xkcd | Randall Munroe | Talks at Google
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN refers to it for the moment where Knuth asks a question and addresses the Steve Jobs anecdote, a favorite geek moment.
What it is
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.
Recommended by 1 HN commenters across 1 different months, 2008 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Recommends pjmorris · 2013-08 · on “Creator of xkcd Reveals Secret Backstory of His Epic 3,990-Panel Comic”
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]
Cites antiform · 2008-10 · on “When Steve Jobs met Don Knuth”
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."
Cites tomhoward · 2010-04 · on “Steve Jobs meets Don Knuth”
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".
Cites philfreo · 2011-10 · on “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] .
Cites tompko · 2013-03 · on “What is your best programmer joke?”
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]
Cites nighthawk454 · 2014-09 · on “Work Habits at Apple”
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]
Cites Permit · 2018-12 · on “The Yoda of Silicon Valley”
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]
Cites pjmorris · 2020-08 · on “The Yoda of Silicon Valley (2018)”
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]