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Showing results for tags 'we love you randall munroe'.
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Okay, just a quick post here. Randall Munroe, the guy who does xkcd, recently released a book called Thing Explainer. I haven't checked it out yet, but it's basically a book in which he explains complex things using the 1,000 most commonly used words in the English language. ...guess where he got the idea? I don't know whether others have discussed this, as Munroe has probably told this story in other places as well. But I just got my latest copy of the magazine New Scientist, where I found the following: Douglas Heaven: "How did you get the idea of explaining complex things using only the 1,000 most common words?" Munroe: "The idea actually grew out of an xkcd comic I did. I was playing a computer game in which you have to design rockets and successfully launch them. My spaceships would always blow up, so every launch I needed to find a new name. I quickly got tired of giving them majestic names like 'The Falcon' and I started giving them stupid names like 'The Flying Space Boat.' The dumbest thing I could come up with was 'Up Goer.' Then I started thinking, 'Hey, what if I did a whole diagram where I labelled everything using really dumb words?'" Given the amount of times Randall mentioned KSP in other xkcd strips, I really doubt that "computer game" is anything other than the one we know and love. So to make a long story short, the KSP team unintentionally inspired an entire book that's now on the New York Times bestseller list. My friends, I have no words to describe how awesome this is. That is all. -Upsilon [EDIT 1 (given, this came after the edit below. I'm just putting it here for the sake of formatting.) Forumer fourfa linked an absolutely fantastic article which confirms that the Up Goer Five idea came from KSP! You can find it here: http://arstechnica.com/the-multiverse/2015/12/a-brief-chat-with-xkcds-randall-munroe-the-thing-explainer-explainer/ ...Thanks, fourfa!] [EDIT 1.1: r4pt0r had a great idea. Presenting the original Up-Goer Five post. Caution: it's a bit of a large image...]
