Teasel

A sad day for geocaching Well said Alan! I hope those responsible will reflect, not on whether their arguments were valid, but rather on how maturely they expressed themselves.

Nothing to do with COTM! The "xbox xplorers" really have placed no caches on geocaching.com Now, possibly some or all of the people in "xbox xplorers" may also happen to be members of another team or teams. I don't know. And possibly one or more of those teams may have placed some caches. But that's a different matter entirely...

Yep +-------------------------+-------------+ | name | found_total | +-------------------------+-------------+ | The Haywood Hornet | 1705 | | rodz | 842 | | Herts_Skip | 559 | | SK MK TK PK | 501 | | xbox xplorers | 488 | | darrach | 484 | | The Fewston Finders | 442 | | scottandsam | 418 | | macroderma | 414 | +-------------------------+-------------+ (usual restrictions: UK / RoI only, and only "proper" caches - no premium or locationless)

Yes, of course. Credit for the original idea is really due to Moote. I just "embraced and extended", as our friends in Richmond would say If you want a flat colour, you can put eg &flat=ff33cc in the url (replace ff33cc with the hex code for the colour you want). Eg http://stats.guk2.com/pics/make_countymap....831&flat=ffff00 would give you something like Moote's original marnanel map... The colours on the standard map are currently obtained by sorting the counties in order, then allocating a colour from black to yellow based on position in the list. Unfortunately there's a bug in the program, so that if two or more counties have the same count, they don't actually get the same colour as each other (I need to use their rank eg "equal second", not just their ordering eg "third in the list"). I'll correct this if and when I get a chance.

You need to find your cacher id. This is the number that GC.com knows you by, and is present in pocket queries and some URLs. Perhaps the easiest way to find it is to log on to G:UK and visit http://stats.geocacheuk.com/cachers/view_cacherstats.php. Scroll to the bottom of the page to find our your id. Yours is 392408, team tisri's is 166436. Once you know that, you can substitute it into the above links eg: http://stats.guk2.com/pics/make_countymap....=count&c=392408 http://stats.guk2.com/pics/make_countymap....=score&c=392408 http://stats.geocacheuk.com/cachers/view_c...ap.php?c=392408 http://stats.geocacheuk.com/caches/flash_map.php?c=392408 http://stats.geocacheuk.com/caches/gis_map.php?c=392408 Hope that helps!

How about this one then... Counties you've cached in are coloured black to yellow, based on cache count. here's the link... Or here's the same map, but coloured according to the average score you awarded to caches in that county (ie you found lots of duff caches in Hampshire, but a few great ones in Derbyshire ) It's a bit of a work in progress, that I never really progressed! Other maps available are: Average score by county Cache count by county Cache density by county land area Cache density by county population

I'd comment, but someone would only accuse me of xenophobia! Strange that nobody made a bid though...

And even if Groundspeak never get around to it, how difficult would it be for one of us to write a little script which went through all someone's logs, deleted them all, and re-logged them under the new username? Of course, Jeremy would still have to be petitioned to either formally allow, or turn a blind eye to, the breaking of the TOUs in this way.

Once I get access to the server again, I can let you know who entered the 100,000th rating (and fix the thermometer!). Until then, a big "Thank You" to everyone who's contributed!

Yes indeed (though offers of pocket queries are gratefully received!) Not quite sure why the site is currently down. I received an email from DMC this morning saying that they'd suspended my account overnight because of regular slowdowns every day at 5am. The slowdowns didn't occur this morning, which pointed the finger at G:UK! They traced the problem to my daily backups, so they un-suspended my account but commented out the cron jobs. But that doesn't explain why the site is currently down...

Probably because Groundspeak want a quiet(er) life! Otherwise we'd have the Pro-Life "stop the murder" charity cache going head to head with the Abortion Information Service "freedom to choose" charity cache. The local public school would put out the "point-one-mile-grid mega-series" charity caches to raise funds for a new science block and, where once our caches were buried under adverts for GPSS, tomorrows caches wouldn't be complete without a wodge of heartstring-tugging begging letters. Please, let's keep agendas out of geocaching! <hypocrite>But continue to allow CIN event caches, of course!</hypocrite>

So why "taint" something you enjoy by making money out of it at all? There are plenty of charities who could use that $300! It does seem a shame when people who spend countless hours slaving away over a project, for the good of the wider community, then go and spoil it by claiming "just a little profit, less than I could make elsewhere, just to compensate me for lost time"

I looked at it when it was first released, as I was a bit concerned about the possible impact of the "UK Trigpoints" category upon T:UK. Needless to say, my worries didn't last long!

Ummm, I really don't think people are jealous that it's someone else making the money, not them! Many people are unhappy about the gradual commercialisation of geocaching, and this coin certainly seems to be a good example of that. The last thing I'd like to see is any more people "getting off their backsides" and making money out of geocaching. It was bad enough when it was just Groundspeak Inc. (and at least they have the excuse of having expensive servers to run) without a rash of geocaching cottage industries popping up all over the place.

Your guess is as good as mine! Most probably, lots of new waypoints will get included in the system. They'll be easy enough to remove (unless TPTB allow extra waypoints beginning GC!). But the facility to have extra waypoints in GC.com is a good idea which has been a long time coming, so it's worth a bit of short term pain for the likes of Clyde and myself!

Not guilty!

Count me in!

At what point did Smart cards start getting embedded RFID technology? Or are we back on that planet with Choccy? At the point (in the future) when item-level RFID tagging is introduced! There's currently no point in embedding them in store cards; but they're certainly in the current testbed implementations. My guess is that the initial shop floor rollouts will require supermarket customers to physically insert a chip/pin style store card, and make them separate out awkward lines (wines from small producers who barely even know what a barcode is let alone a chip; loose veg; service counters etc). But once RFID penetration is 100%, checkout-free shops are a real possibility. Yeah, sure, it's all blue skies stuff right now, but I've seen some impressive demos. All that's needed is for the chips to become cheaper and the scanners more accurate. Give it a decade or two and we'll all be living on planet Choccy! We don't carry barcode readers, so why would ordinary citizens want to carry RFID readers? What's the killer app? I doubt it'd be geocaching, but stick a RFID reader in a mobile phone and couple it with the ability to look up product information on anything you find in any shop and I think it could catch on...

Yes they will because, while it's possible for the till to ask the chips to switch themselves off: i) supermarkets plan not to do this unless the customer specifically demands it and ii) it's a software switch so the chips can be asked to switch themselves back on anyway! The range you quote is correct. So, yes, the police will not be able to track you anywhere you go, but each time you go through a shop door, that will be registered, along with a list of anything you're carrying. Personally, I'm less worried about a police state tham I am appalled about the "personal marketing" implications that are being considered. Eg the scanner in Debenhams sees that you've got a pack of Tesco baby wipes in your bag and automatically changes the advert on the nearby display panel to highlight a special offer in childrenswear. Oh yes they are! And the trial system that was demoed at last year's Waitrose AGM was pretty impressive. Tesco and Walmart have been setting RFID targets to their suppliers for years, but the high expense, coupled with fluctuating standards as manufacturers try to iron out performance problems (try scanning a chip through 2 feet of water!), has meant that rollout is running well behind schedule and it's only currently being implemented on big ticket items and in warehouses.

<removed>

So "Operation Smother" recovered fifteen cars, fifteen motorbikes and six SatNav systems. And it's the SatNavs that get the headline? Guess we're not quite "mainstream" yet!

Wow, check out the PPL Treasure Finder version... $1200 for a single dowsing rod -- no, I'm sorry, "Electro-Chemical Passive Receiver"! The $20,000 Treasure Navigator even comes with GPS! Sure beats a bent coat hanger! Those with the "Gift" might also be interested in the Geo-Puck. While primarily designed to absorb resonant frequencies, a competent dowser could perhaps tap into the re-radiated positive energies, at a fraction of the price?

And while they all go round in circles looking for a perfect solution, when it's quite clear from even the most casual glance that there isn't one, our simple "stars out of five" votes keep rolling in. Nearly one in four of all UK cache finds have been rated so far.

Of course, if you're at the North pole, there isn't any North - every direction is South! Well, to be really picky, at the North pole no direction is South. Whichever direction you move in, your distance to the South pole will stay the same. So, if you're getting no closer to the South pole, whatever direction it is you're going, it certainly ain't South! Only once you've moved a little way will there be a direction which takes you closer to the South pole. I'll get me coat!

Wrong! Grid North is equal to Grid North everywhere, except at the poles, where it's undefined! Sorry, couldn't resist! ps even with a 7° variation, I stand by my belief that if you're walking 6miles on a single bearing then you should expect trouble, regardless of whether you tweaked your dial before setting off. You'd be much better off stopping every mile or so to look at the map, work out where you are, and take a new bearing.