jeremyp

I think the problem is that the ball is in an area of the country which has few cachers. If somebody gets the ball down south here, you'll see a lot more movement. ------- jeremyp The second ten million caches were the worst too. http://www.jeremyp.net/geocaching

quote:Originally posted by Moss Trooper:Lets just say if yer granny can look at yere page then it's OK.. This is quite a good way of saying "is it OK?" although there are probably plenty of grannies out there who are into sex, drugs and rock and roll and capable of swearing with the best of us. I find that reminding myself that there are probably a lot of children reading these pages is a good guideline. It works for the old "what is suitable to put in a cache" question as well i.e. if you wouldn't want your 10 year old child to get hold of it, you shouldn't put it in a cache. ------- jeremyp The second ten million caches were the worst too. http://www.jeremyp.net/geocaching

quote:Originally posted by ApK: None of us have claimed to be perfect spellers or writers or that we feel the need to proofread every casual communication we make. I say it is absolutely vital to proof read even the most casual of written communications that are destined to be published somewhere e.g. this forum. This is not because of the spelling or grammar, but because of the perceived meaning of the content. I bet a lot of people have posted things here that they intended to be witty / funny / intelligent but when read back turned out to be deeply insulting or wrong. For the record, paying attention to one's spelling, punctuation and grammar is IMHO just good manners as it makes the post easier for others to read if nothing else (check out Geobadger's comments on this thread if you don't understand what I mean). ------- jeremyp The second ten million caches were the worst too. http://www.jeremyp.net/geocaching

quote: Surely the simplest (non technical) answer is for folk to include the OSGB reference in the descriptive text. I did think about pointing that out when the topic first came up, but thought better of it . wrt long and clumsy, they could improve thing a lot by using dd.ddddd format instead of dd mm.mmm format. Grid refs have other advantages too - it is much easier to calculate the distance between two grid refs in the same 100km square than it is with lat/longs ------- jeremyp The second ten million caches were the worst too. http://www.jeremyp.net/geocaching

quote: Surely the simplest (non technical) answer is for folk to include the OSGB reference in the descriptive text. I did think about pointing that out when the topic first came up, but thought better of it . wrt long and clumsy, they could improve thing a lot by using dd.ddddd format instead of dd mm.mmm format. Grid refs have other advantages too - it is much easier to calculate the distance between two grid refs in the same 100km square than it is with lat/longs ------- jeremyp The second ten million caches were the worst too. http://www.jeremyp.net/geocaching

quote:Originally posted by Dan:WGS84 provides a 'best-fit' solution for global navigation. OSGB36 is based on the Airy 1830 projection, one that provides the most accurate bearing and distance referencing for the UK. (we are quite a long way north, so differences between a global projection eg WGS84 and one that gives the most realistic references for us will be more pronounced). You're confusing the datum with the projection. WGS84 or OSGB36 do not say anything about how to project a coordinate on the surface of an ellipsoid onto a 2D map. WGS84 and OSGB36 are datums which means they are an ellipsoid and a prime meridian drawn on that ellipsoid. The WGS84 ellipsoid is designed to be a best fit for the whole Earth. The OSGB36 is designed to be a best fit only in the region of the United Kingdom. Given the datum and a point in 3 D space, it is easy to convert that point into a longitude, a latitude and an ellipsoidal height (i.e. distance above or below the ellipsoid). How the point is depicted on a flat map is a function of the projection used on the map. The most well know projection is the Mercator which is obtained by wrapping an imaginary sheet of paper in a cylinder round the equator of the ellipsoid and then drawing a line from the centre of the ellipsoid through the point on the surface and seeing where it hits the paper. The Mercator projection has the property of preserving bearings, that is if you follw a straight line on the map you are travelling on a constant bearing. Unfortunately, it also has the property of making distances look very big near the poles. Ordnance survey maps use a transverse mercator projection based on the 2 degree West meridian (OSGB36) which means that the imaginary piece of paper is wrapped around the 2degree west line of longitude instead of the 0degree line of latitude. In the same way that a normal Mercator projection distorts distances at the North and South edges of a map, distances on OS maps are distorted at the East and West edges (cos it's transverse). In fact, distances are squashed slightly on the 2degree longitude line and stretched slightly at the extreme east and west edges of the OS grid, giving two lines of longitude where an OS map is exactly to scale. At the extreme east and west edges of the grid, the distortion is about 5cm in 1km (IIRC) i.e. a km square on the map would have a side of about 999.95metres if drawn on the ground. ------- jeremyp The second ten million caches were the worst too. http://www.jeremyp.net/geocaching

At the time I was working for an American company and several of my colleagues knew people in the WTC. At least one of them was killed. Plus, I remember a telephone conference call to discuss European and East Coast sales immediately following 11/9/2001 and we had to cross off three prospects because the companies no longer existed (or they had far more important things to worry about than their e-mail system). That was when the magnitude of what had happened hit me. ------- jeremyp The second ten million caches were the worst too. http://www.jeremyp.net/geocaching

quote:Originally posted by Moss Trooper:I can remember 'Masquerade' and was it ever solved!! I believe it was eventually solved (I may be wrong). However, there was some contoversy along the way. In particular, one of the illustrations was of an identifiable country house (palace really). The owners woke up one morning to find that treasure hunters had dug lots of holes in their crocquet lawn mistakenly thinking the rabbit was buried under it. Wasn't there also some sort of easter egg hunt based on the same idea? ------- jeremyp The second ten million caches were the worst too. http://www.jeremyp.net/geocaching

quote:If others agree, I suggest we ask for the option to convert any HDDD MM.MM / WGS84 coordinates to National Grid / OSGB36. I'm happy to do the coding for this, and I could probably knock up a 'proof of concept' web page, if anyone's interested? As has been stated here before, most GPS units have the ability to convert from one format to the other. Certainly, with Garmins all downloads are always in WGS 84 format. This means you could keep your GPS receiver permanently in OS mode and still download the coordinates with EasyGPS and not get confused. If you don't have a data cable, I definitely recommend you get one - it'll make life soooo much easier for you. The one thing that does irritate me about geocaching.com is that all coordinates are in dd mm.mmm format except when you want to search for caches close to a particular position when you have to put the coordinates in in dd.ddddd format. That is annoying. ------- jeremyp The second ten million caches were the worst too. http://www.jeremyp.net/geocaching

quote:Originally posted by The Spokes:If you are using a PC then all programs are Beta. I couldn't disagree more. All software of any kind of complexity has bugs, but the distinction is a contractual one. Beta software is acknowledged not to have been properly 'QA'd which usually translates to "we will not provide any support if something goes wrong". With production software, the vendor accepts that it is responsible for resolving faults hence the reason why you can get patches for WinXP. Try to get patches for a beta version of WinXP. To take the Garmin as an example, if the beta software does screw your Vista irretrievably, they are probably within their rights to tell you to buy a new one to fix it. With official released software they probably will fix it for free depending on the licensing/warranty terms. BTW there may be megabytes of patches for WinXP now but that is mainly due to the fact that WinXP is distributed in binary format i.e. if they change even one line of source code in a 10Mb executable, they still have to distribute the whole 10Mb. ------- jeremyp The second ten million caches were the worst too. http://www.jeremyp.net/geocaching

See my original comment for my opinion on what I think of this idea. I think I agree with the comments about cynical exploitation of fear. Most people who don't own a GPS receiver have no idea of their limitations. ------- jeremyp The second ten million caches were the worst too. http://www.jeremyp.net/geocaching

quote:Originally posted by el10t:Jeremyp is referring to the problems of folding and unfolding an old fashioned paper map while travelling along at speed in an open top car - its not easy And not having it sucked out of the car. It probably says as much about the practicality of using an MR2 to geocache in as about the usability of maps. It was fun though! ------- jeremyp The second ten million caches were the worst too. http://www.jeremyp.net/geocaching

quote:Originally posted by el10t:Jeremyp is referring to the problems of folding and unfolding an old fashioned paper map while travelling along at speed in an open top car - its not easy And not having it sucked out of the car. It probably says as much about the practicality of using an MR2 to geocache in as about the usability of maps. It was fun though! ------- jeremyp The second ten million caches were the worst too. http://www.jeremyp.net/geocaching

For the in-car part you could always take your laptop with Autoroute on it. I think the latest version will even allow downloads to Pocket PCs. Personnally, I'd rather have the large size of a real map and put up with the problems of using it in an open top sports car travelling at 90... err 70 miles per hour. If we'd actually planned a route that day and put it in the Vista, none of these problems would have arisen. ------- jeremyp The second ten million caches were the worst too. http://www.jeremyp.net/geocaching

Meant to say something about the rules. I think I disagree with Alex about opening the rules out. The reason the ball isn't moving at the moment has nothing to do with the lack of options on where to move it - the 25 mile rule won't help. When (if!) it gets to Hertfordshire - yes the caches are really close together, but there are also a lot of cachers there too. I'm hoping the one will offset the other. For the moment I propose nothing changes and we see how it goes. ------- jeremyp The second ten million caches were the worst too. http://www.jeremyp.net/geocaching

Backwards in time! ------- jeremyp The second ten million caches were the worst too. http://www.jeremyp.net/geocaching

quote:Originally posted by Geo Badger:Doesn't anyone have free Genie.co.uk SMS texts like me? How does that work when you're out in the field not near your PC? How do they finance the operation bearing in mind that the telcos do charge for SMS messages. ------- jeremyp The second ten million caches were the worst too. http://www.jeremyp.net/geocaching

Actually the front page rendered okay in Mozilla. ------- jeremyp The second ten million caches were the worst too. http://www.jeremyp.net/geocaching

quote:Originally posted by el10t: quote:Originally posted by Team Blitz:Only an even would have that much time!!! That's probably because we play the game so much more efficiently than you Odds. We are sooo efficient and the Odds are sooo well organised by their team captain, that we have to make the Odds' moves for them. ------- jeremyp The second ten million caches were the worst too. http://www.jeremyp.net/geocaching

quote:Originally posted by el10t: quote:Originally posted by Team Blitz:Only an even would have that much time!!! That's probably because we play the game so much more efficiently than you Odds. We are sooo efficient and the Odds are sooo well organised by their team captain, that we have to make the Odds' moves for them. ------- jeremyp The second ten million caches were the worst too. http://www.jeremyp.net/geocaching

My old physics teacher told me of a similar game played by radio hams. I'm definitely in for giving it a try. When we catch you, will we be allowed to set real dogs on you? ------- jeremyp The second ten million caches were the worst too. http://www.jeremyp.net/geocaching

My old physics teacher told me of a similar game played by radio hams. I'm definitely in for giving it a try. When we catch you, will we be allowed to set real dogs on you? ------- jeremyp The second ten million caches were the worst too. http://www.jeremyp.net/geocaching

Pretty good, only one spelling mistake on the home page ("supply" has two "p"s). ------- jeremyp The second ten million caches were the worst too. http://www.jeremyp.net/geocaching

Pretty good, only one spelling mistake on the home page ("supply" has two "p"s). ------- jeremyp The second ten million caches were the worst too. http://www.jeremyp.net/geocaching

If the cat was born on an even day, it would be able to move, but only in the direction opposite to the way it wants to go. ------- jeremyp The second ten million caches were the worst too. http://www.jeremyp.net/geocaching