XKCD's Randall Munroe and Cory Doctorow

Autographs of Cory Doctorow and Randall Munroe

Attended a discussion between XKCD cartoonist Randall Munroe and Cory Doctorow on September 11, 2019, in support of Munroe's new book, "HOW TO: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems".

Got a few seconds of interaction with both authors. Munroe asked Dawn what she did, and he encouraged her to keep going. He asked me, after seeing that my post-it note was blank (where you would write what you want him to write) "I wonder about the legal implications of having a blank first and last name", which reminded me of his cartoon with the child having NULL as a surname.

Cory noticed Dawn's Hamilton shirt and they briefly talked about how their experiences. I thanked Cory for letting me know about the Calyx hotspot and he shared that he still uses his and that the Calyx folks are good people.

Randall shared one anecdote not in the book: during his conversation with Chris Hadfield, it went over time and he heard Hadfield scanning his airplane ticket and walking down the passenger boarding ramp. Randall hung up because he felt "terrible" for causing Hadfield to discuss--in front of other passengers--scenarios where the plane would have to land unexpectedly. But he realized Hadfield seemed to really enjoy the discussion.

A running joke was "the 2003 film, The Core", which involved a crash landing of a space shuttle.

Randall shared a memory of his mother apologizing to him for making a big deal out of him not knowing something, and he talked about how it just involves people learning things out of order (viz., learning about the movie about the Titanic before learning about the actual Titanic sinking).