DisQuoi

I recently posted this concerning a recent cache I placed with the enthusiastic cooperation of the park management. It hasn't been there long so there aren't any great great stories to tell yet but I'm sure that the Park Manager would be willing to provide her name and phone number for any other park management officials who would like to hear from non-geocachers on the subject. In this case, the mission of the park is clearly to attract visitors, educate, etc. (as opposed to provide a habitat for the endangered spotted honey bee) so she was anxious to have something like this to bring awareness of the park to those who might not have even known about it.

I'm not sure I'd use a bucket seat that I found in a littered area. The chances are that it is full of urine, fecal matter, vomit or worse. If the slob who left it there didn't want it, do you?

Most agree that all trades should "trade-downs" (i.e., you leave something "great" in exchange for something "good") In my opinion, if you really worked hard (fun, challenging, well thought out cache placement), you should be leaving an even "greater" booty. You shouldn't expect to be an award for a tough cache hunt unless the owner has specifically stated as such.

I'd call it a find. Sounds to me like it was a bad placement on the owners part. I recently attempted a cache where the owner had placed a specific container over the cache to act as camouflage. I found the camouflage but not the cache itself. I logged it as a “not found” because I didn’t know that the camouflage was the camouflage until I corresponded with another cacher who’d found it, and then the owner who confirmed my suspicion. I changed my log to a “found” since, as far as I’m concerned, I located the correct coordinates and hiding place. The cache was stolen but only because it was not adequately hidden. That’s not my fault. The same is true in your case.

Will you only geocache with people who dress like you?

Will you only geocache with people who dress like you?

quote:Originally posted by st_richardson:Could you explain [least squares] to those of us that never studied statistics? Sure. Not withstanding, I agree that data collected within a 10-minutes period will provide precise but not necessarily accurate coordinates. That said, the most common use of least squares is a simple way to derive a line through points (a "best fit" line). There's a great explanation and interactive window if you want to read about this. I only suggested it as one way of deriving a "best fit" coordinate when you have many points to use. You don’t need to be a mathematician to do it. I’d use a spreadsheet though. Simply put, you choose a coordinate such that you minimize the total (sum) of the distances squared.

I use the value that will result in the lowest sum of squares. I get 387.125 ... (388-387.125)^2=0.7656 (386-387.125)^2=1.2656 (388-387.125)^2=0.7656 (387-387.125)^2=0.0156 (391-387.125)^2=15.015 (388-387.125)^2=0.7656 (387-387.125)^2=0.0156 (382-387.125)^2=26.265 SUM=44.875 Any other value will result in a larger SUM. You can do this 2-dimensionally, too. [This message was edited by DisQuoi on April 16, 2002 at 06:14 AM.]

I'm guessing that any modification you make will likely result ina reduction in accuracy. The engineers that slapped it together probably considered such things as accuracy. If you CAN improve the accuracy, be sure to sell your improvement to the manufacturer as it would certainly be worth alot of money to them.

I think you mean ArcView. I've used it. Consider a course at you nearest university. I took a graduate level introductory GIS course from the geography department at BYU when I was an undergraduate. It was geared for non-geographers. The web-site for ArcView (above) might give you some good starting points.

I agree that local park managers are the best one to talk to. They ulitimately are responsible for the park. I actually emailed the county parks division and was eventually provided the email and phone number of the park manager in question. If you finally reach the right person and they're opposed to the idea (even after a clear understanding), there's no loss since it would only be a matter of time before the cache is discovered and confiscated anyway. Go to the park, find the office, and ask for the manager.

I recently contacted the local Park Authority about placing a cache on park property. I asked this forum for pictures of cache containers" to show the park manager examples of what a cache looked like (thanks, by the way). We met several times to walk the park together. She made requests concerning where to and where not to encourage people to tread, offered 1/2 price hay-rides and gift-shop-pencils for the cache, involved her staff in thinking up clues for the multi-cache aspect, etc. Well ... we placed Out Of The Frying Pan a couple of days ago and the cache has just had its first hit. The park manager received her first automated e-mail (of many, I hope). The following is an excerpt of her email to me this morning ... quote:[DisQuoi], (she used my real name, of course) The [geocaching] site looks great. Did you see the log entry for April 10th? Thanks for all your work on this project. We plan on sharing all the information about the geocache at our next programming meeting for the division (includes seven parks and two sections). Would you mind if we wrote it up in some of our park publications? Let me know the next time you plan to stop buy. I want to leave some [more booty nuggets] to add to the cache. Thanks again, [Park Manager] (She used her real name, of course) I'm hoping that this could lead to a more cooperative partnership with other parks in the area. Maybe my caches that are currently "abandoned property" will someday be accepted as part of the park's attractions. p.s. .. If you visit a cache that states that it was placed by park permit, there's a good chance the park monitors the logs ... so it is good to include posative comments about the park and your visit (like The Cherokee Three did in their log on this cache). After all, many of these parks have a mission to attract the community. If they perceive that the caches bring visitors, we will be more welcome.

Just make the following substitutions … “camel” for “car” “Torah” for “CD-ROM” “papyrus” for “cassette” “psalm” for “software” “olive oil” for “digital”

No .. No .. I remember that night ... it was so clear , not a cloud in the sky and the earth had unraveled so that you could see the whole thing from the top of the Washington Monument! The problem was that everyone was using their Sprint nite-time minutes all at once and I couldn't call anyone to tell them to look outside!

No .. No .. I remember that night ... it was so clear , not a cloud in the sky and the earth had unraveled so that you could see the whole thing from the top of the Washington Monument! The problem was that everyone was using their Sprint nite-time minutes all at once and I couldn't call anyone to tell them to look outside!

I don't know ... what do the scriptures say on that one?

I don't know ... what do the scriptures say on that one?

quote:Originally posted by JMaxamillion:No one needs a geocacher on a vigilante misssion Well put. There seems to be a multitude of people who are very righteous here. This issue is not black and white. The Grateful Dead example is a good one. They've always encouraged the boot-legging of their music. Many MP3s that we burn are freely downloaded from sites that are designed to help fledgling artists spread their sounds. Shel's question about public domain makes this even more difficult to be so sure of one's self. I'm planning on adding a compilation of songs related to the civil war in my cache of the same theme. Is Johnny going to come marching to sue me if I include that song (or the Navy Band)? I think people should think twice before trying to be the judge and jury on this. It might make them feel better about themselves to offset other things they're doing wrong but I'd advise that they either leave it alone or write a letter to someone authorized to take action (that is if they really mean what they say).

I think that scene was computer generated.

If you feel offended by it, leave it there. If you aren't, accept it.

Any land that you do not own is off limits until you have permission to place something on it. I have four caches placed, only one of them was placed by permission of the land owner (county park authority). I think that whether you are able to get permission to place a cache depends largly on the manager of the land you're looking at. I'm guessing that my county has some rule against abandoning property but you'd be surprised how the local stewardship will react when you ask.

quote:Originally posted by Jamie Z: Does that make me homohemispherical? Jamie LOL!

quote:Originally posted by Jamie Z: Does that make me homohemispherical? Jamie LOL!

I think that placing a hat that the logo from one's company is a great idea. The US is 50 percent corporate logo by volume anyway. Plus, I'd wager that the hat is the best item in the cache right now. If you live anywhere on the east coast, you've seen the pink plastic key chains that the Geocaching Team with the most finds leaves in every cache they visit ... AND THEIR USER NAME IS THE NAME OF THE COMPANY!!! I haven't heard anyone complain about that. I think it's fine. Your concern about this log being a commercial is much like the debate over the separation of church and state where people get nervous if you "bless" someone when they sneeze on public lands.

I think that placing a hat that the logo from one's company is a great idea. The US is 50 percent corporate logo by volume anyway. Plus, I'd wager that the hat is the best item in the cache right now. If you live anywhere on the east coast, you've seen the pink plastic key chains that the Geocaching Team with the most finds leaves in every cache they visit ... AND THEIR USER NAME IS THE NAME OF THE COMPANY!!! I haven't heard anyone complain about that. I think it's fine. Your concern about this log being a commercial is much like the debate over the separation of church and state where people get nervous if you "bless" someone when they sneeze on public lands.