Difference between revisions of "xkcd: volume 0"
(AI WAS USED TO GENERATE THIS SECTION. I reviewed it and heavily edited it but it seems correct. The details are from my chat with ibid, the guy who recorded randall's answer to the peptides WI? incident. you can ask me for details!) |
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==See also== | ==See also== | ||
* pg 1 [[10: Pi Equals]] | * pg 1 [[10: Pi Equals]] | ||
Revision as of 12:19, 28 February 2026
| Books by Randall Munroe | xkcd: volume 0 • What If? • Thing Explainer • How To • What If? 2 • What If? 10th Anniversary Edition |
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This is one of 70 incomplete explanations: Please help by editing it! |
xkcd: volume 0 is a book by Randall Munroe released on August 24, 2010. It features a collection of comics personally chosen by Randall from the initial 600 entries of the webcomic. These comics were assembled from high-resolution original scans and include the original or, sometimes, a different title text. The book is available to read in full on the Internet Archive.
xkcd: volume 0 is the first xkcd book! It features selections from the first 600 comics, including various author and fan favorites. It was lovingly assembled from high-resolution original scans of the comics (the mouseover text is discreetly included), and features a lot of doodles, notes, and puzzles in the margins.
The book is published by Breadpig, a company founded by Randall's friend Alexis, and their portion of the profits will go to build a school in Laos through the charity Room to Read.
volume 0 service pack 1
A little-known aspect of xkcd: Volume 0 is the existence of a limited supplementary booklet commonly known as the xkcd volume 0 service pack 1. The booklet is a limited edition supplement to Volume 0, not a distinct alternate edition of the book itself. This booklet was not commercially distributed, but instead handed out in person by Randall Munroe at a fan meetup. Readers discovered that solving the cipher embedded in the book's red text revealed details for a real-world meetup, including a specific time and location. This puzzle was collaboratively solved by members of the xkcd community, primarily through discussions on the official xkcd Forums.
A surviving record of this effort is preserved via the Wayback Machine at Puzzles from the xkcd book (big puzzle SOLVED!). This thread documents much of the community's process in deciphering the puzzle. At least one portion of the cipher was not have been solved as intended, instead being determined via brute force after other parts were completed.
Once the puzzle was solved, approximately 100 fans attended the meetup at the specified location. At this event, Randall Munroe distributed copies of the "Service Pack 1" booklet as a reward for participants. Several videos of the meetup have been preserved online:
- XKCD Randall Munroe surprising his fans at the MEETUP
- XKCD 2010 Meetup - Giving Out Cupcakes
- XKCD 2010 Meetup - Cupcakes
- XKCD 2010 Meetup - Cupcakes 2
- Facebook 6/26/10: XKCD event
At least one known scan exists, created by a private owner and shared informally. (I'll upload it to wikipedia when i have time.)
Transcript
Front cover
- [A bit above the middle of the page, there is the title of the book with the subtitle in a smaller font size below it. Neither the title nor the subtitle are capitalized.]
- xkcd
- volume 0
- [In the bottom right of the page stand Megan, on the right, and Cueball, on the left, holding hands. Cueball looks away from Megan, to the left, and Megan looks away from Cueball, to the right.]
Back cover
|
This is one of 46 incomplete transcripts: Expand on the back If you can fix this issue, edit the page! |
- [There are several otherwise nondescript gray rectangles on which the characters stand on. Red spiders are present throughout the panel.]
- [Two of these rectangles are attached from the area around the right corner and going off of the cover, in an L-shape. Black Hat stands on it, taking notes on a journal. Twenty-three red spiders lie on the object. Nine of them are clustered in the inner L corner, four of them forming chains. An additional red spider has just fallen off of the object from the right.]
- [To L shape's right, in the air, Cory Doctorow in his red suit is shown punching a red spider.]
Comics featured in the book
See also
- pg 1 10: Pi Equals
- pg 111 55: Useless
- pg 1012 128: dPain over dt
And talk/discussion pages for
- pg 11002 144: Parody Week: A Softer World
- pg 11002 209: Kayak
- pg 11011 285: Wikipedian Protester
- pg 100000 282: Organic Fuel
- pg 100012 290: Fucking Blue Shells
Other pages also have extra text, drawings, or glyphs.
Add comment 
Create topic (use sparingly) 
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How the pages are counted
The pages are counted in something akin to a trinary number system: the only digits used are 0, 1, and 2. But 2 always rolls over, even if there are digits behind it. So:
| Number (xkcd v0) | Number in denary |
| 1 | 1 |
| 2 | 2 |
| 10 | 3 |
| 11 | 4 |
| 12 | 5 |
| 20 | 6 |
| 100 | 7 |
| 101 | 8 |
| 102 | 9 |
| 110 | 10 |
| 111 | 11 |
| 112 | 12 |
| 120 | 13 |
| 200 | 14 |
| 1000 | 15 |
How would someone do a base conversion between "xkcd trinary" and denary? I was thinking to do something akin to (value in "normal trinary")-(value of the previous digit in the same trinary) for each magnitude in xkcd trinary, but I can't figure out how rigorous it would be, much less accurate. Any ideas? 108.162.241.141 23:33, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- What about:
- 1. Split the number into ordered pairs of digits.
- If there's an odd number of digits, pair the leftmost digit with 0, with the 0 on the left.
- 2. Convert each pair from base 3 to base 7.
- 3. Convert the result from base 7 to base 10.
- For example, 212 -> 02 12 -> 25 -> 19.
- This process is also reversible. Artem (talk) 12:27, 21 January 2026 (UTC)
- I've noticed an interesting property: when a new digit is added, the number is always in the form 2^n-1. 3 (10) is 2^2-1, 7 (100) is 2^3-1, and so it goes. I haven't tested for very long, but the property is also true for 31 (10000). -lnr 217.108.249.197 08:34, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
Well, the recent edits up to this point don't explain much at all. XORing some numbers, but not others? What about the non-numbers (non-hexadecimal characters, "M", or even words, "Dumper")? Can I request a proper rewrite of those facts to actually make some sort of sense without apparently being selective or just plain consisting of Insane Troll Logic?
The issue with finding info is that the XKCD forum depicting the solving process doesn't really exist. I've kinda had to re-solve entire parts just for the explanation. 82.132.237.136 13:40, 23 December 2025 (UTC)
Add the solves are in this thread which fully archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20140204001654/http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=45552 Add comment
