Cane toads on the march in Clarence Valley

Image from http://fireflyforest.net

Cane toads have become a perennial problem for the Clarence Valley and are now popping up again in local canefields.

Yamba, Angourie and particularly nearby Yuraygir National Park have been gradually keeping a lid on toad numbers, but now new hotspots are appearing at Warregai Island, Palmers Island, Mororo Nature Reserve, Chatsworth Island, Micalo Island and Townsend.

According to The Daily Examiner cane toad capture numbers are:
Yamba/Angourie - 30,128 between 1999-2008
Brooms Head - 1,507 between 2004-2008
Mororo/Ashby/Warregai Isl/Chatsworth Isl - 844 between 2006-2008
Palmers Island - 395 between 2007-2008
Woombah - 6 between 1999-2004
Iluka - 1 in 2003
Grafton - 2 between 2001-2008
South Grafton - 1 in 2004
Copmanhurst 1 in 2007
Total = 32,890 (at least)

If you come across any of these pests in your local area please dispatch to that Toad Hall in the sky.
NSW National Parks & Wildlife would be happy to tell you how to do so humanely.

Then and now: images of John McCain

B&W photograph of baby John found at Friends of John McCain
Image of presidential candidate John found at Freaking News

Friday 13th June 2008

Iruscan is the King of the Cats

Art on the coast

Bush Melody 1996 by Irene Daly from the Regional Art Collection

Grafton Regional Gallery recently announced that its combined collections are now valued at an estimated $1 million plus.

Congratulations to Clarence Valley Council and gallery director, management and staff.

Juan's a jolly swagman and other signs of Internet stupidity

There's been a bit of talk out there this week about Nicholas Carr's The Atlantic online article Is Google making us stupid? This article is a good read.
Over four pages Nicholas worries that deep reading is now an effort after years of being able to get a quick information fix via the world wide web and points to concerns that the type of technology we are now using is changing the way we read and think. That surfing the net is turning us into information browsers rather than critical thinkers.

I don't believe that the human brain and individual neurological response to telecommunications technology has changed all that much over the last thirty years or so.
What is more likely to be affecting those expressing a disinclination to read lengthy books etc., is the effects of aging on brain and stamina.
We are all getting that much older! Quite a few of us will probably show evidence of dementia before our bodies give out.

The young are of course acting just as we all did - using what's at hand to try and carve a difference to mark independence and group indentity.

What the Internet and Google does demonstrate however is that we now like to share how gullible or stupid we all are with the whole wide world.
In days past urban myths travelled by word of mouth or turned up as page fillers in the side bars of newspapers such as The Mirror and The Daily Telegraph or magazines like Post.
Now they are found all over the Web dressed up as new and news. They flood our email inboxes at the slightest provocation.
What is worse, just as many people as before uncritically accept this so-called information as fact.
Myths which after all these years are no more sophisticated than that old chestnut about a spider in the beehive hairdo or the tale of seeing Kentucky Fried take delivery of something for their commercial kitchen that wasn't chicken.

So we currently have web pages or emails telling us that:
Britain is trying a modern version of sending convicts to the colonies and we need to beware
A previously convicted terrorist was one of those who flew a plane into the Twin Towers
The common word for human waste came from a cargo direction to ship high in transport
The word news is made up of the first letters of points of the compass
NASA's climate change data was affected by the Y2k bug
John Howard never had a father.

Neither the technology nor Google is making us stupid. We are what we are and what we are creates most of what is the Internet.
Therefore we are quite safe from Google's Machiavellian dream of a world run by Artificial Intelligence.com.
And, no the Waltzing Matilda swagman wasn't Spanish.

Telstra's Solomon 'Sol' Trujillo upset over Wikipedia biography

It appears that Telstra's Sol Trujillo was irked enough by editing of a Wikipedia biographical entry (to include opinion on conduct of the company and his own employment history) that he threatened defamation according to Chilling Effects.
Since the letter below was sent, the Wikipedia entry is back to bare basics.
However, Mr. Trujillo forgets that the Internet does not, so the allegedly objectionable entries can still be found.
The delicious irony in all this is that the editing Mr. Trujillo is objecting to was done using a 3G mobile phone.

March 7, 2008

Sender Information: [Individual] Sent by: [Private] Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP New York, NY, 10281, USA

Recipient Information:
General Counsel and Legal Coordinator
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
San Francisco, CA, 94107, USA

Sent via: email, fax, and express mail
Re: Defamation of Solomon Trujillo

Dear Mr. Godwin:

We represent [individual] and are writing to demand that defamatory statements that appear on Wikipedia immediately and permanently be removed from the following URL:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Trujillo.

Specifically, an anonymous user (IP 119.11.111.17) (the "anonymous user") has since at least March 1, 2008 repeatedly inserted the following false and defamatory language in the referenced article:

[redacted]

This false and defamatory assertion has been repeatedly removed, but the anonymous user keeps replacing the false and defamatory language.

We demand that Wikipedia and Wikimedia permanently remove the above language from the article, including all of its history pages, and to permanently block the anonymous user from editing the page by 7 o'clock eastern time today. If Wikipedia and Wikimedia do not remove the improper language by that time, and take the steps necessary to block its being reinserted, Mr. [individual] intends to commence litigation against Wikipedia and Wikimedia on Monday, March 10, 2008.

Very truly yours,

[Signed]