The Nodermeet on Which the Sun Never Sets

A Proposal for (Northern-hemisphere?) Summer(?) 2007(?)

or

Node Around the World

or

Global Pub-Picnic Tag Team Extravaganza

Ladies and Gentlemen- here's an idea: A global nodermeet involving noders across the world. For a glorious few days there'd always be a noder chatting to a noder, always a photo being uploaded, always a delicious e2-recipe being served up. The Sun will never set on this global Everything2 megameet!

Don't think of the flat world in your atlas or on Google Earth. Look out of your window and imagine the actual earth- visualise the immense distances and extraordinary diversity. A chain of your friends can encircle this mighty sphere and sample a tiny portion of it, passing their experiences into a globe-spanning ring of party!

Here's how

Timezones. Imagine a nodermeet picnic starting at Noon some August Saturday at Greenwich, right on the prime meridian. A few hours later, they'll be feeling squiffy and full and happy, and it'll be noon in Sao Paulo or New York! Time for the next session, of fresh noders. A few hours later, and it'll be the western seaboard's turn to get all meety. By celestial mechanics I fail to understand, a few hours later it'll be a winter Sunday in New Zealand. Then Australia; then perhaps India or the Middle East- we do have noders in those places, right? Finally, back to Eastern or Central Europe and Africa to conclude.

Maybe it'd be better to have more normal evening meets in a pub or bar than a picnic? Maybe both! Maybe you have other, similar ideas to join hands around the world- let's hear it.

As each new meet gets into session, it'd be great to have a hand-over phonecall or videoconference. It'd be great to get some technology in place to transfer photos across in the chain from one location to the next- our buddy la petit mort has offered us on-line gallery space for his sorta thing.

The Science Bit

The table below shows a row of times for several timezones. "0123456789AB" is one character per hour from 12 to 11 O'Clock. Each column of times is simultaneous. So 12 Noon on Friday in the UK, is 7 AM on Friday in the US-Eastern timezone. I've boldened each noon and midnight UK time. The challenge will be to get overlapping meets established in enough timezones to make it all the way around. I've filled in the overlapping Picnic timings.

A softlinked place name means a meet planner has volunteered. Several noders have been linked in certain timezones.

                  |Sat PM     |Sun AM     |Sun PM     |Mon AM     |Mon PM     |
UK & Ireland      0123456789AB0123456789AB0123456789AB0123456789AB0123456789AB0

Canada &               |Sat PM     |Sun AM     |Sun PM     |Mon AM     |Mon PM
US-Eastern        789AB0123456789AB0123456789AB0123456789AB0123456789AB01234567
	
Canada &                  |Sat PM     |Sun AM     |Sun PM     |Mon AM     | 
US-Pacific        456789AB0123456789AB0123456789AB0123456789AB0123456789AB01234

                    |Sun AM     |Sun PM     |Mon AM     |Mon PM     |Mon AM  
East.Australia    AB0123456789AB0123456789AB0123456789AB0123456789AB0123456789A

                     |Sun AM     |Sun PM     |Mon AM     |Mon PM     |Mon AM  
Japan & S.Korea   9AB0123456789AB0123456789AB0123456789AB0123456789AB0123456789

W.Australia           |Sun AM     |Sun PM     |Mon AM     |Mon PM     |Mon AM  
China, E.Asia     89AB0123456789AB0123456789AB0123456789AB01234]56789AB012345678

                             |Sun AM     |Sun PM     |Mon AM     |Mon PM     |
W.Europe          123456789AB0123456789AB0123456789AB0123456789AB0123456789AB01

                  |Sat PM     |Sun AM     |Sun PM     |Mon AM     |Mon PM     |   
UK (Again)        0123456789AB0123456789AB0123456789AB0123456789AB0123456789AB0

The 2006 Meets - Lessons Learned

In September 2006, we actually did one of these meets, and it worked pretty well. Some of the aftermath nodes can be found here:

I think it would have went better if:

  • We started planning sooner, since it took forever to find a suitable date. By starting earlier we could pick a date suitable for more noders and get more involvement
  • As a London-based britnoder, I'm used to being able to call on a gang of noders at the drop of a hat, and get a dozen of them in the pub a few days later. Other locations don't have it so easy. It sounds obvious, but I hadn't quite grasped it.
  • More communications! We used the regular telephone system, and uploaded pictures after the event. Next time, I'd like to get the images up during the meet if at all possible. Even better would be to have an IRC link, a webcam, 2-way webcams or a Skype-type link. As wifi hot-spots get more common, this should become more straightforward in more of the world. But it'll take planning and testing.
  • Travel: It'll be possible for a noder to attend more than one meet during the 24 period.

Where

Davis, California.

When

5 pm, Pacific Daylight Time (0200 GMT), Friday, September 1, through noon, PDT (2000 GMT), Monday, September 4.




Are you INSANE? You will have
just moved, barely come back from vacation
and the imp will have just started third grade.

I don't care.

And furthermore, someone else is going to have to translate the times into GMT because I'm too lazy.


Other stuff

Since places here on the left coast are a bit further apart than, say, Blighty, we figured we'd go for the whole weekend, and force our poor innocent guests to stay awake at certain times to maintain continuity.


This is a kid-friendly gathering. Bring the small ones, we can provide space for maybe 14 people, if you are willing to camp in tents and sleeping bags. Kid friendly. This means outings to the park rather than drunken....well, you get the idea. There will be beer.

spiregrain didn't mention this, but we are going after the "noder who travelled furthest" award, so if you wants to travel from far away, let us know SOON and you get first dibs on, say, the guest bedroom.

Contact me or wertperch for address and phone information.

Whom (so far, this is invented...)
wertperch
grundoon
imp/buddha
spiregrain
britnoders
Portland Noder Block
NoCal and SoCal Noders

The East Coast of Australia unites!

Where: Sydney

When: 2nd and 3rd of September. (Why get us all together just for a measly few hours on the Sunday?)

The current plan is to start at the Palisade (sneff permitting) for lunch *UPDATE* GAAAH they don't do lunch on a Saturday any more. Right, we'll start there for a drink and see what happens. Poot. Then, make Saturday afternoon a bit of a walking meet through Sydney: sampling the various delights of parks, Cafe Hernandez and so on. Let’s end up in a pub for a good old pub meal and drinks.

Then we crash. Then meet up for brunch (somewhere as yet to be decided), and have a lazy Sunday afternoon picnic nodermeet in some picturesque location. Unless the weather’s like it has been (i.e. hail), in which case we’ll find another pub. Noders are good at that.

Logistics: Let’s start around 12 noon, Palisade, for lunch. Then go from there.

I’m driving up from Canberra if anyone here needs a lift. And there’s a spare bed at my place in Sydney. Fits one noder, or two if they’re friendly.

Let me know if you’re up for it!

People who’ve indicated that they will be there:

People who can’t be:

  • Nemosyn (piker)
  • heppigirl and tWD
  • Location: The Bookworm (www.beijingbookworm.com), south Sanlitun, Beijing.

    Time (Local): 1200-1800, Sunday 3rd September

    Contact: dharmaraja

    So far, only myself and kalen likely to be in attendance. I think we'll be coinciding with a mini literary festival at the Bookworm, so perhaps some live noding of sightings of well-known Chinese authors.

    UPDATE Interest in the meet-up surges. The confirmed attendance of UncleM sees noder numbers up by a stunning 33 percent!

    UPDATE UPDATE The more mathematically gifted Palpz informs me this is in fact a 50 percent increase in noder attendance - "you use the original number as the denominator when calculating percentage increase." I have no idea what that means, but the number's bigger so I'm using it.

    UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE kalen has the skinny on our day out on the town.

    A Charming New England Nodermeet (with Technology) in the unlikeliest place...

    It's late in the game, and I have a lot of stuff going on, but I'd love to have a few noders come up for Labor Day weekend. The meet will be at Shaogo's restaurant in West Hartford, CT. See homepage for email details.

    I'll be booking a couple of hotel rooms at a nearby (walking distance) Marriott Courtyard. Cost is $79/room and they won't mind if we stuff 'em with noders. My house, sadly, is off-limits merely because my lovely wife is stressed out about having strangers (to her) all over the place. (Who knows; she may change her mind.) Noders who cannot afford the hotel will be put up, somehow, at my expense. Just contact me.

    Those who want to arrive Friday evening by 8:00 EST could enjoy the Carol August jazz show at the restaurant.

    My restaurant is equipped with 8 static IP addresses, a 70" HDTV Sony Monitor (for videoconference) and WI-FI. Bring all the tech gadgets you want. We also have a sound system and video capabilities, for what it's worth... plenty of tech toys to communicate with the other nodermeets. It makes sense to have the nodermeet there 'cause there's food (on the house - and if y'all bring some, we'll have a covered dish supper!), we're open *all the time* and when we're not open we can rise and use the hotel's conference room to meet in the wee hours of the morning with other world nodermeets. Oh, and I forgot... there's lots of beer, booze, and a collection of wine.

    As for extra-curricular activities, there's lots to see and do in West Hartford and in Hartford. (Those of you who like shopping will delight in the Westfarms Mall; Connecticut's most elegant.) For the guys, I can arrange a tour of ESPN's broadcast center in Bristol, CT - and my friend Dennis races stock cars at the local speedway (but crashes a lot).

    THIS NODERMEET WILL BE CHILD-FRIENDLY (I don't have kids of my own, but those of you who *do* will find that my staff and I love kids and attend to their needs very well. They'll also dig the pool at the hotel, and there's a Rain-Forest Cafe at the Westfarms Mall that they'll enjoy. 20 minutes away is Lake Compounce, a full-fledged amusement park with plenty to do and cool rides.

    Now, I've not been around a lot lately due to my father's terminal illness. But I know that I wouldn't be a wet blanket (he's doing alright for now) and frankly having a few noders around the place would be delightful.

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