User talk:Robyn

Make a new category at the bottom and add your comments, or add them into an existing category that makes sense. I'd really appreciate a good summary, too, as I might not get to the wiki for a week, but I'll get the notification e-mail. Old comments are on User talk:Robyn/OldTalk.

Most Irritating Thing About Geohashing Algorithm

I thought I saw a "service" on here that would instant message (or email) you the coordinates once available. If not, one could be created easily enough... Of course, you would have to have a device to receive messages turned on, not stowed for takeoff and landing :-) --Thomcat 01:25, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the "My Kingdom for a Boat" ribbon. Good job. The email service is found at http://www.geohash.info

I can send and receive e-mail from the aircraft but not SMS. And I don't know if I can send punctuation other than .

Airport geohash alert

This is pretty short notice, but Newark Liberty Airport has the geohash for Friday, 7/25. Any chance you can get to the east coast? -- Jevanyn 13:48, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

You'll really appreciate this.

Keep those airport geohash alerts coming. Someday they'll pay off. - Robyn 02:06, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Trying to make a Template

I'm going to try to figure out how to make a template. It will be the Template:Achievement Description.

Easy Geohash

Thanks for putting me on the Easy Geohash Achievement page! I'm still a little new to the whole wiki thing, and have no idea how a template would work, but http://xkcd.com/142/ has a nice image to convey a "Piece of Cake." It's a little small though.

I love the image template! You do wonderful work. Thank you so much for choosing it! And to think, I wanted to use a picture of cake...

Finally figuring out what you username meant did inspire me. As the first holder of the title, it was your due.

Categories, etc.

I like the category tree, all the way to root. Well done!

Dear Abby,

Most expeditions that get within 25 feet or so I am judging as "success" - that is within the tolerance of a good GPS. My present conflict - one of my expeditions 2008-06-19 47 -121 was 7.7 meters away - within my car! Before it started to rain, I walked over to the fence and leaned on it, AND chatted with the homeowner who's driveway I was parked on. Do I re-calculate my hash total and call this a success? --Thomcat 04:10, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I say success is in the mind of the succeeder. In fact, if I were you I would write a treatise about it right on the Category:Expedition Outcomes (I don't know how to make a link to it without categorizing my user page there!) page, letting people know that if they feel their expedition was a success, they can change the category. I think you need to be wary of setting yourself up as the arbitrator of Success and Failure. But if you felt the sting of failure in that driveway, then you failed, but if you felt the glow of success, then you succeeded. I hope you're using that information from people's descriptions to categorize expeditions, as well.

I shall write said treatise. To put your category here, put it in square brackets with a colon in front of it. In fact, just edit this and see how I changed yours ;) --Thomcat 04:32, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, that will come in handy. And really good job on that treatise. I think you will prevent any hurt feelings with that, and get people to cooperate. -Robyn 04:52, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

And thank You for the idea! Incidentally, I changed that expedition to a success, with a clean conscience. --Thomcat

Virgin - we talked about putting a banner on the graticule page with the qualifying party or parties. I tested this out with Seattle. However, this makes the category page a mish-mash. See Category:Virgin_graticule_achievement. Acceptable, or another alternative? --Thomcat 18:00, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I thought it was a little weird when I saw it listed in the Category last night, but then shrugged and said, "If Seattle wants to declare its maturity with that banner, so be it." But NOW I understand what you were asking before about the Virgin Graticule banner and I almost wrote here that you should design a new banner for that purpose. But then I realized it would still get mixed up. There are other graticules who like to display what I thought of as personal achievements on their graticule pages and, well I'm just proud the banners are being happily used. The effect of the banners will to automatically generate a list of expeditions, users and graticules who care enough about the achievements to display a banner. It's easy to distinguish among them, so no harm done. -Robyn 18:56, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Re: Templates

Thanks. I've just inverted the Land hash icon actually. :) Night hashing must be fun.. I definitely plan to do these achievements soon. We've done some night caching the other day which gave me the idea.. it's really special to scramble through unknown territory in the dark. -- Relet 09:51, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

"Actually" cold...

I'll have you know that we nearly froze to death that day...!  ;) Ted 14:28, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

8,9,10...

No, it was just nine hashes, and eight of them which I count as reached. In that one case, I didn't even bother to get out of the car, as it was clearly in a fenced sheep pasture. The other points on the map (in Berlin) is where I started from, and how I have returned. You'll see that they are not aligned with the other hashes.

Thanks for the ribbon offer, but I am not certain which one you are referring to? I think I got all the ribbons I need (for that trip). :D

Oh, unless you mean the expensive geohash - I'm not too keen on that one. And I'm sure you'll beat me there if you do the MONSTER air geohash which you are alluding to. I'd love to see you do this one. Even though I think it's a bit more rewarding to actually put your foot on the spot and leave a few hash marks.

I still feel a bit disappointed for still not having met any other geohashers, which I did not bring myself in the first place.. seems to be our common curse. :] -- Relet 10:23, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

---

Re: Air Multihash - If you prefer to leave the graticules' virginity to us landlubbers, we can make you a special ribbon for the flyover. How about Petting the Graticule. ;} --Relet 13:54, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

ROTFL! I don't want to take away the opportunity for virgin hashes from other pilots, but perhaps one for the first LAND hash in a graticule that has already been sniped from the air would be appropriate. -Robyn 14:04, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

A harsh marsh...

...deserves a ribbon. :D Feel free to move it to your user page. -- Relet 12:01, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Wow

And I thought I had been busy the last few days! You put the rest of us to shame (in a good way of course!) I particularly enjoyed your accounts of the Wal-mart bike. Good luck to you, I'm sure you'll make it to another hash point soon! Thepiguy 07:48, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

As long as you keep writing stuff, I'll keep reading it! And don't let mother nature get you down! As long as you keep trying (and as long as you don't buy a $100 Wal-mart boat to attempt a water hash in the middle of the lake!) I'm sure you'll conqueror that graticule! On a side note, if Vancouver keeps treating me as well as it has been, I may catch up to you yet! =) Thepiguy 19:53, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Re: most active

As soon as we upgrade to the next version of Mediawiki, there'll be the automatic variable {{PAGESINCATEGORY:...}}, which should automate a lot of statistics. Then you'll only have to add new candidate cities to the page, and maybe change their order from time to time.

Yeah, wikis are great.. you just browse around and fiddle and do. I just happened to search for "active" (as I had your page in mind) and found two of the same name. -- Relet 21:44, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

This works fairly well for tracking graticules (though not successful geohashes - we need something that can parse multiple categories I think). I'm currently contemplating a scorecard template of some sort. Similar to the A/S/G, you can update your scorecard for hashes attempted, success, etc. Then the template can use categories (please suggest for me, Robyn!) to count those scores, and we can then visit the category page to see the overall scorecard. Or maybe I'm just full of beans...

I thought the categories "Coordinates reached" and "..not reached" would be the ones we count. Same goes for "Category:Meetup in LON,LAT" Why would it not work?

If there's anything that could relate to several categories, we just need a meta-category to contain it. I am thinking for example of "Failed - Mother Nature" and "Failed - No Trespassing" which (should) require the category "Coordinates not reached". -- Relet 21:47, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Boy am I spacey - I was referring to individuals! Our graticule categories work well for comparing graticules, but the only thing that works for individual geohashers is a manual compare. While I can't currently think of a good automated method for counting individual expeditions and successes, I am thinking of a manual method that would allow us to compare easily - a scorecard template. We then add categories to that template to keep score (something like Category:Count expeditions 20 or Count successes 10 or Count no public access 3). --Thomcat 03:56, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I didn't quite follow, so I just kept quiet. I guess that's why. I see the benefit of the template, but not everyone counts them the same way. Some people don't list their geohashes on their user pages, being content to have their names on the expedition pages. But that's okay. The wildly active people would probably participate, and I guess you're most interested in that. Curiously I hit success #10 on my 20th hash. If you'd asked me I would have said my success rate was one in three or four, not one in two. I guess I notice the dry streaks more than the win streaks. -Robyn 04:04, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations

On beating the Slave Lake. :D -- Relet 21:47, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Now if I could just get Utikuma Lake ... -Robyn 05:50, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

We all knew you'd get it done! Congratulations again! I also can't decide how I feel about your bike. On one hand, the picture of the mud made me want to cry, but on the other hand, I'm sure this is the most use anyone has gotten out of a Wallmart bike in a looooong time! And thanks for helping with my categories! Thepiguy 16:31, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd say you've already gotten far more than your monies worth out of that bike! I read somewhere that the average department store bike never gets ridden more than 12km. And I'm sure not many people have ever patched a tire on any of them too! Have you decided what your going to do with it once you leave? I think there should definitely be some sort of shrine. Thepiguy 16:49, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Wow, that's like people ride it home and forget it. I'm planning on passing it on to the co-workers who will replace me and/or finding a local who is willing to garage it for the winter. There is a good chance I'll be back in next summer for more work in the area.

I've noticed a distinct lack of a sense of urgency in my desire to gt totoday's hash. It's pretty near an access road about 30 km down the highway. But I'm still basking in yesterday's success. Plus I need to do laundry and might still get called to work in the next two hours. -Robyn 17:00, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Most people

How about this one for an icon? (<-small - bigger->) -- Relet 13:24, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

This user earned the Largest Geohash achievement at the ({{{latitude}}}, {{{longitude}}}) geohash on [[{{{date}}} {{{latitude}}} {{{longitude}}}|{{{date}}}]] with a record participation of 28 people.

vs.

This user earned the Largest Geohash achievement at the ({{{latitude}}}, {{{longitude}}}) geohash on [[{{{date}}} {{{latitude}}} {{{longitude}}}|{{{date}}}]] with a record participation of 28 people.

or the combo?

This user earned the Largest Geohash achievement at the ({{{latitude}}}, {{{longitude}}}) geohash on [[{{{date}}} {{{latitude}}} {{{longitude}}}|{{{date}}}]] with a record participation of 28 people.

Definitely the combo. -- Relet 15:09, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks (again!)

[Re-inserting. Please be careful not to stomp others' talk!]

Hey, Robyn -- you're really kicking ass keeping this wiki up to date with all your categorizing, achievement and other work. It's really great -- thanks! Ted 15:05, 22 August 2008 (UTC) Ted 15:14, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, Ted! I thought to be editing the section, not the page. -- Relet 17:05, 22 August 2008 (UTC)