Wolves!!

Seacrest Wolf Preserve

Seacrest Wolf Preserve on google mpas

Seacrest Wolf Preserve on Atlas Obsura

Red Wolves

Red Wolf Recover Efforts

Return of the Red Wolf Blog

At the Durham Museum of Life and Science

The Ghouish Game

Is is Hungarian Ghoulish? ABC News says that the game drove a teen to suicide. It struck me as quite similar to the "Fishing Hole" game in Stephen King's "End of Watch." It seems like a Russian dude has been arrested for creating the game. Another article calls out the Stephen King similarity, but says that the Russian dude hasn't provided the impetus behind the game.

Beer

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What is the Beer Capital of the US?

Science

The article The Problem With the March for Science states thoughts that I have been unable to articulate this clearly for a number of years. It also adds some more irony to Ars Technica's 107 cancer papers retracted due to peer review fraud.

My son, who is an actual scientist, commented:
Parts I found most amusing:

“When a lot of the fake peer reviews first came up, one of the reasons the editors spotted them was that the reviewers responded on time,” Wager told Ars. Reviewers almost always have to be chased, so “this was the red flag.

Fake peer reviewers often “know what a review looks like and know enough to make it look plausible,” said Elizabeth Wager, editor of the journal Research Integrity & Peer Review...I wonder if this journal has the same issues with the peer review process. That would be ironic.

Then again, some sort of response is needed. Attorney General Jeff Sessions' disbanding of the National Commission on Forensic Science was a move that will hurt the effort to prove the science behind "forensic science." Slate's Jeff Sessions Doesn’t Understand the Necessity of Science is perhaps the most thoughtful discussion of the decision I've seen. A quote from Jeff Sessions' decision to cut Department of Justice forensic science commission raises eyebrows says that "...we're going to take this and we're going to put it back in the Department of Justice, create a new office of forensic science. On the surface, that sounds good...The problem of forensic science is that it grew out of an arm of the judiciary, and by putting it back, you basically don't deal with the questions that are being asked from mainstream science." With explanations like that, it's hard not to read ulterior motives into Sessions' actions.

A day later, some more info on "science." Ars Technica again with “Mindless Eating,” or how to send an entire life of research into question describing a social scientist who seems to have a limited grasp on statistics. While I would tend to think that if this were a physicist or chemist or climate researcher, that they would have a better grasp of statistics, I am basing my opinion on conventional wisdom, not any actual review of the relative statistical ability of the scientists in various disciplines.

Farmers

I read two posts on Fivethirtyeight

about farming. Big Farms Are Getting Bigger And Most Small Farms Aren’t Really Farms At All points out the the official definition of a farm has masked the trend to consolidation in farms by including large tracts of land used for single family houses as farms. The follow-up story, Even Mega-Farms Are Mostly Family Owned seems to be a response to the fear of agri-business, that the big farms are still mostly family owned. For the most part, our food is still raised by farm families. They are just bigger farms than in the past.

Flames coming out of where?

Too good not to post
Listen to the video on this Pink New Article - and at 5:37, switch over to The Bangles - Eternal Flame.

Then go read the comments at fark.

Adware / Spyware Removal

I recently wrote up a procedure for a colleague having problems with Adware. I am posting here for my own reference. YMMV; no warranty expressed or implied.

There are 2 kinds of malware that you need to be concerned about – adware and spyware.

Here are some articles about removing them: This one is about removing Adware from Google Chrome. Ignore it if you are using a different browser. This is a Spyware removal article from PC World. You should read it, but not necessarily follow the instructions.

My first suggestion is to make sure your anti-virus on your computer is up to date. If you don’t have an anti-virus program, the first thing you should do is download Microsoft Security Essentials and install it. It’s free, it’s from Microsoft, and it works as well as any of the free anti-virus programs out there.

Once your anti-virus is up to date and you have scanned your computer, I recommend moving on to Ad-Aware. For Ad-Aware and the rest of the following programs I recommend in these instructions, make sure that you “un-check” any additional software that may be piggy-backing with the free software. This can be other anti-virus programs, pdf programs, video programs, etc. The software publishers include these to allow them to offer their free versions, but the reputable publishers allow you to opt out. AFAIK, there are not any surprise programs installed with anything I recommend here.

If the problem persists at this point, there is other software available for removing Spyware/Adware/Malware. I suggest trying them in this order:

Spybot Free

Malware Bytes Anti Malware Free

SUPERAntiSpyware Free

Give each program time to solve the problem. (Intall, scan, run the computer for a day or 2). If it solves the problem, keep it. If it doesn’t, uninstall the program, (but always keep an anti-virus program such as Microsoft Security Essentials on your computer).