A Python adaptation of XKCD's "Backward in Time" | http://xkcd.com/1017/
First, an introduction to the algorithm in question:
"People tell me I have too much time on my hands, but really the problem is that there's too much time, PERIOD."
And that, folks, is why I built Retrowait. A simple Python package that takes the amount of progress you've made on a particular task, and calculates the corresponding year in the Gregorian calendar, from now till 1 AD. But that's not it. It then queries Wikipedia, to get a quick summary about that particular year! This is particularly suited for situations where you're:
- Stuck in a lecture that stolidly refuses to end;
- Dealing with a tech team standup and wondering why you ever started writing code;
- Waiting for Game of Thrones to stream, and wondering who's sitting on the Iron Throne next;
- |INSERT SITUATION OF CHOICE HERE.|
Others have written similar packages. Mine's better. I write the best Python code. Nobody writes better code than me. I've got great plans. Nobody plans better.
In the future, you'd be able to:
- Go even farther back in time, because obviously - to make time go really fast, you have to go back really far. I'm telling you, time only makes sense if you go backwards.
- Consume this amazing algorithm through Slack and Messenger bots, while you're waiting for another person to freaking type out his/her message. Let's make waiting great again!
- Uh..mobile app? Hybrid progressive web |INSERT FANCY TREND| app? Oh, damn it.
See? Told ya.
If you're a virtualenv fan, great. If you aren't, great. Whatever makes your clock tick - all you have to do is this:
pip install retrowait
For now, it's Python-only. Soon, there will be bots and apps and shit.
First, import the retrowait package:
import retrowait as rw
Next, create a Wait class, passing the progress of your super boring task as a percentage. So if you're 12% done with something:
w = rw.Wait(progress=12)
And that's it! To see what the calculated year was, use w.year - or if you want the full date, there's w.back_date. To check out Wikipedia's summary for that year, call the info function - w.info().
- As of now, Python's datetime capabilities don't include BC dates. That's a bummer - it was such a fun time! Unfortunately, this also means that if
progressis more than 61%, it breaks. Which is stupid. - Another thing that is a little tough with datetime, is using non-integers in datetime algebra. It sounds pretty obvious mathematically - but apparently it isn't.
- It would be nice to pretty-print more information from Wikipedia for a particular year.
Track these issues here. Feel like helping me telescope time? Fork, write code, open a PR.