Backwards Charlie from Austin
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Posts posted by Backwards Charlie from Austin
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Most of the non forum regulars say they do not like ... challenges that require a lot of travel.
This is one of my favorite parts of geocaching, the travel, be it local, regional, national, or international. I like the idea of possibly completing a challenge based on travel. Our state's 92 county challenge, DeLorme challenge, virtual challenge, and history (caches placed in the first year of geocaching) challenge took me to parts of Indiana I wouldn't have gone had it not been for geocaching. Why would you limit a challenge based on travel and keep things local when there's a big world out there to explore? Heck, there's a big world to explore in most towns, cities, and states. You don't have to go too far to find unique and interesting locations and I have geocaching to thank for that.
You are so fortunate. I would love to do a lot of geocaching travel, but circumstances are not in my favour. I bet that's true for most geocachers - limited money, time, priorities, and the support of family.
Everybody has limited time and money. Even though we all do not have the same limits, we all have to set priorities. I would love to go to the space station and get the geocache there. I would love to go to Brazil and the the one remaining Project Ape cache. I would love to go get the northernmost cache in Canada. But I have to set my priorities within the time and money I have available, so I may never get to do any of those.
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Is this an inappropriate location to shill for the Challenge Stars feature?
Should GS decide it's ok for a challenge cache to be logged as found by those not meeting the challenge I would immediately archive my challenge caches. I put in a lot of effort to qualify for my challenges before publishing them and will not let anyone that hasn't log them.
You'd better go and archive them now, because they all appear to have been found and logged by a number of people who haven't qualified.
Those are notes and I clearly stated logged as found. Big difference, but you already knew that. .
So in the context of those challenges, a "Found It" log really means "Challenge Completed" and a "Note" can mean the container was found and the log signed.
It sounds like there should be some system to separate the finding of the container from the completion of the challenge.
A "Found It" log means you have completed all the requirements for the cache, whether it is a challenge, a puzzle, a multi, an earthcache, or a traditional. A "Note" log can be used for when you have not yet completed all the requirements for the cache. Challenges and puzzles are both two stage caches: one stage to meet the requirements, and the other stage to sign the physical log. For puzzles most people do stage one (solve the puzzle) and then stage two. For challenges you can do either stage first, and it does not matter in the grand scheme of things which you do first.
I have used Note logs on challenges, puzzles, multis, and earthcaches to indicate that I have done some, but not all, of the requirements for the cache.
If you do not like to post Notes, then you do not have to. If you are a Cache Owner (CO), you should appreciate people telling you through Notes that they are working on your cache.
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I for one like challenge caches since they provide a challenge. My first ten thousand or so finds were almost all traditionals, but that started to get boring. So I decided to look into the other types of caches and now I enjoy finding earthcaches, challenges, multis, and all the others.
The biggest problem I have with some challenges is that some are so poorly worded that even after reading the requirements several times I still have to e-mail the cache owner (CO) to get clarification of what is required. (I pity the poor reviewers that had to work with these COs.) This usually happens when the CO tries to have a multitude of requirements and is not articulate enough to state them in a clear and concise manner. The best challenges follow the KISS principle (Keep It Simple Stupid) and only have one or two requirements to complete.
The only challenges that I avoid are ones that after reading the requirements I know that I will not enjoy doing. But that is the same criteria I use for all types of caches.
One comment about a new icon for challenges from an old database developer. The time to create new icons is when a new cache type is created. Now is too late since it will be very disruptive to do a retrofit. I always tried to design my databases to be as flexible as possible for new developments, and most of the time I was able to handle what the future threw my way. But nobody, myself included, is capable of anticipating everything the future will throw your way.
The mystery or other category is the miscellany category of geocaching. Groundspeak was wise to split off Waymarking from geocaching since it was too different to handle it and geocaches all in one database. I hope that they do not abolish or split off challenges from the rest of geocaching.
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eMail Headquarters - maybe they can go back in time and capture your list. In the future run a Pocket Query of the list and add it to your GSAK or just keep it as a file on your computer as back-up.
Thanks for the reply.
I wish that I could backup my booklist by running PQs. But how do you capture the data in the notes field of the bookmark records? I have never seen the data from the notes field of a bookmark record show up in the Notes field, or any other field, of a GSAK record.
How do you e-mail HQ? In this new design they seemed to have eliminated all contact points, or at least have them well hidden.
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I attempted to delete one (1) record from a bookmark list with 974 records in it. But now my bookmark list is empty, instead of just 973 records.
What went wrong and how can I restore my bookmark list. It took twelve (12) queries to build it, so I do not want to have to go through that to rebuild it.
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I have only three (3) country souvenirs, although I have found caches in thirteen (13) countries on the UN list. So I am in favor of CS continuing with more country souvenirs.
As somebody quoted earlier from Latitude47, CS only wants to use in house artists to prevent hidden messages in the artwork used for the souvenirs. However, somebody has suggested setting up a competition for suggested artwork from outside artists and then letting the geocaching community vote for their favorites. Between the submitting of artworks and the beginning of voting, the artworks could be vetted by the community so any hidden messages would be discovered and that artwork disallowed.
Take for example artwork for a Scotland souvenir, a place with a very active independence movement. Artists would submit their artwork by a deadline. GS would post the artworks that pass a preliminary examination for the community to examine and comment on. I am sure activists on both the pro- and anti-independence sides would scour all of the artworks looking for anything they could object to and bring those objections to GS's attention. Then those that passed the vetting process could be presented as candidates to be voted on and the winning artwork becoming the souvenir. If none of the artworks submitted get though the vetting process, or no artwork proves popular with the community, then the in house artists can still design something.
For those that do not recognize it, this process is similar to how we pick politicians in democracies. You probably will not get the best candidate, but you at least eliminate the worst candidates.
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Well, it is now Wednesday and the fix that was going to be released Tuesday still has not be released. When am I an others with long user names going to get our user names back?
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Who decided to cut off user names at 20 characters? Instead of being Backwards Charlie from Austin, suddenly I have to sign in as Backwards Charlie fr. Why?
Long user names problem already raised > http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=327446
Due to be fixed... http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=327446&view=findpost&p=5451365
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If the two points are close enough that the differences between assuming the two points are on a two dimensional surface (a plane) and that they are on a three dimensional surface (a oblate spheroid, the planet earth) are too minor to worry about, then you can use simple arithmetic. The arithmetic mean of the two latitudes and the arithmetic mean of the two longitudes will give you the midpoint.
However, if the distance between the two points is great enough that the curvature of the earth needs to be taken into consideration, then just simple arithmetic does not give good answers. I have not used or examined the app that Panther&Pine found, so I can not comment on it.
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I've never used it, but it was the first google hit for "Find the midpoint between two gps coords"
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T.D.M.22 is right. Contact the person and let them know that you think they keyed in the wrong GCcode. I had a similar case where I contacted the person and told them I thought they miskeyed the GCcode. I also told them if they are sure the entered the right code, then they should be able to tell me something about the cache that only a person that has been there would know. And if I did not hear back from them in a few days then I would delete their log.
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Who decided to cut off user names at 20 characters? Instead of being Backwards Charlie from Austin, suddenly I have to sign in as Backwards Charlie fr. Why?
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However, the weekly notification is useless for finding mega events since they are jumbled together in no order, and there does not seem to be a way to get them in any order.
I would like to be able to get a list of all the upcoming mega events in the world in date order so I can plan trips to them.
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Hi Charlie. I don't know, of course, what you are seeing, but I use bookmark lists extensively and I never see much, if any, time delay and the additions always go into the list as Nancy said. If you are seeing a delay I can't think that it would be more than just a few seconds at most (unless the site is really bogged down).
This problem seems to occur only with my long lists (several hundred), I don't notice any delay with my short lists. Maybe I tend to try to update my long lists when the site is busy.
Thanks all for your input.
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When I add an entry to a bookmark list I would like to then edit it. But where does it go when I add it?
I would expect it either to be inserted into its proper place in the sorted list, or to be appended to either the beginning or end of the list. But when I add an entry to one of my longer bookmark lists, I am unable to find it in any of those three logical places. I have to scroll through the entire list to find it. When the list is over a hundred entries, that is a waste of time to have to hunt for what should be in one of the three logical places.
Depends what you mean by "its proper place."
They are inserted into their proper place in alphabetical order by name of the cache.
Nancy, you are correct in that they eventually will show up in their proper place (sorted). But how long do I have to wait for this to happen? After adding an entry to a bookmark list I want to edit it. As I said above, I would expect it to be in one of the three logical places immediately after adding it to the list, so I could then start editing it. But for long lists I have to scroll through the entire list to find where it has been stuck.
If an entry is not inserted into its proper place immediately (which makes sense for long lists) then it should be appended to one of the ends of the list for later sorting. This is how I taught my students to handle sorted lists, and I imagine it is still what is being taught today. Inserting an entry into a random location of a sorted list is not a logical way to handle adding an entry to a sorted list.
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When I add an entry to a bookmark list I would like to then edit it. But where does it go when I add it?
I would expect it either to be inserted into its proper place in the sorted list, or to be appended to either the beginning or end of the list. But when I add an entry to one of my longer bookmark lists, I am unable to find it in any of those three logical places. I have to scroll through the entire list to find it. When the list is over a hundred entries, that is a waste of time to have to hunt for what should be in one of the three logical places.
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I can get the maps to load, but I cannot get the caches to display on the maps in FireFox 3.6.3. The black box saying "Requesting geocaches" just sits there with its wheel spinning.
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I'm surprised they didn't just put the graphic on the "Log your visit" page instead, along with the Nominate checkbox. The way it is right now, you first log your find, then go to the View Log link to nominate.
Very good point. You show how poorly thought out this was. I, for one, do not bother to look at the cache page after I log my entry. I go on and log my next entry instead. But then I would not nominate one of my logs even if the nomination was on the "Log you visit" page.
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I can see that TPTB have valid reasons for hiding archived caches that were in forbidden locations. But I have seen no valid justification in this forum for hiding archived caches that were archived for some other reason. I have seen good arguments for allowing archived caches that are not in forbidden locations to be viewable.
It appears to be that TPTB took the easiest way to solve a problem without considering better alternatives to solving the problem. That is how bureaucracies work, not how a well run business should work.
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I'm sorry everyone, this bug was closed without my knowledge (reason: not reproducable). Apparently the email formatting was checked and found to not have any issues. They are HTML emails so for those of you with "test format" checked in your profile you should switch to "HTML format".
If that still doesn't work I'll need for you to post which email program you're using so I can investigate further. Thanks.
OpinoNate,
When I go to my ISP's web mail server and open mail from Groundspeak.com it is formated correctly. But when I download the same mail to my email program (Eudora v7) and open them, the ones from Groundspeak.com lose all formatting as mentioned by others. Maybe that gives you some clue as to the problem.
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All-numeric dates should always follow the ISO-8601 format, yyyy-mm-dd. It is, after all, an international standard. mm/dd/yyyy and dd/mm/yyyy are both insupportable.(hmm is that mm/dd or dd/mm ? )Edward
I agree with paleolith, all dates on Groundspeak.com should be displayed according to the ISO 8601 format. This note was written on 2007-12-13 @ 20:40 -0600.
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So far I have not hidden any caches since I do so much traveling that I would have trouble maintaining my caches in a timely manner. One of the things with geocaching that irks me the most is owners that will not respond to a "Needs Maintenance" log for many weeks. When the owner has been shipped off to Iraq it is understandable, but most of the time it turns out to be laziness or bad manners on the part of the owner.
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On the University of Texas at Austin campus there are several caches. One is an ammo can in the woods that the campus police are well aware of.
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Always keep in mind that those attributes are added by the owner of the listing. It might still be a hunting area - just not marked as such.
And it may or may not be hunting season at the time you want to be in the area.
Requiring GSAK for a Challenge Cache?
in General geocaching topics
Posted
You may not have run across a challenge where the CO required a bookmark list as proof and would not accept any other form of proof, but I have. I contacted the CO and asked if he used GSAK then I could send him a GSAK file. If he used Excel then I could send him an Excel file. In fact I told him if he used any database or spreadsheet I could make a file that was compatible with it so he could use that. But he insisted on a bookmark list. This was before GSAK had the GC.com API and could upload a GSAK file directly to a bookmark list. So for the next few months I spent hours hand entering into a bookmark list each of the qualifying caches. The stupid thing is, some of the information he needed to verify if each cache met his requirements is not publically available on GC.com so I do not know how he managed to check whether I met all his requirements. Luckily for later cachers he turned ownership of the challenge over to somebody else that had more common sense about how to verify.