XKCD Comes to Dartmouth!

XKCD Comes to Dartmouth!

Billed as a “webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language,” xkcd is ridiculously popular among scientists and mathematicians. Yet xkcd can appeal to anyone with a sense of whimsy and wonder. XKCD’s creator, Randall Munroe, spoke at Dartmouth during fall 2008. Watch Randall dish about NASA and treehouses, and run from a velociraptor!

50 Comments

  1. c0smicRay on October 18, 2021 at 9:14 am

    xkcd is NOT supposed to be in all caps like it is in the title, upvote to let them now! Do it now, or the raptors will attack!!



  2. steven stallings on October 18, 2021 at 9:14 am

    Gereko. Throw down. Man
    Media real)😎



  3. Lewis Hay on October 18, 2021 at 9:14 am

    very nice and funny guy 🙂



  4. Mormat Mayhem on October 18, 2021 at 9:15 am

    holy craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap



  5. Tyler Whitson on October 18, 2021 at 9:15 am

    Appartently this is a joke? It just doesn’t seem sooper funny, ya know?



  6. Fern2414 on October 18, 2021 at 9:15 am

    you spelled know wrong



  7. Jesse Fortner on October 18, 2021 at 9:18 am

    Very interesting take on the Classhole’s origin. IIRC, Scott Adams had a similar process happen with Dogbert: sometimes he wanted to say controversial things, so Dogbert became that mouthpiece. And they both like to wear hats!

    Now I want to see Dogbert and the Classhole meet up.



  8. Michael Nevermore on October 18, 2021 at 9:18 am

    Nerd-sniping? Well done, sir.



  9. TriplePalindromous on October 18, 2021 at 9:21 am

    Small enough for me.



  10. C Stout on October 18, 2021 at 9:22 am

    I thought I was the only person who counted out his paces according to the cracks in the sidewalk! THANK GOODNESS I’M NOT INSANE!



  11. smileydreampony on October 18, 2021 at 9:23 am

    @Romanstandrd clearly the best thing about him!



  12. theBetaAlphaTheta on October 18, 2021 at 9:24 am

    nice I am Canadian reference



  13. Taylor Darnell on October 18, 2021 at 9:25 am

    Randall Munroe has wasted hours of my time with his fantastic comic. I should be angry, but I’m really really not.



  14. dandymcgee on October 18, 2021 at 9:26 am

    @Girl who opened for him: Will you marry me?



  15. dn on October 18, 2021 at 9:26 am

    Should have used a noise canceling microphone as the sound of the audience was loud….



  16. Alimaria on October 18, 2021 at 9:27 am

    Know not "now"



  17. Tyler Whitson on October 18, 2021 at 9:31 am

    rocking what you’re rollin



  18. fourfolders656 on October 18, 2021 at 9:33 am

    04:15 … oh woah, how small is she?



  19. Patrick Schmidt on October 18, 2021 at 9:33 am

    actually, xkcd IS supposed to be in all caps if it has to be titlecased, just like in this case. see xkcd’s about page



  20. FaRo on October 18, 2021 at 9:33 am

    The "[inaudible]" at 1:05:32 is "Reddit".



  21. Mavka on October 18, 2021 at 9:34 am

    Aww, she’s adorable



  22. Leandro Aude on October 18, 2021 at 9:35 am

    I think White Hat Guy and Black Hat Guy are nods to hacking.



  23. Tyler Whitson on October 18, 2021 at 9:36 am

    Puffing what you’re passing



  24. Tyler Whitson on October 18, 2021 at 9:39 am

    Actually, I believe he stated directly that using it in all caps in formal situations (where the first letter of a word is expected to be capitalized), XKCD could be used over xkcd or Xkcd. So, let’s all calm down.



  25. Nerdiconium on October 18, 2021 at 9:40 am

    Idea: Print online news articles and webcomics and all the other stuff in the standard newspaper. Title: The Daily Internetional



  26. halcy on October 18, 2021 at 9:43 am

    Thumbs up if you think this comment is moronic.



  27. Tyllis Xu on October 18, 2021 at 9:44 am

    I like my hat



  28. strega-nil on October 18, 2021 at 9:45 am

    He totally said sudo wrong… It’s super user do, not super user doe.
    TOTALLY USELESS CORRECTIONS!



  29. mailsprower1 on October 18, 2021 at 9:46 am

    Never gonna give you up, xD
    Holy shit, Randall, you are my role model)



  30. Tyler Whitson on October 18, 2021 at 9:48 am

    Picking up what you’re putting down



  31. LukeDude759 on October 18, 2021 at 9:48 am

    20 minutes in, still waiting for someone to throw a ball they saved for when Randall would least expect it.



  32. Tyler Whitson on October 18, 2021 at 9:48 am

    Probably. I think i’m smelling what you’re cookin here.



  33. KAZ Vorpal on October 18, 2021 at 9:48 am

    It’s actually pronounced soo-doo. Because it’s short for Super User Do. He should know that.



  34. maxxramman on October 18, 2021 at 9:49 am

    I believe Randall said "meatspace," not "meet space."



  35. Ian Peterson on October 18, 2021 at 9:49 am

    Actually you are wrong this is from the xkcd about page: For those of us pedantic enough to want a rule, here it is: The preferred form is "xkcd", all lower-case. In formal contexts where a lowercase word shouldn’t start a sentence, "XKCD" is an okay alternative. "Xkcd" is frowned upon.



  36. PykohYT on October 18, 2021 at 9:49 am

    I like how he got more and more confident the longer he was up there.



  37. Squishu on October 18, 2021 at 9:52 am

    On an infinite grid of ideal one-ohm resistors, what’s the equivalent resistance between two nodes a knights move away?



  38. Duke Dyer on October 18, 2021 at 9:54 am

    She’s soooo cute )



  39. niyam sahini on October 18, 2021 at 9:55 am

    nice



  40. drunkenmuse on October 18, 2021 at 9:55 am

    Also, ‘know’ is spelled with a ‘k’, though raptors would attack you either way.



  41. Ali Fareed M.C. on October 18, 2021 at 9:56 am

    i love that TV shjow XkCd i am waiting for season 2



  42. Kieran on October 18, 2021 at 9:57 am

    Nearly 1 and a half hours… I wonder how lond it will take to watch this troughout the advertising breaks of the three episodes "Castle" in succession…?
    That’d be three per episodes, each about six minutes long….
    That are 18 minutes of watching time per episode and 54 minutes all in all…
    That means I can only watch 54 minutes of it!
    Somebody tell me when the most important parts are? 😛



  43. Abdul Isik on October 18, 2021 at 9:58 am

    I’m glad I’ve found this. Old references, those times he wasn’t that famous, he didn’t have any books back then and you say whatever else.. Let’s comment and like around so YouTube will get to recommend this to some wannabe xkcd fans (as it does with some old videos)



  44. afirlandschill on October 18, 2021 at 9:59 am

    "For those of us pedantic enough to want a rule, here it is: The preferred form is ‘xkcd’, all lower-case. In formal contexts where a lowercase word shouldn’t start a sentence, ‘XKCD’ is an okay alternative. ‘Xkcd’ is frowned upon." (Source: xkcd[.]com/about/) 🙂



  45. Bill Kong on October 18, 2021 at 10:01 am

    Does Randall’s opening remind anyone of molson’s "I am Canadian" speech? 
    Just me? Okay.



  46. The Famine on October 18, 2021 at 10:02 am

    Actually it is okay to write it in either full caps or no caps, I.E. "XKCD" "xkcd"
    however writing "Xkcd" is absolutely unacceptable.



  47. FaRo on October 18, 2021 at 10:03 am

    I tried the 28 hour sleep schedule once, but aborted after about three days or so. Afterwards I discovered that it works way better for me to have shorter days. As long as I sleep for about half as long as I was awake previously, almost everything works.
    I once made a 27 hour livestream, so I went to bed extremely early on Monday, got up at about 23:00 on Monday, started streaming shortly after midnight, streamed for 27 hours and then did some miscellaneous things for two hours, so i was awake for 30 hours, until 5:00 on Wednesday, slept for 15 hours until 20:00 on Wednesday, which was a totally messed up schedule, but then managed to get a proper schedule again within just two or three days by just e.g. being awake for 12 hours, sleeping for 6 hours, something like that.
    I can also move a portion of my sleep forwards, for example I wake up at 7:00, go to bed at 17:00, sleep for 5 hours, then I’m awake for 6 more hours and then sleep from 4:00 to 7:00 and I’m actually not very tired the next day. This also makes me more productive, because I have many hours when I’m the only one awake, so I’m not constantly interrupted. This also psychologically separates the tasks before and after well, so I can do the same thing (e.g. programming) for 5 hours nonstop during those 6 hours.



  48. A Businessman on October 18, 2021 at 10:03 am

    The first few minutes make me cringe and I’m not sure why. Anyone else?



  49. John Kennedy on October 18, 2021 at 10:10 am

    he starts at 7:20 ish



  50. gigahertzish on October 18, 2021 at 10:12 am

    import antigravity takes you directly to the xkcd python antigravity comic