No, That's NOT What the Earth Would Look Like Without Water

A weird animated graphic depicting a distorted, lumpy Earth has gone viral over the 'net in the past few days, claiming that this is what the Earth looks like "without water". There's only one problem with it: Nope. Nopity nope nope nope. That's not at all what it shows. What it actually depicts is the Earth's geoid: a way of describing Earth's gravitational field. The original graphic is a product of the MATLAB package described by Aleš Bezděk (credits at that link). Here it is in all its kn...