Traditional Vs. Virtual

24.7k · January 28, 2004

As much as I defend people placing VC's I would not hesitate for one moment to dump the entire concept to discourage parks from designating that virtuals are the way to go.

Traditionals are what most enjoy, what most of us cut our teeth on, and what most of us would choose if we could only have one type of cache.

January 28, 2004

As much as I defend people placing VC's I would not hesitate for one moment to dump the entire concept to discourage parks from designating that virtuals are the way to go.

Traditionals are what most enjoy, what most of us cut our teeth on, and what most of us would choose if we could only have one type of cache.

I agree. I have done a virtual or 2, and yeah they might have neat history behind the spot. But I like to physically find the cache and read the logs. Not to mention trading stuff. I just feel traditional caches have more meaning and more sense of acomplishment than virtuals. I pretty much only do virtuals to get them off my "close cache" page

January 28, 2004

Ditto. If it came down to that, I'd drop VCs in a picosecond. Close the door.

January 28, 2004

You must be bored RK...you know this subject has been done to death the last few months....

3.9k · January 28, 2004

Yep. As a matter of fact I would take locationless caches over virtuals. I don't think I've yet to do a virtual where I could not have hidden at least a micro at the location. In a lot of cases I could have hidden an ammo can.

January 28, 2004

Uhh, who is asking for permission to do a virt on public land? Your question seems to imply that a park official will, in reponse to the request to place a traditional, respond with "No, but you're welcome to set up a virtual..." If I got that kind of answer, I'm going to talk to someone else because it's obvious this person doesn't get it.

I don't think giving up virts will do anything to change the answer above. Saying yes to (or suggesting) a virt is a nice way of saying no to a traditional.

Edited January 28, 2004 by CacheCreatures

1.8k · January 28, 2004

As far as geocaching is concerned, by far, the coolest places I've seen were a result of searching for a traditional cache. Virts are like kissing your sister.

Edited January 28, 2004 by clearpath

2.1k · January 28, 2004

As much as I defend people placing VC's I would not hesitate for one moment to dump the entire concept to discourage parks from designating that virtuals are the way to go.

The park system doesn't need this site to have or not have virtuals to deny a physical cache.

If virtuals were removed from GC.com, then their obvious answer would change to be "No, you can't place a physical cache there...can't you submit the neat location to waypoint.org?"

They clearly understand (using NC's policy as an example) that a virtual is of something interesting (signage, etc) and a physical cache is hidden off-trail in the woods. They are only hoping that by suggesting a virtual you'll hide less physicals. If you tell them, I only want to hide a physical deep in the woods, they will either say yes or no and it will have no bearing on the ability to list a virtual here or not since there is no sign or reason for a virtual out there.

To paraphrase another poster..this seems like posting for posting/animosity's sake.

9.2k · January 28, 2004

My hope would be that a new section of the website for virtuals and locationless (much like the separate area for benchmarking) will help to solve two problems at the same time.

First, by separating these from physical geocaches, they hopefully become two different concepts in the eyes of a land manager, and not so much as being close equivalents. You don't hear land managers say "no caches, but please come hunt the four benchmarks in our park." Virtual and locationless caches are just points on the globe to be visited. So long as the land is open to the public, no permission should ever be needed for a virtual cache.

Second, in a separate section the standards for listing a virtual or locationless cache could be quite different, opening up the door for people who would enjoy playing that type of GPS-based game. They would no longer be "competing for space" with physical caches. You don't see physical cache submissions being denied because they're too close to a benchmark, right?

Don't do away with virts and locationless in order to "save" traditional geocaching. Give them their own section, better designed for that different type of activity, and allow both to prosper.

3.9k · January 28, 2004

As far as geocaching is concerned, by far, the coolest places I've seen were a result of searching for a traditional cache. Virts are like kissing your sister.

Eeeewwww! Dude! They're not that bad!

9.2k · January 28, 2004

Neither was your sister!

3.1k · January 28, 2004

As much as I defend people placing VC's I would not hesitate for one moment to dump the entire concept to discourage parks from designating that virtuals are the way to go.

Traditionals are what most enjoy, what most of us cut our teeth on, and what most of us would choose if we could only have one type of cache.

Nope wouldn't do it. Don't even see a need to consider it actually.

3.9k · January 28, 2004

Neither was your sister!

Ouch! Where are the MODS!

2.7k · January 28, 2004

My hope would be that a new section of the website for virtuals and locationless (much like the separate area for benchmarking) will help to solve two problems at the same time.

Excellent idea.

Perhaps they should be called "landmarking" or "landmark hunting"or something like that so it could be marketed as completely separate from geocaching.

I think the biggest issue with virts is that they render a 528 foot circle "off limits" for a real cache.

Making it a completely separate section like benchmarking is the way to go.

January 28, 2004

As much as I defend people placing VC's I would not hesitate for one moment to dump the entire concept to discourage parks from designating that virtuals are the way to go.

Nice

Bye the way, have you stopped beating your wife yet???

20.7k · January 29, 2004

I don't remember reading that virtuals were being put in a new section. Where did you read this?

1.3k · January 29, 2004

I have seen some really neat virtual cache pages, but I haven't been to any that I enjoyed as much as the physical caches I have found.

Given a choice between only ever doing virtual or physical caches from now on, I'd choose to do physical caches. I'm not opposed to finding virts, but if they were the only type of cache to look for, I'd go find something else to do with my GPS.

20.7k · January 29, 2004

Given the absolute choice between the two, I would choose traditionals. That being said, I don't see why I would ever have to make the choice.

24.7k · January 29, 2004

Given the absolute choice between the two, I would choose traditionals. That being said, I don't see why I would ever have to make the choice.

In another thread part of the park policy discussed was to encourage virtuals over traditionals.

1.3k · January 29, 2004

I'd just mention that the traditional caches usually help trashing out (aka cleaning up the park) because people often leave prepackaged bags made for cleaning out the park in the cache. (Then I'd pull out a film container with a plastic bag in it.)

All we have to do is show why it's in the best interest of the park to place a physical cache there.

9.4k · January 29, 2004

I think the biggest issue with virts is that they render a 528 foot circle "off limits" for a real cache.

Bingo

Also, of the 21 virtuals I've found, only 6 could not easily support even a micro-cache

January 29, 2004

I wonder how many 528 ft. circle would fit into the good ol USofA ?

January 29, 2004

As far as geocaching is concerned, by far, the coolest places I've seen were a result of searching for a traditional cache. Virts are like kissing your sister.

Would benchmarking be like kissing your brother?

January 29, 2004

I think the biggest issue with virts is that they render a 528 foot circle "off limits" for a real cache.

Yes, but I don't see why that needs to be enforced with Virts. Just do away with that and the problem is solved.

1.3k · January 29, 2004

Down with everything but micros, traditionals, and multis! (Maybe some mystery caches also).

2.5k · January 29, 2004

I think the biggest issue with virts is that they render a 528 foot circle "off limits" for a real cache.

528 ft. would just be the radius of the circle. The diameter would be twice that, or 1056 ft. With a circumference of 3317.522, this would use an area of 875,825.766 feet.

However, since the earth is a sphere, we're talking about a surface area of about 3,503,303.065 feet.

3.1k · January 29, 2004

528 ft. would just be the radius of the circle. The diameter would be twice that, or 1056 ft. With a circumference of 3317.522, this would use an area of 875,825.766 feet.

However, since the earth is a sphere, we're talking about a surface area of about 3,503,303.065 feet.

step away from the calculator, nothing to see here, move on, thank you everyone

4k · January 29, 2004

I think the biggest issue with virts is that they render a 528 foot circle "off limits" for a real cache.

528 ft. would just be the radius of the circle. The diameter would be twice that, or 1056 ft. With a circumference of 3317.522, this would use an area of 875,825.766 feet.

However, since the earth is a sphere, we're talking about a surface area of about 3,503,303.065 feet.

That made my head hurt, and I didn't even do the math!

2.5k · January 29, 2004

That made my head hurt, and I didn't even do the math!

I was just trying to point out that rendering a circle unusable for traditional geocaches would not be as bad as rendering the area inside that circle unusable as well.

Edit:typo

Edited January 29, 2004 by cachew nut

January 29, 2004

The only reason VCs interfere with other caches for the proximity limit is because the site is coded that way. It can't be that hard to change the code so VC's only affect proximity to other VCs. It's not a seperate site, its just "fixing" the behavior.

On the other hand, from a cache is a cache perspective, do you really want to have them getting that "packed" Certainly, the physical one could say, "hey, check out the landmark located 50 degrees north of here, bout 500 feet"

I like VCs. They're edutaining. When they force you to study them looking for answers to a question , they're really more of a puzzle cache.

Calling them Landmarks might be the way to go. It pretty much implies, some interesting thing to see.

Janx

2.1k · January 29, 2004

That made my head hurt, and I didn't even do the math!

I was just trying to point out that rendering a circle unusable for traditional geocaches would not be as bad as rendering the area inside that circle unusable as well.

Edit:typo

This math came up in another topic a month or so back. I did the geometry on it then and came to the realization that two caches can be 528 feet apart, so even though the diameter is over 1000 ft for a surrounding circle from a single cache, there can be a large overlap on two coinciding caches (at perfection, they can share an entire radius with each other). This sets up a hexagonally expanding pattern of concentric circles where the central circle's circumference touches on 6 other caches and they in turn touch it and 5 others (2 of which are in the 6 touching the central cache) and so on outward at a formula of:

y = 3k(k+1)+1

Where y is the number of caches in a hexagon of layer k.

Figure 10 will help.

On that page, you have to imagine the radius is only 264 (half of our threshold) which means you can have non-overlapping disks where the center (cache) is 528 feet from any other center (cache).

Knowing that equation, you can determine how many layers it would take to cover the majority of the Earth's surface (stretched as a flat plane) and get an estimate on the number of disks for that many layers. That would be how many geocaches to totally saturate the Earth.

....or you could just go a few hundred feet and put your geocache in the next tree over, lazy.

January 29, 2004

Yup a real cache is a real cache. The rest can be fun and build up your numbers but they are not the same.

January 29, 2004

I never considered virtuals anything less than a different type of cache. I never thought it was a way to build up my numbers. The same could be said for 1/1's. With that said, Traditionals Rule! I would definitely lose the virts to save the trads.

2.5k · January 29, 2004

On that page, you have to imagine the radius is only 264 (half of our threshold) which means you can have non-overlapping disks where the center (cache) is 528 feet from any other center (cache).

I would agree with that statement.

My trouble with the statement I was quoting was the definition of a 528 ft. circle.

January 29, 2004

I think the biggest issue with virts is that they render a 528 foot circle "off limits" for a real cache.

528 ft. would just be the radius of the circle. The diameter would be twice that, or 1056 ft. With a circumference of 3317.522, this would use an area of 875,825.766 feet.

This is 20 acres more or less.

4k · January 29, 2004

That made my head hurt, and I didn't even do the math!

I was just trying to point out that rendering a circle unusable for traditional geocaches would not be as bad as rendering the area inside that circle unusable as well.

Edit:typo

This math came up in another topic a month or so back. I did the geometry on it then and came to the realization that two caches can be 528 feet apart, so even though the diameter is over 1000 ft for a surrounding circle from a single cache, there can be a large overlap on two coinciding caches (at perfection, they can share an entire radius with each other). This sets up a hexagonally expanding pattern of concentric circles where the central circle's circumference touches on 6 other caches and they in turn touch it and 5 others (2 of which are in the 6 touching the central cache) and so on outward at a formula of:

y = 3k(k+1)+1

Where y is the number of caches in a hexagon of layer k.

Figure 10 will help.

On that page, you have to imagine the radius is only 264 (half of our threshold) which means you can have non-overlapping disks where the center (cache) is 528 feet from any other center (cache).

Knowing that equation, you can determine how many layers it would take to cover the majority of the Earth's surface (stretched as a flat plane) and get an estimate on the number of disks for that many layers. That would be how many geocaches to totally saturate the Earth.

....or you could just go a few hundred feet and put your geocache in the next tree over, lazy.

Oooooowwwwwwwiiiiieeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Come on, guys! I killed enough brain cells when I was a teenager, now just reading this stuff has them jumping out my ears and committing geocide!!!

And to think, I passed my Advanced College Algebra course with a 120%! Never missed a single question on any assignment or test, and aced all the extra credit assignments.......and I still hate the stuff!

2.5k · January 29, 2004

This is 20 acres more or less.

I saw a farmer step on a rake once. It must have been a small farm since he only had a couple acres.

January 29, 2004

This is 20 acres more or less.

I saw a farmer step on a rake once. It must have been a small farm since he only had a couple acres.

Every farmer knows the real question is "how many bushels per acre?"

2.1k · January 29, 2004

1 bushel = 35.24 liters.

1 acre = 4046.86 sq. meters.

If the crop is densely-packed and 6ft high....

7400.89 cubic meters in bushels is....

210 019.464 bushels.

Round down for space between the crops... 200,000 bushels per acre for a 6 ft crop...give or take a few thousand bushels.

January 29, 2004

1 bushel = 35.24 liters.
1 acre = 4046.86 sq. meters.

If the crop is densely-packed and 6ft high....

7400.89 cubic meters in bushels is....

210 019.464 bushels.

Round down for space between the crops... 200,000 bushels per acre for a 6 ft crop...give or take a few thousand bushels.

Ummm.... I think they mean bushels yield per acre

4k · January 29, 2004

1 bushel = 35.24 liters.
1 acre = 4046.86 sq. meters.

If the crop is densely-packed and 6ft high....

7400.89 cubic meters in bushels is....

210 019.464 bushels.

Round down for space between the crops... 200,000 bushels per acre for a 6 ft crop...give or take a few thousand bushels.

Yeah, that would only work if your field was 6 foot deep in corn or wheat kernels only. Since the actual yield comes from actual kernels, and kernels are only a very small part of the actual plant, and the actual plants are several inches apart, etc, etc.

20 to 60 bushels per acre is a good figure for most corn or wheat farmers.

2.1k · January 29, 2004

I must be doing something else wrong, too....

If hay (something where most of the plant is the crop as opposed to seed crops) were the crop. The density of hay is 10 lb/cubic foot in a decent bale. At that rate, if an average crop acre yields about 4-5 tons of hay in a year, all the hay could be knocked down to a solid block on that acre....about 5 millimeters thick...

Either I screwed up some math in there, or farming is *the* most inefficient thing on the planet. No wonder these places go belly-up. An entire acre and the most they can use of it is less than a pencil thick on the surface....

Time to start pumping some more money into terraforming...

4k · January 30, 2004

I must be doing something else wrong, too....

If hay (something where most of the plant is the crop as opposed to seed crops) were the crop. The density of hay is 10 lb/cubic foot in a decent bale. At that rate, if an average crop acre yields about 4-5 tons of hay in a year, all the hay could be knocked down to a solid block on that acre....about 5 millimeters thick...

Either I screwed up some math in there, or farming is *the* most inefficient thing on the planet. No wonder these places go belly-up. An entire acre and the most they can use of it is less than a pencil thick on the surface....

Time to start pumping some more money into terraforming...

I grew up in this farming community, and have seen more than my fair share of farmers go "belly up" in my lifetime, with more following them everyday. Most farmers I know get 3 crops a year, sometimes 4: wheat, corn, milo or soybeans, and hay (alfalfa). What they make off those crops is what they live off of for the entire year. If their wheat and corn get whacked by a bad hailstorm, they're in debt for it for the next 5 years at minimum. Some farmers around here have lost every crop the past 3 years due to hail, wind, and drought. They are hocked up to their eyeballs, and dirt poor. A lot of them will never recover. What this has to do with traditional caches, I don't know....I've lost track of how the topic turned this way....sorry.......

24.7k · January 30, 2004

...Either I screwed up some math in there, or farming is *the* most inefficient thing on the planet. No wonder these places go belly-up. An entire acre and the most they can use of it is less than a pencil thick on the surface...

Unless you were an earthworm and ate dirt directly, you need that intermediate plant step. Just a thought.

January 30, 2004

...Either I screwed up some math in there, or farming is *the* most inefficient thing on the planet. No wonder these places go belly-up. An entire acre and the most they can use of it is less than a pencil thick on the surface...

Unless you were an earthworm and ate dirt directly, you need that intermediate plant step. Just a thought.

Unless you ate the worms directly, in which case you could eliminate the plant step.

2.3k · January 30, 2004

As much as I defend people placing VC's I would not hesitate for one moment to dump the entire concept to discourage parks from designating that virtuals are the way to go.

Traditionals are what most enjoy, what most of us cut our teeth on, and what most of us would choose if we could only have one type of cache.

This is all true. But what if it was reversed and traditionals had to be dumped and only virts were allowed? And how can we stop either extreme from happening?

January 31, 2004

I vote for the multi locationless virtual.

Does my vote count ?

:rolleyes:

Edited January 31, 2004 by crzycrzy

January 31, 2004

Couldn't help but think of how it would be signed...

FNLNDSL

:rolleyes:

1.3k · January 31, 2004

Is there talk of stopping traditional caches??? I don't understand where this whole topic came from??? :rolleyes:

6.5k · January 31, 2004

Would you dump VC's to save Traditionals?

Yes, I would. Now back to happy thoughts, and make sure your fingers stay crossed that noone *really* askes that question :rolleyes:

Traditional Vs. Virtual

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