SHORT AND GOOFY: [Reality as a simulation] - What have I got in my pocket?

So today was actually pretty busy for me this morning in my day to day job as a network engineer. We've finally handled some events for the day and my boss sends me the following image.

Yes, that does indeed look like a black box to me too. Yet, my boss the CTO of our company does not seem like the type to send me images without purpose.

I throw it into photoshop and do a Select by color range and delete out what is selected and end up with this.

I notice what appears to be some odd characters mixed in there but I still cannot make it out. So I ask him. He is one of those (as is my wife) that are really fond of sarcasm, so generally I view it as a challenge before asking questions.

He responds...

"That's the inside of my pocket apparently."

So I had put forth some effort trying to find out the secret of this seemingly black image. I thought maybe he sent me something and the alpha/transparency swapped to black as sometimes happens.

It turns out I over thought it.

Yet, consider this. Why are those characters there?

I told him jokingly that maybe we are indeed in a simulation, but unless we observe the places we normally can't see we may not notice it.

Though he simply replied "Or they were just confirmation bias."

I consider this entire exchange kind of amusing and thought I'd share it.

EDIT: Here is the other color selected instead.

Hmmm.... Random Map generator possibilities. :)