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Three pleas to cache setters


drsolly

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Plea 1

 

Some trees are fallen, some are felled.

 

A tree is felled when someone cut it down with an axe, saw or chainsaw. You can tell by the cut trunk, and the stump with a level top. Someone felled the tree. The person who felled the tree, is the tree feller.

 

A tree is fallen when it fell over without being cut, perhaps by the wind. Often, you'll see the root ball at one end. No-one felled the tree. It just fell, and is now fallen.

 

To me, there is a big difference between a fallen tree, and a felled tree. But in some cache descriptions, it looks like some people think that the two words, "fallen" and "felled" are synonyms. This confuses the begorrah out of me and ladysolly; I go looking for a felled tree when actually I should be looking for a fallen tree.

 

Plea 2.

 

This one is about left and right. If you tell me that, for example, I need to look to the left of a pile of wood, please remember that I might not be standing in the same place you were when you wrote it. If I'm standing on the other side of the pile of wood from you, then your left is my right.

 

Likewise, when using "left" and "right" as directions, remember that I might not have walked along the path the same direction you did. OK, if I'm following a trail of clues, then you can assume the direction I'm walking, but if you don't have any good reason to know which way I'll be coming, then telling me to "look to the left of the path" doesn't actually tell me which way to look.

 

Plea 3.

 

We're all using different GPSrs, and although they have a lot in common, there are some differences. For example, there's a point at which the thing stops showing distances in feet, and starts showing fractions of a mile. That is going to be different on different GPSrs. So, if you say "900 feet from the location", some GPSrs will be showing 900 feet, but others might have switched to fractions of a mile, and therefore would have suddenly dropped in the accuracy of the distance. You might be safer using metric distances (I'm guessing that all GPSrs will show metric), because the natural point for the thing to switch from meters to kilometers, would be 1000 meters.

 

Maybe other folks have got some pleas they could add to my little list?

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If ours said 900 feet we would be shocked, unless that was 3 minutes as we have our GPS set on time, when we get down to 12 seconds, were there! That way we now how long a walk its going to be. On average most of the caches we have completed have been 12 minutes and once you get to 3 minutes one starts to get a little excited. Right or left felled or fallen............... :laughing::):):)

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" On your left"

 

..... depends which direction you approached ?? lets have N.S.E.W please

 

"Under the stone/rock/boulder"

 

..... depends on your intepretation, how about approx size/shape please

 

"in the multi-trunked tree"

 

..... aaaagh, in a coppiced wood!!

 

"those very long winded hints with explanations that take an age to decrypt the clue when you are stood floundering at the cache site after spending half an hour getting covered in muck trying to find the flaming thing and the wind is blowing sideways trying to rip the piece of paper out of your hands and the rain is slowly turning it into a soggy pulp"

 

..... OK moral there would have been to decrypt any long hints beforehand.

..... this applies to paper cachers only of course.

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I seem to be guilty of most of these...

 

"Under a rock" is my all time favourite clue... though obviously when aforementioned rock is in the middle of a granite quarry then I guess it's less than helpful..!

 

I had "Cuddling Ivy" as a clue when there was a long wall covered in the stuff...

 

I've been cryptic before with "Remember this Cache was placed by Birdman" Which i thought was a great hint that the cache was up high - but that seemed to confuse more people than it helped.

 

I managed to slip in a "Was within a metre of a sheep when placed" which has produced very few comments.

 

.....

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"Under a rock" is my all time favourite clue...

.....

 

Whilst standing in the middle of a dry river bed with acres of rocks all around me I came across this:-

 

Under a rock and hidden behind some large stones.

 

And this was perpetrated by one of our esteemed mods. B)

 

 

Hmmmmm!

 

A bit like:

 

"Very near the top of a knoll, at the base of a fir with rhododendron around"

 

32369_400.jpg

 

....which I seem to remember some one ( B) ) once put.

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I recently had a bad experience.while out caching...I FELL foul (fowl) of the local weather (whether) conditions and FELL over a FALLEN tree that was made more dangerous by a poor (pore) FELLAR (fella) and thus ended up in a big hole (whole) lot of trouble. :D (See Benny Hill - Tree Fellers wanted.) B) I doubt that the current (currant) standard of English will ever improve though. B)

Edited to acknowledge my least favourite hint -Ivy Covered Tree. B)

Edited by currykev
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(t.a.folk @ Jan 28 2007, 09:44 AM)

 

deleted because me old man just being technical about telegraph poles .

 

But it was a valid point!

(And I can tell the difference )

MrsB

 

Thing is HE reckons there is no such thing as a telegraph pole ,HE reckons they are telephone poles ,'cuse they carry telephony B)

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Similar to Felled vs Fallen. I've lost count of the number of times I have had problems with a cache setter not knowing the difference between a Telegraph/Telephone pole and an Electricity pole. Especially annoying when there's one of each within 30ft or so.

 

What is the difference? Most are made of wood and look about the same. B) I'd hate to think the power company stuck power lines on a telephone pole and that the cable company forgot to use a cable pole. B)

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at the end of the day unless the "clue" is very descriptive and is actually an answer then it is open to interpretation.

Precisely, that is what it's meant to be a clue or a hint not the actual answer!!

 

Nothing to stop you from putting the actual answer though!

 

I do agree with the left right though, it does depend on the direction you are approaching from. I remember searching in a thick wood for a difficult cache, that said it was on the right side of the track. Turned out it was on the left side of the track, as the owner obviously came in from a different direction.

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Here's the reply I gave to Q5 on the list of questions asked by the chap from the Royal Institute of Navigation a couple of weeks ago.

 

Clues tend to fall into one of four useless categories. Either they are so cryptic that they are incomprehensible even after you've found the cache; or they are meaningless, such as "To the left of the only tree in the ten acre field"; or they tell you nothing, such as "under a tree" in woodland or "beside a rock in a "boulderfield" or "under a bush" in a five acre field of gorse; or they guide you directly to the cache so descriptively that there's no point in hunting at all.

 

Here's an example of a worthless clue:

HCF - nfx Cbbgre!

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Similar to Felled vs Fallen. I've lost count of the number of times I have had problems with a cache setter not knowing the difference between a Telegraph/Telephone pole and an Electricity pole. Especially annoying when there's one of each within 30ft or so.

 

What is the difference? Most are made of wood and look about the same. :D I'd hate to think the power company stuck power lines on a telephone pole and that the cable company forgot to use a cable pole. :D

 

I find using a capable Pole works too! :D

 

Edited..to Edit. ;)

Edited by currykev
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Of course the possibility exists that the nice utility company could come along and replace the pole with an underground cable. This could be a little distressing, especially if one were, hypothetically, to have made a 5 mile walk, only to discover the pole (and the data tag required for the next stage of a multi) were both gone. But would I be bitter about it, no siree. ;)

 

edited to remove duplicate "multi"

Edited by McKryton
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As some day it may happen that a victim must be found,

I've got a little list--I've got a little list

Of grammatical offenders who might well be underground,

And who never would be missed--who never would be missed!

The idiot who cannot tell his left tree from his right,

And with errors in sematics that would keep us up all night;

And Thingumy and What's-his-name, and also You-know-who--

The task of filling up the blanks I'd rather leave to you.

But it really doesn't matter whom you put upon the list,

For they'd none of 'em be missed--they'd none of 'em be

missed!

 

CHORUS. He's got 'em on the list--he's got 'em on the list;

And they'll none of 'em be missed--they'll none of

'em be missed.

 

with aplogies to W. S. Gilbert! ;)

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