Joe Veler

A Non-Apocalyptic Theory on the Recent Mass Death of Birds and Fish

H.A.A.R.P (the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) fired a strong beam into the atmosphere to further advance our knowledge of the physical and electrical properties of the Earth’s ionosphere which can affect our military and civilian communication and navigation systems. On the trip, it hit a currently unidentified flying object (UFO).

Scientists and researchers speculate that a radar-eluding shape of the UFO caused the beam to ricochet in fragmented acoustic pulses back to Earth. This caused multiple sonic booms in the United States, Italy, France, and Sweden, which went relatively unnoticed due to it coinciding with various New Year’s Eve festivities. These booms disturbed flocks of nearby birds which were asleep and they “flew the coop”.

In addition, the disruption of the ionosphere by the H.A.A.R.P project caused fluctuations of the Earth’s magnetic field during a particularly heavy solar storm and this disoriented the fleeing birds. The solar storm was caused by the sun’s entrance into a new cycle of increased activity.

Dizzy from the magnetic fluctuations (some birds have magnetic in their beaks for navigation) and internally hemorrhaged from the initial sonic boom, some of the birds fell to the Earth where their bodies incurred additional blunt force trauma upon impact. Most of the birds were Starlings and Red-winged Blackbirds which are commonly known to flock together in large quantities. This made them particularly susceptible to the localized “pulse-backs”.

In some locations in the United States, certain species of drum fish ascertained damage from the fragmented acoustic pulses that caused their “croaking” mechanisms to rupture. This affected the supply of oxygen to their lungs and over the course of the next few days, these fish floated to the surface as they died. The largest group of croakers (a small species of drum) were affected in the Chesapeake Bay area, where millions floated to the surface and washed ashore over the course of the following week.

The HAARP program operates a world-class ionospheric research facility located in Gakona, Alaska. Given that the effects of this test were felt across the Northern hemisphere, grave concern from hundreds of citizens of the world has arisen at the potential use of a similar system by terrorist groups.

Stay tuned for more as the story develops.

Resources:

• http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/2003/03_10_09.html
• http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2011/0120/Bye-Bye-Blackbird-USDA-acknowledges-a-hand-in-one-mass-bird-death
• http://www.princeton.edu/sgs/publications/sgs/pdf/9_3altmann.pdf
• http://www.asmfc.org/speciesDocuments/southAtlanticSpecies/spot/speciesProfile0505.pdf
• http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/
• http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/01/05/national/main7216597.shtml
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spot_croaker
• http://www.asmfc.org/speciesDocuments/southAtlanticSpecies/atlanticcroaker/croakerfactsheet.pdf
• http://www.suite101.com/content/earths-magnetic-fields-may-be-causing-bird-and-fish-die-off-a328353
• http://www.jstor.org/pss/2827465
• http://www.chesapeakebay.net/atlantic_croaker.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-winged_Blackbird
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starling
• http://www.geomag.bgs.ac.uk/education/earthmag.html
• http://www.springerlink.com/index/WGHFQ274UWHNRJVQ.pdf

Canonical Product URLs in Magento eCommerce Platform

Question:

Hey Joe -

Looking forward to your thoughts. It’s also nice having Magento export a sitemap for us, but if it’s hurting us it’s not.

Answer by Joe:

The issue you are describing IS bad. The longer urls are category path urls. And if you had a product in 2 categories, then you would have 2 duplicate urls just because of the path structure. Add in the product detail default view (no category) which is used in the site map and you get a 3rd duplicate URL. So, the number of duplicate urls for a product in Magento is 1 + c where c is the # of categories that the product appears in at a minimum.

Google introduced a new feature earlier this year that eliminates this issue through the use of canonical product URLs. There is a good writeup about this on the Google Webmaster Blog, so I’ll let it explain the “fix” in more detail: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html

Now, how do you fix canonical product URLs in Magento? You can write custom code in your template, or you can use a quick solution which is installing a module by Yoast. FYI, Yoast is a great SEO expert that I follow. He has optimized the Wordpress, Magento and Drupal CMSs. I’m not particularly fond of Drupal, but I do use both Wordpress and Magento. Note, I would use Joomla over Drupal. As for the module for Magento, it can be found here: http://www.magentocommerce.com/extension/906/canonical-url-s-for-magento

Keep in mind that the module IS going to set the canonical url up to be the product detail default which is the short url. This is perfect as (1) you want to use this url in link-building campaigns, (2) you want to use this link in emails for simplicity, and (3) this is the url that the sitemap feature in Magento uses.

As for the fact that duplicate content problems exist in most all websites… that’s a whole other issue. Here is some further information you might not have read about on duplicate content from the the Google Webmaster Central blog:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/09/demystifying-duplicate-content-penalty.html

This should definitely solve your problem. If you need help installing the module, just let me know and I’ll handle it for you.

Enable and Disable Stylesheets as an SEO Tool

As a web developer, I sometimes have to look for tricks to find out how my web sites will look in various web browsers, or even to the search engines. Most people use newer browsers, but there are some lingerers that don’t. I don’t always support them, but I sometimes need to know how bad things will look. Read the rest of this entry »

Winter Funtime at the Office

Last week we got about 8 inches of snow in Boone and about 10 inches of snow at the house (just outside of Boone). It snowed last Sunday and Monday, then got bitterly cold.

The system came in from the southeast and met up with a cold front coming in from the northwest. If you live in North Carolina and the mid-atlantic region… you know this pattern are the real snow-dumpers. Read the rest of this entry »

“Air Freshener” Ad Directed by the Coen Brothers

Hey!  In our search for alternative energy searches we hear about several possibilities.  The coal industry has enough money behind it, that it can send out a lot of “dis-information” campaigns about the possibilities of “clean” coal. Read the rest of this entry »

How Our Proposed Stimulus Payment Will Work

A friend emailed this to me.  It’s a little cynical, but that’s what makes it funny!  I think it’s a great explanation of how our stimulus payment will work… Read the rest of this entry »

My Auto Stimulus Plan

In mid-December I had an idea to stimulate the economy in regards to the auto bailout plan.  I ran this by a few of my good friends and then didn’t do anything with it.  One of the friend’s I shared this idea with sent me a link on January 17th, 2009 to a site where you could give ideas to president-elect (at the time) Barack Obama.  Read the rest of this entry »

Climate Crisis - Please take 10 seconds to Read This

ABC refused to air the Alliance for Climate Protection’s Repower America ad about how oil and coal companies have blocked the country’s switch to truly clean energy.  Tell ABC to reconsider their decision and air the Repower America ad. Read the rest of this entry »

401-Keg Plan

Retirement plans have been run amuck a bit lately with all the economic crises going on…. here’s an interesting take: Read the rest of this entry »

Reflecting on “The Original Computer”

A friend of mine sent me an email today and it got me to thinking at how slow we would be as a society if we didn’t have “computers”.  They exist in our cars, stereos, tvs, college dorms, offices, houses, red lights… just about anything we own and use has some kind of computer chip to operate as it’s central processing unit. Read the rest of this entry »