These pages contain some of my attempts to visually portray activity in xkcd comic 1190, Time, the One True Comic (or OTC) by Randall Munroe, and the associated xkcd fora thread, the One True Thread (or OTT). I haven't put all my attempts here, just the ones I thought actually produced something that might be interesting.
Disclaimer: The contents of these pages are for entertainment only, and should not be taken too seriously. I am not a statistician, and my methods of compiling data are not particularly rigorous. I do try to make sure there are no actual errors in my methods, but I'm looking more for visual effect than scientific rigor. (However, if one of my graphs gets referenced in your Ph.D. thesis on the subcultures of the OTT, I won't complain.)
| 128 days | (PNG) | OTC Activity vs. OTT Activity — WARNING! Contains spoilers! Newpix of the OTC are plotted directly against Newpages of the OTT. |
| 128 days | (PNG) | OTT: Post Count, Span, and Regularity by User — My somewhat peculiar analysis of which OTT users post how frequently. CAUTION: Large SVG image mustards some browsers—Use the PNG version for mobiles and for slow connections. |
| 128 days | (PNG) | OTT: Percentage of Total xkcd Fora — WARNING! Contains spoilers! How much of recent activity on the xkcd fora is directly attributable to the OTT. |
| 128 days | (PNG) | OTT: Post Rate by Time of Day — Comparison of OTT post rate at different times of day to the overall average — Includes individual user graphs. |
Many thanks to mscha.org for hosting my graphs and pages. xkcd.mscha.org has the entire history of the OTC, with a handy viewer. xkcd.mscha.org also links to the Time wiki and many other resources, as well as analysis, music, and general fun by many other users.
Format — The graphs are best viewed as SVG files in a modern browser, but links to PNG versions are supplied for those poor souls stuck—as I myself am at work—using Internet Explorer 8 (or earlier) on Windows XP (or earlier).
Times and Dates — Unless otherwise noted:
Thus, for my graphs, Time began on Day 0 of Week 1 at 00:00 RDT (or Monday, March 25, 2013 at 12:00am Eastern Daylight Time). Here and there I'll throw in Outside dates and times (in UTC), usually in reference to the range of a graph's data.
Newpix Numbering — I consider xkcd.mscha.org to maintain the canonical list of Time frame (newpix) numbers, and my graphs always use those. I prefer mscha's numbers particularly because they can always be converted directly back to date and time since the beginning of Time.
Individual Graphs — Some of these graphs present data for only a single OTT poster (or OTTer). For privacy reasons I will only publish such individuated graphs for OTTers who have given me permission to do so. If you would like to see individual graphs for your own OTT activity (or simply don't mind if I publish them) feel free to contact me. However, be aware that I will take such permission to include license to comment on the results (though I will try to avoid anything even unintentionally offensive).
