Randall Munroe, who hails from Central Virginia.

At Google headquarters, a required stop on the geek-cult-hero speaking tour, he recently addressed hundreds of engineers, some of whom dutifully waited for him to sign their laptops. He said he had only wanted a tour of the place but had instead been invited to speak.

He isn’t local anymore; he is, in a sense, worldwide. The New York Times has the profile of. . . .