Sky King 36

I think Edward is spot-on here. The popularity of location-based utilities (like the geocaching website) and mobile apps (tablets and smart phones) is really, really bad news for us all. A few years ago you could run a free tile server and maybe get a few hundred, or a few thousand hits per hour. Now you have millions of people using androids and iPhones as their car GPS... Lay users just don't understand the gravity of the problem. Not even google can afford to provide the scale required for millions of tile server hits per second for free. The CPU and bandwidth costs to serve up tiles at this volume are simply staggering. One by one, every free map service has been utterly crushed into non-existence by user demand. Our appetite far outstrips our ability, or willingness to pay... The free tile server model started to crumble about two years ago, when a few regional/niche tile servers had to send out cease-and-desist letters to mapping software authors like mobac and Locus. Since then the closures of free services has come like an exponential tidal wave. More and more previously free map services have had to go to an API Key model to stem the tide. Once one goes away, then all those thousands, or millions, of users simply migrate to the next free tile server they can find, until we crush that one, which then has to stop providing free tiles too. The tidal wave has become so large that not even google can take it any more. Map tiles have become the crack cocaine of a mobile society. As for performance, this is another place where the free model is breaking down... Tile server operators do not want you to cache (temporarily store) tiles locally, and their ToS will usually prohibit this. I think that is the problem we are having, and will continue to have with the aerial images on the geocaching website. Caching of just-viewed tiles is probably prohibited and thus, every time you zoom in and out, or pan your map, you are reloading a fresh set of tiles even if you just had that tile loaded seconds ago. Again, this is the way of the future, no free tile server can afford to allow local caching of tiles any more. Again, I don't think we really understand the size of the problem. It isn't JUST geocachers, it's millions of us worldwide, roving from free server to free server like a band of marauders. The "everything free all the time" model is not sustainable. It never was.

I carry a fine point Sharpie marker in my caching bag. I think I would have just signed the side of the flash drive with it. People are funny. At work, right after the memo comes out reminding people not to dress quite so casually... the next day a woman shows up wearing only leggings and nothing over them, and someone else wears flip-flops. There's the guy in shorts, the woman with the insane cleavage... It all comes out the day after the memo because people just have this innate need to test limits. The day after you do diversity training, there's always ten guys who have to resurrect their ancient sexist or racist joke. And so it is with caching. You read the guidelines and the "intent" of the guidelines seems so blatantly obvious. Sure, if you want to create artificial grey areas by carefully word-smithing each and every sentence looking for loopholes, you will certainly succeed. But there's a certain intellectual dishonesty in pretending the intent isn't obvious. If you read the guidelines looking for consistency, you will find it. If you read them looking for loopholes to exploit, you will find them too.

I am curious if others have started having PQ problems again. Over the past day or two I am once again seeing the identical manifestation that was discussed last month and took weeks to get fixed, at http://forums.Ground...pic=283677&st=0 Yesterday and today I have had a pocket query that runs, the completed file shows in my "ready to download" list... and then it disappears from the list if I click on it. I tried downloading into GSAK via the API, and same behavior as last time as well. Is anyone else having this problem again since the update?

And just to be clear... I am not trying to clarify the legal definition of trespass to encourage people to do it... I am trying to point out just the opposite... That is, hopefully a a reader might see this forum and reflect on the fact that outdoor trespassing is a far more common, far more accidental transgression than you may think... And thus, you as a land owner, better think really long and really hard about taking any forceful action against a trespasser... As it is a far, far less serious offense than you may be thinking it was when you grabbed your gun off the gun rack. As the guy in this case found out the hard way, he shot someone for something that wasn't even illegal. As a long time sniper and soldier, there are "rules of thumb" that apply to both civilian defense and law enforcement deadly force... And one of those is that if the entry wound is in the target's back you have a lot of explaining to do. It is so hard to make a self-defense claim, that suddenly you will find the burden of proof on you that the person's escape posed a great threat to public safety. The farther the person is form you and the more obviously they are moving away from you, the harder your defense becomes that your shot was a last resort to prevent harm to yourself. i also think the warning-shot-gone-bad defense is a mistake. It waters down your chance of winning a scared-to-death defense. "I was so afraid that I decided deadly force was my best option, and yet, not so scared that I didn't have time for a little plinking with my .22 just to scare em off"... It sends the kind of mixed message that jurys often sieze on to convince that one last "I'm just not sure" jury hold-out to cave in and vote guilty.

Many things in life are dichotomies, where to virtuous principles collide and you have to pick one or the other. On one hand, a container doesn't belong to geocaching.com, or to the caching community. No, it belongs only to the hider. So as a CACHER I really have no business taking a cache most of the time. I may, as a member of the caching community, "act" on a cache in the hider's or community's best interest. For instance, picking it up on the request of a land owner, or picking up a container that is in certain peril. I have been in situations, like rising floodwater, where a cache was doomed if not picked up. I also am a citizen--a member of the non-caching community at large, and I have moral responsibilities to my community that transcend caching. I can certainly pick up a cache that is morally inappropriate, dangerous to the non-caching public, ecologically unsafe... My responsibility to be a good steward of my town didn't stop once I took the "sacred cacher oath."

In California, infractions are not a criminal offense. This law was challenged several times, including a 1987 case that went to the California Supreme Court. While the law may not have been removed from the books (many overturned laws are not), the Appellate and Supreme Court rulings state that it is important that an infraction never be called a criminal violation. A person charged with an infraction's only recourse is appeal to a bench judge. Infractions cannot be heard by a jury, do not have Miranda protections, and generally have very limited, if any appeal rights. Evidentiary requirements, and probable cause requirements, are relaxed. Infractions must not be recorded on a person's criminal record. The very definition of an infraction is a transgression whose punishment to the defendant is of such minor consequence, that he need not be granted the same protections someone accused of a crime would be. That was the reasoning of the overturning... If a state calls an infraction a crime, the defendant has rights, and thus it isn't an infraction any more.

Not to veer way off topic again, but this may be an interesting aside for cachers to be aware of: In most states, this is not true, entry onto private land is not trespassing. Unlike inside a home, in most states, criminal trespass only occurs when someone "enters onto, or remains on, your land after having been notified that such entry is forbidden." As was discussed in another thread, in California, you must actually enter onto the same land owner's land THREE times in order to constitute a criminal trespass. The first and second violations are ticketed as non-criminal infractions (like a parking ticket), and a third violation is a misdemeanor. In most, but certainly not all states, the general rule is: It's usually not criminal trespassing unless someone enters, or remains on private property after being warned or notified. Force (any force, not just deadly) cannot be used if a person is freely attempting to leave your property, nor can it be used to detain them if they are trying to freely leave. If they refuse to leave, only the minimum force required to make them leave can be used. In most states trespassing on land and trespassing inside a building, especially a home, is entirely different. States assume that 99.9% of trespasses on land are accidental, and so give the trespasser a lot of leeway... And that 99.9% of trespasses in a home are with criminal intent, and thus, state laws give very different treatment to each.

Individually, these mean nothing. Collectively their meaning is obvious... "I was doing bong hits while logging my finds"

What automated process doesn't start with an operator of the process pushing the "go button" to start it? If I push on a button once, and as a result of that one button press, a device repeats an action 30 times for me on my behalf... This is the very definition of automation. If I pull a trigger one time, and as a result of that trigger pull the weapon fires 30 bullets, that is absolutely and unequivocally an automatic weapon. I have never seen ANY definition of automation that suggests that in order to be "automated", a process must initiate itself without user intervention. I have never seen ANY definition of automation suggests that in order to constitute being automated, the process being automated must span several hours or several days.

Indeed. And if that extraction process is automated so that it can scrape the data off many screens at once, it is, by definition, an automated scraper. And if you consolidate the scraped data into a new/different data product or new presentation model than the ones the data provider intended, you are going to be in violation of the TOUs of many, many websites. How many web data providers allow the automated mining of their online databases as a means of creating new data products? Not many. Even if that mining is for personal, non-commercial use? Not many. And, as a means of bypassing other paid services? Not many.

But this is the whole point! The act of you interpreting c:geo to be a browser does not make it stop being an automated scraper. It IS an automated scraper. My saying "I have interpreted the earth to be flat" does not make the world stop being round. How is it that c:geo gets compared to greasemonkey? Greasemonkey is a rendering engine that allows you to customize your browser's rendering of the elements of the web page you are currently viewing. Very few web service providers have any problem with that. Now take greasemonkey, and modify it... recode it so that it will actually download not one, but say, 20 or 30 web pages simultaneously... and scrape the data off of those web pages automatically... and consolidates that data into a new data presentation... It wouldn't be greasemonkey any more. It would be an automated scraper. I am not saying it would be "like" or "similar" to an automated scraper, it would be the very essence, the very definition of an automated scraper. The value proposition that c:geo brings to the table is that it IS an automated scraper. That's why it exists. If c:geo could only download one cache, and display that cache on a map, then it would be very much like greasemonkey. And... no one would bother downloading it. If you had to manually go through, cache by cache, and pull up 20-30 web pages, and copy and paste those cache locations and descriptions into the map, you'd never do that. No one would. What gives c:geo its sizzle, what has always made the program appealing, is that it automates the screen scraping process. It automatically pulls up a LOT of web pages simultaneously, gathers the data from all of them and consolidates that data into a new data product that the data provider did not intend for you to have access to: the live map. Take away the live map feature and c:geo fizzles almost overnight. I just don't see how there's any gray area here. Installing an automated screen scraper, and changing the name of the icon on your desktop from "automated screen scraper" to "custom browser" does not make it stop being an automated screen scraper. Groundspeak keeps getting singled out here, but there are literally millions of web-based data providers that expressly forbid the use of automated data-mining as a means of bypassing normally paid access to their data.

Indeed I have been in some of those forums, and here is what I know to be true. I believe these are facts, and I do not believe them to be in dispute by either party: Fact 1: c:geo uses HTML screen scraping. I do agree that Carnero, like others, have said that screen scraping shouldn't be a violation of the TOU, that it is merely a "really fast browser." But he has never disputed, nor have its current authors disputed that it screen scrapes. The code is open source, there's no need for conjecture here. Fact 2: Groundspeak has explicitly prohibited screen scraping. They have never "backed off" this stance. The no-screen-scrape TOU was implemented in early 2004 and has remained unchanged, word-for word, ever since. "You agree that you will not use any robot, spider, scraper or other automated means to access the Site for any purpose without our express written permission." Again, I do not believe these facts are in dispute. I do agree that Groundspeak has softened their once firm stand on deleting all references to c:geo in logs and threads. But that is not at all the same as softening their stance that it violates the TOU, I am quite certain they have not. That is what I meant about posting citations... If there are statements by Groundspeak to the contrary, I welcome them. Honest, I promise, I do *get* that c:geo's authors, and users, very much want the program to be interpreted as a very fast "special use" browser. I really do understand this argument. But that is not at all the same as saying it complies with the TOU. Imagine if I drove a NASCAR car down the freeway at 200 MPH, and I got pulled over. (Don't ask me how, LOL.) "But officer, you can't give me a ticket, this is a 'special use' car." At best I am going to get hauled before a judge and loose big. And imagine me saying "but the car's manufacturer is very insistent, he has even stated in writing that this is not illegal." Now I'm lucky to even make it to the judge, I'm more likely to get tasered and rolled into the ditch. I am not trying to be pugilistic, even though I am sure I sound that way. My point is that if "Simply constantly saying it violates the ToU will not make it so" is dismissed as being non-factual anecdote... Then how can "the original author of c:geo repeatedly stating it did not violate the ToU" be accepted as the only factual evidence that it is compliant? Surely, if compliance has indeed been established, there are some independently verifiable links somewhere, anywhere, that corroborate this claim, and all that is being asked, the ONLY thing that is being asked, is that these links be posted rather than discussed abstractly.

If there is so much evidence, surely there are links to this evidence that can be posted? They have? When? Cite references please. It is not appropriate to claim "the facts side with me, while the rest of you have only anecdotes"... and then provide no facts and only anecdotes.. If you have independently verifiable evidence that c>geo does not screen scrape, or, that Groudspeak has indeed relented and now allows screen scraping under their TOU, post links so we can see who's claims are being based on facts and who's are based on anecdote.

Don't you just point your iPhone's web browser at the Saved GPX page on the site, and then click the download link to have the browser download the file to your phone?

I am not posting for or against power trailing. But one thing that sometimes gets lost in these threads... I do really serious wilderness hiking. The amount of prep that it takes to get all the right equipment and the right plans to do a 2-week horseback wilderness ride deep into the Colorado Rockies is QUITE significant. And you know what? I love that part. The same can be said for power trailing. Getting together as a group, and planning it all out... the right gear, contingency plans, mapping, fuel planning, prepping for 24 hours without sleep, without poopin, and no stops for food or water... I'll bet that for most 1,000 a day finders, that was actually the fun part, the actual run was just one piece of it.

An infraction, by definition, is NOT a crime. Accusing someone of a crime, where they may be imprisoned or heavily fined, entitles that person to a whole range of rights that can be expensive and complicated. Hence, for very minor acts that involve small fines and no imprisonment, states have been given the latitude to define non-criminal infractions. In return for small fines and no criminal record, citizens give up some rights such as a right to a jury trial. Infractions, if contested, go to a bench judge and appeals beyond that bench judge are extremely rare. In California you have to trespass onto the SAME owner's property THREE times before it becomes a crime, even if done knowingly.

I am assuming that would have been the egg. (Get it? Easter... Egg... Hiding... Tip your waitresses, I'll be here all weekend!)

Here's my reply from this same question about 5-10 askings ago, LOL: A lot of this will depend on whether you are more of an urban cacher, or more of a wilderness camper. Walking 3 miles out to a cache in the mountains or a swamp requires some contengency planning that won't make as much sense for a park and grabber. What I carry in my car as backup (like some extra containers or spare shoes) will be different from what I carry on my person. But, here goes, by category, when I am away from the car for more than an hour or two: Cache finding/retrieving: Thin leather "mechanic" work gloves A telescoping mirror The camera and video on my cell phone, for inspecting places just out of sight but within reach A very nice 200 lumen flashlight, a 180+ lumen headlamp, and a red LED headlamp At least 4x AA and 10x AAA NiMH batteries An 8-foot long piece of 8 guage copper wire, which can be bent into tools/rods/hooks A 3-foot long piece of 12 guage copper wire for quicker use than above A Leatherman multi-tool A pair of forceps About 6-8 feet of duct tape for repairs, and to make a sticky "ball" on the end of the 8 gauge wire to fetch caches 50 feet of 50# woven fishing line for retrievals, with a 1/2" wrench socket as a plumb weight and magnetic retrieval A little notebook for notes and multi-solving Extra pens and pencils Cache Repair: About 8 sizes of ziplocs from 2" x 2" up to gallon sized, about 6-8 of each The duct tape above 4-6 sheets of paper towels plus 3-4 cleaning wipes 6-8 sizes of common o-rings for nanos and bison 4-5 sizes of log sheets, already folded into little ziplocs for easy drops A replacement nano and camo'ed match tube Safety: Pre-packaged first aid kit Pre-packaged survival kit 3 sources of fire (lighter, waterproof/windproof matches, and magnesium flint striker) 1 or sometimes 2 water purification methods (tablets always, filter for wilderness hiking) Moleskin in case of blisters (a thing of the past in my Keen boots) Signal mirror (a totally underestimated tool, try using one once with someone a mile away, it is like a laser) Little scotch-lite reflective twist ties for trail marking, tho I have never used them Protection as needed: A nice orange hunting vest for hunting season, and I love all the pockets for caching An ASP collabsible baton, although I bent mine and need to replace it Kimber Pepper Blaster non-aerosol chemical weapon At night, even without a strobe mode, my 200-lumen flashlight is a very effective defensive tool Now, this all sounds like a lot, but, before water, my pack and all its contents weighs less than 10 pounds without the vest or ASP baton. I try to stick around that weight, because that is a weight for me that is effortless. That is, I can walk all day with it and never feel any discomfort or fatigue of any kind. Once you get up to about 15+ pounds, then you begin to feel the "weight burden" on your body, but 10 pounds, I never even notice. A half gallon of water would add 4 pounds to my load if needed and I want caching gear + water to stay under my "effort weight".

The letterbox hybrids that I've done have used letterbox-style clues. The coordinates take you to a specific point (not just "the area of the cache"), and from there, you follow the clues. And for the record, the guidelines require that GPS usage be "an integral and essential element" of the hunt. That is not the same thing as requiring that GPS usage be "the principal means of navigation" of the hunt. I think you are using the community-watered-down interpretation, not the intended ones... I remember the discussions of a year or two ago... The guidelines were reworded from "principal means" to "integral and eesential" to reinforce the GPS requirement, not soften it. The full context of the guideline is "Listings must contain accurate GPS coordinates. You must visit the geocache site and obtain all the coordinates with a GPS device. GPS usage is an integral and essential element of both hiding and finding geocaches and must be demonstrated for all cache submissions." In other words, it is the repsonsibility of the hider to demonstrate that the cache can be found using a GPS. The letterbox guideline was also somewhat poorly written, in that "A letterbox hybrid may have a mystery or puzzle element, but cannot be designed to be found by only using clues." was really meant to say that use of clues could exist in parallel to, but could not replace the use of the GPS. The placement of the word "only" creates an ambiguity that wasn't intended. If I get half way there using my GPS and the rest of the way using clues, then I can "only" find the cache by means of clues--which is exactly what the guideline was about in the first place. Much of the point of the guideline rewording back then was because puzzles were drifting too far away from using clues to determine coordinates, and becoming "using clues to actually find the cache location." Dammit NiraD, see what you have done??? You have me talking like a lawyer!!!

We all respect your friend's deeply held beliefs about property ownership and the right to be left alone on one's homestead. I for one have fought dearly for those rights. But we're also trying to run a civil society here, that depends on giving people the benefit of the doubt. There is a balance that has stood the test of time everywhere in the US, no matter where "those parts" happen to be. Here's what the law says in your particular "those parts:" In Illinois as with most states, a person is guilty of trespassing only after they have been notified and given the opportunity to freely leave the property. The state code says a person is guilty of trespass only when he/she: "enters upon the land of another, after receiving, prior to such entry, notice from the owner or occupant that such entry is forbidden;" or "remains upon the land of another, after receiving notice from the owner or occupant to depart." The key point here is that generally in the US, it is not illegal to enter private land. It is only illegal to enter or remain knowingly, after having been notified. Posting written notices only applies if the area is enclosed and marked at the principal entrances, or if not enclosed, is marked sufficiently that any person could reasonably see written notice from his point of entrance onto the property. The burden of proof that a trespasser should have reasonably seen the signs rests upon the complainant. In general, force cannot be used to eject them unless they refuse to leave, and if they attempt to leave, force absolutely cannot be used to detain them. I'm an animal lover, so I feel deeply sorry for any dog sent after me, they're going to have a rough day with me. And being an Army sniper and special operations soldier, I feel equally sorry for the people who shot first. I haven't always gotten the first shot. I have however always gotten the last.

A couple of points for clarity: There are a fair number of letterbox hybrids posted on geocaching.com that do indeed have a stamp (they have to) but are never listed on any letterboxing site. They really exist just so there's letterboxes hybrids in your area. Someone mentioned that letterboxes are traditional caches + stamps. Not technically true, many letterbox hybrids are truly multis, or truly puzzle caches. Someone also mentioned the idea of a letterbox hybrid, where the coords only take you to the area of the cache and then you have to revert to letterboxing-style clues. While this happens, it is in contradiction to GC's publication guidelines. The demonstrated ability to find the cache using GPS as the principal means of navigation is a mandatory element of all caches. Further, accurate coordinates are an explicit listing requirement.

Just a quick note about my FTF motivations. I don't get a trophy for being first. But, here's why I personally like FTF runs. There are a jillion caches in my metro area. I will never get to all of them. And, there's no incentive to go right now. It will be just as easy to go look for that cache tomorrow, or the next day, or the next. Like so many things in life, anything that CAN be put off til tomorrow, WILL be put off til tomorrow. But FTFs can't be put off. And I hate that. I am a fanatic cacher and sometimes, having an external incentive to go right now is a good thing. The notification comes, and I have to decide right then... Do I go now and try for the (admittedly valueless) FTF? Or do I just put that cache into my endless queue of things to do someday. So if I can, I go. It just adds to the fun. The closer they are, the more likely I am to drop whatever I am doing (usually something EQUALLY valueless) and make the dash. It's just fun, and adds something to the caching experience for me. I meet a lot of people. Take a look at my profile. In 2.5 years and 2,400 caches, I have met a WHOPPING 86 cacher out in the field. I don't include events, I don't include people I am caching with... That's 86 cachers that I have met spontaneously while out caching. That's an astonishing number. I know cachers with 5,000 finds that have never once bumped into a cacher on the trail. That is one of the best parts of caching to me, and of theose 86, probably 70 have been at FTFs. It's the one and only fixed point in time where cachers tend to converge on a cache. That's my story and I am sticking with it.

In the areas I cache most, it kinda depends. In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, if a cache comes out in the evening, you better already be in your car with the engine running or you have no shot. In Cedar Rapids, I would say that FTFs range between 6 and 20 minutes, averaging about 14 or 15. In the northern suburns of the twin cities in Minnesota, the same is often true. But it is odd here. Over the course of a month, let's say there are 30 new caches, and let's also say they're all fairly easy... nothing above 2.5/2.5... of those 30, 25 will be found in the first 20 minutes. And strangely, the other 5 will go a full day. There seems to be no rhyme or reason.

Wait... huh? Whoah!!! What "mega trails" are "they" closing down? Just the opposite, they appear to now be wildly encouraged!

Well said! Knowschad 2012! I have said this on other forums as well... Whenerver I use the website, whenever I use the mobile apps, whenever I read GS responses on the feedback sites... I always get the same feeling... That this is all being designed by someone "familiar" with caching, rather than someone who actually caches. I hate to sound so condescending, but, every tome I touch anything Groundspeak, it becomes obvious that they don't really understand how I cache, how I use information in the field. With the exception of the API, the delta between Groundspeak's vision, and the tools I really need, just grows and grows with time. [Rant on] And also as I have said elsewhere... The ad hominem attacks on these forums are fine for a yahoo chat room but don't really belong in a community forum like this. These forums, not unlike events, ought to be a celebration of the things we all have in common, not a chance criticize differences. The OP has done nothing more than vocalize something that thousands of us have been wondering about behind the scenes. [Rant off] My controversial 2 cents... Every time the topic comes up... in local forums, at events, there seems to be this broad consensus of Groundspeak becoming gradually more detached. They used to actively participate almost every day in the original feedback forums. Now they almost never do. There used to be this dialog--by email, in the forums, etc. It is a perfectly valid OP to say "Where are you guys? What happened? Where did you guys go? Where did all our ideas go?" As someone who has been a startup CEO myself, it can be a painful process as your vision of your product slowly becomes usurped by the will of the market. Some startups handle it very well (like the creator of NeonGeo) and some chafe against it and gradually become bunkered in and more isolated form the voice of the market. There's a reason why, with very few exceptions, venture capitalists want to bring in outside management teams once a company reaches the steep part of the growth curve.