Pit)

------
erikpukinskis
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.

~~~
joshu
THANKS! I saw this at XOXO but there was no name and I wanted to explore it
more.

------
DiabloD3
The software used to make this is on Github, plus some scaled down originals:
<https://github.com/dagar/xkcd-1110>

~~~
dividuum
Here is the real code used to run this:
<https://github.com/dividuum/xkcd-1110#readme>

~~~
DiabloD3
My link was to the code that made xkcd #1100 ;)

------
sbanach
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!

------
Kiro
<http://xkcd.com/1110/> for those that don't have a clue what this is about
(like me).

------
tylermenezes
Yet <http://www.isxkcdshittytoday.com/> still isn't impressed.

~~~
shawndellysse
wow. I'm sad that this site exists.

~~~
pferde
If xkcd really was shitty, nobody would bother making such site about it.

EDIT: I actually liked <http://xkcdexplained.com>, back when they were still
keeping up with Randall.

~~~
petsos
Same for <http://xkcdexplainedexplained.tumblr.com>

------
naugtur
Finally - the way I wanted to explore it :)

------
roryokane
There’s also this map: <http://sumamimasen.com/xkcd/1110/>. It has some of the
usability of this rent-a-geek map while keeping the perhaps-symbolic inability
to see ahead of the original comic. It also loads faster than this rent-a-geek
map.

Features: use the arrow keys to scroll (you actually can’t click and drag
anymore). You can’t zoom out, but you can hold Shift to scroll quickly. This
map loads tiles while you scroll, so you can keep on scrolling without
stopping.

------
thomasfrank09
Looks like Randall had a pretty good time playing Insanely Twisted Shadow
Planet.

(for those curious - <http://michelgagne.blogspot.com/>)

~~~
gulbrandr
I really liked this, it seems very attractive.

------
ryangallen
Felt like the first day I got my ant farm when I was a kid. :)

------
bobajett
What, no Gandalf chasing a Balrog down the hole?!

------
richardjordan
My days are better when I remember to check xkcd.

------
degenerate
If you think this is cool, check out a game with the same 2D "grid-like" world
that blew me away when I played it a couple years ago: Within a Deep Forest.
<http://nifflas.ni2.se/?page=Within+a+Deep+Forest>

------
willvarfar
If he just updates it and adds to it every so often, think how he'll magnify
the productivity impact! :)

------
adastra
Love the Cryptonomicon influences. In case anyone is wondering what those
mushroom-shaped caverns are that jut up off some of the tunnels... well, you
can read the book and find out ;)

~~~
mdanger
Cryptonomicon is one of my favorite books of all time - I stared at that
mushroom-shaped cave for the longest time trying to recall where I'd seen it!

~~~
adastra
Epic action sequences combined with cryptography, information theory,
currency/economics, WWII, and a crazy ambitious tech startup idea. It doesn't
get any better than that.

------
WestCoastJustin
In case you did not see it, dividuum put together how this was served.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4547840>

------
joeblau
This is amazing! I would like to see how they put this together.

~~~
Achshar
Will i be wrong to hope for a blog post explaining the process shortly?

~~~
dividuum
Nope. I'll post the python code I used on github later/tomorrow.

------
gulbrandr
The only JavaScript file seems to be
<http://cdn.leafletjs.com/leaflet-0.4/leaflet.js>

~~~
frewsxcv
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

<http://imgs.xkcd.com/clickdrag/1110.js>

~~~
gulbrandr
oh ok, thanks.

------
tete
I love this refernce: <http://xkcd-map.rent-a-geek.de/#9/33.3282/1.3815>

------
DharmaSoldat
Wow... Just wow.

------
wannabeartist
apart from the javascript part, how was this drawn? by hand? software, using
tools?

~~~
dsl
Yes.

------
brettnak
Thanks for bothering to make it work with pinch to zoom on my tablet!
Impressive!

------
bthomas
First time I looked I didn't realize you could zoom out...

~~~
digitalclubb
There is also this snazzy site to get the full zoomed out version:
<http://xkcd-map.rent-a-geek.de/>

------
zapfmann
Wow. That is art!

------
nikcub
Find the 'hackers' reference?

~~~
mfringel
Aye. "No pool?"

------
berserkpi
Epic!

------
ludovicurbain
It's awesome, but the guy who coded it forgot to replace the all black squares
by <div class=black> . that would've loaded so much faster - and even better
with class=white above the earth.

------
mkramlich
great toy

someone make a game based on this. take my money

