xkcd To Be Released In Book Form

History's Coming To writes "xkcd creator Randall Munroe has revealed on his blag that the acclaimed stick-figure comic will be produced in real dead-tree book form. Fantastic news for all fans of comedy, maths, science, and relationship screw-ups — especially given that the book will be sold in aid of the charity 'Room To Read.' Rumors that the book contains a joke in the ISBN remain unconfirmed." The NY Times article that Munroe links (registration may be required) is from April of this year, and I am amazed that this community didn't note the story at that time. The book will be published by breadpig, which was created by Alexis Ohanian, one of the founders of reddit.

Comments

The Fans DID Notice It Though

[eldavojohn]

The NY Times article that Munroe links (registration may be required) is from April of this year, and I am amazed that this community didn't note the story at that time.

Well, using a very simple search (xkcd book) in the firehose, I found spongedaddy's submission, my own submission and even one of the bin spammers submitted it. And we all linked to the same NYTimes story.

Your firehose search tool is there, yes it's slow and clunky. I don't care that you rejected my submission of this story three months ago but don't say I didn't notice one of my favorite web comics being published in book form. I mean, go ahead and say "slow news day" in your summary, I don't care if you feel obligated to dig up old news for stories at 12:25 AM EST on a Tuesday. Also, it confuses me greatly that you provide for us a means to make sure we don't submit a URL that's already been submitted as the primary link by another individual ... yet you yourselves do not use this tool to your advantage when looking for duplicates.

Re:The Fans DID Notice It Though

[Praedon]

You sir, have just earned yourself a gold star, and a friend mark on Slashdot.

Re:The Fans DID Notice It Though

[MrMista_B]

You're right, of course, but - it's kdawson. That's all that need be said.

Re:The Fans DID Notice It Though

[sortius_nod]

Before I didn't like the negativity being pointed squarely at kdawson, but now I'm 100% in the anti-kdawson camp.

Don't shit on your readers mate.

Re:The Fans DID Notice It Though

[Threni]

> Don't shit on your readers mate.

I can't tell if that sentence is missing a comma or an apostrophe...

Re:The Fans DID Notice It Though

[Anonymous Coward]

The article was posted by kdawson from the 'my-normal-approach-is-useless-here' dept.

'here'?

Oblig xkcd reference

[ZiakII]

http://www.xkcd.com/

Re:Oblig xkcd reference

[Anonymous Coward]

The funny mod awards no positive karma, but all the negative mods give negative karma. Think carefully for a minute about the consequences of this, and the fact that not all people find the same things funny. 'Insightful' is the new 'Funny' by those that still bother with moderating slashdot at all.

Re:Oblig xkcd reference

[ppanon]

AH, but if you get moderated insightful or Informative, a lot of people will have the setting that adds a bonus point. So what happens is that your post never goes over 4 because that level gets displayed as a 5 with no possibility of getting modded up another point for a natural 5. Why is that a problem? Well, maybe you actually would like to get some more points on your achievement score, but you can never get your insightful and informative posts to crack the 4 glass ceiling.

Re:Oblig xkcd reference

[gamefaces]

Brings up a good point. Just how are you supposed to link to a book? I can see it now, There's an xkcd for that (page 30).

Re:Oblig xkcd reference

[Kadagan AU]

It deals double damage.

Limitations of Dead Tree

[AnonGCB]

So if I look at the pictures in the book long enough will the alt text pop up?

Re:Limitations of Dead Tree

[Aeternitas827]

"Oops, you got an injection attack! 327!"

I almost tried that IRL. My wife wouldn't let me pick our daughter's name.

Re:Limitations of Dead Tree

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Dude, Summer Glau is so going to rip your beating heart out of your chest out for that.

Re:Limitations of Dead Tree

[6Yankee]

Look on the bright side. You have a child, so clearly your injection attack was successful...

Re:I might buy this book...

[Goldberg's Pants]

Or you could just, you know, visit the website.

So much environmental stuff. Climate change, pollution, rampant deforestation etc... And here we are. Making books of websites.

Re:I might buy this book...

[Aeternitas827]

I don't always have the internet with me, in a form convenient for viewing xkcd or anything similar (my phone can only do so much). That, and turning pages and reading is faster than mindless clicking a next button that's never in quite the same spot. And, again, the bit of revenue to the author as a thanks for doing something they get very little for--blame me for being a blatant capitalist.

Re:I might buy this book...

[MichaelSmith]

I don't always have the internet with me, in a form convenient for viewing xkcd or anything similar

Randall take note. This guy is a rich source of meta tech culture irony.

Surprised at /. falling down again?

[shanen]

So the editor is surprised no one told /. about the recent news? Hey, they only missed that story by a few months. Surprise? That's a funnier laugh than the best of XKCD, which is saying a bit, since some of them are pretty funny.

Gee, you don't suppose the so-called editor could be in a position to do something to improve /. to the point where interesting news and humor would again be visible around here?

Of course personal recollection is just one data point at best, but... Some years ago I used to visit /. quite often, perhaps several times a day versus several times a week these days--unless a month or two has gone by. On an average visit I expected to see at several very interesting articles and at least one first report that I hadn't seen elsewhere versus my current expectation of seeing one or two non-boring stories and nothing that I haven't seen elsewhere one or two days earlier. A typical visit would reveal a number of very witty comments and usually one or two actually funny and new jokes versus the current crop of a scattering of very tired memes. I remember looking at a relatively large thread (which are relatively rare these days) and finding exactly one comment that had even been moderated as funny--and that one wasn't even amusing.

Most importantly, the moderation used to be pretty poor instead of downright horrendous. Apparently the lousy moderators have won that game--and I expect the moderation of this post to prove my point (yet again).

But the so-called editors are apparently quite satisfied with the devolution of the system. I guess lower traffic on /. means less so-called work for them?

Re:I might buy this book...

[Spy der Mann]

Or you could just, you know, visit the website.

So much environmental stuff. Climate change, pollution, rampant deforestation etc... And here we are. Making books of websites.

Print N books, cut down N/x trees. Keep a website running for N days, burn y kilograms of carbon for each one of those N days. (Or do you think all that bandwidth and server/routers usage is pollution-free?)

We all pollute the environment. I just don't think printing books is the greatest form of pollution.

Re:Is XKCD Shitty Today?

[geekboy642]

I like that you need somebody else's opinion to know whether something is enjoyable or not. I'd like you to check out my new websites: isslashdotshittytoday.com and arehatersshittytoday.com. I'm working on an iskdawsonshittytoday.com, but I keep getting divide by zero errors in the rss.