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Showing posts from September, 2009

Geocaching / Waymarking — more ways to waste time in pointless activities using state of the art tech.

Over the last two decades gps units have decreased in price, increased in accuracy (no small part due to Prez Bill Clinton’s decision to turn off the ‘inaccuracy’ in the civilian version of the us mil controlled gps service. Bill—he was a president to be proud of), and gained in functionality. These beneficial advances have given rise to many different improvements in our daily existence: navigation, the saving of lives, etc., however, as always, technology has produced a beneficial effect in our recreational life (but this time not sex). The rise of the gps has also given rise to gps based recreational activities. Today I will discuss two of these: geocaching and waymarking. The two are related, but the first—geocaching, is the more prominent. In its simplest form one obtains a gps spot from a website, navigates to that spot, and then records the site in a log. Not too exciting you might ask, well you would be wrong if you answered in the affirmative. One must plan, think, and hunt t