xkcd meetup near Davis - Sunday 9/23

[ron_newman]

A few months ago, a webcomic called xkcd published this strip in which a character's dream includes a very specific set of location and time coordinates. The spatial coordinates happen to resolve to the tiny Reverend Thomas J. Williams Park on Cedar St in North Cambridge, a few blocks from Davis Square. The time is 2:38 pm on September 23, 2007 -- this coming Sunday.

Some of the widely dispersed fans of this comic strip took this as a cue to organize a meetup at that location and time, which resulted in the creation of first the xkcd_meetup_07 LJ community and then this bulletin board. Supposedly there are also MySpace and Facebook pages for this event, but I don't know anything about them. People are planning to converge on this park from all over the USA and beyond.

When the assembled multitude discover that they don't fit in the park, many of them will probably head off to nearby Danehy Park, while others find their way to Davis Square. Should be an interesting day....

Comments

[turil.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm, something about life imitating art. Especially in my life, and this art.

Not sure what to make of this.

[turil.livejournal.com]

Oh, wait! I forgot, I'm the guy in this comic. That makes more sense.

[sekala.livejournal.com]

apparently the comic artist lives in Somerville :)

[mykescipark.livejournal.com]

Oh no.

Well, as long as they don't go marching up Cedar towards Highland, I'm safe...

[ron_newman]

Wrong Cedar Street. This one's in Cambridge.

[ellf.livejournal.com]

Damn.

The artist behind xkcd is a friend of mine, from before the days when he was an uber-cool web comic artist. He's a cool guy, but a fairly normal guy.

I don't understand this level of excitement. It's awesome, but it's like someone is pulling a big joke - if Ron Newman is posting about what one of my friends draws online, Something has gone seriously wacky in the universe.

[ron_newman]

I had never heard of this comic, or this event, until a friend of mine posted to her private LJ that it was going to happen across the street from her house. For her own privacy, I won't say more.

[amethystmoon.livejournal.com]

Seriously! Sarah and Steve both told me about it, it's so weird!

[maelithil.livejournal.com]

He hadn't planned on anything like this to happen, as far as he told me. So, well, I hope things don't get out of hand.

There's people *flying in* for it, I can't quite believe how big it's gotten.

(Hi! It's Serena!)

[ron_newman]

Someone said s/he was coming from Melbourne and asked if anyone was coming from further away. I pointed out that only Perth could be further away from Boston.

[soong.livejournal.com]

for your mapping enjoyment... 42.39561,-71.13051 (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=42.39561,-71.13051&ie=UTF8&ll=42.395604,-71.130509&spn=0.012709,0.016973&z=16&iwloc=addr&om=1)

[soong.livejournal.com]

ok, i'm dum, I didn't mouse over all the links in the original post and notice that one of them was almost exactly this.

Oh, hey.

[mattdm.livejournal.com]

It appears to be precisely this:

Re: Oh, hey.

[bgum.livejournal.com]

Hey, maybe that's his dream girl!

Re: Oh, hey.

[mattdm.livejournal.com]

He'll have to wait a few years then. :)

[elements.livejournal.com]

xkcd is probably my most favorite comic (web or otherwise) of all time. It's seriously worth watching. Both profound and hilarious, snarky and unpretentious.

The Facebook event page for it this is here (at least, when I'm logged in that's the link I get):
http://harvard.facebook.com/event.php?eid=4872804900

Trivia: the comic artist actually had to post a correction to the panel with the coordinates. He'd originally posted coordinated to a field in upstate New York - not all that far from where I grew up!

[elements.livejournal.com]

... and I forgot to add before hitting to post the comment above:
http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?t=3469 = place on xkcd forums where people have discussed this lots.

Including why the specific date/time is neat for that specific place:
"The time and date correspond to mean solar noon on the autumnal equinox at that particular location." (according to kmartin on that forum thread)

[mattdm.livejournal.com]

The GPS coordinates appear to point exactly at the rope-pyramid structure, which fits nicely with having solar/astrological significance. But there is no such thing as mean solar noon for a given day, is there? (Isn't *mean* solar noon the average of noon times for a whole year?) Hmmm -- actual solar noon on that day is at about 12:38 EDT, not 14:38. (Or 04:38 GMT.)

[tut21.livejournal.com]

I thought about going when the strip first appeared. Even posted about it on xkcd's message board.

Now though? With hundreds of random people standing around wondering why they're there? I pity the one female who attends.

I think I'll just read the Boston Globe story on Monday.

[ron_newman]

Is the readership that overwhelmingly male? I haven't even tried to figure that out from the forum posts.

[tut21.livejournal.com]

Oh, I doubt the readership is that skewed. I just assumed most women would have something better to do that afternoon. :-)

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Isn't the punchline of the strip that nothing happens?

Still, thanks for the headsup. I might show up just for the hell of it.

[zombasoul.livejournal.com]

my niece was celebrating her third birthday with me and my family just two blocks away!

I was wondering what all the nerds were doing out in the park on a sunny day