[GeoStL] Re: Caches, ham radio and experimental aviation
- From: "Jim Bensman" <junkmailno@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <geocaching@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2010 17:04:36 -0600
-
Mike, I do not think your ham radio comparison is valid. A better
comparison would be changing baseball to count each swing as a home run. As
I have said, the problem is it is out of balance-quantity has overwhelmed
quality and there is no way to filter out the lame caches. If those who
enjoy caching the way it was meant to be don't speak up and object to how
far it is out of balance, things won't change. I see the situation as
frustrating, but not hopeless. It is reasonable to expect someday
Groundspeak will start making cache placers get permission to place caches
on private property such as Walmart parking lots. This would help a lot as
I bet it would eliminate the vast majority of parking lot caches. Hopefully
Groundspeak will crack down on some of this stuff like moving caches instead
of signing them. There is precedence for Groundspeak cracking down. In the
early days there were locationless caches that allowed you to log a find if
you could find something like a caboose on an active train. Things started
getting really lame. The Yellow Jeep Locationless Cache was the final straw
(you could log a find for finding a yellow jeep). Locationless caches were
banned and waymarking was started. Perhaps someday we will end up with
speed caching being spun off. I also think getting some way to filter out
the caches that don't take you to an interesting location or is challenging
to find is within the realm of possibilities.
Jim Bensman
"Nature Bats Last"
> -----Original Message-----
> From: geocaching-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:geocaching-
> bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mike Lusicic
> Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2010 4:08 PM
> To: geocaching@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [GeoStL] Caches, ham radio and experimental aviation
>
> -
> What Jim says about the old days reminds me of a parallel in ham radio.
>
> A lot of the old timers thought that ham radio went to pot when they
> allowed voice communications. The old "brass pounders" saw beautiful
> melodies in the rhythm of morse code, which by the way is NOT morse
> code, it is the International Telegraphy Code. They say the neophytes
> who had trouble "getting" the code were ruining the radio waves with
> their talking.
>
> Then when CB came along, a lot of guys there got disgusted with the
> "idiots" on CB who were jumping on that bandwagon and were looking
> somewhere to have a decent conversation, and we had a flood of CB
> converts hitting ham radio, and the old rag chewers on the ham bands
> complained about the airwaves going to pot, and lamenting the days when
> being a ham was special and anybody you talked to could be counted on
> for a good interesting conversation.
>
> And then there were also the "contesters" whose interest was
> participating in contests to see who could make the most contacts. Who
> could contact the most different countries, and so on. These guys
> exchanged basic information as fast as they could and moved on to try
> to
> "work" someone else. On a contest weekend, you could have trouble
> finding an open frequency to try and have a good conversation on. Like
> trying to find a good quality location for a cache when everybody and
> their uncle has already staked out their tenth mile "no cache" zone
> around a cache placed a month after getting into caching or other such
> complaints heard concerning caching.
>
> Even in experimental aviation. When the government finally realized
> they
> should allow people to build their own aircraft (again), the people who
> did pretty much designed their own, or borrowed other people's ideas
> and
> built from scratch. Today those old guys see kit planes being built and
> some of those people are cheating and hiring people to build the
> aircraft for them completely trashing the original concept of
> experimental aviation.
>
> I think if we look long and hard enough, we will find similarities in
> many areas and interests. You start out with a core of people who were
> unique and had a certain personality and attitude to get things moving.
> Then the masses hit, and everything is brought down to a least common
> denominator that is constantly shifting down to the chagrin of the
> golden oldies who began the activity. It is like the law of entropy in
> physics. Everything will devolve to its simplest form.
>
> So bucking the trend in caching is going to be like trying to fight the
> law of physics. You can hope for it all you want, and you may seem to
> change things, but in the end, you are only delaying the inevitable.
> All
> you can do is make yourself comfortable and enjoy the ride, and then
> get
> off when you lose interest. Or go start your own activity, or form your
> own club and define your own rules. You are not going to change those
> that have already conceded to the masses.
>
> So yeah, maybe we don't need to hear the same complaint over and over
> again because it isn't going to change anything, and it aggravates a
> lot
> of people. But hey. It isn't like we should expect that not happening
> any more than expecting that caching will not reduce itself over time
> like so many other things. When you open up an activity and try to
> recruit more people into the activity, the things you do to make it
> easier for them, lowers the "effort" bar, and you get people who did
> not
> put much effort into it after they are in. The same happened in ham
> radio. The same happened for experimental aircraft. The same happened
> for .... you fill in the blank.
>
> This is not an complaint or a condemnation of anyone or anything. It is
> merely an observation that I find interesting. If anyone else would
> like
> to have an intelligent discussion about this, then by all means, join
> in. For those who cannot see an intelligent discussion being of any
> benefit to them, then by all means, feel free to ignore the thread.
>
>
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