Kicking it off with xkcd

The first blog post!

Eventually, I hope this blog will introduce you to lots of neat things you didn’t know of before. But for the first post, I thought I’d begin with a classic: one of my favorite xkcd comics.

In case there’s anyone out there who hasn’t yet discovered xkcd, let this be a wake-up call! The comic, written and drawn by Randall Munroe, describes itself as “a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.” That’s accurate as far as it goes, but what’s truly noteworthy is Munroe’s wit as he jokes about a wide range of unabashedly geeky topics using relatively simple artwork and few words. The Redwall comic linked to above is no exception, combining fantasy epics with public key cryptography.

Though it doesn’t contain much that regular readers won’t already know, I enjoyed this article about xkcd in the New York Times. It’s great to see a “geek-cult-hero” (as they describe him) getting mainstream publicity.