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I Love xkcd from NoamR on Vimeo.

This isn't Raby's first foray into xkcd animation. In addition to "xkcd Loves the Discovery Channel", Raby also animated "Letting Go," one of xkcd's many heartbreak-meets-programming strips:

Letting Go from NoamR on Vimeo.

[NoamR via Metafilter]

Munroe, who just released xkcd: volume 0 last week, appeared at last night's Electronic Frontier Foundation's Geek Reading fundraiser. Munroe talked a bit about the experience of publishing the book, which contains strips from the site as well as annotations, the centerpiece of the event was a question and answer session. Users on Reddit submitted and voted on questions to ask Munroe to create a sort of crowd-sourced interview. Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian (who also founded breadpig, the company that published xkcd: volume 0.

We were at the event and took video of the ten questions (plus one non-question) Munroe answered over the course of the evening, questions ranging from topics he won't write about to one fan's take on the Traveling Salesman Problem:

[xkcd]

Now maybe you're knowingly dating a robot, or perhaps you've had one constructed for that very purpose. But if you think your guy or gal might be an artificial intelligence, but you're not sure, look for these symptoms:

You've Only Spoken to Them Online

xkcd: It's always risky dating someone online. You don't know if that cute girl you've been chatting with is really an octogenarian with great taste in movies — or a particularly sophisticated spambot. Fortunately, this savvy Internet user knows a test for artificial intelligence far more efficient that the Turing Test or the Voight-Kampff.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer "I Robot...You Jane:" We all learn a valuable lesson about chatting with strange men when sweet, awkward Willow starts an online romance with Malcolm. She thinks she's found the man of her dreams — or at least someone to help her forget Xander for a while. Tragically, "Malcolm" is actually "Moloch," an ancient demon trapped in the school's computer system whose only means of physical interaction is through a robot body.

There Are Multiple Copies

Battlestar Galactica: Glowing spines would have been a handy way to tell the Cylons from the humans, but barring that, there are a few other ways to tell if the person you're sexing up is a Cylon. Baltar and Tyrol both date Cylon women with a penchant for sabotage, but Helo gets the most definitive clue to his lady friend's true nature, when he spots her exact duplicate hanging around Caprica with a Number Six.

Star Trek "Requiem for Methuselah:" Rayna Kapec seems like the perfect woman: intelligent, beautiful, and a great pool players. It's no wonder that Captain Kirk, who falls in lust every other week, pursues her. But, alas it's not meant to be. Kirk and Spock stumble into a chamber belonging to Rayna's guardian Flint, containing several earlier gynoid versions of the lovely Rayna. The emotional impact of learning that she's a robot and being forced to choose between Kirk and Flint prove too much for Rayna's circuits to handle, prompting an irrevocable meltdown.

The Twilight Zone "In His Image:" Jessica Connelly never actually learns that Alan Talbot, the man she fell in love with, is a robot. His creator and physical doppleganger, Walter Ryder, just quietly takes his place after Alan malfunctions and starts developing homicidal impulses.

They're Three Laws Compliant

Foundation: We'd all like our significant others to respect human life and to protect us when we're in danger. But Dors Venabili, Hari Seldon's bodyguard and eventual wife, is actually programed to do just that. Seldon does suspect that she's a robot, but by then he has already fallen for her.

Their Affection Can Kill

Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me: British Intelligence never bothered to tell Austin Powers that his partner and new bride Vanessa Kensington is, in fact, a fembot planted by Dr. Evil. Austin learns soon enough when Vanessa points a pair of machine guns from her breasts, though she notes he would have figured it out sooner if he'd tried a little foreplay.

Kim Possible: So the Drama: When crime-fighting teenager Kim Possible needs a date to her junior prom, new student Eric appears just in the nick of time to be Kim's first steady boyfriend. She's understandably devastated when her nemesis Dr. Drakken kidnaps her new beau, and rushes to save him. But when Kim gives the newly liberated Eric a relieved hug, he electrocutes her, revealing himself to be one of Drakken's Synthodrones.

They Dance Like No Human Dances

"Der Sandmann" by ETA Hoffmann: Summer Glau's ballerina background may have been an excuse to place the Terminator Cameron in toe shoes, but gynoids have a long history of dancing. Olimpia, for example, is quiet adept at dance as well as singing and playing the harpsichord. Many find her cold and stiff movements a bit off-putting, but Nathanael, a young student already engaged to another woman, develops a passionate obsession with her. When he learns that Olimpia was an automaton all along, he's driven mad by the revelation, leaping to his death.

Metropolis: When the Joh Fredersen and Rotwang conspire to place a robot made to resemble the popular worker leader Maria upon the working caste, they hold a dance performance to see if the people of Metropolis see her as human. It works, and the men of Metropolis are immediately captivated. It's Fredersen's son Freder, who is in love with the real Maria, who eventually recognizes that she's not the girl he fell for, and must be a copy.

They've Returned from the Dead

Machine Teen: Carly Whitmere knows that her boyfriend, Adam Aaronson, is frequently ill, but never would she guess that his bouts of illness are the result of glitches in his robotic systems. It's actually not Carly, but Adam's best friend JT who first discovers his robotic nature, and later helps repair Adam after he is seemingly shot to death.

Star Trek "What Are Little Girls Made Of?:" Starfleet had lost contact with Nurse Christine Chapel's fiance Dr. Roger Korby for several years, so she was relieved to discover him apparently alive and well on Exo III. But it turns out the Korby she encounters is not quite the man she remembers, but an android copy that the dying Korby imbued with his appearance and memories, one who firmly believes in robot supremacy.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer "Ted:" When Joyce Summers starts dating Ted Buchanan, he seems to good to be true. He's charming, a fantastic cook, and happy to spend an afternoon playing miniature golf. Unfortunately, Ted also happens to be the robotic equivalent of Bluebeard, wooing women only to later hold them captive and watch them die. Although Buffy takes an instant dislike to this interloper, and accidentally "kills" him after Ted slaps her, Joyce only catches on to Ted's evil nature when Ted returns from the dead, all glitchy and malfunctioning.

Phil Manning of the University of Manchester has been examining the biomechanics of raptors, with an especial focus on the dinosaurs' claws, which Manning previously found were sharp enough to puncture skin, but probably could not tear it open. Manning now believes that the claws were better suited to climbing trees than ripping open prey, with the Velociraptor waiting for prey to appear below them and then leaping down, hooking its claws into a hapless animal and delivering a killing blow with its powerful teeth.

If Manning is correct, this may demand a revision of Randall Munroe's famous Velociraptor problem:

Velociraptor's 'killing' claws were for climbing [New Scientist]
Raptor problem from xkcd.

Wired blogger Jenna Wortham quotes opening keynote speaker David Weinberger, a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, describing how web fame has transformed fame as a whole:

"We made him, made them, famous," Weinberger said while showing photographs of the Star Wars Kid, Obama Girl, the home page of Turkish net fad Mahir and clips of YouTube's ubiquitous laughing babies. Weinberger went on to describe the current state of the fame game, saying that the traditional model of Hollywood megacelebrity is "based on alienation" — a model, Weinberger says, that opens the door for us to reinterpret our notions of fame.

"[Hollywood celebrities] cease to be famous when we see them as they are," a concept he demonstrated by showing several gossip magazine pictures of celebrities without their makeup. "Blogging, however, is all about taking off the 'makeup.' They're exposing themselves as fallible human beings."

The same holds true for the rest of the web celebs. "What's famous on the web looks like it was done by a human hand," said Weinberger, while showing a Homestar Runner graphic. "They still feel like ours."

"It's not just the homespun quality of what's famous on the web. It's how fame works — it's becoming much more DIY," said Weinberger. "Fame is now living in a long tail, or a long continuum of ways to be famous."

While it sounded like a seriously fun party at ROFLCon, packed with people whose online creations I've been enjoying for years, it's hard to take seriously the idea that web celebrities are truly challenging the sartorial-celebrity industrial complex. Many of the "celebrities" in attendance didn't know who the other celebrities were, and a lot of the attendees were fans of the obscure rather than the popular.

Ultimately ROFLCon was a gathering of people who are subculturally famous, the way many weirdo artists and creators have been for at least the past 200 years. I'd love it if Tron Guy's fame really were challenging Tom Hanks' fame, making all of us into potential celebrities. And making Tom Hanks into less of a big deal, which he really should be. But if anything, ROFLCon proved that challenge isn't happening. Web celebrities, if you can call them that, have hundreds of cool, devoted fans. But they're going to need millions before I'm convinced that, as Weinberger asserts, we're "reinterpreting our notions of fame."

I guess what I'm saying is that millions of downloads aren't the same as millions of fans. Until they are, Gem Sweater lady will never vanquish Paris Hilton. I'm not sure if that's a tragedy or a joke.

Tron Guy photographed by Scott Beale.