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xkcd | Randall Munroe | Talks at Google

Name: xkcd | Randall Munroe | Talks at Google
Description: Randall Munroe, creator of xkcd, gives an Authors@Google talk in 2007 about the webcomic and his background, followed by audience Q&A. Donald Knuth and Guido van Rossum ask questions during the session.

Talks at Google Talks

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1 HN user recommended this talk in 1 different month between 2008 and 2026.

2007–2026

1 recommendation 9 citations HackerTube score 1

HN refers to it for the moment where Knuth asks a question and addresses the Steve Jobs anecdote, a favorite geek moment.

Randall Munroe, creator of xkcd, gives an Authors@Google talk in 2007 about the webcomic and his background, followed by audience Q&A. Donald Knuth and Guido van Rossum ask questions during the session.

Pull quote: “one of the all-time great geek moments was when Munroe did a tech talk at Google” (HN, 2013)

Also tagged: xkcd and randall munroe, xkcd, randall munroe, donald knuth, talks at google, webcomics

What Hacker News said

10 labeled comments from the HN archive; up to 20 are kept per video, favoring different commenters. Each one links back to the original thread.

Recommends pjmorris August 2013 under Creator of xkcd Reveals Secret Backstory of His Epic 3,990-Panel Comic

Knuth asks Munroe questions at Google talk

To me, one of the all-time great geek moments was when Munroe did a tech talk at Google, and Don Knuth gets up to ask him if he's thought about doing animated cartoons, and what is his favorite log log n sorting algorithm, about 21:30 in to this: [this video]

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Citations, criticism and jokes

Cites it antiform October 2008 under When Steve Jobs met Don Knuth

Knuth comments on the Jobs anecdote

Maybe Knuth was more of a rebel back in the day, but somehow I can't imagine him having that sort of response. In Randall Munroe's Authors@Google talk [ [this video] ], Don Knuth asks him a question at ~21:30 and at ~25:30 Randall asks Knuth about this very anecdote. Knuth's response is "I've been told this story a number of times...but I was impressed by him more than he was impressed by me."

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Cites it tomhoward April 2010 under Steve Jobs meets Don Knuth

Knuth and Munroe exchange about Jobs story

This story is the subject of a fascinating exchange between Knuth and Randall Munroe in Munroe's Authors@Google talk: [this video] Knuth neither confirms nor outright denies the story, but says "I've only met [Jobs] a couple of times and in each case I was impressed by him probably more than he was impressed by me".

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Cites it philfreo October 2011 under Find apartments by commute times

YES!!! I was literally searching everywhere for this only 1 week ago and determined that there was nothing good out there. Relevant: [this video] Now, if only there was a way to enter 2 addresses (for spouses/roommates) and have it give you the places with the best cumulative commute times. EDIT: Just saw Mapnificent does this! Would also love to see this fully integrated into [link] .

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Cites it tompko March 2013 under What is your best programmer joke?

Knuth debunks the story; Guido asks Python questions

There's a talk by Randall Munroe (xkcd) at google where this is debunked by Knuth himself. It also features him being asked questions about Python by Guido. [this video]

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Cites it nighthawk454 September 2014 under Work Habits at Apple

Talk with real-time translated subtitles

Google has some pretty good software for this, thought it might be internal. When they have their "Talks at Google" events, there's a screen off to the side that provides real-time translated subtitles. There's at least one talk where the speaker addresses this system, and tries to get it to transcribe funny stuff. Can't remember which one exactly, but it might be this one with Randall Munroe (xkcd). [this video]

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Cites it Permit December 2018 under The Yoda of Silicon Valley

Knuth himself doubts the story

FWIW Knuth himself doesn't think this happened nor does he sound like the kind of person (to me) who would try to cut someone down like that: [this video]

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Cites it pjmorris August 2020 under The Yoda of Silicon Valley (2018)

Knuth asking Munroe questions during Q&A

There are many more important things about Knuth and his work, but one of my favorite stories about him is that he showed up at Randall Munroe's Google tech talk [0], and, during Q&A, asked Munroe "Have you thought about animated cartoons?" and "What is your n log n algorithm for searching?" I have a special respect for people who are both brilliant and humble, and Knuth is my poster person for that. [0] [this video]

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Cites it lIl-IIIl February 2023 under More than half of YC startups don't have a dot com

Randall explains origin of the xkcd name

Randall wanted a unique short string associated with all his work. That way he could Google "xkcd" and find everything he ever did online. I believe he had a script that generated all possible 4-letter combinations and filtered out ones with any search results, and settled on "xkcd". But he became a victim of his own success when the comic became so popular and "xkcd" is now synonymous with the comic. Source: talk by Randall, might be this one but I'm not sure: [this video] .

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Cites it svat January 2026 under The Jeff Dean Facts

Munroe's Google talk with Knuth question

FWIW the XKCD talk at Google is here (wow, 18 years ago! I remember watching this video when it was posted): [this video] (Knuth comes up to ask a question at 21:30) (Can't tell from the video where he was sitting otherwise, though there are definitely at least some people sitting on the floor.)

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