Ericles

Most of the "Geocaching Movies" have been bad enough that I haven't been keeping up the list but I was recently alerted to another. It's called "Left Fingers" and it is in the horror/thriller category. The movie focuses on a cacher and would-be social influencer finding body parts in caches. You can guess which body parts based on the name. You can probably also guess that it's a ploy to gain more social influence. I haven't watched it to see if I'm right but for $2 on Amazon, I just might. Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Left-Fingers-Peter-Cloutier/dp/B0B6RCSYL5 IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13932596/

Much thought went into this before made the suggestion. The experience was great judging from the length of the logs, the favorite point percent (though the cache was hidden well before favorites were a thing), the number of photos in the logs and the reminiscing I hear at local events. Newer cachers couldn't even see the lonely multi through the sea of easy traditionals and were unlikely to try it when there was only one smiley involved. An AL could recreate much of the experience, have greater rewards, be substantially more visible, be easier to maintain and use the new technology/platform. But it can't have all the stages visible at the start or it would ruin the experience. I can think of a few other classic multis/puzzles that would do well as Adventure Labs but cachers would absolutely go the wrong way if the stages were all visible. I'm not looking to change the world or start a debate on the limitations of the platform. I just want to hide the best caches & labs possible and I need a bit of help, in the way of a (hopefully) minor software enhancement, to accomplish that.

Ignoring all of the expected snark... Don't try to hijack the thread with your request to add an ignore list feature. It's been done and only 4 groups tried it in 10 years which is why I posted it in the Adventure Lab forum. The point isn't to put another single-find cache out there that would be generally ignored but to use the new app and the new technology. To sweeten the deal, that old multi would now become something of a bonus cache for the AL series. I agree and it wouldn't be vague. All five stages are within a square mile. We have this new tool with great potential but it could do more. In it's current form ALs can replace virtuals and field puzzles. With this modification it could also replace multis and some aspects of Wherigo and letterbox hybrids. I've seen some brilliant ingenuity, despite the limitations.I want it to continue to grow. Imagine what people will create when the app is full featured?

The subject really says it all. I would like the option to only reveal the stages one at a time. I'd like to put some actual Adventure into my next Adventure Lab and the essence of adventure is the unknown. This would allow for better story telling as well. Years ago I heard this would be a future feature so ... how about now? I guess I could create a huge zone to mask where the stages are but that removes much of the "location based" aspect and would allow easier spoofing. Thanks!

Just noticed the new promotion yesterday so I went out this afternoon at around 17:00 UTC and found/logged a cache. No points awarded. No leaderboard shown. Has there been a release delay or is it just me? It was only a 15 pointer but, if previous promotions are any indication, I'll need all the points I can get.

The coins are still out there in older caches. I found a few yesterday in New Jersey. The website has since gone white. Not dark... just a white page with no content. No posts on the business blog since 2011 and none on her personal blog since 2013. I took out one of the coins and will drop it in another old cache just for the memories.

That explains it pretty well. I don't envy the task of the App developer with the way permissions are documented (or not) and change between versions. Thanks for the reply!

Naturally we wont all see the same thing. That would be too simple! I'm running Android 5.0.1.and the update screen looks like this:

By way of a post-holiday bump... Some personal research shows that this permission is often used so the app can read your Google Contact Card - which contains your personal account number. The account number is most useful in linking your web browsing for ad tracking. So this could be the beginning of serving ads on the free app or just an end-around for those who block ads on (or don't use) the website. From a business perspective it makes a lot of sense to monetize the viewing of cache pages in the app. Does the app currently send any ads to non-premium members?

The latest version of the app is asking for permission to access "Identity: Uses one or more of: accounts on the device, profile data" Since this doesn't seem to line up with any of the new features I'm wondering exactly why the app wants to see my contact card. Does anyone have any insights?

This is a valid point. I do not log Earthcaches except during promotions... and I'm still running out of nearby ECs. Time to push out the definition of "nearby" again.

My points have finally been awarded! Nearly a day later but I'm now on my way to Neptune.

Why I'm here: Anyone else seeing their Friend League show up in other languages? Or not getting points for trackable drops? While I'm here: Interesting discourse as always. I'm not inspired by the marketing any more than I am by challenge caches. I pick and choose the ones that interest me. Had they chose to exclude Pluto I would have avoided logging anything for the 3 weeks because no planetary souvenir collection is complete without Pluto (or possibly Eris, Haumea, Makemake...) Because this is a game that we all play by our own rules I have chosen to drop my traveling coin collection into events I am attending as opposed to just letting people discover them. It's the only realistic way I'll get to 500 points in the allotted time. This is just busy work really but less than many puzzles I've enjoyed over the years. It'll be worth it to celebrate my favorite little planet... but only possible if the log jam breaks and points start getting awarded again.

Ok, I'm bumping it again just because I was informed today via the weekly newsletter that the Signal Icons are back for the forum. I wasn't aware they left. Reading back I see they've managed to fix a few things such as the "Related Web Page" issue... by completely removing the option. Success! Joking aside, there has been quite a bit of development over the past two years and most of it really is for the better... or at least compliant-with-modern-technology. Next up - iframes and audit logs?

Been a while since I bumped this. This will be the last time. With the most recent changes to the logs the Signal Icon Shortcodes were generating broken images in all browsers instead of just IE. Soon thereafter I noticed the shortcodes were no longer parsing at all. Since GC.com has demonstrated that they really don't care if the logs look like unshaved donkey I plan to continue my anachronistic use of the shortcodes. I might even start adding useless BBcodes too. Hooray for backwards compatibility! With this issue "resolved" they can start focusing on allowing us to use HTTPS links in the "Related Web Page" and fixing it so App-Only users aren't invisible on the website in "last visit" or premium cache audit logs.

Good tips here! I have started moving away from traditional "container" stages of multis but pre-forms are definitely the way to go for any micro hide. I have used the dymo-labels and pre-forms before and never had a problem until the whole thing vanished - tree and all. The copper plant tags is a great idea. Amazing to think they could survive a fire. Thanks all!

I have a few multi-stage caches where at least one of the stages has the coordinates for the next stage written in "permanent" marker. Sealed in a light-proof (but somehow never waterproof) container marker seems to last pretty well but exposed to the elements even quality markers fade to nothing in a year or two. Are there any truly permanent markers out there? The internet has some suggestions but I figured I would find more reliable info here. Thanks!

Most cachers didn't notice or care... but Groundspeak certainly did. Around the time that OC.com emerged the GC.com site was pretty stale and hadn't seen any real innovation in years. Suddenly we had new maps, new apps, new cache types, souvenirs, favorite points, etc. Not all of the changes were good (or permanent) but at least Garmin shook things up. I lament they didn't follow through and continue to innovate. Also, Garmin most certainly did have a phone app. It was so bare-bones however that it would have driven you to buy a dedicated GPSr so it was actually a marketing tool for hardware. I jest - everyone knows they are in the business of selling maps. The hardware is just ancillary.

Hi Peter, I can't help with your question directly (I use an ancient GPSMap60csx that loads completely differently) but I'm surprised you haven't had a response in 3 days. I'll dig up some help and send them your way.

A big thanks to Ranger Fox and everyone who has worked on the Kit and with the Foundation to make these so very much easier (and reliable) then when Wherigo was first released. With literally no experience I was able to make and test a working cart in less than an hour. My only real stumble was trying to play the cart in zip-file format without compiling it first. Keep up the good work!

Looks like this one: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2484690/ It is on Amazon too. Thanks for the heads up!

Uh oh. Signal is getting impatient!

Not at all. This thread is a showcase of entertaining sigs. The game was born in the forests and will die in the parking lots! I think we've all been there though. I must admit that as rookie cacher I once searched a dumpster behind a fast food joint... and made the find. I'm not proud. BUT (returning to the topic) I still managed a 50 word log entry. If it ain't worth logging, it wasn't worth finding.

That’s one more post for me! Thanks so much for creating this thread. As an FYI - you might not see the broken images depending on your web-browser and definitely wont see them when viewing them through The App. For the past year or so I've duplicated all of my :smiles: with a [: )] Good to hear! I'll continue to be (somewhat) patient and occasionally monitoring this thread.

Might be somewhat off topic but that's exactly why I do read/post in the forums. I see here there are still a few cachers of like mind and that gives me hope that the game might not devolve into Parking for Points. We don't bring the game down... only the profits.