Dakota Today

**Online anonymity prosecutable? Nails from China? An et cetera post

A recent prosecution of a woman who posed as a young male on a website and then allegedly got a young girl to commit suicide is being prosecuted in an apparently novel manner. The following is from a story in the Sunday Rapid City Journal May 18, 2008.

Beware: Anonymity may not protect you online Think twice beroe you sign up for an online service using a fake name or [fake] e-mail address. You could be committing a federal crime.

Federal prosecuters turned to novel interpretation of computer hacking law to indict a Missouri mother on charges connected to the suicide of a 13-year old MySpace user.

There is more in the paper story, but the case is raising questions since it gives a business contract the force of a law thus violations of a web site's user agreement could now lead to criminal sanctions.

In short, those anonymous posters who use that anonymity as a shield for their own outrageous, misleading, and insulting posts that most would not ever post under their own names with a real address may not feel quite so cocky if this prosecution leads to conviction and is not overturned as some kind of prosecutorial excess.

In a whole 'nother bag...how can China make common nails cheaper than US companies a few miles away from the actual steel sources? I can't believe there is even a dime's worth of human labor in a ton of nails. In the same vein, how can china plates be made cheaper there. They appear to be made by machine with I assume nearly zero human labor.

What has gone wrong? Why are our local stores importing so much stuff from China when the shipping would seem to eat up any labor costs compared to US made products?

I don't really know, but this all seems totally wrong unless it is entirely related to obscene executive salaries and unrealistic profit expectations of Wall Street and stockholders. Anybody out there actually know?

And, just to fill out this mixture of stuff, check the SD Magazine and see if you can identify the mystery photo apparently taken around 1914 by F. W. Byerly. Has google or anybody else put together building recognition software that can compare thousands of images for similarity?

SD Mag identify the "Mystery Building"

Maybe it is something for the "History Detectives" on Public TV.

**Stay tuned even if you just hate your vegetables and meats mixed together in a casserole which converts perfectly good food into an inedible meeting dish edible only with help of Pepto Bismol---Doug Wiken

**Cameras on SD Interstate highways showing weather conditions

This is a somewhat interesting site. It has links to still cameras along South Dakota
interstates. This is not a SD government site apparently. I have been unable to find
links to these cameras at a state government site. Anyway, might be useful if you
plan to travel or just want to get an idea of what the weather actually looks like around
the state.

New Window LINK toSD Interstate Cameras

Below is a list of cameras at the site. "views" are hot links at the site above but not in list below.

Brookings North of town along I-29 & MP 135.9 view looking north view looking south Chamberlain East of town along I-90 & MP 268 looking west view West of town along I-90 & MP 258.8 looking east view Mitchell East of town along I-90 & MP 333.8 view looking east view looking west Murdo Murdo-West of town along I-90 & MP 189.5 view looking east view looking west North Sioux City North of town along I-29 & MP 1.5 looking north view North of town along I-29 @ MP 3.7 looking south view Rapid City East of town along I-90 & MP 63.1 looking east view West of town along I-90 & MP 54 looking west view Sioux Falls North of town along I-29 & MP 85.3 view looking north view looking south East of town along I-90 & MP 402 looking east view West of town along I-90 & MP 394.4 looking west view South of town along I-29 & MP 74.3 view looking north view looking south Sisseton North of town along I-29 & MP 234 view looking north view looking south Spearfish West of town along I-90 & MP 9.6 looking east view West of town along I-90 & MP 11 looking west view Sturgis East of town along I-90 & MP 35.6 view looking east view looking west West of town along I-90 & MP 28.6 view looking west Wall East of town along I-90 & MP 111.5 view looking west view looking east West of town along I-90 & MP 108.4 view looking west Watertown Watertown-North of town along I-29 & MP 179 view looking north view looking south

The wind blew around 35 miles per hour almost all night last night. Not good for sleeping from about 10PM until 7AM. It was from the south however and warmed up the area a bit however. I have had enough winter already. Days are starting to get longer. More time for the cameras listed above to actually work usefully.

**Stay Tuned for weather changes and political weather vanes flopping in the breezes--Doug Wiken

**The History of What You are Reading

Dakota Today has been around now for several years. Prior to that I had a blogger blog or two or more and a blog through Salon using the Radio blog system. I have played with a couple other blog systems as well. Citizen Cites was my first attempt and kept that going until blogger became incompatible with W98. It is still there however.

But, more to the point of what is actually important compared to my modest efforts to get blogging going in South Dakota is the actual history of Web logs or web-blogs or simply blogs. This post is not just about South Dakota Blogging, but also about blogging as a content management system and the general history of blogging. According to NPR yesterday after the first two years of Weblogs existing, there were something like 23 blogs functioning. But, in the last 10 years, the number of blogs has grown into 10 million or so. But, many of them are started and then remain nearly inactive for years. Several links you may find interesting if you are at all interested in blogs as a new communications medium are listed below.

New Window LINK to Dave Winer comment on His Oldest Running Blog..Scripting News

New Window LINK to Guardian Technology on Blogging Anniversary

New Window LINK to WIRED's Optimism about blogs after 10 years

New Window LINK to Blogging as a System

E Week comment on Slashdot started by CmndrTaco

In the continuation is text from one of the links above listing some blogging "milestones"...an abbreviated history of blogs as a media system... There are better histories. Maybe someday in another post........

**Stay tuned, I may find the money to keep this going for another year or so even if John can't read all the way through the posts and Christy wants me to write nice things about George Bush or be exiled from the USA--- Doug Wiken

**Dakota Today and MS IE ...and a new blog

I received an email indicating that Dakota Today was not displaying properly in Internet Explorer version 6.0. I usually use Firefox and had noticed not problems. Loaded up Dakota Today in IE 6.0 and sure enough, problems. Everything in the blog shows up as stacked in col one piled on top of each other ..sidelists, posts, side list. The e-mail noted that problem started about a week ago. I have edited nearly everything I have posted or done in the last two weeks or so and deleted a few things which I suspected might be causing problems, but Dakota Today still does not display properly. If you have any hints, or recollection of the day the problem began, please let me know why Dakota Today might display properly in Firefox, but not in Microsoft IE.

On another front, my posting here has been a bit sporadic because I have been trying to put together a new listing of blogs in the South Dakota BlogLand or blogosphere. You may have noticed the SDBlogList in the right column. It is still up and contains blog owners own description of their blogs. Keeping that updated has been a bit of a pain and time consuming. I decided to put up a new blog that contains my own biased perspective on SD Blogs. That is faster and more consistent. Take a look at it, and if your blog is displayed and you want to make a comment about what I wrote, please do so. I have the comments set as moderated, so they may not appear instantly however.

LINK--SD Blogland.. A personal list of SD Blogs

If you have suggestions for blogs I have missed, let me know. I have a few more links and images for more posts saved already, but have spent about 2 hours trying to find problem here at Dakota Today and did not get around to adding a few more SD Blogs.

***Stay tuned even if you already know of more sites to check than you have time for checking--- Doug Wiken

**Word verification..where did I leave my magic glasses?

You've seen the word verification systems...you know you have to type in a string of letters or numbers or count cats and dogs, do arithmetic, etc. for the privilege of sharing your wisdom with the world at a blog or forum. All this because some SOB figured out how to get a robot to scan systems without some "human only" interface and fill blogs and forums with spam.

Now and then you might run into one that not only stops robots but stops you as well. I wonder how color blind people handle some of these systems. Below is an image captured from my screen just as it was with no manipulation of size or contrast, etc.

If I loaded that into Irfanview and changed gamma and contrast, the letters and numbers became somewhat visible. This does not seem to be a particularly good system especially since the image is rather small to start with. I understand why sites do this, but if systems like the one below work, why use one that is so much harder to read and use?

I assume there are dozens of these systems by now. I would hope that affordable, human readable systems are available and site administrators would hope to use them unless their intention is to actually discourage all comments without actually saying so.

You may find TypePads system better or worse if you make a comment here.

**Stay tuned even if you have your magic word verification glasses on your face already-- Doug Wiken

**Now and then TypePad EATS a post.

TypePad can be very aggravating now and then. Especially when it eats a post being prepared that has a number of links that required 30 minutes or more to put together but which has not yet been saved.

Stay tuned later for links to KELO for Johnson interview, The Strawbale Museum, the Norwegian photos, etc. Right now I am too frustrated to start on that one again right now.

***Stay tuned...ah the wonders of technology gone amok--- Doug Wiken

**Disruptive technology and old media..John C. Dvorak at PC Mag

John Dvorak has been ranting and raving at PC Magazine for longer than we bloggers have been doing it. Sometimes his columns are total crap, other times they contain a gem or two...or maybe they just support my pre-existing prejudices in a more eloquent way.

Whatever is the case, the September 4, 2007 PC Magazine on page 96 has a Dvorak column titled "Don't Give up on Old Media". It fills a page, and my summary may slant it or omit significant ideas. It seems it can be summed up as, "An old medium adopting the "best" of new disruptive technology may be selecting the "worst" for the old medium".

Dvorak hits the idea that the internet is disruptive technology and is a new cheap way to distribute information.
The old forms of distribution such as newspapers and magazines have been trying to adapt by filling themselves with white space and fluff on celebrities and entertainment. Dvorak says this is just about exactly the opposite of what they need to do. Newspapers can handle dense text and full pages in ways that are nearly impossible on the internet. Fluff and humbug is really easy on the internet and the TV and on radio.

Let's contrast what KELO has done with what the ARGUS has done. KELO-TV has made rapid and good use of the internet as a supplement to their TV news and other broadcasts. Now they have pulled in blogs which are the everyman's content management systems tied in with the power of the very cheapest way to distribute content.

Now, look at what the ARGUS has done. They are dumping or reducing their best and strongest "technology"..ie, carrying dense text news and analysis in favor of fluff and white space and the blather that is available on ...gasp..the internet and blogs.

KELO has strengthened itself and the ARGUS has shot itself in the foot. I have griped about the "new" ARGUS enough already, but Dvorak makes a good case that it is doing nearly exactly the opposite of what it needs to do to remain a useful powerful medium.

Your mileage may vary...especially if you are a newspaper publisher in search of a cheap way to boost shortrange profits.

***Stay tuned for more from the disruptive technology area of the media--- Doug Wiken

**Who are these People anyway and why are the attacking US Rep. Herseth-Sandlin

Apparently some radio stations are playing attack ads against US Rep. Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin, self proclaimed Blue-Dog Democrat from SD. PP at SDWARCOLLEGE has them at his site. David Newquist at his site has an attack on the ads and most everything else that smell in SD politics and blogs right now. He must have had a hard time hearing the website of the attackers. I sure could not tell what it was. PP has generously provided a good link to the Northern Valley Beacon. See the Blog links below:

LINK-- South Dakota War College " From the sound of these commercials, maybe Herseth should have stayed home."

LINK--Northern Valley Beacon post " Fat, unseemly men playing gynecologist, former candidates plagiarizing, and now the anti-Sandlin ads "

There is a bit of ships passing in the night in the above posts. Now and the PP hits some home runs on issues, now and then he should rename his blog "SD Propaganda Collage."

Here are some details related to the ads aimed in the direction of SD Rep Herseth-Sandlin.

LINK--SD Common Sense "About Us"
At that site is a link to a web site design outfit.

LINK-- Wyattopia .."About Us"

At the "home" site from the above link is a list of clients. Hyperlinked at the site: # Kevin Langford for Rankin County Supervisor, Citizens for Community Values, Florence Church of God, HomeSchoolMentor.Com, InsureMyCPC.Com, Dexterity Media, Ohio Election Central, Quantum Integrated Systems, Republican Party of Texas, VizionInteractive, and Zunch Communications.

I did not look at any of these sites, but we might wonder why a web design outfit which seems to like some fundamentalist churches and the gack ..Texas Republican Party is doing putting together attacks for use in South Dakota. I guess webdesigners have something in common with lawyers.

Meanwhile, "CommonSenseSouthDakota" doesn't appear to be really excited about indicating who is actually paying for the website. It is apparently legal to hide behind some skirts covering something obvious.

Domain Name: commonsensesouthdakota.com

Created on..............: Thu, Oct 26, 2006
Expires on..............: Mon, Oct 26, 2009
Record last updated on..: Mon, May 14, 2007

Administrative Contact:
Domain Discreet
ATTN: commonsensesouthdakota.com
P.O. Box 278
Yarmouth, NS B5A 4B2
CA
Phone: 1-902-7495331
Email: b4770d640a1e6728011e5d5e59254ef7@domaindiscreet.com

Susan Carson is listed as Treasurer. There sure are a lot of "Susan Carson"s in the US. This outfit does not have a mailing address or actual location that I can find.

Anyway, I'm sure these people so interested in attacking a SD Representative will gladly make themselves public figures here in South Dakota instead of hiding... nothing behind this curtain.

*** Say tuned to those of us willing to put our names on the line if we criticize or compliment SD politicians--Doug Wiken

***Is this a scam or a Spam Scam or pure as the driven snow????

Tonight I received an e-mail from a person I have exchanged e-mail with a number of times in the past. No need to know the name. For all I know they may not even know the e-mail was sent or received. Anyway, from what I could find on the web, you might want to be wary of responding "yes" or "no" to any e-mail messages that include something that looks like the image below but with the actual name and place removed.

Click on image for a slightly larger version. A google search turned up a number of blogs and other sites which suggested you might want to be cautious about responding; but if you do, don't do it with the "yes" option in the email image. Respond to your friend via his regular e-mail address with a new message that is not a reply to the actual message.

Here is one example of a blog commenting on this:
LINK---Blog with comment on "Tagged"

Right now I don't know if this is really a problem, but you might want to be cautious and do a little Google checking yourself.

**Stay tuned....and be careful out there--- Doug Wiken

**New Feature at Dakota Today -- Google Group

If you take a look in the upper right hand corner of this page, you may see a Google Groups logo. If you wish to join and get e-mail notification of posts here...at least that is my current intention.. plug in your e-mail address and we will see if this experiment works.

And if that doesn't appeal to you at all, I guess you can look at the sunset picture below taken yesterday. I may have to add an album just for sunset pictures because for many weeks around here, sunsets are about all that is interesting for photography...or perhaps only interesting to me and I may not have the full range of interest and creativity of really good photographers. Oh...well.

I guess sunsets have something to do with weather. Almost chilly here today. Most of the day temperature has been around 51 degrees. Did warm up a bit during the afternoon.

***Stay tuned and if you want to be really tuned in, subscribe to the Google Group for Dakota Today Readers---Doug Wiken