Kodak's4

Putting a rubbermaid tub into a black plastic bag or a brown plastic bag is an easy way to camouflage it effectively. If you're hiding it in a dark place (like in a crevice in a rock wall, or in a hollow under a log or stump) that darn black plastic bag can make it nearly impossible to see.

quote:Originally posted by Jumpmaster:Is that a new NATO standard? Haven't seen any .20 cal. ammo before... Jumpmaster (sorry, couldn't resist... ) Yes. .20 caliber is the new NATO standard for typographic errors.

quote:Originally posted by Jumpmaster:Is that a new NATO standard? Haven't seen any .20 cal. ammo before... Jumpmaster (sorry, couldn't resist... ) Yes. .20 caliber is the new NATO standard for typographic errors.

Of course people suck. My take on this is that humanity is great as a abstract concept but the current implementation leaves an awful lot to be desired. Don't let it get you down. Ignore the bozos. Concentrate on the people who really enjoyed finding the cache that got stolen. You're doing fine. I'm in the process of hiding a four cache series. I went out this morning to check for errors before I post the whole set. One of the microcaches (located in a spot where it wouldn't just disappear) was missing. Who the heck would steal an Altoids tin with numbers inside? Heck, I had a cache stolen before I even got to put it online!

I use a Suunto MC-1. If you buy a compass, make sure you buy one that can be adjusted for magnetic deviation. It's a lot simpler to set the deviation on the compass and always work in true bearings than use a compass with no adjustment, set the GPS to give magnetic bearings, and use magnetic bearings, mostly because most streets and roads are laid out using true bearings. -Paul

I'm near the end of setting a series of four caches. Ignoring the microcaches that are the first legs of the multicaches, the prices for the final caches work out to: $5 - .20 cal ammo can $7 - spiffy write in the rain log book $5 - one time use camera for photos of finders (stays with cache) $10-15 - misc trinkets. Figure roughly $30 per cache.

quote:Originally posted by mrcpu: I can sell you "gold" coins. They have a loon on one side and a Monarch on the other. Three things: 1. The Loonie isn't made from gold, it's made of a gold/bronze alloy over nickel. 2. I think it's rude to call Elizabeth II a Loon. Just someone is Royal, that doesn't make them whacko. 3. that's not a monarch butterfly, it's a bird.

quote:Originally posted by geospotter: I've been reading the posts about "find counts" and whether or not they are important. I am struck by the number of times the counts are used to judge an individual's opinion. Eventually it gets down to judging a cacher's character! Since the counts represent nothing other than the number of local caches and the amount of leisure time someone has, I would like to propose a different sort of "stat" page. One that WOULD represent something. I'll call it "Merit Rating", but you can call it whatever you like. I would like to see recognition (on their profile page) of anyone who -- + Organized a geocaching event + Organized or took part in a trail/park clean up + Promoted geocaching in some way + Convinced a park to allow geocaching + etc. These items ARE important to geocaching and indicate, far better, someone's character than find counts. Comments? Suggestions? Seems to me like a person's find count indicates only one thing - how many caches they've found. In a discussion where experience might lend weight to opinion, (such as good techniques for using a GPS to get close to the cache, or perhaps good methods for hiding or searching), I'd probably attend more carefully to the thoughts of someone with two hundred finds than the thoughts of someone with two. If someone wants to make the inference that how many rubbermaid tubs and ammo cans someone has found correlates with that person's overall worth in God's eyes, well, I won't stop them but I think they're staggeringly stupid. Any attempt to construct a 'character' metric seems like it's just a BAD PLAN. I'm ok with people looking at my find count, but I don't see much reason why the web site should start rating people in terms of character. Are you going to downrate felons? How about serial rapists? How will you know? What about someone who's an absolute a******, kicks dogs, drowns cats, but volunteers to pick up trash in parks, does trail maintenance, and organizes event caches as a break from their career as a child molester? I just don't get this fascination with what other people are doing. One person complains that people leave junk when they swap, another complains that some people are finding caches but not hiding any, yet another complains that some people are becoming members and diminishing the self esteem of those who don't become members. Now, we have to start rating a geocacher's character? Why? Geez, Louise. For once, can't we just have this be nothing more serious than hiding and finding caches? Why does it have to be a high stakes experiment in social engineering, for crying out loud?

Not finding a cache is nothing to be ashamed of. Regardless of difficulty, there are so many factors (weather, brain clouds, motivation, a crowd of people having a picnic) that can keep you from scoring a find - it just isn't a big deal. I've read numerous 'no finds' posted by a local cacher with over 350 finds, some of them on 1/1 caches. Posting a 'not found' shares important information with the rest of the Geocaching community. Maybe the cache is missing. Maybe there are conditions near the cache that subsequent searchers might want to be warned of (skunks present would definitely qualify!) Go ahead and post it. Just think how many days you'll brighten with the skunk story. (and I often use the term 'skunked' when I fail to find a cache. I guess I'll reconsider that choice!)

quote:Originally posted by hikerbill: While I'm haven't located as many caches as others in the past 12 mos., I've noted a general deteriation of the quality of the goodies - too many kids toys. I go in to a cache with a Santa's bag of leavables and recently have been encountering junk-treasure. Consequently, I respond in kind. No wonder you find a deterioration in the quality of stuff - when you find a cache that has a pathetic selection of stuff, you respond by leaving junk. Apparently everyone is doing what you're doing, with the obvious result. The solution is for you to leave great stuff when you find a sadly depleted cache. That will fix the cache, and other cachers, seeing your log note that reads "took broken mctoy and gum wrapper, left sacagawea gold dollar, stuffed plush otter, a box of crayola pearl bright crayons, a matchbox car, a book on fly fishing, an LED blinker, and a glow stick" will follow your example, and the problem will be solved.

quote:Originally posted by DisQuoi: I'd call it a find. Sounds to me like it was a bad placement on the owners part. I'd disagree. Different caches have different challenges. Sometimes it's hard to figure out what the real coordinates are (e.g. a puzzle), sometimes it's hard to get to the location (e.g. difficult terrain or a non-obvious approach). Sometimes the challenge is that the cache is in a public place and it's tough to get to it and sign the log without attracting attention. There's a cache hider here in Seattle who seems to specialize in hiding caches where you really feel exposed when searching/logging. I'm talking really exposed. Every time, I have to steel myself to the task of walking out into full view and finding the cache. Maybe it's easy for others, but it's tough for me. I love those caches, not despite the fact that they push my buttons but because they do. If this cache was in a busy place, I wouldn't call that a defect, I'd call it a challenge. If the cache was suspended 100ft up in the air from a tree, would you count *seeing* it as logging a find, or would you say that getting the logbook and signing it was part of the challenge? How is the public location of this cache different? Remember how magicians perform their tricks? Misdirection. While they're doing something they don't want you to see over *here*, they contrive to get you to look over *there* so you won't see it. Take a friend, have them make a big distraction. Give them an airhorn, or something. Have them juggle and give away balloon animals to the kids. Get creative. I'd call it no find. For myself, I have a simple rule - sign the logbook, it's a find. No sign the logbook, no find. I like the rule because it's concrete - there are no vague interpretations. And if the cache is plundered and there's no logbook - that's a no find. Disappointing, yes. But not a find.

I bought our first GPSR way back in 1994, to use for navigation on a series of summer long motorhome trips. The first unit we owned was a Garmin GPS40 (or was it a GPS38?) with an external antenna which got tucked up under the fiberglas motorhome roof. When the first unit failed, we replaced it with a Garmin GPSIII, which we still use. One nice feature of the GPSIII is it has several timers which count when it's turned on, on battery power, etc. Right now, the time it's been on since it was manufactured is 982 hours, 31 minutes, 36 seconds. I'm surprised it's so low.

quote:Originally posted by Warm Fuzzies - Fuzzy: Again, a good idea. I, of course, always decrypt the hints in the field manually anyway, so it never occurred to me to consider that people might actually hit the 'cheat' link. Remember, too, that there are only 13 pairs to the rot13 cipher. 13 pairs is pretty easily memorized. Both my daughter and I can pretty much just *read* the enciphered text. I mean, how many times do you need to decipher hints before you learn that 'ybbx' is 'look', 'haqre' is 'under', 'gur' is 'the', 'gerr' is 'tree', 'fghzc' is 'stump', etc. The vocabulary for hints is generally pretty small. I'd have to pause to decipher 'yrcvqbcgrevfg' but to be fair, it's not a word that gets used in hints very often. Ok, that's an artificial example, but you get the drift. Surely I'm not the only person so addicted to geocaching that I simply sat down for 15 minutes and memorized the cipher. Please, please tell me I'm not the only one... after all, 15 minutes with a cup of tea on the sofa beats 15 minutes in the rain, struggling to decrypt a long hint in the pouring rain, with a soggy piece of paper and a pen with water soluble ink. I'd rather think than do real work any day.

quote:Originally posted by Warm Fuzzies - Fuzzy: Again, a good idea. I, of course, always decrypt the hints in the field manually anyway, so it never occurred to me to consider that people might actually hit the 'cheat' link. Remember, too, that there are only 13 pairs to the rot13 cipher. 13 pairs is pretty easily memorized. Both my daughter and I can pretty much just *read* the enciphered text. I mean, how many times do you need to decipher hints before you learn that 'ybbx' is 'look', 'haqre' is 'under', 'gur' is 'the', 'gerr' is 'tree', 'fghzc' is 'stump', etc. The vocabulary for hints is generally pretty small. I'd have to pause to decipher 'yrcvqbcgrevfg' but to be fair, it's not a word that gets used in hints very often. Ok, that's an artificial example, but you get the drift. Surely I'm not the only person so addicted to geocaching that I simply sat down for 15 minutes and memorized the cipher. Please, please tell me I'm not the only one... after all, 15 minutes with a cup of tea on the sofa beats 15 minutes in the rain, struggling to decrypt a long hint in the pouring rain, with a soggy piece of paper and a pen with water soluble ink. I'd rather think than do real work any day.

quote:Originally posted by Markwell: The problem you have is that you need coordinates for the different stages. What coordinates would you use when creating the cache pages for stage 2 or stage 3. Use the same technique used for any puzzle cache - coordinates which identify the general area but are not the coordinates of the actual cache. Then put a large, red notice that the coordinates must be *found* as part of the puzzle solution/multicache hunt.

I really like your plan. One of the things that keeps an activity fun is being able to scale the difficulty to your skills. Maximum fun occurs when you tackle a task that is just beyond the limits of your current skills. Your scheme of multi caches of increasing difficulty does exactly that - it offers people a way to tackle a challenge that increases. They get an easy start, then the bar gets raised, providing an incentive to tackle something they might have passed on if it was the first task in the series. Having each stage be a separate cache means that people get intermediate rewards, and they get rewards even if they can't finish the series. I'd suggest only one change to your 'alternate' plan - namely, you should locate the whole shebang close to Seattle. As a side note, puzzles with more than one solution might be an interesting twist - there's a cache here in Seattle (16 Ancestors) that is fun because you're given 3 locations to search for the clue, and you don't know which one actually *has* the clue. This changes the game somewhat.

I voted 'delete them' on the poll, but I've changed my mind. You already deleted them once. Maybe I'm a bit of a hard liner. It's your cache, and if you feel that an actual visit to the site is the only way to log a find, then that settles that. Since this person insisted on posting another log after you explained and you deleted it, I'd suggest another tack. Post a note on the cache page log, explaining that this person hasn't visited the site, that you deleted the log, that they *reposted* the log, and that you feel this is cheating. Let the weight of public opinion rule. If they're fine with their behavior, they should have no problem with it being made public in this way. If they're not fine, they can delete the log themselves, at which point I'd suggest you delete the note.

quote:Originally posted by White Rabbit: I've already bought the albums and stuff once. I don't think I have to do it again just so I can share the music I love with others. As for the Dreamcast games that are found in my cache, I don't really want to get into that, but first off how ticked off would you be if you spent over $250 on a brand new gaming system. Only to find out that after only about 2 years (less it seemed) they shut thier doors and quit making things for their system. ONLY to go over to their competitors and start making their games for them, which makes YOU have to buy another new system if you want to play those games. That's just my views on the subject, but other people's are different, because other people aren't me and have their own views. Just because you think your views are 'correct' that doesn't mean you have to go and ruin things that don't belong to you. Sorry for the rant http://www.iinet.net.au/~rabbit/rabpics/buneatg.gif _I am the Rabbit King, I can do anything_ 1. You bought the right to use them yourself. You did not buy the right to give them away for free to the world at large. You are free to negotiate that right with the owners of the copyright. If you don't do that, you are a criminal. If you're unclear about your rights as a purchaser, go read the Berne copyright convention. 2. You spent $250 on a gaming system, only to find that it's not supported anymore. Somehow you think this justifies violating every copyright on the planet. You are completely clueless. Your making a stupid decision does not justify your ripping off everyone on the planet. 3. Oh, that's simply too sweet. "Just because you think your views are 'correct' that doesn't mean you have to go and ruin things that don't belong to you." Do you have even a clue of what sort of irony there is in your insisting that I shouldn't "go and ruin things that don't belong t o me" when I'm defending the intellectual property rights of the creators of the work, and you're defending your right to copy it and give it away. Grow up. Stop being a peurile moron with a six year old intellect. And if I find illegal copies of protected works in a cache, I *will* destroy the copies. If that pisses you off, well, that's just too dadgum bad for you, isn't it?

quote:Originally posted by Vertigo: Has anyone ever found a cache with coppied CD's or software in it? If so how did this make you feel? I recently found a cache with some fairly expensive coppied software in it, and I didn't quite know how to react. It's easy. React the same way you'd react if you found something valuable you knew was stolen from someone you know. Sure, there are people who feel this sort of theft is ok. Then again, there are people who feel that armed robbery and homicide are ok, too. If I find illegal copies of intellectual property in a cache, I'm going to destroy them, just as I'd destroy other illegal stuff in a cache. That goes for music, software - I don't care. Illegal copying is wrong. Period. If you don't think the music is worth the price, vote with your wallet and don't buy it. Likewise software.

quote:Originally posted by Warm Fuzzies - Fuzzy: Not a common point of failure, but two bad values: [8,6,1,4,2,5,2,4,2], [5,5,4,3,7,1,2,2,8],<---- start here [4,2,3,2,2,3,1,2,5], [7,1,4,7,3,3,3,1,2], [7,3,3,4,4,4,1,7,8], [3,7,5,1,1,6,6,5,3], [4,5,2,3,4,3,3,5,4], [1,3,4,2,7,5,4,4,9], [2,7,1,4,1,6,1,3,0] Only one solution. I won't post it here since it seems you might want to use it for a cache? It's an interesting sort of puzzle. I think you should use it! -Paul

quote:Originally posted by Warm Fuzzies - Fuzzy: Yes, you're doing it right. And you're right, that does appear to be a "bonus" solution. Too bad I threw out my notes; I'd try to fix it. I think I at least know how I screwed it up. I also think that before I go using this puzzle I'd better write a program to check them for blunders like this. Can I assume that's what you did, or do you just have way too much time on your hands? Oh, come now. That's like asking the magician how the trick is done. I didn't ask you how you created the puzzle - why must you ask me how I solved it? But I have more solutions. If you like, I'll email them to you, and you can fix them all except the one you want to be *the* solution. That's the problem with puzzle caches. You have to do quite a bit of work to make sure that you've created the puzzle correctly.

quote:Originally posted by Warm Fuzzies - Fuzzy: Yes, you're doing it right. And you're right, that does appear to be a "bonus" solution. Too bad I threw out my notes; I'd try to fix it. I think I at least know how I screwed it up. I also think that before I go using this puzzle I'd better write a program to check them for blunders like this. Can I assume that's what you did, or do you just have way too much time on your hands? Oh, come now. That's like asking the magician how the trick is done. I didn't ask you how you created the puzzle - why must you ask me how I solved it? But I have more solutions. If you like, I'll email them to you, and you can fix them all except the one you want to be *the* solution. That's the problem with puzzle caches. You have to do quite a bit of work to make sure that you've created the puzzle correctly.

ok, using L for left, R for right, D for down, U for up, I get LRLDLRULULDRLLRRULLDRULDRLR which gives the digit sequence 8517143551653344452244582170 am I doing it right?

quote:Originally posted by McIrish: - .... .. ... / ... ..- .-. . / -- .- -.- . ... / .-. . .- -.. .. -. --. / - .... . / - .... .-. . .- -.. ... / - .. -- . / -.-. --- -. ... ..- -- .. -. --. -. --- - / - --- / -- . -. - .. --- -. / - .... . / ..-. ..- -. -. -.-- / -... . . .--. / ... --- ..- -. -.. / .-- .- -.- . ... / ..- .--. / - .... . / -.. --- --. .-.-.-

quote:Originally posted by McIrish: - .... .. ... / ... ..- .-. . / -- .- -.- . ... / .-. . .- -.. .. -. --. / - .... . / - .... .-. . .- -.. ... / - .. -- . / -.-. --- -. ... ..- -- .. -. --. -. --- - / - --- / -- . -. - .. --- -. / - .... . / ..-. ..- -. -. -.-- / -... . . .--. / ... --- ..- -. -.. / .-- .- -.- . ... / ..- .--. / - .... . / -.. --- --. .-.-.-