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quote:Originally posted by Waynepdx: .....dinner for two at tony romas steakhouse. (this will be payable in a gift certificate for 20 bucks). sonyapdx@msn.com dinner for TWO?!!!!! can i order an onion blossom? can i pay the wait-staff to pretend it's my birthday? If there's gravity, then how you explain birds?!?

well, i'll give a $5 gift certificate to the barley mill for anyone (other than oregone and explosis and bellemanda) who knows my california plates. if it were a geocache, i'd give it a difficulty of 3 and a terrain of 1 (not a very tough car). If there's gravity, then how you explain birds?!?

I know that I have deleted comments that made the cache seem much more dangerous than it really was - just a big ol' misunderstanding. It upset a lot of people, to the point where Jeremy asked us to archive it. We explained the situation, modified the description then emailed the cacher. He chose to go ahead and log the cache as a find anyway without actually visiting it - just to get it off his 'watch list'. We let it go - for the sake of peace. At least people aren't afraid to go looking for it anymore. One other log entry was VERY revealing - offering the information that was in my decrypted hint. I encrypted the whole thing and emailed him explaining that I can't selectively encrypt parts of his log, but if he wanted to, he could unencrypt portions of it through editing and brackets. No objections from him. As far as safety issues go, I think it is the responsibility of the cache owner to disclose potentially dangerous conditions. I remarked once about a pretty steep cliff that I almost experienced gravity on. Finders usually don't take the same paths as the hiders to get to the cache. One could argue that snakes, poision ivy, etc. are possible at ANY cache that isn't in a concrete jungle. But, it is nice to know when they've been sighted. It also makes for neat log reading. I hope I don't die geocaching. Aw, heck. If I do, I'll post the coordinates of my gravemarker. --------------- Go! And don't be afraid to get a little wet!

I know that I have deleted comments that made the cache seem much more dangerous than it really was - just a big ol' misunderstanding. It upset a lot of people, to the point where Jeremy asked us to archive it. We explained the situation, modified the description then emailed the cacher. He chose to go ahead and log the cache as a find anyway without actually visiting it - just to get it off his 'watch list'. We let it go - for the sake of peace. At least people aren't afraid to go looking for it anymore. One other log entry was VERY revealing - offering the information that was in my decrypted hint. I encrypted the whole thing and emailed him explaining that I can't selectively encrypt parts of his log, but if he wanted to, he could unencrypt portions of it through editing and brackets. No objections from him. As far as safety issues go, I think it is the responsibility of the cache owner to disclose potentially dangerous conditions. I remarked once about a pretty steep cliff that I almost experienced gravity on. Finders usually don't take the same paths as the hiders to get to the cache. One could argue that snakes, poision ivy, etc. are possible at ANY cache that isn't in a concrete jungle. But, it is nice to know when they've been sighted. It also makes for neat log reading. I hope I don't die geocaching. Aw, heck. If I do, I'll post the coordinates of my gravemarker. --------------- Go! And don't be afraid to get a little wet!

quote:Originally posted by Vertigo: The water doesn't "direct" the radio waves, it just basicaly absorbs it. Radio waves are just like light waves, nothing (aside from mass, i.e. a black hole) can bend or suck them towards it. The only way the tree can block the signal is if it's within the line of sight from you to the satellite. Sorry to be a stickler, but I wanted to point out that light and radio waves, both being forms of electromagnetic radiation, do "bend" for reasons other than gravity. Without going into quantum electro dynamics, EMR travels at different speeds through different media (ex. warm air vs. cold air, vacuum vs. atmosphere). And, for reasons we do not understand, photons, the quanta, or smallest divisable 'chunk', of EMR, seem to have the ability to sniff out the best route to a destination (sub atomic GPS units and cell phones?) Photons also, for lack of a better word, require 'elbow room'. We can predict these behaviors using a complicated system of probability summation, but the effect is not limited to some laboratory anomally. You can often see it in every day life. One of the best examples is the common road mirage often seen while driving in western states. It really does look like water on the road. This happens when the air just above the road is warm, but the surrounding air is cool. You are actually looking at part of the sky at road level. The photons take a curved path from the sky, down to the roadway, travel in the 'fast lane' (the warm air above the road), then curve back to your eye. Since we normally only see the sky from the ground as a reflection in water, our brain fills in the rest. The moving edges of the mirage are the moving air currents between the warm and cool air. At normal radio wavelengths bending and twisting due to atmospheric conditions can be quite severe. Again, sorry to be a stickler... -jjf

quote:Originally posted by Vertigo: The water doesn't "direct" the radio waves, it just basicaly absorbs it. Radio waves are just like light waves, nothing (aside from mass, i.e. a black hole) can bend or suck them towards it. The only way the tree can block the signal is if it's within the line of sight from you to the satellite. Sorry to be a stickler, but I wanted to point out that light and radio waves, both being forms of electromagnetic radiation, do "bend" for reasons other than gravity. Without going into quantum electro dynamics, EMR travels at different speeds through different media (ex. warm air vs. cold air, vacuum vs. atmosphere). And, for reasons we do not understand, photons, the quanta, or smallest divisable 'chunk', of EMR, seem to have the ability to sniff out the best route to a destination (sub atomic GPS units and cell phones?) Photons also, for lack of a better word, require 'elbow room'. We can predict these behaviors using a complicated system of probability summation, but the effect is not limited to some laboratory anomally. You can often see it in every day life. One of the best examples is the common road mirage often seen while driving in western states. It really does look like water on the road. This happens when the air just above the road is warm, but the surrounding air is cool. You are actually looking at part of the sky at road level. The photons take a curved path from the sky, down to the roadway, travel in the 'fast lane' (the warm air above the road), then curve back to your eye. Since we normally only see the sky from the ground as a reflection in water, our brain fills in the rest. The moving edges of the mirage are the moving air currents between the warm and cool air. At normal radio wavelengths bending and twisting due to atmospheric conditions can be quite severe. Again, sorry to be a stickler... -jjf

quote:Originally posted by Renegade Knight: Sea Level is defined by the datum you are using. Thus with different datums you will have a different reading on sea level that may or may not agree with what you can see standing at the ocean. Really sea level will always be sea level regardless of the datum one is using. What is different (if this is what you meant) is the vertical distance between the mathematical defined surface of the datum and the undulating surface of the earth with all it's quarks, ducks, dives and gravity effects. This vertical difference (N value) will vary depending on the datum being used as well as being variable (it's not consistent) as one changes locations. Cheers, Kerry.

ems to be defying past attempts in that the channel is being well used outside of the official posted times. We dropped in Saturday night, and there were around 16 in attendance, and again twice on Sunday with a dozen or so around. Thankyou clayjar for another GREAT way to be involved in geocaching even when you can't hit the trails! I used to feel that my geocaching time was split around 40% caching and 60% on the forums. Now I have a new way to invest hours per week! ------------------ Team CacheCows of Wisconsin

The can was flat, however I think I may have sprayed it on too thick too fast. This was my first time spray painting. The magnets would have worked, but this is a plastic can. So I used stones to hold the stencil down. But still I could not hold down all of the finer parts of the stencil, only the sides. I may try hairspray, or carve the stencil out of masking tape quote:Originally posted by BigDoggie:Lay the can down flat with the stencil on top. Paint needs GRAVITY to run... and it isn't there if the can is flat. You can get flexible magnetic strips at the craft stores... about 3/8" wide by 1/16" thick, adhesive on one side (which you don't use for this), in rolls about 3 feet long. Use strips of this magnetic material to hold the stencil down. Or try the hair spray. I hear that 3M makes a "tacky spray" especially for doing printer's layouts when you may need to move the items around. I'd try the hairspray first, as I bet the 3M product is expensive.

Lay the can down flat with the stencil on top. Paint needs GRAVITY to run... and it isn't there if the can is flat. You can get flexible magnetic strips at the craft stores... about 3/8" wide by 1/16" thick, adhesive on one side (which you don't use for this), in rolls about 3 feet long. Use strips of this magnetic material to hold the stencil down. Or try the hair spray. I hear that 3M makes a "tacky spray" especially for doing printer's layouts when you may need to move the items around. I'd try the hairspray first, as I bet the 3M product is expensive.

And maybe if the local newspaper does a story on it, the reporter will become a geocacher too! That's what happened in my case, at least. A geocacher in our area emailed our features editor in the fall of 2000, and the editors' general response was, "No one actually does this, this is a joke, right?" Then when articles came up on the wire, they gave it a little more thought. I liked the idea because it sounded like a sport I could actually do, as opposed to rockclimbing and kayaking and the other death-defying sports we usually did stories on. So I eventually got the assignment in September, 2001. I met with a local geocacher who put the GPS in my hand and made me find a cache he'd placed. We visited a second cache to get more photos for the story, and I realized there's a lot of pretty hiking trails around here that I didn't know about. Then when I interviewed Jeremy, he commented that geocaching is a great way to keep kids motivated when you're first introducing them to the outdoors -- hiking isn't just a long walk in summer heat with no apparent destination, it turns into a game of hide and seek. Bingo! I have two kids. And they end up finding a lot more than just the cache. Jeremy also commented (you can just refer your reporter to this message and he won't actually have to interview Jeremy ... ) that geocaching is a way to combine the hi-tech world with the outdoors. That reminded me of one of my coworkers at the paper, so I introduced him to geocaching as well. Less than six months later he's found 18, I've found 11 -- we live in the southeast corner of Idaho, and so Utah and Wyoming caches aren't too far away -- and between us we've hidden 5 caches in our area. He specifically wanted to hide some in town so people could try caching after work or at lunchtime, and that seems to have encouraged a few newcomers -- most (but not all) who log our caches are showing as having found fewer than five. And one cacher who logged ours early in his caching career has just placed his own cache a few days ago. Not everyone that uses a GPS is gonna love this sport -- a friend of mine whose husband is mesmerized by the little black line that appears on the GPS on every interstate trip they go on decided to give her hubby a "geocaching kit" for Christmas, but he didn't seem tremendously impressed. So, next step is to take him on a hunt and see if that helps. Hopefully, that offers some encouragement. Good luck!

quote:Originally posted by Alan2:You really know your stuff RD. Couple more questions. How much off are the horizontal order datasheets. Couldn't I calibrate to the 23 feet for example that was on my Time Capsule sheet. An what does that Geoid comment with the negative number mean if you know? What is GEOID99? KU3344* NAVD 88 - 7. (meters) 23. (feet) SCALED KU3344 ___________________________________________________________________ KU3344 LAPLACE CORR- 1.28 (seconds) DEFLEC99 KU3344 GEOID HEIGHT- -31.50 (meters) GEOID99 tks Alan2 I am still looking for the exact tolerances on the measurements but they are on the order of a few centimeters. I ran across them once, but the NGS website is a sea of surveyor techno-babble. You can certainly check the GPSs accuracy with any horizontal control station. The vertical measurements are similarly accurate for vertical stations. The geoid...: Here is a snippet I found at the NGS website. quote:There have been many definitions of the "geoid" over 150 years or so. Here is the one currently adopted at NGS:geoid: The equipotential surface of the Earth's gravity field which best fits, in a least squares sense, global mean sea level Even though we adopt a definition, that does not mean we are perfect in the realization of that definition. For example, altimetry is often used to define "mean sea level" in the oceans, but altimetry is not global (missing the near polar regions). As such, the fit between "global" mean sea level and the geoid is not entirely confirmable. Also, there may be non-periodic changes in sea level (like a persistent rise in sea level, for example). If so, then "mean sea level" changes in time, and therefore the geoid should also change in time. These are just a few examples of the difficulty in defining "the geoid" So basically it is a gravity model used to compute what the mean sea level would be at a particular place. The ellipsoid is a geometric model of mean sea level. The geoid height is the difference between the geoid model and ellipsoid model at a given place. For North America, the geoid is lower than the ellisoid. Geoid99 is the most recent model. You may want to check out http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/GEOID/ for a lot more information. rdw

quote:Originally posted by Iron Chef:If the Garmin V were an metal, it'd be Titanium j/k ClayJar Okay, I'll give you the point for detachable/external antenna, but you'll have to concede the point for memory, since even the one SD card I already own is 64MB. The GPS V has finally caught up in number of buttons, so that one's a draw, and of course, the point for ruggedness will be decided in the field. Now, as for the metallic representation of the Garmin GPS V, it would obviously not be titanium (Ti). V is the symbol for the next element over:vanadium. quote:A bright white, soft, ductile metallic element found in several minerals, notably vanadinite and carnotite, having good structural strength and used in rust-resistant high-speed tools, as a carbon stabilizer in some steels, as a titanium-steel bonding agent, and as a catalyst. Atomic number 23; atomic weight 50.942; melting point 1,890°C; boiling point 3,000°C; specific gravity 6.11; valence 2, 3, 4, 5. (By the way, it's the chemical engineering degree that did this to me. )

quote:Originally posted by Iron Chef:If the Garmin V were an metal, it'd be Titanium j/k ClayJar Okay, I'll give you the point for detachable/external antenna, but you'll have to concede the point for memory, since even the one SD card I already own is 64MB. The GPS V has finally caught up in number of buttons, so that one's a draw, and of course, the point for ruggedness will be decided in the field. Now, as for the metallic representation of the Garmin GPS V, it would obviously not be titanium (Ti). V is the symbol for the next element over:vanadium. quote:A bright white, soft, ductile metallic element found in several minerals, notably vanadinite and carnotite, having good structural strength and used in rust-resistant high-speed tools, as a carbon stabilizer in some steels, as a titanium-steel bonding agent, and as a catalyst. Atomic number 23; atomic weight 50.942; melting point 1,890°C; boiling point 3,000°C; specific gravity 6.11; valence 2, 3, 4, 5. (By the way, it's the chemical engineering degree that did this to me. )

Okay! Here we go. Assume an enhancement is needed/desired. Allow cachers to place the waypoint (GCxxxx) for the cache they liked most in their profile. They could update it when they found one they liked better. It would display right next to "xx Found". A visitor or newby could scan the details see log entries and look for common waypoints while they looked for 1/1 etc. A reccomendation from someone with 200 finds would have more gravity than one from someone with 6 finds. It would be just like saying "Check This Out!" No vote, no hurt feelings, no not making the team, no... well you know what I mean. Now do I get one of those cookies Jeremy is always giving out? - Sluggo (2000 miles from home)

OK, looks like I?ve got some homework to do. I didn?t realize there were so many different kinds. I?ll be looking for something that I can put inside my backpack rather than a combination daypack type of thing. I?ll be carrying a large pack for a 10-day trip and I really hate to de-pack every time I want a sip of water. I haven?t come up with a comfortable way to mount a water bottle while carrying all my other ?attachments? and this system may be what I?m looking for. Any problems keeping them clean? Does drinking out of the same straw for 10 days get a little funky? Not sure what a bite valve is. I guess it?s the hose end or mouthpiece that controls the flow of water? Time for the really stupid question. You suck the water out right? LOL! I mean if it used gravity feed I?d have to carry it over my head. (That?s what I?m doing with my GPS to get it closer to the satellites)

OK, looks like I?ve got some homework to do. I didn?t realize there were so many different kinds. I?ll be looking for something that I can put inside my backpack rather than a combination daypack type of thing. I?ll be carrying a large pack for a 10-day trip and I really hate to de-pack every time I want a sip of water. I haven?t come up with a comfortable way to mount a water bottle while carrying all my other ?attachments? and this system may be what I?m looking for. Any problems keeping them clean? Does drinking out of the same straw for 10 days get a little funky? Not sure what a bite valve is. I guess it?s the hose end or mouthpiece that controls the flow of water? Time for the really stupid question. You suck the water out right? LOL! I mean if it used gravity feed I?d have to carry it over my head. (That?s what I?m doing with my GPS to get it closer to the satellites)

case was in my hand, the metal clip was still on my belt. The clip is NOT intergrated into the case. It is simply a piece of metal that is slipped into a pocket in the back, and held in place with a little glue. If the glue fails (which mine did after only the third use), you could easily lose the entire unit without realizing it until it's too late. The clip slides into the top of the pocket, so gravity alone would be enough to cause the case to slip away. This is a very poor design, and not one to be trusted. I had hoped that the BodyGlove cases would be better, since their cases for the Motorola SLK radios are so good. But from what I've read, they also lack a hole for the clickstick, and the padding on the case makes it difficult to press the side buttons.

It's a cool idea, but a chip in a golfball wouldn't be very practical. The force on a golfball would probably break the chip, or possibly change the center of gravity on the ball. It would be a really tiny chip (really really tiny), and be self powered for a long period of time. Jeremy

From the Silva website. Magnetic Inclination And Compass Needle Balance Lines of magnetic force vary from vertical at the magnetic poles, to horizontal near the equator. Consequently, one end of a magnetic needle has a tendency to dip down in areas that lie between the poles and the equator. Silva reduced this tendency by placing the center of gravity below the pivot point of the needle. Also, the needle of each compass is counterbalanced for the middle of the magnetic zone where it may be used. Silva compasses are balanced for the five magnetic zones. The zone setting is marked on the reverse side of each Silva compass (MN). A compass needle may show a slight tendency to dip in an area between two zones. Butch

From the Silva website. Magnetic Inclination And Compass Needle Balance Lines of magnetic force vary from vertical at the magnetic poles, to horizontal near the equator. Consequently, one end of a magnetic needle has a tendency to dip down in areas that lie between the poles and the equator. Silva reduced this tendency by placing the center of gravity below the pivot point of the needle. Also, the needle of each compass is counterbalanced for the middle of the magnetic zone where it may be used. Silva compasses are balanced for the five magnetic zones. The zone setting is marked on the reverse side of each Silva compass (MN). A compass needle may show a slight tendency to dip in an area between two zones. Butch

I dropped my Emap in a lake. Actually I bent over and gravity made it exit my shirt pocket and enter the lake. I opened the battery compartment, removed the memory stick and turned on my blow dryer. Miracle of miracles it stll worked after putting everything back together. I just found a cache and had true 20foot accuracy. I have used in the desert with lots of light and never had a problem. It also great in the car.