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Dan Q found GC8V990 NANOBLITZ You’ve got some Rattle

This checkin to GC8V990 NANOBLITZ You've got some Rattle reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.

A hard walk to an easy find, but this cache has definitely caught the worst of the stormy conditions. Its hiding place has flooded and the container is drenched. Dried as best I could, but it needs CO attention. TFTC.

Dan Q found GC8V997 NANOBLITZ Ground

This checkin to GC8V997 NANOBLITZ Ground reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.

Getting down the muddy bank (picture attached) to this one was a bit spicy! Like those before me, I found the cache wedged tight into its hiding space. But unlike them, I was able to construct a crude lever with which to set it free! SL, TFTC.

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Dan Q found GC8RWDN NANOBLITZ C Log

This checkin to GC8RWDN NANOBLITZ C Log reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.

Found after an extended hunt, not where the hint would suggest. Looks like it blew quite a way away! Returned to pave specified by coordinates and hint. Log extremely wet, hard to sign.

You were right about the views from up here, though!

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Dan Q found GC8V98F NANOBLITZ Under a Tenor

This checkin to GC8V98F NANOBLITZ Under a Tenor reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.

Don’t want to be a grass, but I don’t think that’s legal tinder. End of this road for me, need to loop a different direction now to stay on schedule for my planned arrival at the 2022-02-20 52 -1 geohashpoint!

Dan Q found GC8RN35 NANOBLITZ A Log

This checkin to GC8RN35 NANOBLITZ A Log reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.

Found, but only thanks to the hint! My GPSr had me on the wrong side of the road. In case anybody else is similarly affected, I found the cache about 11m away from where I expected to, at N 52 23.698, W 002 10.330. TFTC!

Dan Q found GC8R5ZK NANOBLITZ Pulling a Female

This checkin to GC8R5ZK NANOBLITZ Pulling a Female reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.

The recent winds had blown this little lady clear of her hiding place and into the tree next door. Thankfully I was able to retrieve her by her tether and return her to where (it looks like) she belonged. Log starting to take on water but not in need of maintenance yet, but possibly worth replacing the seal on the container later in the year. TFTC!

Dan Q found GC8R613 NANOBLITZ Sound FX

This checkin to GC8R613 NANOBLITZ Sound FX reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.

I had to give up on the trail to Deansford Lane: too muddy for my boots! Instead heading East, I found this delightfully noisy cache! Bit of a stretch to reach but managed in the end, and honestly spent longer retrieving the log than hunting for the cache. Genius, FP awarded.

Dan Q found GC8R5WH NANOBLITZ Like a Rat up a Pipe

This checkin to GC8R5WH NANOBLITZ Like a Rat up a Pipe reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.

First place I looked, but I still squeaked with delight to see the cache container! There were many options for my stop-and-cache plan on today’s journey, but I’m already glad I chose here: these caches are awesome, and that’s coming from somebody who normally hates nanos. FP awarded.

Dan Q found GC8R5V9 NANOBLITZ Power Point

This checkin to GC8R5V9 NANOBLITZ Power Point reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.

On a geohashing expedition, between the 2022-02-19 52 -2 and 2022-02-20 52 -1 hashpoints, I decided to pull over and do a little geocaching. This first find was very easy – coordinates were spot on, and the container’s unusual design stood out to me. I love a good “concealed in plain sight” cache. TFTC.

Geohashing expedition 2022-02-19 52 -2

This checkin to geohash 2022-02-19 52 -2 reflects a geohashing expedition. See more of Dan's hash logs.

Location

Just off footpath near Kinnersley, Herefordshire.

Participants

Plans

I’ve a rare opportunity today to expand my Minesweeper grid by reaching a hashpoint in 52 -2. Also, to engage in my established tradition of “getting outside and exploring” on 19 February (in memory of my father, the most “get outside and explore” person I ever knew, who died ten years ago today while, you guessed it, getting outside and exploring).

I’ve booked some accommodation nearby with a view to seeing some of the Wye valley while I’m here.

Expedition

It’s become traditional that I mark the anniversary of my father’s death with an outdoors adventure: he was a huge fan of getting outside and exploring the world (and, indeed, died during a training exercise for a planned expedition to the North Pole). Sometimes (e.g. 2014-02-19 51 -0, 2021-02-19 51 -1) this coincides with a geohashing expedition; today was one of those days.

I’d originally hoped to spend a long weekend on this, the tenth anniversary of his death, trying to clear two or three of my three unfinished corners of the minesweeper grid centred on my home graticule. This would have involved a possible quick day trip to this graticule followed by a camping expedition along the South coast to try to pick up the remaining two. However, it was clearly not to be: for a start, all of the weekend’s hashpoints on the South coast graticules turned out to be at sea! But even if that weren’t the case, I was hardly likely to go camping on the coast during the “red warning” of Storm Eunice! So I revised my plans and changed my expedition to find this hashpoint (still gaining one more part of my grid), then stay over in the graticule before possibly heading East for one or two more over the coming day(s).

I drove up to the village of Kinnersley and parked at (52.253611, -3.0975) in the car park of the Church of St James. From there, I walked up the footpath to the North, through three fields, until I reached the edge of the orchards near which I’d surveyed the hashpoint to be. The fields were incredibly muddy following the recent heavy rain. It soon became apparent that the hashpoint was on the near-side of the hedgerow and thankfully not in the orchard itself, so I walked along the edge of the hedge until I reached it at 15:45:07.

Returning to my car, I drove on to my accommodation, took a walk around the village, then pressed on in the morning to the 2022-02-20 52 -1 hashpoint!

Tracklog

My GPSr kept a tracklog of my entire two-day expedition:

Download tracklog.

Photos

I shot video of most of this expedition but don’t have time to edit it, so here are stills from the video instead:

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DNDle (Wordle, but with D&D monster stats)

Don’t have time to read? Just start playing:

Play DNDle

There’s a Wordle clone for everybody

Am I too late to get onto the “making Wordle clones” bandwagon? Probably; there are quite a few now, including:

Screenshot showing a WhatsApp conversation. Somebody shares a Wordle-like "solution" board but it's got six columns, not five. A second person comments "Hang on a minute... that's not Wordle!"
I’m sure that by now all your social feeds are full of people playing Wordle. But the cool nerds are playing something new…

Now, a Wordle clone for D&D players!

But you know what hasn’t been seen before today? A Wordle clone where you have to guess a creature from the Dungeons & Dragons (5e) Monster Manual by putting numeric values into a character sheet (STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA):

Screenshot of DNDle, showing two guesses made already.
Just because nobody’s asking for a game doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make it anyway.

What are you waiting for: go give DNDle a try (I pronounce it “dindle”, but you can pronounce it however you like). A new monster appears at 10:00 UTC each day.

And because it’s me, of course it’s open source and works offline.

The boring techy bit

  • Like Wordle, everything happens in your browser: this is a “backendless” web application.
  • I’ve used ReefJS for state management, because I wanted something I could throw together quickly but I didn’t want to drown myself (or my players) in a heavyweight monster library. If you’ve not used Reef before, you should give it a go: it’s basically like React but a tenth of the footprint.
  • A cache-first/background-updating service worker means that it can run completely offline: you can install it to your homescreen in the same way as Wordle, but once you’ve visited it once it can work indefinitely even if you never go online again.
  • I don’t like to use a buildchain that’s any more-complicated than is absolutely necessary, so the only development dependency is rollup. It resolves my import statements and bundles a single JS file for the browser.
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