Urubu

<tap, tap> Hello... anybody there? A major feature that was under repair apparently still isn't working well. After browsing for a KML file and clicking [upload], absolutely nothing happens. I've tried clearing cookies, changing browsers, etc. [edited out a repeated word]

It's still causing problems. I have just tried several times, on two different browsers, and I'm getting the same symptoms -- no upload happens when I click [upload].

I also work at a university (Florida State), and Craig is absolutely right. It's an extremely bad idea to hide on campus without permission, even if the location seems harmless. In this case the location seems anything but harmless -- if I understand, you're planning to put a cache inside a campus building that houses the President and Provost's offices, in an inner space near a large classroom?!? That sounds like a lousy idea and an invitation to trouble. Another big issue for campus caches is parking. Many universities have very limited parking and complex rules about who can park where, when. That can make a campus cache a real pain for the majority of cachers, who aren't students, faculty, or staff. Consider abandoning this idea and putting a nice cache somewhere else instead.

I wonder if your problem is related to the TWO links labeled 'Next'. This duplication seems to be a new bug -- the upper one works as expected, the lower one does nothing.

As long as we're talking about names in that part of Spain, the designation of Barcelona-area caches as in "Cataluña" is odd. That's the Spanish, rather than the Catalan, name for the region. It should really be "Catalunya". Even weirder, gc.com's designation of "Cataluña" doesn't seem to extend to caches in other cities in the province, like Girona or Figueres. This probably isn't a high priority, but someone should fix it.

To offer an extreme (and welcome) contrast to the land managers mentioned so far, the Tallahassee FL Parks and Recreation department is actually hiding its own caches to encourage park use. Cool, eh?

TeamHarrison of Tallahassee FL put together a nice CITO event handbook. To look at it, start here and then follow the link to the handbook.

I'll be at Norris Dam State Park for almost a week with some 8-14 year old wannabe cachers who are capable of medium-to-long hikes. Are there any must-do caches in the Park or nearby? We're especially looking for nice hikes and scenery. Thanks!

Three opinions on the new cache page layout: (1) putting the size of the cache on the line immediately under the name is a nice idea, except when the size is "not chosen". Sometimes that's deliberate -- for example, if a cache's size is a surprise element of the hide. In any case, this phrasing looks awkward: Maybe just change the cache size to a blank when it's not chosen? Then it would just read "a cache by..." in those cases. (2) the width of the [LatLon] field that holds the coordinates (and actually, the whole 'Location' box) is too narrow for anyone who increases the default font size. That probably includes plenty of middle-aged+ users. This is one of the most important sections of the page, and it's really getting squeezed too much horizontally. (3) the map in the [smlMap] field is too small and zoomed out too far (given its small size) to be very useful. Giving the Location box more space might allow an improved map.

Can't we all just get along? laxxe is a paying customer. He's pointing out a (small) dissatisfaction with the service, and making a constructive suggestion for improvement. He also said please, twice, in a short post. Now... if we could only agree on how to spell meters

I see what you mean. I just hadn't edited the notifications to give them informative names. Thanks!

While we're at it, please consider including the reference point in the notification emails. If you have notifications set for multiple locations (eg., your home and your brother's home 500 miles away), they can be confusing. All you get in an instant notification email is information that there's a new cache "6.2 miles NE" or something, without any indication of which notification triggered the mail. It's probably simple to add "6.2 miles NE of _________". That would be useful.

...or in northwestern Florida. Groundspeak: If you're going to offer email notification features, please get them working reliably. 'Instant' notification and cache owner notification performance has been extremely poor and unpredictable lately.

Well, many females are puzzles.

The cache description in this case has a clearly posted parking area and trailhead (in the main text, because it predates the 'additional waypoint' feature). In my earlier post about the SBA, I assumed that you had started there, rbennitt?? If not, try starting at those coordinates.

Hey! I recognize that site! Too bad, but if the sign looks more than temporary, you definitely need to log a "should be archived" As for going to get it anyway, I understand the temptation (I really, really do...) but it would probably be better for our hobby if cachers respected signs like that.

Deleting the log was a bit much. So was the complaint I suspect. For the record, Tally Dragon is no whiner. If he was uncomfortable with a cache placement, that's useful information for others and shouldn't be deleted from the history.

I agree with these general principles, especially for DNF logs that contain helpful information that would allow other seekers to decide for themselves if the cache is worth hunting. Unfortunately, some cache owners are just too insecure to allow criticism (real or perceived, justified or unjustified) of their creations.

Here's one in Brazil, hidden in July 2004 and still unfound. It's not especially remote (4 hour round-trip hike up a mountain from a nearby small town), but there just aren't many cachers in Brazil.

Here's a good start: caches near Valencia, ciudad de las flores

Then you should be Waymarking. I'm sure that this is intended as a constructive suggestion, but to me Waymarking looks like a poor, cluttered substitute for virtual caches. Here's my recent experience. Late last week, I visited the Crystal City area around the Pentagon in Northern Virginia. I discovered and visited a truly interesting site, literally in the middle of National Airport (one of the worst places on earth for a physical cache), because of this virtual cache. After seeing your note, I decided I should give Waymarking another test, so I clicked on the nearest waymarks link from that virtual cache page to check it out. After scrolling down far enough to see that there was actually local information (off-screen at the bottom) I see that near the airport there are: an indoor McDonalds (never visited, but I actually walked right by it without knowing it was a waymark ) another McDonalds (never visited) some benchmarks (not interesting to me, but maybe to others) the Pentagon (I already knew that...) the Jefferson Memorial (ditto...) the FDR Memorial (ditto...plus it's a virtual cache, I think) some interesting historical markers and statues (maybe cool; I might have investigated) This is a small test, but it's pretty representative of my feelings about Waymarking: it's hard to navigate, and there's not enough quality control. Most of it looks dull. In contrast, I can tell from the list of nearest virtual caches that there are several I'd like to visit (two owned by mtn-man!!). I simply think that virtuals were a better way of telling cachers about cool locations. Even if it's a futile hope, I wish they would return. [edited: added list of nearest virtuals]

Yes! Some of my favorite caching experiences have been with virtuals. Personally, I don't care much if there's a physical cache -- I like great locations, not log books and trinkets.

It won't work. Any time there is an oracle (which is what this system would be), it can be used for triangulation. I think you would be shocked at how few queries would be required to locate a cache, even with noise added to the distance. Fizzymagic - Oh! Oh! Can we try? I've selected coords that are within 2 miles from this cache. Give me a set of coords, I'll give yes or no answers to coords you send me. "Yes" means you are within the randomly generated distance between .1 and .15 miles of the coords. "No" means you are outside by this random distance. I should point out that this'll be easier for you because I'm going disregard all the caches that you might get a hit near, and you'll only get a hit on the desired waypoint. The waypoint is not within .1 miles of any posted coords related to geocaching. Two questions: Am I overlooking anything important? What is an acceptable margin of error for you to go out on a search? What distance should a final guess be from the actual numbers? I should also say that the coords I'm selecting may or may not be on private property, but regardless, to my knowledge there is nothing to search for there, so don't bother. I should also say that I'm not doubting Fizzymagic's ability to get this, just think it'd be fun to see, and very pertinent to the viability of the idea presented in this thread. One strategy would be to troll around until you get a "yes" at some location X. That's tedious, but possible. You then know that the cache is within .15 miles of X. Then ask about X over and over and over again, recording the % of "yes" answers. Intuitively, the more often X is a "yes", the closer the distance from X to the cache. If you get 100% yes, the cache is within .10 miles of X. More interestingly, if you you get 50% "yes", then the cache is .125 miles from X (assuming a uniform distribution of noise; you can refine this calculation for any other distribution, and you can't keep the distribution a secret because I can always figure it out by asking about points near other caches with known locations). Other %s between 0% and 100% would give you other exact distances. Then pick another point Y, near X, that generates "yes" sometimes and repeat. Now you have an excellent estimate of the distances from both X and Y, so you've got it down to 2 possible cache locations (a little fuzzy because you've only estimated the true probability of a "yes" answer at each point, but in practice probably quite good). A third point Z with will settle it. That's definitely not a strategy that would shock anyone with its efficiency, but I think it would work.

Ray, can you give the numbers -- the original DMS and the converted decimal? Seeing an example might help a lot in figuring out the problem.

It's not essential to solving the puzzle (because solvers can look at the alt=... in the source), but I don't think that will show up in Firefox. You might want to change it to title=... .