Dan Q

Tag: video

Geohashing expedition 2018-08-22 52 -1

This checkin to geohash 2018-08-22 52 -1 reflects a geohashing expedition. See more of Dan's hash logs.

Location

Field with public footpath, East Adderbury.

Participants

Plans

I’m keen to get to level 2 of the Minesweeper Geohash achievement, and this far-South-of-graticule hashpoint represents an opportunity to achieve that. I’ll be at work during the day, but – energy levels permitting after what’ll have been a long day! – I’ll find a way to get up here and see if I can get to the hashpoint, aiming to arrive probably around 18:30.

Expedition

It had been a long day at work, but it looked to be a beautiful evening and I promised myself a pub dinner if I made it to the hashpoint, so I set out by car and by foot to East Adderbury, the village nearest to the hashpoint. The village itself is stunning: lots of old stone buildings, a very traditional bridge, and beautiful green spaces. I spotted not one but two candidate pubs (The Red Lion and The Coach & Horses) as I passed through the village, which was a reassuring start, and then pressed on down a lane which quickly became a narrow trail, waving to some cows along the way (why do I always seem to meet cattle on my hashing adventures?).

The trail was full of blackberries so I wasn’t short of a snack, but it soon became clear that it wouldn’t get me any closer than 35m to the hashpoint. I returned to the entrance to the cows’ field and, hopping a stile, crossed it. The cows looked puzzled as I paced around, getting to ground zero, but didn’t object. After shooting the traditional silly grin, I turned tail and headed back into the village and to the Coach & Horses, which proved to be the very essence of a British village pub: a husband and wife couple running it, dogs everywhere, a jar of pickled onions behind the bar, and more beers than you can shake a stick at.

I did enjoy a rather unusual conversation at the bar, though – 

 Me: Can I get a ham, egg, and chips please. And a pint of bitter shandy.
 Barman: One egg or two?
 Me: Oh! Two, please.
 Barman: (Pause) We haven't got any eggs.
 Me: Uhh. Okay; no eggs then.
 Barman's wife: We've got one egg.
 Barman: We've got one egg.
 Me: I'll have one egg, then.
 
 (I go and sit outside; after a while, my meal arrives. There are two eggs.)
 
 Barman's wife: I found another egg.
 Me: ...

A fuller description of the entire adventure can found in the vlog I made along the way.

Tracklog

Video

I filmed my adventure in a vloggy format, complete with doubling-back, talking to cows, and anecdotes about pub food. Watch it on YouTube or on QTube.

Photos

Achievements

Minesweeper geohash empty.png Minesweeper geohash flag.png Minesweeper geohash empty.png
Minesweeper geohash empty.png Minesweeper geohash 2.png Minesweeper geohash flag.png
Minesweeper geohash empty.png Minesweeper geohash empty.png Minesweeper geohash empty.png
Dan Q achieved level 2 of the Minesweeper Geohash achievement
by visiting coordinates in Swindon, United Kingdom and 2 of the surrounding graticules.

Geohashing expedition 2018-08-07 51 -1

This checkin to geohash 2018-08-07 51 -1 reflects a geohashing expedition. See more of Dan's hash logs.

Location

A field South of Oxford

Participants

Plans

My meeting this afternoon got cancelled and my nearest hashpoint is only 6.5km (4 miles) away from my office. I can get this!

Expedition

After a productive morning’s work, I was genuinely slightly disappointed that a meeting I was scheduled to have this afternoon had to be rescheduled. But on the other hand… that meant that I could get away with extending my lunch break slightly and getting out to the hashpoint! I’d initially worried that it’d be inaccessibly buried on private land when Google Maps and satellite photography showed it to be deep in a block of cornfields, but OpenStreetMap came to the rescue and showed a public footpath somewhere in the very close vicinity of the target coordinates. And so, jumping aboard my bike, I set out!

600m from the coordinates I ran out of road and switched to the footpath, which I was pleased to discover was in reasonably-good condition: many underused local footpaths are not being very well-maintained at the moment and are often overgrown, but I was even able to bring my bike along this one and into the first field, although I had to push it rather than ride and I soon learned the error of my ways when the terrain got even rougher and I reached a narrow bridge – too narrow for my bike – spanning a dyke and entering the second field. Both fields had recently been cleared of corn, and whatever route the official footpath was supposed to take became rapidly unclear, but that’s probably for the best because I’m pretty sure I wasn’t on it by the time I reached the edge of the next field.

The hashpoint seemed to be along the fence somewhere so I followed it along – waving to some nearby cows – until my phone told me that I was under 3m from the spot. Hurrah! I snapped a panorama photo and started heading back, pausing a few times when I realised that I really, really couldn’t find where I’d left my bike. On the cycle home I passed a Gasometer which, because I’m told they’re super-rare in the USA, I thought I’d snap a picture of for those of you who ‘hash on the other side of the pond to oggle at.

Video

I actually remembered to shoot video of this expedition (well, all within a kilometre of the hashpoint and mostly within the last 350 metres!). It’s mostly just me rambling as I ramble, although there’s (brief) explanation of the Surprise Gasometer for those of you who live in countries where you don’t routinely see these interesting structures:

Photos

Einstein’s theory still passes the test: weak and strong gravity objects fall the same way

This is a repost promoting content originally published elsewhere. See more things Dan's reposted.

Fabulous explanation of the Strong Equivalence Principle coupled with a nice bit of recent research to prove that it holds true even in extreme gravitational fields (and therefore disproving a few interesting fringe theories). It’s hard science made to enjoy like pop science: yay! Plus a Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy reference, to boot. Under 10,000 views; go show them some love.

Repost posted at UTC on .

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Lateral: Game 1 with Kat Arney, Helen Arney, Simon Clark, and Sally Le Page

This is a repost promoting content originally published elsewhere. See more things Dan's reposted.

https://youtu.be/_xS-BIcu4ew (youtu.be)

Tom Scott’s new YouTube game show, Lateral, has just finished it’s first series. Start watching from here, if you’re at all interested… and you should be, it’s funny and clever (albeit in a very different way to Citation Needed).

Repost posted at UTC on .

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Daft Lego

This is a repost promoting content originally published elsewhere. See more things Dan's reposted.

YouTube (youtube.com)

You’ve seen Daft Punk music videos before. You’ve seen remixes of Daft Punk music videos before. You’ve seen Lego remixes of Daft Punk music videos before. But you haven’t seen anything like this before (unless you’ve seen this before).

Repost posted at UTC on .

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