explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:3132: Coastline Similarity

2025-08-29T21:47:05Z

Tr0gd0r: You were right!

Lol what [[User:SectorCorruptor|SectorCorruptor]] ([[User talk:SectorCorruptor|talk]]) 16:20, 22 August 2025 (UTC)
:Lol what --'''''[[User:DollarStoreBa'al |DollarStoreBa'al]][[User talk:DollarStoreBa'al |'''''Converse''''']][[Special:Contributions/DollarStoreBa'al|'''''My life choices''''']] 17:30, 22 August 2025 (UTC)
::Lol what [[User:Broseph|Broseph]] ([[User talk:Broseph|talk]]) 18:13, 22 August 2025 (UTC)
:::Lol what [[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 18:52, 22 August 2025 (UTC)
::::Lol what [[Special:Contributions/24.54.131.250|24.54.131.250]] 19:24, 22 August 2025 (UTC)
:::::Lol what [[Special:Contributions/2001:67C:2564:A301:C26:D05F:D5AA:CA02|2001:67C:2564:A301:C26:D05F:D5AA:CA02]] 21:46, 22 August 2025 (UTC)
::::::Lol what [[User:Aprilfoolsupdate!| Aprilfoolsupdate!]]([[User talk:Aprilfoolsupdate!|talk]]) 08:16, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

^^^Plagerism at work^^^ [[User:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For]] ([[User talk:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|talk]]) 02:18, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

npcs [[user:lett‪herebedarklight|raeb]] 14:29, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

Plagiarism might refer to the designer of one of the coastlinescopying the design of the other one (a reference to The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy).
[[Special:Contributions/147.234.73.125|147.234.73.125]] 22:56, 22 August 2025 (UTC)
:Given that Randall has made references to the guide and that a main part of the first book is talking to Slatibartfast who designed the Norvegian fjords, and later had to just do Africa, could actually mean that this is what Randall/Cueball is thinking of... Should this be mentioned in the explanation? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:14, 25 August 2025 (UTC)
::Can one (even a Planetary Designer) ever ''self-''plagiarise? The same guy got given a different(/additional) part of the replacement Earth and tried his old award-winning design again... I don't think that counts as plagiarism. There are better ways to describe it, so I say it's an inspiration too far.
::At least how it turned out... might have progressed through different stages, say Zlarti got to do Africa, ''then'' to do South America, and he still had some of the large-scale patterns and molds so just re-used them on the other side of the adjacent continent, etc... but that's a stretch of reverse-engineering the joke to the supposed cause, long since diluted if it was ever part of the original concept. Mention it, if you must, but I don't think it's anything to do with that. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.236.41|82.132.236.41]] 17:54, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

:Other examples of multiple creators/designers of a world. Strata (a parody of Ringworld (and others), where people have terraforming technology and build planets, including a fake fossil record), and The Last Continent (where a creator ads an additional continent to a "finished" world). Both by Terry Pratchett.
:The concept of one or more world creators is so common through human history and myth that I think it deserves a mention, but calling out any particular piece of fiction would only be worth while if it is much more clearly relevant. [[Special:Contributions/107.77.205.64|107.77.205.64]] 17:04, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

I'm the comic "Coastline similarity" is likely a roof on "Cosine Similarity" which is used in software industry to measure how close two images are. This method is also used to detect plagiarism. {{unsigned ip|108.76.190.132|23:00, 22 August 2025}}

F***ing vandals. Best of luck, I'm gonna bunker down until this blows over. [[Special:Contributions/207.195.86.18|207.195.86.18]] 01:47, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

EDIT: To the dumbs*** who apparently doesn't know how curse words are used: referring to "f***ing X" is a way of expressing HATRED towards X, not love.

:I mean to play devils advocate you did pick the single most versatile word in the English lexicon. Capable of not only being a noun, a verb and an adjective, but also an adverb and probably more too. How are we to know without cultural context clues? (Signed a coitus looter)

:I'm sure the [[wikipedia:Vandals|vandals]] procreated. [[Special:Contributions/70.115.234.146|70.115.234.146]] 01:19, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

My dad once had the opposite conversation with his teacher, where he asked if the two continents had ever been connected and his teacher scoffed at him because continental drift wasn't widely-known yet. - [[Special:Contributions/2603:800C:500:18B3:38A0:233D:17B2:D289|2603:800C:500:18B3:38A0:233D:17B2:D289]] 16:05, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

Ooh, spotted an error in the strip: the fossils that match up are Triassic, not Cretaceous. (This is actually an underappreciated geological/paleontological thing: the Atlantic Ocean is what ended the Triassic. The Atlantic crust started as a mantle plume that split apart Pangaea, causing the largest volcano in Earth's history... which is what drove the extinction of the rivals of the early dinosaurs.) (Signed, tr0gd0r) {{unsigned|Tr0gd0r|18:53, 25 August 2025}}
:South America (as it would become) and Africa were still connected in the Early Cretaceous and only fully unzipped from what was Gondwanaland by the Late Cretaceous. It was during the earlier Triassic that the North Atlantic was initially formed and broke up the Laurasian bit, so it would depend on where you're comparing fossils across. Triassic-era similarities could occur almost everywhere, but maybe throughout the Jurassic and then even into the Cretaceous there'd still be enough land-bridging in some parts to maintain populations (and, subsequently, fossils) on 'both sides' of the Atlantic-divide. (Of course, it's a bit more complicated, tectonic jostling being how it was, even assuming we have a full enough picture and aren't still guessing some of the bits, like what actually happened with Tethys, etc.) [[Special:Contributions/82.132.246.176|82.132.246.176]] 16:32, 26 August 2025 (UTC)
::You're entirely right! I was just (for unrelated reasons, I swear) looking at continental reconstructions in the Jurassic, and was surprised to see that I was wrong — while the volcano starts shoving apart North American & Europe during the Triassic, it takes until the Cretaceous for it to spread south. Fun note: the rift is still spreading — from what I can tell (and I'll welcome any corrections, yay nerd internet!) it wended its way around South Africa, came up into the Indian Ocean, split, and is now snaking into Africa & Turkey. I also understand that this caused the orogeny that changed the climate in Africa ~10 mya that caused humans and chimpanzees to split. (Still haven't figured out how to properly sign, but: Tr0gd0r)

<s>Plagerism</s> Research! [[User:Jgharston|Jgharston]] ([[User talk:Jgharston|talk]]) 22:59, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

Due to lack of evidence supporting the theory about the derivative nature of the work, we concluded that this is a rare case of "convergent erosion". [[User:Agf|Agf]] ([[User talk:Agf|talk]]) 07:55, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

Plus one for the pun on cosine similarity. Especially as vector search can be used to detect plagiarism [[Special:Contributions/2401:D002:A203:DC00:D67:B1A0:ADAE:B5B9|2401:D002:A203:DC00:D67:B1A0:ADAE:B5B9]] 09:22, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

I thought that the reference to plagiarism may have been a nod to how some map makers would add fake towns or islands to their maps to detect unapproved copies of their maps [[Special:Contributions/2001:8004:1140:203A:AA64:C142:5359:F4|2001:8004:1140:203A:AA64:C142:5359:F4]] 20:52, 26 August 2025 (UTC)
:That would be {{w|Trap street}}s, and related trap-features. I'm not seeing the easy parallel to the comic but, as a map-fan myself, it's definitely an interesting concept in its own right. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.244.82|82.132.244.82]] 21:12, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

Talk:2887: Minnesota

2025-08-27T15:14:49Z

Tr0gd0r: Not sure the page explains the strip

Does NGS's request about "supple" have to be "rather than" commenting on the data? It could be in addition to it. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 19:38, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Where do I find the latitude and longitude gain or loss of arbitrary points not relative to the African Plate but to the rotation axis and whatever is the official longitude? Does the official prime meridian move every time the European plate moves or is it fixed to Greenwich Observatory? {{unsigned|Oxygen|19:46, 29 January 2024}}
:Based on {{w|IERS Reference Meridian}} article, I think I can answer that with definitive "maybe". I mean, it's not fixed to Greenwich (is actually 100m apart of it) but I wasn't able to decipher what exactly they are doing regarding tectonic shifts, just that they were thinking about it. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 20:39, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Personally, my go-to "other question" is "what is the square root of pi?". Tends to get a fun mix of answers. [[User:PotatoGod|PotatoGod]] ([[User talk:PotatoGod|talk]]) 05:50, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
:Rhubarb. (OK - it's not quite square, and it's a stem, not a root, but close enough, and it does make a damn good pie.) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.36|172.69.194.36]] 09:27, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
::Not to be pedantic (or, to be self-pedantic, maybe this ''was'' indeed pedantry), but rhubarb is surely the square ''stalk'' of pie. Or you're eating it wrongly. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.137|172.70.90.137]] 10:03, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Probably unrelated, but I've seen several 'scare' articles over the weekend that say the Moon is 'shrivelling', due to its core cooling. Tend to say something like that it has shrunk by 330ft (without indicating over what time period, or relating that distance to the much larger general diameter such that it makes this not exactly a visible difference if you were to stare at any given bit of surface). The 'scare' is that it'll make it impossible to settle the Moon (due to selenological settling, ironically), especially at its (probably valuable) South Pole. Apart from it not being new info (LRO provided "the Moon has been shrinking 150ft over hundreds of millions of years" data, last decade; and that could even be the exact same thing, only quoted as a rough radius change instead of a roughish diameter one), there's also various ways of adding resiliance to reasonable surface changes (e.g. the current Halley Research Base used by the British Antarctic Survey) if you need to. Obviously the recent topical interest in landings (current and nearish-future) could have brought it up as a bit of 'current' news. ''Maybe'' it then filtered through to inspire the comic's premise (after searching for a sort-of-equivalent Earthly effect that was even more ripe for absurdist humour)... Likely not, but still thought it worth a mention, as a footnote. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.68|172.70.86.68]] 15:02, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Problem with comics like this is that I've now gone from not knowing the word "geodetic" at all to wondering why Alabama is the only one of the 48 contiguous states without [https://geodesy.noaa.gov/SPCS/images/spcs83-legislation-feet.png state plane coordinate system legislation from 1983]. [[User:Davidhbrown|Davidhbrown]] ([[User talk:Davidhbrown|talk]]) 16:35, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

I think some more detail on the borders of Minnesota as legally defined would be useful, but I'm not sure I have the complete picture. As far as I've been able to research, the northern border (with Canada) is in part defined by geographical features, such as Lake of the Woods, so the rebound would be affecting it, but I'm not sure to what degree. The southern border (with Iowa), on the other hand, is defined as a line
at 43° 30' N, which wouldn't be affected by rebound - in fact, it's plausible that the rebound would be pulling parts of Iowa into Minnesota. I don't think this marks any errors in the comic (which only states that that the northern border is moving towards the southern, not vice-versa), but some of the commentary may need to be tweaked or elaborated on. --[[User:Penguin Zero|Penguin Zero]] ([[User talk:Penguin Zero|talk]]) 02:56, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
:The image in the second panel clearly implies that the southern border is moving northwards as well.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.46|172.70.85.46]] 09:18, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

"All meetings should be about Minnesota until we resolve this" reminds me of something, maybe another XKCD. Maybe the "but someone is wrong on the Internet!" one. There's a infrequent theme of nerd-sniping or very specific issues hijacking normal business. Anyone remember this? [[User:Laser813|Laser813]] ([[User talk:Laser813|talk]]) 16:25, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

The National Geodetic Survey asked him to stop using the word "supple" so often, which means they are ok with him using it from time to time. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.12|172.70.91.12]] 14:44, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
I literally lol'ed at "citation greatly appreciated". that said I assume actual citing of examples of erotic literature would NOT be appreciated by site mods.
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.207|162.158.154.207]] 23:16, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm actually still confused as to how post-glacial crust rebound could make Minnesota smaller! Per Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-glacial_rebound), post-glacial crust rebound is when a (heavy) glacier melts, and the rock layers of the ground below it spring back up. But... how would that make Minnesota *smaller*? (Asking, 'cuz I live in Minnesota.) -tr0gd0r

Talk:3132: Coastline Similarity

2025-08-25T18:53:20Z

Tr0gd0r: Spotted an error in the strip

Talk:2937: Room Code

2024-11-10T20:43:46Z

Tr0gd0r: No, seriously: why does this work?!

Obviously, for many of us it would be more helpful as a mnemonic for a slightly older relative born on May 18, 2002. But since the author is American, it is of course reasonable for him not to have mentioned this. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.235|162.158.134.235]] 20:36, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
:ISO-8601 FTW.
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 14:05, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
::Do "many" of you use YYMMDD though? YY rather than YYYY? Many, many of us use DDMMYY though. [[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 20:46, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
::::UK resident here. I have only used YYYYMMDD at the start of file names to manually produce versioning order.[[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 07:30, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
:::::Another Brit. Having dealt with transatlantic stuff, I switched to YYYY/MM/DD exclusively due to being utterly fed up with trying to work out when an ambiguous date (like in this example, or the infamous 9th of November) was supposed to be. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.131.158|172.71.131.158]] 21:40, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
::::::This particular Brit (also veteran of Y2K, at the same time as regularly "talkin' to 'Merkins" and having to make sure I don't confuzzle them either with what a Rightpondian would write or by them ''assuming'' that I'm writing in Rightpondian when I'm not) continues to tend to use DD/Mmm/YYYY for anything with a human-reading focus. Or something like YYYYMMDD(-hh(mm(ss))), as per RIIW's situational reasoning where dumb alphanumeric ordering might dominate in primarily computer-reading scenarios. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.164|172.69.79.164]] 23:32, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
:::::::I know that people in the Netherlands use YYMMDD for dates - I used to work for Philips research (a Dutch company) - and they used that format everywhere. It's actually VERY logical because if you write a decimal number 12,345 you put the most significant digit first...so YYMMDD does the same thing - the year being the more significant. One GREAT thing about that representation is that a simple numerical sort will get things into date-wise ordering. I've heard that some countries write addresses that way too: USA / Texas / Dallas / MainStreet / 123...again, putting the most significant information first. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.140.153|162.158.140.153]] 14:39, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
:::Yes, add me to the "2nd of May" club. (Or whatever young relative I can retrospectively induce to join, anyway.) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.165|172.69.79.165]] 22:58, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
:::Yes, of course DDMMYY is a thing as well (although I would have expected dots or something), I might have mentioned that. Here in Sweden, YYMMDD is very common, along with YYYY-MM-DD, D/M YYYY and YYYYMMDD (the latter increasingly so, very rare before y2k). YY-MM-DD and D/M -YY are rather less common (after y2k). Formats with dots or Roman numerals are almost unheard of, as are middle-endianness and anything with slashes before or after the year. Source: subjective experience.) (Of course, many Swedes also realize that months have names that alleviate ambiguity.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.242|162.158.134.242]] 04:30, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
::::Now I want some kind of joke about Your Mileage May Vary, but it's some variation of YYDMDM. (Yes Your Date May Deviate Massively?)
::::[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 14:12, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
:::My birthday is actually May 18, XXXX, and I am American, but I always use XX0518 for a 6 number code.
::Which brings up [[2562:_Formatting_Meeting]] (I ~~don't know~~ figured out how to do internal links) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.22.80|172.71.22.80]] 20:52, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
::::I know that State Side, they say that as you write May 2nd 2024, then it's right to have MMDDYYYY, but they celebrate the 4th of July! However, in the UK we are likely to date letters 2nd May, 2024. [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 07:30, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
:::::Now I want some kind of joke about Your Mileage May Vary, but it's some variation of YYDMDM. (Yes Your Date May Deviate Massively?)
:::::[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 14:12, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
::::::YMMD (Your Mileage May Differ) {{unsigned ip|162.158.129.253|08:52, 27 May 2024}}
:::''"I don't know how to do internal links"'' At the very bottom of the Editing page, "'''Editing help (opens in new window)'''", which goes to https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Links and you want "'''Internal links'''" --[[User:PRR|PRR]] ([[User talk:PRR|talk]]) 00:11, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
::::In case it helps, I've just [[User talk:42.book.addict#Depends what you wanted to do...|written something, at least so long as that user doesn't delete or change my contribution]] which summarises (badly?) the general gamut of linking options you might need to employ here. It's tuned to explainxkcd usage, rather than the full (in their own way) and perhaps more precise wikipedia standards that the above link gives. And it was written on the spur of the moment, not really so carefully edited. But FYI. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.38.70|162.158.38.70]] 21:04, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
::Also related [[1179:_ISO_8601]] --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.93|172.71.160.93]] 09:09, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
:Can totally relate as a 020506. Whichever of the six ways it may be read ig… [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.65|172.70.90.65]] 10:09, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

wait...so y'all actually don't need help with remembering numbers? oh. I can usually memorize like 10 long strings of random numbers almost instantly by finding patterns through them. order through chaos? [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 02:13, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
:These patterns are a kind of mnemonic, duh. Only works if you're comfortable enough with numbers (to be able to find some pattern in any digit string), otherwise one should use a more familiar association. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.194.201|172.68.194.201]] 14:58, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

I usually remember numbers with their pattern on computer or telephone keys. When I recite π, I start moving my hand through the air at some point. Here the even position digits are ascending in the middle and the others are 001, so quite easy. [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 03:39, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
:I remember random information by putting it in my phone! [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 07:30, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

He forgot to dot the question mark. 🤭
--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.68|162.158.74.68]] 09:41, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

I always have a pen to write on my hand for this reason tbh [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 03:31, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
:The trouble is, most people couldn't do it for this doorcode. It has six digits, but the typical hand only ever has five! [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.207|172.69.194.207]] 09:03, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
::Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.194.178|172.68.194.178]] 09:50, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
::.207, you made me laugh. Good job. (genuinely) [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 21:09, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
::The average hand has less than 5 digits. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 01:28, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
:::Average =/= Typical (unless it's a modal average).[[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.177|172.70.90.177]] 08:13, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
::::Hey, there's a comic about this. [[2696: Precision vs Accuracy]] -[[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 21:20, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

The room code 020518 as listed consists of prime numbers 2 and 5 (with 3 missing). however both are preceded by a zero. The 18 is interpreted as non prime (it is not) but the 2x3x3 seems a bit far off from any prime. Would the alternative explanation 0-5 is a zero followed by the prime number five --- followed by 1 - 8 which is 0+1 and 7+1 which could be logical continuation of 0+0-5+0, 0+1-7+1, followed by e.g. 0+2, 11+2 etc. - as such series sometime go. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.46.193|172.70.46.193]] 14:10, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
:Support for this idea: 02, skip three for 05, the next prime is 07, but you are "increase"-ingly wrong, so you increase both digits to get 18.
:It may be "far off" from being prime in a factorization sense, but it's quite close to being a prime because it's right next to both 17 and 19, which are both prime. [[User:AdmiralMemo|Admiral Memo]] ([[User talk:AdmiralMemo|talk]]) 11:56, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
::What would be interesting would be to find 'twinned Mersennes', i.e. specifically that (2^n)-1 ''and'' (2^n)+1 are both prime. (Currently, I can only identify n=2 as valid for that, but I'm not immediately aware of any reason why (2^n)+1 might not be equally valid as (possible) prime, nor why it might only pair with a non-prime (2^n)-1 'mersenne miss' number.) By the above logic, (2^n) iteself would quite close to being a prime (being another prime-pair's intermediate) whilst being quite conspicuously factorisable to the ''n''th order. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.131|172.71.178.131]] 13:57, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

I remember my 628496 was my room code for a while back at uni, very easy to remember as the first three Perfect Numbers {{unsigned ip|172.70.163.121|08:25, 28 May 2024}}

It's three prime numbers if you assume two digits per number and base 9. Translating that to base 10 would be: 2, 5, 17 {{unsigned|Cwallenpoole|18:50, 12 June 2024}}

So, what about this explanation still needs work? What's incomplete, unclear, or questionably accurate? [[User:GreatWyrmGold|GreatWyrmGold]] ([[User talk:GreatWyrmGold|talk]]) 04:21, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
An answer to the question! Cognitively, neurally: why does this work?!

Talk:2927: Alphabetical Cartogram

2024-05-02T15:49:20Z

Tr0gd0r:

replaced incorrect explanation [[Special:Contributions/172.70.111.45|172.70.111.45]] 17:17, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
Is it me or is Hawaii strangely bigger than california. {{unsigned|172.70.100.40}}
:I think he's only counting the land area. The area between the islands may be creating an illusion that Hawaii is bigger. It's hard to tell just by looking, does anyone have the tech to measure this? P.S. remember to sign... [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 14:11, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Im just wondering why Maine is still so big.... [[User:JushJosh|JushJosh]] ([[User talk:JushJosh|talk]]) 13:22, 1 May 2024 (UTC)Jush
:I know, right? That's what made me think it wasn't just a simple alphabetical listing. That, and Hawaii is bigger than Alaska, despite the fact that Alaska is substantially higher on the list. In fact, it even appears that Alaska is smaller than Maine! How did Randall decide on the sizes??? [[User:Pie Guy|Pie Guy]] ([[User talk:Pie Guy|talk]]) 16:01, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

The sad part is that Rhode Island grew. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.31.139|172.71.31.139]] 14:01, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

I believe it is some sort of ranking rather than swapping sizes as the chart suggests, as South Carolina appears to be smaller than normal (?) [[User:Primmy|Primmy]] ([[User talk:Primmy|talk]]) 14:56, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Poor Utah :( [[User:Z1mp0st0rz|If you click on this you will get a fun surprise]] ([[User talk:Z1mp0st0rz|talk]]) 15:15, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

I believe the first paragraph is incorrect. I did a full comparison, and Texas shrank the most (dropping 41 places from size ranking to alphabetical ranking), while Connecticut as well as Delaware grew the most (each rising 41 places between the lists). [[Special:Contributions/172.71.255.28|172.71.255.28]] 15:40, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

This map gives a lot more land to Mexico. [[User:Weslar|Weslar]] ([[User talk:Weslar|talk]]) 16:31, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
:Mexico is not represented at all in the map. And all states are much smaller than in reality (unless you have a very big monitor, c.f. [[2911]]) --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.32|172.71.160.32]] 12:30, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
:I think [[User:Weslar|Weslar]] is saying that Mexico gains land, since (historically) it has everything south of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. (Source: Just visited the Alamo a couple weeks ago, on an eclipse vacation...) So the fact that the states are smaller makes Texas bigger. ([[User talk:tr0gd0r|talk]])

UNFORTUNATELY it seems that there are many errors in the actual relationship of sizes. I did a quick area take off of each state. These units are in miles using the real width of Colorado (since it is about the same place in the list) as the scale reference. https://imgur.com/a/hKIVjRZ. you can see immediately that Delaware and Alaska and Iowa are incorrect in the order.

Ignoring the Errors in the map and Assuming We are keeping the total area of the US the same and scaling the new map based on this total... then Alaska loses the most land area ( approx 510,000 mi) and Alabama gains the most Land area (156,000 mi). Looking at which state gained or lost the largest percentage of its land area shows that Minnesota is the least affected at only 4.6% or 4,200 mi and Wyoming is the most affected losing 98% of its land area or 95,000 miles.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.56|162.158.41.56]]

As a Wyomingite, I can't complain. We're still bigger than our population justifies. (fun fact, we get two whole senators despite lacking the population to actually justify a single house member)[[Special:Contributions/172.68.34.59|172.68.34.59]] 17:08, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Alaska is STILL disproportionally small. [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 17:24, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Utah is way too big (should be after Texas) and Idaho is too small (should be bigger than the Ms)

Why the hell is Massachusetts so BIG?! [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 13:01, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
:To account for all its Mass. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.175|172.71.242.175]] 13:51, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

I went further and measured the exact sizes of each state to the pixel: https://imgur.com/a/d6ruHvs really nerd sniped myself lol. The post includes excel screenshots as well as text, and the image I used at the bottom. Will explain methodology if anyone wants. Obviously all these discrepancies are due to the fact that the states actually have to fit together for the joke-map to work. [[User:Paintadot|Paintadot]] ([[User talk:Paintadot|talk]]) 13:48, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
:Having the pixel area for each state in the explanation would be really nice! Do you count the "border pixels" (or maybe half of them) to the pixel area? (not sure if that would be sufficient to have Alaska stay atop of Arizona ...) --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.32|172.71.160.32]] 14:39, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
:I was going to take some time to establish 'drawn areas', myself (perhaps work out if it were contained area, 'hull' area, one-axis scale, etc) and add the likiest metric in the "Alphabetic" group of columns (remember to re-colspan!), but looks like like you've got that covered... [[Special:Contributions/172.71.102.254|172.71.102.254]] 15:10, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

What definition of 'fair' is Randall using? --[[User:NeatNit|NeatNit]] ([[User talk:NeatNit|talk]]) 15:04, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
:{{wiktionary|fair#Adjective|Number 3}} [[Special:Contributions/172.71.102.254|172.71.102.254]] 15:10, 2 May 2024 (UTC)