ju66l3r
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Posts posted by ju66l3r
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I get tired of people that complain about this site because they don't agree with how it's run. If you can make a better site...knock yourself out. You won't be the first to try or probably the last. This site has survived and is the top site for caching because of management, dedication, hard work, and the ability to operate for the majority rather than the minority.
Keep looking for the Great Pumpkin, Linus.
It wouldn't happen to be primarily because of the unstoppable force that corralling all of the data entitles you to, would it?
The moderation in this forum and decisions on who remains a member as a result of their actions in this forum is NOT a part of what makes this site the predominant market share of geocaching listing services.
You always trod out that diatribe of "go somewhere else or make your own" and you always ignore the fact that this is not a viable option/solution to the problem. The closest anyone has come to doing this is navicaching and terracaching (and this one was made after being *thrown* out here) and neither have anywhere near the concentration of caches (except in very minor pockets where an entire local caching community finally took offense to an action by Jeremy et al here and relocated en masse). Even in those areas, residual caches and new development has kept their GC.com concentrations up...and as fizzymagic has always shown, new caching is still by far the largest (and growing) percentage of caching. As long as the growth continues, they only need to make new people happy (and new people playing with a new toy hobby will frequently already be biased towards being entertained by the new-ness).
What all this means to the subject at hand is that the moderators aren't going to change anything about how well this site swallows down the market share hand over fist. Your strawman argument needs a brain, scarecrow. The idea that we should suck it up or move elsewhere because the decisions they make in all aspects of this site are what make it the best site are just balderdash. The moderators could delete every third post for fun and at most the forums would dry up, but new cachers would just learn to stay out of the forums...and yet the caching would continue because this is where new people sign up to geocache. Most of those people don't use the forums. This is where all (okay, you got me... 97.3% of all) the listings are.
"Don't you know who I am? I'm the Juggernaut, babe!" -- Groundspeak
(This quote has been edited for time and content and formatted to fit on your forum)
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Perhaps you are taking this all a bit too seriously.
Given my usual posting styles in these forums, that's hardly very fair of you (or the others mocking and making the same suggestion).
I simply know the difference between levity and inanity, making a goofy comment in context and disrupting/hijacking a conversation to your own ends, or on-point humor and off-topic in-jokes.
The examples given in this thread show that some people here choose not to draw these lines and I think Corps is right in implying that it causes some issues with good forum behavior.
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If they have a webpage and on the main webpage is a "please buy our book" link talking about the hard times, etc....then:
Post your cache page and in the description write
This cache wouldn't be possible without the help I received from <a href="their website here">Their name here</a>!You won't run aground from the solicitation/commercial problem, as you're just acknowledging them for their help in setting up the cache. You will still be pointing people one step away from reading about their troubles and being able to help by purchasing the book if they want to take the time to read up on it on their own.
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When there is an obvious trolling, I don't have a problem with derailment...
And who made you (or I or anyone but the mods) an arbiter of what's to be an "obvious" troll?
The "an" post wasn't so obvious a troll. King riched's post isn't an obvious troll.
The first "Cheerio" who deems a post unworthy of being left to its own discussion says something assinine about "llamas" or "the pig" or other nonsense and the rest of the General Mills crew just pour out onto the table and take over the topic. The only "derailment" an "obvious" troll needs is to be closed by the moderators. Report it, don't act like it's your own personal playland. If the thread is an issue for the forum, it'll be closed well enough without watching the Bed Spring Brigade bounce through it leaving a mess of innuendo and inside-jokes.
In fact, I've seen posts in the "Cheers" post in the Off Topic forum where this sort of dogpile of inanity is actually suggested or requested by one of the clique when they link to their initial "llama" garbage in someone else's thread in the rest of the forums.
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Topics may drift within their discussion, but the example shown by Keystone is a good example of hijacking via nonsense.
Regardless of what people may think of a topic, so long as the moderators haven't closed it for their own reasons, it should stay more or less directly related to the original post. There are plenty of goof-off topics in Off Topic. No need to crap all over someone else's thread with "llamas" and "smurfs" and reply trees to boost up the noise, particularly when you don't think the topic has relevance or meaning...then just stay out of it.
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Humorous in a "Mind of Mencia" spinoff kind of way.
I can see how it didn't fly around here though. The sign isn't offensive in context because of public safety concerns (better to mark regular road crossing points than have a bunch of dead people on our hands). When used with the text on the coin/post ("not trackable", "endless supply"), it changes the context to being a somewhat pointedly offensive joke.
Carlos Mencia's take on the sign was to have a midget and others try and strike the pose and ask the highway authorities if they had a similar sign for white people in Beverly Hills running across the roads. Not quite the same level of offensiveness as the geocoin mock-up of your joke.
I'd let this one go.
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Who steamed your cinnamon bun this time?
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I'd just like to remind some of you that the OP is a young kid. Try and act with just a smidge of self-control when helping them sort through the issues in creation of their new website.
Save the snide remarks for some other thread.
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The pertinent section is in the Groundspeak Terms of Use ( http://www.geocaching.com/about/termsofuse.aspx ):
All comments, articles, tutorials, screenshots, pictures, graphics, tools, downloads, and all other materials submitted to Groundspeak in connection with the Site or available through the Site (collectively, “Submissions”) remain the property and copyright of the original author. If You submit Submissions to Groundspeak, You must adhere to any applicable submission guidelines that may be posted from time to time on the Site. By submitting any Submission to Groundspeak, You grant Groundspeak a worldwide, non-exclusive, transferable, perpetual, irrevocable, fully-paid royalty-free license and right to use, reproduce, distribute, import, broadcast, transmit, modify and create derivative works of, license, offer to sell, and sell, rent, lease or lend copies of, publicly display and publicly perform that Submission for any purpose and without restriction or obligation to You.So, you *could* get Groundspeak permission to use the images (as that is their right if they chose to allow you to distribute the images given by the license above that takes effect upon submission to the website from the original owner). If they said yes, then you're golden for whatever terms they say yes to.
Otherwise, you have to go to copyright law for your answer. Since you are not using these things for educational, research, criticism, news, or those sorts of things, you can't claim "fair use" of the image. In fact, if you plan on handing out the images in caches or otherwise, then you actually hit upon clause 4 of the Copyright law that says you can't effect the potential market or value (which you would be doing so by handing it out for free where the original author may choose to charge for it). So, if you contacted each of the original creators of the images and got their approval, you could basically be in the same situation as Groundspeak (licensed by original author for your use) and be in the clear.
EDIT: Just wanted to add that personally, I usually don't mind if people want to use my images (I need to fix the site, but I used to put a lot of my nice photos online for people to look through)...BUT, I want to know each and every time they are used and want appropriate credit attached to the image.
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I can't imagine Miss Manners would bash us for not answering unsolicited inquiries. I feel no obligation to open my door to strangers, talk with people who phone me at random, or reply to unsolicited letters or e-mails. That's the chance you take when you contact strangers.
Now if you knew these cachers personally and established some type of relationship beyond a casual "how ya doin'" at an event, then it might be a different story.
Assuming the e-mail is sent through the GC.com website forwarder and that it was polite and detailed on what was being asked about one of your caches...in other words perfect in every way except that it came from a "stranger" (via GC.com)...
Would you open it and/or answer it?
I mean, you put the cache out there with the intention of interacting with other people through your cache, cache page, log book, etc. Now, someone is asking you a question concerning said cache via your profile (which they found as a result of your cache page) and you want to act like geocachers are total strangers to you?
It'd be one thing if I just mailed insertrandomnamehere@hotmail.com and expected any kind of a response, but this hobby is built on community and community members should feel a modicum of social responsibilities to each other. It's not a rule, but I'd like to think that most good community members see it as an obligation to the other members.
The answer doesn't even need to be what the OP is looking for. If he wants a hint, you could tell him "you don't give hints, but good luck" and you'd fulfill that obligation to the community. Ignoring another geocacher's e-mail is rude and counterproductive to the roots of this hobby (from a general standpoint, I'm not saying this is what the OP is dealing with specifically since we can't rule out technical problems, etc).
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I don't think its a lack of manners to ignore communication attempts from total strangers. Would you call a total stranger, or ring their doorbell? E-mail really is no different.
But the e-mail comes wrapped by GC.com, therefore it's not a total stranger. It's as if we all have a secret knock and the OP did the secret knock and was still ignored (if that's the case, the strange and wonderful internets has a way of confounding whether your "knock" on the door ever even reached them).
I'd like to think that the majority of us are in it for some sense of community as well as finding tupperware in the woods.
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Briefly, if it helps clear anything up, I said "MO designation" because I was only using in lieu of the term MOC. A cache with the MO designation will have the icon and generate the audit log and restrict access based on member status. I don't think it really has any other appropriate connotation (i.e., a MO account doesn't make any sense).
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Having come from a long line of educators, I'd rather see our schools focusing on teaching basic skills first, then teach computer skills. Our education system is churning out a gazillion students a year, (OK, maybe a slight exaggeration), who know how to download photos to MySpace, but can't work calculus/trig on paper to save their lives. Students graduate knowing the life history of their favorite rap "artist", but don't have sufficient language skills to converse in business. Students know what LOL, BRB & WHTEVR means, yet they can't read Heinlein or Voltaire. Students can load MP3 files onto their Ipods so they can listen to Eminem on the way to school, but can't tell you what Tchaikovsky wrote.
Pitiful.
You're confusing "basic" with "classic".
If the kids of today are technologically savvy enough to program a USB/Firewire device, upload image files to a website, and translate symbol-code into natural language, then their job prospects are very good. Tchaikovsky, Voltaire, and handwritten calculus are also useful in their own ways but do not necessarily get them a job when the boss will expect their quarterly spreadsheet/report by e-mail...not carrier pigeon.
An example: A few years ago, my mother's hospital moved to a paperless records system after their VAX mainframe (primarily for ordering) died and was replaced by modern technology. Jumping two feet first into the modern era for all units, 80% of the nurses in the hospital had to undergo Technology Training. The first lesson (that most had problems with) was "what is a mouse...how to point and click".
The technological differences of our society from when *I* was in high school (1990-94) until now are huge. In 1st grade, we saw a Commodore 64 play the lemonade game and it was astounding. In 1997, I worked as an electrician and installed ethernet cabling into a brand-new kindergarten classroom. Suggesting that today's students would be better off focusing on the classics at the expense of the moderns is highly limiting. I do statistics and calculus all of the time these days in my current field. I don't need to know how to do it on paper any more with Matlab and Mathematica available to me...but I'm sure glad I taught myself how to use a computer in transitioning from paper to monitor screen.
Computer literacy via Social Networking Sites, including our own GC.com, is a great way to engage today's students in a life skill they'll need and a method that they want to use. If these technologies (blogs, wiki, RSS, social networking) are also then implemented in quality lesson plans, all the better. Whether for recreation or not, minors should then be able to access these things even when unsupervised at school or at the library. There are already protections against other materials that we determine to be unhealthy for them to have access to (none of which exists here at GC.com...but DOPA would wholesale swat at here anyways).
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My opinion is to not use the MO designation unless you are having a problem in your area or specifically with your caches.
My reasoning is more ideological than most though. I feel like this hobby still benefits from an inclusiveness, present from the time of the first cache published on a public newsgroup, that makes it as large and growing as it is today (a trend that this site then capitalizes on). When I first started throwing out my opinions about this site on this site, I took significant exception to the idea that Jeremy (et al) would clamp down on the data the way they have. It's still a bit of a peeve, but I've at least accepted their right to do so.
For end users to enable Groundspeak to clamp down any harder, for profit, on the cache information, I still find that action falls beyond what I'm willing to accept as a Good Thing to do. There are minor reasons/situations (like vandalism) that warrant the audit logging that comes with a MO designation, but simply to reward other Premium Members with FTF or improve the quality of cacher that begin the cache's life or any other similar reason I've seen to justify making a cache MO are against what I think should occur for the benefit of the whole community.
As I said though, I'm a bit of an ideologue when it comes to how data/information should be treated.
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I think it would be a real stretch to classify GC com as a social networking site - the forums might not be as much as a stretch.
Not as much of a stretch as you think:
`(i) is offered by a commercial entity;`(ii) permits registered users to create an on-line profile that includes detailed personal information;
`(iii) permits registered users to create an on-line journal and share such a journal with other users;
`(iv) elicits highly-personalized information from users; and
`(v) enables communication among users.'.
Commercial, yep.
Online profile with personal info, yep.
Online journal with sharing, yep (found logs, for example).
Highly-personalized info, yep...sorta coincides with #2.
Enables communication among users, yep (there's like a dozen ways to talk between members because of the need to foster a community environment for the benefit of the hobby).
Imagine if a child predator were registered here watching your kid's every move and intimate caching detail described. This place could be a haven for these bad guys and they MUST be deleted! Quick, yank your kid off the site when you're not around...*that'll* stop them from coming here!
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My library has subscriptions to leading scientific journals, to peer-reviewed research, to online archives of magazines and cataloged data.
Those are valuable research tools.
Myspace, yahoo mail, livejournal, etc, are not and supplying access to such things takes up more of an already tight library budget every year.
When did the library become solely about research?
The last time I checked, the fiction section was just as big and probably more frequented. The internet has more to provide a library than just research tools. Unsupervised kids should be able to visit the library and use the internet to read their friends' latest journals as much as you or I could go to use the internet to read a self-published sci-fi book. The pretext (of the bill) is to keep unsupervised kids from becoming predator bait, not to untax the library's resources. Of course, how this bill's design somehow "deletes online predators" escapes me, but that's what they titled it (to get a 410-15-7 result).
As for school, my guess is that most are already filtering a number of these sites through their proxy servers and this bill would only serve to encompass what good is already done and go onward to target all sorts of things that may actually be useful in a lesson plan/learning design.
In the meantime, I don't see you giving up your GPSr anytime soon to hunt geocaches, right? I mean, 20 years ago, letterboxers were doing this with clues and a compass. Computers and internet can easily become a vital part to a good lesson plan regardless of how it was done "before".
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To those putting down MySpace, you need to seperate the technology from the use. Great power, great responsibility...and all that.
For example, http://www.myspace.com/lansingpubliclibrary
The Lansing, MI library is using MySpace to keep young adults, who have signed up as a "friend" of the library, updated in a format/media that they're used to checking already. They're hardly the only library doing this too.
But besides the nanny state mentality of the "Suburban Caucus" (50 Republican House members who are hoping to pander to suburbia concerns without regard to who/what they steamroll over), this bill overreachs and invades into GC.com, on top of a lot of other good sites on the internet which are not the havens/dens of child predators...in the way that the bill sponsors treat MySpace and online chat rooms.
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http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.5319
House passed this bill 410-15-7. On to the Senate.
It's intent is to keep unsupervised children from using library or school computers to access "Social Networking Websites". This will somehow "delete" online predators...because the bill sponsors act as if the fishing pond will dry up for these criminals on those types of sites. Unfortunately, the bill does nothing about unsupervised kids using every other computer in the world. But, hey, they pulled 400+ votes in the House because who's NOT going to go on the record as wanted to delete online predators?
The problem: their definition as to what is a "Social Networking Website" is so overly broad that it includes half of the internet these days. Basically all you need is a profile and a way to post a journal or communicate with other users.
Hmm, sound like a certain caching-related website that any you might have heard about?
It gets worse (and off-topic) as some schools/teachers/libraries are using blog/MySpace/wiki technologies to communicate with young adults...but it also hits home a bit as your 15 year old isn't going to be allowed to log caches from the library without you sitting them on your lap if this passes.
http://www.congress.org - If you want to write your Representative to tell them what a luddite tool you think they are. If you want to write your Senator to tell them how far to throw this bill out the door. If your Representative was one of the 15, send them a thank you. If your Senator is on the committee handling the bill right now, send them a pretty please.
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I've seen worse.
As long as you don't put out a cache designed around a theme for your company and then stoke it full of certificates...you'll be fine.
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It's a little over a year since the South Carolina Senate received House bill 3777 regarding the definition of geocaching and its prohibition in cemetaries, archaeological sites, and historic whozits in SC. The Senate turned it over to the Judiciary Committee and evidently its activity there does not get logged on the SC State legislation website.
Without waking a sleeping dog, has anyone heard what the current expectations for this bill are? Did the JC nail it to the table never to be seen again?
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Congrats...the only recognition I've ever gotten for my volunteer work is a pat on the back by Mother Nature.
Well, there was that nice old lady in the hospital where I volunteered. She gave me a Susan B. dollar. I've never spent it.
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If you have a wireless-capable laptop computer, you can "wardrive" looking for open antennaes that you can use to access the internet. There are also websites that show coverage in some areas for free wireless access like that.
If you don't, then it sounds like you've come up with all of the possible places that I can think of. Personally, I have a web-enabled Treo 650, like pigpen4x4 above...so I can log my caches via my phone/PDA pretty easily in the field if need be.
Otherwise, I keep good notes in my caching notebook for which caches I accomplished and any story/comments I wanted to log and then complete them all when I get back home after my trip.
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My car was broken into while I was at work one day. Sure, it was near Johns Hopkins (East Baltimore, not the greatest area of town) but it was a full-time monitored lot (attendent in booth with cameras and everything).
Back window on a 2-door...unlocked the door...rifled through everything...popped the trunk....broke out the 6-disc changer hard-mounted into the trunk bed....and left.
Funniest part was that I had purchased the used car only about a week before and the changer was broken when I got it so the broken remote and disc cartridge were in my house at the time. All of the other pockets in the car were completely empty except for the manual and I hadn't even had time to put in the after-market radio yet. Other than the headache of getting the window fixed, I was fortunate enough to get a nice chunk of insurance money for the changer (because it was hard-mounted, it counted as part of the car and covered under my policy)...and the crook got away with probably $20 in plastic that won't work without the stuff that wasn't in the car.
I've always made it a habit to remove anything valuable from my car no matter where I leave it for more than 5 minutes. All of my CDs are duplicates or mixes. The most change they would probably find is less than a dollar on the console. If they were a sports fan, they might have some fun with the ratty old glove and dog-chewed baseballs in the trunk.
Car burglars are pretty crude fellows. Just yesterday I saw a nice Rav4 with a busted out back window that hadn't been found by the owner yet. The stereo faceplate was tossed on the driver seat and the rest of the unit was still in the dash (evidently the thief was in a hurry and didn't come prepared with the right tools). Everything else looked in place...pretty sad since now that person has to get their window replaced for no good reason and hopefully their stereo faceplate isn't mangled in any way.
Best advice I can give is to act as if whatever you've left behind could be taken and how rough it might be for you if it were gone. Since I don't have the cash to replace my GPSr, I won't be leaving it in my vehicle any time soon. Sorry for your troubles.
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Glad to see that caches are being cleared off the AT. I'm an avid cacher but in the future I plan to thru hike the trail. Would not like to run into a bunch of folks caching. I'd like to enjoy the solitude of nature. But that's just my opinion.
Just to give you a heads-up...don't be surprised when you get to the top of Greylock in MA and hit the parking lots, pavement, and cars.
I'm pretty sure it's not the only topper like that...the AT trail isn't as isolated as I think you're going to desire...try a long walk off a short pier instead.
Problem cachers?
in General geocaching topics
Posted
If you have a problem with these cachers, you could ask them to come on the forums and post something politically incorrect in the geocoin forums. I hear that's a fast-track to bannination these days. Problem solved.