paleolith
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Posts posted by paleolith
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I've been attacked by mosquitoes while hiking to/from caches. There's a good argument that the mosquito is the most dangerous non-human animal in existence, based on number of human deaths caused.
Non-human. When I pose that as a quiz, some people kvetch that humans are more dangerous than mosquitoes -- though I suspect that if you add up the death toll, the mosquito wins. I have also encountered humans near caches.
When I told a tale of finishing a hike in the dark, a friend expressed concern: what if you meet a mountain lion in the dark? No problem, I said, got flash on my camera.
Edward
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Interestingly, there's apparently no such restriction on user names. So I could change my name to paleolith.com (which is not mine; I link to mine from my profile), the domain name would be splashed all over the place, and that would not violate the letter of the guidelines, though it would violate the spirit.
Edward
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I'd say that two things Must happen...I must be rated based on the ACTUAL Diff/Terr of the final location itself, and it MUST contain the word CHALLENGE in the title.
First of all, if "Challenge" is in the title, cachers should at least Expect that this is a challenge cache.
I think that's a good idea, but when I submitted my first challenge (a compilation type), the reviewer said that GS doesn't want that type labeled as a challenge. This was not in the guidelines at the time, and despite the changes in that area due to the elimination of ALRs, it still hasn't been clarified. I certainly would like to see GS clarify this, though I don't care a lot which way it goes.
Edward
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Haversine == spherical, but they are using some weird radius for the Earth. I'll see if I can back it out... Can somebody give me a long distance calculated by the site?
Don't know if you ever got the data you need. TB1NF9E your karma ran over my dogma recently jumped from Nevada to New South Wales, roughly 7500 miles.
Edward
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I like the line spacing! Keep it tight! It's also now consistent -- for some of us everything but the first paragraphs of logs had extra spacing for the past several months.
Thanks for the fix!
Edward
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Hopefully GS will eventually unify regular and PQ searches. There's no good reason to have totally separate interfaces and inconsistent capabilities. They should be the same except that preimum members have some additional options, notably emailing (perhaps direct downloading) results, scheduling searches, perhaps certain criteria. (Would love to have polygon range instead of just circles.)
Edward
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OK, I missed the original thread so I'll jump on the exhumation.
People who like moving TBs around would love to have a "dip" log type for a TB. And it makes sense in terms of symmetry -- a cacher can "discover" a TB, so a TB would be able to "discover" a cache. That's essentially what a "dip" is.
Then actually dropping a TB in virts and ECs wouldn't be needed. Allow "dip" for virts and ECs, then eliminate "drop" for virts.
Edward
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If your computer hardware and software are working just fine for you, keep on using them until they break -- UNLESS you want to interact with the outside world (email, gc.com, etc). These days probably 99.9% of computer users want to interact with the ourside world -- it's the main reason most get computers nowadays.
The rest of the world moves on. Often it does so without my permission and over my objections, but if I want to continue interacting with it, I have to move on too. I can fight it or I can go with the flow. Fighting it is a lot harder than herding cats.
Yes, there's a real problem with computers: despite the claims of MS and Apple, no general-purpose computer (which includes everything in the category of personal computers and workstations) is usable without some technical knowledge. If you don't have that technical knowledge and you want to use your computer to interact with the outside world, then find someone to help you. I know that's a poor answer, but it's the current state of affairs. I have the technical knowledge, and I act as the first line support in varying degrees for my wife, my two sisters, and my father-in-law (and for my mom until she died last year), and off and on for others. Luckily there are lots of technical people who enjoy helping others with computers. Unluckily having one at your disposal is not guaranteed.
This situation will endure until everyone alive has grown up with computers. And by then, what else will have come along? The telephone was initially for the tech-savvy; so was the automobile.
Any company which requires the continued use of IE6 (and allows access to the outside web, not just an intranet) is asking for total destruction. One computer gets a virus because of IE6 and it can spread to the others. The entire operation could be down for days, even weeks. Such a company probably hasn't even updated IIS to prevent SQL Slammer from taking them down when a consultant brings in an infected laptop (happened one place I know about). Continuing use of IE6 in a business is at least misfeasance, and possibly criminal malfeasance depending on who the managers have a fiduciary responsibility to.
In two or three years, you'll need to move off XP too. I don't recall what MS's latest deadline to stop security fixes for XP is, but new computers are shipping with Win7, and Win7 isn't getting the pushback that Vista did. The world is moving on without my permission.
BTW, I prefer Opera, but you'll find a lot more people to help you with Firefox. I'd recommend Firefox for that reason.
Edward
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Not the only way, though it's an important one. Good design helps A LOT in enabling users to find information. But white space is only part of good design, and white space between lines doesn't help at all. (Paragraph breaks DO help. You should avoid long paragraphs even when there's not a really good breaking point.) You can't just throw white space at a page and figure it'll help. Good design (which is mostly based on human perception, a highly complex phenomenon) comes first; white space is only one of many elements.I hope the take-away here is that adding more space doesn't make the site less "busy". The only way to make a page less busy is to put less content on it (i.e., Google).So, good show on removing the excess line spacing. It's even messing up tables in my cache descriptions.
There is possibly a problem with the width too, but I'll await this fix before looking further.
Just about since the day I came on here, I've been harping on the tremendous number of HTML errors on all gc.com pages. I just checked one of my cache pages; it still shows 146 errors and 56 warnings. The numbers are somewhat inflated because my description is in HTML and gc.com didn't set up the environment properly, with the result that every single <p> tag in my description gets an error. Still, the point is that ANY error in the HTML results in cross-browser problems. Serious errors (and there are plenty on all gc.com pages) send browsers into "quirks mode", meaning "let's try to guess what the designer meant since he/she couldn't be bothered to use proper HTML and we'd rather display the page poorly than not at all". The gc.com non-member home page has 19 errors and 14 warnings.
There really is no excuse for any page to fail validation. I hope that gc.com will take the new flexibility and use it to remove the HTML errors from the site.
Edward
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That you have to log them, that they aren't trade items, and that you don't post the tracking number.
All the rest is good to know, but those are the absolute essentials. Trackables are confusing enough in their most basic form that introducing a newcomer to anything more is counterproductive.
Even old-timers need to be told that they can mark trackables missing when the TB is in a cache they own -- and that this is a required maintenance activity.
But the biggest problem is that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. The problem isn't that new cachers misunderstood the explanation but that they didn't see it at all. It might help to make an "about trackables" section prominent in the sign-up process. Or might not.
Edward
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As for the reason, the simpler spherical calculations almost certainly require less CPU time, quite possibly enough less to matter. I can see gc.com deciding that for this game, the extra accuracy isn't worth the cost. As fizzymagic points out, there are other factors too, so a more accurate calculation could easily be considered worthless.
Edward
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I've found outstanding caches placed by people with very few finds and I've found total crappola hidden by people with hundreds or thousands of finds. In fact most of the junky caches I find are placed by veteran cachers.
The magic number is one.
That is, a cacher should find at least one cache before hiding.
While I agree generally with Brian's opinion (which many hold), I've seen a strong correlation at one level: hiders with no finds place crappy caches at a much higher rate. Examples:
-- a cache hidden in a microwave lasagna container
-- a cache using an office box with holes in the top where the handles attach (great spot but ...)
-- a multicache where the hider did not understand what a multicache is, plus botched the coordinates
-- a cache with bad coordinates which the hider never came back and fixed (link is no good because it was retracted instead of archived)
Sure, I've seen more experienced cachers do similar crap, at least for the office box with holes in the lid -- I could link to a 2-find hide and a 22-find hide with that problem. I just see it a lot more with no-find cachers. While those other two could be used to support a number greater than one, I find the counter-arguments convincing.
So my recommendation is to find at least one cache before hiding. Reluctantly I would not support it being a requirement, just because it might encourage fake find logs.
Edward
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A good argument can be made for either method. I really haven't given this much thought. Perhaps I will light a stogie and crack open an IPA and ponder the subject. Hmmm I think I'll do thgat and get back to you. Now where did I put the matches?
I actually think that an official word would be useful, albeit not in the lifesaving category.
Consider three kinds of challenges:
1) fizzy grid challenges
2) DeLorme/Thomas/county/etc challenges
3) compilation (fixed list) challenges
For fizzy and compilation challenges, you pretty much know the D/T max for the prerequisites. Minor exceptions occur, for example fizzy challenges may include "find any webcam", whose D/T may vary (which could only matter if an incomplete D/T grid is being used), or a compilation challenge may say "find 61 out of 63 on this list", so you can't be sure of the max D/T. But generally you know.
And thus it can make sense to rate it either way.
For a DeLorme/etc challenge, it is impossible to know the max D/T which the seeker will encounter.
This is an argument for rating only the final. It's pretty much necessary for DeLorme/etc challenges, but then by extension it makes sense to rate the other challenges the same way.
My two compilation challenges are rated by the max D/T. One allows skipping two caches on the list, so it's rated assuming you skip the most difficult. I also excluded the D rating of one cache because it's misrated.
I also clearly state this in the description. Anyone reading the description should know that they aren't looking for a T4 cache when they go for the final.
If the guidelines (or even a reviewer consensus) comes out that challenges should be rated based on the final, I'll be happy to change mine. Doesn't matter a lot. I'll just change the description to reflect that. I can see some value in the consistency.
Edward
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Yeah, last month for the very first time IIRC, I posted that I thought a cache was missing -- one that I hadn't found before that is. Only because a very explicit spoiler photo was posted. And even then I said I was 75% sure it was missing.
Illegitimi non carborundum. If there's interest in discussion that goes beyond the bounds of what's generally acceptable in the cache log (which usually means something contentious, not just discussion of trying to find the cache), start a forum thread -- as you did, but in a local or regional forum -- and link to it.
Then thank the reviewer for helping to clean it up. The job seems to have been well done, since the hint of the controversy I see on the page now is in your description.
I think that very few cachers, seeing a single SBA after a long string of DNFs all of which accept that it's just a difficult cache, would take the SBA seriously. Virtually no experienced cachers, and only an occasional newbie. My advice is to do the same. Ignore the SBA log entirely unless a reviewer asks you to respond, and then just post that it's a difficult cache and there's no reason to think it's gone. Reviewers are generally reasonable if you are.
Edward
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If CacheDrone is a reviewer, is the note posted on the cache pages something that is not related to reviewer duties but rather something that is being done for personal reasons as indicated by the recent reply of wanting to be sure before CacheDrone goes after them in the Spring?
I've never seen a listing of reviewers' duties. However, based on many discussions here, it's clear that those duties include not only publishing submitted caches, but also monitoring the general state of caches and caching, and that individual reviewers are given quite a bit of latitude in doing so. CacheDrone is trying a novel approach to try to improve one facet of the state of caching in hisser area. Will it work? Dunno. I agree with the concept that a string of DNFs which is incongruent with the difficulty of the cache and the experience of the seekers will definitely discourage others from seeking it. Whether this technique works, we'll see. As long as no forced action is taken, I see it as mostly innocuous. (Mostly: if it were my cache, I might ask CacheDrone if s/he minded my simply deleting the log, rather than posting OM, to avoid clutter. But that's not a big deal.)
In addition, it's clear that reviewers have a private forum, as they should. They probably discuss proposed techniques for helping to keep areas clean. They may have discussed this one, or may discuss it after the experiment. More power to them. I hope we hear the results.
Edward
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some people would wear theirs on their foreheads if they thought they could get away with it
Aw, you want me to throw away my propeller beanie that powers the LCD display on my cap?
OK, piling on (and saying a lot of things that others have said, but maybe a bit differently)
When you do exactly what someone tells you to do, when you play their game even though you don't want to, then they are controlling your life.
When you do exactly the opposite of what someone tells you to do, they are controlling your life just as surely.
If you want to get off the merry-go-round, you have to get off. Running in the opposite direction doesn't hack it.
Find counts? Not very useful. Access to list of finds? Very interesting in many ways. I can look up flask or chaosmanor and read lots of interesting stories. If someone logs a snarky comment, I can figure out if they're just having a bad day. When someone logs a cache that I find interesting, I figure they may be interested in caches that I'm interested in, so I may go and look at what they've found.
And as repeatedly pointed out, you can't really hide find counts unless you hide the find list entirely.
People who would compare your find count with theirs, if they can't see yours, they will ask you. I'm not even going to say these people are rude, they're just playing the game differently. (If you say you're not interested and they press you anyway, THEN they are being rude.)
A few days ago I talked with a friend who has found well over ten times as many caches as I have. He recently found more in one day than I've ever found in three months. Neither of us cared about the numbers -- we enjoyed swapping stories.
I've never attended an event. But if I did and I found out that everyone was talking about find counts, I'd probably not return. (Now if they were talking about terrain average ...) OTOH, if I found one or two people with interests similar to mine and enjoyed a couple of hours of conversation in a corner, I'd be happy. That's as good as I expect from any crowd anywhere anyway.
Despite Nate's saying it would be easy, that doesn't tell the whole story. In a system this large (which is not really very large) and with the high availability requirements this site has (which are moderate to high), ANY change requires careful management. You have to analyze all the possible effects. You have to document the change for future programmers. You have to test ALL possibly combinations -- and having done so you have to add those test cases for future testing, because future changes can break even simple features. "But I only changed a couple of lines of code" is a grim old programmer's joke. It's not a huge change but it DOES consume resources that could be used elsewhere -- and because it adds another thing to be tested on every release, it adds to ongoing resource consumption.
Also, if you really want the find count totally hidden, you have to get into hiding the find list in the profile, suppressing notification emails, etc. How many hooks does it get into?
The only situation where I've seen a really good case for hiding is a woman who stopped logging finds because an ex was using them to stalk her. And doing something about that (while allowing find logs) would require the much stronger hiding.
I do wish I could let others browse my DNF and note logs. Optional, since others have assumed for a long time that notes are not browsable from the profile. But I wouldn't care about the numbers.
Edward
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You may find other similar caches using the name "History Challenge". I started them with Washington History Challenge.
Or search for History Adventure, since gc.com at times has asked imitators of The Jester's original History Challenge not to use the word "challenge" in the cache name.
Edward
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You'd be better off posting in a local forum. As mentioned, shipping costs are high, and if you search you can find vendors supplying them for around $6-$8 including shipping. But if you find local cachers who are interested, getting a pallet can be a great deal.
Edward
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Since this doornail has been exhumed again, I'll add another method to the ones I listed last year. Look for prolific cachers who have been around for a long time. Look at their hidden caches. This list includes archived as well as active caches. In theory you could follow everyone known to have hidden a cache in your area, but that's likely to run into overload.
Edward
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I am trying to put in a chemical molecule diagram [...] Would this be any easier than a photo?
No, you have to handle both exactly the same way.
The web does not yet have any generally accepted vector graphics, so you have to save your image as a bit map. Depending on how you create the diagram, this function may be available in the software. Or you can display it at a good resolution and use screen capture.
One reply suggested using JPEG. This is a bad choice for a diagram; you should use GIF or PNG. A JPEG image of a diagram will have fuzzy lines.
And that last means, that you need to host it somewhere else rather than on geocaching.com, because gc.com converts all uploaded images to JPG.
Are you SURE you want to so this"
Edward
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A more appropriate request would be the ability to move watchlist caches to a specified bookmark list. That gives you a quick conversion to the bookmark list method.
Edward
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All the suggestions about the ability of cache and TB owners to mark TBs missing, and to email them and/or eartha to get TBs marked missing, miss the point. These are after-the-search efforts. The idea is to get the mark placed before I search. The suggestions need to be made to the previous searchers to help me -- who probably don't read the forums. Or else the suggestions require time travel.
I agree that only the TB and cache owner should be able to mark a TB missing, including no "voting" procedure. I strongly support the idea floated by a couple of posts in this thread to add an attribute/flag to travelers: "questionable". With this flag displayed in the TB listing on the cache, and in searches for caches with TBs, the research time to locate TBs drops by an order of magnitude. The flag would be set by a new logging procedure (which needs to be easy and also visible while logging the cache, not requiring a separate visit to the TB page), though it should probably include a confirmation (of the sort used when logging SBA). The flag would be reset by any retrieval, grab, or discovery of the TB.
Edward
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All that's really required is verification
And even that's not required. Not for my challenge caches anyway, I specifically say you're on the honor system. And I think someone here recently said the seekers "should be keeping their own records" ...
Edward
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"Fixed list" challenge caches are no longer being published, so any need for this going forward will be diminishing, not growing.
Hmm, since when? I hadn't heard about that. Reference to an announcement, or something in the guidelines, or to a rejected submission? I just reviewed the listing guidelines and the definition of a challenge actually appears to have been widened, not narrowed -- it is now explicit that the "geocaching-related qualification" can include something based on Waymarking.
And this could have easily have been automated, with a bookmark list and a free Gmail account. Create a duplicate of the exiting bookmark list (yes, a little work, but you only have to do once) and set it to email logs. On your account's email client, set up a filter to look for the bookmark name, and forward that email to the Gmail account. Gmail would then have a database of everyone who has logged any of the cache on the bookmark list. Huzzah!!! You could then use Gmail's very powerful search to check for compliance, in a matter of seconds.Fails on several counts.
gc.com does not guarantee that notification emails will always be sent out, and we've certainly seen the service break on occasion.
I don't want to place silly requirements on the seekers like "you have to relog your finds" -- some people may take challenges seriously enough not to be bothered by that, but I'd rather they be out geocaching rather than attending to the details of logging just right because of my inadequate system.
Finally, you don't say whether gmail's search is powerful enough to build an HTML table to insert in the cache description, which is what I'm doing with a GSAK macro.
As I said before, I don't HAVE TO insert that table. I don't HAVE TO check for compliance -- in fact, as I state in my descriptions "this is for fun and you are on the honor system", though I think the seekers appreciate my confirming their figures. But IF I'm going to display that table, the gmail method doesn't work as far as I can tell.
Don't you wish you had thought of that a year ago?No. No huzzah.
Edward
spammer harvesting from gc.com
in Website
Posted · Edited by paleolith
I just got spam, and it appears that the spammer is harvesting addresses from gc.com. It's GPS-related and says "dear paleolith", and though I use "paleolith" a lot of places, this is the first time I've seen a spammer associate it with my email address.
Is this worth reporting to gc.com, or should I just hide my email address on my profile and be done with it? (I've just hidden it but prefer to leave it public if possible.)
(The forum won't let me search for "spam" because it's only four letters long. Silly restriction if you ask me.)
Edward
spam text, munged to avoid providing the spammer with free publicity:
Reply-To: sales@example.com
From: "Earth Products and More" <sales@example.com>
To: <edward@paleo.org>
Subject: GPS Tracking System
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 04:52:47 -0500
Dear paleolith,
This might be useful for your situation. This GPS tracker will tell you everywhere your car went, how long it was there and how fast it was driven.
You should check it out:
http://www.example.com
It's rechargable, has a weather resistant case and magnetic mounts.
Pretty cool if you ask me!
Earth Gadgets
<<street address>>
Burbank, Ca 91505