Well, I survived. My best estimate is that 700-800 people were there at the event’s peak, which was far more than I expected. I suspect that the SWIL equivalents at nearby academic institutions helped mobilize everyone.
There was a preponderance of geeky t-shirts, not just ones from XKCD. I was weird in that I was wearing a boring, collared polo shirt. On the other hand, I didn’t want to be “that guy” and wear a shirt from the comic. Plenty of people did that for me.
There was a big wall of signatures – somewhere, on one of them, is a simple “UltraNurd was here.” If someone chooses to google that, they will find me.
I chatted for a while with
I did not see
The age cohort was not very diverse (a very fast fall-off over the age of… 25, I’d say). A much better male/female mix than I usually see at geeky events; I suppose that’s an indicator of XKCD’s broad appeal (as opposed to say, Penny Arcade, which to my knowledge is a very male audience).
There were a number of amusing things going on – a tape measure extension contest; some guy wrote out the DeCSS code on a sidewalk; lots of humours signs, posters, and shirts, and generally just a SWIL-write-large kind of crowd. The spectacle alone was entertaining.
Leave a Reply to ruthlingCancel reply