User:Sourcerer

From Geohashing
Revision as of 09:22, 29 March 2016 by imported>Sourcerer (New expedition)

Sourcerer's archives for - 2018 - 2017 - 2016 - 2015 - 2014 - 2013 - 2012 - 2011 - 2010    My favourites are highlighted yellow. Interactive Map implemented by NWoodruff.

Nb in 52 1.jpg
Lol-asg.png 71 / m / 52,1
Suffolk colour.PNG This geohasher lives in Suffolk.
56,-3 56,-2
53,-2 53,-1 53,-0 53,0
52,-2 52,-1 52,-0 52,0 52,1
51,-2 51,-1 51,-0 51,0 51,1
50,-2 50,-1 50,-0 50,0

aimlessly.worm.gourmet

KML Tool - Implementations

Calculators and Links

Calculators: Eupeodes - Peeron - Ekorren's Tool - Geohash Droid (Android) - Probabilities

Links: UK Graticules - Foonetic - Graticule Stats - User Stats - Maps and statistics - My Images - Implementation Notes - Moonrise and set

Hash Map

Sourcerer Google Maps.jpg

Expeditions

March

Day Map Reached/Total Summary -  Planning   Reached   Not reached   Retro  Achievements
2016-03-29 52 1 Tue Map  405/461  A field close to the Industrial Estate at Rackheath, Norfolk, UK. Midnight
2014-09-18 52 1 Mon Map  16/16  Rackheath Industrial Estate between Norwich and Wroxham, Norfolk, UK.
2016-03-28 52 1 Mon Map  404/460  A patch of public land very close to a patch of private land, East Ruston, Norfolk, UK.
2016-03-27 51 0 Sun Map  403/459  A field NE of the castle at Castle Hedingham, Essex, UK.
2016-03-23 52 1 Wed Map  56/458  A meadow close to the source of the river Chet, Norfolk, UK.
2016-03-19 52 1 Sat Map  402/457  A meadow north of Mettingham, close to the river Waveney, Suffolk, UK.
2016-03-18 52 1 Fri Map  55/456  Close to the coast at Mill Farm, Walcott, Norfolk, UK.
2016-03-17 52 1 Thu Map  401/455  A meadow on common land at Thornage, Norfolk, UK.
2016-03-15 51 0 Tue Map  400/454  A field close to the Bull Inn, Blackmore End, Essex, UK. Midnight
2016-03-14 51 0 Mon Map  399/453  A graveyard at Twinstead, Essex, UK. Coffin Potato and Holy Hash
2016-03-07 52 1 Mon Map  54/452  A field edge at Palgrave south of Diss, just over the border in Suffolk, UK.
2016-03-01 52 1 Tue Map  398/451  A sand quarry west of Bungay, Suffolk, UK. This is 5 km from home.

February

Day Map Reached/Total Summary -  Planning   Reached   Not reached   Retro  Achievements
2016-02-27 52 0 Sat Map  397/450  A beach hashpoint north of Brancaster close to the golf clubhouse, Norfolk, UK. Midnight
2016-02-26 52 1 Fri Map  396/449  A field 5km from home, north of Bungay, over the border into Norfolk, UK.
2016-02-24 52 1 Wed Map  395/448  A field north of Great Witchingham, Norfolk, UK. Midnight, Frozen
2016-02-23 52 1 Tue Map  394/447  A field close to a footpath, west of Fressingfield, Suffolk, UK.
2016-02-20 52 1 Sat Map  393/446  A field corner not far from a footpath, west of Badingham, Suffolk, UK.
2016-02-13 52 1 Sat Map  392/445  A wood between Hoveton and Horning, Norfolk, UK. Midnight, Frozen
2016-02-12 52 1 Fri Map  391/444  A wood south of Beccles, Suffolk, UK.
2016-02-11 52 1 Thu Map  390/443  A field north of Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK. Midnight
2016-02-10 52 1 Wed Map  389/442  A field south east of Gipping, 3km from source of the Gipping river, Suffolk, UK.
2016-02-03 52 1 Wed Map  388/441  A field east of Ingham Corner, Norfolk, UK. Midnight
2016-02-02 52 1 Tue Map  387/440  A field north of Thorpe Market, Norfolk, UK.

January

Day Map Reached/Total Summary -  Planning   Reached   Not reached   Retro  Achievements
2016-01-31 52 1 Sun Map  386/439  Freston Park on the south bank of the river Orwell, south of Ipswich, Suffolk, UK.
2016-01-29 52 1 Fri Map  385/438  A quarry next to a petroleum distribution depot, east of Wymondham, Norfolk, UK.
2016-01-23 52 0 Sat Map  384/437  A field south east of Watton, Norfolk, UK. Midnight
2016-01-22 52 0 Fri Map  383/436  A field north west of Great Bircham, Norfolk, UK.
2016-01-21 52 1 Thu Map  382/435  A field south east of Saint Cross South Elmham, Suffolk, UK.
2016-01-16 52 1 Sat Map  381/434  A field south of Loddon, Norfolk, UK.
2016-01-15 52 1 Fri Map  0/0  A field west of Brinton, Norfolk, UK. Not attempted
2016-01-14 52 1 Thu Map  380/433  A field between Stoven and Frosteden, Suffolk, UK. Midnight
2016-01-13 52 1 Wed Map  379/432  A field, east of Kenninghall, Norfolk, UK.
2016-01-11 52 1 Mon Map  378/431  A field north of Aslacton, Norfolk, UK. Midnight, Graticule 28
2016-01-10 52 1 Sun Map  377/430  South west of Orford on the flood bank, Suffolk, UK.
2016-01-09 52 1 Sat Map  376/429  A field east of Foulsham, Norfolk, UK. Midnight
2016-01-08 52 1 Fri Map  375/428  A field at Clippesby, Norfolk, UK.
2016-01-07 52 1 Thu Map  53/427  A reed bed, South Walsham Broad, Norfolk, UK.
2016-01-06 52 1 Wed Map  374/426  A field north of Brockdish, Norfolk, UK.
2016-01-05 52 0 Tue Map  373/425  A field between Nedging and Nedging Tye, Suffolk, UK. Midnight
2016-01-04 51 1 Mon Map  372/424  A field south of Wrabness and the river Stour, Suffolk, UK.
2016-01-04 52 1 Mon Map  371/423  A field west of Bodham, close to All Saints Church, Norfolk, UK.
2015-11-08 52 1 Mon Map  15/15  A field entrance south of Bodham, close to All Saints Church, Norfolk, UK. Revisited on 2016-01-04.
2016-01-01 52 0 Fri Map  370/422  A field at Little Massingham, Norfolk, UK. Midnight

Retro meltdown

The more hashpoints you visit, the more likely it becomes that you will revisit drive-by points while geohashing. In addition more and more hashpoints have a retro point, previously explored, really close. Could there be there a retrohash event horizon where the number of retro visits tends to infinity?

Interesting Hashpoints

  • Neil wonders if 2010-09-13_52_1 is in a tiger enclosure. The hashpoint is at Banham Zoo.
  • Stealth hashing is fun but not today! Is there a get yourself arrested award?
  • 2011-01-17 52 0 - A nudist beach hashpoint. Sadly it was a freezing January night.

About Sourcerer

Sourcerer lives in and likes likes 52,1 but he's seriously considering moving to 52,-1 because there are so many ocean hashpoints locally. 52,-1 is the only UK graticule surrounded by adjacent graticules that are mostly land.

Have all the geohashers been "Nerd Sniped"?

My user name is a play on words based on computer source-code and is a tribute to controlled folly.

I enjoy computer programming and in 1972, wrote an implementation of Conway's Game of Life in BASIC. The virtual creatures were printed on a paper roll by a mechanical teletype. Those were the days!

In 1976 I taught programming to school kids. We used Algol! We filled in coding forms and submitted them to be punched onto cards for the overnight run. The next day we'd get the error message print-outs or occasionally a successful run.

More recently I have used HTML, CSS, DOM, PHP, MySQL, Javascript and Delphi.

Since childhood, I've loved going out at night. I seem to have above average night vision. I love it when it's so dark you can almost count the photons and the night vision is grainy and a bit sparkly. This might explain love of geohashing - stealthy, often unobserved, at night. If possible, to save fuel and the planet, I visit pairs of hashpoints each side of midnight. This is great for wildlife spotting and the roads are empty. I have a spreadsheet to calculate when to set out in order to arrive at the second hashpoint at midnight. I get driving times from Google maps and estimate walking times from the UK Ordnance Survey maps available on-line using Bing maps.

Like golf and most other human activities, geohashing is totally pointless (in fact it is one of the few activities that has got an identifiable point) and it's much more fun than geocaching or golf. Many hashpoints are in the middle of a muddy field. These are a bit worthless but if there's some other attraction or challenge, I'm more likely to make the effort. In 2015 Sourcerer discovered a previously unsuspected competitive streak leading to a serious increase in geohashing activity. For some grand scale folly, see Neil's Big Walk below.

Local Terrain

The terrain in the east of England is almost flat and often quite dry. Google earth has been most useful for planning expeditions. Usually it's easy to identify hashpoints which are on private land or inaccessible for other reasons. After 100 expeditions, my success rate was 86%. In late August and autumn, most of the fields have been harvested but not yet re-planted so they are easily accessible. In the other seasons, it's often wetter and access is less easy. Hard frozen ground in deep winter is really good for geohashing.

Big Walk, Little Walks

Another folly is to walk from Cape St Vincent (Portugal) to Istanbul (Turkey). Starting in 2003, after 183 days walking and 3798 km, Neil had reached Vicenza in the north of Italy. The walk is about 50% complete. Neil is not seriously expecting to complete this walk but that is all part of the folly. He set out with his mother and sister. Both have since died. His mum reached a ripe old age. His sister died of cancer but she walked 2567 km before the cancer overcame her. She reached France. Geohashing is a good way to keep fit enough to continue with the big-walk stages.

Here are the walk details and photo gallery. You can download a [KML file] of Neil's walk for use with Google Earth. These paths are also logged at [WikiLoc].

This is what Google Earth looks like if you download the KML file. It makes more sense when you zoom in.

Ge-image-neils-walk-2010.jpg

More Walks

Respect Zone

Here I pay tribute to awesome contributors to geohashing. If there were Oscars for geohashing, in no particular order, these would be my nominees.

  • The low profile people who set up and maintain the wiki.
  • Atlanta, Georgia - for breaking all sorts of records.
  • Eupeodes - for making a really useful coordinate calculator and acting on suggestions for improvement.
  • GeorgDerReisende - for being so active and often hitch hiking.
  • NWoodruff - for breaking all sorts of records and writing bots that generate interesting statistics.
  • 2011-05-21_52_14 - I wish I'd been able to go there.
  • A catch all - because there is much more effort going in, invisible, because it just works.

Other stuff