back to article Randall Munroe spoke to The Reg again. We're habit-forming that way

In just over a decade Randall Munroe has become firmly established and it’s safe to say adored as the author of xkcd. Since starting in LiveJournal and moving to xkcd.com on 1 January 2006, Munroe has published over 1,600 webcomics which continue to amuse and enthuse netizens. His stick-driven dioramas offer glib observations …

  1. This post has been deleted by its author

  2. caffeine addict

    Are you really telling us that your surveys can't handle checkboxes, or was this a meta joke about "checkbox" not being in the top ten hundred english words?

    1. dotdavid

      "Mark the correct answers with the letter "x""

      It didn't say that you can't also mark the incorrect answers with the same letter!

  3. smartypants

    New names for things...

    Is fascinating.

    ...sometimes obfuscates.

    E.g. 'very tall road' didn't do it for me, as it's the going-over-something-elseness of a bridge rather than the tallness of it which I think about, e.g. when crossing the millenium bridge.

    ...sometimes elucidates:

    E.g. 'Machines for burning cities' is far more apt than 'nuclear bomb'. It makes it harder to be in favour of them! (Even if you define them as 'Machines that could burn cities if they were used but we hope we don't have to')

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: New names for things...

      I agree that trying to describe things with a minimal vocabulary is interesting. If you like that sort of thing you might want to try playing with Toki Pona.

      One way in which Toki Pona differs from English is that compounds are not ambiguous as they are in English: "heavy metal power building" could be parsed in 5 different ways: ((heavy metal) power) building "a building relating to power that is characterised by heavy metal", ..., heavy (metal (power building)) "a power building that is metal and heavy". Yet Toki Pona doesn't use any linguistically implausible devices (so no spoken brackets). Yes, it's a minority interest, but a worthy one, I feel...

      1. Paul Slater

        Re: New names for things...

        "compounds are not ambiguous as they are in English..."

        This is not entirely true. Adjectives have an order in English so that we we would expect (for instance) a big bouncing baby to be a child that is of a good healthy size rather than one that is able to bounce quite high.

        http://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/adjectives/order-of-adjectives/

  4. getHandle
    Happy

    Love this review of the Xkcd 0 book

    http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/R3R8FXQT084VEB/

  5. Martin an gof Silver badge

    Nothing beats paper

    The Up-Goer Five is printed out on three sheets of A4 (the printer took a hefty hit of ink) and is stuck on the wall in the outside loo, alongside the words of The Monarchs Song (Horrible Histories), maps of Wales, posters of wildlife and other things to keep you educated while... doing what needs to be done.

    Pre-ordered the book some time ago :-)

    in a move seemingly at odds with the web community, Munroe has produced a book – yes: a piece of analogue, physical, old-school technology

    It's not his first - there are numerous poster-size printouts of the illustrations, a book of the comic and The What If Book . I have the latter but haven't done more than skim it yet - it's intended to be a Christmas present and I don't want to deface it!

    He's not the only one to cross over from web to physical, I've also recently received Sydney Padua's gloriously well-produced The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage which is a somewhat involving read, but complements the webcomic very nicely.

    M.

  6. Bc1609

    Mistake in the questions

    I think you may have misread the alt-text of https://xkcd.com/695/.

    1. D@v3

      Re: Spirit

      That one always, almost, brings a tear to my eye

      1. Neil Barnes Silver badge
        Alien

        Re: Spirit

        You are not alone. Take another upvote.

  7. Crisp
    Thumb Up

    Randall Munroe on El Reg?

    We are not worthy!

  8. GregC

    What If? was (and remains) a brilliant read, and I'm thoroughly looking forward to getting this one too. Love Munroe's work.

  9. DropBear
    Trollface

    " I had a professor who would draw these weird pyramid cubes"

    Careful there - depending on whether you draw that cube in an orthographic or perspective projection (and from what angle) it can actually legitimately look exactly like a truncated pyramid viewed from above...

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      No, pops, it's too risky! For all we know, there could be cubes in there the size of gorillas!

      - The Simpson's Tree House of Horror, Homer3

      Paralleling Mr Munroe's career path, a great number of The Simpson's writers hold maths or physics degrees: http://mathsci2.appstate.edu/~sjg/simpsonsmath/degrees.html

  10. Zog_but_not_the_first
    Thumb Up

    Randall Munroe and The Reg

    Good to know I'm in such illustrious company. In a humble, modest way, of course. Honest.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    There is a version in German

    "Dinge-Erklärer". I wonder if it uses 1000 words or even less, since German (at least for me) seems to join all words into a few ones :-)

    Lebensabschnittgefährter would agree.

    1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Re: There is a version in German

      Well, that's compund languages for you.

      BTW: male "Lebensabschnittgefährte", female "Lebensabschnittgefährtin"

      And if your Finnish is up to it, you can really knock yourself out, try atomiydinenergiareaktorigeneraattorilauhduttajaturbiiniratasvaihde for size...

  12. Phil W

    Biannual

    Isn't biannual when you like both normal years and leap years?

    I'm surprised it took Randall much time or discussion on the difference and correct usage of biannual and semi-annual for meetings that occur twice a year, though.

    Bi is a Latin derived prefix meaning two.

    Biannual means twice a year, this could be a meeting in January and a meeting in Jube or a meeting in February and a meeting in December. The gap between them is unimportant, if there's two a year it's biannual

    Semi is a Latin derived prefix meaning half.

    Semi-annual means half a year, this is a meeting every six months. While there will of course still always be two meetings in a year, they will always be 6 months apart if it is Semi-annual.

    If you're bilingual you speak to languages, you're semi-lingual yo spe ha a lang.

    1. Bc1609

      Re: Biannual

      So, semi-annual meetings are by definition also biannual, but biannual meetings are not necessarily semi-annual. Of course, biannual can also mean biennial, which can mean either "once every two years" or "lasting for two years", which would mean that biannual has three possible meanings, and semi-annual two, if the pattern is followed. Perfectly simple.

    2. roytrubshaw
      Paris Hilton

      Re: Biannual

      Isn't biannual when you like both normal years and leap years?

      Chortle!

      <pedant>There was much discussion on Explain XKCD (http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1602) about this.

      I think - maybe - the confusion should have been between biannual and biennial. Biannual and semi-annual both mean the same thing i.e. twice a year. Biennial means once every two years.</pedant>

    3. Camilla Smythe

      Re: Biannual

      Actually it's the 'Sasquatchannual Meeting'. If you can figure out when it is and turn up you are Picnic. Don't forget to bring your own Dressing.

    4. Little Mouse

      Re: Biannual

      Isn't biannual when you like both normal years and leap years?

      Nah - it refers to those weird kids who wanted both the Beano and the Dandy books for Xmas

      1. ratfox
        Windows

        Re: Biannual

        My dictionary claims that bimonthly can mean any of twice a month, or every two months.

        I'm honestly not sure what use such a word can be anymore. I blame descriptivism.

  13. Dr. Mouse

    My copy arrived today

    I laughed out loud just at the cover!

    I can't wait to dig in, although it is not without risks. I read the introduction on lunch, then immediately had to send an email. Just before I hit send, I realised I had written it in thing-explainer style.... Quick rewrite needed, as it was being sent to an offsite developer!

  14. Joe Werner Silver badge
    Trollface

    Subtitle: "habit forming"

    Did anybody else think of this one?

    http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/50.html

    1. Midnight

      Re: Subtitle: "habit forming"

      Be careful. That comic can be hobbit faux-ming.

  15. Stevie

    Bah!

    Ordered my copy months ago.

    In the interrim, credit card "borrowed" - twice. Two consecutive new cards and a few months later, payment declined at Amazon.

    Bah!

  16. Lord_Beavis
    Stop

    Get El Reg a tissue

    They're drooling everywhere...

  17. captain veg Silver badge

    “I call bats 'skin birds'"

    I was slightly intrigued when I learned that the French call bats "bald mice" (chauves-souris). Surely the most remarkable thing about a bat is that it is a mouse-like(ish) mammal that can fly, not that it has a bare bonce. Like in German, Fledermäuse.

    A friend suggested that the French are more interested in appearance, while the Germans care about function.

    -A.

    1. ratfox
      Boffin

      Re: “I call bats 'skin birds'"

      The word was deformed from the Latin which meant owl-mice. Supposedly, owl because it flies and is nocturnal.

  18. Michael Thibault

    Next stop: making simple the very old big people's school word book's what-the-word-means using only the top ten hundred words.

    (with a little help from http://splasho.com/upgoer5/)

    Anyway, look forward to a close reading of Thing Explainer; I expect it will be entertaining, and a brain-strainer.

  19. Danny 2

    He answered Time in comic form.

    My friend who most took to XKCD isn't a techie or that scientific, but he loves it all the more because he learns more from it. His favourites are the epic diagrams. And he had the decency to buy me the Shark-balloon T Shirt and let me read the first book, so I've informed him of the new one.

    I love the ten hundred most common word limit, reminiscent of NewSpeak. Dutch only has 50,000 words which is why they haven't written any world class literature, (sorry, hoor, Anne Frank) but are good at inventing TV game shows and negotiating business deals.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Dutch

      Is that some kind of joke? If it is, I don't get it. Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal contains over 430,000 entries... though that's completely irrelevant. People invent words if and when they need them. All human languages have an infinite potential vocabulary even if no large academic dictionaries have been compiled for them. Most words never get recorded in any dictionary.

      1. Danny 2

        Re: Dutch

        No joke. "Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal contains over 430,000 entries" - aye, but it lists all Dutch words since the middle-ages most of which are never used in a modern dictionary or heard anywhere. Plus most damningly it lists the same words multiple times from different sources. So take the word Lekker, great, it lists it eleven times! That's typical Dutch c̶h̶e̶a̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ 'creative accounting'.

        English is the greatest language, take it from a Scot.

  20. Fungus Bob

    Obligatory Youtube...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-a8TG-1gWY

  21. Simon Rockman

    If you try the hoverboard game..

    Try ignoring the "RETURN TO PLAY AREA" request. There is lots either side to explore.

    http://xkcd.com/1608/

    1. Robert Sneddon

      Re: If you try the hoverboard game..

      And up above too (lots of Star Wars references...). There are also "soft" areas here and there in the floors and ceilings where the hoverboard can get through.

  22. John Hughes

    One for El Reg

    1379

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