TinSparrow
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Posts posted by TinSparrow
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Since the site update I've run a single pocket query. Within that pocket query was a puzzle that I had solved, and I had previously updated the coordinates on the cache page to reflect the corrected/solved coordinates. In a PQ from earlier today before the update, this cache was included with the corrected/solved coordinates. But in the PQ from today, the coordinates had reverted back to the original unsolved coordinates. For those of you with the power to look at my pocket queries, compare GC1GBZ5 in the following PQs ready for download: "AA To Do List" and "CO Denver DIA".
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Micros in shrubs. There's no better way to beat down a well maintained shrub than for someone to put a micro in it.
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These are Challenges:
Know Your Local Cacher Challenge - GC1JQAD
Bingo Challenge - Let the Tournaments Begin! - GC1W5HT
An Über Icon Day Challenge Washington State - GC29YBF
Puzzler's Puzzle Challenge - GX197AD
Fool's Errand - A Washington Challenge Cache - GC1HPN3
Cache By Numbers - Challenge Cache of Washington - GC16R01
Shelrik's Center Of The Triad Challenge - GC1WYHN
King County Thomas Guide Challenge - GC1A012
Washington DeLorme Challenge - GCQQ9B
CCFTF9+ Streak Challenge - GC2GD5F
Weekend Warrior Challenge - GC1VBWM
Washington Century Challenge - GC25MJ3
An Alphabet Soup Challenge for Washington - GCYP7T
5 States and Provinces Challenge - GC2WF7M
5-5 Challenge - GC2WR57
Silly's 3 State Challenge - GC2A12N
Everyday Cacher Challenge - GC22BVM
CCFTF9+ Master Challenge - GC2GD5R
This new idea that Groundspeak has is dumb and to call it a "Challenge" is an insult to those of us that have worked hard at getting the real thing.
I agree with this sentiment. It seems to me that the Geocaching community has already defined what "challenges" are, and I think that we were just hoping to get a new cache type to use for such challenges. The challenge cache type would require a physical cache placement by the owner, and the owner would be allowed to dictate the rules of what qualified to log the challenge. What I think the community wanted was a fairly simple concept, and GC.com could implement it by making slightly more formal the conventions that the community already followed. But what is presented here looks very different, and seems perhaps to belong more on the locationless Waymarking site. The currently challenge implementation seems ill conceived. I had been hoping for more.
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Thanks, the pq full of all ready found caches. useless.
I must disagree with this opinion. The PQ of found caches is enormoulsy useful, and fun. You just have to know what to do with it.
When I'm looking at map and want only unfound caches and get a PQ with found caches that is a waste of server cycles and total waste of PQ's. If I want my found caches I'll run the my founds PQ.
No, I still dissent. When I have friends come in from out of town, I routinely run PQs that contains found and unfound so I can give them the highlights in the area. It's only a single checkbox to make them appear or not. Having that flexibility is good.
Your still not getting it. I am not talking about PQ's generated from the create PQ page, I'm talking about PQ's generated from a *MAP* page. I want a map that will have the union of personalization, filtering cache types, show PMO caches, not show what is on my ignore list, a list on the side and be able to generate a PQ.
Well, that finally makes sense. I've been blissfully successful thus far in not having to run PQs from a map page. If that feature was relied upon from folks and it's now gone, I could see that being a concern.
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Thanks, the pq full of all ready found caches. useless.
I must disagree with this opinion. The PQ of found caches is enormoulsy useful, and fun. You just have to know what to do with it.
When I'm looking at map and want only unfound caches and get a PQ with found caches that is a waste of server cycles and total waste of PQ's. If I want my found caches I'll run the my founds PQ.
.. and if you don't want that behavior, you just gotta check/uncheck the selection boxes labeled "I haven't found" or "I have found". Flexibility is good. You can have this data anyway you want.
No, I still dissent. When I have friends come in from out of town, I routinely run PQs that contains found and unfound so I can give them the highlights in the area. It's only a single checkbox to make them appear or not. Having that flexibility is good.
But that't only one example. The problem stated is if you run a PQ with 1000 caches and you found 999 of them then your PQ has only one cache you can find.
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Thanks, the pq full of all ready found caches. useless.
I must disagree with this opinion. The PQ of found caches is enormoulsy useful, and fun. You just have to know what to do with it.
When I'm looking at map and want only unfound caches and get a PQ with found caches that is a waste of server cycles and total waste of PQ's. If I want my found caches I'll run the my founds PQ.
No, I still dissent. When I have friends come in from out of town, I routinely run PQs that contains found and unfound so I can give them the highlights in the area. It's only a single checkbox to make them appear or not. Having that flexibility is good.
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Thanks, the pq full of all ready found caches. useless.
I must disagree with this opinion. The PQ of found caches is enormoulsy useful, and fun. You just have to know what to do with it.
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I loved the site too, and it's incredible how much I miss it now that it's gone. The color coded county maps were perhaps my favorite feature. Thanks for all the hard work you put into this.
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Same here.
I recall a time before when the non-delivery of large pocket queries was related to a mail server problem. I wonder if that's happening again.
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Hey gang! September 9th, we're leaving Chicago and driving Route 66 from start to finish.
Geocaching will not be the main focus of our trip. MandolinGirl and I are traveling with another musician, and a writer and a videographer, making a documentary of the life, culture, and music of Route 66. But, we're going to squeeze in some time to cache in each state along the way.
So, that said...what are some of the "must get" caches along the way that y'all might recommend?
By the way, a caching friend of mine, MagicStan, left Chicago on Monday and is caching his way all along the the mother road. Last night he was in Illinois, just outside of St Louis. I'm pretty darn excited about this trip!
Over the last few years I've found myself along I-40 and the old US-66 quite a few times. My list below is not complete and does not try to list every Route 66 cache that I've done, but these are the ones that are memorable. I'm not good for recommendations along the entire route, just the stretch from Oklahoma City to Albuquerque and a little bit west of there.
Oklahoma - Provine Station - GCY1GQ
This is a fantastic old building. Nice to see it preserved.
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...78-9c963758cd09
Oklahoma - The Grotto on Route 66 - GCMDEJ
This is a picturesque and quiet spot just off the road. The cache seems to be missing now, and from what I understand the specific area where the cache is located is strewn with trash. Still, the surrounding area should still be picturesque.
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...9a-02b253d3c945
Texas - Cadillac Ranch - GCG71X
The well known landmark with a number of Cadillacs buried in the ground is along your route
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...89-09bdc662956e
Texas - Bug Ranch - GCDB98
Someone has a sense of humor. While you can find Cadillac Ranch on the west side of Amarillo, on the east side you can find where someone has buried a line of VW beetles in the same fashion:
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...6d-f9ddca3457cb
Texas - big black marble - GCGXBZ
Downtown Amarillo - This may be a couple of blocks off of Route 66, but this virtual is worth the stop.
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...8b-df48d3df4761
Texas - Vega Magnolia Station Returns - GCPZH1
Another nice old building.
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...6c-c2860f34a9b1
Texas - Meet ya halfway - GCJ2P2
The town of Adrian TX claims to be the halfway point on the old Route 66. Maybe you can measure your own mileage and let us know if this claim works out for you.
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...15-081dac485e79
New Mexico - Deep Blue cache - GC93C1
In Santa Rosa NM, and a few blocks south of Route 66. Stop by and see this amazing natural spring in the high dessert.
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...b4-20db6f0ca393
New Mexico - Our Lady of the Tree - GCG6FV
A virtual located in Old Town Albuquerque. This is probably a few blocks off of Route 66, but this historic section of Albuquerque certainly was around when US-66 passed through here.
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...c0-517489908f9c
And finally:
Arizona - Standin on the corner ... - GC64F7
Here is a virtual that is Standin' on a Corner in Winslow Arizona, and it's right along the Mother Road. This should apeal to the musicians in your group as well.
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...15-ff86910aed36
Other things:
Cowboy Singer once had a series of Mother Road caches in Western Oklahoma. These have been adopted out now, here is a link to one of them, and you should be able to find the others:
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...5e-e4ab0f96c214
Cache Across America - Oklahoma is along Route 66. Even if you don't plan on completing the series, as long as you're passing by...
In New Mexico, Route 66 travelled along different paths at different points in it's history. Before about 1936 the highway passed through Santa Fe, while afterwards the highway doesn't diverge northward but instead continues westward on a track that parallels (by and large) I-40. Someone please correct me if 1936 is not the proper cutoff year for when the road was changed. If you take the Northern route through Santa Fe, drop me a note and I'll give you some cache recommendations there (there are some good ones).
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Seems to be happening again today, only I see it happening in cache descriptions. Even with the HTML box checked, my links are being transformed when the page changes are submitted:
Before:
<A HREF=valid_URL>some text</A>
After:
"valid_URL">some text
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The bug originally reported in this thread is still present. This note serves to bump this thread back up again.
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i have a somewhat large problem. I can uplad .kml files but can not preview them or save them. I check off the box and when I click on the save tab it says "Please select a route to uplad". I thought it was my PC so I restarted and tried again and it daid the same thing. Does anyboy else have this or know how to fix it?
I had this happen to me once when I had a route longer than 500 miles (this may just be coincidental). I shortened my route and I've never seen the problem you describe again.
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Is this actually working at all? Submitted a query over 12 hours and another 4 hours ago and haven't received it.
I've not actually tried to schedule a PQ today, so I don't know if they're being delivered or not. The bug that I described is on the PQ order screen and is most likely unrelated to any other PQ delivery slowness.
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I've think found a bug on the new PQ screen used for defining PQ's for caches along a route. The buggy behavior that I can reproduce is that it's possible for the "Any Cache Type" part of the form to get out of sync with the master check box for this part of the form.
I can reproduce as follows, and it seems to take two saves (submits) to the PQ form to reproduce. Here's how:
1. Select a usable route and create a new PQ. Advance to the next screen.
2. On the PQ form, uncheck "Any cache type". The greyed-out part of the form will become active.
3. For cache type, select Traditional cache, Multi-cache, Unknown cache.
4. Save this PQ by clicking the Submit button.
5. Once the PQ has been saved, look at the "Any cache type" section of the form. Sometimes it is broken after the first save, but I've only have that happen once. If it looks good, go to step 6 and save the PQ a second time.
6. Click the Submit button again and save the PQ a second time.
7. Once the PQ has been resaved, the "Any cache type" section of the form is greyed-out, even though the master check box is not checked.
If this has been previously reported, please Markwell me and I'll go back to my dark corner and be quiet.
Thanks in advance.
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I know you said that you preferred not to use multiple choice, but I'll mention another technique since there is an excellent multi-stage multiple choice cache in my area.
The cache in question in SesquiTrivia. Each stage is a small container or film canister. At each stage you will find a multiple choice question, and each answer supplies you with a different set of coordinates. If you answer the question correctly then you end up at the correct coordinates and find the next question. If you get the answer wrong then you end up at the wrong coordinates, where you will find a small container which tells you that you chose poorly. In some cases, if the answer you selected was very wrong, the bad coords direct you up a hill or into thick brush or into otherwise undesirable terrain.
What I like about this approach is
(1) None of the questions are known on the cache page, so the finder can't figure everything out in advance.
(2) The use of multiple choice enables the hider to use trivia that does not necessairly rely on underlying numbers.
For example, in a movie context, you could ask questions about conversations which were central to the plot:
From whom did Maggie learn that Stephanie was sleeping with Rodney?
a. Bert N 34 02.762 W 80 56.664
b. Earnie N 34 02.857 W 80 56.375
c. Sylvia N 34 03.104 W 80 56.861
If you were to as a difficult question in a spot in the woods with poor cell phone coverage (behind a hill, bottom of a ravine), then you can force the finder to rely on memory, and not phone a friend.
Hope this is useful.
[Edited to prevent b. from becoming a smiley]
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This topic is being closed. Thanks to all for participating.
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So correct me if I'm wrong. I have read most of the posts and most seem to be concerned with why this is a bad bill. In this forum you are preaching to the choir. So we accomplish nothing by ranting and raving.
I'm in agreement with these words, and this topic has run it's useful course. After the House and Senate finish their terms this week, I'll likely shut down this thread. I encourage the discussion to continue in other threads, where new readers won't have to wade through 11+ pages of previous comments.
As always, thanks to everyone (you know who you are) for your support and your opinions.
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Read and sent to committee. Senate only? or can House Reps come in and talk?
The public is permitted to attend and speak at the subcommittee meetings, so this would seem to allow members of the house to attend and speak as well.
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The Bill H3777 has moved from the house to the senate and I have closed down the earlier 28 page thread which deals with the activity in the House. Let's bringing the next round of discussions to this thread.
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All audio and video good now for me too.
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The bill is on the last page of todays calendar, page 17. Is anyone else having problems getting the windows media player feed of the house. I'm getting an error message that says either the server is busy or the address is wrong
The video feed is now working for me, but I have no sound. Does this match anyone else's experience?
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Depending on how it would appease the offended party, maybe a friendly reviewer could move the coords to somewhere out in the Atlantic.
No. That sets a poor precedent. The archival should be enough as all references to finding it have been removed except for archival purposes.
Understood.
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Depending on how it would appease the offended party, maybe a friendly reviewer could move the coords to somewhere out in the Atlantic.
Geocaching.com site update Jan 17th 2012
in Geocaching HQ communications
Posted
Having only 5 caches show there doesn't bother me near as much as the trend that all new features tend to go to the top, and thus push to a lower position on the page any already established and potentially much enjoyed feature. I recall a time when the "Search for geocaches near your home location & filter out finds" selections were near the top, but slowly over time that get pushed down underneath the Stats Bar, the profile and avatar info, a Favorites box, and who knows what might come next.
I'm open to the fact that the page layout will change over time, and I understand that I can't do much about that. I would hope, however, that someone is looking at all the bells and whistles that are being added over time, and that those items which get the most frequent use are kept toward the top, and those items which get little activity are moved out of the prime real estate areas. There are certainly a number of website and log analysis tools out there can that do this type of analysis quite easily.