Countdown
Countdown
[Black Hat is sitting with his laptop on a desk when Cueball, standing behind him, looks up on the wall and asks him about the large digital countdown timer with red numbers which is hanging high up on the wall. It has a white frame around the black display with the red numbers. Most of the left part of the counter is covered by a framed picture that hangs on a string attached to a nail above the counter. The picture depicts either a setting sun reflecting in an ocean or an exploding volcano with lava flowing away from it. The picture does not block the left-most part of the frame around the counter, and it is also possible to see the two left-most lines of the first digit on the countdown, so they are both turned on. This proves that the numbers go all the way to the left end. The next five digits are covered by the picture. Then one digit is only partly covered, as only the two most left lines are not visible. From the visible lines, it is though clear that this digit shows a 0. The next seven digits are fully visible, giving eight discernible digits.] 00002409 Cueball: What's that? Black Hat: Countdown. [Same picture, but Cueball is looking at Black Hat. The counter counts down.] 00002400 Cueball: To what? Black Hat: Supervolcano, I think. I forget which one. [Cueball looks up again for about 18s (between 2nd and fourth image) - beat panel.] 00002396 [Cueball looks at Black Hat again.] 00002382 Cueball: Maybe we should move that picture? Black Hat: Too hard to reach. It's probably fine.

The comic shows a seven segment display (aka calculator-style numbers ) with a countdown. Black Hat explains that it is a countdown, maybe to a supervolcano eruption. However, an unfortunately placed picture blocks view of the full display. Due to the form of a seven-segment display, the first digit could be 0, 6, or 8, and five digits are completely blocked by the picture. Cueball is worried and asks him to move the picture, but Black Hat lazily or teasingly refuses to move it.
He has already teased that he doesn't know what the countdown is for. His reply can either be understood as if he does not know which one of the ( seven potential ) supervolcanos it is counting down to, or to which other cataclysmic event it is a countdown for (such as a meteor strike or global nuclear war for instance - it could also just be a general Doomsday Clock ). Since it seems to be Black Hat's countdown, it is safe to assume that he knows both what it counts down to and when it stops, but he just likes to mess with peoples' minds.
The fully visible part starts at 2409, and based on the pace of the scene, it seems to be in seconds. Thus, it is unclear when the eruption might occur. If the obscured digits are all 0s, it could be as soon as 40 minutes. On the other hand, if the obscured digits are '899 999', there's another 2.85 million years to go; if they are '000 001', we have a little more than 3 years.
The choice of the picture is probably also interesting. The image is distorted enough that you can imagine it as being two very different images.
In either case, it could make sense. If it is a volcano, the supervolcano clock makes sense. On the other hand, we are talking about the possible end of the world as we know it, so the sun setting upon humanity could be a great metaphor.
The title text: "For all we know, the odds are in our favor" could imply the assumption that since we can't see the digits behind the picture, we can treat them as random. If so, chances are only 1 in 300 000 they are all zeros. However, because of statistical principles such as Benford's law , the digits are not entirely random, and the odds are higher than 1/299 999 for all the digits to be zero since the middle 4 digits are zero.
In an alternative view, the strip is not about pondering at distributions of digits on an oracle countdown. It's more of a grim view of our natural disaster prediction capabilities. As they say – the question is not if it will happen but when it will happen. "Move the picture" would mean investing in research and warning systems - that would correspond to shifting the picture to the left. If we disregard the 40 minutes, but instead think of it as an arbitrary interval of interests, minuscule as we folks have them, say - one's lifetime; or grimmer yet - some term of office . Because, hey, year after year passes and no apocalypse has been observed - the empirical odds are low indeed. An interesting question is what we would use the knowledge of the timing of our impending doom, if it is an event we can do nothing about, such as stopping a supervolcanic eruption or a large asteroid with a direct impact course on Earth. Would we not have lives more happily for our remaining years, how few that might be, while not knowing... On the other hand, if the event is something we might prevent given enough time to plan (and the funding resources such knowledge would ensure), then it may have saved us if we moved the picture just in time!
Using a countdown theme for comic #1159 could be a subtle joke, as 11:59/23:59 is one minute to midnight (on the Doomsday clock!).
Supervolcanos were also referenced in the title text of 1053: Ten Thousand and it is the subject of in 1611: Baking Soda and Vinegar .
[Black Hat is sitting with his laptop on a desk when Cueball, standing behind him, looks up on the wall and asks him about the large digital countdown timer with red numbers which is hanging high up on the wall. It has a white frame around the black display with the red numbers. Most of the left part of the counter is covered by a framed picture that hangs on a string attached to a nail above the counter. The picture depicts either a setting sun reflecting in an ocean or an exploding volcano with lava flowing away from it. The picture does not block the left-most part of the frame around the counter, and it is also possible to see the two left-most lines of the first digit on the countdown, so they are both turned on. This proves that the numbers go all the way to the left end. The next five digits are covered by the picture. Then one digit is only partly covered, as only the two most left lines are not visible. From the visible lines, it is though clear that this digit shows a 0. The next seven digits are fully visible, giving eight discernible digits.] 00002409 Cueball: What's that? Black Hat: Countdown. [Same picture, but Cueball is looking at Black Hat. The counter counts down.] 00002400 Cueball: To what? Black Hat: Supervolcano, I think. I forget which one. [Cueball looks up again for about 18s (between 2nd and fourth image) - beat panel.] 00002396 [Cueball looks at Black Hat again.] 00002382 Cueball: Maybe we should move that picture? Black Hat: Too hard to reach. It's probably fine.
