rickrich

Exit/Service table Go for it.

This is the kind of info/service that you'd think a member would be able to get as part of their membership. So why is it that I have to perform this service on behalf of gc.com? In fact, given that members just want "all caches in XXX", can't they just issue that query? Can't we have a membership level with no limits, please? -Rick

On Sat, Aug 07, 2004 at 06:46:20AM -0700, notsmike wrote: > --This message was sent through the Geocaching.com web site-- > > You might be on vacation, but the recent log entries is not updating. > I have no life and watch this every day. Sorry to bitch. > > notsmike Hi Mike: I realize this is a great problem for you (and I). But the problem is not on my end! More often than I like, Groundspeak sends me Pocket Queries that are stale -- missing the most recent logs. The ones they sent me last night 8/6 at 23:46 PST had cache logs only up to 8/4. We will just have to sit tight until Jeremy kicks the PQ machine and gets it to send the most recent logs. -Rick

No. Centralized listing service ensures the most current list of active caches. Bzzt. Decentralized results in stale data. If I could prove to you that the majority of cachers are either: 1) already working off of significantly stale data that they printed off of your site, and that a few hours or even a day or two "more stale" by getting that data from a mirroring site would increase the staleness by only a negligible amount OR 2) working off of stale data that they downloaded off of your site according to the imposed daily limits, and that if they had been able to download wihout limits from a slightly staler mirror site they would actually have fresher data overall would you then allow intelligent mirroring of your site by regional groups or other listing services? -Rick

Nice point RK. This one hit home with me today. I had been thinking of archiving a super micro cache I had placed at the top of a hill. When I placed it, there were no leaves on the trees, nor any good hiding places at the top of the hill for a full size cache. The view was excellent, and I wanted to bring people to the view. I didn't want to take them to a lower area which would have supported a larger cache. Thus, I stuck a winter-friendly super micro a few feet from the trail at the top of the hill. Well, the leaves grew, and the view was spolied. So now I was the possesor of a "micro hidden in the woods", with no obvious reason for it being there. I was near ready to archive it, when I got this log today... So I guess there are people out there who like to hunt super micros hidden in the woods. I'll leave it for now. As far as people hunting super micros in parking lots, well, I don't know if we have a good balance. We've only got 2 of them in the Twin Cities that I can think of (out of 499 finds), a couple of lamppost caches, and only a handful of guardrail caches. I suppose that people who like to hunt those will be disappointed in visiting this area. One thing I don't get is why anybody would visit a walmart parking lot cache if they don't like to hunt them? Surely they can tell its in a parking lot from the aerial photo. So why do they go and then complain about it?

You can find a modified version of Gazza's Geodetics calculator, which knows how to deal with MinDec format, here: http://mngca.rkkda.com/geodetics.html

Here's how I sold Traveling thru Purgatory to mtn-man. Note that at that time I hadn't figured out that I wanted a 1st stage cache with a book to contain the coords. That came later when I realized how much work it would be to keep the coords up to date on the web page. It was laziness, pure and simple... Mtn-man liked the idea, and his respect went up several notches around here... The cache had a bumpy start last fall. It was unexplicably moved to the exact location of another cache in the park (a micro) but was not logged into the 1st stage micro at that new location, and the micro went missing at the same time. The cache went missing one more time (gone but new location not logged in), and the 1st stage micro film canister GOT EATEN by a chipmunk who favored the red dye in laser toner, I guess. Since then its been working well (minus the recent debate in the logs) and we've had a lot of creative hides, but none that would be considered inappropriate. -Rick

We unofficially categorize micros this way: Ultra Micro - anything smaller than a super-micro Super Micro - bison tubes, nitroglycerin pill bottles Micro - Film cans <offtopic> What I'd really like to filter out are pog tubes, tupperware, coffee cans, ice cream pails, metal tins, glad containers, and anything else that within a matter of weeks/months is going to be wet. If only I could filter on the type of seal that is on the container. "Seal == Rubber" would get me super-micros and ammo boxes, which just also happen to be my favorite two caches sizes to hunt. OK, I'm half joking here. Being officially addicted to the sport, once I've milked the area dry I'll eventually hunt anything with a coordinate. With an area 8 miles in radius around my house completely cleared out, and a larger radius almost cleared out, I'd be happy to hunt the waypointed dog piles that somebody posted. </offtopic>

In the crapper again?

Seems to be crapped out again.

Off-topic, but if the compass screen doesn't also show at least the last 3 digits of both the current position and the destination position at the same time, then I think it has failed a basic test for geocaching field use.

There is an ongoing problem with 1-time pocket queries. And its been happening again since last night. The queries will appear on your "My Pocket Queries" page, and you can do a Preview and see the results. Last Generated will show "Never". The checkbox for (say) Sunday will be checked. On the "Total Queries/Day" row, the count for (say) Sunday will show 1. But after 15-20 minutes, the query will disappear completely from the "My Pocket Queries" page, as if it had never been entered at all. On the "Total Queries/Day" row, the count for (say) Sunday will go back to 0. This has been going on sporadically for several weeks (at least), and seems to most often show up on weekends. It will do this for several hours, where 1-time PQ's won't "take". Its been doing this again since at least the middle of last night. And then magically it will correct itself. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. My solution so far has been to reissue the 1-time PQ every hour or two until the man behind the curtain wakes up. Now you see it... Now you don't...

Lithium ion (LiON) cells typically have a fully charged voltage of 4.2 volts and a nominal voltage of 3.6 volts. If somebody were to make a LiON AA replacement, they would have to include a voltage regulator in the pack (to reduce the voltage to 1.2-1.5), along with all of the normal protection circuitry required *inside* the pack (because LiON batteries can violently explode if shorted or overcharged). The cost for a single LiON AA battery would be outrageous, not to mention that the space required for the regulator and protection circuit would reduce the volume available for storing energy, possibly to the point where it would be no better than an alkaline. Maybe you make a 2-cell or 4-cell AA replacement pack, to amortize the cost of the regulator over two or four cells instead of one. But then you have difficult pack insertion issues due to the springs on both sides of the battery holder. IMHO, if it made any economic and marketing sense to do this, it would have already been done. For all I know, it might have already been tried and was a marketplace failure.

I am seeing this: 1) Newly created PQ appears on the My Pocket Queries (MPQ) page 2) Click preview, yes there are results. 3) But the PQ never gets run 4) About 15-20 minutes later, it completely disappears from the MPQ page, as if it never existed at all. 5) Rinse, repeat I agree, there is some other problem now.

Received: from bender.Groundspeak.com (bender.Groundspeak.com [63.251.163.173]) by signal.Groundspeak.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8E297133174 for <censored>; Fri, 7 May 2004 08:44:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail pickup service by bender.Groundspeak.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC; Fri, 7 May 2004 01:49:26 -0700 This one had a 7 hour internal delay between "bender" and "signal" yesterday. The problem appears to be occuring with todays PQ's as well.

If you don't stop in the Twin Cities area, you will miss these, and many other great caches. Drat19, noted international cache reviewer, even came to the MnGCA meeting just a few weeks ago and stated that we should be proud that the quality of Mpls/St. Paul area caches remains very high compared to other areas. The Twin Cities area has a wide variety of caches that appeal to all cache tastes and experience levels. -Rick Congratulations to Barn Bywater by Kimbastoat, April 2004's Cache of the Month! Nominated and written by RJ. The hike to this one is semi-grueling, yet stunningly rewarding once the booty is found. The actual cache is well hidden and should remain so. The views from on top of Barn Bluff of Red Wing can't be matched by any other close by. Views of most of Red Wing and great views of the river and bridges can be found here. I took many pictures. Close by is some "paint artwork", probably done by high schoolers each and every year. After I found the cache, I spent well over an hour just exploring the area this cache is hidden and hiking all around the bluff it's on. There are many ways up and down this tiny mountain, and I made sure and checked most of them out. The next time you're in Red Wing, set aside a couple of hours to find this cache. You will not be disappointed if you do. Congratulations to When Darkness Falls....... by Candy Apple Green, March 2004's Cache of the Month! Nominated and written by s4xton. This is one of the most inventive multi-caches in the Twin Cities area. Located in Lilydale Park in Saint Paul, this one likely cannot be accomplished during daylight. Thankfully, the park stays open until 11:00pm. While being winter friendly, it gives you a nice stroll around the shore of the Mississippi. Paved trails can be used for some of the walking. While the 3 options (you'll want to do them all) for the second part of the multi are likely a different style of caching that you've ever done before, the first stage is still rather tricky in it's own right. Finding the first stage of this multi gives you all the tools you need to complete the rest, but I also recommend bringing a flashlight and a partner. This one is definitely fun for two people. Congratulations to Jidana 3 by rickrich, February 2004's Cache of the Month! Nominated and written by Wicket's Wandering Pony Patrol. Hidden in a housing area is a swamp with a woodsey park along the edge. Included is a open park area with a wonderful view, fishing dock and picnic area. It appears that archery practice might be allowed here as well. You find an item at the coordinates that match the clue given and it so obviously stands alone that you look at it from every which way, you may even wriggle fingers in small places, but that log paper you're looking for will not be easy to write on until you find it. Now remember that your GPS can be off by 30ft so maybe this is only a starting point for you serch. There are other things within area that could fit the clue. It has been discribed as cuning and devious and I'm sure a few other choice words have been spoken here. Congratulations to Greenway (GCA1CA) by eroom, January 2004's Cache of the Month! Nominated and written by Rock Johnson. This cache was one of my first exposures to micro geocaching. Located close to downtown Minneapolis, this cache is hidden in a truly urban environment. As you search for this one, you could possibly be watched by hundreds of eyes from hundreds of windows. I like caches hidden in open places. Probably not one of the most traveled locations in downtown, the location of this hiding place is in kind of a short cut between some tall buildings. The satellite signal seems to go haywire as it �bounces� around the tall structures, which adds to the difficulty of this hide. There are plenty of benches nearby and in the summer there is ample foliage for the plant lover to admire. I gained inspiration from this cache for many of my hides. Being a �winter friendly� cache, this would make a great cache hunt any time of year. Because of a tie in the vote we have two Caches of the Month for December. Thanks to all who nominated and voted this month! Bandshell Cache by R.J. (written by Moe the Sleeze) R.J. excels in ingeniously hiding caches in very open public places. The finest example of this, in my opinion, is his Bandshell Cache hidden near the Lake Harriet Bandshell in Minneapolis. This cache is hidden smack dab in one of the busiest pedestrian traffic locations in the state but has survived unmolested by geo-muggles since last February. It is safe to guess that hundreds of thousands of people have walked within a few feet of this cache without accidently discovering it. It is also safe to assume that the normal reaction of the geocacher that finds it is a smack to the forehead accompanied by an audible "Duh!" Although the thrill of finding this one in the middle of a crowd of people will be somewhat diminished in the winter months, this cache is winter friendly and will be a fun hunt at any time of the year. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Death Valley by Farmerted (written by Wayfarin Stranger) I spent about half an hour looking for it and when I eventually did find it, the cache of the month came to mind. The cache is in the Irene Gluck park in St. Peter, a nice little park to explore.I don't know what other info you might need, but any more would be giving it away. The cache is just a GREAT hide! Kitch nominated the winner of this month's Cache of the Month -- the first virtual to win! Here is Kitch's writeup: Mr. Little Guy's House by WatrWalker I'm always looking the perfect kids cache and this is one I have my eye on. This cache is known worldwide and has been featured on WCCO, CNN, Canada Press, CBSnews.com, Associated Press, the CBS Early show, and countless others. All of life is magical and fairy tales are true. This little tale takes place at this cache. About 9 years ago a elf moved into this spot near Lake Harriet and that little guy still lives there today. However, no one has ever seen him so if you are a really good cache hunter maybe you'll spot him. Your mission is to find his home and leave him a note. If you write him a letter he will write back. Please always use all lower case letters he prefers it that way. Mr. Little Guy's height is not confirmed but the press knows that he is taller than his younger brother and shorter than his older brother. The press is saying he wears comfortable khakis and the color green most of the time. If you want to bring him a snack bring Minnow Pizza he loves that. Stop by and visit his special cache......I'm planning a little girls first visit soon. October 2003 Cache of the Month Stillwater Surprise by towlebooth (nominated by pogopod) Part of the joy of geocaching is the element of surprise, part is enjoying the beauty of nature, and of course part is the thrill of the hunt. Stillwater Surprise comes as close to satisfying these three elements as any cache I have searched for in Minnesota. In addition, it is located in an area that is rife with history, near many opportunities for other outdoor activity, and close to its namesake town that itself provides many caches and lots of other things to do. Without giving away the surprise, let me say that I have lived less than twelve miles from this area for the last twenty-five years, and never knew it existed. A hidden access makes even the beginning of the search interesting. A beautiful walk on little used paths takes you nearer and nearer the cache. Suddenly, you are there and it all becomes obvious. The vista would not be out of place on the North Shore near Lake Superior, but here it is a real surprise. Heavy tree cover in summer makes this one a bit difficult. Be prepared to scramble a bit due to steep terrain, but you can�t get lost. Take care not to disturb the foliage in the area too much and, oh yes, most of the year don�t be surprised if you get wet feet. Although I have not visited early in the year, I bet this is a terrific cache in Spring when the snow melts. Veterans Park by Bobhiker (nominated by Kitch) If you're looking for a cache that is suitable for young kids but still a challange then this cache is for you. I have a 3 year old little girl and sometimes the Bushwacking can be a bit hard with out prior knowledge of skill levels required. I'm also looking for more to do then just a quick visit to a cache. Veterans Memorial Park is a 108-acre community park that includes over two miles of walking path through woods and marsh. The park also has a volleyball court, an informal playfield, and playground equipment. The park is also home to Adventure Gardens which offers 18 holes of golf on a challenging, hilly course with numerous water hazards, split greens, and trick angles. In terms of golfing in general, this is the spot for those who like to play the game without all the tiring exercise that comes with a walk of 500 yards rather than five feet. And as mini-golf goes, this is the way it was meant to be played. With a beautifully landscaped course featuring pines and a waterfall, a concession stand no more than a hundred feet away, and lights for night putting, there's little more the recreation-bound mini-golfer could ask for. But, since you asked, there's also the added bonus that this mini-golf course is located at Veterans Memorial Park, where there are also water slides and an ample picnic area for a day-long outing. The cache itself is not that hard to find but the clue will make it simple. I hate to give any hints or clues at all. The only word of advice is this trust your GPS skills and remember it is kid friendly. On the FLIP side you can make this a totally differnent experience and the level would become extremely hard. Just go at night. August 2003 Featured Cache tomslusher, posted August 29, 2003 I was getting somewhat concerned that we were not getting any new Featured Caches but then I thought it wasn�t fair to expect the webmasters to have to write all of these. Heck, they have caches to locate themselves. Why can�t a mere mortal write one of these? So here is my cache of the month. I always love history lessons so Jabs Farm by King Boreas is tough to beat. Although it is a virtual cache so it is not very hard to complete, the trek out to the farm and the history learned is one not to miss. It is quite a hike out to the cache, about 1 1/4 miles if you stay on the right trail. It might be a good idea to bring a mountain bike. But the scenery and the wildlife is well worth the extra distance. When you near the river bed, you feel like you are entering into a strange wasteland, with all the dead trees from floods. You then approach the cache site and you are walked through a short narrative of the history of the farm using several placards. When I went there no one else was around and it kind of made you feel like you were back in the old days on the farm. Wondering what it would have been like living out there and trying to make a living. Or having to go get your old, feeble grandma down at the river catching fish. Also, in the same park is another cache, Old Road to Louisville by Bobhiker. I had trouble and was unable to locate this cache, but I am told it is still there. With these two caches being in the south metro, all Twin Cities area Geocachers should put these on the top of their list. July 2003 Featured Cache towlebooth, posted August 28, 2003 With the Moving 123 cache, Rock Johnson, aka R.J., has given central MN and Western WI one of the most activly pursued caches in the area. Officially a "traditional" geocache, seekers quickly find that this one is anything but. The goal of this cache is not only to be found, but also to be moved by the finder from place to place. The other twist that R.J. has placed on this one is that it can only be moved to a city/town/township once. This encourages it to move greater distances. This cache has been from Albertville, MN to River Falls, WI and many points in between. Nice job R.J.!! January 2003 Featured Cache towlebooth, posted January 12, 2003 The featured cache of January 2003 is The Hidden Bridge! by CB-GPSERS. I visited this cache twice last August - I enjoyed it so much I had to share it with a friend. The drive to the little town of Marine on Saint Croix alone would be worth the trip and the cache location lives up to your expectations. An added feature is the fact that due to the owner's love of travelbugs you are quite likely to run into one in the cache. As I said, I visited twice in one week and saw at least four bugs in the cache over the two visits! Views are great and the whole area is worth a picture or two. A perfect example of "I've driven past this spot many times, but never knew this existed!" Thanks CB, now we know and we love it.

Major flooding in Minneapolis.... Half on Mpls is under water!

Just to add a little more information that may or may not be useful to Jeremy in tracking down this issue. This morning, in the very wee hours, I was trying to read the "stuck" vehicle thread. It referenced many logs on the main site. But I was getting server errors on and off when I clicked those links. The site was dog slow even when it worked. Maybe site maintenance was going on, or maybe an Australian geo-event just finished and the aussies were trying to log their temporary caches.

First, given that a person is seeking a certain dataset from the site, a bot will generate less total load than the same queries posed by the 'clicky-clicky-scroll-clicky-clicky' process. In the case of non-PQ queries, this is because the bots do not request any of the images on the site. In the case of PQ-queries, this is because with a bot there is no need to schedule daily PQ's at all, they can be easily performed only when you need them. Second, bots are used because Jeremy has refused to provide features that people have repeatedly asked for. Among the things I can think of off the top of my head are: 2a) PQ's are limited to 500 caches, so you either have to manually generate multiple overlapping PQ's to get the entire metro area (increasing server load), or simulate GPX queries by scraping thru the web interface. This is exacerabated because Jeremy has provided only circular regions, not rectangular regions. Rectangular regions can be non-overlapping and do not require great-circle calculations. To accomplish the same with circular regions requires a 44% overlap and great circle calcs. 2b) PQ's are limited to 5 logs, which is often not enough. Once again, you are forced to use (either manually or with a bot) the web interface to see a sufficient number of logs. 2c) New cache notifications. If you want to be an FTF, you need timely new cache notifications. An email on Thursday does not cut the mustard. But AFAIK, gc.com does not offer instant email notofication when a new cache is placed. So people are forced to poll the site with a bot multiple times per day. 2d) Stats. Need I say more? 2e) Off-site cache listing and log backup. 2f) Search for all "latest logs" in an area so on a rainy day you can read up what your fellow cachers have been doing. Third, Jeremy has made a number of changes in the last 9 months that make a bots job harder to do. The timing of these changes makes it pretty clear that he is aiming these changes at bots and not to provide new functionailty. Bots aren't going away until gc.com provides what people need from the site. So he has reaped what he has sown. Fourth, Jeremy has not paid attention to the clicky-clicky usage pattern of humans accessing the site, and has not optimized the site for the access patterns that humans will generate. This generates additional and unneeded load, which is not caused by bots at all, that he could correct with a redesign of the site. Especially when in "logging caches mode", a large number of unnecessary database queries and page loads are generated. Fifth, there was a fifth point, but I got brain block and can't remember it right now. I reserve the right to edit this post when my brain recovers. Fifth (remembered now), the latest feature of modern web browsers is to pre-fetch pages in advance of the user requesting them. Mozilla does this, and I'm told that IE6 has something similar but not as good (I could be wrong about IE6). Its entirely possible that some of the increased load on the site is due to the growing popularity of this browser feature. Unfortunately, this browser feature looks and acts a lot like a bot, but without the precision targetting of just the data required that only a well-written bot can do. Sixth, Jeremy is as guilty of leaching as the people he condemns. For example, when a new cache is placed, the map image comes from the US Census Tiger map server. New caches generate lots of website activity, and he is generating load on the Census bureaus server for his commercial purposes. The TMS people have requested that commercial sites do not do this. Hypocrit? You decide. Jeremy wants to run the site "for profit". Unfortunately, this has forced him into a site design that does not scale very well other than by throwing hardware at the problem. He has made his bed and now he must lie in it. If the profits of the site are not sufficient to support the required new hardware investment every 3 months, then perhaps he should rethink his business. An open database would allow for a very scalable design, potentially harnessing the power of the computers of every geocacher. So am I part of the problem? You decide.... I run a 'newest caches' bot every day at 5AM that scrapes 2 web pages. I run a 'stats' bot twice a week (Monday and Friday mornings). I run an FTF bot every hour that scrapes 1 web page. I don't use daily scheduled PQ's, rather, I run a bot-generated on-demand PQ 10 minutes before I leave the house. On average I run this about twice a week (some weeks never at alll, some weeks more than twice, depends on whether I am going out or not). I am a paying member, and I don't hunt MOCs or TBs. Every few months I use a bot to do an incremental backup of caches I have placed or found, including logs. This is always run during the week in the wee hours. I'll probably end up getting banned from gc.com for posting this, but it had to be said. -Rick

Thanks Mopar. I just forgot to count the logs. Its that ridiculous 5 log limit again. I keep forgetting that is the main reason I still scrape the data instead of always using the PQs.

On April 10, I ran a pocket query on this cache: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...&log=y&decrypt= The pocket query is missing the log entry from April 5 by FSU*NOLES. I know for a fact that FSU*NOLES entered that log into the database on April 5. It should be in the GPX file, but it isn't. The GPX file skips from articfox's entry to my entry: <Groundspeak:log id="3351840"> <Groundspeak:date>2004-04-05T07:00:00</Groundspeak:date> <Groundspeak:type>Found it</Groundspeak:type> <Groundspeak:finder id="207933">arcticfox</Groundspeak:finder> <Groundspeak:text encoded="False">What a nice day for a walk in the park! Even more satisfying to be part of the FTF team! See FSU*Noles' post for more of this exciting adventure...</Groundspeak:text> </Groundspeak:log> <Groundspeak:log id="3350250"> <Groundspeak:date>2004-04-05T07:00:00</Groundspeak:date> <Groundspeak:type>Found it</Groundspeak:type> <Groundspeak:finder id="82192">rickrich</Groundspeak:finder> <Groundspeak:text encoded="False">On step 2 of the FTFA program, I decided to keep with the plan and skip the early AM cache run, opting instead to come out at lunch for *just one cache*. And possibly give some other cachers a run for their money. I arrived just before 12PM, and spotted an obvious cachemobile in the area. From the logs, it was FSU*NOLES and Artic Fox, and I was 15 minutes behind them; they were the FTF. I didn't spot them, and the cachemobile was gone by the time I returned to my car. I ate my lunch there, but no other FTF challengers appeared.

* The European patent EP0,129,439 covers Germany, France, Britain and Italy and expires on the 18th June 2004. * The Canadian patent CA1,223,965 expires on the 6th June 2004. * The Japanese patents 2,123,602 and 2,610,084 expire on the 20th June 2004.

Well, the answer is to have collabrative filtering, so that the total subjective cache rating score that you would see on a cache (NOT the owner supplied terrain and difficulty ratings) is weighted heavily by the ratings given by other cachers that generally rate caches at the same level as you do. If you've ever used amazon.com to find a book that you might enjoy reading, then you have seen a system like this in action. The rating that I would see on the cache would likely be completely different from the rating that you would see. People that hate all micros would not match up with my interests, so there subjective rating of the cache would not count much towards the subjective rating score that is calculated for me. -Rick

I'd buy one if on one side it had the gc.com logo, and on the reversible side it had the navicache.com logo. Maybe gc.com and nc.com could show a spirit of cooperation and split the upfront setup charges. Nah. -Rick

Imagine 150,000 caches in compressed PQ format (1 CD's worth, give or take), made fresh monthly and available via BitTorrent. With nightly deltas against the last monthly (i.e. updates) also available. As part of the torrent you can burn your own CD, and share your bandwidth with the rest of the community. Except for that little bit in the TOS. -Rick