CoyoteRed

I don't believe the Frog said that, but I did and I don't speak for the frog. So far I don't think the frog has said why over 500 is download only.OK, this is as official as it gets.http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...p;#entry4312114 If this really is the reason--to "help" the customer by not giving them the option of having their email bounce--then it's a pretty poor reason. I have an ISP that allows multi-megabyte attachments. In fact, just to test the theory I archived the 18 PQs waiting to be processed and sent them to myself. A 7.7 mb file came through no problems. A good scheme for this would be go ahead and send the larger files. If larger emails are getting bounced from certain email addresses, then turn off that option. Keeping the same scheme and provide for better error trapping would have been a better way to go. Now that PQ1Ks have been delivered and once the bugs have been ironed out, perhaps this would be a good upgrade.

Doesn't seem to simply be running and being unselected. Only some of the PQs have been turned off that have run.

"Most people?" Not sure how you figure that, but regardless, if they want custom PQs then they could still do that. Options are good. That's why the present PQ1K doesn't effect me as I'm going with the option of sticking with the old way and getting everything by mail. The reason I'm in the discussion is because this option doesn't allow for me to be part of the load reducing scheme just implemented.

In this respect, it would no different than it is now. There's nothing to stop someone starting a site and gathering enough folks to share the PQs they are getting now. They then post the PQs to that site which then lists the caches. Then other folks who are not members here could get to those caches. The problem for any site that does this is folks would revolt. Ask Jeremy about the fiasco of trying to take over listings of letterboxes way back. That's not to mention "lawyers." The threat of a parasitic listing site has been non-existent for years. The threat of share downloads would be no different either way.

Concerning the canned PQs and population density is establish "zones" for the greatest benefit to the system. Groundspeak already knows how many folks are getting PQs and where they are. They could create a new table indexed on origins. Then map the density of these. Starting with the most dense areas establish a "Super PQ" for that area. As an example, one of the most dense areas for PQs could be the Atlanta area. Pulling information out of the air with a wild guess, say, there are 1,000 people pulling 5 PQs each to get all of their stomping grounds of the area. That's 5 thousand individual PQs to be processed. Of course, each are custom to the person with founds and owned probably filtered out along with certain other criteria. Groundspeak could come in and say it looks like a lot of duplication is this particular configuration of PQ. They could establish a "Super PQ" and offer it up to any PM. This could be all caches within a 50 mile radius of the geographical center of Metro Atlanta. It could be a file that has 2,000 caches in it. A cacher could download this file, along with his Found caches, and establish a database with all caches in the area complete with his Founds marked. A person who keeps an OLDB wouldn't need to download his Founds because he already has this data. You've just reduced the number of PQs from 5,000 to something considerably less. (Not to 1, because some with continue to opt for custom PQs.) So, you live on the border of canned Super PQ, download the canned PQ and make a custom one fill out your criteria and Groundspeak would still have a massive gain. The point is, the divisions of a canned PQ does not have to geopolitical. It just needs to benefit the largest number of people possible. That would include folks who won't directly benefit from a canned PQ, but who would still benefit from the greatly reduced sever load.

The problem with a pull system versus a push system is we have to initiate the pull. We have to hope the site is up to do that. If we wait too late to pull and the site is down, we're SOL. If we do it too early the downloads might not be ready. We end up potentially polling the site several times to see if it's ready for us to pull the data. The email scheme simply sends us the data when it's ready. We don't have to ask for it on a continual basis. I very much prefer the push system to the pull system. If load is the issue, then start looking at differential PQs where the only (and all) the data that has changed is sent. There's no need to send a cache description that hasn't changed in years when the only thing that has changed is a single additional log. (...or the other 4 logs for that matter.) OTOH, sending out that a cache has been archived will make a differential PQ actually useful. I did an experiment with gathering only the data that had changed in the past week and reduced the PQ size well in excess of 90%. Massive amounts of bandwidth could be saved. Okay, so it's not bandwidth as per Raine. The number caches sent is smaller therefore fewer PQs have to chunk through the system. It's takes 6 PQs to all of the filters caches in SC. While it takes only 2 PQs using the same filter except I added "Changed in the last 7 days." (I need a weekly full dataset to remove archived caches.) Just being able to fully use the differential available to us today, but indicating archived cache somehow and it doesn't have to be a full waypoint, reduces load by one half to two thirds. Fully differential PQs would greatly reduce the number of PQs and bandwidth getting them out--all the while still getting the important data out to the customer. How about canned PQs? "Send me all of the caches in South Carolina." or "Sending me all of the caches in South Carolina that has changed in the past 7 days." There's two PQs that would have to run only once. Speed at the expense of it being a custom PQ. I know which caches I've found and I can filter caches much better with GSAK that what's available on GS.com's PQ system. There's more savings right there. All of this has been offered before--multiple times. Ideas that would save processing power and bandwidth well beyond that of down-loadable 1KPQs. I have to wonder what the real motivation is behind this latest development. I suspect it's not really a gift.

I can remember plenty of threads where you "automatic people" didn't get your weekly fix because the mail server went down, or your ISP decided to throttle your mail, or whatever. I don't see how the risk of the website being down is much different. Actually, I think the hand wringing over the email server going down are the folks who after the "just in time" PQs. These are the ones who will take best advantage of the manual downloads. Only now the issue is being shifted from the email server to the site in general. It's still a time sensitive issue. That's what I'm saying I'm gonna do.

Exactly what I was thinking. There's plenty of hand wringing as it is when the site goes down. Not getting you're weekly fix of PQs because you've opted for manual downloads instead emails would be a major kick in the gut. I'm sticking with an email scheme.

Making the manual download as easy as something I'm doing now won't do a bit of good if the site is not up for you to do a download. That's a major drawback over getting emails. How I'm doing it now: I've set up a special mailbox to which only PQs are to go. I've set up a script to check that mailbox daily and put the contents into a special folder. The script deletes anything that is not a ZIP file. (The mail box gets emptied daily and all junk is deleted.) Then on a less frequent schedule GSAK gathers those PQs and I massage as needed. (First manual interaction with the PQs.) On the other hand, the manual download scheme would go like: Open a browser and navigate to the Pocket Query page via bookmark. (Start of manual interaction.) Click on Pocket Queries Ready for Download Link. Click on the PQ. Click to confirm file name and destination. Repeat multiple times. Then I get to open GSAK and import. Massage as needed. The major issue is whether geocaching.com is going to be up when I want to download stuff. This site goes down. Happened just yesterday. (Oops, day before now.) For the manual download scheme of updating my caches the site has to be up on my schedule. Otherwise, I go do something else. You who like the manual download scheme can have it while I stay with the email scheme. The email scheme is less prone to failure. Even when it does fail, those who keep an OLDB still have data.

Yeah, so? They got the $30, we should be able to get our PQs. I don't use all of the caches in a PQ. They gonna start restricting me to only caches I actually attempt? Whether we actually use the PQ we've legally and legitimately received should not even come into play.

+1 - good suggestion. +1 +1 on the ability to turn off all emails. This would be to have one avenue of downloads. I can have one avenue if I keep it under 500 caches, but then I can't be part of the saving to the site. If I go the other way, I've data sitting in my inbox that I don't need. The sort order is fine with me as long as it's chronological.

Okay, so we keep our PQs of a size so they can be emailed to us and if we don't download them from the site they get turned off? Not making any sense.

It would be fantastical to be able to have one way to access the PQs. I see you mentioned that emailed PQ would also have a stored counterpart. What if we could select to not have any PQs emailed to us and use only the stored PQ? Branching adds complexity to any system. If I am forced to branch, I might as well stay the way I am and not be part of any gain for the system.

All PQ sizes will stay the same, we're not going to go in an bump up the size you set. We also will default to 500 on the screen like we always have. -Raine Cool. Thanks.

Another thing. If the idea is to reduce the server load, what happens when everyone gets on the GC.com and downloads all of these "massive" PQ all at once? Come Friday evening or Saturday morning traffic is going to increase a bit. Wasn't the whole "scheduled delivery" thing to avoid exactly that? I'm not so sure how this is going to really gain anything except for a way to see who is actually downloading PQ and possibly kicking them off the schedule. Any word on the staggered start of PQ generation?

Sounds like they're just adding more complexity into the mix. Of course, that's making anything easier. I guess I'll just keep on doing it as I've been doing it. Nothing's changed. EDIT: Actually, now I have to be extremely careful that none of my PQs go over 500. The script I use for downloading downloads the emails sent to a special mailbox and puts them in a certain folder. Then everything that is not a .ZIP file gets deleted. This would mean any email that is alerting me of a PQ over 500 caches would get deleted without human eyes ever seeing it. Hopefully, Groundspeak doesn't retroactively change my current PQs from 500 caches max to something greater. That'd suck.

Another vote for clear packing tape, though we do laminate ours.

There have been plenty of times I've been dispatched to a scene and the firetruck is already there. Many a time a firetruck will show up before an ambulance simply because they are closer. Sure, they are much bigger trucks, but they ain't that slow. Also, ambulances have a much higher call rate and stay busy. It's not uncommon for an ambulance to be coming from a long way away. Too much of the call volume is BS calls. Sometimes folks think ambulances are taxis. Heck, some folks think police cars are taxis. Additionally, as has already been mentioned most fire personnel have first responder medical training. It's not uncommon for the guys in the funny hats to start working on folks right away. Then again, they don't always have the same level of training, either. Sometimes they might show up, look at the patient, and say, "Nothing we can do." We all then wait until an ambulance comes on scene. Most police, though, get little training in first responding. It's just your basic stuff. Mostly, it's "ABC" which is "Ambulance Be Coming." The reason sometimes you see police on EMT calls is crowd control or in case the patient is violent. With all of that said, I don't have an ambulance and firetruck following me around all day "just in case things go wrong." I'm sure it would alarm folks greatly I show up on a call and an ambulance shows up right after. I would certainly be thinking "this cop is about to make a situation a lot worst than it already is if he thinks he needs medical on scene."

Calling in a 4x4 going off-road is the single stupidest thing I've ever heard. Education would go a long way to helping prevent waste of time, money and resources but at some point, you just can't fix stupid. You don't know what else is going on out there. Could be some illegal dumping going on or other shenanigans. The local authorities could have asked the resident to call when they see anyone go up there. When shenanigans are happening, the last thing a resident wants to do is go and confront the persons themselves. Yes, you can't fix stupid. As a cop, I get calls for all kinds of things from residents who don't want to be contacted. Could be a barking dog, loud music, suspicious person, whatever. I don't mind these calls at all. I know it's a quality of life thing and I'd much rather go to a call like that than clean up the potential aftermath. Could be I saved someone from being punched in the mouth or catch the guy checking for unlocked doors to cars and taking their unsecured valuables. You never know.

It simply doesn't make sense to blindly go forward with multiple engines and bomb squads on a suspicious objects. Who was the first responder? Probably a cop. What was his take? What is his attitude? I remember hearing radio traffic on a suspicious package at a Sears once. The responding officer advised he was en route and immediately afterward another officer requested he go the "talk channel." I flipped over and there was talk about being careful and look for wires. I could hear the eye-rolling from the responding officer. He shows up and it's two pieces of luggage at the loading area. The luggage looked like regular luggage. He took in the totality of the situation and concluded that someone took the luggage out of their car to get something loaded into the car and forgot to put the luggage back in. Sure enough, the luggage was completely empty. No bomb. Go figure. ...and didn't need a bomb squad to figure that out either. I think a lot of first responders are thinking "this is the big one!" While a safe approach is logical, one has to ask where to draw the line where the response causes more public alarm than the object of attention in the first place.

I think it's right to rub you the wrong way. First, a 1 star difficulty means that it's either in a obvious place or in plain sight without any camouflage. A florescent orange converted mailbox marked "GEOCACHE" comes to mind. It's as easy as you can get. Second, the idea of a "cache" is trading, not just taking. Unless instructed to do so by the cache owner, it's rude to take something of value and leave nothing with like value in the cache. See my tag line for my favorite notion on the idea. Cleaning out trash is one thing, but trading is a core concept of the hobby. This not new though. It's been a complaint ever since we started in the hobby a few years back. While some simply through up their hands in exasperation, I like to stand firm with the core concepts of the hobby. I personally will not place harder caches because someone complained a cache was too easy any more than I will make a cache easier simply because someone complained it was too hard. Nor will I start placing non-trading caches simply because a few folks are selfish and won't trade kindly. Welcome to the hobby and the wonderful life of a cache owner.

A really quick work-around could be simply adding img links to these images into the description at the end. You'll get a lot of the background images, and images that are already in the description, but you'll get the spoiler images, too. Alternatively, you could start a campaign to get everyone in your area to add those images into their descriptions.

Depends on what you want to do. Wherigo is best with a PPC-based device while iPhone is best for geocaching. I'm waiting for the Android app for Waymarking.

I agree with the OP and WAP is too light weight. We need something in between. A good layout is that like Spinner and GSAK puts out.

I don't think you're going to hear the real story because of what it will mean. ( <-- The conspiracy theorist part of me.) Think about it. First, the power trail guideline is completely thrown out the window. No requirement for making the caches a multi considering the close proximity, similarity, and ownership. Second, let's place it on major infrastructure with questionable permission assumptions and no questions asked. Let some other "insiders" break a record or two. Then, let's archive the vast majority of the individual caches claiming unforeseen circumstances so wrists don't get slapped for placing temporary caches. Sure. Pretty elaborate undertaking simply to forge an unbreakable record. Still...