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For some reason, this tune reminds me of "This Boy" by the Beatles. I wonder if McCartney-Lennon were listening to this and then wrote "This Boy" ...
I WANT IT NOW YESTERDAY!
Now that you've been told how to 'think outside the pixel' ... you might want to think about the virtue of patience. Newer generations seem to have less and of it. I don't think that's a good thing for anyone!
Larry Rosen, a professor of psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills, and the author of the coming “Rewired: Understanding the iGeneration and the Way They Learn,” has also drawn this distinction between what he calls the Net Generation, born in the 1980s, and the iGeneration, born in the ’90s and this decade.So, my readers, your lesson for today is to be patient! If a webpage or a blog doesn't load within 30 seconds, chill! Go grab a snack and come back! Or treat yourself to an adventure in dial-up technology!
Now in their 20s, those in the Net Generation, according to Dr. Rosen, spend two hours a day talking on the phone and still use e-mail frequently. The iGeneration — conceivably their younger siblings — spends considerably more time texting than talking on the phone, pays less attention to television than the older group and tends to communicate more over instant-messenger networks.
Dr. Rosen said that the newest generations, unlike their older peers, will expect an instant response from everyone they communicate with, and won’t have the patience for anything less.
“They’ll want their teachers and professors to respond to them immediately, and they will expect instantaneous access to everyone, because after all, that is the experience they have growing up,” [The New York Times]
Tired of viewing my humble weblog in the same old way?
Fatigué de voir mon blog de la même manière ancienne?
Now you can look at it this way: check out my posts as SIDEBAR entries!
For my French blogging friend Olivier, and others who may have had some screen-loading issues: TIMESLIDE!
Maybe you'd rather look at things this way: My blog in PICTURES!
Take your chances viewing posts as a MOSAIC... or even in FLIPCARD mode!
Hudson Valley poet Paul Clemente will read his work at the next program in the Poetry on the Loose Reading/Performance Series. The event will be held in the rear room behind the Utopian Directions bookstore at 7 West Street in Warwick at 4:00 p.m. on April 2. Following the feature, others are welcome to read original work. Admission is free.
Clemente is known not only as an original and compelling poet, but as the producer of the Read for Food Series that raises money for local food pantries. He locates himself in the region’s time-line as “young enough to have missed Woodstock and old enough to remember the mothballed WWII fleet that was moored for years in the Hudson River’s mountainous Haverstraw Bay.” Professionally, Clemente is a scientist with the DEC.
State lawmakers planned to work into the evening in an attempt to finish up the NY state budget one day before the deadline. They had company: protestors who vowed to camp out at the Capitol to demonstrate how they felt about the budget as it is written...
This afternoon I walked downtown to check out the protest at the State Capitol. Even though I was very early, it took quite some time to get through security (the line at the door trailed out onto Washington Avenue).
There were busloads of demonstrators from all over the state!
Another fun luvvin' UAlbany student?
By the time I got up to the 4th floor where the action was, I (and a few other reporters) were unable to get close enough to catch those individuals speaking. NPR's Karen DeWitt must have arrived much earlier, as she had a great spot (for microphone purposes).
The event was a mishmashed hodge-podge of sights and sounds! People were everywhere, and I used the event as an opportunity to introduce myself to several individuals I have seen around but until now hadn't been able to talk to!
Although the protestors may not change much right now, their presence sends a message that they ARE concerned about the government and the actions the State of New York is taking in the matter of Governor Andrew Cuomo's budget.
One of the "highlights" of the event sent out to the media was "the largest single delivery of pizzas in the area" - 70 of them - to feed the hungry demonstrators! I'm not sure if that's true... any documentation for that?
According to Karen, the crowd of demonstrators at the State Capitol shouted "no pizza, no peace" when the big pie delivery was blocked around 5:50pm... they also chanted "Cuomo,Cuomo shut us out, now he's keeping our pizzas out" - not a very nice thing for an Italiano to do!
From the Times Union: "...Sen. Bill Perkins, D-Manhattan, arrived to help haul the pizza upstairs to where the bulk of the demonstrators are. Perkins, as some readers know, is a darling of teachers unions and school funding advocates who were especially pleased with his criticism last year of charter schools.
But Perkins was initially told the pizza’s weren’t being allowed in the building, at which point some of the demonstrators started yelling and chanting. Fearing a potential food fight, Alliance for Quality Education’s Billy Easton, one of the event’s main organizers, tried to pipe the crowd down, assuring them that “Sen. Perkins is working on it. Just hang in there. We have a right to eat.”
With a little last-minute diplomacy from Perkins and renowned diplomat Sen. Kevin Parker, a squad of young people finally carried the pizzas through the freight entrance and whisked them in the direction of the Western Staircase.
Paul Rivera, a top Senate Democratic staffer, was there, looking mildly irritated and I told him this whole thing seemed a bit absurd — we reporters and photographers were chasing a bunch of cheese and pepperoni pizzas while the state is trying to pass its budget. He agreed, quipping that since there’s not much else to do, as there are at this point no bills to vote on..."
Lord Allah from the lower east side
Read more...
...and who wouldn't? Yahoo tried to copy Google's success in accumulating existing programs (like blogspot/blogger and youtube) by snapping up MyBlogLog. But now they are shutting down the service in May. I really liked MyBlogLOg and actually found it superior to BlogCatalog. It would be a feather in BlogCatalog's cap if they could persuade Yahoo to turn it over. But if Y demands cash...
Anyway, I'm sharing with all of you this letter that showed up in my email just a few minutes ago!
BLOGGERSUNITE
"United We Stand, Divided We Fall" - Aesop
You don't need me to tell you that the world has its share of major catastrophes and disasters.
The people of Japan are in desperate need of our help & bloggers and other social media participants continue to raise millions of dollars for those in need.
I am grateful to say that BloggersUnite.org,
I am writing to you because there is a story that while it clearly does not rise to the same level of human tragedy, I believe strongly will make a major difference to the future of blogging.
Yahoo! recently announced the imminent shut down of MyBlogLog. While this news has been largely ignored by mainstream media, the event is disturbing because it shuts down a major channel of the blogosphere.
For years now MyBlogLog has been ignored by Yahoo and now they are shutting it down because it doesn't fit within their corporate strategy.
What does a MyBlogLog's closure mean to you?
You may think it doesn't mean anything or even think whether they still exist, or whether you even have heard of them, the truth is that MyBlogLog is a valuable blogging network that distributes tens of millions of visitors to blogs each year.
Yahoo! has shown no respect to bloggers through ought its 4 year ownership of the site. Once again they are failing to follow through on promises and responsibilities to bloggers. Perhaps Yahoo believes it has no responsibility to bloggers.
The closure of MyBlogLog represents a lack of respect to bloggers who have built tens of thousands of communities on the network and spent countless hours adding MyBlogLog widgets to their blogs
Yahoo! has made no attempt to dispose of MyBlogLog, yet it represents an important channel of distribution for blogs.
Why you should care?
BloggersUnite.org and BlogCatalog are ready, willing and able to take over MyBlogLog and turn MyBlogLog into a valuable tool for bloggers and blog readers. We shared our interest with Yahoo over a year ago to do this. Yahoo ignored our requests to talk to them, we had a brief conversation, they wanted to know our strategy for making the site more valuable and because we refused, their communications with us ended.
So, what difference will it make if I join this event?
The more members we have on BloggersUnite.org the greater the positive impact we can make to the world. A combination of BloggersUnite + MyBlogLog + BlogCatalog is "The Right Thing."
To-date, together with your help we have saved lives, made material differences in the lives of school kids, raised money for Haiti, helped build clean water wells in Africa, worked with the CDC to raise awareness about STDs, united refugees with their families, worked with Aids.gov to harness the power of the blogosphere on AIDS Awareness Day and we had hundreds of thousand of bloggers unite on Bloggers for Good Day; where bloggers from BloggersUnite were featured on CNN doing good deeds.
It makes little sense when people in this world are starving and dying because they lack clean water that Yahoo, one of the largest technology companies in the USA, would shut down an asset that has value.
Why not sell it and give the money to a charity? Their site has value. As Warren Buffet says, "stupid in small things, stupid in big." I humbly ask that you please unite with thousands of other bloggers and explain to Yahoo management what would be the "right thing" to do or ad an Action Badge to your blog, or perhaps both.
To do this please click BloggersUnite because unlike Yahoo we are fully aware that when you combine your voice with the voice of other bloggers, that there is no greater force for good in the world today.
Best,
Antony Berkman
BloggersUnite for Good
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Two weeks ago Xiaxue tweeted that she hates blogs that feature videos and blogs that beckon one to "read more" ... like this one.
According to PCWORLD ::: dial-up business still accounts for about 40 percent of AOL's revenue; AOL still has about 2 million US subscribers to that service! Xiaxue's blog loads on dial-up! But lots of other blogs don't!
Here's one blog landing page that's really confusing! There's no need for the "slider" at the top, as it displays post after post without any apparent dating, although it does show the number of "views" which nobody cares about, except maybe for the blogger herself (no offense, Ms. Lainy- this post is for instructional purposes only, and you are entitled to run your blog any way you want)... there's a lot going on, a lot to load on this particular blog, and you really need high-speed broadband to experience it (once you get past that bewildering slider!) I checked the blog's HTML Markup coding (through a 3rd party) and found "395 Errors, 212 warning(s)." In profiling the readers of the "Lainyblog" I found they are of this ilk:
"When the Wi-fi doesn't connect to a teenager's laptop instantly, there's a cry of "It's not working!". Followed, inevitably, by a "OK!" five seconds later. I understand that it might take the laptop's OS a few seconds to get itself hooked up with Wi-fi and negotiate the appropriate protocols and encryption (and even then I marvel that it's all taking place so quickly), but the modern user doesn't and subsequently gets frustrated because it doesn't happen 'instantly'.I can understand that videos would certainly annoy some people. I put them up on my blog here every now and then. Those of you who regularly visit here know that I use dial-up extensively, and believe me, videos DO NOT slow down loading time! I find that, for example, youtube videos load up just fine... it's the act of PLAYING those videos that you really don't want to think about doing on a slow connection!
When a modern user clicks to 'upload' their latest photo to Facebook and gets fed up after 15 seconds because it's "obviously not working", cancelling the process and doing something else instead, I think "But you've just taken a 5 megapixel photo, it's 1MB in size and you're only on vanilla 3G connection, so even going as its fastest it's going to take at least 30 seconds". There's little appreciation for the facts and figures, for the nuts and bolts of technology anymore.
In a corporate context, I'm often hearing of users complaining that their "email is slow" - when a system manager looks into their case, they've usually accrued something horrendous like a 10GB Outlook PST file, of which a substantial portion is made up of those 'fun joke emails with videos', stored multiple times as they get forwarded around the office...[SouRce]"
Hmmm. I can spell but my brain-to-keyboard skills sometimes render incorrectly spelled words (I ditched the spell-checker because it kept screwing up my blog posts in other ways!)
But when you see a company online that claims to offer "PROFESSIONAL photo editing & graphic design services" and then you see a GLARING error on the company webpage (A very simply laid-out page; the error quite obvious)...
Hopefully, these folks are honest and will fix the error. HOWEVER - I am preparing a post that tells the true story behind a lot of "bargains" for products and services on the net that are nothing short of scams.
Devious companies will charge small amounts - like $10 up to $49 - because they know they can keep your money, send you nothing in return, and there is NOTHING you can do about it!
In the case of fotodesigners, I couldn't check on how to pay for any services because there is a registration requirement (another possible 'red flag'?).
The website places company offices in cities in the US and Canada. So unless they threw their website up in a big hurry, it's hard to believe such experts would make such an obvious error.
BRACELETS ARE IN!!! The support bracelets for Marizela Perez have arrived. They are orange with the words "lahat ay magiging maayos" (all will be well) on them. They are $5 - ALL PROCEEDS GO TO THE PEREZ FAMILY.
All Will Be Well (Coffee House, Benefit for Marizela Perez)
The search for Marizela Perez continues. Hopefully, wherever she is she will be okay.
Do you recall that old saying "you only have to do one thing and do it well?" Well, it seems that Andrew Cuomo has mastered the art of being Governor of New York State.
But his success is so much more than that. If you read about his present and then research his past, you'll see there were a few bumps along the way as our "guru guv" strove to get to where he is today,
A lesson for all of us - so if you are an aspiring writer, musician, politician, whatever - Andrew Cuomo's example could serve as your template for a better you!
Corey McGriff described himself as "THE most talented DJ known to man." Police say the 32-year-old NY/Philly deejay was found dead on a Staten Island street Sunday morning with a gunshot wound to his chest.
Tags: DJ Megatron, Corey McGriff
It's really very simple... anyone who enters the New York Times via Facebook or Twitter can read anything they want to, absolutely free. What paywall? Shut up! There is no limit to FREE!
Up until now, we’ve seen paywall enthusiasts like The Wall Street Journal offer such loopholes. But they’ve done so via Google. It’s a trick that most web-savvy news consumers know. Is a WSJ article behind a paywall? Just Google the title of it. Click on the resulting link and boom, free access to the entire thing.[1]
This is FANTASTIC news for Facebook and Twitter!
Tags: FREE access to the New York Times, New York Times paywall, Facebook, twitter
Are you miffed because nobody bothers to comment on your blog? Could that possibly be YOUR fault? Here's a FAST FIX!
(1) Make sure your blog loads quickly, free of annoying pop-ups...
(2) Set Your Comments free! ("How-to" on BlogWorld.)
Blogspot users now have the ability to turn on a switch that makes any blogger blog "smartphone friendly" - there are also services that will do this for you if you are blogging on a different platform.
Yes, some people still use dial-up to access the Internet. In fact, a lot of people in the world have dial-up Internet. According to a report by the Pew Research Center, as of May 2010, 5% of people in the United States were using dial-up. Compared to broadband users at 66%, that number might seem small, but that means there are over 15 million dial-up users out there. World-wide, that number only rises.
Yikes! The package is almost as big as the netbook!
TESTFREAKS Blog not too too long ago reviewed the Broadband2go service, complete with COVERAGE MAPS, SPEED TESTS
VM has just recently capped the service and if you didn't get in on the $40 Unlimited plan early on, you can't get it now (however, those who already are on it, like little ole me, get to stay on it!) Broadband is awesome! If you've got it, maximize your use of it!
Among those who disfavour caps, The Michigan Telephone Blog ::: "...companies should realize that broadband caps are eventually going to hurt them in the pocketbook. Consumers are going to be far less likely to buy devices, such as game consoles and home theater equipment, that depend on a broadband Internet connection if actually using their broadband service is going to cost them an arm and a leg." MTB continues on to quote and link to Stop The Cap.
Tags: Broadband2Go, Virgin Mobile
Here's a bona fide treat for you, and a bonus BLOGGING CLASS post!
Here is the article I would have submitted to the Blog Engage contest, had I been able to meet the requirements for entering!
10 Ways to Blog Better
1 - Make 'em real; Make 'em feel
People who write about real life experiences and current events (like Xiaxue writing about Peter Coffin, for example) increase the odds of having any given blog post tweeted and repeated by about 33 per cent, according to a 2010 study of popular blogs.
When you craft your article, read it aloud before uploading it to your blog or better yet, read it to a friend or ask them to read it and see if they can "feel" your emotion coming through in your words...
2 - Give Your Blog 5 "Kicks"
You wrote a smashing post! Now, (a) tweet it (b) post it on facebook or linked-in (c) leave it as your URL in comments on a similar article on someone else's blog (d) ping it individually on pingler.com and (e) drop it on digg or reddit
3 - Don't Gum Up The Works
Strip your post of any surplus verbiage and don't link to other blogs or websites unless you bring them value and vice-versa
4 - Be Social and Interact
You know already that it is important to give your blog those 5 abovementioned "kicks" - now you also need to get out there and mention your greatest post to others! Tell a friend on myspace or Linked-In; tweet it to particular individual using twitter's "@" feature; mention it in an email to a colleague or add it to your email signature just for a day or two!
5 - Taste the Rainbow that is the Blogosphere
Need ideas? Hop on Global Voices or Drudge or Global Blog to see what everybody is buzzing about - each of these sites represents a snapshot of current events and pop culture!
6 - Keep Your Blog "Light"
Get rid of slow-loading widgets and those that might seek to re-direct your readers elsewhere. NOTHING IS MORE ANNOYING than those "SUBSCRIBE HERE" pageover pop-ups. There are about three blogs I actually tolerate seeing these on, only because I love the bloggers themselves (otherwise they'd be on by X list!) There are many services available that will check your web page load time. Find one you like and use it!
7 - Spread Linky-Love
People who write great articles should be rewarded! If you run across an article on another blog you really enjoy or find helpful, tell the whole wide world about it: on your blog, on twitter, on any social network, on digg! Even if the author has closed comments, he or she will notice that you have spread the word about a great article. They'll remeber you, sooner or later!
8 - Get Intimate
I again call your attention to Ms. Wendy Cheng. If you have a few hours, go back through the multitude of posts on the Xiaxue blog. Here's a gal who has become a superstar celebrity but shares the most intimate details with her readers. Note: I didn't say spill the beans or give up personal details. Just sahre a little intimacy through your posts!
9 - Finish What You've Started
I carry a little green notebook around. I know other bloggers who use cellphone voice memo recorders to capture ideas when they emrge. You just never know when you'll get inspired, so don't let the moment escape! WRITE IT DOWN! Even if it's on a piece of scrap paper or a paer napkin, a few small words could be the seed for what may become your greatest post!
10 - A Time to Sow, A Time to Reap
Don't subject yourself to "sleep deprivation" and the bad things that can happen as a result it (getting fat, heart disease, more likely to catch cold or flu) because you're spending too much time online. Do your thing, prepare your materials, post and share... then, like a great chef, let it all simmer awhile. Get your rest and spend the time you need to spend in "real" life. The "virtual life" will consume you if you let it... if you really wannabee 24/7 on the web, look into automating (i.e. time-released) blog posts and tweets! Heck, your internet persona can live on long after the material you is gone!
Tags: BlogEngage, BlogEngage Contest
Blog Engage and Affiliate Lights are wonderful web services for bloggers! Having said that, I'm NOT entering the contest! Sure, I have great writing skills and a plethora of previous posts that could be updated or rewritten or re-imagined. I just can't fill the requirements! Here's the details (my comments italicizd)! I only have two small problems, as you will notice. Small problems that are big enough to discourage me from entering the contest.
All Blog Engage members can write for us and have the opportunity to win any prize offered in this contest. We only ask that you have a valid paypal account to accept your winnings and prizes.
1. Guest posts must be at least 450 words, not to exceed 1000 words.
2. You may have as many links as you wish in the body of the content. However, please limit links to your projects or websites to your bio. Absolutely no affiliate links allowed.
3. Your bio must have a Gravatar. Please use a picture of yourself and not a logo.
PROBLEM FOR ME! My gravatar is a cartoon logo. I have no intention of changing it!
Keep your post relevant to the overall theme of this blog. You can write about any of the following topics Making Money Online, Blogging Tips, Traffic, Design, Social Networking, SEO, Marketing, Technology and other industry or niche specific topics you think blog engage members would be interested in reading.
All awards and prizes will be delivered 15 days after the contest is closed. As already stated a valid paypal account will be needed to accept any money prizes.
UPDATE!
Xiaxue finishes crushing Peter Coffin! -or- as I tweeted, "puts final nail in coffin" :)
Recently Xiaxue posted two articles critical of another blogger, a sort of digital stalker-taunter-shuckster who writes as " Peter Coffin" - and in no time at all, the story went GLOBAL!
Here's a rip from nowpublic.com: "Peter Coffin threw a brick at Xiaxue, and she responded with a nuclear bomb..."
Peter Coffin: The strange story of a boy, a model and his 'girlfriend' Metro.us -Kimi Kobayashi, who none of you know because she goes to school in the next school district and she has super-strict parents so she can't come out. ...
Web 'Comedian' Peter Coffin Caught Being His Own Girlfriend - Switched
How Peter Coffin Got Busted For Having a Fake Girlfriend - Urlesque
Peter Coffin Speaks as the Internet Taunts Grow: 'I'm Just Going ... - Village Voice (blog)
Xiaxue's pair of articles about Coffin and the female persona he created "Kimi Kobyashi" must have triggered a rash of searches for another blogger that Wendy Cheng (Xiaxue) feuded with some years back, the Arissa Luna-wannabee herself, Dawn Yang. Some of those searches brought Singaporeans here to my humble weblog! (Thanks for coming by!)
The War
http://dave-lucas.blogspot.com/2008/07/xiaxue-vs-dawn-yang-its-war.html
Is Over
http://dave-lucas.blogspot.com/2008/07/around-blogosphere-07-july-08.html
To the left, a pic of Dawn + Wendy in happier times (if ever there were any!) Below is a content "lift" off of the MyBlogLog popular links widget (which I imagine will be shut off when MyBlogLog vaporises in a few months.) If you click on the first link, you'll find it to be a dead-end.
See Also:
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One Wednesday morning, not too very long ago, upon awakening after a night of stormy, troubling dreams, I tweeted out:
After all, someday, one day, the journey ends for each and every one of us. But in the meantime, humans are daily interfacing with computers more and more and more! It cannot be avoided, it seems! The PC at home, work, school... the ubiquitous "smartphone" and air card, the bank ATM, the computer panel at the gas pump, the Ipad, Kindle, etc. etc. etc.
Coincidentally, as I was dreaming and wondering, other bloggers were at work, debating online about almost the very same thing!
(See Quality trumps quantity.)
Is all this blogging meaningful?
The Dutchess County SPCA seizes a puppy and arrests store owner and employee following complaints of selling an unhealthy puppy.
I'm always saddened when I hear about cases of animal abuse or neglect...
HYDE PARK, NY (March 25, 2011) –Yesterday, the Dutchess County SPCA seized an unhealthy puppy being offered for sale by Puppies and Kittens, a pet store in Wappingers Falls, and charged the store owner and an employee after a local veterinarian examined the dog and found him to be unfit to be sold.
DCSPCA Humane Law Officers were contacted by a customer of the store who had purchased the puppy. Her veterinarian found the puppy to be unhealthy and advised her that the dog should not have been sold. She returned the puppy to the store, which offered him for sale in the store’s window the next day. DCSPCA Officers Jami Landry and Daniel Flaherty investigated and charged the owner, Richard F. Doyle with two counts of Section 357 (Selling Diseased Animals, Unclassified Misdemeanor) for knowingly offering an unhealthy puppy for sale twice. The owner was also charged with one count of Section 353 (Animal Cruelty, Class A Misdemeanor). An employee was changed with one count of Section 353 (Animal Cruelty, Class A Misdemeanor).
The defendants are due to appear in the Village of Wappingers Court on April 7th. The 11-week old Teacup Yorkshire Terrier is being nursed back to health by the DCSPCA’s Animal Services team. He is not available for adoption. He is the eighth puppy officers have seized from local pet stores in the past month.
Last month, the DCSPCA investigated similar complaints about Pet Fashion Pet Store in the Galleria Mall. Six employees and the owner now face a total of 66 charges stemming from allegations that they offered puppies that were too sick to sell.
The investigation is on-going. Anyone who has purchased a puppy from Puppies and Kittens pet store in Wappingers Falls that has or had an infectious or contagious illness should contact the DCSPCA’s Humane Law Department immediately by dialing 845.452.7722 ext. 4
The Dutchess County SPCA, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit, is the lead agency for animal rescue and adoption in Dutchess County. The DCSPCA is a no-kill shelter with a 140-year history of concern, caring and providing shelter for unwanted, abused, abandoned and neglected animals. Central to the mission of the DCSPCA is the securing of caring, responsible, permanent homes for the adoptable animals in its care.
Invasive Stink Bugs: Wanted Dead or Alive.
Article By Mike Fargione & Peter Jentsch of Cornell Cooperative Extension Ulster County
The ‘new kid on the block’, the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug (BMSB), Halyomorpha halys (Stål), is a recent addition to the urban/agricultural landscape in the Hudson Valley. It was first observed entering NY homes in 2008. Populations of this species have been steadily on the rise over the past three years, making their presence known primarily in the southern parts of the valley. This insect has been found invading the homes of suburban and Metropolitan New Yorkers living in the 5 boroughs, Nassau, Suffolk, Orange, Westchester, Putnam, Ulster, and Dutchess counties. Many residents are taking notice of them as temperatures rise and insects become more active, making their way out of homes and back into the landscape.
The BMSB does not bite or sting people, pets or livestock. Being a member of the Hemiptera family of insects, it inserts its piercing/sucking mouthparts into plants and feeds on the juices found in stems, leaves and seeds. The insect has shown a wide host range including tomato, pepper, lima bean, soybean, sweet and field corn, apple, pear, peach, berries and some ornamental trees and shrubs. In addition to causing severe damage to farmers’ crops and homeowners’ gardens, the pest has become a residential nuisance as adults fly from near and far to congregate on and in houses during the fall while seeking winter shelter. Reports from the Mid Atlantic region indicate some homeowners have removed thousands of BMSB from their dwellings this winter. Locally, homeowners in the Hudson Valley region also report finding BMSB in their homes this spring with samples being sent to scientists at Cornell’s Hudson Valley Laboratory in Highland, NY. Thus far the laboratory has received over 30 reports and samples from the region, with specimens mostly coming from inside the home, ranging from just a few insects along the window sills to hundreds being observed in closets, attic spaces and stacks of covered firewood.
Since its introduction from Asia into the mid-Atlantic during the mid-1990’s, the BMSB has made its way to the top of the insect ‘most wanted list’. It was first identified in the United States in 2001 in Allentown, Pennsylvania from a specimen sent to Cornell’s Entomologist E. Richard Hoebeck. The pest has spread throughout the mid-Atlantic but was relatively unnoticed except by scientists who study such events. However, over the past two years, BMSB has developed into populations rivaling biblical proportions in some parts of the Mid-Atlantic causing extensive economic injury to vegetable and fruit crops in the region. In 2010, their feeding damage resulted in 20 to 80% crop loss on some farms in West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
The recently established NE-IPM BMSB Working Group met at the Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station in Winchester, VA in November of 2010 to discuss the impact of this insect on the region. The group, which includes fruit and vegetable producers, university researchers and extension agents, USDA entomologists and agrichemical representatives, heard presentations by growers who suffered severe crop injury in 2010. Fruit producers told the group that if they experience successive years of sustained economic loss by this insect pest, that they will be at significant risk of loosing their farm. Given the impacts seen in 2010 in the Mid Atlantic, agricultural producers in the Hudson Valley are preparing themselves for the possible onslaught of this insect into their crops over the next few years.
“We’ve been receiving a few BMSB samples each year since its detection in our area in 2008. This season, however, we are seeing larger numbers in an ever widening range.” said Peter Jentsch, Senior Extension Associate in entomology at Cornell University’s Hudson Valley Laboratory in Highland, NY. Jentsch and his colleagues at Cornell Cooperative Extension have developed a regional working group to develop a laboratory colony, collect regional specimens, verify and document the spread of this invasive species in Eastern NY. Over the past 4 months they have been increasing their efforts to track the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug in the urban environment and will begin monitoring its spread into the agricultural landscape this spring. Intensive monitoring of orchards, vegetable production centers and sweet corn fields using a number of trapping systems will begin in the region during early April. The Hudson Valley Regional Fruit Program website (http://hudsonvf.cce.cornell.
Dead or Alive:
Anyone who has seen this pest is asked to send a sample to Peter Jentsch, BMSB Project, Cornell Hudson Valley Lab, P.O. Box 727, Highland, N.Y. 12528. The bugs should be placed in a small plastic container, such as a medicine bottle or film canister. A submission form available on the Cornell Cooperative Extension website at (http://hudsonvf.cce.cornell.
For more information on this pest, visit the NE IPM Center at http://www.northeastipm.org/
For more information about Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County’s community programs and events call 845-340-3990 or visit online at www.cceulster.org and follow us on www.facebook.com.
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A FREE Guide for Writing Killer Content for Content Marketing by Marlee Ward!
Marlee provides you with a practical checklist that you can use to write the best blog posts, articles, and content you can muster. Creating excellent content is the key to attracting and keeping readers on your website.
Watch this video and snag the free download to start writing better content today!
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Warren Buffett told CNBC today that the collapse of the euro ... is far from "unthinkable."
The price of oil is still way up there ...
The worst Texas drought in 44 years is damaging the state’s wheat crop and forcing ranchers to reduce cattle herds, as rising demand for U.S. food sends grain and meat prices higher ...
The Obama administration is trying to dissuade other countries from imposing export bans and other measures that were blamed for fueling food price spikes in 2008.
And, just in case you were beginning to believe a "recovery" was in progress, home sales and prices plummeted last month, according to data released Wednesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Owch!
Gee whiz, it's almost over! (The week, that is!) So let's have a little fun, shall we? Ok, what could be funnier than Hugh Chavez suggesting capitalism is responsible for the destruction of life on Mars?
a) Colonel Khadafy
b) Peter Coffin
c) Chris Brown
d) all of the above.
So, what do you think the correct answer is?
Tags: Xiaxue, aflac, Libya, Gilbert Gottfried
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Dave Lucas´s last blog ..Points of View