Geohashing

XKCD comic #426 contains an algorithm that generates random coordinates across the country every day.
These coordinates can be used as destinations for adventures, à la Geocaching. They can also be used for local meetups. — XKCD [2]

-38, 145 (Melbourne, Australia)
Melbourne is 14 hours ahead of NYC so it’s acceptable to use yesterday’s date. [4]

Via the Google Map lookup method using the 1st Eltham Scout Hall as my starting point (-37, 145 );

For date: 2008-05-21
Meetup location:
* -37.179468°, 145.861536° or
* S37°10.768′, E145°51.6921′ or
* S37°10′46.08″, E145°51′41.52″

This puts us in the NE Melbourne graticule (everyone in the same lat/long grid gets the same location);

Of course XKCD have defined Melbourne as -38, 145 so we can plug this into the Atom feed generator to get a Atom Geohash for Melbourne.

Geohash for -38, 145 on 2008-05-21
-38.1794679947,145.861536012

This puts us in the SE Melbourne graticule;

The official xkcd meetups happen every Saturday afternoon at 4:00 PM (local destination time). 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. [4]

So, for Melbourne we would use the previous Friday’s Dow opening and the -38, 145 to calculate the Saturday meetup location to make sure we are all going to the same location

If you happen to be looking for somewhere to go, driving to the coordinates can be an adventure. If you do, please take pictures and drop them on the geohashing wiki (feel free to help fill it out). — XKCD blag [5]

[1] Geohashing (2008-May-21) [XKCD]
[2] Map lookup []
[3] Main Page – Geo Hashing [wiki.XKCD]
[4] Melbourne, Australia – Geo Hashing [wiki.XKCD]
[5] Geohashing (2008-May-21) [blog.XKCD]
[6] Melbourne meet-up? [forum.XKCD]