Geohashing Quotes

Here is a collection of geohashing quotes designed to capture the spirit of geohashing. In some way, each of them helps define something about geohashing, whether it's the spirit of adventure, the non-sequitur, or the general oddity of the whole idea. Hopefully it helps share a little of the spirit of geohashing around. Please add your own discoveries if you think they fit (or don't, for that matter), and feel free to include the best quotes in Template:QUOTER to make them appear randomly on the main page.

Quotes

It was nice not to be treated as a lunatic alien for a change.- Fasanen

There's probably only one IRC channel in the world where you can complain about the stupid forest not being cold enough at -9°C and everyone understands and agrees without raising an eyebrow.- Dawidi

But first, let me say that you shouldn't look at Google Maps. They had a blind monkey draw their roads behind its back. - relet

There were quite a few "what the heck are we doing" moments, namely when we got into the little rafts in the water and paddled a quarter kilometre into the bay all in the dark – srs0

This was the day when relet was drawn to the dark side of geohashing…relet rode his trusty mount to the airport, to trade it for something faster. Something more powerful. Something more attuned to the dark forces of combustion. Something with a built-in navigation system. The dark side makes you powerful, yet weak. - relet

Then I realised, despite all my whining, my pain and exhaustion, my total lack of any positive thoughts at all, I was enjoying myself. I was having one of the most exhilarating times of my life. I was exploring a place that no one had ever been, seeing things no one had ever seen, pushing my body to its limit for a ridiculously pointless goal and loving every second of it.- UnwiseOwl

Who would be riding a bicycle this time of year? – Robyn

Things I learned while Geohashing: Check the damned ferry schedule. - thepiguy

There were cliffs. – Canberra Hashers

Would you like to join us for punch and pie? ...And by that I mean beef jerky and Coke. – Providence Hashers

Seattle geohash stuffed 8 members into an antique phone booth. We were working on a ninth, when we were asked not to do that anymore. – Thomcat

The problem with 14km twice is that its not far enough, so Arvid made his total trip more interesting by going over a nearby hill (that he discovered while doing an earlier hash) a couple of times, and took a long way home - Arvid

That someone gets off at that stop, that happens maybe once in ten years – Ekorren’s friendly busdriver.

We then attempted to explain the geohashing concept but eventually gave up and, with great authority, said "don't worry, we're from the Internet" which seemed to satisfy her.- Mike V, Edmonton

"We're not allowed to trespass, right? That's in the rules." said Wade. "Right, but..." explained Robyn. - Robyn

I've done the nearest worst thing that could happen: I had to explain geohashing to my mother. - Ekorren

In Soviet Russia, Nemo finds you! - Psud

Good thing though, that we (Germans) didn't invent it... otherwise the sport might now be known as DIN EN 31337 Verfahren zur Ermittlung statistisch gleichverteilter Zielpunkte fuer satellitengestuetzte mobile Freizeitgestaltung - dawidi in #geohashing

psypete: "is there any prize or accomplishment for geohashing in a hurricane?"

joannac: "a darwin award"

- joannac in #geohashing

Basically, we take a random point based on the Stock exchange and the current date, and go and have wacky adventures. Think of me as a new kind of adventure capitalist. - UnwiseOwl, explaining geohashing to a friend.

That was when a man, apparently the owner of the place, discovered us. He was a bit more skeptical than the girl, but let us stay and do our thing - as long as we didn't spend the night! None of us trusted ourselves to actually try to explain the whole thing without breaking out laughing, so our short answers must have left the poor guy rather perplexed as to what on earth we were doing there. - Pennywise at her debut hash.

The bonus was the religious man on that same corner, preaching about the coming of the second Great Depression and our collective trip down to Hell. He spoke of the lava that would be burning us for eternity when we got there. So, in the spirit of xkcd, we ~~enlightened him on the wonders of science until he put down his megaphone and picked up a microscope~~ err, snapped a picture of the crazy guy and continued on our way. - Woodveil

Made it there about lunch time. Mrs. Killingsworth, the nice, older lady that lives there, just could not understand why "the internet" was sending people to her house! -- N76Lima

At least it's too cold for snakes! - Gwynnath

The Relentless Haberdashers' first attempt at a hash. Almost a complete failure, all we can say for sure is we were closer when we ended than when we started. -The Relentless Haberdashers

The voices on the internet made me do it. - Jevanyn

"I think it may come down to common sense in the interpretation of the 'idea' of the achievement. ... I guess I'm saying there will always be grey areas, but a good story will beat a confusing rule any day." - MykaDragonBlue in #geohashing

I didn't bring any skis on this expedition, so when the GPS reported the hash being 59 m from the road, I thought "close enough" and called it a night. No, really, I walked/crawled through the waist-deep snow to reach the hash. I should be declared insane, but I made it. - the_ru

"Who needs maps, anyway?" "We do, daddy!" Jevanyn

"We were worried you were going to be a creepy paedophile or something", "My mother was worried you were going to kill and eat me", "This is so fun!" --TheJosh and UnwiseOwl, upon their meeting.

"My last four geohashes have all ended up in a corn field! Then again, I am in central Illinois. I'd get the same thing if I geohashed in Nebraska. Back home in Missouri? Wheat and cotton! But at least it'd be something different" -- Nathan, complaining to his buddies about his uninteresting geohashes.

After a recent geohash, my girlfriend asked me what I had been typing about for so long on my notebook. I explained the idea of geohashing and confessed to her what the true nature of some of my long bike tours last year was. I felt great fear and terror, but she was all like "Cool, sounds like fun. I'm joining next time you're going."--zb

Lars Olaf Goran Kropp biked from Sweden to Katmandu where he then proceeded to climb Mt. Everest before cycling home again. And he wasn't even geohashing.

Eventually, he understood that the point of it was just being there. His moment of clarity, as he looked at our lazy asses (I think Kristin was idly munching on a toothpick, even): "Oh, so you're geohashing right now!" -Dan & Kristin

"He tells me that he was burglarized recently, that he assumed that's why I was there, and that when he saw me (must've looked pretty weird, me stamping the grass and taking pictures of it), he was sitting by the window with his RIFLE debating whether or not to SHOOT ME." - Bird in #geohashing about his debut hash

"This is a much better road. You are now averaging a speed that registers on the speedometer." - Rhonda to Robyn

"See, two weird looking young men, are sitting on somebody's roof maybe a 100 meters away from a military base, have no explanation of what they are doing there ("uh, well, we picked a random spot and went there, officer, honest!"), and one has a hat with a communist star. Right. Not suspicious in the least." - Superbest, describing the strategic retreat to the roof of a stranger's house for the night.

When the Coast Guard told us to come onto their boat while they towed the raft to shore, we completely neglected to wield our plastic cutlasses menacingly and cry out "Prepare to be boarded, ye scurvy dogs!" as we leapt aboard. - Robyn

"I'm not sure we're going the right way, but look at the view!" - Vancouver crew

"It seemed like a good idea at the time." Robyn about a geohash

"Geohashing makes your mother happy." Hermann

"Do you have drawing pins to stick our marker to a tree?" - "No. We'll have to use the old-fashioned method." - "What's that, hair gel?!" -- Sermoa and Macronencer at 2009-10-02 51 -0

"That cow has a 'Dr Who' eartag." - "Maybe it's not a cow at all!" - "Yeah, it does kinda look like David Tennant. Keep an eye out for police boxes." kozz talking to his partner at 2009-12-05_-38_145

"We drove all this way for this?!" -- Evan at the Secaucus geohash

"The_T-Man gave his best shot at explaining the purpose of their mission, starting off a series of approaches, all of which resulted in the old lady answering "But I don't get the sense of it.". Which - taking the general idea of geohashing into consideration - probably meant she understood the previous explanations." -- The_T-Man and DerFlob

"Although every expedition is insanely goal-focused, whether or not you actually reach the goal is not necessarily going to be the thing that determines whether or not you feel good about having risen from the couch." --Michael5000

"Several no trespassing signs, but also several for sale signs, including the vacant block the hashpoint appeared to be on. A quick phone call and permission to enter was enthusiastically granted, before I even had a chance to say why I was there." -- Alh

At no point when pulling on his bright red cycling top had MagicIan considered that the field containing the hashpoint might also contain bulls! It was only since his return that he discovered bulls are colourblind and only feel threatened by fast movements -- MagicIan at the 2010-07-25 52_1 geohash

"We got the hash all over us!" -- Redaragorn's 3 yr old son, after driving through the large mud puddle that contained the hash point.

"OK, if you don't hear back from me in two hours, call the police and tell them to look for me approximately at the 50 10 geohash of the day." --Mampfred on the phone with his wife, after something scary happened at the 2010-10-18_50_10 geohash

"Now, I realized we had a problem in explaining our request: As far as anybody in Germany who is over 55 is concerned, the internet is good for nothing but child pornography, fraudulent crime and terrorists. So while explaining what we were doing, I carefully avoided the word internet, but still had to say game, which made the lady even more wary and almost hostile." --mtu at 2010-10-17 53 9

"GPS or not - "true" geohashing is what you make of it." - Mampfred to turbomagnus, re; Turbo's claim that he wasn't a 'true' geohasher since he didn't have a GPS.

"I'm glad I can balance using my bike cos otherwise I'd be on my arse in cow shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii" *thud*" - Alexturgid to Ken Phillips during 2012-03-06 53 -2

As I saw him running back down the hill I exclaimed, "He's running back, that means he must have found it!", I was quickly rebuffed with, "Unless he's being chased!" - Two companions talking during 2012-06-16 33 -117

I repeated my manic grin and asked the still very sceptical lady if we could go into the barn, because 'the people of the internet would not accept it if we were five metres off'. It took a lot of extra explaining to keep her from shooing us off her land, but in the end there is no arguing with the people of the internet and with a shrug she allowed us in. - Marvyn achieving 2012-08-17 51 5

Said party was helpful and pointed out my ball hadn't gotten too deep in the trees. I thanked them, picked it up, and continued into the trees. The following exchange took place: "Wait, where are you going?" "Oh, I actually meant to hit it further into the trees, so I'm just taking it there." "Why?" "The internet demands this of me." Geoff on 2012-09-03

I just have to shop, pack my things and clean the house for the weekend trip, but nothing where a spontaneous multi-hour night expedition wouldn't fit in. - Georelet in #geohashing about the 2012-11-22 and 2012-11-23 hash which are close to each other.

"So, remind me why we're going here..." said my mother. I attempted to explain geohashing again. "So we're going there, to be there?" she responded looking perplexed. "Um, yes" I replied. RedHatter on 2013-06-30

Why do I search invisible coordinates while it's wet and dark and uncomfortable outside, knowing that I'll probably end up dirty all over? I can't tell -- Juja, 2013-11-22

Cake is also highly recommended, especially if you succeed in transporting it to the geohash intact. Sharing cake with strangers at the geohash is a good way to tell people about geohashing. People willing to accept cake from strangers in party hats are probably the sort of people who would consider geohashing. -- Robyn