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[Sowelu]

...is cool.

http://wiki.xkcd.com/geohashing/Main_Page

Yeah, it's that silly XKCD thing.  You get a random nearby point each day, and your goal is to get within 10m of it.  But it's actually kind of fun.  If you have a GPS or a sweet phone, I challenge you guys to start geohashing too!  And to share your stories.  After all, our forum is kind of a significant demographic of geekiness.  It'd be cool to drag more real-world stuff out of it (including hiking and the occasional rowing).

My local (Seattle, 47N -122W) graticule needs a ferry ride to get to about a third of it, and your own boat to get to a fair chunk of it too.  Oh well!  But yesterday's was easy enough.  It was on a road by a nearby mall, so I dragged some friends to get Thai food, hit the geohash point, got a slushie, and picked up four achievements in the process. 

It's worth hitting up http://irc.peeron.com/xkcd/map/ and seeing if today's is nearby or, more importantly, if it looks cool.  "Hey, this one is half an hour away, but it's in that really touristy neighborhood so I could go hit the geohash point and get crepes!"  "This one is near a park I've never been to!"  "I could use this one as an excuse to take my kayak out on the lake!"

[Zrk2]

I thought this was going to be about geocaching. They look like the same idea, though.

[Sowelu]

Pretty close.  Geocaching has crossword-puzzle problem solving and places that you already know are accessible and neat.  Geohashing emphasizes spur-of-the-moment adventures into unknown territory and machete problem solving.  I mean, it all depends on which cache and which hash value, but with Geocaching your biggest concerns are "Do I keep looking around or do I give up, is the cache actually here or has it vanished, are those people looking at me funny".  With Geohashing, it's "Do I dare walk through that field of nettles, can I safely make it down that cliff, will a crazy farmer shoot at me".

When you're geocaching, you might find a plastic toy of a dinosaur.  When you're geohashing, you might get eaten by a bear.  It's manlier.

(okay, they'll frequently be in cities.  MEH)

[ChairmanPoo]

The heck? it's sending me to a cornfield next to a shrine some 10-15 km of here.

Tempted, though.

[Starver]

I'd forgotten all about that.  I remember seeing the original XKCD plate and then.... doing nothing at all about it.

Looks like they've got a few community people in my graticule, as well, although a lot without transport.

Checking past Saturdays, about half of them look reasonably accessible to me, without too long a drive.  Although today's was surprisingly close to home.  This Saturday's could even be at the top of the hill behind my house.  All I need to do is :

• Find a way to manipulate the Dow Jones to give everyone a number of my own choosing,
• Dehash some desired coordinates through the MD5 algorithm to give me an idea of which particular results I might want the Dow Jones to have in the first place...

Nothing could be simpler, right?


(Seriously, I might give it a go on Saturday.)

[penguinofhonor]

This looks really cool, actually. I may have to try it, although it doesn't seem to want to work with my graticule.

[Sowelu]

The heck? it's sending me to a cornfield next to a shrine some 10-15 km of here.

Tempted, though.

What an excellent excuse for gratuitous photos of pretty places!!

This looks really cool, actually. I may have to try it, although it doesn't seem to want to work with my graticule.

Doesn't work?  That's odd.  There's other tools out there, at least.


Oh, and one thing to keep in mind.  Yeah, you don't generally know where you're going until the Dow opens.  But it doesn't open on weekends...which means that the Friday value, hashed with fri/sat/sun dates, gives three different locations that you ALL know as soon as Friday opens.  So you do in fact get a day of early notice for Saturday meets, and two days of early notice for Sunday.  Weekends are good times.

[olemars]

I've wanted to get into this, but my graticule is 85% north sea.

[ChairmanPoo]

Google maps says Kayak to your geohash target

[Sowelu]

I've wanted to get into this, but my graticule is 85% north sea.

Which means you can make it once a week!

[Karlito]

Lots of mountains and desert around here, and some parts of the city are scary, but it would be nice to go somewhere with my bike besides home, work, or school.

[olemars]

Scary or unhospitable areas are considered a plus:
http://wiki.xkcd.com/geohashing/2008-10-31_-32_138

[freeformschooler]

If I had a better method of transportation I'd do this all the time.
Wait. This is exactly the kind of thing my dad would enjoy doing. I should call him up sometime and we could go do it together.

[Mindmaker]

Our math teacher was a total nerd for this.
Well, he was an overall oddball anyway.

[Eagleon]

http://irc.peeron.com/xkcd/map/map.html?date=2011-01-26&lat=42&long=-88&zoom=9&abs=1 Pretty sure I don't want to get caught in a storm over Lake Michigan in the middle of January or something. Chicago and Milwaukee's graticule isn't much better usually.