Talk:3236: Border Message

Wow, I got here early. 47.152.141.142 21:11, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

*salutations.* Caliban (talk) 21:39, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

The (sort of) Belgian village of Baarle-Hertog has numerous bizarre exclaves with neighbouring Netherlands, almost as complex as the borders in the cartoon. Some of the borders even pass through houses. https://maps.app.goo.gl/M5duocjEkJRQKedEA Martin (talk) 22:22, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Baarle is divided into two, with ~-Nassau being Dutch (the Dutch royal family is Oranje-Nassau) and ~-Hertog is Belgian. Note that Baarle is a 2km² area with an extremely chaotic border, but that otherwise the Dutch-Belgian border is pretty normal relative to other European borders. IIVQ (talk) 05:15, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

European states/counties/jurisdictions were often complex and non-contiguous with many enclaves and exclaves. Many of these complex situations have disappeared (e.g. in France through the creation of departements in 1790); but some persisted or still remain. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclaves_of_West_Berlin_in_East_Germany 62.112.240.32 12:50, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

there's no need to look all the way to Europe, although I was fascinated by "border corpse(Dutch: grenslijk)" stories. One example is the Four Corners Monument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Corners_Monument which is administered by Navajo Nation(!) and also serves as a border for Ute Mountain Ute Indian Reservation.Cuvtixo (talk) 19:26, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

That's the exact opposite of a complex border though: it's just a meeting of four perfectly straight lines. Martin (talk) 22:41, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

What is it with the Belgians and strange borders? Their border with Germany near Monschau is also a mess of exclaves. --88.97.176.34 22:00, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

It's because those countries were slowly assembled over centuries out of innumerable principalities, duchies, bishoprics, etc., often through marriages, land gifts in exchange for political or military support, in payment of debt, and so on, so one individual might end up in control of many discontinuous territories. When those fiefdoms were eventually absorbed into larger states, many of those oddities persisted unless removed by some kind of territory swap (since no-one generally wants to unilaterally give up territory) or conquest by war. 82.13.184.33 08:40, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

SMBC once had a similar idea to stop Gerrymandering: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2013-07-12 90.146.31.117 23:02, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Gerrymandering was not my first thought when I saw this comic, maybe that part should be removed from the description? I don't see any real way that it connects to gerrymandering besides the fact that it talks about borders. Qoiuoiuoiu (talk) 01:56, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Maybe it was added after the vague link to that SMBC comic was found? 110.145.224.178 03:22, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the comment about gerrymandering was added in the very first text to be put on that page (21:09, 22 April 2026). It's not merely because of borders; it's because of "borders that have been made extremely convoluted for artificial reasons unrelated to the factors that usually define such boundaries, such as geographical features, roads, latitude/longitude, or regular divisions". BunsenH (talk) 03:38, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Even as a non-USian, the recent gerrymandering efforts immediately seemed like an obvious prompt for the idea of the comic to me, even if it doesn't specifically reference it. 82.13.184.33 08:29, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

I put it in my original explanation, before the comment (indeed, before any comments). It only came to mind because Virginia was in the news that day, so reporters were talking about weirdly-shaped districts. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but Randall may have known that the vote was taking place that day when he came up with the comic. Barmar (talk) 14:25, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

I once spelled out words on openstreetmap. There were some hiking trails nearby from a data set that opened up and I could not put them all up in one session, so I spelled "To Do" (in the shape of the actual hiking trails) on Openstreetmap. IIVQ (talk) 05:15, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Is there a category for US State comics? There seems to be a lot of them, and a category might make sence. If there isn't perhaps someone could make one? -- GSLikesCats307 (talk) 09:26, 23 April 2026 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

There's Category:US maps, but that is really more specifically of the 'whole' US (give or take contiguousness/fictionalisation), whereas this is more just 'a map', not even necessarily a (theoretical) subset of the US (though the names given to either side of the border do have a more Leftpondian feel, having that 'settler vibe' to them). 82.132.238.56 10:48, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

The W, O, P, O, ', R, O, A ,P all have clear exclaves. "A" and "R" seems to have two. However, it's unclear whether J and G are entirely exclaves, or possibly letters like "O" are doubly exclaved. If the answer to that is no, then that would mean there are 11 exclaves. Does anyone else agree with this assessment? Fephisto (talk) 17:43, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

No 'letter' is an exclave of Southlake, as I see it. The one "A" has two cut-out regions (let's assume these are all exclaves of East Valley, in leiu of any other info), the two "H"s have an exclave each, the "M" has an exclave, the two "N"s have an exclave each, three "O"s each have one exclave, both "P"s also, the "R" has two separate exclaves (topologically, like the "A") and the "W" has an exclave. Totalling fifteen (presumed) exclaves of East Valley within Southlake's nominal boundary, unless I've miscounted something (probably missed one, rather than repeated anything.

In addition, the apostrophe is (if not a totally different enclave/unincorporated area) an exclave of Southlake contained within East Valley's main contiguous area, so that's one more (of the opposite association).

Nowhere is doubly-exclaved (a.k.a. counter-exclaved). Although the pinch-points of some of the baseline-meeting letter shapes (the "O"-bottomed ones, like the "G" and "J", more so even than the "O"s themselves) are close, you can (terrain and obstructions allowing) walk into and around the "letter strokes" from Southlake without crossing over East Valley territory and back again.

What I find interesting is the slope of the writing (beyond the 'slope of the border' as it would be if it hadn't been made wiggly). I suspect that the way the natural border effectively would go from the character base on the left to higher up on the 'line height' to the right means that the ficticious map-definers (and, by extension, Randall) probably scrupulously ensured that this 'map doodling' made sure to not change the total area possessed by each side. By dipping the text-outlines down into Southlake, the area that might be considered nominally East Valley 'transfered' to Southlake as sections of letter-body seems to be balanced by the gain by East Valley by the baseline (at the right-hand end) dipping down into Southlake territory, until brought back up to the next 'level' section at the extreme right of the panel.

Might be worth analysing areas, comparing the scrawl-related possessions vs. what a more direct line would give to each. 82.132.238.117 20:13, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

By my reckoning (in making these files, if anybody here wants them before they time out in six or seven days), the writing sort of preserves the relative possesions of each entity.

• Southlake (which I coloured blue... not because the whole area was a lake, but because it had one) holds 414065 of 837062 pixels (49.5%) in the written version, 421996 of 837315 pixels (50.3%) in a version with the most obvious direct straight line across the text. (That's a loss of 7931 pixels)
• East Vally (which I coloured green, because why not) holds 422997 of 837062 pixels (50.5%) with the writing, 415319 of 837315 (49.6%) with the simpler border (+7678 pixels, as revised).
• (Yes, that's an unequal change, with 253 net change in total pixels, due to the way I carved up the tettitories having the odd clump of pixels not assigned to either, but all basically being under Randall's dotted line where I could have been a pixel either way , especially at corners, and not really significantly changing how it looks. I did go back in, after doing the totals, and start to colour in the 'tweeny' pixels, but decided they were well within the background error of uncertainty and didn't showw on the final image. It's basically rounding errors.)

There will be a straight line, or maybe a slightly curving one, which makes sure ~0.5% of the respective areas is reassigned, or perhaps a slightly better track 'behind' Randall's meandering dotted line. I didn't care to find that solution, but don't let me stop anybody else fine tuning it.

By visual inspection, of course trying to 'exactly half' the writing across a given line (either diagonally, like the comic seems to try, or as a 'strikethrough' line level with the text itself) will be slightly unequal. The character are ultimately less dense than the 'space behind them', counting the spaces. Whichever region is using the partial character-footpreint to 'claim' territory that would normally have been part of the other is going to have the other region using the larger 'anti-footprint' in the counterpart direction to take more territory back. Careful realignment of the text away from half-and-half of th whole text-box extent, or perhaps using particularly block font (thicker strokes, much thinner 'holes and slots') might give you the exact exchange of areas that you need.

...but, even as it is, it's darn close to being truly equal, especially as all the percentages come out sufficiently within 50%±1%. I wouldn't be surprised if Randall tuned it to be exactly so, and I just didn't quite follow the line as faithfully as he deliberately drew it. 81.179.199.253 18:44, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

I think the county names are a reference to 2548 FluffyGuardian70 (talk) 22:31, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

As well as East Valley being in 2548: Awful People (al9ng with mention of an unnamed lake/area near that lake), it is also in 2553: Incident Report.

I wouldn't exactly classify it as a 'reference' to either, myself, but clearly it's some placename that Randall has made up (or appropriated, perhaps memetically mutated, from a handy 'Somewhere County, Somestate' archetype that he knows) when he needs a nondescript placename of a certain type. Like I sometimes use "Hill Valley", as various other works do (could be an original oxymoron imagined up independently, in various cases, could be a knowing/unknowing reference to BttF... though for me I actually know a place with that name... though haven't looked into if that was possibly named as a fan reference, if the chronology of it isn't older yet). 82.132.238.117 00:30, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

The explanation says "What logging would happen in the 'no man's land' between the letters is unclear (possibly none?), ...". I do not think that there is any no man's land between the letters. The land between the letters should belong to East Valley, as it is north of the border line. 2A02:810D:9B99:7800:44E5:EA60:BFD9:E626 06:45, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

I assume that was meant to refer to the exclaved land within the letters, but between was a confusing way of talking about that - have amended it. 82.13.184.33 08:31, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Belatedly I note that this comic was preceded by "Types of Board Game," which is to say, we went from Board to Border. This is probably an uninteresting coincidence. JohnHawkinson (talk) 15:38, 24 April 2026 (UTC)