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MCL

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Everything posted by MCL

  1. Thank goodness for that. My belief is that events are a much better way to talk and thrash out ideas and differences than the relatively faceless method used on here. I hope all those who were originally coming will still make the effort. As those of us who have been at previous ones already know, there is no bickering, no trolling, and plenty of good chat. If ever there was an opportunity to get our collective heads together and agree on ways forward, the upcoming meets are it. Let us not waste the opportunities they provide. No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....
  2. Yes No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....
  3. Yes. Another beg. Please come back. No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....
  4. Definitely my thanks go to all of them. many times over. No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....
  5. I certainly don't scoff at that remark, Kouros. I am with you all the way. No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....
  6. What a lovely weekend I had down in Torquay. Meanwhile, things on here move so fast that I have no chance to express my views, or even vote on a poll before it is closed. Tim and June have always had my full support in the work they have done for the caching community. They know this, as I have said so in email and when I have met them. It seems to me there are two issues and I can't see why they have become entangled. One is the issue of T&J as part of the new GAGB. one can agree or disagree with its existence, and I might understand why they would see some of the things written on here and think it was time to give up. (I happen to disagree with the notion they should give it up, but I could imagine why they might come to that decision) The second is the issue if T&J as moderators on here. For the life of me I can't find any good reason why they should resign from that position, since there seems to be generally no problem with their handling of the forum and the other bits of GC.COM admin they do. Yeah OK occasionally someone takes a pot shot at the admin, but it is not persoanl and is not even usually anything serious either. IMO the two issues should net be related. If T&J want to resign from GAGB, then that is one thing, but I don't see why they have to stop moderating the forum on here or approving caches. Please think again! Or at least give us the reason for dumping the moderators hat. I'm just puzzled now. No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....
  7. Now that was just FUNNY! No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....
  8. quote:Originally posted by Lost in Space:The de-crypted hint read: "Near some yellow flowers"................................ Rape! Rape! I say its Rape! No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....
  9. quote: The area I was thinking of is within a few minutes walk of the loos (there are plenty of trees around too!) Your suggestion that we dump our personal waste at the base of a tree is bound to upset the Mod Ants again... No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....
  10. As someone who lives practically on top of Bletchley Park, and who has been there at least five times, (although not to do the cache, that pleasure still awaits me) I can honestly say that if they charged three times the price to get in it would still be worth it and I would pay it. No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....
  11. Yup. Caught red-handed. I *only* do the forums while at work. The rest of my life is far too busy to afford the time to do this sort of thing. It is now nearly half past midnight and I have about 6 more hours to kill. There are advantages to being the IT manager. You get to specify all sorts of nice toys for yourself. ADSL, CD writers, nice printers,.. Now, where is that coffee pot... No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....
  12. Hmm. You are quite new at this, aren't you? No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....
  13. I had the consummate pleasure of meeting Dan Wilson on my second caching ttrip ever, which was also my first with my own GPSr. We were hunting the (then) new cache "crossroads at the reservoir". There are in fact four paths you can use to access it (the crossroads....) and Me and my mate came along one and he and his crew came along a different one. We only met at the last minute, so then it was a race to see who found the thing first, since inside was a special rare coin for whoever was First Finder. <diffident superiority ON> ..of course, the record shows which of us found it first and claimed the prize.. <diffident superiority OFF> Anyway, he was the first "other" cacher I had met (apart from Huga and Nickers who got me into this crazy game... ) Thoroughly nice chap, too, I thought. No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....
  14. Like Jamie, I would avoid ones that only have internal memory. The advantage of a card (of whatever capacity) is that you can have another one handy in the field if you fill the first one up. You don't want to be in the position of having to choose which previous picture to delete so you can make room for that one more shot you just *have* have. I think 99% of all current digicams have USB connection anyway, so you are going to end up with USB almost whether you like it or not. And you *will* like it.... No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....
  15. quote:Originally posted by golddust1000:Well this is good stuff. I am surprised that the Ramblers Association are not complaing though. They manage to find fault with virtually everyone elses passtimes that encroach on 'thier' footpaths, byways and dare I say country. In that case, lets introduce them to the Mod Ants.... 'Light blue touchpaper and retire to a safe distance' - But this touchpaper is *dark* blue...
  16. Put me on that list of helpers. No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....
  17. quote:Originally posted by John & Gill:you could always cut the ball off the end <g> Ouch. No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....
  18. OK OK. Let me try and get this straight... Either the database of trigpoints is currently freely available on the web or it isn't. - If it isn't, then those people that say "its all been done before" may be accurate, but overlook the point that if these other people are going to not release their data then they might as well be discounted from this argument. We might as well assume their data does not exist, because for our purposes, it doesn't. - If it *is* (available freely on the net), then I'm afraid the argument that T&J have put forward about having to archive caches when the information becomes available is valid, and they should archive those relevant caches right now. Me putting the data on the web *again* will not make any difference. Naffita, if you have a bunch of sites that have these trigpoint pillar details freely and publicly available then please share it with us because I'm darned if I can find any. Are they complete? Are they accurate? When I "do" a trigpoint, I am not necessarily interested in collecting the number off the bracket, it just forms a part of the dataset for that pillar, without which any database would be incomplete. But my main argument lies with how we view the whole paradigm of the internet. A while back, we had people from another website come to us and say, in so many words, "Look, what your site (GC.COM) is doing is impinging on the work we do on our site. On our site we have rules about things, and with your site doing what it does means that we can't keep to our rules unless we get rid of you lot" To which we replied (Quite rightly) in unison "Push off!" - Those people were the Mod Ants. - Their rule that we were breaking was "no litter of any kind anywhere near our monuments. Even half a mile is too close. And that includes plastic lunchboxes full of trinkets" - We said that whatever their rule was, it was a free country and we had every right to break their rule if we wanted to. - We then told them that they had no right to impose their rules on our site. If our activity broke their rules, then that ws their problem. - We carry on hiding caches in the countryside. They carry on doing whatever they do. We ignore each other and live in peace and happiness for evermore. (Well OK maybe that's stretching it a *little* bit...) Now, can anyone see a parallel here? In the end, I'm happy to go along with the idea of the information being available only to registered useres, and then if they tick the right box to ask for it. This is the same way that the Ordnance Survey do it for the GPS stations on their website. So can we do this then, Ian? No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....
  19. Tim and June said: quote:Also, please note that we are not able to approve virtual caches where the answer is available on the internet. Do you do a full web search using all available search engines on every piece of clue in every virtual cache? Wow! And how do you know that someone in Swaziland doesn't put up their holiday snaps with the solution to a virtual cache the day after you approve it? You would seem here to have an impossible task. I would have thought it was up to the cache setter to deal with things like that. Anyone who places/sets a cache (especially a virtual) has got to appreciate that what withj the web being the size it is and the nature it is, there is always the risk that the answer to their puzzle is out there somewhere, or may be put there after they set the cache. Isn't that just an unavoidable part of the sport? The converse of what you are saying is that noone should put something on the internet without first checking with Geocaching.Com to make sure it doesn't affect a cache clue. No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....
  20. Subarite said: quote:I am against the publishing of the FB numbers as they have no use to just about anyone other than geocachers I know you put a at the end of it, so I will take it as an only half-serious statement, but even given that assumption, I say to you.."How do *you* know?" Are you qualified to make that supposition? I certainly am not and I don't know anyone else who is. The thing is we have no idea who on this planet might have a good use for the numbers now or at any time in the future. Its a big world, and a long timeline...
  21. Okay, I thought I would break up the post above to deal with specific points.. Teasel said: quote: To throw a couple of ideas into the pot... we could make FB numbers accessible only to registered users, or only to people who explicitly email me to ask for access. We could provide a button for people to say "this trigpoint is part of cache GCxxxx", which would cause that FB number and any close-up photos to be hidden from casual visitors to the T:UK site. What's the best way forward? Option 1 - Yeah I could go along with that. The data is still publicly available in the same way as the GPS stations on the OS website. You have to be a registered user for that. As long as registered users are not charged for being registered, I'm happy with that in respect of the data I have collected. Option 2 - Yeah I could go along with that one too, as long as you never refuse anyone who emails you with a request. One refusal at any time would turn you into a form of censor, and I need hardly remind people on here how I feel about censorship! Option 3 - This is a pain in the butt for you, Ian, because you would have to keep scanning all new caches (anywhere in the world, don't forget, not just UK ones!!) to see that they don't reference one of the trigpoints in the database. Just how many hours a day do you have? They only give us 24 here in Milton Keynes.... Overall my preference would be for option 1. That way it mirrors the system the OS already have. No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....
  22. The only reason that you haven't seen any reasons *for* making the data public is becuase some of us only get to do these forums once a day. So here goes. My reason for doing trigpoints is to help to re-catalogue all the pillars in the country. I'm a public-spirited sort of guy who believes that, since the OS make a database of all their current "trigpoints" (the GPS stations) with numbers and pictures and reports of damage and accessibility etc etc, then there should be one for the old trigpoint pillars too. In fact I was surprised at the start to find out that the OS did NOT have such a catalogue. At least not one that they could guarantee to be accurate. And so I set about starting to check the existing database, (the one from Chris and Maria's site), to look for entries that were erroneous/missing etc etc. Since the OS current database is available on the net, and I'm a believer in all information being freely available, it follows logically that I strongly desire the trigpoints database to be publicly accessible via the web too. I'm a cacher. I know that some caches have clues that have answers you can find on the web. I have done it myself...I have phoned up someone with a web connection while standing outside some closed building unable to gain access to the thingummyjig in the entrance hall where some fourdigit year is engraved on the glass eyeball of a 17th century fox-stuffer. I get them to do me a quick Google for the answer and on I go. Its either that or make another 200 mile round trip the next day when the property might be open... Well anyway, the upshot is that there are caches that *can* be done entirely using information from the web if you, as a cacher, want to do it that way. Its up to you. To imply that trigpointing is somehow joined at the hip to caching is not how I see it. I see the two activities as completely separate. One to me is a hobby, the other is me doing a job I think the OS should have done themselves. When I started this project, I happened to be with one of my old school teachers at the time (yes, she taught me when I was 8 years old, some 30 years ago!) and we were searching for the data on the net. When I expressed frustration that it wasn't there, she said, quite bluntly, "well stop moaning and go and get it yourself and put it on the net!" (How many times did she say THAT sort of thing to me at school!) So I am. That requires two stages to the process. (i) The going and getting, and (ii) the putting on the web. I want to do both. If people want to use that information to "cheat" with at geocaching, then shouldn't that be *their* choice? Give people the choice, and let them be grown up all by themselves. I respect T&J's point of view as expressed on this thread, and I can see a bit of where they are coming from, but this time, for once, I disgree with the opinion they hold. I don't think there should be any real link between caching and trigpoint cataloguing. This is why I have so far declined to talk about trigpoints in any great depth on here. These are Jeremy's Geocaching forums, and not anything to do with OS triangulation databases.
  23. Dan and Pid, I don't think you are stupid. I think you are nuts. Big difference! Stupidity infers intellect. Nuts implies bravado. No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.... [This message was edited by MCL on April 24, 2003 at 06:24 PM.]
  24. quote:Originally posted by Slytherin:Strangely enough Dan, we found Welwyn Woodlands within about two or three minutes, but probably we were just lucky. No, strangley enough I would imagine you did it during daylight hours... No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....
  25. Just as long as you don't organise a cache bash down there and expect us all to turn up! No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....
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