Last night was my first time in an MIT lecture hall, and wow was it fun. Someone was video-taping most of the talk right in front of me, but I haven’t found that video online yet. Meanwhile, there is thread where more pictures will likely show up here. Randall started his talk with an expose on what people will do when presented with a string un-obviously suspended from an out of site kite. He later returned to kites and what could be dropped from them (video). final version of the comic here. Randell seemed like he had a bit of every friend I know, who appreciates xkcd, in him.
- Favorite Ice Cream: J.P. Licks Cake Batter — me
- 300 character 1 line perl program to display website hits — Paul
- Calvin and Hobbes: the best comic of its generation — everyone!
- Expanded music tastes to Guitaur Hero 2! — Jed
- All things related to kitties — Beth
- Emacs user — everyone except Paul?
He started talking how he was inspired to start xkcd by MIT’s hacks page (link pending). Shortly after he said that a whole bunch of play pen balls, with the HD-DVD key on it fell from trap doors in the ceiling. The balls made /. I managed to snag one in the thrush of flying balls that followed:
Most of the talk was a question and answer session including “will you make me a sandwich?”. Overall it was just an hour and a half of hilarious inside joke geeky-ness. I am so glad I went, but I did feel almost unprepared for it. I am just on the outskirts of the xkcd universe, that is for sure. It was really interesting getting an inside look at the real people who live the blogosphere and drive internet culture, or at least a small part of it. Randall waxed a bit on his ideas on the nature of humor as a decision problem which I wish i could recreate here. Anyways, you all should have been there, esp those of you in Boston. On a down note I didn’t make any new xkcd friends as I had hoped I would.