Politics and Prose
@politicsprose·255K subscribers·4K videos
Randall Munroe, "How To"
Posted
October 19, 2019
Views
8,341
Likes
96
Engagement
1.15%
October 19, 2019
8,341
96
1.15%
Every word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.
Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.
Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line
See what was published immediately before and after this episode.
1:12:34Now PlayingRandall Munroe discusses his book, "How To".
Randall Munroe, the brilliant mind behind the wildly popular webcomic xkcd and the #1 New York Times bestsellers What If? and Thing Explainer, brings readers a way to better understand the science and technology behind the things we do every day with How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems. For any task you might want to do, there's a right way, a wrong way, and a way so monumentally complex, excessive, and inadvisable that no one would ever try it. How To is a guide to the third kind of approach. It's full of highly impractical advice for everything from landing a plane to digging a hole. Munroe teaches you how to tell if you're a baby boomer or a 90's kid by measuring the radioactivity of your teeth, gives instructions on powering your house by destroying the fabric of space-time, and even offers tips for taking a selfie with a telescope. By exploring the most complicated ways to do simple tasks, Munroe doesn't just make things difficult for himself and his readers, he invites us to explore the most absurd reaches of the possible.
Munroe is in conversation with American humorist and Washington Post columnist Alexandra Petri.
Randall Munroe is the author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers What If? and Thing Explainer, the science question-and-answer blog What If, and the popular webcomic xkcd. A former NASA roboticist, he left the agency in 2006 to draw comics on the internet full-time. He lives in Massachusetts.
Founded by Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade in 1984, Politics and Prose Bookstore is Washington, D.C.'s premier independent bookstore and cultural hub, a gathering place for people interested in reading and discussing books. Politics and Prose offers superior service, unusual book choices, and a haven for book lovers in the store and online. Visit them on the web at
Produced by Tom Warren
Sentinel Indexing in Progress
Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.
All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.
