Jump to content

HopsMaltYeast

+Premium Members
  • Posts

    138
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by HopsMaltYeast

  1. I am not big on numbers so doing GeoCaching by paper is not huge burden for me. Before migrating to paperless – and I still like paper sometimes – I would: Arbitrarily find any cache near where I want to hunt and open its page. Scroll down and click on the link under the “FIND” heading for “all nearby caches” Print 1 or two pages – 20 or 40 caches total. Then I would individually have to add the coordinates, comments, and hints (if I wanted them) to each cache on the printout – a few minutes. Then I would click on the “map it” link in the upper right corner and select “Show numbers on map” – so I can connect the name of the cache to it’s location on the map and then also go to my list of caches with the Lat./Long. Coords written in. This procedure is time consuming. You have click on each cache link on the list to get the coords and hints, but you have to do something while drinking your morning coffee and this seems more useful than reading the political and crime crap in the morning fish wrapper er ah newspaper. And I never put the coordinates into the GPSr. It seems easier and more straight forward to just look at my current location coordinates on the GPSr and mentally calculate how far off I am from the cache coordinates – like “I need to be 100 yards north and 30 yards west from here to be on top of the cache”. I have a good feel for how many paces it takes me to move my N/S coordinates from say N 30° 06.900 to N 30° 06.800. For me, that is easier and more fun than walking around with my head down looking at an arrow on a screen. But, that is just I. But, paperless is definitely the way to go. There are some very smart folks here that can put you on the right path to make it work if you are patient enough to ask the right questions and give them the information they need. If they put me on the right path I have no doubt that they can help you solve your problems. Usually it is just something simple and asking the right question in the right way is all it takes to make it all come together.
  2. Man, you are magic. I missed that box - it looks so backwards to me. Thank you, Thank you. That was so magic. I am as dumb as a sack of rocks. Thanks. Hops
  3. What is the best way to export or download a set of data to a Garmin GPS? I would like to download a group (sub-set) of GeoCaches all at once to my GPSr. I must be suffering a brain fart or brain freeze. I can't even find a thread on this. Specifics - Recently bought a Garmin Legend HCx - USB cable. I have GSAK and can sort and download a subset of GeoCaches to a Palm PDA with few problems. I would like to download the same sub-set of GeoCache coordinates to my Garmin Legend HCx. So far I have only been able to download GeoCache data to my Gramin one GeoCache at at time - from the GeoCache page of each GeoCache. I have not been able to export even a single GeoCache set of data from GSAK. It asks if the device is connected to Com 1 or Com 3 - but it is connected to a USB port. For both of those selections it fails and reports an error. Do I have to down load the GeoCache info to my GPSr one cache at the time? Thanks in advance. Hops
  4. Legend HCx arrived yesterday. My gosh, what a night and day difference to my old 1991 Garmin GPS12 (which I loved and still love - the whole GPSr thing amazes this old map and compass guy). Haven't compared accuracy yet, but the speed and features are off the chart. The Legend's ability to acquire signals under trees or in a building is head and shoulders above the GPS12. (Plus, if I only compare the GPS12 to the Legend HCx I will have no idea which one is more accurate, only how close they agree with each other.) [edit] The above is not meant as an advertisement or endorsement for Garmin, just an expression of admiration to how far the technology has come. I have not tested other brands, so I assume they are just as good. I stuck with Garmin because my 10+ year old plain unit has worked flawlessly. [/edit]
  5. I wouldn't buy a unit without maps. I have both Topo and City Navigator maps on my unit. Topo is useful for showing you what terrain features are between you and your destination. Ever start out on the wrong side of a river only to find that the cache is on the other side? I have, before I installed Topo. Want to know if there is a hill, mountain, swamp, ravine or cliff between you and your destination? Topo will tell you. As far as City Navigator maps, they provide detailed road maps, but don't show most terrain features like Topo does. City Navigator will route you to your destination by providing turn by turn driving directions. It also has a database of millions of services and business. If you want to know where the nearest gas station, restaurant, campground, marina, hotel, church, post office, museum, school, shopping mall, pharmacy, grocery store, newspaper stand, etc... is, City Navigator will tell you and give you driving directions there. You don't need the cards, but if you want to install maps you do. If you install maps, you'll find the 24 megs in the Venture limiting. 24 megs of map memory may cover one town in a built up area, or an entire state if you live somewhere like Montana. With the cards you can install up to 2 gigs of maps and have coverage for pretty much the entire US. You can also load thousands of waypoints on the cards as points of interest, instead of the 500 waypoint limit in some of the other units. Thanks again for the input and opinions. I know it is hard to recommend features for someone that barely knows what they want. Probably the only way to know for sure is to use the dang thing. I think I will pull the trigger on the Legend HCx, for all the reasons above, plus the practical input from Brian. Yes, I have been thwarted by a river, pond or other barrier by approaching a destination from the “wrong side”. Once I chose poorly twice before lucking onto the right side. So, after a bit I will likely add the topo maps pretty soon. We do a lot of kayaking in the salt flats and marshes – one tidal marsh creek looks exactly like the next – but one leads a mile to a dead end and the other takes you home. Plus, I am starting 2 businesses that will have me traveling to new locations where I will probably like being able to add city maps and find restaurants and hotels.
  6. Thanks all for the responses and especially the detailed one. Very helpful.
  7. Help in pulling the trigger on a new Garmin – features vs price – usefulness of features. I have a 10-year-old Garmin GPS12 – no maps, no cables, plain jane. It works fine. It generally puts me within 1 to 3 steps of caches that are in the open. My only complaints and reasons to upgrade: it is big and heavy, takes 4 batteries for about 8 to 10 hours use, it is slow to acquire sats and readings, under trees it can be verrrrrry slooooow and inaccurate. All the new Garmins use only 2 batteries and deliver from 75 to 250% more run time than my GPS12 on 4 batts. How useful are the features and whistles and bells as you move up the purchase price? I am pretty much narrowed down to: eTrex H ($100) pretty much the same as my old unit except, 17 hr batts, High antenna and has serial cable. Venture HC ($155) 14hr batts, USB Legend HCx ($195) 25hr batts, USB, auto route turns, micro-slot Vista HCx ($250) 25hr batts, USB, auto route turns, micro-slot, compass/baro, I think I do not need or care about the electronic compass or barometric altimeter features. I have never come close to using all the memory in my old unit, waypoints, tracks or routes. How worthwhile is the map feature? It looks cool and fun; is it useful as a practical matter? Auto route Turns? What is this? Memory vs data cards? Venture has 24MB built in and no slot for data card, the Legend and Vista have slot and no memory? Do cards normally come with the unit and do you need to buy them if they don’t? Well, I guess writing this out has helped me organize my thinking and I am leaning towards the Legend for the maps and battery life issue. But I am unclear about built-in memory vs a card? It looks like all would gain with the Vista HCx is the compass and baro alt. That I doubt I would need. If I walk 5 or10 feet with my old Garmin the compass works. I live in Florida where the altitude in most of the state varies only from 0 to about 30 feet. If I hike in No. GA or NC I always have a topo map with me and know the altitude from that.
  8. Ha, I just posted a series of questions on the other forum, GPS and Software, and many of my questions are answered in this thread. Good info. Thanks.
  9. Help in pulling the trigger on a new Garmin – features vs price – usefulness of features. I know this has probably been asked and answered a few dozen times, but I couldn't find it in search, so I apologize for re-asking. I have a 10-year-old Garmin GPS12 – no maps, no cables, plain jane. It works fine. It generally puts me within 1 to 3 steps of caches that are in the open. My only complaints and reasons to upgrade: it is big and heavy, takes 4 batteries for about 8 to 10 hours use, it is slow to acquire sats and readings, under trees it can be verrrrrry slooooow and inaccurate. All the new Garmins use only 2 batteries and deliver from 75 to 250% more run time than my GPS12 on 4 batts. How useful are the features and whistles and bells as you move up the purchase price? I am pretty much narrowed down to: eTrex H ($100) pretty much the same as my old unit except, 17 hr batts, High antenna and has serial cable. Venture HC ($155) 14hr batts, USB Legend HCx ($195) 25hr batts, USB, auto route turns, micro-slot Vista HCx ($250) 25hr batts, USB, auto route turns, micro-slot, compass/baro, I think I do not need or care about the electronic compass or barometric altimeter features. I have never come close to using all the memory in my old unit, waypoints, tracks or routes. How worthwhile is the map feature? It looks cool and fun; is it useful as a practical matter? Auto route Turns? What is this? Memory vs data cards? Venture has 24MB built in and no slot for data card, the Legend and Vista have slot and no memory? Do cards normally come with the unit and do you need to buy them if they don’t? Well, I guess writing this out has helped me organize my thinking and I am leaning towards the Legend for the maps and battery life issue. But I am unclear about built-in memory vs a card? It looks like all I would gain with the Vista HCx is the compass and baro alt. that I doubt I would need. If I walk 5 or10 feet with my old Garmin the compass works. I live in Florida where the altitude in most of the state varies only from 0 to about 30 feet. If I hike in North GA or NC I always have a topo map with me and know the altitude from that. Thanks in advance for your thoughts and advice.
  10. I know this has been addressed here and I have searched several times with no joy to find those threads. Someone posted that there is a way on one or more of the popular online maps to click and see the coordinates of a point on an online map I have found the way on some maps to get the coordinates of a specific street address, but that is not my quest. What I want is to click on a specific geographically prominent point on an online map and be able to see the coordinates. Is that possible? I think I saw a post that described how to do that. I could be wrong. I have been wrong before.
  11. Hello, My name is HopsMaltYeast and I have not logged a faked find in 2 months and 8 days.
  12. Great, tozainamboku enticed me to re-read the OP. Doing so, in my mind, negated about 90% of the argument that folks agreeing that bogus logs degrade the hobby made. I have switched to unsweetened decafe. Thanks for the tip and recommendations. The OP clearly seems to be directed solely at the numbers game. I have added some numbers in parentheses and bolded them and some words for emphasis. There was no mention of virtuals being archived because a cache owner was frustrated by German logs and decided to archive rather than a.) delete bogus logs or b.) let logs and the virtual stand. His decision. There was no mention of the chance that a false log might cause a cache owner or cache hunter inconvenience or gas money or a wasted trip. Examples 1 and 3 from the OP of how GC is degraded do not result in false trip or false indication that a missing cache is actually there. They are only complaints about someone having extra-unearned smilies. (I agree that OP example 2 can result in inconvenience, confusion, wasted trips and gas). OP does not complain about morality of lies, problems for cache owners, extra gas, missed opportunities for finding a cache; only that “...False logs degrade the game/hobby/sport/activity of geocaching, and what it means to be a geocacher.”, and “I fear that one day most geocaching will be done without leaving the computer” and “I won’t be such a proud geocacher then.” OP seems to be complaining mostly about boosted numbers of finds. OP claims “an increase in what I’ll refer to as ‘false logs’”,and he nor anyone else have provided evidence that this is true. That does not fit with the whole all lies or some lies are bad discussion. Other posters after the OP added even more “benign lies” bogus logs examples that absolutely only involve complaints of inflated find numbers like team caching, double claims, CITO claims, event claims, and temp cache claims. And in the end, after all these posts, no one has proposed a single practical enforcement remedy. Ethical and long-time cachers have said they will not do paper to online audits and I do not blame them. Forcing them to do so will run many of them out of the cache hiding business and that will degrade the hobby. As Shakespeare said in “MacBeth” this has all been …a bunch of … “… full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing”.
  13. edited to remove double clutch double post. Undoubtedly caused by tozainamboku's double Hitler reference that has rendered a tear in the Internet fabric.
  14. I'm pretty sure that the same analogy was used several pages ago. Yep I mentioned lying to the Nazis on page 15, though I should point out that this is not an analogy. It is simply an example of a good lie. Much like a falsified airplane inspection is an example of a bad lie. An analogy would have something to do with ice cream. Since no one mentioned lying to the Nazis about ice cream, Godwin's law cannot be invoked. Nice try HopsMaltYeast. Yes, but you did not specifically mention Hitler at that time. Oh great, did you just undo Godwin’s law which was recently invoked on this thread by mentioning Hitler and the Nazi’s again? "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." And more importantly, the corollary to Godwin’s Law that states that once Godwin’s law in invoked that a.) the person mentioning Hitler arbitrarily loses the debate and b.) the discussion and thread are over – stick a fork in it. It is done. I fear you have pulled a loose piece of yarn that may unravel the sweater of the Internet universe.
  15. My bad. Last thing I would want to do to this short, concise thread is to pad it out with repetition. ;-)
  16. Been wondering how long a “hunting for a box in the woods” discussion would take before Godwin’s law would be proven. Or for Reductio ad Hitlerum to be invoked. Good job. Oh, I think you should not falsely claim a find. If we allow false logs in GeoCaching the terrorists have won.
  17. I'm going out tomorrow and I will find a cache and even if someone lied about their find I will enjoy the hunt and the find. I will not feel degraded. Don't try and make me feel degraded., You can't do it. A find is a find. I will not lie about my find. I don't give two squats about your numbers and how many finds you claim. I don't know you and I have no reason to believe or disbelieve you about your finds. I just don't care about your numbers.
  18. When a person logs a "Found it" he is essentially telling the geocaching community that the cache is there. That can entice people into wasting their time searching for a cache that is missing. I know of one geocacher who was lured into a fruitless 100 mile round trip because someone logged a false find on a cache. I wasted my gas and nearly an hour of my time searching for a cache that was gone. Had I seen recent DNFs I would have chosen to hunt a different cache, but the cache had recent "found its" that turned out to be bogus. It also affects cache owners. If the cache is missing, a bogus find can delay needed maintenance. A cache of mine had several DNFs and I was about to head out there and check on it when a "found it" log appeared. Great! No problem, so I don't have to worry about it. Well something about the log was fishy to me, so I checked into it and it turned out to be a phony find. There actually was a problem with the cache that I nearly ignored thanks to some liar who gets his jollies by logging fake finds. So by logging phony finds uou are screwing with your fellow geocachers. This game isn't solitaire. Our actions do not occur in a vacuum. What we do can and does affect other geocachers. What did you do about the fishy phony logger? What happened to the 2 false loggers as a result of their false logs? (If the cache and logs were gone, how do you know the logs were false?) By the bye, I am new and I have found at least one cache that had several DNF's as the last logs. Two of the DNF's stated that the cache was MIA and had been muggled. They were wrong. If I had believed them and failed to give it a look I would have been denied the opportunity to find a cache. What happened to the fishy phony logger? Did I miss the post? So, since you have not responded, I guess you did nothing. Your only option was to delete a post. Did you do even that? Do you think that would make a significant difference? The truth is that if you look only at the cache reporter and the cache owner, your will find: The Cache owner has all the responsibility and all the power over the cache finders. The cache finder has no responsibility or power as a cache reporter online. The cache finder may log a false find without breaking any rules or guidelines. The cache owner has total responsibility and power over finder logs. To say that the cache owner is a victim in this light is ridiculous to me. The cache owner can delete any log for any reason if the cache owner thinks it is bogus. The cache owner designs the cache and defines what is required to qualify as a find. The Cache owner is responsible for maintaining the cache. The cache owner can define the find in a way that prevents bogus armchair finds. The cache owner can decide if a log is bogus and delete it. The false logger has no power except that folks are talking about them. I don’t know how folks can say anyone is blaming the victim when one says the person with all the power and authority should exercise that authority to support the policy and if they don’t then they are failing the policy. I think the folks that say things are going to heck in a hand basket are pretty much stuck in the bushes. A bunch of very honorable GeoCachers have said that they will not do audits of their paper logs to online logs. You cannot say they are false loggers or that they are degrading the hobby. You cannot force them to do 100% audits. TPTB will not make rules to force them to do 100% audits. So what are you going to do – the small minority that is concerned with false logs? You can’t make the false loggers stop making false logs. You can’t make the log owners audit 100% of their logs. Most cache owners are not going to audit paper logs to online logs. I’d say you are in between a rock and a hard place. Enjoy. Get used to it.
  19. Just you wait till someone gets electrocuted on one of those green electric transformer boxes because of a fake log that says "TFTC, just like the many others I found hidden like this". And the cache was really under a fake rock several feet away from the box. You have to be kidding, right? A log of "TFTC, just like the many others I found hidden like this". means I should go grab electrical wires. I see a 2008 Darwin Awards candidate in the making. Now I get it ;-). Yes it would be make me feel concerned. Yes, I will be equally concerned when someone looks for a cache on the sand flats in Florida when an electrical storm is overhead.
  20. Yes, I am for honesty in logging on GeoCach. And I am still waiting for either your apology for saying I condone lying or for evidence that I said I condone lying. I think lying is lying. I do not think lying about GeoCaching finds is even remotely close to lying about aircraft design tests, aircraft maintenance logs or trucking logs.... Now we have gotten somewhere. You are for honest logging. Stop with that concept. There is no need to take it any further when you hit your second statement. Lying in a cache log is exactly like lying in any other log. Lying is lying. You said it above. My entire point was that lying in any log should be discouraged. That people should call it out when they find it. The level of punishment for the log's being lied about is an entirely different discussion. As you correctly pointed out, whats at stake changes. IF you are honest in your logging the consequences for lying don't even come into play. No, not even close. I am willing to pay someone to make sure the plane I am flying on is safe and the folks designing and maintaining it were certified and told the truth on their logs and certificates. For GeoCaching - I am willing to trust my instincts for the price of a few gallons of gas. Get real. They ain't the same. I don't give 2 dog fecal deposits if the GeoCache cache I am looking for has only true logs. I don't care. It is not worth the effort to worry about it. I do give a dog fecal deposit if the wing of an aircraft with my daughter on it had a falsified maintenace log or faked engineering studies. If you can not see the difference in those two circumstances then I cannot help you understand. To think a bogus GeoCache log is the same as having a wing fall off an airplane and result in dozens of people dying needlessly is just beyond my ability to comprehend.
  21. Laughing your a** off that a cacher being honest with their log is the same concept as keeping an honest air craft log. It means you have a limit below which 'you don't mind' dishonestly in logs. It means that there is a point at which the right thing doesn't matter to you. Even if you don't stand for that, It's what you are saying. That's close enough for me. I believe you and your dizzying intellect. Doubly you are wrong. You have no idea where I stand. Close or far. Your posts tell a story about who you are and what you stand for. Exactly like the cache logs we are debating. One thing you have chosen to do is that in more than a few posts in this you rather clumsily threw out some insults that didn't help your argument, your cause, or the picture of who you are that you are painting in these forums. You have said other things as well. Do I have a complete picture? No. But I've got enough of one to work with. Well we are together on one point. Neither of us have any idea what you are talking about. Makes no sense to me.
  22. I didn't see any thing in the rules that said the cache finder had to log anything online or that if they did it had to be truthful.
  23. Maybe one or all of the folks that are so put out with bogus logs and finders who fail to log found caches online, (you folks that think they or the hobby is degraded), should start sending letters or emails to the folks that offend them with bogus logs and tell them they are breaking the rules? Maybe they would stop if they knew it was wrong and that it upset you. Oops, you probably can’t do that because it is not a requirement to log a find online. Oops, it is not against the rules to post a fictionalized report of a find or the experience. Frequently Asked Questions About Geocaching http://www.geocaching.com/faq/ What is Geocaching? Geocaching is an entertaining adventure game for gps users. Participating in a cache hunt is a good way to take advantage of the wonderful features and capability of a gps unit. The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something for the cache. What are the rules in Geocaching? Geocaching is a relatively new phenomenon. Therefore, the rules are very simple: 1. Take something from the cache 2. Leave something in the cache 3. Write about it in the logbook Where you place a cache is up to you. Are there any variations in the game? YES! We strongly encourage it, actually. Geocaching is a game that constantly reinvents itself, and the rules are very flexible. If you have a new idea on how to place a cache, or a new game using GPS units, we'd love to hear about it. Cache Listing Requirements/Guidelines Guidelines last updated February 21, 2007 http://www.geocaching.com/about/guidelines.aspx Cache Maintenance The cache owner will assume all responsibility of their cache listings. The responsibility of your listing includes quality control of posts to the cache page. Delete any logs that appear to be bogus, counterfeit, off topic, or not within the stated requirements.
  24. What all three have in common is that honesty in logging is a good thing. Simple as that. Keeping a crappy maintainence log on an aircraft that's perfectly maintained isn't really much of an issue from a public safety standpoint. They are important because the FAA relies on the log to tell an accurate story about the air craft. Much like some cache owners like having an accurate history on their caches. Honesty in logging. Are you for it? Yes, I am for honesty in logging on GeoCach. And I am still waiting for either your apology for saying I condone lying or for evidence that I said I condone lying. I think lying is lying. I do not think lying about GeoCaching finds is even remotely close to lying about aircraft design tests, aircraft maintenance logs or trucking logs. To say they have the same weight and consequence goes beyond daft and dives into delusional in my opinion. And I think it makes the proposer of such comparisons look a little bit silly, in my opinion.
  25. Laughing your a** off that a cacher being honest with their log is the same concept as keeping an honest air craft log. It means you have a limit below which 'you don't mind' dishonestly in logs. It means that there is a point at which the right thing doesn't matter to you. Even if you don't stand for that, It's what you are saying. That's close enough for me. I believe you and your dizzying intellect. Doubly you are wrong. You have no idea where I stand. Close or far.
×
×
  • Create New...