(idea) by spiregrain Sat Apr 29 2006 at 11:23:52

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.

I like it! 9 C!s