WalruZ
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Everything posted by WalruZ
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Superb Steak 'stablishments Failed
WalruZ replied to nfa's topic in Recruitment and Category Proposals Archive (Read-Only)
As a rule I don't care much for categories that contain subjective requirements. What's going on here is that you want steakhouses that are "good". (superb, actually). Waymarking still has a binary holdover from GeoCaching in that something either is or isn't. In caching, you either find it or you don't. (ideally). In Waymarking it's nice to be able to look at something and say that it qualifies. A historical marker is, inarguably, a historic marker. A payphone, lame as it might be, is a payphone. A steakhouse is a steakhouse. A "superb" steakhouse is... open to interpretation. I also don't think the community as a whole is all that crazy about more "restaurant" categories. -
I asked about this some time ago, and the consensus is that recording the waymark is describing the waymark, visiting the waymark is describing your visit. Thus yes, you visit your own waymark. I don't record multiple visits, although there's nothing stopping you and no angst about that topic here. Waymarking is still new enough that you have to put some effort into defining how you're going to play the game. For example, for me, I try to *always* post a picture of myself with the waymark when I visit a waymark, mine or others. I have failed that a few times, but generally it's just how I do it. Pictures are a big part of Waymarking for me - I take and post multiples when marking, and sometimes even when visiting. Others do things differently, and I pay less attention to what they do than I do to what *I* do. What I tell others about Waymarking is that you have to spend some time figuring out what it means to you and how you want to do it. Waymarking is a good compliment to geocaching. I suggest marking and visiting a few as you cache in an area. Each game has it's own strengths, so try combining them rather than seperating them.
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zire 71, which many cachers I know call "the best unit they made". Not necessarily true, but it's nice. IMO you do not want to go any older because their older slower processors manifests their weaknesses when using cachemate. The zire and tungsten lines are soooo much easier to see. I have a tungsten from when the zire got sat on, and use the zire because it came back right around the time the tungsten got sat on. With either I run cachemate and mapopolis. cachemate has the cache details. mapopolis shows me street maps and the locations of caches on the map. I have an SD card that contains county maps for much of norcal, where I cache. all in all it's a nice setup.
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Accurate, Cheap Gpsr For Beginner?
WalruZ replied to dielikemoviestars's topic in GPS technology and devices
etrex yellow. My target has them in their sporting goods aisle. you will have everything you need to get started and if you eventually want to do serial waypoint download that unit will handle it. If you progress beyond 30 or 40 finds I suggest investing in a battery charger and some rechargables. If you get hooked, your next investment sholud be a PDA with cachemate and maps, rather than a mapping GPS. -
to heck with all that. I can tell you what to leave that will be a) desired, and almost free. go to wally world and buy a roll of duck brand cammo duct tape. It'll be in the duct tape section, not the hunting section. $4.00 for a big roll. I've only ever seen it at walmart. stop by the photo counter and ask for their discarded film cannisters. $0.00. try other places if you don't get cooperation. stop by the hardware section, or a hardware store if they don't have it, and get stovepipe wire. This is black wire a bit thinner than a pencil lead that is easily flexed and cut. $1.00 for a roll. design a logsheet that will fit in the film can and either print some out or copy them off (at wallyworld, why not). $1.00 for plenty. The kids can do the next steps... Cut off a bit of wire about 5 inches long. Curve one end around a finger and put it on the bottom of the film can. bend the wire up the side of the film can. cover the bottom of the can and the wire with a sqare of the cammo duct tape. smooth the edges of the square up the sides of the film can, exact smoothness is not needed. now wrap the side of the can with a strip of tape, keeping the wire under the tape. put a square of tape over the lid, smooth down it's edges and trim the corners off with a sissors. Insert a logsheet or two. You have an inexpensively made micro container (hanger) which will almost always be gladly traded for by the next visitor. For variety, order some rare earth magnets online and put one under the tape instead of the wire. Micro containers are *always* traded for, and quickly too.
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what i would do here is make the box (according to your pic) in such a way as to be opened from the bottom, with the opening mechanism recessed up in the bottom. Ie, you would have to get under it to even see that it could be opened. Suppose that about an inch from the 'bottom' of the box is a shelf that holds the bucket. Then suppose that the 'bottom' panel of the box (still slightly recessed, say, an inch or so) is actually two panels side-by-side. To open the box you would have to reach underneath, push up on a panel and then slid it over the other panel. Then you could reach up into the void of the box and pull the bucket off it's shelf. Paint the whole thing black. hell, put it close the fence and put "caution, bees" on it and make the cache page bee themed. Let your imagination go...
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One problem I found is that your entire description is rendered within a single TD, thus any restrictions on rendering something within a TD come into play. For example, I was trying to dynamically resize gallery images onto the main page by using percentages (width=40%, etc) - and that would work with firefox, but not IE. It turns out IE won't let you put an image resized by a percentage within a table element, probably due to how they determine screen layout. I have to put in explicit sizes instead. That might have something to do with the bulleted list problem - or not, dunno.
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Creating A New Waymark
WalruZ replied to Osceola's topic in Getting Started with Waymarking (Read-Only)
There were no enforcable guidelines as to what could be a virtual cache. Responsible cachers sought out uniquie interesting items and made virtuals out of them. Irresponsibe cachers made virtuals out of almost anything (drive to the end of this road and email me the words on the green sign.) In some parts of the country that problem became so bad that there was a site-wide 'virtual crackdown'. The guideline became the existance of a "wow" factor, which was still subjective, but the reviewers attempted to enforce it anyway. It was the source of lots of grief between well-meaning (and not-so-well-meaning) cachers and their reviewers. Eventually the site phased out both virtuals and locationless and created Waymarking to sort of take their place. The feature that Waymarking has that was needed, from the site perspective, is that the community server as the reviewer base. Categories and waymarks are accepted or rejected by members of the community, not by Groundspeak. There is an addtional side benefit in the case of locationless in that locationless 'finds' can now be revisited as 'visits'. In the old scheme, locationless finds were 'taken', and of no use to other cachers. -
I cache in groups as well, with plenty of respected cachers. The group logging you mention isn't accepted in our part of the country. Judging by these forums, it isn't accepted in other parts of the country as well - except for yours. You might consider that before you go calling the rest of us 'sad', since that's actually how we feel about you.
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GPS's are excellent examples of high-consumption devices. If you use disposable batteries you'll be buying them by the Costco case-load and throwing them away just as fast. Rechargables are the only way to go.
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consider also that for a cache that size, the last digit or even two of the coordinates is not strictly necessary to narrow down the location of the hiding spot enough to find it. You may want to introduce a little obfustication such that all 6 *have* to be found before the final is available. Your FTF seekers will thank you.
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The GPS does not find the cache. You find the cache.
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If they ask what I'm looking for, I tell them "I'm not sure", which is usually true. If they persist, I tell them I'm on a scavenger hunt. Most people think they understand what that is and will leave you alone. I rarely try to introduce geocaching to strangers.
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The main reason for wanting a larger container is swag, which most experienced geocachers slowly wean themselves from. Location is what geocaching is all about. (The Language of Location, or something like that) Micros are more likely to be placed in poor locations, but lumping them all together is ham-handed. One of the worst caches I and other locals have looked for lately is an ammo can near a lumberyard. In my log I said that I came away from the hunt (2 visits) smelling like a dog that had rolled in something. If you're tired of looking for small containers in parking lots, try Waymarking. We don't have any of those. Of course, we don't have any ammo boxes either. What we do have is locations.
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Horse Pucky
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What Category For A Park?
WalruZ replied to Mosaic55's topic in Getting Started with Waymarking (Read-Only)
I personally have been Waymarking one category that strikes me and then leaving the other categories for other players. There are other waymarkers who like to hit all the categories they can, and I don't have a problem with that. I would probably list it under parks, another local player I know would be more likely to list it under playgrounds. Follow your gut. -
Which is why I think that fake stats are not 'harmless'. They erode the ties that bind the geocaching community together.
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Comrades! Join The Camera-less Revolution!
WalruZ replied to LeoGeo's topic in Getting Started with Waymarking (Read-Only)
The problem I have with this is that photographs are what makes Waymarking work for me. I don't want to look at waymark pages that have no pictures. I don't want to get dull one-line logs. When I browse the waymark categories, the nicely done pages with photos and HTML work are the ones that impress me. I'm not into marking every possible railroad bridge - I want them to be special, at least the ones I mark, and I want to be able to show why they're special, and I want other people to show themselves at the same spots. If you're cheap and lazy it'll be reflected in the waymarks you mark and the logs you leave. Is that really how you want things to be, how you want things to appear? Cheap and Lazy? Not me, sorry. -
New Shelters Group Created
WalruZ replied to webbermr's topic in Recruitment and Category Proposals Archive (Read-Only)
typically these are temporary. what's the point? -
So I've been wending my way through setting up my first group and category. I would just like to say thank you to the fellows who have been hacking away on Waymarking - I am very impressed with the amount of effort that went into all that stuff. It works well and shows a lot of careful thought and meticulous execution. Go tell Jeremy you deserve a raise.
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You're not really a geocacher unless you have at least one piece of rubbermaid in the cupboard that says "official geocaching game piece" on it in sharpie.
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Cachemate and GSAK. If your palm is capable, try Mapopolis. Maps of the US for $40, it's like having a bunch of map books in your palm, particularly if the palm will handle an SD card. You can get a mapopolis export plug-in for cachemate that will take cachemate caches and plot them on the mapopolis map. You can then see what caches are around you and where they are.
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Quite simple once you've done it once or twice. find someplace nearby that is discreet and will hold your cache. Hide it and take coordinates. Now go to the house, somewhere that can be searched easily without causing damage or distress (fence?) and leave a sticker there with the coordinates. If you can manage magnetic, I suggest going to a craft store and buying blank flexible magnet sheets, they are optimized for a business card but you can fasten pretty much whatever you want. very reasonable. another possibility is using numeric metal stamps (hardware store) and sheet tin to make a small metal tag with the coords on it. This can go in a variety of places and is very weatherproof. Whatever you do, don't make it *too* hard to find. The goal is to bring people to the house, not provide them with a frustrating search.