
Frequency - jaimebuelta
http://xkcd.com/1331/
======
wulczer
Almost two years ago the "The Pulse of Spain" was made, based on the same idea
(disclaimer: the designers of this are also designers for our product (and
dear friends)).

It's in Spanish, unfortunately. You have to click on the tiles to activate
them and they'll start pulsating. If you have Flash, there'll be sound.

The link is:

[http://img.actibva.com/pulso2/](http://img.actibva.com/pulso2/)

~~~
galapago
The use of the sound is very interesting, since it seems to allow to create
loops.

------
deletes
Thus far I have seen every gif blink except, for _someone hits a hole-in-one_
, _earthquake 4_ and _old faithful erupts_.

I'm tempted to open the gifs and check the frequency.

EDIT:

I have looked at GIF format:
[http://www.onicos.com/staff/iz/formats/gif.html](http://www.onicos.com/staff/iz/formats/gif.html)

Then I opened the image with fhread and found the offset for the delay time.
Look for: _Delay Time (1 /100ths of a second)_. ( Since the delay time has
only 2 bytes reserved that means the max delay would be 65535. That is why
some gifs have more frames than the other, when by logic all would need to
have the same count )

Then I opened the image with photoshop which shows every frame on a separate
layer.

Then you just multiply the delay with the number of frames.

I got the ratio of 3786.72 to 1 for earthquake-1 to earthquake-4. e1 is about
~3s so that would make e4 occur every ~3 hours.

The ratio should be correct. But my seconds calculation was off by a factor of
4 for some reason. Maybe I missed some format specific stuff. You can try it
for the rest of the GIFs if you want.

EDIT2:

A very quick estimate, looking in the other files:

hole-in-one: ~50 minutes

old faithful erupts: ~4 hours

Wiki says 45 to 125 minutes.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Faithful](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Faithful)

~~~
kps

      for i in *.gif; do eval "print -f '%-21s %7.2fs\n' $i \$(($(gifsicle --info $i | sed -n -e 's/.*delay \(.*\)s/\1/p' | tr '\n' +)0))"; done
    

Assumes a shell that does floats, i.e. not bash.

    
    
      amelia.gif               7.79s
      bieber.gif               4.73s
      bike.gif                24.93s
      birth.gif                0.24s
      book_mockingbird.gif    42.05s
      bottles.gif              1.27s
      car_china.gif            1.89s
      car_elsewhere.gif        1.03s
      car_germany.gif          5.80s
      car_japan.gif            4.01s
      car_us.gif               6.95s
      cat.gif                 21.30s
      cat_mockingbird.gif      1.82s
      death.gif                0.56s
      denverpizza.gif          1.27s
      dog.gif                 15.60s
      dogbite.gif              7.01s
      domain.gif               0.64s
      eagle.gif                2.69s
      earthquake1.gif          2.43s
      earthquake2.gif         24.26s
      earthquake3.gif        242.60s
      earthquake4.gif       2426.00s
      facebook.gif             4.32s
      fire_dept.gif           23.00s
      flight.gif               0.93s
      heartbeat.gif            0.86s
      holeinone.gif          180.00s
      house.gif                6.22s
      iphone.gif               0.93s
      keys.gif                 2.43s
      kiss.gif                 5.53s
      littleleague.gif         1.23s
      meteor.gif               1.15s
      ndsex.gif                1.38s
      oldfaithful.gif       5640.00s
      parliament_toilet.gif   10.06s
      phoenix.gif              2.05s
      phoenixshoes.gif         1.08s
      pulsar.gif               1.40s
      recycled.gif             4.64s
      shark.gif                0.83s
      tattoo.gif               2.06s
      turnsignal1.gif          0.94s
      turnsignal2.gif          0.90s
      us_cancer.gif           18.99s
      us_cancer_death.gif     54.34s
      vibrator.gif             2.99s
      wedding.gif              0.75s
      wikipedia.gif            0.67s

~~~
eCa
Here is the relative frequency:

    
    
        oldfaithful.gif           1
        earthquake4.gif           2.3
        earthquake3.gif          23.2
        holeinone.gif            31.3
        us_cancer_death.gif     104
        book_mockingbird.gif    134
        bike.gif                226
        earthquake2.gif         232
        fire_dept.gif           245
        cat.gif                 265
        us_cancer.gif           297
        dog.gif                 362
        parliament_toilet.gif   561
        amelia.gif              724
        dogbite.gif             805
        car_us.gif              812
        house.gif               907
        car_germany.gif         972
        kiss.gif               1020
        bieber.gif             1192
        recycled.gif           1216
        facebook.gif           1306
        car_japan.gif          1406
        vibrator.gif           1886
        eagle.gif              2097
        earthquake1.gif        2321
        keys.gif               2321
        tattoo.gif             2738
        phoenix.gif            2751
        car_china.gif          2984
        cat_mockingbird.gif    3099
        pulsar.gif             4029
        ndsex.gif              4087
        bottles.gif            4441
        denverpizza.gif        4441
        littleleague.gif       4585
        meteor.gif             4904
        phoenixshoes.gif       5222
        car_elsewhere.gif      5476
        turnsignal1.gif        6000
        flight.gif             6065
        iphone.gif             6065
        turnsignal2.gif        6267
        heartbeat.gif          6558
        shark.gif              6795
        wedding.gif            7520
        wikipedia.gif          8418
        domain.gif             8813
        death.gif             10071
        birth.gif             23500

------
jmnicolas
I love how this XKCD guy has always new and interesting views on the world.

He must have a really rich inner life.

And I'd like to thank him for sharing his insights with us regularly.

~~~
foz
I was lucky enough to see Randall Munroe speak at the OreDev conference last
year. The video is online, highly recommended for XKCD fans:

[http://oredev.org/2013/wed-fri-conference/art-and-code-
with-...](http://oredev.org/2013/wed-fri-conference/art-and-code-with-xkcd)

~~~
adamtulinius
The audio appear to be subtly broken, with audio moving between left and right
channels. Somebody should convert the audio to mono, and upload the video
again. :-)

~~~
mcmak
Set your speakers to mono.

------
thomasahle
I'm struck by the PSR J1748-2446ad...

How can something with twice the mass of the sun spin a thousand times a
second. An equator speed of 24% light speed...

The Universe is so strange...

~~~
3pt14159
Because preservation of angular momentum and gravity plus sub atomic forces
and centrifugal force plus mass increases due to relativistic effects balance
out roughly there for this star. Much more mass would create a black hole.

~~~
soganess
Without further inquiry I will assume your answer as correct. That said, I do
believe her/his question was more of affordance and less about the particular
mechanism. At least that is the way I took. A sort of "How peculiar of a place
our universe is to allow such phenomenon."

------
jaimebuelta
Hypnotic.

It should be noted how it's done, they are a bunch of individual gifs with
different cyclic times. Genius.

~~~
jsmeaton
I actually viewed the comic on a feed reader, and didn't know about the
flashing images 'til I read this comment. So, thanks!

~~~
a3n
See my response to gkya's complaint about his feed reader. Firefox includes an
odd feed reader called Live Bookmarks. It almost certainly works differently
from your feed reader, and implies a different "workflow."

One thing it does nicely is display things properly, because it (the "reader")
doesn't display anything at all, it just points to an updated feed. When you
follow the link, it just goes to the page and displays it like any other page.

------
dudus
I haven't seen a single comment about the turn lights gifs.

that's something that always intrigued me. why mine and the one from the car
in front of me never matches? I wonder if there's a reasonable explanation
other then "by chance".

~~~
brc
It's chance.

Even two cars of the same type never seem to match up. They will often sync
for a while, but then gradually get out of synch until they are 180 degrees
different.

I suppose it is down to minute differences in lighting circuits, bulbs and all
sorts of other things.

Somewhere out there is a population of cars with the same exact turn signal
frequency as yours. But the chances of you stopping behind it at a set of
lights while you are both signalling to turn and noticing are very, very
small.

~~~
enko
I believe it's by design. Differing indicator frequencies make the signals
more noticeable.

Back in the old days, turn signals were actuated by bimetallic thermal relays
- a simple and highly reliable device. They were constructed with a range of
frequencies by manufacturers and sold mixed together, so cars might receive
the same part number but with an essentially random on/off period. This part
would also mechanically create the familiar clicking sound of a turn signal
actuating.

These days indicators are controlled electronically and I assume the
randomness is programmed in.

~~~
Consultant32452
That's interesting and kinda funny since you still get the familiar clicking
sound when your turn signal is on I can only assume that this sound is made
artificially. It immediately reminded me of the fact that computer keyboards
are naturally silent but they engineer in "clicky" sounds. This was very
important in the old days when people were transitioning away from type
writers and were accustomed to the audio feedback. Now we still have this, but
keyboards are a lot quieter these days.

~~~
ygra
There are keyswitches that _do_ click naturally, e.g. buckling spring
keyswitches [1]. And it might be subjective, but I type faster with audible
feedback, even though it can drive other people in the flat nuts.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckling_spring](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckling_spring)

------
crucialfelix
The first time I loaded the page each of the gifs would appear spaced a few
seconds apart. So the table kept loading and adding rows and I could read each
one as it was added. The requests are still being initiated 1m after initial
page load.

That was a great effect, prolonging the initial experience. Its important in
UI to pay attention to the time element - how the experience progresses for
the user as they explore.

Now they are all in the cache so they appear right away. You have to clear
cache to get the initial effect again.

~~~
couchand
Thanks, I thought that was just my slooooow network.

~~~
crucialfelix
I looked at the code but still didn't find anything that deliberately
schedules them like that. but they are just IMG tags.

------
MattBearman
Best xkcd in ages, really interesting, and just beautiful to watch.

------
gkya
My stupid RSS reader showed this to me as a single, static image. I wouldn't
see it in animation if it wasn't posted here, so thanks a lot for posting!

~~~
ygra
It's not your reader. The feed just contains a single, static PNG image.

------
martypitt
Can't help but feel that those damn North Dakotans should get out of bed and
go adopt a Dog.

Alternatively... Amelia - Put away the Pepsi Max, and save a kitty.

------
qznc
I just realized that comic 1337 is near. :)

------
Houshalter
That's a lot of babies. And a disconcerting number of deaths as well. I'm also
surprised the number of mocking birds getting killed by cats isn't that far
from the number of humans dying.

~~~
snarfy
The birth gif blinking faster than the death gif encompasses most of the
problems in the world.

~~~
bjt
Why?

Some huge war, plague, or famine is your most likely bet for getting the death
rate up. I don't think anyone's pining for that though.

Despite having more people than it's ever had, there is less poverty and
disease in the world than at any other time since we started keeping track.

[http://annualletter.gatesfoundation.org/](http://annualletter.gatesfoundation.org/)
does a good job debunking the myth that things are always getting worse all
the time.

There has never been a better time to be alive.

~~~
devcpp
Who's talking about getting the death rate up? What about lowering the birth
rate?

And don't get me started on Bill Gates' bullshit arguments. These are long-
term trends, his recent "it's been getting better! (for the last 40 years)"
cannot be extrapolated over the next centuries.

~~~
DanBC
Bill Gates' "bullshit" is backed by research which you could rebut if you
cared to do so.

The world currently produces enough food for 11 bn people. World population is
expected to expand to about 9 bn in the middle of this century. This is using
current production techniques.

------
neals
Those iPhone screens are pretty fragile, it seems.

~~~
ygra
There are quite many of them which also raises the frequency of one breaking.

~~~
nknighthb
I'm having some trouble with this. The blinks look to be about 1 per second.
If that's accurate, it means 31.5 million/year.

In 2013, Apple sold ~150 million iPhones. 21% rate of screen breakage?

~~~
asg
The divisor should probably be the total installed base, i.e. all active
iPhones in use, rather than one year's sales.

------
sp332
Reminds me of this Usenet Oracle response from 1990:
[http://cgi.cs.indiana.edu/~oracle/bestof.cgi?N=101-125#102-0...](http://cgi.cs.indiana.edu/~oracle/bestof.cgi?N=101-125#102-06-Q)

------
idan
I'd love to know where he's getting the data for these.

~~~
ema
I think a lot of the data for these is in Wikipedia.

------
chrismcb
That star must be dizzy!

------
cellover
I have always been amazed by the fact that the 2004 tsunami in Indian Ocean
(227'000 deaths) cancelled the global human growth of one day...

Enlightening link, thank you for posting.

------
brusch64
reading this in my RSS reader i didn't understand it all. Seems like it
couldn't show the GIFs correctly. On the web site I finally understand it.

~~~
jaimebuelta
Properly displaying animated GIFs seems to be an "advanced feature". I have
seen a lot of apps that are not able to do it properly. I guess it depends on
the render engine they use to display images...

~~~
fredoralive
In this case it's the RSS feed itself, not the reader. The image in the feed
is just a static PNG:

[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/frequency.png](http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/frequency.png)

Which did somewhat confuse me as well until I looked at the actual website.

------
ajslater
Its not HTML5 video. Shame.

Does anyone know enough about I-frame frequency limits in H.264 or WebM to
tell us weather Randall could have included the pitch drop experiment?

------
giantrobothead
Now, that is fun. Made the morning a bit more thoughtful.

------
cs02rm0
Somehow it gives me the (obviously mistaken) impressions that people have sex
in North Dakota in the time it takes the gif to blink and that people in
Phoenix put condoms on but aren't then having sex but are perhaps doing
something with those new shoes.

Looks like there's scope for a startup or two around vibrators with the size
of that market.

------
SixSigma
__average __frequency

------
doktrin
Insightful as always, XKCD.

I'm a little surprised at the number of sharks being caught.

------
guard-of-terra
Watching this while listening to electronic music is priceless btw.

~~~
guard-of-terra
Someone's pet cat kills a mockingbird with a rate around 1/3.5 of "one death".

I don't think we nearly have enough mockingbirds (or pet cats) on our planet
by three orders of magnitude.

~~~
deathcakes
Or is the birth rate of mockingbirds substantially higher than you suspect?

