DisQuoi

I went with a heavier duty hiking boot (Vasque Super Hiker II) which I bought "like new" on eBay for about half the retail price. Warning: Do not buy used boots on eBay and only buy them on eBay if you have been fitted for THAT specific brand and model. I recommend a boot. You can still walk on paved paths with them while staying dry and supported on rugged trails. A walking shoe will suffice for light trail walking but not the occasional off-trail walking. Of course, I agree that if you can afford to, keep some Tevas, walking shoes, and hiking boots in your car so that you're best prepared for all conditions. Vasque Super Hiker II

I went with a heavier duty hiking boot (Vasque Super Hiker II) which I bought "like new" on eBay for about half the retail price. Warning: Do not buy used boots on eBay and only buy them on eBay if you have been fitted for THAT specific brand and model. I recommend a boot. You can still walk on paved paths with them while staying dry and supported on rugged trails. A walking shoe will suffice for light trail walking but not the occasional off-trail walking. Of course, I agree that if you can afford to, keep some Tevas, walking shoes, and hiking boots in your car so that you're best prepared for all conditions. Vasque Super Hiker II

Wow. Please post the email. What makes you think it was Geogamers? Did they say that? Were you the sole recipient? Are you sure you want to do that? What if we all did that? I think you're doing what they want you to do.

"You missed the fundamental point of this thread in your first post when you said ‘I’ve checked out the website and am not offended in the least’" I didn't realize you were the one to set the fundamental point of this thread. "Since then you’ve tried to make the argument about freedom of competition while everybody else is trying to size up this new Geogame and decide whether it is an attractive alternative to geocaching or just a corporate profit venture. Most everybody who’s posted in this thread finds Geogaming’s commercial face to be a cause for some level of concern." I see the commercial face. But I'm not willing, at this point, to decide it's fate when they haven't gotten off of the ground yet. Kind of like judging a book by its cover. "I dislike what I see of Geogaming for the same reasons that I dislike 15-minute commercial blocks on the radio, going to the movies and sitting through the same commercials I see on TV. , Spam, ultra bright electronic billboards, and x-mas decorations on sale before Thanksgiving, etc. These aren’t big or important objections, but massed together it takes on the weight of an entire consumer culture interminably digging at you for your money, time, and attention." I agree with you. I don't like over-commercialism in general. However, Jeremy has stated clearly that geocaching.com is business, not National-Public-Geocaching (NPG) supported by member like you. I doubt that he will rule out doing what it takes to make it both profitable for him and enjoyable for us. "I’m sure this is obvious to you. What apparently isn’t obvious to you is that the concern in this thread has more to do with a fear of creeping cultural commercialism (that would very willingly have us wearing logos and going caching to the ‘extreme’) than the ‘freakish cult like loyalty’ you proclaim as the reason for the uproar." In the context of this discussion, I think it's appropriate to comment on the commercial aspects of the new-site (it's structural to the game) ... but it's the cult-like loyalty that leads people to discount it entirely before it's even begun. But let me remind you, it's not "creeping" at the Gamers site. How could it? It's brand new. Whether it's "creeping" here is the topic of another thread. "Commercialism is the issue here, not freedom of entrepreneurship. Geocaching has been one of those rare oases of community activity free (relatively) of the blight that reduces us to nothing more than consumers. Geogaming, with its marketing and prize structure is a disappointing and perhaps inevitable spin on geocaching towards the commercial mainstream." In six months, I've spent $30 on this activity that has gone to the revenue of geocaching.com. I've spent hundreds or arguably thousands of dollars for direct and indirect expenses related to the sport. I've estimated (in this thread) that for me, it costs almost $30 per cache to participate. I guess if I played primarily on the Gamers site, it's cost $32 per cache. If I thought that it was worth 6 percent more to me, I'd use them (but I don't yet). "And please, drop the personal characterizations, (stupid, ignorant, freakish, close minded). They’re inflammatory and in no way further your argument. Undoubtedly, you can think of occasions when the same terms could have been applied to you." Absolutley, I can be all four of those things (which is why I can use them here ... I can also be cult-like). I'll drop "stupid" and "freakish" but not "ignorant" or "close-minded". Heat of the moment, you know. People can make observations (based on conjecture or experience, mostly conjecture here) and they can make conclusions. I think it's premature to make conclusions. As Jeremy put it (and I agree), "it is in the early stages, so who knows?" p.s., I like that I can buy X-Mas decorations before Thanksgiving, if I want to. After all, it’s America,

Excellent. Well said.

quote:Disquoi, You’re implying that the promise of this new website may be as substantial as the telephone, the airplane, the Beatles, pasteurization, and brain surgery. All we have to do is wait and see. Your viewpoint is logical but lacking in discernment. The future of Geogaming appears to me to have more in common with Amway or the Publishers Clearing House. Surely you don’t open all your junk mail out of respect for the potential it represents. My inclusion of those famous last words was to illustrate that one shouldn't use the words "no imaginable commercial value", "Who would pay for ...", "is on the way out", or "impossible" to describe a new approach to something. By the way, Amway and the Publishers Clearing House are very successful endeavors, as unpopular as you'd like to view them. Also, consider the exponential explosion of the popularity of this activity. It has elements of the same kind of popularity and fanatisism (read the cult-like loyalty in this thread alone ... it's freakish) as the Beatles saw, quote:Geogaming has a right to exist and its detractors the right not participate in it. But this is implicit in almost all human activity and your vigorous defense of this concept seems unnecessary. I'm sorry that you see only my vigorous defense of entrepreneurship (as doomed to failure as it may be) and not the vigorous (and groundless) attempts to destroy it before it has begun. This forum was started for the purpose of discussion of Geogaming. So far, with few exceptions, it has been a close-minded denigration of someone's effort to provide an alternative to this site. quote:Besides, at one time phrenology, alchemy and the Edsel were all considered to be good ideas. Maybe we should stop supporting new ideas just in case they turn out to be dogs. Let's provide geocaching.com an assurance that we will ALWAYS use ONLY this database NO MATTER WHAT. That way, those developing geocaching.com will feel a great sense of motivation to continue improving it. I do not vigorously defend Geogaming.com. Frankly, I don’t see the added value relative to geocaching.com. But I defend anyone willing to invest their own money in an idea that PROBABLY won't create any returns to them in the long run (including Jeremy). I don't think any alternate geocaching service will work with the mentality that pervades here. Geocaching.com is clearly the only viable database due to the vast number of caches available. It will take very much of money and effort for anyone to catch up. IT WILL BE GOOD FOR YOU IF SOMEONE DOES. Play Geogames or not (I don't plan to) but don't needlessly drag it through the dirt.

Jeremy & CO. have done more for this site and geocaching in general than the "gamers" ever could It doesn't take a rocket scientist to reach the conclusion that Jeremy & CO. have done more for geocaching that Geogamer.com. I agree. But to say that they've done more than someone "ever" could? I'm sorry but even if it's proably true, it's an ignorant and stupid thing to say. "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." -- Western Union internal memo, 1876. "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" -- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s. "The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible." -- A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.) "Who the h*** wants to hear actors talk?" -- H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927 "I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper." -- Gary Cooper, on his decision to not take the leading role in "Gone With The Wind." "A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make." -- Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies. "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." -- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962. "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." -- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895. "If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this." -- Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads. "So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.'" -- Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer. "Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools." -- 1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary rocket work. "Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy." -- Drillers whom Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist in his project to drill for oil in 1859. "Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." -- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929. "Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." -- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre. "Everything that can be invented has been invented." -- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899. "Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction". -- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872 "The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon". -- Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873. "No flying machine will ever fly from New York to Paris." -- Orville Wright.

I don't think the statment of having "a blonde day" means literally that her hair turned blonde in color ... It's as if you need to discount an alternative to geocaching.com for some reason. If you like geocaching.com, do as George (and I) ... stick with what you consider the best service for you. But don't make nit-picky comments about a one-day old alternative. They're just trying to get started. The story by Kim may just be a place holder until they actually have someone who has an experience to tell. Again, just because geocaching.com has all the data (two whole years of it) doesn't mean we want to stop any potential new services before they can get off the ground. [This message was edited by DisQuoi on June 10, 2002 at 01:18 PM.]

Of course, you'll have to remove the plug from the bottom. You can't sell commercial products on geocaching.com.

It's clear to me that geocaching.com has established a community of loyalty. I've checked out the website and am not offended in the least. If anything, this is one result of the many times I've heard people say, "If you don't like the way Jeremy plays, go buy your own servers, write your own code, build your own database, and start your own geocaching service." Jeremy has a great advantage over any others willing to try to do this. Geocaching.com has a momentum of its own ... who wants to list their cache on a database that only has five others? It's going to take an excellent design and different approach to make people move or at least re-post their caches elsewhere. Give others a chance before you "register under an assumed name and trash them in their own forums" ... hopefully Jeremy will recognize that this potential competetive service actually is responding to an unmet demand for "rewards" and build in some similar games. If it's not a real demand, the new site will surely fail. Time will tell.

quote:Originally posted by SuperGenius:Wow, alot said here. Icons no icons I just go have fun find my cache, log, and repeat. Have a good day ya'll gotta go hunt before the sun go down. Team SuperGenius Pepper I'm sure there were people focusing on having fun while Jeremy thought of ways to improve geocaching from the original method of posting coordinates on message boards. Geocaching.com is a great way for you to collect coordinates for a weekend of cache hunting. Aren't you glad someone forewent a chance to have fun in the field to make it possible for you?

Last weekend I found "Seven of Nine" attempted caches!

In one of my rants today in this post, I argue that when Jeremy implements cache attributes, it should replace both cache icons and difficulty ratings. By creating so many "Types" of caches, we're introducing the complications of exclusivity ... I may have a multi-virtual cache, or a roving-traditional cache ...

In my opinion, something like the condition icons at the top of this thread would not add to the complexity of geocaching.com. First and foremost, the cache type (virtual, multi, event, traditional) should be eliminated from the current level and placed in the cache description along with the other proposed conditions. If you think about it, the cache-type icons were a base level implementation of what I am proposing. As the number of caches grew from hundreds to thousands it made sense to provide a high-level view of different cache types. Now that the number of caches is growing from thousands to tens of thousands, it makes sense to provide further high-level overview. If the search function allowed for filters based on the condition icons, people could finally get those playground-caches or virtual-caches off of their search results. If cursorcusser wants to keep caches where he can't bring his dog, give him the ability to keep those out of his search results. If clayjar loves hydro-caches, don't make him search the forums, just let him search for caches where the owner has selected to include that icon. I agree with you that there should be a word search ability for themes (birds, trains as you say). These are not conditions. Paved trails where your son who is in a wheelchair is a condition. Approached requiring special equipment (boat, ice climbing gear) is a condition. Civil War, Mission Impossible, Porsches, and "Harry Potter" caches are "themes". I don't propose a Harry Potter icon. If you think this would benefit people, make a suggestion for a searchable theme field where people could include "bird" or "train" in the cache description. (By the way, the abilty to search entire cache descriptions would provide terrible results.) I hadn't thought of this until now but I might even suggest that the difficulty levels be abandoned and replaced with difficulty icons (or no difficulty at all). As an example, Scooterj's icons include about ten icons that provide you with an idea of what to expect regarding terrain (wheelchair, walking, hiking, hiking up grade, climbing steep grade, climbing vertically, marsh, etc.) This would address the problem of the wide, arbitrary difficulty scoring that people complain about. Does anyone in this forum do process reengineering for a living? Don't be afraid of change. If this website continues to be developed incrementally, it'll look like Frankenstein. Occasionally you have to step back and look at the big picture. What worked a year ago may not work in six months at the rate that this sport is growing. By the way, Jeremy is doing a great job at this. I would like to take this oppourtunity to thank every one of the forty residents of Maryland, Virginia and Washington DC who have taken the time and money to create wonderful caches for my enjoyment. Thank you for changing my life.

Ozarktroutbum, sorry if I ruined your day over an idea. I think you're a bit too involved if your blood pressure rises while reading a message board. Actually, anyone familiar with this sport realizes that there are several classes of caches. Certainly some of them are high adventure challenges for those who carry Power Bars in their pocket (like you, I'm sure). Clearly the builder of these caches can decide how much to reveal or leave up to the cacher to discover. For these caches, condition icons obviously don't apply ... which is why they would be optional. (George, I'm guessing that your waist-high-in-water cache was in this category). Noone's looking to sanitize your fun on these. Then there is a [much more common] class of caches that are designed for and used by families with several children/dogs/monthers-in-law. Generally the people who search for these caches are making a family outing of it. They're not looking for a Mission Impossible. For the love of all that's holy, these are in parks with playgrounds and paved trails. ... and bathroom. If you had a 3-year-old with you, you'd understand. I think the icons would apply mostly to this class of cache/cacher. I have hidden both types of caches. While I could include alot of hints and suggestions for some of them, I see the value in leaving some unexpected conditions to the seeker. (Although, if one was available, I might slap a "no kids" icon up there). Or, if it's remote and I know that dogs aren't allowed in a park, why not just tell the cach-seeker ahead of time to leave his dog alone. You won't find that information on a map. In one of my caches, he won't know what part of the county the cache is in until he gets there. It also require's a boat. It's no secret, I say so in the description. I did so because the seeker would have no way of knowing until he got there. In fact, replacing the whole boat part of the description with a hydrocache icon would probably make the preparation even more difficult. Here's a link if you're interested. Even if it's a 1/1 cache, we could eliminate verbose descriptions of playground-caches with icons. And if it were searchable, those who favor hydro-caches would focus on what they love. We could add an icon that says "No Conditions Revealed" for those who love surprises 100 miles from home. With hundreds[?] of new caches being placed every month, the icons can help organize the database such that those wanting a snack-bar-cache don't have to search through scores of waist-high-in-water-caches and you can ignore those that "say too much". It's a win-win.

That's funny. I have seen these on street corners and wondered what they were for.

... and it should be bad karma to he who rates someone elses karma unfavorably.

I'm driving from Baltimore to Hershey with a friend on the condition that he give geocaching a try. We are planning 3 hours into out schedule to allow for this. Can anyone recommend any excellent geocaches along this drive? Self promotion is okay

I'm driving from Baltimore to Hershey with a friend on the condition that he give geocaching a try. We are planning 3 hours into out schedule to allow for this. Can anyone recommend any excellent geocaches along this drive? Self promotion is okay

quote:Originally posted by blu-eyes:Hey all, My favorite item to leave is a bandana, light, easy to carry,and they have lots and lots of uses. blu-eyes I agree ... I've been stocking my caches with stacks of bandanas. At LL Bean they're about $5.00 each but I've found a dollar stor that sells the (apparently) same 100% cotton made in USA red/blue/green/black bandanas for ... that's right ... a dollar. And who doesn't want a bandana. I don't mind so much if people were to just take one without a trade since they're easy and cheap to buy. Now , here's a VERY bad signature item!!!

quote:Originally posted by blu-eyes:Hey all, My favorite item to leave is a bandana, light, easy to carry,and they have lots and lots of uses. blu-eyes I agree ... I've been stocking my caches with stacks of bandanas. At LL Bean they're about $5.00 each but I've found a dollar stor that sells the (apparently) same 100% cotton made in USA red/blue/green/black bandanas for ... that's right ... a dollar. And who doesn't want a bandana. I don't mind so much if people were to just take one without a trade since they're easy and cheap to buy. Now , here's a VERY bad signature item!!!

quote:I am surprised, With all the Geo-Geniuses out there that nobody knows the answer? I'm pretty sure your question was answered. N90°. The longitude would be meaningless. If you were able to hold the unit such that the signals indicated that you were actually on the exact point of N90°, you would ignore the longitude whether it read ø or whether is randomly displayed arbitrary longitudes. N90° N90° N90° N90° N90° N90° N90° N90°

I'g glad that Capt. Jack (Charter Member) has visited this cache and logged his find in this forum. He has almost 60 finds so I am comfortable relying on his judgment of whether this cache is appropriate for geocaching. I agree that those entrusted to approve/dissapprove caches should err on the side of not allowing commercial caches but in this case, I think the cache should be approved at this point.

Pronunciation: bi-'get Function: transitive verb Inflected Form(s): be·got /-'gät/; also be·gat /-'gat/; be·got·ten /-'gä-t&n/; or -got; -get·ting Etymology: Middle English begeten, alteration of beyeten, from Old English bigietan -- more at GET Date: 13th century 1 : to procreate as the father : SIRE 2 : to produce especially as an effect or outgrowth - be·get·ter noun "begatting" sounds good to me

Pronunciation: bi-'get Function: transitive verb Inflected Form(s): be·got /-'gät/; also be·gat /-'gat/; be·got·ten /-'gä-t&n/; or -got; -get·ting Etymology: Middle English begeten, alteration of beyeten, from Old English bigietan -- more at GET Date: 13th century 1 : to procreate as the father : SIRE 2 : to produce especially as an effect or outgrowth - be·get·ter noun "begatting" sounds good to me