ClayJar
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Posts posted by ClayJar
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quote:
75-to-1 you don't like Babylon 5. If I'm wrong, you can request a free feature addition to Watcher.
Originally posted by Snoogans:Fan of the movie. Not SG1.
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Okay, lots of questions in that one post, pc... I'll see if I can hit them all...
There are three styles of URLs you can use to get to a particular cache page: id, waypoint, and GUID.
Originally, the URLs all ended with "?id=#", where "#" is the decimal equivalent of the value of the GCID. These still work, but you have to use a new function to calculate the ID number of GCIDs > GCFFFF, since from GCG000 upward, they are not hex.
After "?id=#" came "?wp=gc____". I first noticed this type of URL in my Pocket Query results. By using this way of simply specifying the canonical waypoint name for the cache, you avoid having to do any messy math. If you know the GCID, this is the easiest way of pulling up the cache page.
Finally, the new nearest caches page uses the third type of URL, a GUID. For anyone who doesn't know, a GUID is a "globally unique ID", or in simple terms, a universal serial number. You would never type in this style URL, since the GUID string (in "?guid=___...") makes even Microsoft product keys look short.
Here's an example of the three URLs that point to Things that Grow
- By ID: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?id=38966
- By waypoint: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?wp=gc9836
- By GUID: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=9daf48ac-90a8-48dd-acc0-582a0082a7a7
Finally, the new GCIDs are based on Base31 math with the digit set "0123456789ABCDEFGHJKMNPQRTVWXYZ". If a GCID is <= GCFFFF, you just use the old hex->dec conversion to get the ID, and if the GCID > GCFFFF, you convert the four Base31 digits to decimal and subtract the offset 411120. (You must subtract the offset so that GCG000 == 65536, since GCFFFF is 65535, and GCG000 is the next cache in line.)
(Well, I *think* I covered your entire post. Hehe.)
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If you edit your profile and stick a recognizable seventh chevron in it, I'd be more than happy to comment. Unfortunately, without a point of origin, I can't very well say whether it's a great idea of a poor idea. (Namely, if it's within 500 miles of me it's great; if it's over 1000 miles from me, it's poor.)
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Additionally, while you can specify a range in a Pocket Query, you can also filter the resulting GPX(es) in Watcher on the fly. (So if you get a full query and want to split it into <2.5, 2.5-4, and >4 rating GPX files, you can do that in Watcher.) Anyway, just a note.
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IIRC, Jeremy has indicated on several occasions that web services are one of the things that he would like to add to the site. It seems to be my understanding that this would be intended to allow premium members to use programs such as Watcher, et al, to do queries and such.
(In other words, I believe the answer is yes to the thinking about and not yet to the working on.)
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quote:
It sounds like orienteering to me. You find that a very large number of cachers would not enter even if it were free. Mad dashes are fun for orienteers, but generally not so for geocachers. Unfortunately, I don't think any of the original MBNA Foxhall Cup threads from the original original forums are still around, or you'd have *plenty* to read about.
Originally posted by jasoncann:...the winner that finds the last cache in the mad dash would win the 10 grand...
If its been done before let me know.
(I participated in a GGA challenge event that was expressly designed to *not* turn into a mad dash. That was almost universally considered the best thing about it. On the other hand, someone was hiding high-dollar caches up north and nearly ripped the local geocaching community to shreds because of it. No thanks, I'll stick to McToys.)
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
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Interesting idea about rating qualities... I'm not going to voice an opinion on it right now, though, other than to note that having "accessibility" scale as the inverse of terrain may not be the best for usability. If harder is higher-valued in both terrain and difficulty, adding in something where harder is lower-valued would be counter-intuitive.
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
Home of Watcher downloads, Official Geocaching Chat, and the Geocache Rating System
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quote:
Hehe... the other standard jokes tend to be really, *really* worn... I think the pattern goes something like:
Originally posted by salmonboy:The post that he referred to was moderated as "Funny". It is typical Slashdot humor. Maybe not what you'd expect to see in this forum, but then, its not this forum.
Slashdot tends to be very pro-technology, pro-privacy, anti-silly gov't policies. It was not a serious post.- Create a joke.
- Post it in every thread.
- ???
- Profit!
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Jeremy, you're making me giddy with anticipation.
You know, I'll gladly take the additional features rather than getting them now. (Tungsten... you haven't gotten into those payday loans, too, have you?
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Home of Watcher downloads, Official Geocaching Chat, and the Geocache Rating System
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quote:
There is no such thing as the Magellan Meridian Map (Meridian [GPS|Gold|Platinum|Marine|Color] and SporTrak [Map|Pro|Pro Marine|Color]), so I'd assume that the title parses as "(Magellan Meridian) (Map Problem)", in which case DJ's suggestions are correct.
Originally posted by umc:The Magellan Meridian Map doesn't use an SD card does it?
Anyway, if you upload over serial (*GASP* nobody really *does* that to a Meridian, I'd hope), it deletes the old map before uploading a new one. If you copy directly to the SD card in MapSend Streets and Destinations, it uses the same name each time and therefore overwrites the file. If you copy or rename map files by hand, well, then you know how to move, rename, and delete them, so it's a moot point.
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
Home of Watcher downloads, Official Geocaching Chat, and the Geocache Rating System
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Ouch. We finally hit the summer schedule, so I should be able to spend some time distilling the missing logs. Sorry about that, but hopefully I'll have time this weekend... and since we're on a 4x10 schedule, this weekend starts ten minutes ago!
Originally posted by cachew nut:It would be nice if the chat logs were up to date and available, so that those who were not there could recap what was discussed.
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
Home of Watcher downloads, Official Geocaching Chat, and the Geocache Rating System
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Jeremy's been known to drop by the official geocaching chat once in a while, and the people there tend to be at least a bit more "in the know".
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Incidentally, what are you doing that the site changing will affect? Are you assuming that Jeremy's going to add a feature that you would have written offline? I don't see how the site changing would affect anything you'd do (since you're obviously smarter than the 10Ts that write geocaching.com-killing scrapers).
Originally posted by Sissy-n-CR:I got a couple of personal projects that I want to do and, sure as Hades, as soon as I do, they will be obsolete because the new site will be online and I will have to change everything.
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
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I've gone on *many* 1500-ish mile geocaching trips. I've gone on 2500+ mile geocaching trips. I've done a 4500+ mile geocaching trip (with a few museums thrown in for variety, but no extra distance). I suppose this makes me >100 miles?
Incidentally, this Christmas/New Years week I think I might make a Baton Rouge -> Key West -> Los Angeles -> Baton Rouge trip... That'll be a lot of Pocket Queries, about 100 driving hours, and probably $300-400 for gas alone... Ought to be fun.
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
Home of Watcher downloads, Official Geocaching Chat, and the Geocache Rating System
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Maybe a state of the onion speech would be better served in the official geocaching chat the Monday after Jeremy finishes the conversion. (We heard from him a couple weeks ago, but I wouldn't want to take any more time until the rewriting is done, since he's supposed to finish that before doing anything else.
)[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
Home of Watcher downloads, Official Geocaching Chat, and the Geocache Rating System
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Who wants to give this one an empirical test? (Or is that my job?)
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
Home of Watcher downloads, Official Geocaching Chat, and the Geocache Rating System
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I *do* have PDAs, but I use my Pocket Queries in Watcher a *whole* lot more than I use them otherwhere. (Feel free to go take a look at some of the Watcher screenshots in the "Feature Presentation" or just ask in the official geocaching chat... they'll be able to tell you about it.)
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
Home of Watcher downloads, Official Geocaching Chat, and the Geocache Rating System
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quote:
If you're asking if Watcher will create GPX files by scraping the data of Geocaching.com pages, then the answer is such an emphatic *NO* that I may have just burst a lung. (I would love nothing more than to have the people who make applications that do that be permanently banned for making life a living snail run for everyone else... but at least I'm not opinionated.
Originally posted by Vacman:Will watcher extract the .gpx files from the geocaching db?
)If you create a brand new PQ, you can often have it in something like 10 minutes. Not instantaneous, but fast. (And if you were asking about web services, well, those won't be out for a while yet, but once they are, perhaps Watcher *will* be able to actually query the GC.com database over the net. *That* would be nice... someday.
)[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
Home of Watcher downloads, Official Geocaching Chat, and the Geocache Rating System
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Basically, it means "site busy -- please try again". The site's going rather uncharacteristically slow at present, so you may want to try a bit later.
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
Home of Watcher downloads, Official Geocaching Chat, and the Geocache Rating System
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quote:
I suppose I should point out the obvious and say that General Bracket quite obviously mant "subscribing member" as opposed to "non-subscribing member". Both the former and the latter can read and post here, but only the former has the power of Pocket Queries.
Originally posted by GrizzlyJohn:quote:
I guess to only point out the obvious ... if they are posting in this forum then they must be a member.
Originally posted by General Bracket:But... if you're not a member you gotta do it their way.
quote:
There's no need to be rude about it, GB. Having been close to many discussions with rangers and land management authorities, I would quite certainly agree with Jeremy's decision to retain the "GC" prefix as long as possible, since that is what the powers external to geocaching have been conditioned to recognize. I tend to agree that it is a good idea to not add unnecessary complications to their lives, since they have been conditioned to ask for the "GC number" and (in some cases) are finally starting to warm up to geocaching. (I know the waypoint designation is a really, really basic thing, but if it makes the lives easier for those who can cause us great pain, then great for them.)
Originally posted by General Bracket:...near as I can tell TPTB would rather keep their branding than make it practical.
As for your implication that changing the prefix to V, M, et cetera would somehow make things more practical, I'm afraid I must disagree... strongly. Perhaps *for you* it would make things easier, but for me it would make life a pain in the receiver. My icons, descriptions, and PDAs yield *more* than enough information, and having all the waypoints in my receivers in order of GCID makes my life much simpler. Additionally, since I use my GPS receivers for more than just geocaching, it makes it much more convenient to find my other waypoints, since the large collection of GCIDs are all in one place and can be bypassed by logical scrolling.
Put simply, I do not disagree that *for you* a variable prefix may make things one step simpler, but please refrain from making poorly-formed generalities out of your personal opinions.
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quote:
I typed a rude reply remark to you, but then I remembered that I should be more diplomatic than that. So...
Originally posted by General Bracket:Opera stomps that browser. Even IE owns it. Why won't Netscape just die quietly?
Opera does not provide the things I need for my development work. IE is not cross-platform. Why won't trolls just die quietly? (No, wait... how about exploding, instead? Yeah, trolls exploding in large fiery balls as warnings to others that some things come at too great a price... That would be good.)
Oh, and I neglected to mention the MIME-handling bugs that were present in many forms in many versions of IE... especially the ones that made it so much easier on the users by opening the executables without so much as an "Oooh, look at the pretty worm!"
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
Home of Watcher downloads, Official Geocaching Chat, and the Geocache Rating System
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You need to be a subscribing member, but once you are, do a Pocket Query. Once you have that, just open it up in Watcher and do the search. Watcher lets you search the full descriptions (and even the last five logs, if you want). By default, Watcher searches the short and long descriptions, cache name, and unencrypted hints.
If you want to search the entire database of all the caches in the entire wide, wide world, well, that'll take a lot of Pocket Queries... or use Google... or ask in the official geocaching chat and perhaps one of the regulars will know. If you just want to search in the caches you may actually do, the Pocket Queries and Watcher were indeed built for precisely that (and a quarter bazillion other things, too).
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
Home of Watcher downloads, Official Geocaching Chat, and the Geocache Rating System
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quote:
I love hydrocaches, personally. I spent a little time using Watcher to search for keywords like "boat", "paddle", and other such things, since Watcher lets you search the full text of the cache descriptions in your Pocket Query GPX file.
Originally posted by BeachBuddies:I do really like to solve the offset puzzle caches (more than the other type of multi-caches), so it would be great if there were a way to search for those.
If you're a subscribing member of Geocaching.com, you can get Pocket Queries from the site (files with up to 500 cache pages in them that you can use on a PDA, with Watcher on your PC, or with several other programs). Watcher (which I write) is a great program for when you want to look through a bunch of caches to find the caches you really like. (Well, it's good for a ton of other things, too, but hey.
)Anyway, since we don't have cache attributes yet, using Watcher is probably the next best thing. (And once we *do* have cache attributes, which will be sometime after the reworked Geocaching.com site is finished, Watcher will support them, too.)
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
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Offset caches are most closely resemblant of *multi-caches*. Consider that there are at least two stages to any offset cache, and even if one is virtual (even to the point of not being intended to be visited at all), the concept of the waypoint is still inherent.
Having an offset cache attribute would be an idea I would ascribe to, although at this point cache attributes have not yet been implemented, due to the herculean task that Jeremy has been assigned to for the last several months. Still, once cache attributes are implemented (as Jeremy has yet again assured us they will be), having such an attribute would be a valid and worthwhile idea.
Adding yet another cache type of yet finer distinctions would be, in my personal opinion as a developer of GPX applications, a bad idea. The reason cache attributes will be implemented is precisely to allow such fine-grained distinctions to be made without inflating the cache type list. At present, calling offset caches multi-caches (which is the most applicable cache type) should alleviate the looking-in-the-wrong-place problem with all but the least responsible cachers, and those irresponsible cachers who do not have the honor or decency to read the description to see that it's an offset multi-cache... well, they deserve any consequences of their irresponsibility.
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
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Watcher allows you to specify direction from a point (via the eight compass points -- N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NE), distance from a point, and boundaries (each of the four limits -- N, S, E, and W -- are individually selectable).
I don't have anything in there for rotated rectangles, so if you have a diagonal interstate, it would take a bit of creativity to catch the caches close to it, but for N/S or E/W highways, you can quite easily make a rectangular bounding box.
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
Home of Watcher downloads, Official Geocaching Chat, and the Geocache Rating System
Slashdot tends to be very pro-technology, pro-privacy, anti-silly gov't policies. It was not a serious post.
OFFICIAL CHAT IS DOWN... TEMPORARY REPLACEMENT!!!
in General geocaching topics
Posted
The network which normally hosts the official geocaching chats is ***DOWN***! There is a temporary replacement:
http://gcchat.clayjar.com/ (same as always, it's just edited in on my side
- or -
#Geocache on irc.slashnet.org
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[This message was edited by ClayJar on June 23, 2003 at 09:18 PM.]