Jamie Z

Unfortunately, there's no way to "exclude" attributes. You can select the negative attribute, but that will only get you caches where the negative attribute has been chosen. There's currently no way to get all caches which don't contain the SCUBA attribute, for example. As for why your PQ suddenly returns more caches than before, I suspect you've changed something else. Can you post a link to your PQ here so we can take a look? Jamie

Yup, I missed it. Had to work tonight. Tried to schedule a break at the time of launch, but it couldn't be done. In fact, I couldn't find any news about it until I got home. Glad it got off the ground, but sorry I didn't get to see it. Night launches are cool. Jamie

Because one GPS is closer to the cache than another doesn't mean it's more accurate. In fact, it could be the opposite. Caches aren't set with any more precision than a consumer GPS. Checking your accuracy with caches isn't a good technique. Jamie

This sounds interesting... Maybe I'll look more into the POIs. When I messed with it before, they seemed too limiting. The biggest thing I don't like is that the custom POIs don't show up until you zoom way in (on my Quest 2). There's no way to see them when I'm at my normal zoom level. That's not very helpful. Jamie

Next attempt (and next launch party) is Saturday evening, 8:47pm EST. See you there. Actually you won't. I have to work Saturday night. Jamie

T-10 minutes

We're about an hour to go, and despite some questionable weather, the launch has not been scrubbed. So far so good. NASA TV has been covering the event since early this afternoon. Come on in, the weather is fine. Now's the time. http://gcchat.clayjar.com/ Jamie

Rather than all the ignore this and ignore that features... why don't we tighten up the cache-hiding requirements? Solve the problem on the front end. I'd have to say, unfortunately I might have to use the notification filter if it were implemented. I've gotten tired of receiving bunches of lamp-pole notifications, and stopped paying much attention to the notifications altogether. They were much more useful when there was only one notification every couple of days. Now sometimes I get five and six a day from the same hider. Jamie

You can enter them in DDD°MM.mmm. Just type 'em in. Degrees, space, minutes. You don't say which WAP site you're using. You should be on wap.geocaching.com. Jamie

Of course it's much, much easier to enter coordinates with a computer, but if you want to do it by hand, press and hold the OK button. This marks your current position. Then edit the position to the cache coordinates and name it something cachelike before you save it. Jamie

Cool. Jamie

During the last launch, geocacher RocketMan joined us. He works in the space industry and told us some stories about the rockets he's been involved with. It'd be cool if he was in there again. I've been to one launch myself, STS91, which was the last Shuttle to dock to Mir. From the viewing site five miles away, the ground vibrated and my truck shook. It's one of the most incredible things I've seen in my life. So far as I've heard, weather is the only thing that might get in the way, and right now it's only a slight chance. Rabit, why the smiley? Something we're missing? Jamie

Although not directly geocaching related, it is geocaching chatroom related, as well as space-related, which is the basis of our hobby. It's become tradition to have a launch party in the geocaching chatroom during televised launches. Together, we've watched a couple of shuttle launches, we watched both Spirit and Opportunity land on the surface of Mars, and we watched as NASA crashed a probe into an asteroid and filmed it. Discovery is scheduled to launch December 7, 2006 at 9:35pm EST, 8:25pm CST. It will be the first night launch in four years. Join us in the chat room (http://gcchat.clayjar.com/) for live discussion of the launch. The launch will be viewable on NASA TV, and probably CNN. If you have neither, there are several NASA TV video streams online, found here: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html I'll post a reminder on launch day. Jamie

That's what I use if I take along paper. I've repeated numerous times in these forums that depending on your settings--you can include logs or not, include images or not--it's possible to fit up to 40 or 50 caches on a single sheet of paper using GSAK condensed print. Typically I print images and include at least a couple logs, so for me, 15 or 20 caches per sheet of paper is normal. Jamie

It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure that since the very first day I hunted for a geocache, I knew that it's bad form to log your own cache. Like Lep said, it's common sense that if you hid something, it's not much of a challenge to find it. Frankly, I find it bizarre that anyone, forum junkie or not, would find it acceptable to log their own cache as a find. Are there people here, who as newbies, didn't know you shouldn't log your own cache? Jamie

I think in general, it's just the opposite (depending, of course, on what you think is a good cache). Around here, the caches that get hit most often are those caches that are right off the street, in the parking lot of a mall, or some other such very easy to access spot. Caches which require a good walk, paddle, or climb do get hit, and they are popular, but the rate of finds on those more interesting caches is substantially lower than the so-called lame caches. My best finds ever are on caches which only get found once every couple of months or less. Jamie

What you mean to say are Pocket Queries. Pocket caches are something else... Nonetheless, a new system has been implemented for Pocket Queries. After a period of time (one month?) of inactivity, pocket queries turn off. To turn them back on, you'll need to go to your pocket query page and reselect the days to run. And you'll need to do this every month. (Supposedly, the email which contains the pocket queries warns you of this, but I generally don't read that email, so I can't say for sure.) This feature is designed to keep pocket queries from indefinitely being sent to people who aren't geocaching any longer. Jamie

Cool video. Makes me want to do something like that. A few suggestions: It would benefit by being shorter. I know, you want to include all the scenery and comments, but figure out which are really important. Show us the highlights. As others have said, it's very hard to hear the commentary over the clever music. Editing note: in the first scene, Skigirl says we're going to watch Brian for a little bit, but then the next shot is of Skigirl again. No complaints, but this would be pointed out as a continuity error on IMDB. More action shots. We want to see Skigirl climbing trees or Brian wading through thick mud. Now, I'll see if I can remember any of this when I make a geocaching video. Jamie

Hey all, I'm looking for the neoprene Meridian case seen below. I used to have one, but loaned it to a friend who threw it in the lake along with his Meridian. Oops. I'll be taking a trip to South America in a couple of months, and I'd like to have a good way to carry my GPS. I'd like the case to be in good shape. No tears or cuts in the plastic screen. Velcro and clip must work. If you have one in good shape, I'm willing to Paypal $15, shipping included. This is very close to the retail value of the case. If yours has a few flaws, I'd consider it, but the price would be adjusted accordingly. Email me or reply to this thread if you can help me out. Thanks. Jamie

It is not ok to log your own caches. Typically, this is a newbie mistake, which thankfully can be easily fixed by editing the log. The option is there probably because there are a handful of rare instances where you might actually log your own cache. Most common is logging a cache which you've adopted. While most people will log a find and then later adopt it, there are those who have adopted caches which they haven't yet found. When they do find the cache, they correctly log it as a find, even though they are the owners. In the olden days, there was a phenomenon called "Moving Caches." That is, cache where each finder would re-hide the cache someplace new. In that case, the owner of the cache was in no better position to find the cache than anyone else, and if the owner found the cache in a new location, he could correctly log it as a find. There might be another situation or two where this occurs. Jamie

Nikon Coolpix S3? Fuji Finepix S3? Canon Powershot S3? Jamie

c is color s is sensor (has barometer and electronic 2-axis compass x is Xpandable memory. The Map60 is B&W, fixed memory, no barometer or compass (I think this is a highly under-rated model) The 60c has color screen. the 60cs has color screen plus barometer and compass the 60csx has all of that plus uses micro-SD memory. Jamie

The all-find query contains only those caches which you've found, and for those caches you get only your logs. For example, say you logged 4 DNFs, 2 notes, an SBA, and a find on a particular cache. You'd get all those logs. On another cache, you've logged 6 DNFs, 3 notes, and a Needs Maintenance. That cache wouldn't show up in your all-finds query. I've appealed to TPTB to include at least DNFed caches in the all-finds query to no avail. As such, the All-find query would be pretty useless for this particular macro. All you will do is get the average number of characters in your own log. Unless you're into that kind of thing. Jamie

In part, I agree. Typically, my own DNFs have the story about my experience looking for the cache. In many ways, my own DNFs come out exactly as would a Found It log, except for the last paragraph. Example, even if I don't find the cache, I often talk about the great hike, or mention the cool scenery. That part of the caching experience doesn't change. Clyde did omit notes, which rarely have anything to do with the cache hunt (except for those people who log DNFs as notes). "Attended" and "Picture Taken" logs aren't counted as "Found It," that's why you'll see webcams and events on the bottom, since they don't have any "Found It" logs, their effective log length is zero. Mostly, yes. You get the most recent five logs, plus any others that are yours. That is, if you were the most recent person to log the cache, you would receive your log plus the next four. If you were the sixth-to-last person to log the cache, you would get the last five, plus yours. If you also had a note or DNF prior to that, you would get the five previous logs plus all of your logs. Make sense? If you download an individual GPX from a cache page, you get the last 20 logs. Of course, as a couple others have mentioned, this isn't a foolproof technique. It's just a generalization--and especially if each cache has only five logs, the sample size is quite small. But all other things being equal, I think it's a good way to go to a new area and quickly identify probable caches that have a greater "fun" factor, or something else which makes people talkative. I'm not inherently anti-micro, but I did note that for my local area, not counting those caches which have a zero log length, the bottom nineteen caches in my database as ranked by log length are micros. After that, there are a few regulars sprinkled in, but it's clear that the vast majority of caches with the shortest average logs are micros. No wonder they get such a bad reputation. Jamie

I saw the Gorillapod mentioned on another forum, and it received good reviews there. I plan to get one for an upcoming trip. Amazon has them for just over $20. I wonder if my G3 is over the weight limit though. It's kind of a big camera. Since this thread is a few months old... has anyone here got and tried a Gorillapod? Jamie