chrisrayn

I've been looking unsuccessfully for some sort of macro that will throw a 528 ft circle around cache locations either on Groundspeak or Google earth. It would make hides a lot easier, and would help me better separate cache locations in my little hometown. Anybody know of a macro like this that exists somewhere?

I live in a small town, and I only go after the FTFs that are in small towns near me. Otherwise, I doubt I'll get the FTF if I have to drive an hour to the Dallas area. If you're willing to take a 30 min drive, sometimes you can get little small-town caches that people don't want to waste the gas on. Just a thought.

I ask the same thing about people who complain in forums.

This is one of the arguments in favor of using POIs instead of waypoints. I have 13,000 caches in my 60csx and Nuvi, so I have every single cache in the entire area that I often drive. You manage which ones will actually get stored on the GPSr by using GSAK filters, and each time you create a new POI file it replaces the entire old on on the garmin, there's never any manual deleting. Okay, I've tried using POIs but I can't make it work for me. You can't use POIs with the geocaching feature, can you? However, I've found the custom image macro, allowing me to filter out traditionals, which is extREMEly useful.

No, not that. It would be like a supplemental rating. An EXTRA rating to aid finders in more accurately determining the find they are going for.

Yeah, this is what I'm talking about.

My bad, didn't know the horse was dead. I'm new here...nose can't sniff out dead horses very well yet.

No, Thursdays is Monty Python - your confusing that with the second Sturday after the first new moon of any month that ends in a Y. Dang. My second topic was all too common as well. My bad.

Hey everybody, This is another question about a feature. Should Nano be added as a size to be chosen when logging a hide? I'm tired of searching out Micros and Unknowns and finding Nanos. Don't know if anyone else is. Any thoughts? Disagreements?

Hey everybody, I was listening to the cache-a-maniacs podcast this morning and a user named bripod suggested a user rating system where the Finders of the cache could rate caches based on their experience rather than just have that be dictated by hiders. It's mainly in response to people who have 50 finds and 25 hides, and think their stuff is incredibly easier or harder than it really is. With a user rating system, any user can find the cache and then adjust the user-rating through a voting system. I've seen this work on a number of platforms like metacritic, the xbox arcade, netflix, etc. User ratings always seem to improve the overrall environment and community. Anybody else think this is a good idea? I'd love to tell Mr. LPC that he isn't, by any means, a 2.5 EVER. Should that ever happen, that is. I've also seen a lot of confusion between difficulty and terrain. I did a 5/4 the other day that I would actually consider to be a 1/4.5. It involved a tree climb of 40 feet but I could see it from the ground. Once I got there it was no mistake that I'd found it. Just some thoughts. It would be a nice new feature to add to my smart naming in GSAK too. Would add a whole new perspective to finding a cache with my 60CSx.

Since I've started, I've noticed I reeeeeeally want Groundspeak to add Nano to their cache size listing. I don't know how many nanos I've found that have had "Unknown" as the size listing and that throws me off. Nanos listed as smalls kills me too. ADD NANO. [/soapbox] And yeah, lots of other sizes are wrong too. Bison tubes aren't small. Nor are Nanos. ADD NANO. [//soapbox]

If smileys is what you want than just log it multiple times. Do this on all sorts of caches. Space it out over time so you don't upset some uptight smiley counting hiders. We have an event come up in Ohio that promises 100 temp caches. Come and log that event 100 times. Wait. That event would be like your multi-cache, so never mind. You could always log your own hides over and over. There's your answer. For every stage of a multi you do, just log a find on your own cache. As a bonus, your cache will be getting TONS of finds. Win-win! Bruce First of all, genius. And Bittsen, I understand what you said in your next post. I agree, to a point. Could stages of a cache though increase the difficulty? It's more likely that I'll do a cache to get my "possible combinations found" GSAK stat up if a cacher strings along together like six 1.0 caches and makes it a 3.0. I don't have many 3.0 traditionals this early in the game, so I might like to do that kind of stuff. The main reason I haven't done many multis though isn't the numbers game...I mainly just cache on a whim. I plan to a point, but not specifically. I like to just go out with my 60CSx and go where the arrow points me. It's harder to do that with multis. You need printouts or a laptop or this or that...just lots of effort. I notice many cachers are retired or nearing it. I'm still very much engrossed in switching careers, taking my daughter to her first year of school, and being a single dad. It's hard to find time for much else, so I have this little hobby now where I stop at a park on occasion and stare at a 3x3 area of the earth for about 5 minutes to find a piece of plastic with a screw lid and a piece of paper inside. It's less easy for me to chase down stages. Maybe when I'm older. If I've offended you, those who are retired or nearing it, I'm sorry. That wasn't my intention. I'm still young and I take my youth for granted. By the way, if anybody knows of anything in Northeast Texas that pays 30,000 a year to start and prefers an English degree, I'd appreciate it. :-) What were we talking about?

The OP won't do a multi but you think he'll read all that? I think I'll start a business where I sell Texas smilies to people up North. 25 cache logs for $20, 50 for $30, or 100 for $50 (100 is the best deal). I'll go sign your name on the log, and you just put "tftc, sl" on all of the GC numbers I give you. If anybody ever challenges your finds, your name is on the logs. Checkmate.

Yeah. I try to do that as often as possible. I have replacement logs and two different sizes of baggies. It's a great idea.

ABOVE IS NOT ALL GOOD INFORMATION Warm water OPENS the skin pours letting the oils in faster. ALWAYS WASH WITH COLD WATER ONLY!!!!!!!!!! I developed a severe allergy, and got the reaction easily. The best defense is FAST. Always carry FELS NAPTHA (laundry soap bar) with you. You can break a small piece off and it goes a long way. Always carry water to wash with. COLD!!!! COLD COLD COLD!!!! The moment you suspect you've gotten into it, wash the area IMMEDIATELY!!!!!!! If not sooner. Then after you get home, wash the clothes you were wearing and wash down your whole body with this soap. You can get the reaction from clothes you were wearing. Don't take your dog out with you. You can get if off your dog too. Anti-histamines are good. Always carry them. Benedryl is highly recommened by First Aid experts. Good luck. Well, idk if that's entirely true. Cold water may not open your pores, but if you scrub with cold water, the oils stay in a more solid state and don't break down. Warm water (the hotter the better) will cause the oils to essentially melt and pour off of you. Your pores take a little time to open up compared to the oils, as your biological reaction is slower than the oil's chemical reaction. And for those above who think they aren't allergic to poison ivy based on experience, STILL TRY TO AVOID POISON IVY. NOBODY IS IMMUNE to poison ivy. Every human being's allergic reaction to poison ivy gets worse with every exposure. Some people think they are immune and so play in it like a sandbox, and then don't understand why they are suddenly allergic one day in their 40s. That's just how poison ivy works. Always avoid poison ivy, at all costs. No use in wasting a good thing, like a current resistance. But, just so everyone knows, the worst reactions come with the cellular walls of the leaves and ESPECIALLY the stems are broken, releasing the oil of the plant. In many cases, touching it or brushing up against it won't cause a reaction at all, whereas crushing it in one's hand will almost assure a reaction. Play smart.

This is a good question (there is even another current thread asking the same thing). There seems to be a few ways to create a 5 star difficulty cache. The first, and most common, is to create a very difficult puzzle. I've solved several 5 star puzzles (and workd on several others) and although at least one of them was, IMHO, overrrated a legitimate 5 star puzzle may dozens of hours working on it to finally solve it. So, how do you create a traditional cache that might take an equal amount of time to find? The needle in a haystack is one approach but doesn't seem to be very popular. An extremely well done camo job is one way that can produce a really difficult hide. There are a couple of caches called Shelter II and Shelter III in Indiana (that latter has 3 finds and 199 DNFs since April 2006) that I *suspect* may fall into this category but I've never found them so can't say for sure. Another factor that frequently makes finding a cache very difficult is when it's placed in an area where satellite reception is marginal. You still would have to hide in a spot where only those with an exceptional amount of geosense would be able to zero in on it quickly. One could take that to an extreme by hiding a cache in a cave where you'd get no GPS reception at all. There is a cache in St. Paul that for which I read the listing that introduces a vertical component. It's hidden on a outdoor stairwell that's 10 stories or so high. That one isn't rated 5 stars though as the listing tells you how many steps you need to take to get to the correct elevation (but not from which direction). A cache on the side of a 300' cliff could provide both a 5 star terrain as well a five star difficulty because although the long/lat coordinates might be accurate you wouldn't know the elevation. Another method I've seen for introducing difficulty is to hide it in such a way that finding the location and event locating the cache may be easy but actually retrieving the cache might require some extensive mental work. Finally, there are some caches that have a 5 star rating that are also five stars for terrain, but special skills are required in the use of special equipment to get to the cache. I personally don't agree with rating caches in this manner but wish there was some other way to distinguish a cache that is a couple hundred feet from shore on a calm lake that could be accessed by anyone with a $10 *mart one inflatable raft, and a cache thatis in a gorge only accessible by paddling down river in class V rapids. Both require a boat to access the cache but the latter requires exceptional boat handling skills. If I were to place a 5 star difficulty cache I'd probably try to come up with something that was a non-traditional small/micro, well camoflaged, and hidden someplace where there was a vertical component in the search. Yeah...see, my dream is to make one that either has an on-site puzzle (not a solve-from-your-couch puzzle or a do-this-complicated-math-and-find-the-coords puzzle) or is extremely well camo'd. Or both. But I don't like the idea of having a vertical component like a cliff that ups the difficulty because that, to me, is just another haystack, albeit a vertical one. Instead of creating a stack to search through, it spreads the stack up the side of a cliff which, by volumetric reallocation, could really be considered the same thing. I also don't believe that something that requires special equipment like climbing stuff or a kayak should be considered 5 difficulty at all. If I'm using my climbing equipment, then that, to me, is merely a more extreme form of terrain, not difficulty. Also, if I have to have known beforehand to have an Allen wrench, that doesn't add to the difficulty either. It merely makes me go back to my car. If I can ride by on a kayak and spot a giant bucket with a geocache sticker sitting in the woods and I can get out of my boat and walk right up to it, well that's a 1/5 to me. But if I see an arcade game in the woods at the coords and get out of my boat, and find out I have to beat classic Super Mario Bros. before an electronically-activated safe containing the cache is opened, well THAT definitely adds to the difficulty. So I guess I, too, would disagree with the way difficulty works. But the technological prowess it would require, as well as the need to possess Batman's financial portfolio, make such unique puzzles an impossibility for me. It seems to me it would be a 10.0 difficulty to MAKE a true 5.0 difficulty cache. Yay for soapboxes. Actually, I need to find more before I develop a soapbox. :-)

Oops. You're right, I was using T/D rather than D/T. "But the idea's the important thing..." Okay good. lol...I just didn't want to think that I'd been completely misunderstanding ratings this entire time...perhaps a few DNFs could have been a lot easier! lol Wasn't trying to rag on ya. :-)

Some of us like a challenge! I know I'm always up for a good Train micro! Actually, if somebody has to hide a traditional, I'd just as soon they make me work for it. I like your original idea, however unless the nano isn't magnetic, it would be very easy to find - I found something similar once, and I figured that the best way to search was to dump the contents of the ammo can into a bag, and then put all of the other things (in this case film canisters) back into the ammo can after I looked in them. After I dumped them all out, there was the nano sitting at the bottom. Anyway, you're idea does need some work. What I would suggest, is to make it a multi. Fill the ammo can with a bunch of bolts, and one fake bolt with another set of co-ords in it. That would be a good way of getting around people 'helping you out' by putting a new log book in it. That was very helpful! I will have to make sure I don't use a metal container if I can help it. :-)

The clayjar description of 5-star terrain is "Requires specialized equipment and knowledge or experience, (boat, 4WD, rock climbing, SCUBA, etc) or is otherwise extremely difficult." The clayjar description of 5-star difficulty is "Extreme. A serious mental or physical challenge. Requires specialized knowledge, skills, or equipment to find cache." A 5/1 cache could require special equipment to get to GZ. A 1/5 cache could require special equipment to find the cache once you get to GZ. A 5/5 cache could require special equipment to get to GZ, as well as to find the cache once you get there. I believe, as per your description, that it's exactly the opposite of what you said in the last paragraph. Unless you're putting the terrain number before difficulty, which would be...odd.

Yeah, that's the thing about geocaching.com...If someone places a cache on a piece of property, and that placement is approved by the geocache placement reviewer, then it is assumed by all who visit there (and the reviewer) that permission was obtained from the landowner by the person who wanted to place the geocache on said property. So, in the best of circumstances, he would have asked you, and then your landowners, before obtaining permission, THEN placed the cache, and all of the people showing up on your property might not have seemed so out of place. That's how it's supposed to work. Sorry this has been a problem for you!

I don't know how to ask you what TYPE of hide it is without you giving it away...I'm in Texas and know I'll never make it too California...but...idk. I think this will prove to be more difficult than I thought. lol

This idea came to me in another thread...I wanted to make a cache difficult, so I thought of having people search through some nuts and bolts to find a "blinkie" nanocache. People said that would just anger them because it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. But every other 5 I've ever seen involves solving a puzzle beforehand. Remember Lord of the Rings...when they got to the mines of Moria and had to speak the word "friend" in Elvish to enter...that was an onsite puzzle. That's okay, I guess... But are there ANY 5 difficulties out there that: A) Aren't difficult because the cache is a "needle in a haystack," Aren't difficult because the cache requires a puzzle from the info page to be solved beforehand, or C) Don't inherit their difficulty almost SOLELY from a corresponding high terrain? Please post the GCxxxxx code or, even better, post it in [ url ]http://coord.info/GCxxxxx[ /url ] format so we can all just click! I want to study and learn the art of good cache-making. :-) Thanks!

Hmm...I'm really kind of conflicted. My difficulty WAS based on the needle in a haystack method...and my idea was that someone could just sit and bide their time and work through what's there. See...I see people putting 4 difficulties on things I spot immediately. That's not difficult, it's just overconfidence. If I end up at a fence post, I lift up the top of the fence. The only thing that ever DOES give me difficulty is when there are almost infinite possibilities...needles in haystacks. Could someone maybe show me a 5 difficulty they've found that really IS a 5 difficulty and NOT because of a puzzle you had to solve beforehand or the "needle in the haystack" method? Maybe even an on-site riddle would work.

Yup, good word. Someone would just add a notebook though at some point. AH...and THAT's the true problem. Annoying I was going for...but I don't want somebody throwing a book in there because they're lazy. I'll probably just scrap the idea then.

I'll show my plan in pictures: + + + = evil? See, I want to have an ammo can as the size for the cache, and have around the top half of it be usable for travel bugs, trade items, etc. However, I want to have the bottom half be FILLED with nuts and bolts spraypainted so they are both black and silver, with 1 nano cache mixed in. You can trade all you want with the items, take travel bugs on new missions, but you have to sign the nano log before you can truly log a find. Does this sound like a neat way to add difficulty to a cache, or something that would be just plain evil? I mean, if you see the can and it's obvious you've found it, and you KNOW it's a 4.0 difficulty, you're going to be suspicious, right? There's no way you're going to think you just got lucky on the cache. I want people to open up the ammo container and say "OOOOOOh 4.0 makes sense now. Well suck me sideways." Or would that be too cruel?