User talk:NWoodruff

Picture of your graticule. Did you take it? -Robyn 15:56, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

No, I stole it from my local radio station. Someone from 96.1 FM took the picture and posted it on the radio stations web site. I had it as my desktop of my computer for a while. There were a number of tornado pictures that people uploaded, but I thought that one was the best.

Image file sizes

I have contacted the server admin about this and he has removed the warning. --joannac 07:00, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

THANK YOU!!! joannac --NWoodruff 11:48, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

is there a reason this tiny part of the conversation was kept when the context for it was cleaned? --mykaDragonBlue [- i have no sig -] 00:55, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Ooh, I can answer this one! Because it's the only place on the wiki where joanna's brave appeal to the server admin is documented, and others might be interested in the repeal. -Robyn 04:15, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

2008-05-24 34 -84

Hi, just cleaning out the wiki and looking for some clarification. You say you were around then, and it never happened. Does that mean you were at the point (in which case, you can probably claim it)? If you weren't, then how do you know it never happened? Or am I misinterpreting your statement. Thanks, --joannac 00:44, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I remember this time last year that I was e-mailing with someone that lived in Smyrna about geohashing in the now Roswell and he told me that he had been trying to organize an expedition in that graticule but nothing had formed as of yet. It was about a week or two before my first geohash on 2008-06-22. I'm assuming that meant that the 2008-05-24 was a planning page to mean that no movement was to mean no group was formed to find the geohash point. --NWoodruff 12:24, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Are you sure it's the same person? I think the fact there's a time on the page indicates someone was there at the time, and the "no movement" is referring to there being no activity at the hashpoint (i.e. no other hashers). --joannac 12:38, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

No I can't be sure. But since I do work in that graticule, I was interested in making an effort to find a geohash in this graticule. I don't even remember his name. I gave someone else my e-mail address from the Atlanta group and someone else gave it to him because I was interested and worked close to where he lived. I don't have any e-mails from that far back or I would look it up. I do remember him saying to me that he had been trying to get a group together for a month now. That would have been about the time of that entry and the saying "No movement". --NWoodruff 16:31, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Anonymous editing

Hey, there's some discussion going on about spam and what to do (which will probably affect anonymous editing). Since you do a lot of anonymous editing you should probably add your opinion. Discussion is here. --joannac 12:56, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Be the first to Geohash on the Moon

Technically, I believe this would be lunahashing. --starbird 23:44, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Haha, that is a good goal, number 19. I hope it will actually be possible within our lifetimes. I sometimes go on Google Moon just to see where some of the geohashes would be. Like starbird, i also refer to it as lunarhashing! :) -- sermoa 18:16, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

It might be interesting to check if accidental lunahashing weren't made by one of Apollo expeditions or unmanned lunar probes. The same could be possible on Mars - it would be areohashing. Should we create "Virgin planet" achievement for them? Felinator 14:09, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Globalhash

The globalhash for Tuesday is on an Augusta, Georgia road or joint driveway. This is EXTREMELY reachable. We need to find a local hasher! --Bill^2 15:59, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually it is in South Carolina. But I do think it is going to be attempted. --NWoodruff 16:14, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Atlanta, Georgia

Fwiw, the hash really does fall on the southern edge of the road, the name of the road is Connell, and i thought the original phrasing was a bit awkward. Do you disagree with any of these three statements? -- Yours, CrystyB 17:13, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

+/- 30 feet means middle of the road is close enough. If I do a speed racer achievement today, it will be in the middle of the road. I never said anything about the name of the road and it is east of Union City, Georgia.

Are you going to make that geohash today? Why should you care?

My other partner in crime, Luxmundi, might read the front page and see middle of the road and want to attempt it. His iPhone is +/- 150 feet. It might give him a reason to attempt it. --NWoodruff 17:33, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Points taken. Although, in my defense: deleting that name might be interpreted as "thumbs down" (quote)about the name of the road(un-quote). As for the east/south-east, the map i saw placed the Union City name directly north-west of the hash.

Not that you should care, but i wanted to know whether i did it wrong and to find an appropriate wiki-editing mindset.

If by "front page" you mean browser starting page, i agree that my phrasing would get a bit more visibility than i imagined, but otherwise i see no connection between it and the Main Page.

Anyway, thanks for the clarifications, and hope you'll nail this one today. -- CrystyB 17:48, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Front page I was referring to is the Atlanta Front page. Wiki-editing mindset is stick to your own graticule, that is unless you have been here for years or have 100 or so geohashes.

Todays geohash will be my 200th geohash.--NWoodruff 18:14, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Re: Breakin

NWoodruff: Sorry to hear about your truck, camera, and GPS unit. I hope your finances allow a speedy return to the sport. In the meantime, it won't be the same around here without you. --aperfectring 03:44, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

NWoodruff: Sorry to hear about the breakin. I went to school in ATL (as you may be able to surmise) and I've had vehicles broken into on several occasions. I've been reading a lot of your expeditions since my introduction to geohashing last week. I hope that you are able to begin hashing in earnest again soon. In the meantime, I'd love to read about some No Batteries Geohash attempts. ;) Ramblingwreck 04:47, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Newark NJ in July

Kyukket has two successful geohashes on the 24th and 25th, bringing the number of expeditions this month to three. Two others were planned but not attempted.

Okay, thanks. Did they not show up on the most active page? --NWoodruff 14:32, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't know. I created the pages for him, and I must have missed the categories at first. I went back after a couple of days, so they slipped -through the cracks. --Jevanyn 16:52, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

People youd like to hash with

Make sure you hit me up if you ever come to NZ! Greenslime 21:52, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Atlanta = Most Active 01/2011

Congratulations on the Most Active Graticule Achievement 01/2011 for Atlanta. If you hadn't waited to document the latest three expeditions until the 1st of februrary the good people of 50,8 would have had a chance to at least try and beat you by doing just one more expedition in their own graticule ... ah well, better luck next time :(( - Mampfred 09:57, 1 February 2011 (EST)

That is the reason why you need to get out and Geohash every chance you get. I didn't know if you guys were going to Geohash another one, so, I did every Geohash that I could. If you are going to beat Atlanta, it will take some fun Geohash work. --NWoodruff 13:35, 1 February 2011 (EST)

You're missing the point. It's just particularly frustrating if you're about to grab the achievement and suddenly three more expeditions, all for the same graticule (and still lacking a proper report and photos ;), are popping up unexpectedly ... let's look at this the other way round: you maybe wouldn't have done and I quote "every Geohash that I could" because "I didn't know if you guys were going to Geohash another one" if it had taken us two weeks to document our expeditions. Sure, I could have held back some of our documentation too but that doesn't seem right. That takes the competition fun out of it for me, so I'll go for other achievements from now on and leave that particular one to you and/or Atlanta. And I'll quit whining now. - Mampfred 13:59, 1 February 2011 (EST)

That is just the way it happens. Take this expedition as an example, 2009-12-02 -37 144. I had a last man standing achievement for more than 3 months. Someone came around and filed a report 3 months(not 5 days) later with out any pictures or proof, my last man standing is now gone. Oh well, I'll just try harder for another one. The 3 expeditions in question are only 4 days apart. Not every one files reports on the same day. I don't have my camera with me today or I would upload the pictures. I'll get to it in the next few days. Most people go a month or more before uploading pictures.

If you look at the list of Overall Record for Most Coordinates Reached with 9 or more Coordinates Reached a month, there are two other Graticules on the list, and they each have only 1 entry. Atlanta has 12 entries on that list. I knew that if I wanted the Most Active Graticule for the month, I needed to have at least 10. If you want to be the Most active for the month, be the most active that you can be, and don't depend on a list to just be one better than the next guy. Being 1 better than the next guy doesn't mean a thing. Be at it the best you can be and then take the award. There are months in 2009 where I had TRIPLE the number of geohashes than the next closest graticule. Not just 1 more than the next best graticule but 3 times as many.

I actually expanded the Overall Record from the Top 3 to Top 10 so other graticules would appear in the list.

I enjoy the Hell out of Geohashing. I'm not in it anymore for the record. I've got most of them. I'm in it for the incredible fun that it has turned out to be. If that makes me the most active every time because nobody else in the world sees this sport as fun and only something to have a record at then "Oh Well". If I was in it for only the record, I would have stopped almost 2 years ago. I set the most in one month nearly 2 years ago.

I've set my sights now on being the Most Active Globalhasher. I now want a total of 2 Global Hashes. 1 Globalhash is never enough. My second feat will be Consecutive Global Hashes. I'm not doing it for the record, I'm doing it because of the thrill of it. Because someone has attached a record to it means nothing to me. --NWoodruff 14:54, 1 February 2011 (EST)

Most Active Pages

Great work with the most active pages. But since it's starting to be a dozen updates a day, it's kinda spamming the RecentChanges. How about creating a new user to do the updates and get it flagged as a bot so the updates don't show up in the list unless you're explicitely looking for them? Just a thought. - Mampfred 09:08, 15 July 2011 (EDT)

How do I flag my userid as a bot?? --NWoodruff 09:53, 15 July 2011 (EDT)

I believe an Admin needs to turn on the Bot bit. However, you might also consider not updating more than once a month, say, some of the pages. I doubt the Antarctic region is changing very soon... Jiml 10:35, 15 July 2011 (EDT)

I created a bot account but I don't know who to speak to, to get it set as a bot. My program that I wrote will say if there is activity in the current month. I thought about updating it that way. The ocean graticules will probably never get any activity either but, I wanted to do them to show that there was no activity.

What my program doesn't say is if there was activity since the last update, which means if Asia only has one Expedition this month that I would more than likely be updating it all month even though there was only one entry.

I've been doing the page update now every day for the last 2 years manually, meaning I run my program, log on to this website and copy by hand the data. I've only missed a day or two in 2 years. I haven't decided yet if I want to do the regional pages every day yet since this is only the third day I've been doing it. I may just decide to do them once a month anyway.

I anyway created a new user...NWoodBot. --NWoodruff 10:55, 15 July 2011 (EDT)

Well if you're doing the updates manually I wouldn't bother using a bot account as sooner or later you're probably going to be using the wrong one and it's even messier than before (no offense, would happen to anyone). But you should probably consider automating the updates to save you a lot of time ... and only then move it to the bot account. - Mampfred 11:01, 15 July 2011 (EDT)

Hi NWoodruff. I was just looking at the Most active graticules table. Thanks for keeping it updated. I noticed that graticule 52,0 (Cambridge, UK) correctly appears at #19 in the table, with 63 expeditions. However, graticule 52,-0 (Northampton, UK) also appears as "Cambridge, UK" (joint #46 with 26 expeditions). Similarly, 51,0 (London East) and 51,-0 (London West) both appear as "London East, UK". In both cases I suspect the program you use to compile the stats is treating "-0" as if it were "0", so it's a bit of an obscure error which only appears for a few graticules west of the prime meridian. Is there any chance, though, that you might be able to fix this? Many thanks. — Benjw _{talk} 09:31, 22 August 2012 (EDT)

Fixed... Thanks for pointing out the error to me. --NWoodruff 10:23, 25 August 2012 (EDT)

Splendid! Looks great. Thanks again for taking the time to do that. — Benjw _{talk} 13:38, 25 August 2012 (EDT)

Hi! Thank you for your "Most Active Graticules" pages. I'd like however to bring to your attention the question we asked here: Talk:Asia_Most_Active_Graticules. It's about (mis)placement of "Moscow, Russia" graticule into "Asia" category. Could you please consider moving it to "Europe" or explaining why it should stay in "Asia"? vb (talk) 04:24, 31 August 2013 (EDT)

For history. The source for the list of gaticules is this page: All_graticules/Eurasia. Moved some graticules from Asia to Europe, but list is still imperfect. Gonna consider it later. vb (talk) 13:37, 31 August 2013 (EDT)

Map of Graticules

Hey NWoodruff

First, thanks for the map of my hashes. Just wondering, can you tell me how often it updates, and how I can convince it that one of my hashes was a virgin hash so it comes up with a pretty white marker? In otherwords, what are the inputs required to generate the map? Cheers Greenslime 00:08, 9 August 2011 (EDT)

Hi Greenslime. I update it manually when I see that there are additions to the list. I haven't noticed any updates in Auckland lately so I haven't looked to see if you had Geohashed lately. You are right that I did miss that one of your geohashes was a Virgin Hash. I did fix it.

You can view the source of the map by right clicking on the map and then select "View Source".

if you look at the source and look for the procedure call named "addPlace", that is where all the markers are added to the map. You can add new markers by copying one of the lines and pasting it in a new line. You would need to correct the information in the new line to reflect the new Geohash. Lines can be added in any order that you like, but I like to add newest geohashes at the bottom of the list. That way the oldest is at the top and newest is at the bottom.

The list of color markers is right below the last "addPlace" procedure call, with 7 being the number for "Virgin Graticule Award". The color of the marker depends on the number at the end of the procedure call "addPlace".

I host your list on my own web storage space. Once you view the source of your map, you can store your source code to your own web space that wiki.xkcd.com can see, or send me your new source code of your map in an email and I'll upload it to my own personal web space.

If you have any other questions you can always send me an email or leave me a message here.

Hey, I just wanted to stop by and say THANKS for the map of the hashes! :) Cheers, Onicofago

Javascript for graticule map

Hey y'all!

I'm hacking a bit on an Erlang solution that calculates all retro hashes around your location and maps it. Right now I have borrowed your javascript code for mapping Greenslime's adventuresbut in order for me to release the code I need to know the author and licence of that javascript. So right now my erlang code has cached all DJIA and calculates all retro hashes from 1928-10-01 until now in about a second and then outputs javascript with arrows for all hashes.

You can see an example output here. Right now it is just a the static output of one run of my program but I'm planning to do it interactive so you easily can get all retros around you. So what I need now is Author and licence of the javascript.

Take care. --Cjk 15:36, 8 February 2012 (EST)

I wrote it. I used the examples from googles map api. But I wrote everything else. --NWoodruff 15:45, 8 February 2012 (EST)

if you want something that maps retro hashes for you, I have already written code for that more than 2 years ago. --NWoodruff 15:46, 8 February 2012 (EST)

Oh cool, can I release it as GPL? I kinda have a very good implementation already. Does all retros in less than a second. I just need to make it work for negative numbers and especially -0. --Cjk 19:58, 9 February 2012 (EST)

Do with it what you like. --NWoodruff 08:07, 10 February 2012 (EST)

Noob just up the road

Nathan - I am a noob who lives up the road from you in Bethlehem. Can you email me? I have a question for you.

1958-08-03 50 6

On the 50,6 page, you suggest the 1958-08-03 retrohash. Hijackal was 40 m north of that hash in 2010, racing down the Nürburgring on his bike. He has neither tracklog nor pictures of the hashsite though - every gram of weight counts. There might be general proof of having completed several laps of the Nordschleife, though. --Hijackal 23:04, 13 April 2012 (EDT)

2010-02-07 59 16

I don't quite understand the edit of 2010-02-07 59 16. It went beyond planning to an actual expedition, we were there but didn't complete. The ru 18:12, 23 August 2012 (EDT)

The tag at the bottom says that you didn't attempt. I read that tag and added the planning part. If it is wrong, you can change the tags. --NWoodruff 18:14, 23 August 2012 (EDT)

Yeah, I added it back. No big deal, I just was a bit confused. The ru 18:18, 23 August 2012 (EDT)

for the most active graticle report page to function correctly, I need a category of planning, reached or not reached. I'm updating all pages to have one of those categories --NWoodruff 18:20, 23 August 2012 (EDT)

RE: Atlanta Colleges!

Tempting, for sure. I'll have to look into it. Most active graticle in TEH WORLD? That would be juuuust fine by me.

-quietly adds Atlanta to shortlist-

Although it would be pretty hard to explain the decision to family and friends. Oh well!

SamBurge 23:37, 31 January 2013 (EST)

Interactive Google map

Hi Nathan

Thanx for coding this nice little gimmick. Unfortunately it doesn't work for me, might be because of the underline in my user name..? Cheers

--Chris 47 8 (talk) 03:12, 31 January 2014 (EST)

Nathan,

Thanks - this is sweet.

I tried to look up the map for JMuonio but couldn't see it. Am I supposed to be able to see anyone's but yours and mine?

-George

Mcbaneg (talk) 23:11, 22 February 2014 (EST)

this really looks brilliant & thanks for doing this. I could look up several users (tested 5 succeeded 3). ALso the map for me did not show up, so most of it works, but not yet everything? -JW JwB

Interesting - For me it shows only two out of nearly 150 expeditions. I have made my own based on a hand-crafted KML file here. This is a really nice idea if you can get it working properly. Sourcerer (talk) 17:34, 8 August 2014 (EDT)Soucerer

Sourcerer (talk) 05:02, 10 August 2014 (EDT)Sourcerer: Ah of course. I am listing my expeditions in a non-standard way as there are so many of them. I assumed you were searching Category: Expeditions but perhaps there is no easy/efficient way to identify the participants from there. I wonder if that could be retro-fitted into the wiki. I don't think you should code a solution, only for me, unless it generalises to all users.

Sourcerer (talk) 08:48, 11 August 2014 (EDT)Sourcerer: Thanks. I spotted your awesome activity level soon after I first signed up for the Wiki. I only manage one or two a month and usually by car:(

Nathan - the interactive map for me was working beautifully, but in June 2014 I switched my expedition list to an APerfectBot-generated one at http://wiki.xkcd.com/geohashing/User:Mcbaneg/Expeditions. It doesn't appear that the map-bot has figured that out, and no expeditions since then have showed up. Is there a way for me to point it at my list? If not, could I trouble you to do it? Thank you - it's a lovely addition to the wiki. --Mcbaneg (talk) 15:24, 24 August 2014 (EDT)

You made an entry on my page pointing out that you have pointed the map-bot at my expedition page. I want to thank you here where people are more likely to see it! Thanks - the maps add lots of interest and fun to this oddball hobby we share.--Mcbaneg (talk) 19:12, 27 August 2014 (EDT)

I asked in the Breaking News section but didn't realize there was a section here on the Interactive map(which is really sweet, btw). It doesn't look like this is updating any longer for me. My map has all my hashes from Aug but none from Sept. Looking at the notes above, I may have broken it for myself with my new expedition report layout on my page. Can you take a look and see please? Pedalpusher (talk) 11:04, 9 October 2014 (EDT)

You are correct that it stopped working for you. It has to do in the way that I search through html tables. Not only did it not work for you there were other people that it didn't work for either. it is now fixed. --NWoodruff (talk) 15:41, 9 October 2014 (EDT)

Thanks it's good now, and again, great contribution. Pedalpusher (talk) 12:45, 10 October 2014 (EDT)

Hey Nathan - found a minor bug in the map. I was the only one to report an expedition on 2015-10-08 but I did not make it to the hash. You might want to add a check for Coords reached when checking for the Last Man Standing flag. Pedalpusher (talk) 13:15, 12 January 2015 (EST)

Minor bug - me too. I failed to reach the coordinates on 2010-12-25_52_0 so should probably not gain "Last Man Standing" --Sourcerer (talk) 11:47, 13 January 2015 (EST)

Minor bug of Last Man Standing on Coordinates not reached has been fixed. It should be just a Not Reached Flag from now on. --NWoodruff (talk) 19:29, 15 April 2015 (EDT)

Raw Wiki Data

Hi Nathan - How do you harvest the wiki data to compile your maps and statistics? I'm interested in, and have some coding aptitude including SQL. Can I get hold of the relevant wiki tables? I assume they're regularly backed up somewhere. --Sourcerer (talk) 11:18, 30 January 2015 (EST)

Thanks for the pointer to your code. I'll have a good look at this.

Out-hash the world

In January I made 20 expeditions. All the other geohashers in the world totalled only 13 (numbers subject to late reports). I'm guessing that you also, have out-hashed the world during your busy history. Do you think this is worth a ribbon? I have proposed one here and would appreciate your thoughts. --Sourcerer (talk) 09:06, 1 February 2015 (EST)

OK I can't count and this is complete rubbish. It was fun while I was in fantasy-math land though! I still wonder if anyone has managed this though. --Sourcerer (talk) 09:50, 1 February 2015 (EST)

Since there are only 30 or 31 days in a month, not counting Feburary, if the world geohashed more than 30/31 times, this would be unavailable/unattainable. --NWoodruff (talk) 10:01, 4 February 2015 (EST)

I grabbed six hashpoints in one day this January, taking advantage of the Grenwich meridian mirror effect. If that could be repeated several times, I'd be in the running but it's pretty unlikely.

On the other hand Atlanta has out Geohashed all other graticules for 4 years in a row. I doubt any other graticule will ever do that again. --NWoodruff (talk) 10:03, 4 February 2015 (EST)

Slight map problem

Hi Nathan - I see two problems with the map GooMapXKCDthomcat.htm -- 1) Coordinates for expedition 194 are incorrect, and match the peeron inset on the expedition page. This is incorrect; I have posted about it on the implementations page. 2) The coordinates for 195 and 196 are correct, but no marker is appearing on the map. 194 appears in the improper location (but matches the expedition), 193 and before are correct and match the expedition. Let me know if I can help debug things, and thanks! --Thomcat (talk) 23:45, 14 April 2015 (EDT)

Curiously, the second problem is now gone. Perhaps there is a local cache problem? The code looks unchanged to me. I am pushing on the IRC for the first problem to be solved, because I bet it will be a problem next year also (and perhaps this fall). Will you have to update the coords manually for between DST dates? --Thomcat (talk) 09:43, 15 April 2015 (EDT)

The first problem is related to XKCD's website as there is no recorded Dow Jones open data for Mar 24 2015. Per Yahoo the open is 18,102.50 for that date. It would take forever and a day to generate the map pages if I had to read the opening data for every expedition. So, I just get the coordinates off of the expedition page. Get the website to fix the coordinates for that day and your map marker will be in the correct place next time I create map pages for everyone.

As for the second problem, it was probably a local cache because the current map I have for you was generated at 4/13/2015 at 3:39am edt.

As for DST dates, I don't think it makes a difference on the algorithm of how the coordinates are calculated. The hour of the day makes no difference to the algorithm. I think it has more to do with the website having bad data due to how Google changed how it displays the Dow opening the beginning of the month.

Gotcha, thanks --Thomcat (talk) 21:37, 15 April 2015 (EDT)

Counting hashers

Hi Nathan, I like the idea to automate the counting of the active hashers. But the automated list is incomplete. It only shows 68 hashers. There must be more than 100, aren't there? I miss 3 (Pastori, Eldin, and LucasBrown) of the most active hashers in the last two years (according to Mystrsyko). I'll list some of my expeditions that are missing on the interactive map to help to find the error:

DODO (talk)

The reason why those expeditions are not showing on the automated most active list is because those are not listed on your user page. List them on your user page and they will show up next time.

I read the active users page to get a list of active users. I do that for the maps because no need to regenerate user maps if they have no activity. I currently use the data generated from the user maps program to spit out the automated list. I will come up with a better way but I wanted to automate the list and that way only took about 30 minutes of programming to get that list.--NWoodruff (talk) 13:56, 17 April 2015 (EDT)

Ok, that explains, why several users are missing. But I'm not convinced with the explanation of my counted expeditions. I put ALL expeditions of 2014 on an archive page, so why are some expeditions counted but others not. OK, there were 3 or 4 meetups, which were also visited by other users, but these never count up to 22. DODO (talk)