unabowler

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Not that I think this is a good idea but the OP is proposing a new cache type. The fact that this type of cache doesn't comply with the existing guidelines really isn't an issue because essentially the OP is proposing that the guidelines be changes to allow for a new cache type. That new cache type is not in the cards, as has been explained by others. I was suggesting an alternate way of accomplishing something close to the OP's intentions.

You can't do this with a cache but I believe a trackable can do exactly what the OP is describing, except for maybe sticking it on public transportation.

In the winter of 2012-2013 I was geocaching quite a bit, and I was looking forward to bicycle caching when the weather got warm. I figured that would be a good way to get a lot of urban caches that I wasn't seeking that winter. In the spring I got my bike ready and headed out a couple times, but I figured out I enjoyed it more if I just rode and didn't look for caches.

And of course, there's also the brute force approach that I've used. I started by eyeballing a map to guess a general area where I thought the cache would be. Then I opened an online distance calculator in three separate browser tabs, and then entered the three reference points, one in each tab. Then I entered the coordinates of my guess in each of the three tabs and submitted the forms. Naturally, the distances were off, so I adjusted my guess, entered it into all three tabs again, and repeated. Eventually the error was within the EPE of a typical consumer GPSr, so I went and found the cache. My method works just like that except I use MS Excel. For each of the three points, I have a cell containing the distance from my target point, and then another cell for the sum of the three distances. I use the solver to set the sum cell equal to zero by changing the target point, and the resulting target point is the cache location.

One of my hides is a triangulation cache. I should say it's actually a trilateration cache because the cache is a given distance from each of three other caches. I'm a math person so I'd say it can be easily found using the formulas, but most finders have just used their GPS receivers to home in on it using the other nearby caches.

Talk a friend into coming geocaching with you or go to an event and meet people who are into it.

*This* is exactly how I feel... ETA: Oh, and my longest streak is 12 days....lol. My longest streak is 4 days but otherwise I have the same mindset. I really enjoy geocaching but refuse to make it a chore.

Part of my doctoral dissertation in statistics dealt with methods of computing a sample mean on a manifold (ie on a surface such as a sphere or a higher dimensional analog) and this is one of the methods. We'd call it an extrinsic mean since you leave the surface and then project back to it. An "intrinsic" method of finding the mean would be to find the point y which minimizes sum(d(x_i,y)^2) over points x_i where you've found caches, and where d(x_i,y) is the geodesic distance between x_i and y, ie the great circle distance between x_i and y. If a person has found two caches, at points on the opposite side of the earth from each other, both methods fail (assuming the earth is a sphere which it is not). Yes, actually I have played around with this intrinsic mean as well. Its main disadvantage is that it is "hard" to calculate (it requires a calculation of N distances per iteration, where N is the number of caches). But it has the advantage of always giving an answer on the surface of the Earth. One comment on your proposed mean: since distance on the surface is a metric, I am not convinced that minimizing the distance squared is correct. That gives you more of an RMS average than a mean, IMO. Just minimizing the sum of the distances is probably better. There is a reason for using the squared distance. For s standard pdf function f(x) the point a which minimizes integral[(a-x)^2 f(x)] dx is the mean mu that you get from integral(x f(x)) dx. All integrals here are -inf to +inf. The discrete analog for a sample mean is the summation, and the (a-x)^2 discretizes to the squared distances. We had a fast iterative method to give a computational approximation to this mean and the method worked for the infinite dimensional manifolds we dealt with. Yeah, you are right. I am naturally skeptical of squared summations because they frequently involve an implicit assumption that f(x) is normal. I think it does here, also, but I can't prove it. Nonetheless, it is certainly better than minimizing the sum of the distances. I typically use a more-or-less brute-force method to minimize functions using a simplex algorithm. It is stable and works for a variety of geometric problems, though it is not as fast as other solutions tuned to their problem space. If I get time I will compare the centroids obtained in 3-space vs. those from the ellipsoid. If you take integral[(a-x)^2 f(x)]dx and differentiate with respect to a, to minimize you get 2*integral[(a-x)f(x)]dx = 0 and solving for a gives a = integral(x f(x)) dx. This is true for any pdf f(x), so no assumption of normality is necessary. It seems like a simplex algorithm would work but the method we had was a gradient method. Is the comparison you're talking about a comparison between the implicit and explicit methods? We never did that comparison because we were concerned with other stuff.

Part of my doctoral dissertation in statistics dealt with methods of computing a sample mean on a manifold (ie on a surface such as a sphere or a higher dimensional analog) and this is one of the methods. We'd call it an extrinsic mean since you leave the surface and then project back to it. An "intrinsic" method of finding the mean would be to find the point y which minimizes sum(d(x_i,y)^2) over points x_i where you've found caches, and where d(x_i,y) is the geodesic distance between x_i and y, ie the great circle distance between x_i and y. If a person has found two caches, at points on the opposite side of the earth from each other, both methods fail (assuming the earth is a sphere which it is not). Yes, actually I have played around with this intrinsic mean as well. Its main disadvantage is that it is "hard" to calculate (it requires a calculation of N distances per iteration, where N is the number of caches). But it has the advantage of always giving an answer on the surface of the Earth. One comment on your proposed mean: since distance on the surface is a metric, I am not convinced that minimizing the distance squared is correct. That gives you more of an RMS average than a mean, IMO. Just minimizing the sum of the distances is probably better. There is a reason for using the squared distance. For s standard pdf function f(x) the point a which minimizes integral[(a-x)^2 f(x)] dx is the mean mu that you get from integral(x f(x)) dx. All integrals here are -inf to +inf. The discrete anolog for a sample mean is the summation, and the (a-x)^2 discretizes to the squared distances. We had a fast iterative method to give a computational approximation to this mean and the method worked for the infinite dimensional manifolds we dealt with.

Part of my doctoral dissertation in statistics dealt with methods of computing a sample mean on a manifold (ie on a surface such as a sphere or a higher dimensional analog) and this is one of the methods. We'd call it an extrinsic mean since you leave the surface and then project back to it. An "intrisic" method of finding the mean would be to find the point y which minimizes sum(d(x_i,y)^2) over points x_i where you've found caches, and where d(x_i,y) is the geodesic distance between x_i and y, ie the great circle distance between x_i and y. If a person has found two caches, at points on the opposite side of the earth from each other, both methods fail (assuming the earth is a sphere which it is not).

There wouldnt be logs in the decoys if I were to do it - just a laminate paper making it obvious it was not the cache. Its already sounding too much like hard work What I meant was I only ever found the real cache on 1 of the 3 caches. There weren't logs in the decoys, only notes (one of them was laminated I think) saying something to the effect that this decoy wasn't the cache. This was one, months later it still has no finds. http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC411H9_ocra-i-saw-sasquotter

I've seen at least three caches like this. The dummy cache had a note in it saying to keep looking. It was cool enough but I've only ever signed 1 of the 3 logs.

I've gotten back into caching this month after a break of about 4 months. But thinking back I've always had hobbies that I've in an out of over the course of time, it brings variety to life. The thing that's nice about geocaching is that whenever you decide you want to do it again, you can pick it right back up (as opposed to something like, say golf, where you have to get your swing back).

I live in Louisville and I think the whizbang container is more popular here than it is in other places.

Awwww. I haven't been geocaching for a month or so, so I haven't been on the forums and I miss a Roman thread. I'll take time to read it all later, but did he say how the mandatory throwdown is going to be enforced? Is that another thing he's got the reviewers signed up for?

A pocket query is the way to load more than one at time. go to the Your Profile menu to select it. You select options and it generates a gpx file with info for all the caches it produces, and then it can send it to your email. Can't help you with the iphone-related questions because I haven't used it but you'll get better visibility if you start another thread.

I hope you enjoy it, Louisville is a really a good town for geocaching. The larger city parks in Louisville have lots of caches, as do Jefferson Forest, Knob State Park, and Bernheim. There are plenty of urban caches, too. There are a number of hiders who have been in the game for a long time and they have some really ingenious and creative caches. There are a few other hiders who have caches dedicated to local history. Lots of good caches and cachers.

I don't think the link came out but you can look it up using the code: GC47P9M

There's a pretty active group of cachers here in Louisville, and I'm relatively new but I've found everyone to be open and friendly. A good dinner event next week: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?wp=GC47P9M. I don't always make it out to stuff like that but they are well attended and everyone seems to have a good time.

I have a Garmin 550 and I like it a lot, it's similar to the 450 except that the 550 has a camera. In your list of things you'd like, the maps is the one thing that the 450 might lack. You can hit "Go" and it will guide you to the geocache without much faff, and it has a good compass. My 550 came with rechargeable batteries and a charger, I think the 450 also comes with that. The batteries have always been good for a nice long outing on one day. Just about any GPS unit you buy will be able to hold plenty of geocaches. I found the best alternative for maps to be the Garmin 24K topo maps and street maps, which I paid extra for. The maps that the 550 came with to be pretty basic and didn't show much. For a while I used free maps from gpsfiledepot, and they were OK, but not too detailed. The 24K topo maps are really helpful in the rolling forested hills that I go to. If you're not in a hilly area then the free maps might be sufficient. (Yes, the free maps would work for any brand of GPSr.) The street maps don't quite make it into a car GPS but has been helpful. I think the street maps would need updating occasionally but not the topo maps as topography changes much more slowly. The two models you mentioned would be able to take advantage of all these features. The Etrex uses buttons and the Oregon has a touch screen. If they're in your price range they are good options to consider. There are other good units out there but I'm not familiar with all of them.

If geocaching were to become a competitive sport I would guess that it would be comparable to golf in a way. There are governing bodies and sanctioned competitions and anyone at the local level can get an official handicap for a nominal fee. But much if not most of the play is not officially sanctioned in any respect. Also, like golf, people keep their own scores so it would be prone to those who fudge. The governing body of geocaching can't police every find any more than the US Golf Association can police mulligans.

My guess is that someone cared enough about it to start that other site but that there isn't enough interest in it for Groundspeak to make the rankings official. I'm not saying any of your ideas are bad (to each his own) but they are niche things. You enjoy the competitive aspects of geocaching, as do many people but not everyone. I would guess that incorporating your ideas into a side website like that cachestats and geochecker and the like would be the fastest and may the only way to implement your ideas.

You can find your worldwide ranking right here: http://www.cacherstats.com

My perspective on this one is that some people choose to hide puzzles and multicaches without the final coords listed on the website. It isn't unreasonable for Groundspeak to honor their wishes in listing those caches. I'm not in favor of forcing people into choices regarding their own caches whether it be the final coords or a FTF as we discussed in another thread. If puzzles and multis aren't something you enjoy, pass them by, no reason you have to find every cache.