A Troll Apart: Comments Endangered07/12/2004 07:27 PM As you all know, we have a troll problem here. At least one person is
repeatedly violating the reasonable boundaries of discourse, to the
point that he/she has become unwelcome and whom we've attempted to
remove from the premises.
But I believe our troll is signing in from a major Internet service
provider that, like most ISPs, gives out dynamic IP addresses (a
different one every time he logs on to his provider). Block one IP
address, and he/she just signs in again and starts up the trolling
machine.
UPDATE: I'm asked to describe the problem in more detail. OK, the
person (or his/her virtual clones) doing this has repeated false
statements about what I do and what I believe even after being told
they are false.
I have no problem with people who disagree with what I write or who
think I'm an idiot, as anyone who's read the comments here knows. But
that's a long way from plain dishonesty, which is just not acceptable.
So we are now faced with a decision. We can:
Keep playing whack-
a-mole with our troll, but this is time-consuming and annoying
(perhaps what he/she wants);
Ban an entire range of IP addresses,
which would prevent some legitimate comments from getting through
(something I'm exceedingly reluctant to try);
Or shut down comments
entirely until we have a new posting system that prevents this kind of
ugly behavior by people whose purpose appears to be disruptive, as
opposed to having a serious debate of the issues.
If we take the third alternative permanently, as we have done for the
moment, our troll will lose the ability to disagree with me on this
blog. Is that really what he/she wants? I'm baffled by such people,
but also nearly out of patience.
Suggestions? Send me e-mail.
Thanks.
For Wildlife, Migration Is Endangered Too03/08/2004 11:24 PM Around the world, many great overland migrations have ended as more
and more habitat is converted to human use.
Group Warns DVRs Endangered07/28/2004 06:17 AM A digital-rights organization is distributing instructions to build a
PC-based TiVo-like recorder. It hopes to get people hooked on DVRs --
and stoke a backlash against an impending FCC rule that could cripple
the machines. By Katie Dean.
Tobacco Barns Becoming Endangered in Maryland
Tobacco Barns Becoming Endangered in Maryland09/12/2004 10:50 AM With tobacco fast fading from the landscape after nearly four
centuries of reigning as Southern Maryland's cash crop, the state's
wood-frame barns have become an endangered species.
Scientists Seek to Add to Endangered List (AP)
Scientists Seek to Add to Endangered List (AP)05/05/2004 05:25 AM AP - Scientists, including acclaimed wildlife biologist Jane Goodall,
joined environmental groups Tuesday in petitioning the government to
add 225 plants and animals to the endangered species list.
Quirky Google Culture Endangered?
Quirky Google Culture Endangered?04/28/2004 05:58 AM An IPO could mean a massive payday for employees holding options. But
going public could kill off the company's old-school Silicon Valley
perks, like roller-hockey games and free chow cooked up by the
Grateful Dead's former chef.
Endangered Species Official Reassigned
Endangered Species Official Reassigned08/07/2004 03:33 AM The reassignment of Gary Frazer, which was made official in late July,
was seen by environmental groups as a loss.
[etech] Wendey Seltzer: Endangered gizmos03/17/2005 03:00 AM Wendy of the EFF talks about technology threatened by
copyright-protection laws. (Here's the list.) MythTV is open source
TiVo. The HD cards sold after the Broadcast Flag law goes into effect
will only output low res images, so build your mythTV's now. (Wendy is
one of the lawyers contesting the Broadcast Flag. Go Wendy!) [I've
been trying to build a mythTV for months now. Hint: Be sure to get
exactly the specified parts.] Her unintroduced co-presenter talks
about the game City of Heroes. Marvel Comics is suing because some
users make characters who look like Marvel's copyrighted heroes.
Marvel wants...
New on the endangered species list: the bookworm | csmonitor.com
Smithsonian's Chief Admits Endangered-Bird Violations01/24/2004 02:19 AM Lawrence M. Small pleaded guilty Friday to a federal misdemeanor count
of possessing and importing Amazonian artifacts made of feathers and
other parts of endangered birds.
Iraq Struggles to Restore Its Endangered Tigris River
Thriving Bald Eagle Finding Its Way Off Endangered List
Thriving Bald Eagle Finding Its Way Off Endangered List05/19/2004 12:16 AM The bald eagle, in danger of disappearing from the American wild 40
years ago, is now likely to be removed from the list of threatened
species by the year's end.
[foo] Endangered Devices - Buy an HDTV for Freedom! (Offer not good after 7/05)
[foo] Endangered Devices - Buy an HDTV for Freedom! (Offer not good after 7/05)09/11/2004 04:14 PM Wendy Seltzer, lawyer for the EFF (join here), talks about the drive
to mandate building restrictions devices into hardware that plays
media content. The broadcast flag requires HDTV devices to check for a
"do not redistribute" flag in the content they receive. With the flag,
they can't output high-def digital or record it. She says that this
mitigates against open source software since it is modifiable; all
tuners would have to be closed source. "In the post broadcast flag
world, no one can bulid a TiVo without first asking permission from
the FCC." Until July 1, 2005, it's capable to...
Abuses Endangered Veterans in Cancer Drug Experiments
Endangered Species Act's Protections Are Trimmed (washingtonpost.com)
Endangered Species Act's Protections Are Trimmed (washingtonpost.com)07/04/2004 12:25 PM washingtonpost.com - The Bush administration has succeeded in
reshaping the Endangered Species Act in ways that have sharply limited
the impact of the 30-year-old law aimed at protecting the nation's
most vulnerable plants and animals, according to environmentalists and
some independent analysts.
Endangered Species: Quaint Towns. Green Hills. Vermont!
Abstract: Many languages are in serious danger
of being lost and if nothing is done to prevent it, half of the
world's approximately 6,500 languages will disappear in the next 100
years. Language data are central to the research of a large social
science community, including linguists, anthropologists,
archeologists, historians, sociologists, and political scientists
interested in the culture of indigenous people. The death of a
language entails the loss of a community's traditional culture, for
the language is a unique vehicle for its traditions and culture. In
this paper, we describe the effort undertaken at Wayne State
University to preserve endangered languages using the state-of-the-art
information technologies. We discuss the issues involved in such an
effort, and present the architecture of a distributed digital library
which will contain various data of endangered languages in the forms
of text, image, video and audio files and include advanced tools for
intelligent cataloguing, indexing, searching and browsing information
on languages and language analysis. Various Semantic Web technologies
such as XML, OLAC, and ontologies are used so that the digital library
is developed as a useful linguistic resource on the Semantic Web. This
has been added to the semantic web research section of Deep Web Research Subject
Tracer™ Information Blog.
Is Civility An Endangered Species In The Blogosphere? (Interesting Comments On This Post)
On April 22, 2005, people around the world will
celebrate the 35th anniversary of Earth Day. This Topic in Depth
focuses on the past and present of this significant day. From the
Wisconsin Historical Society, the first two sites contain historical
documents pertaining to Earth Day. The first (1) document features a
May 1970 issue of The Gaylord Nelson Newsletter reporting on the first
Earth Day. The second (2) document is a speech by Nelson entitled "An
Environmental Agenda for the 70's." Housed in the archives of the US
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) website, the next two sites also
contain historical documents. The first (3) site contains an article
written by Nelson for the EPA Journal in April of 1980, entitled
"Earth Day '70: What It Meant." The second (4) site contains an
article written by John C. Whitaker (former Interior undersecretary in
the Nixon administration) for the EPA Journal in the summer of 1998.
The article is entitled "Earth Day Recollections: What It Was Like
When the Movement Took Off." The (5) Earth Day Network (first
mentioned in the April 4, 2003, Scout Report for Life Sciences) works
"to broaden the environmental movement worldwide and to educate and
mobilize people, governments, and corporations to take responsibility
for a clean and healthy environment." In addition to information
sections about Ongoing Programs, Current Campaigns, and News, the
Earth Day Network website contains Earth Day 2005 Materials for
organizers. From EarthDay.gov, Take Action In Your Classroom (6)
offers links to a variety of environmental education resources. The
next website, from the U.S. Army Environmental Center, presents (7)
Army Earth Day; and links to information about the Army's
environmental activities. The final (8) site is an Earth Day-inspired
educational website (first reported on in the April 14, 1999 Scout
Report for Science & Engineering) from the Wilderness Society. The
site offers a collection of environmental education resources for
teachers and students. [From The NSDL Scout Report for the Life
Sciences, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2005. http://scout.wisc.edu/]
I've been watching the 1980s TV serial adaptation of the Kalevala,
Rauta-aika [Iron Age], being shown in 4 parts on Tuesdays on YLE2.
I've never really liked adaptations which may be due to having been
forced to sit through a torturous production of Shakespeare's Much
Ado About Nothing that was set on a tennis court and featured
something I could only describe as valley girls with big hair and
bubble gum. The actors were lucky we didn't start throwing things and
booing. Rauta-aika isn't all that bad even though the actors speak
prose and some of the costumes are pretty over the top. A few days ago
I mentioned the show to Chip Salzenberg, the human movie quote
database, who immediately asked, "The Day the Earth Froze?" No, the
Kalevala, not some bad sci-fi flick. As it happens, Chip and Jeff Goff
are MST3K devotees who provided me with the MST3K episode featuring
the absurdly bad The
Day the Earth Froze which, in spite of the misleading title,
is a 1959 movie of the Kalevala.
The movie was titled Sampo everywhere else but the US without
explanation as to who thought the B-movie sci-fi title would be a
brilliant replacement. The US version is also about 30 minutes shorter
although, judging by what wasn't cut, it likely was an act of mercy.
The Ministry of Culture in the then USSR apparently funded and
commissioned this entertainment bomb for some deeply mysterious
reason. The US version changes many the Russian and Finnish names to
sound, presumably, less like commies and the opening credits manage to
misspell Lönnrot's name. The MST3K guys often mock the Swedish in the
episode but I think the Finns wouldn't bother to correct them and let
the Swedes take all the credit for this total suckfest. The English
dubbing over the original Russian is spectacularly bad, too, as I
guess no one bothered to ask how the Finnish words and names were
pronounced and, after a while, I think they just started making shit
up. One of the more hilarious moments of heckling is when Crow makes
fun of the actress who plays Louhi by saying, "Marty Feldman in a role
that won't surprise you!" :)
It was good for a laugh but it was like watching a Paris Hilton
version of Walden Pond set in a luxury tourist resort where you
begin to wonder if you haven't slipped into a parallel and alternate
reality. It's a pity that no one has actually done a full movie
production of the Kalevala or a film of the people who kept the
stories alive before they were finally collected by Lönnrot and
written down. I think even a low-budget "Blair Witch" style Kalevala
movie would suck less than this movie does. I have a new appreciation
for Rauta-aika now. :)
Earth Day Network
Earth Day Network04/23/2004 06:40 AM EarthDay Network has lots of suggestions .. And more, of what is most
important .. Earth Day Network Website .. Dia do Planeta Terra .. ‡ˆ§Š
§ƒ .. Happy .. Earth
RIP, Whole Earth Review01/24/2004 03:36 AM Whole Earth magazine has gone bust (they owe me money!) (and they
changed my life!) (and their editorial board insisted on utterly
stupid edits to the story they owe me money for!) (and they really did
change my life!) (boy, those were stupid edits!). This is bad news.
Whole Earth magazine -- spawn of the amazing Whole Earth Catalogs,
source of the WELL, first to mention in print the Gaia Hypothesis, the
Internet, Virtual Reality, the Singularity and Burning Man (or at
least so the legend goes), the place where folks like Stewart Brand,
Kevin Kelly and Howard Rheingold found their voices, and where a whole
generation of young commune-kid geeks like myself learned to dream
weird -- is no more.
Link
(Thanks, Alex!) Grok Description matches for Endangered Earth GrokA matches for Endangered Earth
Endangered Earth
The following phrases have been identified by the grok system as matching this entry:
