TechnoNut

South Africa visits Lisbon, Portugal: 3 - 15 April I will be visiting Lisbon (mainly for business) from 3 - 15 April. Naturally the weekdays will mostly be taken up with non-geocaching business, but the weekends (and perhaps early mornings and evenings will certainly be used to find some caches in central Lisbon. I will be staying at N38 43.418 W09 08.847 and will welcome the opportunity to interact (and perhaps share some finds) with local cachers. Unfortunately, I will not have wheels at my disposal, but it seems as if there are many caches in central Lisbon, and that there is also a good public transport system. Perhaps someone can organize a short event at a popular bar / restaurant so we can swap caching stories - that would be great! Looking forward to getting some replies soon. Pete

TBs and GCs to go on a trip. I will be leaving for Portugal for two weeks on the morning of 2 April. If anyone has any trackables that want to go on an extended trip to Nando's Land, let me know and we can make arrangements to collect them.

South Africa visits Lisbon, Portugal: 3 - 15 April I will be visiting Lisbon (mainly for business) from 3 - 15 April. Naturally the weekdays will mostly be taken up with non-geocaching business, but the weekends (and perhaps early mornings and evenings will certainly be used to find some caches in central Lisbon. I will be staying at N38 43.418 W09 08.847 and will welcome the opportunity to interact (and perhaps share some finds) with local cachers. Unfortunately, I will not have wheels at my disposal, but it seems as if there are many caches in central Lisbon, and that there is also a good public transport system. Perhaps someone can organize a short event at a popular bar / restaurant so we can swap caching stories - that would be great! Looking forward to getting some replies soon. Pete

GSAK Databases - What is the best structure? I have been using GSAK for about 8 months now and have got to the point where I need to have a look at the way I structure the databases I use. Currently I have a "default" database which contains everything in SA and neigbouring countries, plus Zambia. Then I have a "RestOfAfrica" for all the other African countries, including islands around Africa. Both of these databases are updated at least weekly via a set of PQs. KZN and my placed caches are updated at least daily. Once a week I weed out unfound archived caches and move these to a separate database. Also weekly I copy my finds, my hides and my FTFs to separate databases. While this works currently, I am beginning to see that this is not ideal, especially with the 'default' database, as I need to get pretty far down page 2 to see my closest unfound cache. So, the question is: What is the best way of structuring the GSAK databases to manage your caching most effectively? All input is appreciated PT

Gerhard - I am busy tweaking / fine tuning the routes SS and I generated on Tuesday evening. First I have dumped all the archived caches that were in SS's data, and then added the new ones. As I type, I am about halfway through recreating the routes and will send to you (I have your email) as soon as it is done. May only be Monday, but hopefully before then. If anyone else wants the plan, just yell. I needed to draw some GE paths as some of the roads / tracks are not on Garmap or T4A. Byt vas 'n bietjie, ek is amper daar :-) PT

Perhaps we are talking about caching etiquette here? These are all conventions / unwritten rules / guidelines - its just a matter of semantics. But it is the way we each play the game that makes it enjoyable for others. Generally I agree with all of the suggestions made so far. i.e. Wait for the FTF to be logged if you are not the FTF. If you are the FTF, log it pronto to save others chasing for nothing. Don't replace a cache without the owner's permission and directions (whether you have found it or not). Repair a cache when you can (e.g. dry it, add an additional logsheet, add a bit of duct tape). If the log is un-signable and you cannot add a new logsheet/book, you must drop a dated calling card to be able to claim the cache. These are the usual things I come across in my caching. My 2c PT

I checked - my grand total for Natal is 911, which is the same as on the website. For eThekwini I have 365 available (and temporary unavailable) caches and 128 archived caches. I agree with your 18 hides, but I have only 289 finds on active eThekwini caches for you. My last update was last Thursday - maybe your numbers have changed since then? Danie I just checked again. Since last Thursday I have 1 Durban and 7 Pmb area finds. My finds last Thursday was 548 total. Checked in GSAK and in StatsGen. My full figures (and Durban details are as per current database, one new Durban cache placed since Thursday.) Durban (Found, Not found, Temp Disabled, Hidden, Total) : 303 57 36 18 = 378. Of these, there are 14 found which are now archived (including 7 archived events) Hope that helps. PT

Funny stat that - I get 303 for myself in eThekwini (= Durban) with 18 hides. And I am sure there is more than one ahead of me ..... And I make it 378 available. PT

Sorted by percentage: (I just couldn't resist) 1. Jors: 499 finds in Pretoria (88% of all caches in this municipality) etc ... (This is up to 10 March 2011). Danie - Here is an interesting question for you. I have found pretty much every cache in Rustenburg - I think the municipal name in Bojanani (sp??) - the rest of them are mine! How would you work the macro to count both the hides AND finds? That might be interesting reading for places like East London where iPajero and iNokia have high percentages of hides as well. Nelspruit comes to mind for cachers like Fish Eagle and GPS Storm perhaps. Newcastle would be another one for wazat. Has the challenge been accepted? OK, so perhaps I am taking a purist view here ... To find out a geocacher's percentage finds in a given area, you need to look at when the cacher started (Jors is a bad example since he has been around since the rinderpest), then take the number of active geocaches at that time, add all caches placed since then, subtract the cacher's hides - this will give a max possible finds, then express his finds in that area as a percentage of the max possible. I suspect (but I may be very wrong) that the percentages above are total finds vs current active cache total. And no, I would not like to write that query PT

According to my numbers DRDM and Raider stands on 775 African cache finds - still some way to go. Aaaaahhhhh!!! I forgot about the African requirement ....

I am not 100% sure about everyone - please correct me if I am wrong: Natal: 3 cachers Noddy DiePienaars Wazat You can add DRDM and Raider to the list for KZN.

All Le Mans peeps - At this stage it is myself (definite)and Nordic Gal (95%) in this. As above. I will be using the 276C with the on-road routes,and the Oregon 550 as an off-road GPS to find the cache. The old and trusty GPS V in off-road mode will be the backup. Fortunately the Landy has a dual battery system (and can even go to triple battery if required, and then I can chuck the solar panel on the roof rack as well), so the engine starts every 10 min should be handled OK. What I am not looking forward to is the many U-turns that will be required as the LR has the turning circle of a full span of oxen. PT

Cool. Long-range planning says I will be able to attend. Have sent you an email ICW this. PT

My take on Karma is that it is a strange animal that may even need a bit of rethinking in line with the recent GS changes. Let's examine a few scenarios:- A new keen cacher gets going and starts to clean out his neighbourhood and all other nearest places, so he is finding lots of caches, but only placing a few. This calculates a low karma. Then, as he gradually runs out of caches in his home area, his find rate drops dramatically, while other cachers are still finding his hides. Now his karma starts going up. Next, he has a trip to London, where he finds 500 caches during his three-week vacation (or he could go to the US and do the ET Power trail and find 500 caches in two days). Karma plummets again. Nothing in the above is indication of how he is contributing to the game. Also consider the cacher who places a number of high quality, high difficulty puzzle caches - these will attract very few finds (virtually none by visitors), so his Karma will never get to the magic figure of 1.0. But that is not because he is putting nothing back into the game - He is in fact contributing to bettering the quality of caches in his area. Of course there is the other side of the same coin - someone goes and drops a bundle of film canisters / pill boxes all over town, each with only a piece of paper stuck inside it, and none that require more than one brain cell to find in less than 30 seconds. These are fodder to the number chasers and he scores lots of finds, so his Karma rockets. Now, by the current definition, this high Karma cacher is better than his mate above who has 1/5 the number of caches, but 10x the cache quality. IMHO, we should be measuring karma (or something akin to karma, call it what you like - maybe Cache Magic?) by looking at the Favourite points gained by a cache, and expressing that number as a percentage of total hides. e.g. 20 favourite points over 40 caches placed = 0.5; and 40 favourite points over 30 caches placed = 1.33. This would be a better measure of what someone is putting back into the sport. There are some problems with this suggestion as well - e.g. only Premium members can allocate favourite points, and those with fewer caches may have some built-in distortion. So maybe number of finds needs to come in as a moderating factor, also the number of placements. Is this something worth thrashing around for a while?

Very Interesting - If there are 6349 registrations since the beginning, and 2745 were active last year, that indicates an attrition of 3604 cachers. Is that good or bad? PT

Eish Wynand, sorry to hear about the prang. If I hear of anyone looking for an Oregon, I'll let you know. I am enjoying mine very much. But - a cautionary note - they can be had for less than your asking if the buyer wants to get direct from the US. It may be better to go see your bank manager PT

For the programmers ..... A wife asks her husband, a programmer; "Could you please go shopping for me and buy one carton of milk, and if they have eggs, get 6!" A short time later the husband comes back with 6 cartons of milk. The wife asks him, "Why the hell did you buy 6 cartons of milk?" He replied, "They had eggs."

Baker's Dozen challenge - I seem to recall it requires at least one cache placement per month ..... Is there going to be a rush of caches this weekend to make the February deadline?

True. And for coastal cachers the centroid will be displaced inland for obvious reasons. In my case, I have found some caches in the far north western parts of Namibia, and my centroid places me in the Pmb area while I am actually in Durbs by the sea.

Here is another challenge for the sqlite script authors ... Is there anyway of determining the fastest South Africans to a milestone? e.g. fastest (in calendar days or months) to (say) 500, 1000, 1500, 2000 etc? and then perhaps in caching days? I understand that there is a problem with some of the above cachers doing caches in other countries (e.g. I have about 6 or 7 caches in neighbouring countries). So let's just say fastest to nnn SA caches. Would it be a good idea to include neighbouring country caches in the SA database? I maintain a database of All Africa, but have only been running the PQs since July 2010, so my data is far from complete. PT

iNokia can take it. (I just wish this cache would get the number of visits that it deserves).

Am I allowed to reply :-) Seeing as it could be one of mine? PT

Cool How about making one of the judging criteria the number of fave points awarded on the GC cache listing? That will allow all finders to participate - not just those in the ballot. (The judges decision can still be final) My 2c PT

While the camera didn't influence the decision at all (both NG and I carry a happy snappy), the Oregon 550 has won the day at $430 - main decision maker here was the screen resolution - 3x that of the 60csx. Oregon should be here with my son's g/f during the 1st week in Feb Now, on matters just slightly more (or is it less) mundane .... Seeing as we have a cacher about to hit 2000, two that have recently hit 1000, and a bundle about to hit 500 (myself included), does this not call for an event to celebrate any / all of the above? Must I organise it? PT

Thanks - I am heading in that direction, but will wait for a few more opinions / 2c worth.