XKCD What If References SDMB!

This thread (What is the volume of a kilogram of cocaine? - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board) was referenced in today’s What-if from XKCD. He’s apparently a fan, as he says

Here’s the column:
https://what-if.xkcd.com/108/

(Should this have been here or on MPSIMS? I mentally flipped a coin and it landed on its edge, so I’m still not sure.)

I’m not seeing the reference to the SDMB in the article you linked to. Where is it?

Found it–it’s in footnote 3, invisible to ctrl-f

Yup, you got it. Also, impossible to copy (using Chrome, at least).

Glad this wasn’t another damn “asshat” reference.

Huh? :confused:

Oh, it’s possible. You just have to go to the HTML source. Same with CTRL-F. Here’s the full paragraph:

And here’s the paragraph that references it (with [3] pointing to the paragraph):

Some people stumble across the use of “asshat” outside in the real world and are thrilled, thinking, because this is where they first encountered it, that it was an insult invented here on the SDMB. But it wasn’t.

Someone also thought we invented the “airplane on a treadmill” concept, but we definitely did not do that, though we* certainly explored it very deeply.

I do think we were the first to investigate the “Oriental Riff” though, which has subsequently become a thing.

*“We” does not necessarily include me. I tend to sit back and marvel.

I love it when we get cited elsewhere, but I hate it when they think we’re all about drugs (“Straight DOPE”).

Anyhow, I think this is for ATMB since it’s a public notice, so I’m movin’ it.

It’s even exactly 100 questions after mentioning the column!

…And checking the thread in question, it looks like I was the one who suggested approximating it as the density of water. Which means that Randal Munroe has used a piece of information I provided. Whoa.

And my post appears immediately after one posted by the doper who provided Randal Munroe with information he used.

Whoa.

Off topic, but this is the thing I hate the most about explaining to people who my internet friends are.

“It’s the Straight Dope Message Board”
“The what?”
"You know…like “hey give me the straight dope on this topic…”
“ooohhh”

Ctrl - F. Why was I not informed?:cool: Another nugget of knowledge from the Dope.

Well…yeah, but it was also named during the 70s, so I suspect that there’s more to it than that.

Cecil’s various editors insist there wasn’t.

And Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds isn’t about LSD and Puff the Magic Dragon is just a children’s song…

I’ve been on this board for long enough that my mom is aware of it and finally understands that it’s not about drugs…a few months ago I was at her house and I was on Giraffe Boards…and the whole thing started over “no mom, it’s not a message board about giraffes.”

Yup, looks like we’ve got that all cleared up, then.

I honestly can’t remember whether I heard it here first, or in the online browser RPG game “Kingdom of Loathing” (The “asshat” was a helmet you could purchase.)