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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with

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Speaker 1: tech stuff from how stuff works dot com. This podcast

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Speaker 1: is brought to you by Audible dot com, the Internet's

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Speaker 1: leading provider of spoken word entertainment. Get a free audio

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Speaker 1: Blog onto Audible podcast dot com slash stuff today for details.

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Speaker 1: Hello there, welcome to the podcast. My name is Chris Poette.

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Speaker 1: I'm an editor at how Stuff Works, and as usual

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Speaker 1: I have Jonathan Strickland, one of our senior writers with me. Hi. Oh,

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry it was a bit lost lost. Perhaps you

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Speaker 1: need a way to find yourself. As you can tell,

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Speaker 1: this is one of our corny segues directly into the

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Speaker 1: podcast topic, which today is all about GPS and the

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Speaker 1: games you get to play with them. You know, I

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Speaker 1: don't have a GPS, so I've never experience ends this,

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Speaker 1: but I think it's fascinating that you would take something

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Speaker 1: as I don't know, utilitarian as a GPS device and

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Speaker 1: find a way to play a game with it. Right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and well, I'll talk a little bit about the history

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Speaker 1: of GPS and and and kind of how it works.

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Speaker 1: Kind of explain how this came about. I mean, the

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Speaker 1: fascinating thing about it is it started out as a

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Speaker 1: military thing, right, technically cut story, that was a science

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Speaker 1: fiction thing. But so an you put it that way,

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Speaker 1: I just hey, you know, Arthur C. Clark gotta give

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Speaker 1: them props. So um so. Global Positioning System or GPS,

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Speaker 1: this is a system that utilizes a kind of location

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Speaker 1: um system called three dimensional trilateration. All right, that's a

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Speaker 1: fancy way of saying that you determine where your position

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Speaker 1: is honest sphere by measuring the distance between you and

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Speaker 1: a saddle and several satellites. Usually it's at least three satellites,

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Speaker 1: if not more. And by measuring the distance between yourself

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Speaker 1: and the satellite, you can figure out where you are

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Speaker 1: in pretty specific terms upon that sphere, the sphere of

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Speaker 1: course being Earth. Kind of funny how that works, right,

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Speaker 1: So yeah, so you're you're you know, it's kind of

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Speaker 1: like triangulation, but it's again called trilateration. And uh, the

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Speaker 1: way you measure your distance from the satellite is that

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Speaker 1: your your GPS receiver sends a signal up and then

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Speaker 1: receives a signal back from the satellite. It determines how

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Speaker 1: long it took the signal to go out and back,

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Speaker 1: and that tells it how far away it is from

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Speaker 1: the satellite. But because of course the signal is always

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Speaker 1: going to travel at the same speed, right, So by

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Speaker 1: doing this multiple times with multiple satellites, you can determine

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Speaker 1: your position on the Earth. Um, there's more in there

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Speaker 1: that we could talk about. I mean, there's some really

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Speaker 1: cool science behind it because obviously a satellite orbiting the Earth,

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Speaker 1: it's traveling at a very fast speed as it orbits,

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Speaker 1: which means relativity comes into play. You can't just put

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Speaker 1: a regular clock on a satellite and expected to stay

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Speaker 1: sinked to your clock on Earth. You have to figure

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Speaker 1: in relativity. That's cool, do you think it is? And

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Speaker 1: it's also cool that it can tell where you are

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Speaker 1: from tens of thousands of miles in space because it

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Speaker 1: has to stay out at that distance in order to

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Speaker 1: keep it SNUS exactly. Yeah, so it's really pretty fascinating.

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Speaker 1: It's pretty cool stuff. So anyway, that's technically how the

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Speaker 1: GPS works. It's measuring those distances and then determining your location.

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Speaker 1: You take a look and most GPS systems now they

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Speaker 1: have a map function where it just it shows your

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Speaker 1: location on the map, and as you move around your

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Speaker 1: your movements are reflected in that map you can see.

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Speaker 1: But early GPS systems often what they would do is

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Speaker 1: give you coordinates and tell you where you were based.

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Speaker 1: You know, you'd have to use coordinates and then refer

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Speaker 1: to a physical map to determine where you were. And

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Speaker 1: early in the life of GPS systems, it was, as

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Speaker 1: Chris mentioned, a military application, and so as a military application,

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Speaker 1: the government didn't really want citizens being able to use

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Speaker 1: this with any sort of real precision. That's why they

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Speaker 1: used selective availability. Yeah, but that's mostly been revoked. At

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Speaker 1: one point it was but um ten meters or something

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Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, what would happen. What would happen is

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Speaker 1: the government created these algorithms that would insert artificial errors

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Speaker 1: into the signal so that people using a civilian GPS

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Speaker 1: system would never be able to tell for sure if

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Speaker 1: the coordinates they received were accurately reflecting where they they

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Speaker 1: were standing and it was you know, you the closest

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Speaker 1: you could determine is around three hundred feet. That was

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Speaker 1: about as about as close as you could figure out

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Speaker 1: that you would be um. You know, you can never

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Speaker 1: be sure. It could be further than that, even depending

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Speaker 1: on the errors that were inserted into the signal. But

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Speaker 1: in two thousand, the u S revoked this, this policy

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Speaker 1: of selective availability, and then it became possible to determine

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Speaker 1: your position within you know, six to twenty ft accuracy.

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Speaker 1: And now it's pretty good. It's pretty pretty accurate, which

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Speaker 1: gave rise to the ability to play games using your GPS.

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Speaker 1: And you know, we're not talking football here, We're we're

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Speaker 1: talking about well and it's almost like hide and seek

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Speaker 1: in some ways. Yeah, or treasure hunting is a treasure

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Speaker 1: of looking at it. Um. Yeah. So the biggest game

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Speaker 1: that folks player, perhaps the most popular, and the biggest

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Speaker 1: is probably the wrong word. Most popular game would be

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Speaker 1: geo cashing. Now, geo cashing started when this uh, this

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Speaker 1: this fellow out and I believe it was California. As

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Speaker 1: soon as selective availability was as soon as that was dismissed,

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Speaker 1: He's like, Hey, I have this cool idea. I'll go

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Speaker 1: out into the woods. I'll hide a box out there

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Speaker 1: with a little prize in it, and I will um,

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Speaker 1: I will mark the location. I'll figure out where I'll

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Speaker 1: carry GPS is a receiver with me. I will fig

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Speaker 1: write down the coordinates for the box. I'll go back,

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Speaker 1: upload the coordinates to the web and challenge people to

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Speaker 1: try and find it. And I think within the first

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Speaker 1: couple of days someone had found it. Um. So even

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Speaker 1: this early on, there were enough enthusiasts who were just

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Speaker 1: waiting for this opportunity to really kind of play with

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Speaker 1: these receivers they had access to, but they didn't. You know,

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Speaker 1: of course, with the selective availability, they couldn't really do it.

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Speaker 1: Now that it was gone, the sky was the limit,

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Speaker 1: and that gave birth to geos cashing, excuse me, And

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Speaker 1: so with geo cashing, the general idea is that you

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Speaker 1: create a cash or a box of some sort of

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Speaker 1: container of some sort um, and you hide it in

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Speaker 1: a location. You put some stuff in it. Usually there's

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Speaker 1: a log book, um, and there's often some little trinkets

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Speaker 1: in there, and you, uh, what you do is you

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Speaker 1: you upload the coordinates to a website for geo casher's

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Speaker 1: and the geo cashers went, you know, if they're planning

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Speaker 1: a trip out, they say, hey, you know, I wanted

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Speaker 1: to go hiking along this trail and there are some

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Speaker 1: some cashes that are along the trail. Let me see

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Speaker 1: how many of them I can find while I'm out there.

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Speaker 1: They take the receiver with them, they go hiking, they

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Speaker 1: look at the numbers, they try and find the cash.

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Speaker 1: If they find it, they signed the log book. They

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Speaker 1: can take a trinket, and usually they leave a trinket behind,

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Speaker 1: and a lot of geo cashiers have specific things they

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Speaker 1: leave behind, so that way you know who's been to

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Speaker 1: the box before, sort of like the Pink Panther the

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Speaker 1: original movie, right, so you know, you could look down

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Speaker 1: and if you see, I don't know, like a smurf,

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Speaker 1: you're like, oh, Bill was here, because Bill leave smurfs.

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Speaker 1: Or maybe even maybe it wasn't Bill. Maybe it was

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Speaker 1: someone who had visited one of Bill's cashes found the

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Speaker 1: smurf and then they used that as the one they

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Speaker 1: traded off when they found the second cash. And the

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Speaker 1: games can get way more complicated than that. You can

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Speaker 1: maybe get to the first cash, and when you get there,

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Speaker 1: the only thing in it is our our coordinates to

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Speaker 1: a second cash. Well, you have to make your way

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Speaker 1: to the next one. And the idea here is not

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Speaker 1: just that your treasure hunting or walking all over the

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Speaker 1: places that you're experiencing the outdoors and and ideally the

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Speaker 1: Casher's hide these things in locations that are you know,

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Speaker 1: beautiful or or remarkable in some way, so that the

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Speaker 1: journey really is part of the enjoyment and the destination

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Speaker 1: is part of the enjoyment. It's not just that you

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Speaker 1: found the cash. Um. I think there's another one that's

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Speaker 1: very similar, geo dashing. Yeah, I've heard of that one too,

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Speaker 1: where there's a list of way points and you have

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Speaker 1: to uh, it's sort of like a rally, I guess

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Speaker 1: in a way, because you have a certain spot that

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Speaker 1: you're supposed to go to before you can go to

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Speaker 1: the next spot, and the point is to get to

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Speaker 1: as many of them as you can, I mean, try

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Speaker 1: to get all of them, um. And you have to

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Speaker 1: be within a hundred meters or so of each point

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Speaker 1: to be able to count that you were there. So

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Speaker 1: then in fact, you're supposed to describe your experience. So

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Speaker 1: I guess that you're you're proving it's like, yeah, I

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Speaker 1: was at the McDonald's on Fifth and Maine, you know, uh,

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Speaker 1: to say, okay, yeah, well, obviously you've been to where

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Speaker 1: we were supposed you were supposed to go, you know,

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Speaker 1: in the list. So that's that's kind of interesting because

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Speaker 1: not only are you going to one specific point, but

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Speaker 1: you you are supposed to. It is the journey. It

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Speaker 1: is going from point to point point B and then

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Speaker 1: C and play different lates and you know which way

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Speaker 1: is going to be the most efficient, you know. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's that's another good game. There's a there's a similar

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Speaker 1: one called geo Vexilla. Oh yeah, you heard of that one. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: involves flags of the world. Yeah. Um, the thing is

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Speaker 1: they're they're not really you're not. If you see like

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Speaker 1: the Spanish flag, you're not supposed to go to Spain. Um,

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Speaker 1: there's a point that's represented by that. So like the

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Speaker 1: McDonald's on Fifth and Maine might be the flag of Spain.

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Speaker 1: But the trick is the flags disappear, so you're supposed

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Speaker 1: to get to each one of them, but for they

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Speaker 1: disappear and something else pops up to get credit for

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Speaker 1: actually having visited that spot. So not only are there waypoints,

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Speaker 1: but the way points come and go and it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so it really is race in that case. Yeah, you

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Speaker 1: have to really pay attention to see when something pops

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Speaker 1: up that you can actually make it out to and

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Speaker 1: then hopefully when you make it out it's something that

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Speaker 1: you you know, it's a flag that you actually needed.

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Speaker 1: It's like like I've got eight Union jacks, but I

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Speaker 1: need the flag of Portugal. Yeah exactly. Yeah. So that's

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Speaker 1: a that's another interesting one, another race oriented. Uh geo game.

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Speaker 1: Um have you heard of shutter spot? I have heard

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Speaker 1: of shutter spot? This? Uh, this is not so much

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Speaker 1: a race type of thing. No, No, this one, this

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Speaker 1: one's a puzzle almost. It's in a way geo cashing

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Speaker 1: is is very much kind of a puzzle as well.

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Speaker 1: And geo cashing, you know, you have the coordinates and

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Speaker 1: then you have to find out where those you know,

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Speaker 1: you have to find the location that matches those coordinates.

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Speaker 1: Shutter spot is the other way around. You. You find

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Speaker 1: you're given a picture of a location and you have

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Speaker 1: to see if you can find the spot the photographer

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Speaker 1: first stood in when he or she took that photo,

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Speaker 1: and you then upload those coordinates. Right, So if you

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Speaker 1: saw a picture of say Mount Rushmore, you'd have to

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Speaker 1: go to Mount Rushmore and look at it and go okay, well,

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Speaker 1: obviously the photographer was not standing where I'm standing because

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Speaker 1: this is a completely different view. So I need to

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Speaker 1: be you know, over to the right, or yards off

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Speaker 1: to the right, or a hundred yards off to the left,

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Speaker 1: and and yeah, you have to try and use you know,

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Speaker 1: I have to match your view to the view of

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Speaker 1: the photograph and then consult your GPS receiver and say,

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Speaker 1: you know, this is where you were standing in yes

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Speaker 1: or no type of thing. Yeah, that's that's pretty cool.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of a reversal of some of the other games.

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Speaker 1: And and what's interesting here is that a lot of

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Speaker 1: these games are based on even older games that happened

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Speaker 1: before there were GPS receivers available on the consumer market.

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Speaker 1: There's a game called letter boxing that is kind of

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Speaker 1: the the I would say that the grandfather to geo cashing.

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Speaker 1: And in letter boxing, you would use clues and and

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Speaker 1: riddles and poems to try and direct people to a

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Speaker 1: specific location to find this letter box. And inside the

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Speaker 1: letter box would be a log book very much like

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Speaker 1: the geo cashing one, and a stamp, and every person

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Speaker 1: whose letter boxing would carry their own stamp and stamp

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Speaker 1: the log book and then use the log book stamp

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Speaker 1: to stamp their own personal log book, so it proves

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Speaker 1: that they visited and they have the record of their

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Speaker 1: visit in their own log book. But again, you're not

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Speaker 1: giving coordinates in this case, you're just giving clues. So

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Speaker 1: geo cashing is a little more straightforward usually. I mean

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Speaker 1: you can combine the two where, for example, you follow

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Speaker 1: the the coordinates that you get from whichever geo cashing

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Speaker 1: website you go to, you get there, and the only

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Speaker 1: thing there is a clue to something else, so you

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Speaker 1: can combine the two games. There's no there's no hard

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Speaker 1: and fast rules here. The real point is to create

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Speaker 1: a challenging environment and uh and and and have people

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Speaker 1: have a little adventures out out outside of their normal

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Speaker 1: realm of experience, which is you know, it's definitely there's

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Speaker 1: something romantic about that, and there's also something really techy

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Speaker 1: about that. Um I don't know about you, Chris, but

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Speaker 1: I've met a lot of tech geeks who really are

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Speaker 1: like the hopeless romantic type. So this really tends to

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Speaker 1: appeal to their sense of adventure. And and I mean

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Speaker 1: it's just it's it's a little geeky, a little dorky maybe,

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Speaker 1: But you know, I could I wouldn't mind doing it

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Speaker 1: for a weekend, you know, go go on a nice

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Speaker 1: little hike and see if I can find a cash.

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Speaker 1: And they're everywhere. You can check out several different geo

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Speaker 1: caashing websites and they're all across the world, the United

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Speaker 1: States in particular. It's it's pretty popular. Yeah, and if

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Speaker 1: you're if you're thinking about doing this yourself and actual

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Speaker 1: lead planting a cash, you need to uh check out.

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Speaker 1: There are some sites you should look at, maybe a

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Speaker 1: geocashing dot com is one. But there are rules. You

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Speaker 1: need to be very careful about where you go even

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Speaker 1: while either way, when you're planting a cash or when

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Speaker 1: you're going on other people's property, you need to make

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Speaker 1: sure that you are aware whether you're on public or

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Speaker 1: private property and basically abide by the laws because and

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Speaker 1: and and the the wishes of the private property owner.

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Speaker 1: If that is, if the cash is in fact on

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Speaker 1: somebody's private land, because um, they may say, yeah, sure

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Speaker 1: you can. You can put a box in that old

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Speaker 1: tree down there by the lake. You know, just as

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Speaker 1: long as you're not leaving trash around and and people

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Speaker 1: aren't coming over here and you know, stealing my stuff

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Speaker 1: and making a mass and polluting and all sorts of things.

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Speaker 1: You know, you want to be respectful of other people

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Speaker 1: because it is in fact a game, and as soon

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Speaker 1: as people abuse that, then you know, you know, everyone

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Speaker 1: can um. So there are other rules to live by,

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Speaker 1: Like if you are on a Geo cash hunt, you

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Speaker 1: want to be careful not to disturb the environment or

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Speaker 1: or leave as little an imprint as you possibly can.

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Speaker 1: So uh, you know, if you see like, you gotta

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Speaker 1: keep in mind that Geo casher's tend to like to

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Speaker 1: hide the box that's not just sitting out in plain view.

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Speaker 1: But you want to make sure that if you're hiding it,

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Speaker 1: don't hide at someplace where people are gonna have to

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Speaker 1: destroy part of the environment or to get to it.

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Speaker 1: And uh, if you're hunting, keep that in mind that

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Speaker 1: it should not be in a place that's gonna make

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Speaker 1: you have to you know, break a tree branch or

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Speaker 1: or or you know, go rooting around in the underbrush

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Speaker 1: or whatever. It should be in some location that would

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Speaker 1: cause the least amount of impact on the environment you

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Speaker 1: are in. And uh, and keeping going back to the

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Speaker 1: getting permission or checking to see what the rules are.

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Speaker 1: Keep in mind that we live in a uh, a

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Speaker 1: different world than than the year of two thousand. Mean,

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Speaker 1: we we live in a world now where if you

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Speaker 1: were to walk down the street and see a weird

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Speaker 1: box kind of shoved up behind a corner of the building,

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Speaker 1: you might be a little you might be worried. And

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Speaker 1: there are cases where people who were innocently we're just

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Speaker 1: trying to hide a GEO cash have been mistaken for

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Speaker 1: trying to hide something like a bomb. And it's you

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Speaker 1: obviously don't want that to happen, so do keep that

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Speaker 1: in mind. It's it's you know, it's a fun game

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Speaker 1: to you, and from your perspective, it's fine, but think

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Speaker 1: of it from the person who owns the property or

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Speaker 1: law enforcement. It could be something that, you know, if

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Speaker 1: they're unfamiliar with it, it could be very worrisome. That's true.

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Speaker 1: That's true. And you know, thinking about it, um with

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Speaker 1: the recent uh surgeon popularity of smartphones, many of which

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Speaker 1: have GPS devices, and then you know, this is the

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Speaker 1: kind of thing that more people could get behind simply

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Speaker 1: because they'll say, I got this GPS thing and my

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Speaker 1: my iPhone or my uh you know, Google Android enabled phone.

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Speaker 1: I I don't really use it other than for directions.

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Speaker 1: But I've heard of this geo cashing thing here, it's

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Speaker 1: possible that more people will get involved with I wouldn't

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Speaker 1: be surprised to see geo cashing applications come up where

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Speaker 1: you would be able to access UH data live and

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Speaker 1: even be able to you know, upload your own find

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Speaker 1: as soon as you find it. And I mean it's

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Speaker 1: it's a perfect kind of device for that sort of application,

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Speaker 1: and because it has not just the GPS capability, but

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Speaker 1: of course the phone capability or even WiFi capability. Although

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Speaker 1: most of the time you're not going to find a

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Speaker 1: cash and a WiFi enabled environment. No, I wouldn't. I

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Speaker 1: would imagine that there are urban cashes. There are people

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Speaker 1: who hide them in urban places, but those are more rare.

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Speaker 1: For one thing, it's harder to get a signal in

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Speaker 1: an urban environment from a GPS device um And for another,

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Speaker 1: again it tends to give law enforcement officials ulcers. Well,

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Speaker 1: this was a pretty good discussion, I think on different

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Speaker 1: games you can play with your GPS. But I've got

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Speaker 1: another discussion we could talk quickly about about treasure hunting

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Speaker 1: in general. But before we get to it, I think

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Speaker 1: it's about time we think our sponsor. I mean audible

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00:18:23,760 --> 00:18:25,960
Speaker 1: I said, there's like fifty thou books there now. And

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Speaker 1: we have a couple of suggestions. Chris, do you want

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Speaker 1: to go first? Yeah, this one I think, uh, it's

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Speaker 1: very appropriate for our discussion. It's called Geography of Bliss

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Speaker 1: One grump search for the Happiest Places in the World.

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Speaker 1: It was written by a correspondent for NPR, actually, Eric Winer,

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Speaker 1: and he discusses different places he's been and uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: places that that you might have some kind of happy experience,

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Speaker 1: and it's just kind of an interesting, uh, interesting subject,

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Speaker 1: especially considering the games and the GPS and finding yourself

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Speaker 1: in different places. Sure, yeah, that's very much that. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: a good one. Well my suggestion I figure that when

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Speaker 1: you use a GPS device in this kind of way,

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Speaker 1: you're really kind of expanding your world knowledge. And there's

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Speaker 1: really one true authority on all world knowledge. And I

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00:19:15,840 --> 00:19:19,920
Speaker 1: would like to recommend his book. It is The Areas

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00:19:20,000 --> 00:19:24,240
Speaker 1: of My Expertise by John Hodgement. It's a book that

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00:19:24,320 --> 00:19:29,080
Speaker 1: contains everything he knows and it's all lies, which makes

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00:19:29,080 --> 00:19:31,480
Speaker 1: it much easier to write. And there are a lot

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00:19:31,480 --> 00:19:33,479
Speaker 1: of hobo's names in the book and I'm sure they

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00:19:33,480 --> 00:19:38,040
Speaker 1: would have enjoyed having. Yeah, that sort of thing that

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00:19:38,080 --> 00:19:40,879
Speaker 1: hoboes would be all over in a minute. So you

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00:19:40,920 --> 00:19:43,080
Speaker 1: can get either of these or any other book on

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Speaker 1: free download. It's a great deal. So getting back to

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Speaker 1: treasure hunting now, Well, what I wanted to recommend to

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00:19:56,160 --> 00:19:59,359
Speaker 1: our listeners is that if you haven't already subscribed to

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00:19:59,520 --> 00:20:01,840
Speaker 1: Stuff you Missed in History Class, which is one of

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00:20:01,840 --> 00:20:04,280
Speaker 1: our I guess a sister podcast you could call it,

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00:20:05,080 --> 00:20:09,040
Speaker 1: I highly recommend it as the lovely and intelligent hosts

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00:20:09,080 --> 00:20:11,879
Speaker 1: of Jane McGrath and Candice Gibson, and they talk all

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00:20:11,920 --> 00:20:17,320
Speaker 1: about historical UH scenarios and they answer a lot of questions.

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00:20:17,359 --> 00:20:20,320
Speaker 1: And one of the ones they did recently was a

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00:20:20,560 --> 00:20:25,120
Speaker 1: podcast titled could Treasure Hunters have Discovered Nazi Gold? It's

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00:20:25,160 --> 00:20:28,560
Speaker 1: a very very interesting discussion that they have and uh,

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00:20:28,600 --> 00:20:34,880
Speaker 1: it really dives into politics and morals and ethics, geography. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it's just a great podcast and I highly recommend it.

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Speaker 1: Excellent And if you want to learn more about geocashing

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00:20:40,840 --> 00:20:44,520
Speaker 1: or GPS receivers or even letterboxing, we have all those

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Speaker 1: articles uplive right now at how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: And we'll talk to you again really soon. For more

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00:20:51,760 --> 00:20:54,399
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff

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00:20:54,440 --> 00:20:57,720
Speaker 1: works dot com. Let us know what you think, send

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00:20:57,720 --> 00:21:04,840
Speaker 1: an email to podcast and how stuff dot com brought

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Speaker 1: to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,

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