Sunday 18 January 2015

Changes Coming to Geocaching.com (GC.com HQ Interview Pt 1) - OBGCP57


Contact the show..

www.ohbeep.com/contact

or

feedback@ohbeep.com


This week..

An interview with Jayme, the user insight analyst, from Geocaching.com

Nottinghamshire Geocaching Awards

News on GeoTalk host SpinDoc

Someone ASKS Dr D to offensive them

The secrets of NiMH (batteries) from GGH

and Ey Up Me Duck challenges the boys from Oh Beep!

Last Week..

BananaSource was at The Doctor Who Experience.

Geocaches done:

GC5CPA8 In These Stones Horizons Sing

GC1DFRH Britannia Quay

Check out this months UK Geocaching Podcast, BananaSource co-hosted with Collin

We were also comperes at the The first Nottinghashire Geocachers Caching Awards evening, organised by Jacaru and Wemnog.  The award winners were:

Moan a lot for Best Series

Moan a lot for Best Traditional

Trevorsilk for best multi

Y8C for best puzzle/unknown

Jacaru for best event

The Podcache Show Special Award for Services to Geocaching

News..

GeoTalk host, Darren (aka SpinDoc Bob), is losing his battle with a severe brain tumour.  Darren's nephew, Ryan, is raising money for the Cure Brain Cancer Foundation.  Ryan Osborne (Clipping for a cure) donation page.

Audio from Jayme, The User Insight Analyst, from Geocaching.com.  Jayme brings the voice of the Geocaching community in to the development process at Geocaching.com HQ.

Click HERE for the User Insights Forum Jayme mentions in the interview.  Being involved in this forum will give users the opportunity to help guide future innovations coming from Geocaching.com

Update since the interview was recorded:  Due to feedback, from the beta testers of the Advanced Search function, the release has been put back a week to the week commencing 26th January.  Premium members only should look out for an e mail that week, inviting them to explore the new Advanced Search features.

Jayme also talks about the changes coming to the Geocaching Intro App, features that will help guide new Geocachers and bring clarity to some of the things experienced Geocachers take for granted.

Feedback..

From Dave Debaeremaeker..

Heya Mark & Sam   I am 2/3rds of the way thru episode 56, but had to pause when I pulled into the parking lot at work.  I'll catch the rest on the commute home, but for now I have some comments.

First of all, the Americans do have an annoying way of formatting their dates.  Month-Day-Year.  In Canada (and I believe in the UK aswell) they do Day-Month-Year.  I can never keep the dates format straight between the two, so I typically go in the proper sort order:Year-month-day, or just spell it out :  January 12, 2015.

Second, re: the comment from the fellow who did 800 miles and 4 events in a single day.  I don't think you fully appreciate the joy that is a good long road trip. Britain is simply not large enough to get the experience of many many hours spent on the open highway, with the tunes cranked, the engine rev'd, and watching the world pass by your car windows.  Driving can be dang annoying when there is a lot of traffic but there are many places in the US where you can drive for hours on our interstate highways and barely see another car.  Those are the roads that many a car-based rock anthem has been written about.

As for the date of 12-13-14 (Yankee formatting), I also had an adventure that day.  I have a group of geocaching friends  - we call ourselves Team Awesomesauce - that goes on big adventures together. On the date in question two of our group (FailedApparatus and HoosierSunshine - pronounced: Who's-yer-sunshine) were hosting a geocaching trivia event that evening in Columbia South Carolina.Columbia is about 3 hours from my house, so I left early on that morning, met up with the group in Charlotte North Carolina, and together we cached ourselves to Columbia.  Along the way we did some amazing caches.  I blogged about the adventure here:http://debaere.blogspot.com/2014/12/team-awesomesauce-rides-again.html

I also have a shot of a clock taken at 12-13-14 15:16;17 (3:16 PM) to mark the occaision:http://debaere.blogspot.com/2014/12/12-13-14-151617.html

Speaking of interesting dates,  Pi day is coming up.  March 14th.i.e. in Yankee formatting  3-14.  This year is special as 3-14-159:26:53 is pi correct to the first 8 decimal places.  There are many folks in the US that are planning events around Pi day (yay for math geeks!)

Finally the translation of Doctor D's Australian accent was comedic gold.  Well done.

Cheers

From Ey Up Me Duck

Before the New Year me and The Old Soldier sat and discussed (I said what I'd like to do and he listened & agreed!!!) our geocaching aims for the year and came up with the following list.

1- to listen to the Oh Beep show the week after it is aired. I am currently very bad and tend to listen to them in batches, although I have nearly caught up & only have about 10 older episodes to listen to now (the May & June ones)

2 - to find (and log Dr D!!!) 3000 caches this year. This is to go towards a challenge set by Nadiagoescaching during the year.

3 - To try and clear a 10km radius from house

4 - To clear at least another 60 days from our date found calendar (currently at 242/366 days).

5 - To complete and find at least 10 Challenge caches - I think we managed to grab 3 or 4 of these at the weekend!!!

6- To complete DT grid (12 to go)

7 - To cache in at least 10 more English counties (currently 31/46 counties)

8 - Find some Little Quest Caches (currently 1/48) – to get us into double figures at least

9 - To find 20 more caches to help go towards completing the Jasmer Challenge (caches placed – months since geocaching began) - (140/176)

10 - Find any caches in area with favourite points of over 25

From Misha..

I am GC member Misha, Looky what I found while I was listening to your latest Podcast near Truro, NS, Canada. It began as a nice sunny minus 24°C and the sun warmed us to -12°C a great 40 cache hike, I was at #34 Hidez 57. Union Jack GC5EA21 Thanks for podcasting

 

Nemesis Geocaches..

Defined (to end Doctor D's refusal to accept those proposed).  A cache must be searched for and not found on at least 3 separate occasions to be classed as a Nemesis Geocache by Doctor D.

Dumb Stuff Geocachers Do..

From StaticJay..

Just had two disabled caches of mine found which is weird because the containers are sitting in my workshop.

People play their own way, but Geocaching isn't hard.  Smartphones make it easier than ever.  GO OUTSIDE, YOU MIGHT ENJOY IT!

Ask Doctor D..

Doctor D, I enjoy listening to your podcast very much but feel that your offensiving is lacking when it comes to those with disabilities and I wanted to give you a chance to put this situation right. I am blind but still manage to Geocache with my family but reckon the mighty Doctor D must have some advice that might help me be a better cacher, after all you do know everything… and you are a doctor, so please, What advice do you have for blind geocachers?

Cheers

Paul aka washknight

http://washknight.wordpress.com

GGH Tips..

The secrets of NiMH (batteries) - GGH 116: Batteries III

The Ey Up Me Duck Challenges..

I have also decided to set the Oh Beep team a Monthly Challenge and see how many (of the 12) you achieve by the end of the year!!!

I have taken into consideration that you don't like caching much when it is too cold (or too hot) so you have more time to spend at home, sat in front of your laptop or with a pen and paper.

Also because January has already started I will give you until the end of February to complete this challenge (but you'll still get one in the first week of Feb too!!!).

So my first challenge to you is to work out (solve) and find 2 puzzle caches.

I am giving you about 6 weeks to complete this which I don't think is too difficult. Me and Ady went out on Sunday and managed to find 20 puzzles, so 2 in 6 weeks is very doable (is that a word!). Annoyingly when we got in late that evening, a challenge cache had just been published by TeamTriplet asking for 25 puzzle caches to be found in a day!!! - we were gutted BUT far too cold to go out again!

If you want to know of some of the easier ones out there let me know and I will tell you which ones to look at!

That's all from me for now.

I'll be listening every week now to see how you are getting on with my challenge


Check out this episode!

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