User:Tongs/NotesAndPlans

News

2016-03-14 (Pi day): The Tongs bought a Holux M241 GPS logger to record more and better tracklogs.

Notes and plans

The tongs are a little late to this particular party, and often hope to meet someone at a hashpoint. Often we have a good adventure anyway.
We'd like to try to do a hash with only a map and compass, not even using a car GPS to get us there. We later found out that this is called no batteries geohash.
M suggested a birthday expedition and doing a geohash on holiday.
We'd like Cambridge to be the UK's most active graticule.
We'd like to have some kind of recognisable tshirt or something so T doesn't need to ask strangers 'Are you geohashing?'. Reflective vests work for this.
We carry an Emergency Fun Box.
If ever the hashpoint fell in any of our back gardens, there'd be a barbecue, and you're on the list.
Monitor the hashpoints for northeastern France each weekend and take the Eurostar or ferry there last minute for some géohachage.
Tongs/B's favourite joke: Q: What is the point of all this? A: Well, we just don't know until the day before.

Things we never remember to do

To remember to wear long trousers (and maybe wellies) when we go hashing.
To remember to mark the GPS coordinates of the car when we leave it.
To remember to put a working torch in the Emergency Fun Box.
To remind ourselves that The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 gives the general public the conditional right to walk in certain areas of the English and Welsh countryside: principally downland, moorland, heathland and coastal land. Instead we feel usually feel very naughty and invariably later find out what we were walking on was a public footpath.
To take the picture proving that we were at the hashpoint sufficiently close to the GPS receiver so that the viewer can actually read what it displayed upon it.
To remember to not plan and let the day happen as aimlessly as possible. Visiting the hashpoint is hardly the true point of all this, let's be honest.

For when the hashpoint is nowhere near

Sometimes --- often --- we want to go geohashing but the point is too far away. We usually like to drive up to forty minutes but not more. Therefore, we set up this section to reflect retrohashes and other places we could visit.

The 52°N 0° confluence, near Barkway, Hertfordshire. A 35 minute drive down the A505 (Hey, that rhymes).
Pick our favourite hashpoint from those we have visited and visit that as a retrohash, or use Shotgun to find another retrohash to do.

Other geofun

We once let off a helium balloon with a message on it and it was found 85 miles away. We couldn't contain our excitement when we got that email. We're likely to do it again with the left-over helium. We found out since buying the helium that it's not good for the environment (and nor are the balloons for that matter).
We're sort of interested in orienteering and Ingress too, but haven't done much about it. Update: B went through an Ingress phase, got to Level 5, and is now over it. Geohashing is more fun.
Now that it's summer, F and B have started going for walks on some Friday nights. Right now we're walking up the Cam away from Cambridge, and will start the next segment of the walk from Upware.
~~Now that it's summer, we've been going wild swimming~~.

Variants of geohashing

Tongs like playing with the idea of randomly-generated plans for fun. Here are some variants of geohashing.

F suggested we could do decihashing, where we just shift the decimal point across one place to give us a set of possible points within roughly a five mile square around Cambridge. We thought it might be just as fun. We later discovered that many people have also had the same thought, and even use the same name. For example, see Decicule and Talk:Proposed_achievements#Decicule and User:Pinecone#An_Immodest_Proposal.
Using the hash to decide where to go for lunch.
F suggested a subset of points of the local area consisting of those found on interesting National Trust properties. Projecting this set onto a unit square in the 'best' way is left as a future task. The Tongs suspect we need someone good at making patchwork quilts.
The achievement of inverse geohashing involves computing a future hashpoint based on a hypothetical movement of the Dow Jones. To get the hash, you have to correctly predict the movement and visit the hashpoint. For a better chance of achieving this, go to as many of the hypothetical hashpoints as possible.
The achievement of geosplashing has two possible definitions. The first is that the hashpoint is in a toilet. The second is that it is used as a toilet. The third (from Sourcerer) is that geosplashing is jumping in puddles at the hashpoint. Some of us think the other two definitions are disgusting, but we include them here for completeness.