Editing 1335: Now

{{comic
| number    = 1335
| date      = February 26, 2014
| title     = Now
| image     = now.gif
| titletext = This image stays roughly in sync with the day (assuming the Earth continues spinning). Shortcut: xkcd.com/now
}}
*The image above is accelerated to show a full day's spin in a few seconds. The actual comic completes one revolution per day.
*For the current state, see [http://xkcd.com/now/ xkcd.com/now].

==Explanation==
The picture is divided in 24 segments representing the 24 hours of the day. At noon and midnight, the break between segments is indicated by the tip of a dark grey triangle.

The picture rotates by 3.75 {{w|degree (angle)|degrees}} every 15 minutes, as does the Earth so that it is constantly up to date in showing which regions are currently at which times of day. The picture change seems to happen halfway through a 15-minute time increment (that is, at 7½, 22½, 37½, and 52½ minutes after each hour), so that the picture is always correct for the nearest multiple of 15 minutes.

The map projection of the earth in the middle of the picture shows an {{w|azimuthal equidistant projection}} with the {{w|South Pole}} in the center. This is unusual, as such projections {{w|Flag of the United Nations|typically}} put the {{w|North Pole}} in the center. But, in this case, may be necessary for the map rotation and the corresponding {{w|24-hour analog dial|24-hour clock}} graduations to both be the more conventional clockwise. Another reason might be just to depict all major land-masses (including {{w|Time in Antarctica|complicated Antarctica}}, which is not otherwise referenced) in a non-discontinuous manner. [[Randall]] was playing on projections before in [[977: Map Projections]].

The list of cities and countries doesn't match the map exactly - notice how the continent of Australia is shifted counterclockwise of the words "most Australian cities". This is because the map is centered relative to the {{w|time zone}}s and the local variations. The map shows the configuration of time zones concerning {{w|daylight saving time}} (also known as summer time) at the time of the comic's initial release (February 2014); it was being observed in parts of Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, and other countries not named in this comic. If the map were to stay accurate through the year, the location of place names would have to move over the next few months as parts of the southern hemisphere went off DST and parts of the northern hemisphere went onto it; however, the map failed to change on the morning of March 9 as it should have (to recognize the start of DST in North America).

In many countries "{{w|business hours}}" are considered to be from 9&nbsp; am to 5&nbsp; pm. With some exceptions, including emergencies, it is generally considered rude to place a {{w|telephone}} call to someone's residence when most people are asleep; Randall portrays this period as extending from 10 pm to 8 am.  This may be a reference to the 10 pm "cutoff" time [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0WeQJW-H3Y discussed] in an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm."

"Rude to Call" was also the name used by a G-mail experimental opt-in feature in 2009 which added a crossed-out phone symbol next to the sender if it was night in the sender's time zone when the reader loaded the email on their screen.

At midnight at UTC we can see this situation:
*00:00 UTC {{w|Greenwich Mean Time}}
::UK, Portugal
::West Africa
*01:00 UTC {{w|Central European Time}}
::Most of central Europe
::Nigeria, and many more countries belonging to the {{w|West Africa Time}} zone
*02:00 UTC {{w|Eastern European Time}}
::Moscow Time (look, this is coming from a Russian, okay?)
::Eastern Europe, many countries like Bulgaria, Romania or Greece
::The {{w|Levant}}
::Egypt
*03:00 UTC {{w|UTC+03:00}} (East Africa Time, Eastern Europe Forward Time, and Arabia Standard Time)
::Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Somalia, and more
::Kaliningrad and Belarus
::Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and more.
::Iran is at {{w|Iran Standard Time}}, using an offset of UTC+03:30
*04:00 UTC {{w|UTC+04:00}}
::United Arab Emirates, Mauritius, and more
::Afghanistan is at {{w|Time in Afghanistan}}, using an offset of UTC+04:30
::Iran is at {{w|Iran Standard Time}}, using an offset of UTC+03:30
*05:00 UTC {{w|UTC+05:00}}
::Pakistan, Western Australia, Maldives and some France former colonies.
::Afghanistan is at {{w|Time in Afghanistan}}, using an offset of UTC+04:30
::India and Sri Lanka using {{w|UTC+05:30}}
::Nepal is using a much more odd offset at {{w|UTC+05:45}}
*06:00 UTC {{w|UTC+06:00}}
::Bangladesh, Bhutan...
::UK {{w|British Indian Ocean Territory}}
::Russia at {{w|Yekaterinburg Time}}, also Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan
::China only use {{w|Time in China|one time zone}} (+08:00) but Xinjiang and Tibet unofficially use +06:00 
::India and Sri Lanka using {{w|UTC+05:30}}
::Nepal is using a much more odd offset at {{w|UTC+05:45}}
*07:00 UTC {{w|UTC+07:00}}
::South-east Asia like Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and more
::Christmas Island belonging to Australia
::Russia is also using the {{w|Omsk Time}}
*08:00 UTC {{w|UTC+08:00}}
::Western Australia
::China uses only {{w|Time in China|one time zone}} while the country spans about five.
::Singapore
::Philippines
::Perth
*09:00 UTC {{w|UTC+09:00}}
::Japan
::The Koreas
*10:00 UTC {{w|UTC+10:00}}
::Brisbane and the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania and Victoria
::US: Guam and Northern Mariana Islands
*11:00 UTC {{w|UTC+11:00}}
::Micronesia, New Caledonia, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu
::Russia {{w|Vladivostok Time}}
*12:00 UTC {{w|UTC+12:00}} or {{w|UTC−12:00}}
::Kamchatka (a Russian peninsula at the east Siberia), Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Tuvalu and more
*13:00 UTC {{w|UTC+13:00}} or {{w|UTC−11:00}}
::New Zealand, Kiribati, Tonga
*14:00 UTC {{w|UTC+14:00}} or {{w|UTC−10:00}}
::Hawaii, Samoa
::French Polynesia, Cook Islands, and more
::Line Islands, belonging to Kiribati
*15:00 UTC {{w|UTC−09:00}}
::{{W|Time in Alaska|Alaska}} (some islands of Alaska is at -10:00 and a few city's are at -08:00)
::French Polynesia 
*16:00 UTC {{w|UTC−08:00}} or {{w|Pacific Time Zone}}
::US West Coast
::Canada or (British Columbia and Yukon)
::Mexico (Baja California)
*17:00 UTC {{w|UTC−07:00}} or {{w|Mountain Time Zone}}
::US: Denver, and much more
::Canada: Alberta (Calgary, Edmonton), British Columbia, more
*18:00 UTC {{w|UTC−06:00}} or {{w|Central Time Zone}}
::Mexico, Chile, Ecuador, Nicaragua and more
::US: Chicago, Texas except of some most westernmost counties, and many more
*19:00 UTC {{w|UTC−05:00}} or {{w|Eastern Time Zone}}
::Eastern Canada like Ontario or Quebec
::US East Coast including New York and Florida.
::But also Cuba, Haiti, Panama and much more countries
*20:00 UTC {{w|UTC−04:00}} or {{w|Atlantic Time Zone}}
::Canadian Maritimes: New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia. (Newfoundland uses {{w|UTC-03:30}})
::Chile
::Greenland
::Most of the Caribbean Islands.
*21:00 UTC {{w|UTC−03:00}}
::Coastal Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, French Guiana, the UK Falkland Islands, and more
*22:00 UTC {{w|UTC−02:00}}
::UK: South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
::Brazil: Fernando de Noronha
*23:00 UTC {{w|UTC−01:00}}
::Cape Verde
::Azores (part of Portugal)

==Technical notes==
When first posted, the picture was exactly 12 hours off. Somewhere around 5:10 UTC, this was fixed.  The original version also included a listing for Inland Brazil; this could have created a conflict with US East Coast when Daylight-Saving Time begins in the US, and it has been removed.

The names used for the image files refer not to {{w|Universal Time|UTC (Universal Time)}} as one might expect but rather to the time exactly 12 hours off of that. The name of the image file linked from the page matched Universal Time during the first few hours, but the file-naming scheme did not change when the comic was corrected.

==Transcript==
:[The comic is a moving circle with a static outer ring.]

:[The outermost part of the static ring is divided in 22 segments representing the 24 hours of the day. The Noon (11 AM - 1 PM) and Midnight (11 PM - 1 AM) segments cover two hours which are not segmented. The ring is divided so it is yellow from 6 AM to 6 PM and dark grey on the other half.]
::Noon - 6 PM - Midnight - 6 AM

:[The innermost part of the static ring is light grey and divided in two sections that cower from 9 AM to 5 PM and from 10 PM to 8 AM respectively. They  contain descriptions of the time intervals.]
::Business hours (9-5)
::Rude to call

:[The rest of the image consist of a rotating part.]

:[On the innermost part of the circle is the Earth as seen from the south pole. Each continent has a different color. The colors are
:*Europe: Red
:*Africa: Cyan
:*Asia: Green
:*Oceania: Purple
:*North America: Blue-violet
:*South America: Olive green
:*Antarctica (The south pole): Light grey

:[Two segmented rings circle the map - these give the names of the continents (not the Antactica) and the color of the ring match the color of the continent on the map. Each segment cover the part of the map with the given continent. The one with Europe is merged with the one for Asia - and the color also merges from red to green along Turkey and Russia where the transition from Europe to Asia occurs.]

:[On the inner ring are the names of the following continents (white text on a segment with the color of the continent)]
::Africa
::Oceania
::South America

:[On the second of these rings are the names of the following continents (white text on a segment with the color of the continent)]
::Europe Asia 
::North America

:[On the outermost ring of the moving circle are written names of regions, countries and cities of the Earth over the part of the map in which time zone they belong. All the text is color coded to match the color of the continent they belong to as given on the central map. The text is written in four lines. Below the names are sorted by color and reading from left to right first - and only sorting top to bottom if needed.]

:[Europe - Red text:]
::UK - Most of Europe - Eastern Europe

:[Africa - Cyan text:]
::West Africa - Nigeria - Egypt - East Africa

:[Asia - Green text:]
::The Levant - Iraq - Iran - Moscow - Afghanistan - Pakistan - India - Southeast Asia - Java - China - Singapore - Philippines - Japan - The Koreas - Kamchatka

:[Oceania - Purple text:]
::Perth - Brisbane - Most Australian cities - New Zealand

:[North America - Blue-violet text:]
::Alaska - US West Coast - Denver - Mexico - Chicago - Texas - Eastern Canada - US East coast - Canadian Maritimes

:[South America - Olive green text:]
:: Coastal Brazil

==Implementations==
There are currently several implementations of the Now comic available for several different platforms:

Windows:
:A [https://github.com/leipert/xkcd-now-clock script] that automatically updates the wallpaper for the current time.

Linux:
:A [https://github.com/151henry151/randall-clock-desktop-background bash script] that automatically updates the wallpaper for the current time, written for a Debian system running i3. May work well for other linux distributions as well.

Android:
:An [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.phillab.xkcd_now Android widget] version of the comic.

Cross-Platform:
:An [https://github.com/BruceJohnJennerLawso/xkcd-Now/releases/tag/1.02 offline version of the comic] made using C++ and SFML.

==Timed Links==
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Links to each individual comic image
|-
!00h!!01h!!02h!!03h!!04h!!05h
|-
|[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/00h00m.png 00h00m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/00h15m.png 00h15m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/00h30m.png 00h30m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/00h45m.png 00h45m]
|[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/01h00m.png 01h00m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/01h15m.png 01h15m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/01h30m.png 01h30m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/01h45m.png 01h45m]
|[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/02h00m.png 02h00m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/02h15m.png 02h15m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/02h30m.png 02h30m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/02h45m.png 02h45m]
|[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/03h00m.png 03h00m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/03h15m.png 03h15m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/03h30m.png 03h30m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/03h45m.png 03h45m]
|[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/04h00m.png 04h00m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/04h15m.png 04h15m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/04h30m.png 04h30m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/04h45m.png 04h45m]
|[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/05h00m.png 05h00m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/05h15m.png 05h15m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/05h30m.png 05h30m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/05h45m.png 05h45m]
|-
!06h!!07h!!08h!!09h!!10h!!11h
|-
|[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/06h00m.png 06h00m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/06h15m.png 06h15m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/06h30m.png 06h30m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/06h45m.png 06h45m]
|[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/07h00m.png 07h00m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/07h15m.png 07h15m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/07h30m.png 07h30m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/07h45m.png 07h45m]
|[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/08h00m.png 08h00m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/08h15m.png 08h15m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/08h30m.png 08h30m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/08h45m.png 08h45m]
|[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/09h00m.png 09h00m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/09h15m.png 09h15m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/09h30m.png 09h30m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/09h45m.png 09h45m]
|[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/10h00m.png 10h00m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/10h15m.png 10h15m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/10h30m.png 10h30m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/10h45m.png 10h45m]
|[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/11h00m.png 11h00m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/11h15m.png 11h15m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/11h30m.png 11h30m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/11h45m.png 11h45m]
|-
!12h!!13h!!14h!!15h!!16h!!17h
|-
|[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/12h00m.png 12h00m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/12h15m.png 12h15m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/12h30m.png 12h30m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/12h45m.png 12h45m]
|[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/13h00m.png 13h00m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/13h15m.png 13h15m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/13h30m.png 13h30m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/13h45m.png 13h45m]
|[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/14h00m.png 14h00m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/14h15m.png 14h15m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/14h30m.png 14h30m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/14h45m.png 14h45m]
|[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/15h00m.png 15h00m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/15h15m.png 15h15m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/15h30m.png 15h30m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/15h45m.png 15h45m]
|[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/16h00m.png 16h00m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/16h15m.png 16h15m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/16h30m.png 16h30m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/16h45m.png 16h45m]
|[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/17h00m.png 17h00m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/17h15m.png 17h15m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/17h30m.png 17h30m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/17h45m.png 17h45m]
|-
!18h!!19h!!20h!!21h!!22h!!23h
|-
|[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/18h00m.png 18h00m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/18h15m.png 18h15m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/18h30m.png 18h30m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/18h45m.png 18h45m]
|[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/19h00m.png 19h00m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/19h15m.png 19h15m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/19h30m.png 19h30m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/19h45m.png 19h45m]
|[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/20h00m.png 20h00m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/20h15m.png 20h15m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/20h30m.png 20h30m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/20h45m.png 20h45m]
|[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/21h00m.png 21h00m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/21h15m.png 21h15m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/21h30m.png 21h30m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/21h45m.png 21h45m]
|[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/22h00m.png 22h00m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/22h15m.png 22h15m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/22h30m.png 22h30m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/22h45m.png 22h45m]
|[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/23h00m.png 23h00m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/23h15m.png 23h15m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/23h30m.png 23h30m]<br />[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now/23h45m.png 23h45m]
|}

{{comic discussion}}
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