User:Macronencer
Macronencer
Real name | Mike |
Based in | Bursledon, Southampton, UK |
Education | Southampton Uni Maths grad, 1986. |
Job | Software developer |
True vocation | Media Composer (I'm working on it) |
xkcd history | Fan since the first mention on BoingBoing in 2005 |
Other information
Mike can close his nose without touching it, which makes him fart-proof. He eats at least forty times his own body weight every century, is a part-time volunteer in the Lynne Truss militia, and loves skunks, his son and longevity research - but not in that order. Give him an inch and he takes a mile. Give him a pinch and he makes a pile. He is a full-time sceptic, part-time father, one-time rock star and all-time champion awful punster.
This is Chuck, my new hashscot. Being one of the greatest adventuring scientists who ever lived, rather exhausted after his voyage on the Beagle, family tragedy and the years and years of work on his well-known book, this 200-year-old explorer decided to take it easy, and now travels to random locations with me.
He enjoys looking at the countryside on our travels, and gets rather animated when by chance we spy a finch or lowly earthworm. I often have to remind him to calm down before he punctuates his equilibrium. I am looking forward to the day when my bicycle chain breaks so I can ask him, in jocular fashion, to go and find the missing link.
Local graticules
Southampton, United Kingdom (home)
Swindon, United Kingdom (convenient alternative)
Brighton, United Kingdom (possible alternative as I work near Fareham)
Weymouth, United Kingdom (occasionally convenient)
Planned hashes
Standard hashes
Retro hashes and special expeditions
- 2008-05-21 51 -1 Standby retrohash for next year's Mouse Over Day - hash for original geohash day in the Swindon grat.
Attempted Hashes
Standard hashes
(icon work in progress!)
Seq# | ID | Location | Information | Meetup | First encounters | |||
006 | 2009-08-01 50 -2 | Charlton Marshall, Dorset | 6 | 6 | 0 | 2 | 04housemat, Mahahahaneapneap | |
005 | 2009-07-27 50 -1 | Romsey, Hampshire | 5 | 5 | 0 | 1 | ||
004 | 2009-07-27 51 -0 | Flitwick, near Luton | 4 | 4 | 0 | 1 | ||
003 | 2009-07-22 50 -0 | The Road To Bognor | 3 | 3 | 0 | 1 | ||
002 | 2009-07-18 50 -1 | Hambledon Cricket pilgrimage! | Meetup | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | |
001 | 2009-06-28 50 -1 | Hedge End recreation ground | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Sermoa |
Retro hashes and special expeditions
Date | ID | Location | Information |
2009-07-27 | 1965-05-06 51 0 | Origin Geohash achievement In a field next to Hylands Park, Chelmsford |
Statistics
Score card(s)
-2 | -1 | -0 | |
52 | x | x | x |
51 | x | x | 1 |
50 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
Achievements
Macronencer achieved level 2 of the Minesweeper Geohash achievement
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This user earned the xkcd Nullaturion achievement
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This user earned the Multihash Achievement
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Macronencer earned the Origin geohash achievement
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Macronencer earned the Land geohash achievement
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Macronencer earned the Meet-up achievement
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Gratuitous Ribbons
Macronencer earned the Musician Achievement
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Macronencer earned the Rubik's Achievement
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Long-term intentions
- Earn various Displaced origin geohash achievements (some of these are rather ambitious, I'll admit!)
- 1965-05-06 51 -3 - actually on a green on the Aberdare golf course near Cardiff in Wales :)
- 1965-05-06 52 0 - marginally within somebody's front garden, but arguably public as within GPS accuracy of public land :)
- 1965-05-06 53 -1 - next to a canal and the M62 near Sheffield. Sounds inaccessible, but satellite imagery makes it look relatively easy.
- 1965-05-06 39 3 - very accessible as it is right next to a road... but it's on Mallorca.
- 1965-05-06 20 -156 - Maui - therefore expensive to get to. But just a short walk into the hills...
- Leave a variety of unusual xkcd signs
- One made out of ants (Oh yeah!)
- One that can only be seen from the right angle (like the Channel 4 logos on TV)
- One in ASCII binary (probably already been done)
- One in Morse code (ditto)
- Visit the hash point from the original comic: 2005-05-26 37 -122 - it's in the Golden Gate recreational park in San Francisco.
- Collar someone with a boat and do a big Water geohash, probably in the Solent, or the river Itchen or Hamble.
- Buy a small boat (kayak?) and do a small Water geohash, probably in a lake or small river.
- Gain the Minesweeper Geohash ribbon because it's shiny! Probably centred on the Swindon graticule.
Completed!
- Earn the Origin geohash achievement by visiting 1965-05-06 51 0 in a field near Chelmsford
- Leave an xkcd sign in Braille
VERY long-term intentions
- Complete a hash expedition in all 64,800 graticules. Hey, I'm a life-extensionist and I think big, what can I say? The real question is: centuries from now, will geohashing exist? Come to that, will the Dow Jones exist? I think Gene Roddenberry would probably say "Let's hope not". So there ya go.
Journal
2009-08-01 Kayaks!
I went looking at water transport today. I seem to have these options:
- 1. Solid sit-on kayak
- Pro Less work paddling against the wind, more rugged for larger stretches of water, can get a larger version and sit my son in the back seat. Andark's even told me it might fit IN my car, removing the need for a roof rack. I'm going back there to try doing that tomorrow, though I don't plan to buy anything just yet.
- Con Expensive. Too large to take on bike-only expeditions, and I will get wet (but hey, that was probably going to happen anyway with a water hash)
- 2. Inflatable
- Pro Cheap. Small enough to go in a bike trailer. I could probably get bike, trailer and boat into my car for maximum Ninja-strike capability.
- Con Hard work to paddle against wind, and slightly more limited in choice of water. Probably dangerous in large tidal rivers, and NO WAY I would take one on the sea, of course.
This is interesting. The inflatable is cheap enough that I could get one and get the solid kayak later as well. This would allow me at least to have some water capability in the mean time. I also want to get some kayaking lessons (I need a refresher!)
2009-07-30 How accurate are the co-ordinates?
I like to answer questions like this, so I had a go. By my reckoning, the geohash algorithm gives a maximum grid resolution of about 6 femtometres, which is about 6,000 times smaller than a hydrogen atom. Talk about a hammer to crack a nut!
2009-07-29 More about Couch Potato
I think my previous estimate was pessimistic. Personally I would count anything within a 30m radius of the centre of my house, given that the grounds are fairly large. Actually they are rectangular, but likely to be equivalent to a 30m radius circle. I must measure this accurately at some point.
Anyway, this new criterion yields a 1 in 3 million chance on a given day (equating to a 1 in 8200 chance in a given year).
2009-07-17 Couch Potato...
I have just worked out that at my latitude of 50 degrees, assuming my house includes its land area of about 30x40m, there is a 1 in 6.7 million chance of getting a couch potato award on a given day. Not good odds, though admittedly a little better than the Lotto jackpot :|