…and now for something completely different.

I keep mentioning Geocaching here, and I realise that I haven’t spelt out what it is, or why I am into it. I mostly realise this because people keep asking, so here’s a brief summary for public dissemination.

Geocaching revolves around this website: http://www.geocaching.com
It’s a semi-sport where some people hide little boxes full of stuff with a logbook in them somewhere in the environment, and other people have to find them. This is all facilitated by a modern tech-toy: the GPS. With a GPS, which you can buy for ~$200 AUD if you shop around, you can work out where you are to within a couple of meters in terms of latitude and longitude. Even the crudest GPS can also help you to navigate your way to any other arbitrary set of co-ordinates, such as those associated with a Geocache. There are a lot of caches out there; thousands just in Victoria. If you live anywhere suburban, you probably live within a kilometer of at least one cache.
Why do I enjoy it?

• It’s a treasure hunt. What’s not to enjoy?
• It is an outdoor physical activity. I need more of these.
• It is potentially a great social thing.
• It involves finding new places, often by some very strange paths.
• It is facilitated by geek toys. (I have a bluetooth GPS which talks to my Palm Pilot using bluetooth, where I run an app called GeoNiche)

On another note, I recently told several people that I thought the Stargate TV series had real merit as quality television SF. I just want to amend that, having watched some more: No, it’s silly. Fun, but silly.

Finally, observant readers will have noticed that I have tunred comments off. Apologies to all those wonderful people who have left their thoughts here… I will reinstate comments when the recent crisis has had some time to cool off. Until then, apologies for the read-only blog.