Talk:2092: Consensus New Year

Sorry for the server downtime, it should be fixed now. --Dgbrt (talk) 17:24, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

So what was it? Hardware issue, failed software update, reconfiguration boo-boo, external attack, frozen process, Y2K+19 bug? Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 18:30, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

To be honest: I don't know. But probably a mixture of "external attack" and "frozen process" AND my laziness to check the health of the Wiki by 24/7. I figured it out when the BOT couldn't do the proper updates and some refreshing restarts to some processes did the job. --Dgbrt (talk) 18:54, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

The leftmost label says "10:00 AM EST", but I'm 95% sure that it should be "5:00 AM EST". That makes sense both in terms of time zones / date lines, and also in terms of the number of hash marks (the 9th hash mark before 1:30 PM: 2 PM - 9 = 5 AM). --Brandon 172.69.22.224 19:35, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. The minor scale tick marks appear to be at 1 hr increments past the "1:30 PM" denoted time. However that doesn't follow for before 1:00 pm to reach the labeled "10:00 AM" mark. 172.68.34.88 20:59, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

I suspect he failed to translate the label correctly to EST, since it would be 10:00 AM UST. I'm going to add some content into the explanation on the word "Consensus" from Wiktionary. It has multiple definitions that include both "agreement among the members of a given group" as in a common time to celebrate the New Year, as well as "Average projected value" that might also be applicable here. Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 22:35, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm watching the xkcd page to see if Randall updates the comic image to correct this error. Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 00:50, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

I'm actually not certain Randall suggests a time for universal celebration of New Year. Apart from the word "Consensus", there's nothing to suggest it. Rather, I read it as a stated time where a majority will agree to the statement that it's now 2019. 141.101.96.187 22:38, 31 December 2018 (UTC)Wilhelm

I agree that he's probably not suggesting everyone should celebrate at some common time - see my recent edit on the meaning of consensus in the explanation. Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 23:27, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Happy NEW YEAR!!!

While Randall has to wait... in central Europe it just happened when I'm posting this. And in Germany we don't have only the "Autobahn" with no speed limit, every eighteen year old or older child plays with fireworks...

Nonetheless not only in California there are some people giving more attention to a much more unique event: New Horizons is passing Ultima Thule, six light hours away from Earth. Let's see if Randall does cover this event. --Dgbrt (talk) 23:49, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

On the topic of Orthodox churches using shifted Julian calendar: I can't speak for the entire world, but here in Russia it's not really relevant, since the church calendar is limited to religious matters, and New Year is a secular holiday. (But Orthodox Christmas will in fact be observed on Jan 7th.) There is an obscure holiday called Old New Year that is New Year shifted to 14th, but hardly anyone celebrates it and it certainly doesn't replace the regular one. 141.101.77.236 16:58, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

I note that 3:00PM (UTC-3) lists only "Northern" Brazil. That's kinda correct (should be actually "Northeastern" Brazil), but the South/Southwest, which is actually where the largest part of Brazilian population lives, is nowhere to be found. Due to DST, it should be in the 2:00PM line (UTC-2), but that line is blank. Unfortunately, I don't have the population numbers on hand to fix the entry, much less to fix the world population percentages on the table.--MCBastos (talk) 17:04, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Consensus Definition

IP Address user 173.245.54.13 edited the explanation and replaced the Wikipedia definition references with an interpretation of how Randall incorrectly used the term "consensus" in place of majority vote - I don't agree that Randall has made any error, as I don't believe he intended consensus to represent majority vote. I'd like other opinions about restoring my original definitions in place of this new content, as I think it detracts from an understanding of the comic. Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 22:35, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

I eventually decided that "consensus New Year" meant "Agreement it is New Years," more or less. As midnight marches past people, more people concede that it's the new year. To me, Mr M is just giving an interesting graph.

(BTW, you failed to sign your comment.) I like to think Randall is smarter than just using a word without understanding every nuance of it - after all, writing these comics is his full-time job instead of just a pastime. The fact that consensus is sometimes understood that way is the very reason why I thought the definition that states otherwise was useful and informative. The definitions included "average projected value" that seemed to match exactly how it was used in the title (by grammatical structure) and in the graph (by definition), so I'm of the opinion that Randall knew this as well and would not have misused the word outside of it's correct definition. I believe he created the graph to represent the "average projected value" of the metric at each point in time, very explicitly and meaningfully; to think otherwise seems to me to be an insult to his intelligence. Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 01:08, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

I agree w/ you, and thinks it's an interesting graph from which one can't conclude much about RM https://xkcd.com/688/ . 172.68.58.83 03:23, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

I think the table is wrong

I don't see how 100% can be reached before "western Mexico", "MST", and "PST". California alone has a population of about 40 million, so it would seem as though at least 1% of world population would have to be "western Mexico", "MST", and "PST".