Bubbles in the Bathtub

The links on seaturtle.org have a similar subscription system to the one I described for the seaturtle.org news. Perhaps one of the most underutilized sections of the site, the links are managed by Paul Mikkelsen who use to manage a links site of his own until we chatted and decided to join forces.

I think Paul updated the links section about once a month. And lately he has been sending out an e-mail update to subscribers when he completes an update. Subscribers receive an e-mail message containing all of the new links added to the links section. A great resource if you want to keep up with news sea turtle sites and resources.

To subscribe visit the links subscription page and enter your e-mail address. Unsubscribing is just as simple.

Please note that you will be removed from the subscription list if a message bounces back from your e-mail address for anything other than a temporary error.

Posted by Michael Coyne at 05:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A recent Houston Chronicle article, among others, noted the first Kemp's ridley nest of the season in Texas. Considering that until recently there were no Kemp's nesting in Texas, this sort of news always gives me hope. There is the general joy and happiness because it is one of many signs that the Kemp's population is recovering. Donna Shaver has been doing a great job of keeping us all up-to-date on the recovery status of Kemp's ridley in Texas (MTN42, MTN70, MTN74, MTN75, MTN82).

I also receive great joy from the thought that these early results may be proving wrong some of the reviews of the late 80's/early 90's that led to the eventual demise of the head-start program. I held no great love for the head-start program, but even as a new graduate student at the time, just cutting his teeth on turtles, I found many of the reasons and arguments put forward by those wanting to kill the program, short-sighted at best and a bit ridiculous at worst. I mean, come on! Arguing to kill a program that had been going on for about ten years at the time because of lack of results, when it was becoming increasingly clear that it takes Kemp's ridleys at least that long to reach maturity. Given that other reviewers suggested that a majority of the early graduates from the head-start program were males, it is not at all surprising that no adult head-started ridleys were seen on the nesting beach until the late 90's.

So at least now there are a few. If those few turn into a full-fledged nesting population in a few years ,or decades, or even centuries, then the millions of dollars that went into the program will be money well spent.

Posted by Michael Coyne at 05:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

There is an activity log that is part of this blog system that records things like when each author logs in, posts new entries, and bad things like when people try to log in to the author section that shouldn't. It also logs terms that visitors search on. Not who does the searching, just the terms they submitted. There have been some quite interesting submissions. Some obvious, some that make you wonder if people really know what site they are on.

So, some of you standard search terms, things you would expect, authors names like "frick" or "godfrey". Or even searches on other turtler's names like "brendan godley", "alan rees" or "hamza". Topic related searchs that make sense, "loggerhead", "turtles", and "sharkbite".

Then there are people that apparently know that they are on a sea turtle related website, but perhaps are a little confused about what kind of information they are going to find in the blogs: "pictures", "jobs", "facts about turtles", "summary about turtle", "facts about them", "printable maps", and "sea turtle maps". Some of these items can be found on seaturtle.org, just not necessarily in the blogs. Then there are the more specific variations: "density-dependent effects on the reproductive success of the green turtle nesting population", "singer island florida", and "how many species of barnacles are there".
Then there are the downright whacky like "indiginous birthing practices". Don't ask me, I don't know where that one came from.

So now if anyone searches on any of those terms they'll get at least one hit :) Perhaps the search terms will give the Turtle Journal authors some ideas for new blogs.

Hey Mike, how many species of barnacles are there?

Posted by Michael Coyne at 11:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

You may or may not have noticed a recent surge over the last couple of months in the number of news items posted to the News section of seaturtle.org. This is because of a new addition to the system that scours google news and notifies our News Editor, Kelly Samek, when there are new items to be posted. The end result, the postings in the news section should be a much more thorough and useful resource.

Now to the tip.

If you don't want to worry about checking the seaturtle.org website for new news, there is a subscription option that will send new headlines to you. I think that Kelly sends them out about once a week. You can check out the headlines and see if there is anything you are interested in following up on. To subscribe to the news update feature simply visit Email Updates in the News Section and enter your name and e-mail address. Removing yourself is just as simple.

Posted by Michael Coyne at 02:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Testing a new (to me) desktop application that is supposed to let me post messages to my blog...

Note to authors, this seems pretty cool. If you are reading this then in worked. The app is called Kung-Log. It's donation-ware and runs on Mac OS X. Just install it, put in your account information and it lets you submit and edit posts without using your web browser. There are some PC programs that do the same. I have tried a couple but haven't been very impressed. w.bloggar isn't too bad, but you can't upload images that I can tell. Testing my ability to use Kung-Log to upload an image below (nice pic of our neighborhood during the President's Day storm of 2003).

Posted by Michael Coyne at 01:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

MTN 100 is wrapped up and online. Print version is at the printers. All previous 99 issues have been proofed and are searchable online. It's been a long time coming and it feels good to have it done! A lot of work with a lot of help from a lot of dedicated folks. Thanks everybody!!

Plus I went to the circus today :)

Posted by Michael Coyne at 12:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

That's for you B!

Posted by Michael Coyne at 02:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Blogging that is. After Matthew and I tried to convince Brendan that he needed to blog, and telling him how easy it was and how little time it takes up, I'm so snowed under myself I can't seem to find the time. I think I have forgotten more blog ideas than I have in my head at the moment.

I'm finally beginning to see the light at the end of the post-symposium, post-field work tunnel. I was back from the symposium just 7 days before I had to take off for St. Croix for a week. And I spent most of those 7 days getting up and going to bed early because of jetlag. A particularly bad set of circumstances for me since I get most of this work done at night (after the kids and wife have gone to bed).

So I've been back from St. Croix for a week now, just about knocked out MTN 100 (look for the announcements to start coming out today, and make a donation dammit!). Reconciled the credit card receipts from the symposium, killed off a couple of huge monkeys at work-work, invoiced a couple of my web clients, and let's see, what's left? Need to get the MTN bank accounts set-up, itemize all of the payments that I handled from the symposium for Nick, set-up a few new mailing lists for Brendan, respond to a couple of requests for help with "no" (that will be a first), freshen up the look on the MTN, oh yeah - actually send out the MTN 100 announcements, post a few more symposium related blogs that I never got to, perhaps a St. Croix related blog, bitch and moan about some more stuff, get my new super-secret, money making project working, and...

save the world!

That should do it.

Don't mind me, just talking amongst myself.

How was I able to pull of this pile of literary slaughter, you may be asking yourself. Simple, the wife is off playing with her friends today and the kids are napping :)

Posted by Michael Coyne at 02:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)