User:Jondclarke

This user earned the Land geohash achievement by reaching the (51, -0) geohash on 2013-05-12.

This user earned the Bicycle geohash achievement by cycling 45 miles to and from the (51, -0) geohash on 2013-05-12.

This user earned the Fly a kite achievement by flying a kite at 2013-05-12 51 -0.

This user earned the No Batteries Geohash Achievement by reaching the (51, -0) geohash on 2013-05-12.

This user earned the Multihash Achievement by reaching the (51, -0) and (51, 0) geohashes on 2013-05-12.

This user achieved level 1 of the Minesweeper Geohash achievement by visiting coordinates in London West, United Kingdom and 1 of the surrounding graticules.

This user earned the Tour Guide by passing 10 national landmarks on the way to & from a hashpoint (51, -0) geohash on 2013-05-12.

Can I bid for an Honourable Mention for Tron achievement, on the basis that for 2013-05-12 51 -0 I completed a 45-mile route, including the achievements above (simultaneously flying a kite on a hashpoint astride a bike in a shrub...), whilst dismounting from my bike only once to minimse damage to a farmer's crop? And I only crossed my route twice - dumb 2-metre U-turns...

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Hi - my first attempt at establishing a presence in the Geohash/xkcd universe... I'm also on Twitter - jcphysics.

I live in London West, United Kingdom, have been a fan of xkcd for years, and just twigged that Geohashing really exists as a hobby and a community (and an obsession...). I cycle a lot, and often use xkcd cartoons in my day job training science teachers.

I'm also lucky, living near the zeroth meridian, so pretty often I'll have the chance of a sneaky double with both the London West, United Kingdom and London East graticules, and occasionally the green and pleasant lands to the south of me, in the Brighton and Eastbourne graticules on the rare occasions when the geohash is actually on land there...

I've been using Ekorren's inquiry tool [1]. Thanks Ekorren! I've also learnt the lat & lon for where I live (within a few hundred metres' error): 51.48N, -0.17E [2].

As I don't have a GPS-enabled device, I'll be going No Batteries. Being thorough (obsessive/etc.), I wanted to make sure I met a certain standard and did some research: Google use true north on their maps [3], declination around London is only 1deg15'W [4], so not a significant source of error, so "in the field" I can treat true north, magnetic north on my compass, and grid north on any Google Map print-out as being identical. That makes life easier.

With some estimating, it looks like if I take bearings to two objects (corners of fields, etc.) at about 200m with a 5deg uncertainty, that translates to around a 20m uncertainty in my position.

Should be able to achieve trivially - land (done), bicycle (done), tron (FAIL!), no batteries (done). Should achieve with little difficulty - kite (done), circus, pub, double hash (done). Will take luck & effort to achieve - deja vu (surely in London there must be a geohash I've been to before!), ultra hash (need hash to be in north of a graticule, with very low longitude, and all four "mirrors" to be accessible. Hmm...)

And I really want to start a new one - gratituitous conducting of a science experiment at the hash...

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My first attempt went well - by a brilliant fluke it proved to be a double hash, with both the West & East London geohashes in what looked like fairly accessible green space, and within a few hundred metres of each other, superb! See how it worked out...

• 2013-05-12 51 -0