crb11

I didn't hold out much hope, but thought it might be worth logging in case a GPX revision was on the cards anyway. I'm already doing the "placed date" split with 1000-cache PQs, but looks like GSAK is the better option to get what I actually want more easily.

Would it be possible, in the next revision of the Groundspeak GPX format, to include details of the options used to generate it and whether it is complete: For instance: this GPX is centered at 52 12N 001 13 E, radius 10 miles, 500 caches max, selected types Traditional and Multi, And "I don't own" and "Is enabled". It is incomplete (i.e., it contains 500 caches, but there are more than that that fit the criteria) so contains only caches out to 8.4 miles. It would enable people like me who have scripts which work on GPXs to know what we've actually got downloaded. For instance: a personal challenge I'm working on at the minute is to have found caches so that wherever you are within a particular region, I've found at least of the 20 caches that will come up in on the first page of the nearest caches search. I'm currently having to store the centre of each PQ in a separate place and compute the distances of everything in it to work out how far out it goes to ensure I have enough coverage for this to be accurate. This would be fairly easy to include (although would require a bit of thought to work out how to express it in XML) and would only add trivially to the file size. For things like routes, you could always note "this is based off a route" rather than actually include the full route, if that made things easier.

Project-GC's "lonely caches" can give some statistics on this. I checked for London, and there are 82 caches which average less than 0.5 days per find (i.e., more that 730 finds a year, which is about the level you're on), although some of those are very recent placements. The most often found cache is GC3B88D "Three London Icons", currently on 5983 finds since January 2012 - it's an easy find inside a phone box very near the Houses of Parliament, so obviously getting the tourists in.

Do they both feature in Pickwick Papers?

For what it's worth, Wikipedia say "On the Beach" is his best-known novel, but I'd only heard of the "other one" - I assume MTH and I are thinking of the same book.

That's them. A trio of dings to the hut in yellow.

Continuing with the musical theme: can you name the Three Tenors?

I don't know what the first is, but the other three are Oklahoma, Oliver and chess: all names of musicals.

I think it's a reasonable compromise between accuracy and user-readability which is probably why GPSs default to it. As MartyBartfast notes, you can specify to a level of a thousandth of a minute, or about 2 yards. Compared to decimal degrees, having the minutes figure there helps in location. Near here (Cambridge, UK), I know going one minute north or south is about a mile, one east or west about 2/3 mile, and that the city is roughly N 52 10-15, E 0 5-10, and I have a reasonable feel for where any location within 20-30 miles is going to be. You can do the same tricks using the first two decimal digits, but it's not quite as intuitive.

Compton MacKenzie. Interesting chap - he founded both Gramophone magazine and the SNP.

A warp 9 DING there. Back to you.

An excellent reason to go there again. (I think I knew you were from that area.) A topical question in memory of Leonard Nimoy: who originated the idea of Star Trek?

Can you buy it in the cafe at the top of Snowdon? (And if not, why not?)

It could indeed. DING to you!

Oh dear. This was supposed to be an easier one. It's one of the most recognisable songs for a solo boy treble.

A hint: Madness released a single with virtually the same name.

Not that (that's from Wagner's Lohengrin) but another piece anyone ought to recognise.

Part of Mendelssohn's choral anthem Hear My Prayer, composed in 1844, is much better known under a different title. What is it?

Numbers 2 and 5: Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard.

So the DING goes to Pharisee at about 70 miles away: the county is Norfolk and the hill Beacon Hill on the north coast - nothing else of any height until you get down into mid-Suffolk. The other three points in England are Leith Hill in Surrey and Walbury Hill in Berkshire, together with High Willhays in Devon.

Again plausible (and it's north of three of the four points) but you can see something bigger to the south from there.

Leith Hill (about 10 miles away) is one of the four points, but not the most northerly. If nobody gets the correct county by 5pm, I'm going to award it to the person who has nominated the nearest point to the hill in question.

No... that's local to me and you can see much higher ground to the SW. This is much harder than I thought, so here's a more specific hint. The place in question is between 100 and 150m high, it's called "Hill" and there's nothing else as high within about 40 miles.

Getting closer. From Lincoln the top of the Wolds is in line of sight, and from there you can see higher ground (in Nottinghamshire I think). Not by a lot though. We're after something of similar height to the Wolds, but more isolated from other high ground.

Great idea! Had a play and will add a link from my Explorer page. A suggestion: on the output Explorer grid, instead of numbering from 0..X and 0..Y, why not put the actual northings and eastings instead - it would be better for cross-referencing other information.