Randall Munroe

Cartoonist

Our Guess:

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Logical, original, creative thinkers. Can become very excited about theories and ideas. Exceptionally capable and driven to turn theories into clear understandings. Highly value knowledge, competence and logic. Quiet and reserved, hard to get to know well. Individualistic, having no interest in leading or following others.

Discussion

Biography

Randall Patrick Munroe is an American cartoonist, author, and the creator of the webcomic xkcd. He and the webcomic have developed a cult following, and after leaving NASA, he became a professional webcomic artist.

Wikipedia

Quotes by Randall Munroe

I learned very early on in life that not everyone wants to hear every fact in the world, even if you want to tell them everything you've ever read.

The thing about the Internet is that you can write something... for a very narrow audience and make a living at it.

Once I got married, I started working from an office. I found that having somewhere to go that isn't my house is mentally helpful: 'This is the place where I answer email and write blog posts,' and 'over there is the place where I do the dishes.'

One of the things I've learned with doing 'xkcd' is that you sort of give people, 'Here's the thing, and here's the button you can press to get another thing.' Sometimes that can be more easy to digest than, 'Here's a long page of things.'

I think the really cool and compelling thing about math and physics is that it opens up entry to all these hypotheticals - or at least, it gives you the language to talk about them. But at the same time, if a scenario is completely disconnected from reality, it's not all that interesting.

Man, Farmville is so huge! Do you realize it's the second-biggest browser-based social-networking-centered farming game in the world?

What people don't appreciate, when they picture Terminator-style automatons striding triumphantly across a mountain of human skulls, is how hard it is to keep your footing on something as unstable as a mountain of human skulls. Most humans probably couldn't manage it, and they've had a lifetime of practice at walking without falling over.

I don't have hard numbers about this, but the impression I get is that the amount of eyeballs you get from being on the humor shelf at Barnes & Noble - it is almost insignificant.

I read comics and I did science, and never really put them together until I accidentally found myself in the middle of one.

Google owns YouTube, and recently, I drew a comic about an idea for a YouTube feature - which they actually took seriously and implemented. So I'm thinking that maybe we'll have a future where Google is 'xkcd.'

Related Videos

Randall Munroe: "What If?" | Talks at Google
Comics that ask "what if?" | Randall Munroe
Simplicity In Complexity | Randall Munroe
Randall Munroe: "xkcd" | Talks at Google
Randall Munroe in conversation with Will Wheaton
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe Audiobook
XKCD Comes to Dartmouth!
What If? by Randall Munroe
JCCC3 - Randall Munroe (xkcd)
Corrections from Readers -- Randall Munroe on JoCo Cruise Crazy 3