To my surprise we actually had a few threads with the "xkcd" tag before the one I made just now. This one, which will turn ten next year, is the oldest.
I actually went and looked up "blag" on Wiktionary just now, and it gives the following two noun definitions (among others for verb and adjective usage):
1. (Britain, informal) A means of obtaining something by trick or deception. A good blag to get into a nightclub is to walk in carrying a record box.
2. (Britain criminal slang) An armed robbery.
2014, Echo Freer, Diamond Geezers "I know your old man's keen for you to learn the ropes an' all that, but let's not forget who's running this blag, shall we?"
Seems like the Brits squatted the domain for this blag.
I dunno, I follow him on twitter and other than posting his comic when it goes up, he almost exclusively tweets pictures of cool wildlife and space things. He was also on an episode of a podcast I listen to once, where he was faced with a humorous math problem about mice.
He seems like a fairly mellow guy in general, at least nowadays.
I think he posts stuff that he thinks is intellectually curious, and that sometimes includes some esoteric stuff, and the way it's presented focuses on that curiosity, rather than necessarily making the content accessible to broader audiences. Sometimes that "focused oddness" ends up sounding like contempt.
Comments
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
I was thinking it was to be a dismissive statement along the lines of "cool story bro" whenever someone says something overly whiny.
Why don't you write about it on your BLAG? :D
I don't know much about the man himself.
If you're referring to the attitudes expressed in his comic, I don't get that impression. Though there are certainly some groups he doesn't like.