JohnX

Consider what will happen when the Associated Press picks up an article which is published nationwide about a group of people called geocachers who place electronic devices that jam radio signals that rescue squads and law enforcement officers use to locate lost childern and accident victims. Edited to add: Wow! I sure fell for the original post. There is no way the author possibly could build a low cost GPS jammer. I doubt that he or she even read the article that includes the "plans" for the device. (posted in Phrack magazine, #60, sometime in 2003) Such a device does not exist, and further responses to this thread will be purely theoretical only.

And now I have to be nice and admit my original posts were a bit strident. I hate when that happens.

Made you look!

Someone relies on a reader to infer the tone of his post, and is sometimes not a skillful enough author to covey this to all readers. Especially the ones who need to use little animated pictures, or resort to dotting their i's with smily faces to express themselves. Perhaps this will help. (Insert emoticon of eyes rolling back in head here.) And yes every word I used is in the dictionary as well.

You wrote: The definition for riffraff: 1 a : disreputable persons b : RABBLE c : one of the riffraff 2 : REFUSE, RUBBISH (The capitialization of RABBLE, REFUSE and RUBBISH in the definition is not mine.) Then you wrote: I didn't go there. You did. Online dictionaries are your friend. dictionary

Just an FYI for the environmental types. The "alkaline" in a alkaline battery is used to describe the battery chemistry. If you feel the miniscule ammount of alkaline material in a battery is any threat at all then you should consider that the following materials are all alkaline: sea water, tears, blood, baking soda, milk of magnesia, household bleach and ashes from your environmental friendly wood stove that you so thoughtfully spread around your plants. Anybody who thinks alkaline batteries are bad because of the "alkaline" should have been paying attention in high school chemistry class, and before they start saying something is "bad" for the environment, they should take a few moments to do even the slightest amount of research on the internet. The environmental threat from alkaline batteries used to be the mercury that was used to make them. There has been such a fantastic reduction in the amount of mercury in alkaline cells over the years that I don't think that there are any battery collection centers left. I took the time to type "mercury flourescent tubes" into Google and found a lot of interesting links. The first one: Flourescent Tube Recycling Just a quick summary. Those energy efficient flourescent lamps that save the environment contain mercury. So much that in Washington they are collected as toxic waste, where alkaline batteries are not. If you are going to be an "environmetalist" you might as know what you are talking about so you don't waste everyone's time trying to save the groundwater from something that professionals agree is no risk at all.

Well, I am glad to see a couple of other posters had a similar experience to mine. It is also encouraging to see most people have good experience with rechargables. Perhaps I just got a bad charger or set of batteries. This is a warning: I have to state categorically that NiMH batteries are not the best for all applications. They lose about 25% of their charge a month just sitting there. This is called the self discharge rate. That means if you put a freshly charged pair of NiMH batteries in your emergency flashlight, after 4 months, you will only have 1/3 of a charge left. After another 4 months, you will have only 1/10 of the original charge left, which is effectively dead. Don't put NiMH batteries in your flashlight and expect it to work in 10 months. I am sure any other electrical engineer out there will confirm this.

It has been my experience that NiMH batteries simply do not last for 500 recharge cycles. The ones I have purchased have always failed to hold a significant charge after about 24 months being recharged once or twice a month. Of course, if you keep your GPS on for several hours a day, every day, rechargeable batteries would pay off. Remember that rechargeable batteries have a high discharge rate, and will go dead over time 10 to 100 times faster than alkalines. If you keep a flashlight in your car or home for emergencies, spend the money for brand name alkalines, and save the rechargeable batteries for running the CD player or caching with your GPS.

I have popup notification turned on for the board, but use Firefox and get no popup or notification that a popup was blocked like I get on other sites. It seems it would be a simple programming effort to change the text showing the number of messages to red when the count goes above 0. I personally would prefer to be able turn off the ability for anyone to be able to PM me. I figure if someone wants to send me a message, they can do it by email. I dread the thought of instant messaging with blipping noises and pop-up smily frogs to announce that someone demands my immediate attention. I would also like to be able to turn off just the smily emoticons, but leave user posted images. I predict a day when people will be so lazy, and unable to create a concise thought, that they will post messages consisting entirely of little animated pictures and no content whatsoever.

I own a Garmin etrex Legend and have been very happy with it. I noticed at a local Geo Event/Meet that a lot of people used them, at least the folks who aren't über-geeks. I suggest that whatever GPS you buy, and before you go looking for your first cache, you do a practice run. This would involve figuring out how to set a waypoint, going outside and marking one in your GPSr, and then trying to find it using only the GPSr. Speaking from experience, any 10 year old boy is going to want to use the GPS himself, so teach him how to use it. You may have to look over his shoulder on the first few caches an give him pointers, but that is the nature of the beast. Also, read the logs for the first few caches you seek and see what people are posting, they may indicate if the cache would be a good one for kids. Here is a recent log for a cache I placed that made me smile. "This cache was a lot easier than the Snoring Cache.....and it also gave me a few minutes to rest before leaving the camp......I think i will take my grandson here on a future excursion......TNLNSL....Thanks again....."

Look what I failed to read. It's not the first time I should have kept my mouth shut and failed to do so.

By setting him up with a few months of premium membership?

I can't get the page to work in IE or Firefox.

And that is the price that cachers who use PDAs pay for using them Especially if they can't take the few moments to review a cache page before they download it to their PDA. It is dead simple to read a cache page and print it out if you need to. There is no need to cater to cachers who don't use due diligence when looking for a cache.

Wow geolite69, you certainly made your point. Yes, you are difficult and immature. After being criticized for using all caps, you stop using caps completely and eliminate spaces between sentences. You sure showed us. I am pointing this out because if you have a problem with your local Parks Department enacting laws to limit geocaching, and you approach them in that manner and with that attitude, you will be doing the entire geocaching community a disservice. Speaking from experience, I can say explaining geocaching to land managers, police officers, conservation committee members and park department members is not an easy thing to do, and they can easily cause more difficulties for you and all geocachers than you can cause for them. Would anyone care to start a new thread about how to successfully deal with local organizations to promote geocaching for the benefit of everyone involved?

In that image there is a magnet hidden behind the hinged cover of the compass on the left. Or perhaps there is another explanation why the cover is not open flat on the table like the compass on the right.

Actually, no one has the right to "feel safe", they have the right to reasonably ecpect to be safe. There is a huge difference between the two. There are both civil and criminal laws intended to punish someone who harms you in some way and allow you to sue for compensation for your damages. Additionally, there is no right "not to be offended by what someone says or does." First Amendment. One sentence. Here is a perfect caching example. Just this week, I was placing a new cache in a local state park when I had a huge airdale not on a leash jump up on me. "Oh, he only want's to play" the owner said. I was polite, but not happy. (BTW, look for the "Double Dog Dare" cache soon to be listed) In every town I have cached in there is a law requiring dogs be kept on leashes at all times while on public property. The law specifically states dog owners have no right to let their dogs off the leash. I can, and have called law enforcement because of loose dogs, and can also sue the dog owner for damages if the dog jumps on me and causes me emotional distress. That is my right. However, if a dog owner has a pit bull on a leash, that is their right even if I don't "feel safe" anywhere near the dog or owner. And an off topic BTW. Velcro was invented in 1948 by George de Mestral, the first commercial microwave oven was was marketed in 1954, and in 1938 Owens-Corning developed a process to manufacture microscopic glass fibers that were sprayed with chemicals to form fiberglass insulation. -- The Apollo program started in 1963 and men first landed on the moon in 1969.

I suggest looking at someone's profile on a public accessable site where a person volunteers all the information on the page is not stalking, illegal or immoral.

I will call you on using the board for info and teaching. Would you please start a thread that demonstrates what you are talking about? Perhaps post a few sample messages?

I'm glad I use my GPS for navigation and am not a Panda. See why in this story: Pandas and GPS

I occurs to me that Geocaching.com makes money by selling advertising, and selling premium memberships. Groundspeak.com also makes money by encouraging people to pay for premium memberships. Every hit missed by Geocaching.com because some local group has mined the data off Geocaching, costs Geocaching.com lost advertising revenue. If people choose to use local caching bulletin boards rather than Groundspeak, then Groundspeak loses potential sources of revenue from advertising and premium memberships. To put it bluntly, site traffic generates income, if a local group reduces traffic to Geocaching or Groundspeak, it also reduces income to those sites. Why would any rational person or business give away, for free, information they paid to generate, when it will reduce the income they receive for their efforts?

So what are you trying to cover the cache with?

I went to this page: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/ to find caches hidden by a user, and could not find a "Search for caches hidden by:" feature. Hmmm.... I had a friend tell me "You have to find "XxxxX caches, they are the best!" Please go to Geocaching main page and try and follow the links to search for caches hidden by a certain user. I don't think it can be done. Adding a "Caches Hidden by Username" feature to the Hide and Seek a Cache page ssems like a logical, simple and useful addition to the web site. You can of course, follow a different tack to get the information, but as every sailor knows, tacking is a pain in the a55. JohnX

Wow! I haven't laughed so hard in quite a while. Of course there is a long back story to my original post, which I made while I was very frustrated trying to get a cache approved and then adopted. If anyone cares to see the emails, send me a private message. For reference, I never questioned the grammar of the page, just the logic. Read the posts. Referring to both the owner AND the adopter as the user on the same page is an example of a fantastically bad user interface and can only lead to confusion. And now to respond to a specific post. You may be good at grammar, but you suck at tact. I'll change it. Thanks for pointing it out (but you can sit on your tact). Jeremy, I apoligze most sincerely for my lack of tact. Let me re-word that. "Perhaps you could take a look at the cache adoption page. There is something I don't understand. The section of the page that says "Who will you send this adoption request?" does not make sense to me. Perhaps it should say "Who is adopting the cache?" Also, instead of referring to both the cache owner and cache adopter as users, perhaps the cache owner could be referred to as the owner, and the adopter as the adopter." Also, thanks for your suggestion. I would like to respond with a clue for a cache I placed a while back: Take a Load Off Sincerely, JohnX

It would also be a sentence if it said that. Or even "Who would you like to send the adoption request to?" Or even "Who is adopting this cache?" Most people talk like that. If not in sentences, at least in logical phrases. As it stands, "Who will you send this adoption request?" is just poorly worded drivel. If the site designers would like some suggestions on how to make the cache adoption page better, and a beta tester, just get in touch. I would be happy to help. JohnX