Popular Web strip for geeks continues to entertain
I was speaking yesterday to a teacher whose British accent is pronounced when he mentioned Monty Python in passing. “Who doesn’t like Monty Python,” I said. And his sour expression reminded me that not everyone does, not even every Brit.
So it is with Randall Munroe’s Web comic, xkcd: I know there are people who don’t like it, but it’s a mystery to me as to why. I’m a big fan, so it is with pleasure that I post Munroe’s 1,000th xkcd strip, which he published today:
Aside from the obvious criticisms engendered by stick figures, another complaint heard about xkcd is that it isn’t always easy to understand. That’s true enough, which is why this site, explain xkcd, can be so valuable. And while the 1,000th strip requires little explanation, here’s what explain xkcd has to say about it:
This is obviously the 1000th xkcd comic. In this comic, click on the image above to see the large version, Randall has put (almost?) every stick figure character he has used through the 5+ years into the number 1000. Can’t know for certain if this is all the characters, but it is an awful lot and I recognize a bunch.
The joke in this comic is Cueball saying at the bottom, “Only 24 more to go for a big round number”. First and obviously, 1000 is a big round number, but in binary notation, 1024 is represented as 10000000000, making it a simple round number occurring frequently in computers.
That site has bailed me out on more than one occasion.
I’ve also written about xkcd on more than occasion. Here are the xkcd-related posts I was able to find in the time it takes to draw a stick figure:
- An xkcd for anyone who has ever named a server.
- YouTube takes a page from xkcd.
- Researchers ping through first full ‘Internet census’ in 25 years (with a hat-tip to xkcd).
- Times breaks out xkcd-to-English translator.
- New sport brought to you by xkcd.
Congratulations, Randall. Your fans are looking forward to the next thousand.
Welcome regulars and passersby. Here are a few more recent buzzblog items. And, if you’d like to receive Buzzblog via e-mail newsletter, here’s where to sign up. You can follow me on Twitter here and on Google+ here.
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