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Michaelcycle
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Posts posted by Michaelcycle
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The frequency of these kind of reports seems to have decreased in recent years. I assume that is due to the relatively recent cache hiding guideline that states "When you submit a cache page for review, add a Reviewer Note. Describe your geocache location, container, and how it is hidden."
The cache in question is only a couple years old but I see that the CO replaced it earlier this year. Based on at least one prior finder's comment after the event I don't think that was the original container type.
I don't know about New Zealand but pipe/end cap bombs are common in the USA. ATF data from 2019 indicate more than 50 actual explosions or discovery of unexploded devices of this type. They are top of mind for all law enforcement that respond to these events.
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18 hours ago, chaosmanor said:I can answer this, from personal experience. The NGS does not see any of the logs that are posted on the geocaching.com website. However, the NGS is *very* happy to have us submitting Recoveries. Recoveries are done through the NGS' own website. Photos can be added to these Recoveries. I have submitted over 100 Recoveries; I know of at least two other geocachers with over 500 Recoveries. The NGS has given Geocaching its own designation for Recoveries; this is no small thing. As for the database of Marks, it is actually from the NGS.
The bottom line here is that, while it is true that we can still log Recoveries with the NGS, having easy access here to Mark info has been wonderful. There is nothing that will replace this: not the NGS website, not Waymarking, because neither of them make it easy to actually see where the things are *before* we come across them. They only work *after* we see them.
NGS may not "see" our logs posted to geocaching.com but many of those logs have directly strengthened the NOAA database through the efforts of Dave Doyle, retired NGS chief geodetic surveyor. DaveD posted this after learning of Groundspeak's misguided decision to shutter the benchmarking section and delete the logs and photos:
"Many thanks to so many who have posted great pictures and hand-held positions that I've been able to harvest and improve the quality of tens of thousands of stations in the National Spatial Reference System"
That's an impressive legacy for a hobby, perhaps on par with CITO events.
It really should continue.
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An open letter to Groundspeak administration:
In the early 2000s a fledgling company, looking to expand its product line and thereby increase its customer base, imported a database of benchmarks that its customers could search and log from what is now know as NOAA. Over time the customers provided the necessary additional products (geocaches) to allow the company to survive and grow. To Groundspeak’s administration benchmarks became a forgotten backwater as evidenced by the benign neglect that the platform has endured for many years. Now this same administration wants to remove benchmarking and its remarkable compendium of logs and photographs, one of the elements that helped the company survive its infancy.
Let’s examine the reasons that they have stated for this wrongheaded decision:
The game is global and benchmarking is a United States pursuit. As others have stated, there are multiple geocaching pursuits that are all or nearly all US based among them the APE cache(s), the original stash plaque and various events limited to HQ and environs. So “globalism” does not make a compelling argument.
Very few people engage in benchmarking so it doesn’t make economic sense to support it. This should be entered in a dictionary of “self fulfilling prophesies” as a quintessential example. I can think of no other segment of the Groundspeak universe that has received as little marketing and promotion as benchmarking. For quite some time you have had to stumble over it to find it compared to everything else. I know some people that primarily looked for benchmarks during the early part of the pandemic before much was known about the virus’s survivability on caches or other surfaces. Imagine what a boost it would have been to the hobby if Groundspeak had actively promoted benchmarking during that time.
The code is old and upkeep is costly. Who’s fault is that? I am certain that the code running the geocache part of the platform is not from 2002. I’ve lived through outages (that I fully understand) caused by multiple upgrades over the years. The ONLY reason we are at this juncture is because administration decided not to spend the money years ago to do the maintenance needed on the benchmarking side. Now we, the paying customer, will pay the price by losing part of the game. Shame on you, Groundspeak, for failing to spend our money wisely.
Speaking of spending our money wisely, now I turn to the excuse that the benchmarking code is getting in the way of new and exciting projects. I have no idea what those are because no one has shared that information. Unlike some members of this board I have no faith, based on the last decade of “innovations” some of which have gone by the wayside, that I and many like me will find them a good trade for removing benchmarking. Imagine if the money lost on some of those “innovations” had been directed at upgrading the benchmarking code.
Groundspeak likes to talk about the “Language of Location” The language of location in the United States was established by the survey crews that gradually established the network of horizontal and vertical locations that enabled the building of roads and bridges, homes and factories, canals and railroads, cities and towns that made the USA. This was often backbreaking work in inhospitable conditions. It required axe work and lugging surveying chains as often as using precision instruments like theodolites. These precisely measured locations (whether horizontal, vertical or both) are still used today, even in the era of the Global Positioning System, to make sure that water doesn’t flow in the wrong direction, houses aren’t built on the wrong property and for many other reasons. As benchmarkers we have helped find missing markers and reported those that have been destroyed. As august a presence as Dave Doyle, retired NGS chief geodetic surveyor, recently said in the Benchmarking forum “Many thanks to so many who have posted great pictures and hand-held positions that I've been able to harvest and improve the quality of tens of thousands of stations in the National Spatial Reference System.”
Perhaps if Jeremy, Bryan, Elias or one of the more public facing lackeys had ever made the hike to station Buttermilk, (https://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.aspx?PID=LX4113) the oldest surviving triangulation station in the country, they might have experienced the same sense of awe and history that I did when I visited that site. But none of them did, despite traveling to many parts of the USA to promote Groundspeak and its activities (and, for many of the lackeys, to geocache.) They might have learned with a little research that Ferdinand Hassler, the first superindentent of the US Coast Survey, spent two weeks in June of 1833 with his wagon of instruments and his survey team setting this mark. I’ve been to the Original Stash Plaque and the Tunnel of Light APE cache. They are certainly historical but not remotely in the same class as finding Station Buttermilk. The only things that have come close are finding TU2116 (https://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.aspx?PID=TU2116) a benchmark placed by the Republic of Hawaii (check your history boys and girls) in 1896 and GS0206 (https://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.aspx?PID=GS0206) a gravity station in Death Valley (there are as many types of “benchmarks” as there are geocaches, some as rare as webcams.)
None of the solutions that have been proposed on this forum have the same functionality as the current system. Waymaking does not have the database, NGS DataExplorer does not have the photographs and NOAA certaily does not want recovery notes every few months on the more popular and easily found stations.
Finally, eliminating benchmarking from this site would be the equivilant of burning down a unique and valuable library, a library that has played a far more valuable civic role than any other aspect of this hobby.
The current situation of low usage and old code is primarliy the result of decisions, conscious or subconscious, made by Groundspeak’s administration over the years. These same people can fix the problem by spending the money to revamp the system and market the activity. To rather spend money to move the hobby further from its roots toward more instant gratification may result in short term gain but long term loss. I urge reconsideration of this decision. Benchmarking is this community’s connection to the history of geolocation. Let’s strengthen that connection, not lose it.
Michaelcycle and Susancycle
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It seems that HQ did not see the need to make a specific note to this effect on the Benchmarking forum so here is the link:
I don't know if I have ever been more disappointed in a short-sighted decision by this organization,
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50 minutes ago, Isonzo Karst said:
Not a new irk. Indeed I may have posted it here previously.... however .. if you OPEN an ammo can, kindly work out how to close it. Please.
Checked one today, found with lid pushed down, but not latched. Full of mud, rust, ants. Dang. <grumpy mode> I'm long on cans, so replaced it, but I am coming to the end of being willing to do this </ mode>
Yet another reason for mandatory military service.
(dons his Nomex)
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1 hour ago, JL_HSTRE said:
I'm thinking particularly of the drought and heat in Europe.
There will undoubtedly be more logs for Saturday in the coming weeks, but I doubt there are 24,000 people attending the anniversary celebration and GeoWoodstock from outside North America.
Additionally, apps are very common now for day-of logging, as opposed to back in 2013. I'm not sure the API even existed back then.
126K-112K=14K but your point is still valid.
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On 8/6/2022 at 1:09 PM, Michaelcycle said:
I have the same problem. Running iOS 15.6 on an iPhone 12
At some point during the night the app logged itself out. When I logged back in it worked fine.
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I have the same problem. Running iOS 15.6 on an iPhone 12
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4 hours ago, MNTA said:
GS could change the rules to remove placement date requirement on all grandfathered caches just like the did to remove ALRs.
All challenge caches, old and new, have logging requirements beyond finding the cache and signing the log. Taking your argument to its logical conclusion , Groundspeak should eliminate all challenge requirements because somebody doesn't like one requirement or another. That argument has already been debated and legislated 6 years ago.
I will also point out that the ALRs you are referring to were not part of challenge caches.
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8 hours ago, Keystone said:
As well you should! It's a shame that fewer and fewer people know the true history behind the original Fizzy challenge. It is just another geocaching buzzword to many geocachers. In the modern age when statistics can be sliced and diced every which way, it's hard to relate to the early days. FindStats was groundbreaking in its time, because nothing else like it was in the statistics space. Your work deserves to be memorialized, even by challenge cache hiders who may not even realize that they're doing so!
In case this discussion has energized some geocachers to check their stats and start planning a trip to GC11E8N the place where it is hidden, Big Basin Redwoods State park (California's oldest state park, 1902) was burned over 97% of its acreage during the CZU fire in 2020. The cache has been disabled since that time. Kealia recently posted that limited reopening of the park is scheduled for 22July22 but access to GZ will not be available. The CO is watching and will replace/repair the cache when it is accessible. The good news is that the redwoods have survived for the most part and their presence will still be a fitting reward for anyone who succeeds in undertaking this challenge.
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6 hours ago, PathfinderMark said:
Yeah, its kinda depressing. I spent years attempting to get my Fizzy filled so that I could be eligible. But I guess I never checked the nuance rules. I started geocaching in 2007, but really began serious caching in 2010, but only last year finished the frizzy (4.5/3, 4.5/3.5, 5/1 were my last ones). Now I have it but "legally" don't have any fizzy challenges I'm eligible for.
Of my 12000+ finds, only about 6100 were published before July 2, 2007, and of the missing boxes, no remaining find are available within 1,000 miles (1800 km). Guess I'll have to consider logging them and posting the grid image from my profile instead of the project-gc checker (since that one doesn't clear me). I wish there was a better solution (that COs updated stuff as time changed for example)
Your solution to failing to meet the requirements for logging does not square with who you profess to be in your profile. You have cached in every state but Alaska and Hawai'i and you have found more than 50 caches in many of those states. If you had "checked the nuance rules" ie., read the cache page fully first, you could easily have fulfilled the current requirements for the Maryland Fizzy, GC16QQZ, which had an original cut-off date of 4JULY08. The CO has advanced that 5 years to 4July13. (As an FYI the cut-off date is not the only additional requirement, the 81 caches must contain 9 specified cache types in keeping with the original Fizzy Challenge GC11E8N.)
Dated restricted Fizzy are difficult (I planned and worked very hard and it took a long time to complete and log the original) but so are lots of other old (and even some new) challenges. When I finished I was exhilarated! That is not the feeling you will have if you log a cache without meeting the requirements.
You recently logged a challenge that required 25 EarthCaches in 25 states. Not surprising, ECs are something you enjoy and I suspect you travel mostly by car but I doubt I will ever meet that requirement. Maybe the CO could lower the number to the 18 states where I do have ECs? Ok, so that was sarcasm.
I would rather you got the feeling of logging a Fizzy Challenge legitimately so I did some research. Here are two Fizzys that you do meet the requirements for that for a traveler like you would surely be considered local:
GC799TJ and GC98CHJ
Good luck and keep chipping away on that Maryland Fizzy, it's a nice climb to GZ.
As for Alaska and Hawai'i, go, you'll never forget them (be sure to visit the Big Island and take the train from Anchorage to Fairbanks to really experience both )
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5 hours ago, terratin said:
s*** happens. I had a virtual log deleted last night, presumably because the log doesn't have a photo. I know I took a photo (not a nice one, but it's a photo) and likely uploaded it. Actually, not the first time one of my logs didn't have the photo that I'm sure I uploaded! As I tend to delete those kind of photos from my phone I can't upload my log again. Oh well, that's one virtual find less.
I would be happy to be a character witness if you decide to appeal terratin.
(Not that the word of a rogue like me would carry much weight)
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59 minutes ago, brandonc23 said:
Hi, I found a benchmark as part of one of the questions for a virtual cache (GC676D), and took a picture of it for later, since I faintly remembered that there was a way to log benchmarks on geocaching.com. How do I find the page on geocaching.com?
Here is the picture of the benchmark:
Unfortunately you and many others I see by reviewing the logs did not find the benchmark. As indicated by the arrow and the "NO 2" stamped on the disk what you found is a reference mark. Without going into a long discussion of station types I will just note that these marks are placed as aids to finding the actual benchmark (if you followed that arrow you would find the benchmark) and as backups in case the original benchmark gets destroyed, buried, etc.Benchmarking is a great hobby I suggest you start here https://www.geocaching.com/mark/
as TriciaG recommended and the first post in the Benchmarking forum
My friend geoawareUSA9 is correct, the benchmark you were looking for is TU3081 (look up "PID" in those references I listed) The reference mark that you found is NOT listed so you cannot log it.
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13 hours ago, JL_HSTRE said:
A lot of forums don't allow off-topic posts at all. It's just not worth the headache for the moderators.
Even if Facebook is not a desirable choice for some folks there are other options for setting up private online discussions among friends.
One could even argue that geocaching, which is all about getting people outside, should not have an online hangout spot unless it facilitates getting people outside.
I have completed many mystery cache puzzles that took longer inside to solve than they did outside to find. At least half the events I have attended have been inside. Most of the conversations I have at events are not about geocaching. They are more likely to be about the things that people "talked" about in the "Cheers" topic in Off Topic: jokes, family, travel personal triumphs and travails, hopes, fears and dreams. Private groups get new members by invitation. For Off Topic all you needed was the cost of a GS membership and the curiosity to click on that forum.
As for moderating, I will leave that for another post in the future. I have yet to frame my comments adequately regarding the historical moderating of that forum (at least since 2007)
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On 3/16/2022 at 3:17 PM, Keystone said:
As a former daily participant in Off Topic, the upcoming closure of that forum does trigger some sentimental memories. The decision was not taken lightly. It's important to focus on current statistics, not on total activity since way back in the heyday of Off Topic more than a decade ago. We analyzed activity over a period of five or six months, and found that the same core group of about 20 posters were responsible for the vast majority of posts to Off Topic. Providing and supporting that feature, unrelated to the core missions of Geocaching HQ's products, no longer made sense for such a small group. I would recommend creating a closed Facebook group for that core group, and continuing your discussions and close online personal relationships there. There is precedent for this, when other tight-knit groups moved to other online platforms.
As I said on Cheers I will not allow Zuckerberg and his ilk to monetize my personal data. Even in a "closed" FB group they they still closely analyze everything that goes on there. Whatever else might be said about Groundspeak I don't think that degree of scrutiny occurred in Off Topic.
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Thanks for your efforts Dave, that's great! My benchmarking has slowed down some lately but I always try to include a detail, an eye level and a westward looking setting photo for each benchmark I find. I will try to include handheld coordinates for any scaled marks I find from now on (and maybe go back and get them for some local marks.)
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2 hours ago, ChriBli said:
It makes sense for people living in countries not subdivided into states. But what is the problem? I just made a search for caches in New York, United States, and I got 33,185 results. Do you mean that this is not the number of caches in the state of New York? Or is the problem that it is called "Region: New York, United States"? Or something else? I have seen complaints that searching for caches in a state measures the distances to those caches from the center of the state, rather than from home or from some otherwise specified point, but I guess that's not it.
Here is the problem: I live less than ten miles (the default search distance from "home") from another state." So what?" I hear you say. "What" is that there is a large river between me and that other state only crossable by a handful of toll bridges. I rarely have interest in crossing any of those bridges for geocaching so the "out of my home state" caches in the search result are an annoyance that I have to pick through. For a long time there was a way to delimit the search to a specific state as well as a specific distance from home. In another part of my state a cacher's ten mile from home search will include caches across a bay that will require crossing a toll bridge and a 100 minute drive! I know that in other parts of my country there are even more dramatic examples. I have cached by bicycle in enough countries to know that caches can be few and far between in some places in the world. That is not the point. The point is that a cacher used to be able to select a location, a distance and a state all in a single search.
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It is a private survey marker in California
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elrojo14:
Since you are revising this topic I must point this out from the "to err is human" department. Please go back and re-read the first sentence of your opening post. Then re-read my reply. I never responded to your reply because it was evident you missed the obvious. So here is a second chance to get the joke and enjoy a self-reflective smile.
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Suggest you read this:
https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/performance/accuracy/
I have abstracted two paragraphs of interest:
"For example, GPS-enabled smartphones are typically accurate to within a 4.9 m (16 ft.) radius under open sky However, their accuracy worsens near buildings, bridges, and trees.
High-end users boost GPS accuracy with dual-frequency receivers and/or augmentation systems. These can enable real-time positioning within a few centimeters, and long-term measurements at the millimeter level."
(my bolding)
"Using two GPS frequencies improves accuracy by correcting signal distortions caused by Earth's atmosphere. Dual-frequency GPS equipment is commercially available for civilian use, but its cost and size has limited it to professional applications."
So, yes, your hand-held GPSr or smartphone is limited to +/- 4 m in good conditions. But those high end systems have been in use for surveying for some time now. When you are laying out roads, bridges and housing developments you need a lot better accuracy than +/- 4 m.
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New county souvenir: Ecuador! I'm not doing any traveling but I am racking up some souvenirs from places we have cached in the past. Pretty cool to stand on the equator:
Had to dodge traffic in a busy street to get this:
As for the souvenir artwork I think they should have included the Galapagos hawk, they were everywhere at Bartolome and fearless:
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I believe that Juvenal and Swift would recognize what the OP has called his "Modest Proposal"
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39 minutes ago, on4bam said:
There must be some kind of register where boundaries are kept?
Type any city name in Google maps and you'll see the town borders (not saying they are always correct) but I'm sure every inch of a country has been measured up by a surveyor..
That is not true. If you type the name of my town (the "place" the post office recognizes) into Google you will see a place on the map so labeled. But there are no boundaries on that map because there are none. It has no government or any other hallmark of a "town" With the exception of incorporated towns (Woodbury, NJ would be a nearby example) "townships" are the bounded units of location with associated governments in my state (and at least one other that I am aware of) and those townships may contain several towns.
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I don't know any geocachers that live in a library (although, before the pandemic, I visited my local library twice a month) so they had to go outdoors to go to those events.
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Release Notes (Website: Benchmarking retirement) - October 17, 2022
in Geocaching HQ communications
Posted
Given that the removal is going happen please consider placing all of the accumulated benchmark finds (and DNFs, etc) along with the associated photographs in offline storage. Surely the cost of that would be minimal in the current environment. Then if the opportunity and interest arose GS could build a new framework, update the database and reintegrate benchmarking back into the site as a vibrant part of the "language of location."
Remove benchmarking if you must, for now, but please don't foreclose the option to reinvigorate and reintroduce it when the cost to retain that option is relatively small.