MCL

quote:Originally posted by Squid Tempest:splendid idea! invisible ink = virtual cache?? No, a Virtual cache would be to fill in the crossword on another bit of paper such that you never touched the original paper at all. Invisible ink = a well-hidden, out-of-sight, and totally unobtrusive and virtually undiscoverable (except to those who are looking for it) physical container. Look, can we all get a life now? No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....

quote:Originally posted by Chris n Maria:What if the crossword had been filled in with invisible ink??? Oh Chris n Maria I worship at your feet! That is the best comeback I have seen in a *very* long time. I couldn't have put it better myself! Pant wettingly good in fact. Having said that, to answer Squiddo, yes in fact the physical boxes are an intrinsic part of one bit of the sport, in that we need them as repositories for the many travelbugs we move around. Travelbugs are an enjoyable part of what we do, and so we need some physical boxes to place them in. So we have a mixture of different kinds of cache...virtual, physical, locationless, etc.

quote:Originally posted by Richard & Beth:I do think it is time to move on. Richard Yes I agree. No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....

quote:Originally posted by Squid Tempest:I think you are missing the point. What disturbs me about Geocaching is the inability to understand that you can have just as much fun WITHOUT leaving physical evidence that you have visited a place. I get great enjoyment simply taking the family out for a walk in the countryside and getting to see ancient sites along the way. You could even just use virtual caches and completely forget the physical caches - surely the experience of the place is what is important - not the plastic lunchbox? Hope you don't mind me intruding... Squiddo You are not intruding, sir, and your thoughts are welcome in here. I'm glad you get all the enjoyment you need from simply visiting the places you do. I, however, don't. It is true I get enjoyment out of visiting the places, but I get even *more* enjoyment out of doing something at the same time. Horses for courses. I suppose an analogy might be to consider a newspaper. Some people do the crossword, and some people don't. Now I know people who simply cannot understand for the life of them what anyone would get out of doing a crossword over a cup of coffee after they have read the rest of the paper like everyone else. But people DO do crosswords, and it increases the enjoyment *they* get out of the overall experience. Those who have no interest in the crossword, don't even bother turning to that page. Fine. Same with caching. I like to add to my enjoyment of these places by being able to locate something at the same time. To do that I might have had to solve some fiendish puzzle to get the right co-ordinates, or I might have just had to look them up on the net. Whatever. Its what floats my boat! 'Just visiting' is what floats yours.. Kewl. I have no problem with that. You carry on 'just visiting' (this is starting to sound like a ruddy monopoly game...) and I'll carry on solving the puzzles as well. You carry on buying the Daily Paper for the news, and I'll buy it and do the crossword as well. Is it really that hard to comprehend? No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....

Thankyou, Good Shepherd, that is much appreciated. No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....

Hmmm. They have a moderator who edits posts without explaining what he is editing out and why.. ..We had that happen on here too, and the moderator concerned is no longer a moderator. I wonder if the TMA chaps might like to read our relevant thread? I am not excusing what Dan did. They can't excuse what their moderator did. Face it, it was bad call by both of them. I am being totally even handed here. When it was our former moderator, I said exactly the same thing then as I say to TMA's one now: If you are gonna edit a post, at least explain why you did it. Otherwise, it can be your downfall.... No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....

Firstly I apologise in advance for the length of this post. It has taken many hours to put together and covers a number of related topics which have other individual threads running at the moment. In consultation with Tim and June I have decided to start a new thread so as not to be offtopic in any of the other ones. This posting was current as of midnight thursday evening, so any posts subsequent to this time yet timestamped before this post are not condiered (if you get my drift). I had to draw the line at some point and last midnight was it. Secondly I would like to thank Tim and June for all their efforts in opening diplomatic channels with the people over on TMA site forums. I only read these forums once every 24 hours and all I can say to paraphrase another is 'a day is a long time in the forums.' I have now read every single wretched posting (**see first paragraph) both on here and on the TMA site about the whole affair of what TMA do as opposed to what we do. I think some of the points they raise over there are misguided, some are intelligent and need airing, (even if they are subsequently successfully laid to rest), and some are downright stupid. Nevertheless, if we expect them to see our point of view, then we also need to see theirs in each case. To take a few one by one... They make the point that what we do is a silly little hobby full of sad geeks who are full of themselves over their little electronic gizmos. This is of course partly true, in that, to a normal sane member of the public, we *are* fairly weird in some respects, but thats not something to be ashamed of. Lots of other sports and hobbies are populated by equally strange people, and someone made the point over there that the members of the TMA site are themselves just as likely to be thought of as cranks by Joe Public as we are. Both camps have a long way to go to achieve a degree of recognition by the man in the street, if indeed such recognition is wanted. We are only weird in the fact that most people have no idea what we do and can't relate to it. Nothing wrong with that, and so to pillory us for our geekiness is a case of one kitchen utensil darkening the lustre of another. I disagree that we are full of ourselves over our little gizmos though. Sometimes I find myself cursing mine! The point is suggested that we are not a sport. Well OK, who cares what label we attach to ourselves. The word sport is used, I understand, to signify that we do what we do for pleasure, that it involves some sort of effort and skill, and that there is a degree of competitiveness to it. The competitiveness comes in all of those of us who feel it is about the numbers. And that includes anyone who congratulates anyone for making 100/200/whatever finds. If there was NO competitive spirit *anywhere at all* in the activity, it would more properly be called a pastime. Both sports and pastimes can be hobbies. If anyone doesn't want to call it a sport, then fine. Its only a convenient guideline designed to give some idea of the nature of the beast. The point is raised that what we do in setting a physical cache is really littering. Well I'm afraid I have to agree that technically they may be right. Tim and June said as much over on the other forum, also making the point that, by the same token, those of our ancestors who placed many of the ancient monuments would have been guilty of the same thing. We, of course, don't consider it littering, but we have to accept that there are going to be others who do, and we are going to have to live with it. We cannot, unfortunately for us, state categorically that they are wrong. Fortunately for us though, they can't state categorically that they are right. The jury will stay out on this one until such time as the whole thing is tested in a court of law, and I don't want to see good money wasted on that! Then we come to damage. I think I can speak for all here by saying that no cache or cacher should ever be doing any sort of damage to not just ancient monuments, but any sort of public or private property! We don't need to and it's just not something we would even dream of doing. I think some of the posters over at TMA want to point out to everybody (not just us) that it is quite possible to do inadvertant damage to a site without realising it, and that in some cases they were genuinely worried and trying to let us know that there might be things we had not taken into consideration. If that was the case then we should be prepared to listen to them. They may have expertise in this area that we don't. Buckets: Yes, well. Someone needs to point out that the rules of GC were written in the USA for US cachers (primarily), and some of the exact language may need to be taken with a pinch of salt. What we call a bucket and what they call a bucket are not necessarily quite the same. It needs to be pointed out to TMA that they should read it all with an american accent. They need to realise that there are some parts of the rules which need 'translating' for UK consumption, in terms of exactly what the words mean. Understanding this when quoting chunks of text from a website far from these shores would help both sides. We take american rules written for an american culture and apply then as best-fit to the situation we have over here. The fit isn't always perfect. Maybe the States really do use buckets as we know them...but then they do have vastly bigger land areas and more space to play with so maybe buckets do actually work over there...I don't know for sure. ----- Lets leave that section and move on to what we might do in future to avoid this sort of affair happening again. I think, if I come across an opportunity such as Dan did when he found he was able to 'spread the word' to a new group of people, what I am going to do is post my thoughts and intentions on here, just to sound people out. From the meet in Winchester it seems we have an impressive array of worldy wisdom available to us on here, and frankly I am inclined to start using it! I mean, its free, its fast, and its probably pretty sound. For the sake of an extra 24 hours, I think I'll post on here before doing anything rash. At least then if it all goes base-over-apex, we can *all* share the blame! Another small thing I have noticed on a couple of occasions, and this time it was Dan, but before it has been others, is the issue of taglines and their unfortunate juxtaposition in some posts. In this case I read a post from Dan in the thread that was dealing with caches being litter, and Dan's post was trying to deal with the sensitivies of the TMA people who obviously at that stage considered our plastic boxes to be quite a serious matter (rightly or wrongly). The post, beutifully crafted by Dan, which might have gone some way to allaying those feelings in the other group, then ended with the tagline 'Its just a hunt for a lunchbox, why be so serious?' Normally this is a dadgum good tagline, and I love it, but just this once, it was the very last thing you wanted to say to these chaps. I suggest we all bear in mind our usually excellent taglines can sometimes be automatically added without us realising what the overall tone of the post will then look like. As I said, this is the latest, but I have seen it happen before... Dan I am not blaming you for one minute, but just thinking about what we might do in future. It could so easily have been me. Next: We have to address the fears that these people have about our activity. Fear instils an irrational desire to fight, and we have seen enough of that already. People who are afraid for their whatever-it-is-they-hold-dear are willing to do extraordinary things to protect them. It wouldn't surprise me if we do lose a few caches over this episode, although I think there is a good chance we might not lose any now things are calming down. We have to show TMA that they have far bigger fish to fry than us, including vandals, litterbugs, and overzealous film crews (as already mentioned). Tim and June are already doing sterling work in this department. Lets hope it works. A bit of subtle redirection can do wonders for diplomacy. Lets take the TMA focus off us, and put it where it belongs, on the real villains, people who go around disfiguring, defacing and otherwise spoiling our special places. They are EVERYONE'S special places. Not theirs, not ours, but everyone's. This leads on to the whole subject of publicity. We have to face facts. If we go on down this road of publicity and promotion, we are going to meet both the 'Inside out' type of response (generally encouraging) and the TMA type (not nice). I think, personally we were dead lucky with the BBC one. I don't think we will be so lucky every time. We now have this one which is pretty bad, and also the BBC radio Scotland one which is not bad, but not good either, and I will come on to that in a moment. Thats 1 out of 3, which could be a warning of things to come. If you want to go down the publicity road, then be aware of the consequences, and I have said as much a while back in another thread. Its gonna be hard, and the result had better be worth it. Now the Radio Scotland thing. Oh thankyou thankyou Tim and June for rescuing us from another media noose. I often listen to Gary Robertson on BBC Radio 5 overnight and he's certainly capable of much better than that appalling performance on Radio Scotland. If in my radio days I had conducted an interview/feature in that manner I would have been taken off air for a week as punishment. And as for that woman interviewer...I have never heard a more clueless, giggly, and unprofessional piece of radio journalism in my life! Well maybe I have, but it was a long time ago and I was only 15 at the time.... Seriously, I listened with dismay to the hatchet job that was done on us by a team who were only interested in one thing: having a private laugh at their guest's expense. If we are going to appear on these things we need to make sure that the inteviewer is briefed beforehand as to what we are going to say and why we are going to say it. Gary should have asked that anyway, and maybe he did, (Tim?), but it certainly didn't seem like it. When I do interviews, I tell the guest what questions I am going to ask, and get them to tell me what they are going to say. Then we do it all again on-air and I can guide the situation properly. But it works both ways. The guest has a responsibility to ensure the interviewer knows where they are coming from and has no excuse for misrepresenting the guest on-air. Politicians are groomed for this sort of thing, and we need to be too! *If* we are gonna do this sort of publicity thing in future, we have *got* to do it right, leaving no bumbling presenter with any wiggle-room whatsoever. Personally I don't think we should be doing this sort of publicity, but hey, I can't stop the rest of you doing it if thats what you all want. I urge extreme caution, and a low profile. Wronskian and Huga have both said it better than I, in another thread. ------- I have just looked at the clock and realised I have been writing this post for hours. It has been rewritten at least twice from scratch as I am anxious not to upset anyone. I even sought the guidance of our moderators about the contents before posting, and that is why it has taken so long for me to respond. I know that, by now, much of what I have said has already been said by others, and thankyou to them, but trying to rewrite this every time a new post appears has become a fruitless chase. When I started to write this, little or none of it had been said, and I felt that so many of these points were interlinked that to put them on a thread of their own was the only way to deal with them under one roof. PS. Do I have the record for the biggest posting? No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....

No, Dan, please don't go from this forum. As someone once said to me on here, you are welcome to express your opinions and the forum would be poorer without them. I have met you in person, and I think, if you had attended the meet last sunday, you would not now be wanting to leave us. Two notable quotes come to mind: The first is from Voltaire who notably said 'I may disagree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it' Even those who may not like what you say should be prepared to read and listen to it. The second is from Churchill, who despite his amazing place in our hearts as one who could do no wrong, was in fact often proved wrong, and made to eat his words. In this light, when asked how he felt about having to eat his own words, replied that he had needed to do so on many occasions during his life, and had in fact found them to be a very nourishing diet. So eating humble pie is not a bad thing, and as you have demonstrated, is part of everyone's learning curve. Be proud of yourself for the fact that, in apologising, you have done something which, on the other forum, your supposed 'elders and betters' have been unable to do so far. How much elder and better are *you* now? I will be posting my own thoughts on this turbulent day on a new thread, because they cover several overlapping topics and I don't want to get offtopic in this thread. (Tagline temporarily disabled as a mark of respect) [This message was edited by MCL on January 22, 2003 at 06:26 PM.]

No bears at MCL towers either No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....

Huga's Walk In The Park seems to be looked out for by the Park Rangers as well as Huga himself. No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....

..what *was* that large hose doing piddling water across the car park ALL DAY LONG for? I never did get to trace it's origin or reason. No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....

Pid claims to have had a 10 pint Liquid Lunch but now we reckon he's just taking the pee. No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....

..Poor guy, he's been holding it since Bristol... No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....

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So far, any time in April is fine, and only 11th May unavailable in that month. My preference is for April though. So please not the 11th May otherwise I will have to stamp my foot! No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....

No, not the pastry. First-In-Last-Out. I claim the quite unintentional merit of being the first to arrive (followed a minute later by Pharisee) and the last to leave (jointly with SimonG and The Merman) Arrived at 11:55, left at 20:30 Over 8 hours in some of the best company I have enjoyed for a long time. Thanks to Team Blitz for organising it. On the way home I was thinking it would be quite possible for me to organise a similar meet in Milton Keynes maybe sometime during the summer, which might allow some of the more northern-based cachers to attend as well while still not being out of reach of anyone turning up today. If we did it in the summer, maybe we could do a barbecue instead of having to have pub lunches (not that there is anything wrong with pub lunches!) Anyway, summer is a way off yet, so time for everyone to mull it over. I know that one or two others have also said they will organise meets in the months to come. As far as I am concerned, the more the merrier! I will try and attend them all. No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....

quote:Originally posted by Morseman: Not fool proof, but may discourage someone from thinking it is a swap item. ..nah. Someone will probably swap the lid out as well... No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....

quote:Originally posted by 101325:...lakes of geese, frozen ducks, ..when I want frozen ducks, I generally go to Tesco, where you don't need a season ticket to get in.... No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....

Mos Eisley? Oh no thats a spaceport, sorry.... No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....

quote:Originally posted by Wronskian:I was wondering the same thing, after seeing a GPS mounted very snugly in a mobile phone dashmount (thanks to MCL). Funnily enough, when I first saw Huga's one in its case I thought it *was* a mobile pohone case he'd got.... No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....

quote:Originally posted by jeremyp:We'll recognise you by the pallid complexion caused by never seeing sunlight, the coughing up of blood (asbestosis), head injuries (golfballs) and gunshot wounds. That's not funny. Jeremy that is really not funny. In fact its ruddy hilarious. No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....

quote:Originally posted by Kouros:You'll never look back now. ...no. In fact you will spend most of your time looking down. Down at a small arrow on an LCD screen... No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....

quote:Originally posted by Stu & Sarah: Hopefully, people are clever enough not to remove the rubber stamp. Don't bet on it...I had the pencil sharpener taken out of one of mine.... No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....

quote:Originally posted by The Northumbrian:Putting a cache in a PAY TO FIND area would make it a commercial cache in my way of thinking , the place where it was hidden would make money from your cache , as yet I know of no cache in the uk that is a Pay to find cache In fact there is. "Station X" Entrance fee about six quid. I know this since it is one of the nearest caches to me. I'm only two miles up the road from Bletchley Park. (still haven't done it though.....) So does this mean it should be archived? No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....

quote:Originally posted by The Wombles:I'd welcome medical comment on recovery of the cache and the asbestos Don't worry, as I understand it, Darth Vader's mask filters out asbestos particles so he's not in any danger... No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....