1803: Location Reviews

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Location Reviews

Title text: Google and Yelp keep deleting my scathing reviews of the Mariana Trench, the Chernobyl reactor core, the jet stream, and the equator.

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE THIS TAG TOO FAST!!! And write here what's missing! If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

Randall appears to be making a somewhat snide comment about the way so many people use review services in social media (Yelp, Facebook, etc) to make not terribly helpful comments. One step further would be, as here, completely useless comments. While Canyon River Nuclear Launch Facility appears not to exist, the places he lists in the title text certainly do, and are places that you either cannot or would not normally visit as destinations.

Randall is also making a joke about certain places that really shouldn't have reviews like a nuclear launch facility or the equator which is mentioned in the title text. Some of the comments reflect this like please don't launch these or wait staff armed and very rude as if this was a restaurant but in reality were armed guards to keep people out.

Transcript

Review	Explanation
Greatest country on earth	Jingoistic.
What is this store	Reviewer really, really has no idea
My cousin worked here	Serious security risk (e.g. kidnapping the reviewer to extort information from his cousin)
Waitstaff heavily armed and very rude
Stop doing chemtrails
military-industrial complex} strangling our democracy and...(read full review-1184 words)	Senseless banter; a review site is not the best place to discuss ideas and make change happen
Anyone else notice the hole in the west fence?	The adventurer's travel guide to government installations...
Whoa, missiles!
Good idea but confusing web site. How do I preorder?	Unclear what the idea is.
Please don't launch these

This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

[A location map with a red pin stuck in a large gray region is shown. A river goes from North through the gray region to the west. East and South of the river some roads and other items are shown.]

[Below the map:]

Canyon River Nuclear

Launch Facility

[Within a line from left to right:] Reviews (22)

[4/5 stars] Greatest country on earth

[2/5 stars] Looks cool but you can't get in

[1/5 stars] What is this store

[4/5 stars] My cousin worked here

[2/5 stars] Waitstaff heavily armed and very rude

[1/5 stars] Stop doing chemtrails

[1/5 stars] This place is a symptom of the military-industrial complex strangling our democracy and...(read full review-1184 words)

[4/5 stars] Anyone else notice the hole in the west fence?

[5/5 stars] Whoa, missiles!

[3/5 stars] Good idea but confusing web site. How do I preorder?

[1/5 stars] Please don't launch these

[Caption below the frame:]

I love finding reviews of places that

really don't need to have reviews.

 add a comment! ⋅  add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅  refresh comments!

Discussion

To all editors here

Please do not remove the incomplete tag on your first edit. This tag is used to identify all incomplete comics or transcripts here.--Dgbrt (talk) 16:14, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Further discussions go here

Could he be referencing some other location? Is there enough data on the map to find a real-world map location that would fit the shape of the river, streets and shaded polygon? 172.68.78.34 16:04, 24 February 2017 (UTC)Martin

I'm surprised that Randall didn't reference the discovery of the Trappist-1 system maybe it will come up soon or in a what-if. XFez (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

He often has a couple comics in queue (and probably needs a day or two to draw one up and get it in and also have something XKCD-ish about it), so we may see one Monday or further afield.162.158.75.22 23:21, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

The idea behind the website and ordering is probably absurdist humour in that the commenter finds the idea of nuclear missiles good and desirable, but the referenced website for such a facility is confusing in that the commenter cannot find out how to order some for him/herself. --Toonarmycaptain (talk) 16:39, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

He is actually referring to something that is pretty fun to do, and that is exactly what he says: reading reviews of places that shouldn't have reviews. This one made me laugh in the past. 108.162.216.196 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Here's another good one Waterhorse800 (talk) 17:03, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

"Looks cool but you can't get in" can also be a comment for an exclusive club/restaurant 172.68.65.6 22:18, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Guantanamo Bay has surprisingly positive reviews: https://goo.gl/maps/tQ4bzttkdeE2 162.158.79.101 03:25, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Hmmm, all the reviews have disappeared. Only one now. Maybe *someone* saw your comment. --108.162.238.11 12:05, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

""Despite this enormous pressure some organisms live in the Mariana Trench. "" Nonsense! The pressure is no problem if you do not have holes filled with air in your body. 162.158.92.52 11:29, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Isn't "scathing" a pun on how these locations are typically associated with hot temperatures? 162.158.62.225 00:43, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

No. The air in the jet stream and the water at the bottom of Mariana Trench are quite cold. Places on the Equator may seem hot for a person unused to the climate there, but they're not so hot in absolute numbers. Chernobyl reactor core is not particularly hot anymore in terms of temperature; it is "hot" in terms of radiation level. -- Malgond (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Note to self: Find out where Randall lives on Google Maps and leave a review for Garfield. --108.162.238.11 12:02, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

AFAIK, Canada has never had ICBMs. Short range surface to surface (deployed in Germany), air-surface and air-air before 1984, but no ICBMs. The only thing near Canyon River is a stopover station for the railway, a couple of hunting lodges and Grassy River First Nation which has been in the news recently because the government finally committed to cleaning up decades-old mercury contamination from a defunct pulp and paper mill. 108.162.241.4 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Triva

There was an entry in the trivia section entered by ‎Mwarren:

* Google Search results for "Canyon River Nuclear Launch Facility" briefly showed the facility was located at 43.428445, -101.124018 in Blackpipe Township, Mellette County, South Dakota and included the reviews shown in the comic.

Since there is no proof, no reliable link, and NO canyon this cannot be correct. There is only a small, lonely farm. Please provide those findings first here at the discussion page so it can be verified by others.--Dgbrt (talk) 00:45, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

• When you enter these coordinates at Google Maps, you indeed get the "Canyon River Nuclear Launch Facility" with all the reviews from xkcd (and a couple more added to it). - Mike Rosoft (talk) 19:35, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Screenshot: [1]. - Mike Rosoft (talk) 19:45, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

It's a fake! Someone has set a marker and all reviews are not older than a week. You will find much more like this on Google Maps.--Dgbrt (talk) 20:08, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Well, duh. :-) - Mike Rosoft (talk) 17:11, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes that is kind of what Randall states happens all the time with his reviews. I have added this again as a trivia now using the screenshot as proof. --Kynde (talk) 14:59, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Do you need more photoshoped images? It's removed again -- also because we don't know the copyright.--Dgbrt (talk) 19:55, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Ok, but maybe we can say that people faking this...--Dgbrt (talk) 19:57, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

I just looked up a bus stop a friend said he would park at, in order to not take the car to the city center. The bus stop is right next to - and named after - the local jail. So I put the jails name into google maps and of course found the jail instead of the bus stop. It turns out it actually has 3/5 stars. One of the comments said, that it starts getting boring after a few years. Another one says, that he was disappointed, that they wouldn't allow him on the waterboarding program. I guess similar things exist for many jails and similar places. good for a laugh. --Lupo (talk) 15:18, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Get rid of "Politics" section or rewrite it

It's been discussed that entire sad comics thing is rather nonsensical and shouldn't be linked to. Since "Politics" section is referencing it so much, it should be either rewritten or simply deleted for good. 172.68.245.216 15:29, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

i added important fact --172.69.79.164 09:13, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

'u' added extra info (which I had to actually go looking for possible justification), but it had nothing to do with the quote being explained. If this guy said "Woooah, ....", and you'd rather he not be mentioned because of another aspect of his life is beyond the pale, then find someone else (like? or?) who might be a more likable example. Or at least link the fact, so that it doesn't look so contextless to the mention.

But it isn't important in that, even if Randall was obliquely quoting that exact one person, in 2017 he couldn't (and likely wouldn't, if he could) have been referencing the actions/allegations which weren't a thing until years later.

'Fact', maybe. 'Important', hardly. 172.69.195.156 11:30, 20 February 2024 (UTC)