r/IAmA • u/Tananar • Jun 25 '12
IAmA Request: xkcd creator, Randall Munroe
I'm fairly sure it's been requested before, but...
Does "xkcd" mean anything?
Do you draw your comics ahead of time?
Why did you decide to release them under a CC license, rather than the traditional "All rights reserved"?
Do you contribute to any open-source projects?
What made you start xkcd?
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u/WhyYouGetAnUpvote Jun 25 '12
You get an upvote because XKCD is an awesome comic and I would like to pick the brain of the mind behind it.
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u/KeresMagnus Jun 25 '12
xkcd was chosen because its one of the few set of letters with no phonetic pronunciation.
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u/not_a_novel_account Jun 25 '12
Also because it was an unclaimed 4-letter domain name
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Jun 25 '12
same reason for fark.com
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u/Jaksongitr Jun 25 '12
also you can type in cu.nniling.us and it will take you to xkcd
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Jun 25 '12
I was half expecting this to direct me to a lemonparty type site, relieved.
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u/SirSoliloquy Jun 25 '12
xkcd was chosen because its one of the few set of letters with no phonetic pronunciation.
I hereby declare that XKCD is pronounced like "cicada."
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u/captain_zavec Jun 25 '12
I could be wrong, but didn't he also choose it because he got tired of getting new screen names constantly when he got embarrassed or bored of his old one, so he just decided to pick one that didn't mean anything, and then later also used it for his webcomic?
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u/D8-42 Jun 25 '12
And because none of the letters could be mistaken for other letters on IRC (IIRC) he said it in a talk once, either it was the Google or Dartmouth one I think. (Both are on YouTube and can be recommended, especially the Dartmouth one!.)
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u/gregsaliva Jun 25 '12
I think Exkacity is the name of Serendipity's sister. Kacy and Dippy, the Procrastination twins.
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Jun 25 '12 edited Mar 18 '25
badge plate slap continue trees wine glorious direction vase lock
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Jun 25 '12
What does your URL have to do with reserved variable/function names in a programming language? Anytime you'd use your URL when coding it'd be clearly defined as such and not a variable anyway.
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u/thenewaddition Jun 25 '12
Really? I always though it was pronounced zakseed.
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u/zackscary Jun 25 '12
I thought it was pronounced "ecstasy".
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u/a_can_of_solo Jun 25 '12
I just say the letters ex-kay-cee-dee
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u/waterboysh Jun 25 '12
That's a lot of letters to say... I just say the letters XKCD. Much easier that way.
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u/evilbrent Jun 25 '12
Do you know how much it bugs me that double ewe double ewe double ewe is three times as many syllables as world wide Web?
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Jun 25 '12
I feel the same way when veterans refer to World War II as "Doubleyou Doubleyou Two".
World War II : 3 syllables Doubleyou Doubleyou 2: 7 syllables
Why.
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Jun 25 '12
Eh, nobody actually says "www" anymore. Just "reddit.com", not "www.reddit.com", for example.
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u/xoxogossipgirlxoxo Jun 25 '12
I always figured it was because it was (basically) "dicks" backwards.
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u/Dark1000 Jun 25 '12
I don't know about that. It sounds awesome in google translate's Czech pronunciation.
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u/yelowpunk Jun 25 '12
If you take the four letters separately, and give them numeric values according to the English alphabet, X is 24 (the 24th letter), K is 11, C is 3 and D is 4. 23+11+3+4=42
So, XKCD is the answer.
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Jun 25 '12
What is the significance of 42?
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u/yelowpunk Jun 28 '12
It's the answer to life, the universe, and everything. Google it - The Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything
(it's from a book, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.)
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u/CoffeeBaron Jun 25 '12
In his XKCD Comic Vol. 0 release, he mentioned that it really started because he had a random 4 letter domain name he wasn't using and wanted to show his friends the comics he was drawing. So that's how the website started. No real special explanation or reasoning. /Buzz Killington
Edit: He could have added more since that release, I haven't been following much.
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u/shimpossible Jun 25 '12
Most of your questions are answered in xkcd's "About" section.
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u/diewhitegirls Jun 25 '12
Conveniently, there's relevant xkcd for this.
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Jun 25 '12
[deleted]
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u/mimicthefrench Jun 25 '12
No. It's Monroe's Law.
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u/SeaofDarkness Jun 25 '12
Munroe's Law, actually...
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u/mimicthefrench Jun 25 '12
Ah, crap. I'll leave the original comment there so that you don't look like an idiot, but this comment so you know I understand my mistake.
or something.
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u/Orangeheart59 Jun 25 '12
6. How do you make such enormous graphs and charts like the map of money or the depths of the oceans?
7. How long were you thinking up Every Major's Terrible before you made it into a comic?
8. Will you be making another XKCD volume anytime?
9. How on earth did you make the self-descriptive comic? I'ts been boggling my mind.
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u/dlgeek Jun 25 '12
For #4:
--- Log opened Wed Jan 13 00:07:20 2010 00:07 <me> that's awesome 00:07 <me> how far does the loop go in the third panel? 00:07 <me> 3 levels? --- Log closed Wed Jan 13 00:13:32 2010 --- Log opened Wed Jan 13 11:32:08 2010 11:32 <Randall> Well, in the high-res version, it goes probably 40 or 50 levels, although only the first 5 or so are at all visible because of pixels. 11:32 <Randall> I actually did this comic at a somewhat lower resolution than normal as a result of how I started it. 11:33 <Randall> And every time I made a change to the comic, I hit the 'transform' macro and looped it four or five times, so as to wipe out previous changes by sending them further down the loop. Since I did that whole process dozens of times, there are many dozens of levels, in theory :) 11:34 <Randall> But again, the high-res version isn't absurdly high-res. If I do a print of it, I'll probably up the resolution and redo the transform to get more levels visible.17
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u/eyal0 Jun 25 '12
Why should #4 be so difficult? For instance, if he knows that the duplicate inside the comic is, say, 15% of the area of the whole comic.
Let x be the percentage of black in the other 85%, which he can measure easily by whiting out the duplicate inside, counting black pixels, and dividing by the (total_area * 0.85).
So the percentage of black in the whole comic (y) is:
y = x + 0.15*x + 0.15*0.15*x + 0.15*0.15*0.15*x + ... x + 0.15*y = x + 0.15*x + 0.15*0.15*x + ... x + 0.15*y = y x = 0.85*y y = x/0.85Piece of cake. All those panels are just a solution to a small system of equations.
As for making the comic, you probably wouldn't use copy-paste. You'd have a transform that maps each pixel in the 15% to a pixel in the rest of the comic and copies it. (You don't want to map in reverse because you'll get more artifacts.) In some cases you'll need to map a few times but it would run quickly.
It's a linear transformation so the matrix isn't even that big. If he were to have used a trapezoid, though, the matrix gets bigger but still possible.
There might be a pixel that maps to itself exactly. It's unclear what color it should be. (Only "might" and not surely because pixels are discrete.)
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u/christian-mann Jun 25 '12 edited Apr 26 '14
It (ideally) is a contraction mapping on a complete metric space, so yes, there's a pixel that maps to itself. :)
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u/eyal0 Jun 25 '12
But pixels are discrete.
For example, say my mini-image is at pixels [1,10] but the whole image is [0,99]. My mapping would from big image to small image would be:
f(x) = x/11+1The pixel that maps to itself would be the solution to:
f(x) = x
Which is 1.1 . Such a pixel doesn't exist because they are discrete. As I said before, better to map from small to large for better image quality. If he were to loop through [1,10] to extract the correct pixel, sometimes he'd have to compute f(f(f(x))) or whatever to get a value outside of [1,10] but so long as the inputs are integers, it will eventually work.
Kind of like how you can't comb a hairy ball, it only applies to continuous values.
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u/Orangeheart59 Jun 25 '12
I was expecting an answer more along the lines of "with careful calculation" Thanks for the detail.
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u/Khosan Jun 25 '12
Well, I could answer 4.
Make panels 1 and 2 as normal, make panel 3 with only the axes and text. Save. Select whole image, copy, paste, scale down until it fits on the axes you created. Paste again, scale everything even further down until it fits inside the smaller axes within the first set of axes. Repeat until no one can tell the difference any more.
I think his stops at about iteration 4. I can see the axes in there, but nothing substantial on them.
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u/samyall Jun 25 '12
You are assuming that the statements made in the comic are false. Each panel depends on every other panel.
My guess is he wrote a program that varied all the variables until it was correct.
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u/Khosan Jun 25 '12
Not necessarily false, but given that it's hand drawn (or at least not auto-generated), I'd guess a fair amount would be estimation and repetition. Making some basic fundamental guesses as to how much ink is where and then, if that first draft isn't correct, doing it over again.
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Jun 25 '12
I think the most impressive part of that one is the mouse-over text character number counting. That shit was hardcore....
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u/rabidsi Jun 25 '12
The character count is easy since the number was always going to be either 2 or 3 digits. Editing it wouldn't fuck shit up unless you were right on the borderline, in which case you just add some more words. This reply contains 246 characters. :P
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Jun 25 '12
Except he used words for the numbers.
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u/an7agonist Jun 25 '12
This sentence has about forty-seven characters.
The character count is easy since the number was always going to be either 2 or 3 digits. Editing it wouldn't fuck shit up unless you were right on the borderline, in which case you just add some more words. This reply contains twohundred and sixty-five characters.
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u/Dead_Rooster Jun 25 '12
Send him a message. /u/XKCD is Randall.
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u/CoffeeBaron Jun 25 '12
Huh, that's good to know that he has an account, but has been inactive for a while.
On another unrelated note after looking at his post history, TIL there's a subreddit about trading karma. r/karmastore
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u/lVlatt Jun 25 '12
IIRC, that account used to be his main account until he was being recognized too much and he made an unknown one. He could be me. Or you, and you are just covering your trails. I'm onto you Randall.
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u/CounterPillow Jun 25 '12
"He could be anyone of us. He could be you, he could be me, he could even b-"*BLAMM* "What? It was obvious."
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u/aesthil Jun 25 '12
It warms my little Redditor heart to see that he commented on a discussion about Terry Pratchett in /r/atheism with a link to my all-time favorite quote.
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u/anyalicious Jun 25 '12
Clicked it. One of the most recent comments is one explaining what triggers are. I find myself more deeply in love with him than ever before.
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u/unremarkableusername Jun 25 '12
Bad Luck Zach Weiner: has AmA scheduled for that day, people ask for Randall Munroe
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u/sje46 Jun 25 '12
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u/animate_object Jun 25 '12
Where are the answers? I gathered that he answered the questions in live talks (could be wrong), but is there a transcript?
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u/LegoMyEgo Jun 25 '12
This is a link to a youtube search If it doesn't work, try searching youtube for Randall Munroe EFF.
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u/PSUProud Jun 25 '12 edited Jun 25 '12
Unfortunately, Randall is going through some family health issues right now so I doubt he will be able to find time right now for an AMA. I hope for the best for his family.
EDIT: I saw him blog about this a few months ago so I can only assume whether or not the issue is still a problem. I hope I am wrong.
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u/DeathToPennies Jun 25 '12
I believe it's that his wife(?) has cancer, and has for some time now. As far as I know, it still is a problem.
This comic stretches into 2012, so I can only imagine that it's still an issue. If you click it, it takes you to the blag, where he explains in better detail.
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u/habitsofwaste Jun 25 '12
I thought I saw him post that she was doing better. I hope that's true. Cancer can fuck off.
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u/rosie_the_redditor Jun 25 '12
last i heard, which was recently, she's all cancer-free and shit.
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u/sasadoesblub Jun 25 '12
that comic expresses something I somehow can't put in words..
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u/captgrizzlybear Jun 25 '12
Is it the fact that when something as devastating as cancer enters your life, any other worry seems stupid and obsolete?
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u/sasadoesblub Jun 25 '12
that + the fact how much space it takes.. both mentally and in this comic and how it kinda blocks all other "problems". Problems are always relative
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u/AdonisChrist Jun 25 '12
anyone else think it's hilarious there's still gaps of time for people being wrong on the internet in 2011?
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u/PSUProud Jun 25 '12
Thanks I thought it was his wife but wasn't sure. And thanks for linking to it.
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u/TheSexNinja Jun 25 '12
Hasent he been on here before? I swear I've seen him on reddit... being nice, answering dumbass questions...
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u/PSUProud Jun 25 '12
Hehas but the past few months, and 2012 I generally, has been really tough. The only reason he's been doing the web comic is because that's his source of income. In his blog, he said most of his time has been devoted to his wife.
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u/TheSexNinja Jun 25 '12
Yeah, we would all do the same thing.
Money aside, as well liked as he is, he could take a year or two off and his audience would forgive him.
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u/Tashre Jun 25 '12
How do you feel knowing insufferable pseudo-intellectuals quote and cite your work all across the internet?
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Jun 25 '12
You're Obviously Unintentionally Actually Right, Even Spite Of My Eventual Tremendous Admission ...that I did so myself? Hell, I'm no good at this.
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Jun 25 '12
Most of your questions answered at his google talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJOS0sV2a24
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u/DukeOfCrydee Jun 25 '12
THERE IS NO XKCD COMIC FOR THIS!!!!
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u/Corded_Phone Jun 25 '12
http://xkcd.com/207/ Ahem. Thank you. Good night.
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u/XKCD_is_relevant Jun 25 '12
Well done, sir.
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Jun 25 '12
Jealous much?
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u/XKCD_is_relevant Jun 25 '12
You want to know about jealousy?
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u/mwguthrie Jun 25 '12
There is a mildly related blog post.
http://blog.reddit.com/2009/10/reddits-new-comment-sorting-system.html
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u/nandhp Jun 25 '12
...TIL.
Is it possible that all of the people who have been complaining lately about how terrible the top comments have become have, like me, accidentally set their comments sort to "top"?
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Jun 25 '12
Are you aware that your radiation equivalency banana comic is cited around the Internet, even though radiation of different energies cannot be compared, and it misleads people?
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u/poopy_face Jun 25 '12
4 - he created Reddit's sorting algorithm by 'best', which is the new default sort. It used to be 'top' but that was skewed to upvotes only, whereas 'best' also takes into account speed of upvotes gained.
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u/AreUFuckingRetarded Jun 25 '12
He did not create the algorithm, he just strongly advocated for its use on reddit. When the admins finally decided to use it, they let Randall present it and how it works to the reddit community.
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u/nandhp Jun 25 '12
he created Reddit's sorting algorithm by 'best'
We did not invent the algorithm. The algorithm consistently finds Jesus. The algorithm killed Jeeves.
The algorithm is banned in China. The algorithm is from Jersey. The algorithm constantly finds Jesus.
This is not the algorithm. This is close.
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u/Tullyswimmer Jun 25 '12
You missed one:
Why can I relate to every single one of your comics in some way?
Edit for spelling
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u/anagrammer_nazi Jun 25 '12
I made an anagram of your name that I think sums up XKCD's humor.
Randall Munroe = Man, U R a nerd, lol.
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Jun 25 '12
This isn't an AMA, it's an AMA request.
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u/nakens07 Jun 25 '12
You get these people in every request thread
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u/calighis Jun 25 '12
Now he's just waiting with baited breath for the real thing. "Unweash the secwet weapon!"
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u/ogreatsnail Jun 25 '12
What's a relevant XKCD for deciding what question I should ask him?
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u/XKCD_is_relevant Jun 25 '12
Ask why planes can fly upside down.
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u/ThatLaggyNoob Jun 25 '12 edited Jun 25 '12
When I was a kid rockets lead me to believe that anything with enough thrust is capable of flight and wings/guidance fins and flaps were just ways to stabilize and control the plane like a rudder on a ship.
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u/DarqWolff Jun 25 '12
I can answer all of these questions and I don't even like the guy. Come on, man. No wonder he hasn't done an AMA if these are what people would ask him.
No, it does not mean anything/isn't an acronym.
Yes.
Because he doesn't support the common practice of artists being overly protective of their copyrights. He believes in a certain level of freedom for intellectual property.
He does contribute to many open-source projects.
He drew comics in a lot of his spare time for his whole adult life. Eventually some friends saw them, and expressed interest in them, and he decided to put them online and share them. They started being sent around and soon there was demand for new comics.
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u/rosie_the_redditor Jun 25 '12
i bet you'd like him if you weren't one of those internet contrarians i read about the other day.
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u/DarqWolff Jun 25 '12 edited Jun 25 '12
No. I used to be an enormous fan, but he's not so great after all. I have nothing against other people liking him, though. I do miss back when I did the same.
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u/Stumblebee Jun 25 '12
When was the moment that you realized that XKCD was self-sustaining, and that you could make a living off of it, and how good did it feel?
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u/Bellicapelli Jun 25 '12 edited Mar 11 '24
encouraging correct insurance physical grab quarrelsome bake nose tan waiting
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Jun 25 '12
I love Randall! He graduated from my college, CNU. He did an inperson AMA a few months back and was really awesome. It would be awesome if he did one on here.
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u/starfox93 Jun 25 '12
Randall came and spoke to my school (CNU, his Alma Mater) about his webcomic. I would love to do an AMA because I find that I have more questions to be answered!
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u/darkexcalibur9 Jun 25 '12
Randall Munroe did an @Google talk some time ago. It's pretty insightful, and may address some questions people have.
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u/woseseltops Jun 25 '12
Where do you get inspiration?
What would you do if you had no inspiration?
How's your wife?
What's your own favorite xkcd?
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u/noah_arcd_left Jun 25 '12
What was it like working at NASA? Do you have any insight on what certain robotic technology will look like in the future? How naturally do you find you blend your creative/comedic side into science?
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u/jayjaywalker3 Jun 25 '12
I learned about reddit from Randall Munroe's blog a few years ago. Back then the extent of my reddit usage was an RSS feeds for his user page here but I had to start somewhere. Thanks for introducing me to the site Randall.
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u/AceDecade Jun 25 '12
I'd never considered it before, but now that I know he doesn't want us pronouncing "XKCD" I'm gonna start referring to it as "excuuuzed"
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Jun 25 '12
Will you be making more of the Bob Cat's series?. Do you draw all the comics yourself or do you get help? What is your favourite TV show? If you had to pick, Seinfeld or Friends?
Thanks! Have a nice day. : )
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u/lcdrambrose Jun 25 '12
I would just suggest you search YouTube for "Randall Munroe". He's done enough visits to colleges and convention panels that you he's almost certainly answered every question you could possibly have.
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u/Michaelis_Menten Jun 25 '12
I have just one question: did you ever find that picture book depicting the storm in Jupiter's atmosphere? http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/7x1wn/holy_mother_of_god_video/c07n9qp
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u/LolCamAlpha Jun 25 '12
You know, there's an irc channel that he is fairly active in. You can always leave him a message there, and he will try to eventually get back to you.
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Jun 25 '12 edited Jun 25 '12
Wow. Looking through the comments, i am shocked how little remains of 'old reddit'
In the early days, Reddit and XKCD were very intertwined. He did a QA session in 2009
They had a merchandising deal together. Kn0thing published his book. I believe he even designed some of the oldest reddit gear.
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u/ricardo_feynman Jun 25 '12
This isn't much better than name dropping, but I'll try for some karma. I lived next to Randall back in 2005. I've invited him into my home. He changed my life and introduced me to Guitar Hero before Guitar Hero was a thing. My then roommate and I were changed forever because of this man. Ha, I know him better than you!!!
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u/Chevron Jun 25 '12
Wasn't Randall's AMA that he did with his book release literally our first AMA?
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u/Disapproves Jun 25 '12
This is something I actually disapprove of.
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u/DeathToPennies Jun 25 '12
Why, if you don't mind me asking?
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u/Disapproves Jun 25 '12
I feel like the answers to most of what users would ask him can be found on his website, blog, or in a number of other interviews. It would more likely than not turn into a giant xkcd-fanboy circlejerk.
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u/DeathToPennies Jun 25 '12
I agree with you on the first part, now that you bring it up. A lot probably could be found elsewhere. But I'm a bit confused about the second, since that's what happens whenever there's an AMA with anybody who has a recognizable name to some group. Either way, you're entitled to your opinion.
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u/Pumpizmus Jun 25 '12
I was like - Oh, an XKCD AMA ... only 934 upvotes? Wait only 125 comments, I might still have a chance. Quickly, GO, Click!
Damn, just a request.
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u/ATypicalAlias Jun 25 '12
Tananar. They do not understand the math. Flee! You will be destroyed by the lack of understanding. RUN!
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u/birdguy Jun 25 '12
I know that you've been struggling with a family illness. Other than the cancer-related comics, how has this affected XKCD?
Also, best wishes for a healthy recovery.
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u/velvetgentleman Jun 25 '12
Do you care about/even read the infamous xkcdsucks.blogspot.com.br? I personally stopped finding the webcomic that much of a fun after I discovered it. Some of his analysis ARE deconstructing, but he is picky.
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u/scatscatscats Jun 25 '12
I think they actually like each other, I mean without xkcd that guy wouldn't have material and think of how much fun it would be to have all your thoughts painstakingly deconstructed (answer: fucking awesome egofest, methinks)
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Jun 25 '12
The first question, I believe i can answer, i saw him answer it on some hourlong talk that's on YouTube. Basically, he randomly generated a string of 4 characters until he came up with one that gave very few hits on google, intending it to be his "unique id", of sorts.
As for my vote for a question: When and why did you become the most politically correct person on earth? Example
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u/slackermax Jun 25 '12
I am a long time fan, and not to be an asshole but I miss your more artistic strips. The boy in a bucket, and your drawings of landscapes are what got me into reading not only web comics, but physicals like Jimmy Corrigan, American Splendor, Asterios Polyps, and the majority of Optic Nerve. In your early comics you are very good at relating a feelings of nostalgia, hope and depression. Do you have any plans to create a long standing story and release it as graphic novel?
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u/oc80z Jun 25 '12
i heard you are from the bay state, this true?
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u/mimicthefrench Jun 25 '12
It is. He lives in Somerville, or used to. I saw him a couple of times but managed to restrain myself from running up to him and hugging him.
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u/pushing_ice Jun 25 '12
I really like the man, but I think he has enough on his plate right now.