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What is geocaching? · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
0:03
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always is
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Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant. How you doing? Put some fruit
0:24
Speaker 1: juice in there? So, Chuck, you are smelling your hand
0:27
Speaker 1: a little bit ago? What's wrong with you? It was
0:30
Speaker 1: just I smell like my wife's handmade artists in soap. Yeah. Yeah, yes,
0:35
Speaker 1: she's having a grand opening. Love your Mama dot COM's
0:37
Speaker 1: now going to have a brick and mortar store. Yeah,
0:40
Speaker 1: very proud of her, and you and Jerry are coming
0:42
Speaker 1: to the grand opening, uh tomorrow, and uh yeah, I'm
0:45
Speaker 1: looking forward to the rosemary garlic chicken wings Chef Charles
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Speaker 1: is going to be made. They are delicious. I'll report
0:52
Speaker 1: back to all of you s Y s K listeners
0:54
Speaker 1: and just whether or not they are delicious. I wouldn't
0:56
Speaker 1: take Chuck's word for it, Okay, Um, So Chuck, you
1:00
Speaker 1: know we're talking about today? Yes, actually, let me throw
1:03
Speaker 1: this out. This is totally unrelated. Um and it's uh
1:08
Speaker 1: just too interesting to not mention I was talking to
1:10
Speaker 1: Ben Bolan, evil mad creator of stuff they don't want
1:14
Speaker 1: you to know, soon to be released hopefully hopefully, uh,
1:17
Speaker 1: and he was telling me he just found out that
1:19
Speaker 1: the average house price in Detroit right now eleven and
1:24
Speaker 1: a half thousand dollars. Really and you just this has
1:28
Speaker 1: nothing to do with what we're doing, you know, but
1:30
Speaker 1: just can you that boggles the mind. Yeah, that's really cheap.
1:34
Speaker 1: So anyway, after this, we're moving to Detroit. Okay, okay,
1:37
Speaker 1: instead of Detroit housing prices, we are actually talking about
1:41
Speaker 1: geo cashing, right, yes. And I want to go ahead
1:44
Speaker 1: and say that this has been off requested by many
1:46
Speaker 1: many people, geo catchers, I guess, and uh, I just
1:50
Speaker 1: want to apologize and say I didn't save all your names,
1:52
Speaker 1: especially the dude last week. I had a guy that
1:54
Speaker 1: we emailed back and forth like three or four times
1:56
Speaker 1: in a few hours, and he was actually geo cashing.
1:59
Speaker 1: Why he was writing me and listening to our podcast
2:02
Speaker 1: on his iPhone while he was geo cashing. Think that
2:05
Speaker 1: gets things done. So he kind of feel whenever someone
2:08
Speaker 1: says they listened to us in India when they went
2:10
Speaker 1: on their trip or when they did this I always
2:12
Speaker 1: feel like we're kind of brought along, and I always
2:14
Speaker 1: thank people for bringing us along. Yeah, instead, we're actually
2:17
Speaker 1: stuck here in the studio. Apparently we also cure homesickness.
2:20
Speaker 1: We've gotten several emails and uh from Atlantins. Yes, and um,
2:25
Speaker 1: I've heard firsthand stories about people who were sitting in
2:28
Speaker 1: airports in India. Um, who would who were who was
2:32
Speaker 1: just totally homesick? And let's listen to our podcast and
2:35
Speaker 1: was cured. That's nice or comforted at least, all right,
2:38
Speaker 1: geo Cashing? Yeah, yeah, you ready, Yeah, I'm ready. All right,
2:43
Speaker 1: let's do it. Let me give you a little background info, chuck. Um, Actually,
2:48
Speaker 1: geo Cashing can be traced directly back to Korean Airlines
2:54
Speaker 1: Flight double O seven. Really in this commercial airline, Um,
3:00
Speaker 1: this commercial plane was flying I guess in Asia and
3:05
Speaker 1: trapes into inadvertently traps into Soviet airspace and was shot
3:10
Speaker 1: down by the Soviets. I remember that. So as a result,
3:14
Speaker 1: President Reagan said, Okay, we've got this kind of GPS
3:18
Speaker 1: system that the Air Force has been using for a while,
3:21
Speaker 1: but we need to make this commercially available so that
3:24
Speaker 1: this doesn't happen again. Really, so they did. Reagan started
3:29
Speaker 1: the whole thing. Reagan did. It was well, it was
3:31
Speaker 1: already in effect, but he made sure that this program
3:33
Speaker 1: really went to town. UM. So they started launching more
3:37
Speaker 1: and more satellites UH for Global Positioning system right uh.
3:43
Speaker 1: And they eventually it became available to the public U
3:49
Speaker 1: two airlines, to whoever wanted it. But there was a
3:54
Speaker 1: little glitch, a purposeful glitch in the system. I did
3:57
Speaker 1: not know about this until I read up on this
4:00
Speaker 1: sounds kind of selective availability. Yeah, basically, they they intentionally
4:05
Speaker 1: made the GPS systems available to the public um off
4:09
Speaker 1: base by a little bit, by about three three hundred feet,
4:12
Speaker 1: because they wanted the military, US military to have the
4:15
Speaker 1: most advanced system to pinpoint a location, and they wanted
4:19
Speaker 1: to get you know, your average Joe just in the
4:21
Speaker 1: general area. And so if you're a Korean pilot, you
4:25
Speaker 1: you give yourself a three hundred foot buffer when you're
4:27
Speaker 1: flying along you know, Soviet air space. Easy enough, right,
4:31
Speaker 1: But if you, you know, are the manufacturer of onboard
4:36
Speaker 1: GPS system a car, you don't want your customers going
4:40
Speaker 1: you know, Tom, Tom, You're a stupid Like every time
4:44
Speaker 1: you ask a UH for directions right right, So there
4:47
Speaker 1: was a certain limitation by that three hundred feet because
4:50
Speaker 1: you know, turn right three feet ago. It's not not
4:53
Speaker 1: very helpful. But President Clinton comes along and sees the
4:57
Speaker 1: value of GPS. I like this stuff. Yeah, that's exactly
5:01
Speaker 1: what he said, and he liked it enough so that
5:03
Speaker 1: he issued an executive order saying we need to get
5:06
Speaker 1: selective availability offline within ten years. That was right. It
5:10
Speaker 1: was supposed to be two oh six, but for us
5:13
Speaker 1: it happened a lot six years sooner. Right. So, now
5:16
Speaker 1: everybody thinks Tom Tom's as smart as he can be,
5:19
Speaker 1: and this hobby comes about almost immediately because you could
5:23
Speaker 1: pinpoint location. Strickland says, he wrote this article between six
5:27
Speaker 1: and not bad. Right. So, so this whole um wealth
5:31
Speaker 1: of handheld GPS devices hit the market, and right off
5:35
Speaker 1: the bat, a guy named Dave Olmer decides to test
5:39
Speaker 1: how well his works. I don't know what model he had, yeah,
5:43
Speaker 1: by hiding uh an item and going and marking its location,
5:46
Speaker 1: then leaving and coming back and see if he could
5:48
Speaker 1: redirect him back there and a test. He left a
5:50
Speaker 1: little little box and went on a website of his
5:54
Speaker 1: and um said, here is here's a box. Here's the coordinates. Uh.
6:01
Speaker 1: And I think he wrote very famously, take some stuff,
6:04
Speaker 1: leave some stuff. He put a couple of trinkets in there.
6:06
Speaker 1: That's really what started the whole thing. And not only
6:08
Speaker 1: did it start it, it's pretty much the same way
6:11
Speaker 1: nine years later, like this initial geo cash hunt that
6:15
Speaker 1: he created. Uh, it immediately created the model that people
6:19
Speaker 1: follow today. Well, it's a good model if it ain't broke.
6:22
Speaker 1: You know, it's a pretty basic, simple thing. It's fun.
6:24
Speaker 1: I just realized we haven't actually said what geo cashing is, right, Yeah,
6:28
Speaker 1: I we should probably get geo cashing is when you
6:30
Speaker 1: use your GPS too. It's basically like a treasure hunt.
6:34
Speaker 1: People will leave these cashes, um, you know, hidden in
6:37
Speaker 1: a location, and you and with the coordinates and you
6:40
Speaker 1: get from a website, let's say, and then you go
6:42
Speaker 1: and try and find it, and they have little trinkets
6:44
Speaker 1: in there you can take. Then you leave your own
6:46
Speaker 1: little trinket, and it's just like a big treasure hunt
6:48
Speaker 1: that anyone can participate in. Sure, anybody who has access
6:51
Speaker 1: to the internet, GPS receiver and very very important a
6:56
Speaker 1: topographical map. Yeah, that would help um. And actually also strict.
7:01
Speaker 1: I have to say Jonathan Strickland, who is one of
7:03
Speaker 1: our colleagues and co hosts of tech Stuff, who you
7:06
Speaker 1: know from Necronomicon. Yeah, yeah, that came out. Um he
7:11
Speaker 1: he makes an excellent point. You want to make sure
7:13
Speaker 1: that the map that you are using was made after
7:17
Speaker 1: night and the reason being is in that year we
7:22
Speaker 1: switched over the type of data that's used to create
7:26
Speaker 1: maps or to position people, so they're The World Geodetic
7:31
Speaker 1: System of nineteen eighty four was the new convention for
7:34
Speaker 1: creating position and creating maps that's used for GPS. All
7:37
Speaker 1: that stuff took. It replaced the North American datam System
7:41
Speaker 1: of So if you have a map that was made
7:45
Speaker 1: between nineteen twenty seven and three, your topographical exactly the
7:51
Speaker 1: year before man that was a monumental year. Um, your
7:56
Speaker 1: your map and your your GPS receiver aren't gonna match,
7:59
Speaker 1: and you can run into some problems because your GPS
8:02
Speaker 1: receiver might just say you're getting warmer go in this direction.
8:05
Speaker 1: It may have a compass. If you don't have one
8:07
Speaker 1: that you can upload maps onto, then you're not gonna
8:10
Speaker 1: know that you're about to fall off a cliff or
8:12
Speaker 1: something because you're staring at your your receiver, right, so
8:15
Speaker 1: your little topo map in your compass will let you know,
8:18
Speaker 1: hey there's a river crossing or like you said, cliff
8:21
Speaker 1: ahead danger. So Dave Olmer hid the first geo cash
8:27
Speaker 1: and a guy named Mike Tigue was the first to
8:29
Speaker 1: find it. Actually surprisingly there it's almost like this this hobby,
8:33
Speaker 1: this um pastime or I don't know what you'd refer
8:37
Speaker 1: to it as a game. Sport. Sure, I don't know
8:40
Speaker 1: about sport. Well, there's hiking involved a lot of times.
8:43
Speaker 1: I don't know about sport. But so Olmer hides this
8:46
Speaker 1: and within I think three days, two people found it,
8:50
Speaker 1: and yet two people independently of each other. Right, so
8:52
Speaker 1: it was stimmering right into the surface that cash was
8:55
Speaker 1: just waiting a half. It was a market for it,
8:57
Speaker 1: all right. So they called it GPS stash hunt at
9:00
Speaker 1: beginning now, which is a little clumsy compared to geo cashing. Yeah,
9:03
Speaker 1: and everyone else will not everyone, but someone at some
9:05
Speaker 1: point suggested, is that Matt Stum Yeah, he credits came
9:09
Speaker 1: up with the coining the phrase or the term. It's catchy.
9:12
Speaker 1: It's Casey's cashy. Uh, So you've got your GPS receiver,
9:17
Speaker 1: you've got your topographical map check. I assume you're probably
9:20
Speaker 1: wearing wooly socks. Check. Um, what else? What else do
9:23
Speaker 1: you need? Well? They advised to take things like flashlight
9:27
Speaker 1: and bug spray, sunblock, um, hiking boots, water, that kind
9:33
Speaker 1: of thing, extra batteries. We should say all this is
9:35
Speaker 1: to assume that you actually want to go on a
9:37
Speaker 1: geo cash hunt, right, and you're not just sitting around
9:39
Speaker 1: your house listening to it. We should also say there's
9:42
Speaker 1: several websites dedicated to this hobby, and that's where you
9:45
Speaker 1: want to go to start finding out locations for a
9:47
Speaker 1: cash right. Um, there'll be links or else they'll be
9:51
Speaker 1: a list of different cashes their coordinates. Geocashing dot com
9:57
Speaker 1: is the main one. I think. Yeah, and you want
9:59
Speaker 1: to unless you're just really adventurous, you probably want to
10:02
Speaker 1: pick something sort of close to you on your first try,
10:05
Speaker 1: at least to kind of break your cashing hobby in.
10:10
Speaker 1: And some people hide their cashes as Strickling put it
10:13
Speaker 1: with um uh sadistic glee. Yeah, there seems to be
10:18
Speaker 1: that seems to be part of it is uh, because
10:21
Speaker 1: it's no fun if it's just sitting right there in
10:22
Speaker 1: the middle of the trailhead. Well, not only that, it's
10:24
Speaker 1: probably some schmo who doesn't know what's going on and
10:27
Speaker 1: be like, oh, look something, I don't know what this is. Right. Well,
10:30
Speaker 1: that leads us to an important point when if you
10:32
Speaker 1: are stashing a cash a cache, why that was such
10:35
Speaker 1: a problem with that. My wife's gonna make it only
10:40
Speaker 1: is gonna make fun of me because I do mess
10:41
Speaker 1: up that word a lot. She thinks I'm an idiot. Um. So,
10:44
Speaker 1: like if your average hiker happens upon this box full
10:48
Speaker 1: of Santana c ds and they're thinking, wow, I can
10:52
Speaker 1: just take the c d someone left these, this is awesome. Yeah.
10:54
Speaker 1: Or or drugs no, no, no, no, that's one of
10:58
Speaker 1: the things that you are not supposed to put in
11:00
Speaker 1: these acacias because it's a it's a family friendly activity,
11:06
Speaker 1: and they don't they don't want to sully it with
11:08
Speaker 1: the likes of illegal drugs and such about alcohol, keep
11:12
Speaker 1: it clean, no no, no, no. Ok So, so Santana
11:15
Speaker 1: c d's is pretty much what you're gonna find in
11:17
Speaker 1: a Geokay, well they did. He did say c d
11:20
Speaker 1: s and d d d s or you know, handmade
11:22
Speaker 1: trinkets that you don't want it to be too expensive
11:24
Speaker 1: because you don't want to sink a lot of money
11:26
Speaker 1: into it. But whatever, you should if you take something,
11:28
Speaker 1: you should leave something. You don't have to take something.
11:32
Speaker 1: But if I think you said if you don't take
11:34
Speaker 1: anything or leave anything, you should write in the log
11:36
Speaker 1: book that's contained and inside the cash and ellen, yeah
11:39
Speaker 1: took took nothing or left nothing, took nothing, but yeah, yeah,
11:43
Speaker 1: um one thing that you're going to find in any
11:45
Speaker 1: geo cash and Chuck you were saying like you should
11:47
Speaker 1: put an explanation and maybe a note. Uh. Strickland also
11:50
Speaker 1: recommended actually labeling it like this is a geo cash,
11:54
Speaker 1: here's my email or here's my phone number. Because I
11:58
Speaker 1: don't know if you said or not you don't want
11:59
Speaker 1: to cause a pain an well, now I didn't mention.
12:01
Speaker 1: Some people geo cash in cities and actually um and
12:06
Speaker 1: in New Hampshire, I can't remember what town it was. Um,
12:10
Speaker 1: a geo cash that was hidden in a supermarket caused
12:13
Speaker 1: a panic. Yeah, Portsmouth, you know Post nine eleven. People
12:17
Speaker 1: see little metal boxes someplace that shouldn't be they're going
12:21
Speaker 1: to be like, well, there's a bomb stuck to the
12:23
Speaker 1: underside of like an escalator rail. Sure, yeah, exactly, especially
12:27
Speaker 1: if it blinks or something. And some nerds, some nerve
12:29
Speaker 1: is like, what a great hiding spot, and then all
12:32
Speaker 1: of a sudden the cops are, you know, tackling them. Yeah,
12:34
Speaker 1: um chuck. As I was saying, the one thing that
12:37
Speaker 1: you're going to find in any geo cash is um
12:40
Speaker 1: a log book very important. Yeah, because you want to
12:43
Speaker 1: It's sort of like a wedding thing that you signed
12:45
Speaker 1: when you go to a wedding. You want to say
12:46
Speaker 1: that you were in any kind of guest book, wedding, funeral,
12:49
Speaker 1: bed and breakfast. You want to add your notes, like
12:51
Speaker 1: what you found or what your experience was, this was cool.
12:54
Speaker 1: They some of them have disposable cameras in them, and
12:58
Speaker 1: what you're supposed to do there is take a picture
13:00
Speaker 1: of yourself and put the camera back in there right. Uh.
13:03
Speaker 1: And some people actually like to um see if they
13:07
Speaker 1: can get based on that whole um taking something and
13:10
Speaker 1: leaving something. They like to see if they can get
13:13
Speaker 1: their trinkets across country. Yes, Josh, that is what's that
13:19
Speaker 1: called hitchhiker cash. And uh, if if you their instructions
13:23
Speaker 1: on how to get the thing across country. The geo
13:26
Speaker 1: cashers take great pride and playing along and trying to
13:28
Speaker 1: get the st tannas c e D from Atlanta to
13:31
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, let's say, right. And some people also have
13:34
Speaker 1: coins made with some sort of I D on it.
13:37
Speaker 1: They're called geo coins. It's a type of hitchhiker cash
13:42
Speaker 1: um and it's uh, basically, you find the coin, you
13:46
Speaker 1: took it, you too, you put it somewhere else, and
13:48
Speaker 1: you're leaving. You're posting these on site so somebody can
13:51
Speaker 1: go on and see that their coins made it from
13:53
Speaker 1: you know, Topeka to Colorado Springs so far, and they're like, oh,
13:57
Speaker 1: that's getting close. Yeah, I think I'd love the spirit
14:01
Speaker 1: of this whole thing. It's really I'm gonna try this.
14:04
Speaker 1: Actually I've never done it. Santana heavy, drug free traveling
14:08
Speaker 1: spirit of geo cash does not get any captures your imagination,
14:11
Speaker 1: doesn't it. Yes, it does. We should also say that
14:14
Speaker 1: if you were going to plant and start your own
14:16
Speaker 1: little geo cash game, that you want to stay away
14:20
Speaker 1: from private land. First of all, Yeah, there's actually some
14:25
Speaker 1: public officials are aware of geocashing and not everybody's hip
14:28
Speaker 1: with it. Technically, Um, the entire state of New Hampshire
14:33
Speaker 1: is one example. Well they're actually being too outlaw correct. Yeah,
14:37
Speaker 1: and uh I know national parks it's not allowed. Um,
14:40
Speaker 1: some state parks it is allowed. But they say the
14:43
Speaker 1: whole spirit of the thing is to be respectful in
14:46
Speaker 1: the environment, um, not cause a mess, not damage anything.
14:50
Speaker 1: And it's really important to geocashers too that they're looked
14:53
Speaker 1: at in a favorable light. Yeah, they want to be
14:56
Speaker 1: looked at as cooperative and helpful. UM. So basically, if
14:59
Speaker 1: you're hiding a g O cash, you want to kind
15:01
Speaker 1: of pull your head out of the game and actually
15:03
Speaker 1: really kind of look around, right, not just look for
15:06
Speaker 1: a hiding place, but look at the impact that geo
15:09
Speaker 1: cashier's who come to look for your cash are going
15:11
Speaker 1: to have on this area. So you know, you don't
15:14
Speaker 1: want to put it in that's a good one. UM.
15:18
Speaker 1: Historic and archaeological sites, you don't want to place those.
15:20
Speaker 1: They're um just basically anywhere where a lot of people tramping.
15:25
Speaker 1: I guess it's probably smart to assume that there's going
15:27
Speaker 1: to be a lot of hunters looking for it, UM,
15:30
Speaker 1: that they're not going to really have a terrible impact
15:33
Speaker 1: on this area, right, I would put one in a
15:35
Speaker 1: tree stand, a deer hunting tree stand and see what
15:38
Speaker 1: that did for you in the middle of deer season.
15:41
Speaker 1: Sure smart, So Chuck, Is it true or not that
15:46
Speaker 1: you will be murdered if you remove a cash? Not true?
15:51
Speaker 1: But not cool? What about a spanking? You might get
15:54
Speaker 1: spanked that that initial guy who started he might he
15:57
Speaker 1: might track it down on geo, spank you, but convert. Also,
16:00
Speaker 1: you want to maintain your cash, right Like if if
16:04
Speaker 1: you get a couple of logs of people saying I
16:07
Speaker 1: couldn't find this thing no matter what, that's a bad sign. Yeah,
16:10
Speaker 1: it means you should go out and look at your cash. Yeah,
16:12
Speaker 1: you want to be clever about where you hide up.
16:14
Speaker 1: Not too clever or somebody may have, you know, walked
16:16
Speaker 1: off with it. You want to also keep an eye
16:18
Speaker 1: on your log book because if it gets filled up,
16:20
Speaker 1: you want to replace it with another one. Want to
16:22
Speaker 1: bag it? You want to bag everything and I can
16:25
Speaker 1: tag it zip block so it doesn't get a rained on.
16:27
Speaker 1: You want to double bag the log book absolutely, leave
16:30
Speaker 1: a fact leave a pin and a pencil just in case. Uh,
16:33
Speaker 1: these guys and gals don't bring there's along because the
16:36
Speaker 1: log book is the most important part. Actually this the
16:39
Speaker 1: second well, I'd say it's a tie. The other most
16:41
Speaker 1: important part is that you logged the stuff on the
16:43
Speaker 1: website as well when you get home, right, so everyone
16:46
Speaker 1: else knows what's going on, and the game continues. It does,
16:50
Speaker 1: and this podcast continues, Chuck, because there's actually variations on
16:55
Speaker 1: geo cashing. This I thought was really cool. There's you know,
16:57
Speaker 1: the straight up geo cash, which we've been talking king about. Um,
17:01
Speaker 1: there's also multi cashes, which are basically there's a series
17:05
Speaker 1: of cases which are related to one another. So you
17:09
Speaker 1: go to one cash and inside instead of Santana c
17:12
Speaker 1: d s or you know, Dare to keep kids off
17:15
Speaker 1: drug stickers. Um, there are coordinates to another one. It's
17:22
Speaker 1: like a real treasure hunt. Yes, it is, minus the
17:24
Speaker 1: treasure of course. Yeah, well it depends on how many
17:27
Speaker 1: Santana c ds plus they say. The treasure is is
17:29
Speaker 1: in the experience itself. It's not so much about the trinkets.
17:34
Speaker 1: Like I said, in the spirit of goodness and giving,
17:36
Speaker 1: I see that you're put out by that you want
17:37
Speaker 1: some money or something. There's also letter the letter box
17:42
Speaker 1: hybrid explain that. So that's kind of like a combination
17:45
Speaker 1: between uh, straight up geo cashing and a type of
17:50
Speaker 1: treasure hunting which is letter boxing. So it's it's like
17:53
Speaker 1: a multi cash, but you have to solve puzzles or
17:57
Speaker 1: figure out hints or clues to the location along with
18:02
Speaker 1: these coordinates, which sounds like fun and the coordinate maybe
18:05
Speaker 1: a starting point or is that a mystery cash that
18:08
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of, Yes, that is a mystery cash, it's
18:12
Speaker 1: not mistaken. Well, it was pretty close to the letterbox hybrid.
18:16
Speaker 1: And then there's a virtual cash with that I think
18:18
Speaker 1: kind of stinks because there's no lute involved. That's just
18:21
Speaker 1: the location that you're in in in it for the
18:24
Speaker 1: spirit of cashing, well, for the spirit of that and
18:28
Speaker 1: uh ok o yo maa Tana c D Yah, Yeah,
18:33
Speaker 1: I know what I'm getting you for Christmas, santanna' cd. Yeah.
18:36
Speaker 1: And Josh you you mentioned hints and uh and for
18:39
Speaker 1: the puzzle. That's not limited to just the letter box
18:43
Speaker 1: or the mystery cash. It's a lot of times you'll
18:45
Speaker 1: you'll want to include little hints on your website to
18:48
Speaker 1: to get people there. It's like not only coordinates. Yeah,
18:52
Speaker 1: so Chuck, if somebody wants to go ahead and get
18:55
Speaker 1: into this. Where do you start? Uh? Well, I guess
19:00
Speaker 1: you would want to pick out a location, a general location,
19:04
Speaker 1: And like we said, since you have to manage your
19:07
Speaker 1: your little stash here, then you want to have it
19:10
Speaker 1: kind of close by so it's manageable and easy to
19:13
Speaker 1: get to. You don't want to have to manage something
19:15
Speaker 1: that you have to scale, like a fifty ft wall
19:18
Speaker 1: to get to, unless you're that dude, knock yourself out.
19:21
Speaker 1: That's right, Chuck. But also you want to start by
19:25
Speaker 1: buying the GPS receiver. Right, that's a good place. And
19:27
Speaker 1: you don't want to just say, hey, I bought my
19:29
Speaker 1: GPS receiver, I'm gonna start geo cashing. You want to
19:32
Speaker 1: test it out a little bit first, And how do
19:33
Speaker 1: you do that, big boy? Well, I guess you would
19:36
Speaker 1: go to a spot huh ping where you are, right,
19:39
Speaker 1: I know it's called pinging or what we're gonna call
19:41
Speaker 1: it ping ping where you are, and then leave and
19:43
Speaker 1: then see if you can get back there using the GPS. Right. Yeah,
19:47
Speaker 1: that's pretty easy. I'd probably do it more than once too,
19:50
Speaker 1: with a couple of different locations. Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah,
19:52
Speaker 1: but once you get started, then you can start a
19:55
Speaker 1: few hunts, maybe hide your own, meet some cool people. Yeah,
19:58
Speaker 1: spend a bunch of money on disposable cameras, say Tannasy's yeah,
20:02
Speaker 1: it's wide open. Uh we need I guess we need
20:05
Speaker 1: to cover the lingo real quick too. Alright, So if
20:08
Speaker 1: you're out there and you see these letters, like if
20:09
Speaker 1: you're a Texter or you don't know l O L
20:11
Speaker 1: means you'd be mighty confused. Everyone keeps saying law to you.
20:15
Speaker 1: So uh c I t O means cash in trash out.
20:20
Speaker 1: And that's one of the tenants is that you should
20:22
Speaker 1: kind of like a hikers take only pictures, leave only
20:25
Speaker 1: footprints mantra. So you should like pick up trash along
20:28
Speaker 1: the way and take it with you. That's one. You
20:30
Speaker 1: want to name another one or you want me to
20:32
Speaker 1: do all these well I already talked about TNF TNLN okay,
20:36
Speaker 1: took nothing nothing. There's f t F, which is a
20:39
Speaker 1: big one that's first to find. And if you're the
20:41
Speaker 1: first one to uh define the stash, that's pretty cool.
20:45
Speaker 1: I can tell you a name for us geo muggles.
20:49
Speaker 1: If just people who don't geo cash. Yeah, so I'd
20:53
Speaker 1: say like nine percent of the global population or geo muggles,
21:00
Speaker 1: your muggles. True and a spoiler and just like you
21:03
Speaker 1: would suppose is a comment that reveals the location on
21:08
Speaker 1: like a website or something. Yeah, and he would want
21:10
Speaker 1: to do that. So a geo muggle would do that.
21:12
Speaker 1: Like any good underground hobby, it has its lingo, it
21:17
Speaker 1: has its websites. But like you were saying, it's family
21:20
Speaker 1: friendly and um, there's just kind of a cool spirit
21:23
Speaker 1: to it and it's it struck me as very open.
21:25
Speaker 1: I think geo cashing is one of the more friendly
21:30
Speaker 1: UM hobbies around. Yeah, anytime you start a community like this,
21:34
Speaker 1: like the the hash runs that people do, it's cool.
21:37
Speaker 1: You know, it's something that that people can take part
21:39
Speaker 1: in and it's it's a lot of fun. I guess
21:42
Speaker 1: we can. We mentioned Philadelphia real quick. Sure they actually
21:45
Speaker 1: have embraced it big time. Um. In the spring of
21:48
Speaker 1: oh seven, they they had a little thing where they
21:51
Speaker 1: wanted to promote a little promotional deal the Franklin Institute's
21:54
Speaker 1: King Tut display, and they actually had a geo cashing
21:58
Speaker 1: game that they presented public where you'll go to twelve
22:01
Speaker 1: different sites related to the exhibit, and UM, each site
22:04
Speaker 1: had a stamp and you collected these stamps and once
22:07
Speaker 1: you've collected all of them, then you get a prize
22:09
Speaker 1: at the end, which from what I understand was a
22:11
Speaker 1: Santana c D Yeah, and a ticket to the King
22:14
Speaker 1: Tut exhibit. So Chuck that it. That is it. And
22:19
Speaker 1: if you want to know more about geo cashing, I
22:22
Speaker 1: gotta tell you Strickland wrote the definitive article on this.
22:26
Speaker 1: He used the geek god tone where was like no
22:31
Speaker 1: drugs you know, I mean, he just he did it.
22:34
Speaker 1: He knocked it out of the part he did. So
22:36
Speaker 1: if you want to learn more about geo cashing, I
22:39
Speaker 1: would strongly urge you too, even before you go buy
22:41
Speaker 1: your GPS receiver, read Jonathan Strickland's article on geo cashing
22:46
Speaker 1: good start, and also Marshall Brain, founder of the site,
22:49
Speaker 1: and Tom Harris, one of our freelance writers, UM wrote
22:53
Speaker 1: how GPS works really good overview of how global positioning works. UM.
22:59
Speaker 1: Those are two good articles. You can find them both
23:01
Speaker 1: by typing in GPS into the handy search bart how
23:04
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com and Chuck Before we do Listener
23:07
Speaker 1: mail let's plug what are you plugging? Let's plug the
23:11
Speaker 1: webcast and um the blogs. Okay, Every Wednesday afternoon one
23:16
Speaker 1: pm Eastern Standard time, Josh and I do a little webcast.
23:20
Speaker 1: It's live. It's a live video webcast, just so there's
23:23
Speaker 1: no mistaking it. And it's more newsy, and we cover
23:26
Speaker 1: current events and interesting topics from around the world. And um,
23:30
Speaker 1: it's fun. We we've we've been getting some. It is fun.
23:32
Speaker 1: It's gotten to be fun. I stop um feeling the
23:35
Speaker 1: urge to vomit right before it every time. You're solid, bro,
23:38
Speaker 1: it's good, so are you, buddy? Thanks? Uh. And then
23:40
Speaker 1: we also have a blog, Stuff you should know. Blog
23:42
Speaker 1: very much in the spirit of stuff you should know,
23:44
Speaker 1: we'd pretty much write about whatever strikes our fancy, which
23:47
Speaker 1: is nice. Yeah, you wrote about a gun toting uh
23:51
Speaker 1: town hall meeting attendee recently and some good debate on
23:55
Speaker 1: that one, which I figured. Yeah, n I wrote about
23:58
Speaker 1: Gary Warren, the founder of Susy Clubs. So those are
24:01
Speaker 1: just a couple of uh. So that's plug fest oh nine,
24:07
Speaker 1: which means it's time for a listener mail. Yes, before
24:10
Speaker 1: we again do a listener mail. Our producer Jerry had
24:13
Speaker 1: a special request because we refer to the great Ira
24:16
Speaker 1: Glasses our arch and Nemesis, and a few podcasts A
24:19
Speaker 1: Goo I remember, which We've got some response. People are like,
24:22
Speaker 1: what's going on? Guys? We love Ira Glass. We figured
24:24
Speaker 1: job would be fans too. We do love Ira Glass. Oh,
24:27
Speaker 1: we're big time fans and we love this American life.
24:29
Speaker 1: And there's a friendly ratings war that they consistently win,
24:34
Speaker 1: and so that's why we called him our arch nemesis.
24:37
Speaker 1: But there's there's nothing but love and Ira Glass. If
24:40
Speaker 1: you know we exist, we love you. Thank you for
24:43
Speaker 1: inspiring us. Yes, So what else you got? I got
24:49
Speaker 1: a listener mail all right, Josh listener mail time. We
24:56
Speaker 1: have a couple of quickies here called this one Sarcopenia
25:01
Speaker 1: um proven. So we had a guy right in said
25:05
Speaker 1: he's been listening for a while now and he wants
25:07
Speaker 1: to say what that we're great? Um. He is a
25:10
Speaker 1: gym dude and he was listening to the podcast at
25:13
Speaker 1: the gym and it struck a chord with me. About
25:15
Speaker 1: six months ago, a little fragile, hunched over ladies started
25:18
Speaker 1: showing up at the gym. I probably would not have
25:20
Speaker 1: taken much notice, but she was toting around a portable
25:22
Speaker 1: oxygen tank which gave me a deep respect for her tenacity,
25:26
Speaker 1: and a water bottle with a very large straw protruding
25:29
Speaker 1: from it. She shows up on a regular basis and
25:31
Speaker 1: puts everyone else to shame and works hard with the trainer.
25:34
Speaker 1: Since that time, she has become the poster child for
25:37
Speaker 1: reversing the aging process. First she dropped the oxygen tank
25:41
Speaker 1: completely gone. Then she lost her hunch in her back
25:44
Speaker 1: and is walking up right again. That's awesome. She still
25:47
Speaker 1: has a water bottle with the straw, which has become
25:49
Speaker 1: the only way for me to identify her because she
25:51
Speaker 1: looks so much younger. Thanks for helping me understand exactly
25:54
Speaker 1: how this went down. And that is from Jason Boo. Yeah,
25:58
Speaker 1: pretty cool. Yeah. And then another quickie. This is from
26:01
Speaker 1: our buddy Danielle in Old Claire, Wisconsin. Danielle and I
26:06
Speaker 1: are pen pals, and she loves that we mentioned Oh
26:09
Speaker 1: Claire and she boygan in places like that, so she
26:11
Speaker 1: she sent us a list of other Wisconsin cities that
26:14
Speaker 1: she bets we cannot pronounce. I'm just gonna put that here,
26:18
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna go ahead and say the first one
26:20
Speaker 1: is okonama walk I think you're way off. All right,
26:26
Speaker 1: you go next Wawa tosa. That was pretty easy. The
26:30
Speaker 1: next one is out to Outmi. You sound Cambodian. I'm
26:37
Speaker 1: going to try trimpalow I get thesey ones all right.
26:41
Speaker 1: The next one, so it's not easy kiwi kiwani. Yeah,
26:45
Speaker 1: that's not that's not easy at all, all right, uh waukesha.
26:49
Speaker 1: And finally we have why y'all why aw go? Yeah.
26:54
Speaker 1: So then the last one is double dash Danielle, daniel
26:59
Speaker 1: the pin Pals, Danielle take that, Yeah, perfect pronunciation all
27:04
Speaker 1: the way, all the way down the list in your
27:06
Speaker 1: face Danielle, and Sarcopania. If you want to correspond with
27:10
Speaker 1: Chuck or I, Chuck is actually really good at responding
27:13
Speaker 1: to a listener mail um, and he's made some pretty
27:16
Speaker 1: good friends along the way. So if you want to
27:18
Speaker 1: be Chuck's friend, send an email to Stuff Podcast at
27:22
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. For more on this and
27:29
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
27:33
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