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What is this?
XKCD comic #426 contains an algorithm that generates random coordinates across the country1 every day.
These coordinates can be used as destinations for adventures, a-la Geocaching. They can also be used for local meetups.
1. Europe/Asia date handling still under discussion, see Talk:Main Page.
How it works
Play with the coordinate calculator here: http://xkcd.com/geohashing
Every day, the algorithm generates a new set of coordinates for every region. They are randomly placed -- they could be in the forest, in a city, or on a mountain. You can use this wiki to document the coordinates (geohashes) you've been to.
Unless you can predict the stock market, you can't figure out what the coordinates will be ahead of time. You can first calculate a weekday's coordinates at about 9:30 AM, and on Friday morning you can calculate the coordinates for each day that weekend.
If you go on Saturday afternoons, you might encounter other xkcd readers. Bring games!
When the coordinate falls somewhere dangerous or illegal to reach, use your judgment. If the coordinates are in an obviously unreachable place, the meetup is postponed until a better day.
Official Meetup
The official xkcd meetups happen every Saturday afternoon at 4:00 PM. If the coordinates for your area are in the ocean, a military base, or somewhere otherwise unreachable, that meetup is of course postponed. Unless, of course, you own a boat, are a soldier at said military base, or are James Bond. If you can, record who's there, take pictures, and post them here.
Implementation
A sample interactive coordinate calculator can be found here: [1] A reference implementation is available here: view download
Active Graticules
- Region/Graticule pages named "City Name, Country" where "City Name" is the most major (by population) urban center contained within it.
Australia
-35, 138 (Adelaide North, Australia)
-36, 138 (Adelaide South, Australia)
-28, 153 (Brisbane, Australia)
-35, 149 (Canberra, Australia)
-38, 145 (Melbourne, Australia)
Europe
51, -1 (London West, United Kingdom)
51, 0 (London East, United Kingdom)
51, 4 (Zuid west Nederland / Antwerpen)
North America
West to East (and North to South):
40, -111 (Salt Lake City, Utah)
45, -93 (Minneapolis NW, Minnesota)
44, -93 (Minneapolis SW, Minnesota)
41, -72 (Hartford, Connecticut)
41, -71 (Providence, Rhode Island)
44, -63 (Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada)
Recent Events
2008-05-17 37 -122 -- Dan, Emad, and Randall reached the San Francisco coordinates in a successful test.
2008-02-24 45 -122 -- NoTerminal and Drache reached this point as part of an early test while coming up with the algorithm.
Next Upcoming Day
2008-05-21 -- The coordinates for Wednesday, May 21st will become available that morning at about 9:30 AM EDT, when the Dow Jones opening price is published.
Next Saturday
2008-05-24 -- The coordinates for Saturday, May 24th will become available on Friday about 9:30 AM EDT, when the Friday Dow Jones opening price is published.
see TimeandDate.com for dow opening time in local timezones
Related Projects
Geocaching: Global GPS cache hunt
Geodashing: Monthly points, randomly created
The Degree Confluence Project: visiting every integer latitude/longitude crossing point in the world
