Blogger & Forum Ripoffs You Should Know About

If you write a blog or run a forum you need to know about the corporate snoop/spy bots that crawl your website or blog. These bots scrape your information then strip off your link and any info that is not relevant and sell the pertinent info to companies tracking their key words using social CRM platforms. According to the sellers of these platforms they allow companies to listen, engage, and act on their customers’ conversations across the entire social web.

This stripped and packaged info IS NOT available to the public unless they pay to get it. This unauthorized use of your website content also violates your copyright since they are using your work product without your permission. These bots also suck huge amounts of your bandwidth on your server as they crawl your site night after night looking for changes or new content.

Two of the bigger snoop bots are Radian 6 out of Canada www.radian6.com/crawler and Scout Lab. Using robot.txt to block the Radian 6 bot DOES NOT work, you have to email them to be taken off their crawl list. You can block the IPs Radian 6 bots use. Radian 6 uses the IPs 142.166.0.0/16  and 207.179.0.0/16.  You can block them using your IP block on your server admin panel or htaccess. If you're not sure how to block IPs contact your website host and they can do it for you in most cases. If you pen a blog you may not have control over this. I believe Word Press has a plug in for blocking IPs and stopping scraping.

More and more of these scraper sites are popping up around the world. Google is reportedly penalizing these public scraper sites in their search index ranking for having duplicate content but I wouldn't leave it to Google to watch my back. The sites like Radian 6 that charge for your content should also not be allowed to make money off your hard work.

Yo-Yos For The Troops

My friend Albert over at The Rasch Chronicles is in the sand box and he's found the perfect item to alleviate some of the boredom among the troops. Yo-yos. In my day it was Frogger, the hand held electronic game, where you had to jump the frog from pad to pad to keep him alive. That game kept us from going insane on many DZs and airport ramps.



Take a peek at Albert's call for yo-yos and see if you can help out. If you can't afford to mail them overseas just holler at me here and you can send them here and I'll ship them over for you.

http://trochronicles.blogspot.com/2010/07/yo-yos-for-troops.html

1st yo-yos arrive.

http://trochronicles.blogspot.com/2010/08/first-yo-yos-arrive.html

Thank you Albert.

But Momma. More Baby Bears Gettin' In Trouble

Nice save for this Alaska fisherman, that's some delicate work with momma bear close by. The brother bear looks like he's saying, "I'm glad it's not my azz in trouble this time". Momma grabs junior by the scruff of the neck and drags him off for some scolding. Reminds me of myself at the store with my mom one time.

 

 

Somebody's Gonna Get A Butt Whoopin'

I can just imagine the conversation in this video.

Momma bear: Git your sorry azz back down here before you get hurt.

Lil baby bear: I won't get hurt momma.

Momma bear: Don't make me come up there and get you!!

Lil baby bear: I'll come down when I ready.

Father's Day Hog Hunt at Cedar Canyon Ranch

Here's the video from our Father's Day hog hunt at Cedar Canyon Ranch near Tehachapi CA. Chris is the son and the dad is Eric (caninelaw on the forums).

On the first shot Friday night it appears to be high. I didn't see the pig Chris was shooting at leave the frame on the camera and thought he had been hit but you see the pig veers high in the frame and runs off. The shot was lasered at 221 yards and Chris had a little of an angle, 8 degrees maybe, uphill. 7mm Mag with Barnes GMX 139 grain I think they said.

On the 2nd shots Chris and Eric took Saturday night I was setting up the camera when that hog popped out and never got any video of that Chinese fire drill. It was an oh crap moment. It was almost the same setup as Ron's shot from last year, same hill except this pig was closer where Ron ended up shooting his 3rd and 4rth shots. This hog turned after being shot at and his back end seemed to buckle but no blood was ever found. Without video to review all I can think of is with the high sage he just made a clean get away without us seeing him go up the ridge.

The weather was almost perfect, staying in the low 70s and kind of cold sometimes in the shade. No snakes but the bugs were the usual pests.

Thanks to Eric and Chris, it was fun to see them work hard to get two hogs. This was Chris' first big game animal. Also huge thanks to Bill, Paul, Ryan and the rest of the crew at Cedar Canyon Ranch for taking care of us and searching for blood on those two shots.

P.S. Cedar Canyon is losing their lease at the end of 2010 so if you'd like to hunt this beautiful area call them now as they are booking for the fall hunts

One Lucky Cat & One Unlucky Cat

Some of us were just discussing bowhunters not being able to carry a pistola (CCW) while bowhunting in CA per DFG Code. One of the reasons many of us want to be able to carry a pistol is the chance of an attack by a bear or cougar. While the chances of one being jumped by these critters is remote you're much better off with a gun than a bow. The dude in the story below is lucky to be alive, he broke and tried to out run the cat. Major no no, running just triggers a cat's predatory response. It's one reason some call mountains bikers "Meals on wheels".

http://www.dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=81991&TM=10497.15

What really made me a believer in letting bowhunters be armed was my buddy Pete getting stalked and almost et by a cougar at Fort Hunter Liggett (FHL) a couple years back. He was able to knock an arrow but who knows if he would have even got that shot off had the cat not broke off the attack. The other problem Pete had was his jacket was stuffed in his quiver when he encountered the cat and reloading would have been tough. I'll take my chances with a pistol over a bow any day.

Pete near FHL the day before the cat encounter.

Another close encounter I've had with a big cat was 3 of us bumped into a cougar near Lake Henshaw CA a year ago while turkey hunting. That cat started to stalk the father I was with and finally broke off that attack when the father broke off a large tree limb and threw it at the cat. The father was also unarmed and regretted that decision later.



DFG should amend that reg to let bowhunters carry pistols for self protection.

We can't all have a miracle bumper slide up our sleeves.

Raahauges's Shooting Sport Fair

The Raahuage's Shooting Sports Fair,  held June 4-6 2010 in Corona CA, is a 3 days hands on event where you can handle and shoot rifles, pistols, shotguns, Gatling guns and more. There are plenty of vendor booths to check out new hunting and gun gear along with great gun groups like CRPA, NRA, Cal-Guns and more. FN and Sig-Sauer were no shows this year and hopefully they will be at the Shooting  Sports Fair next year. There are also hunting and gun seminars by seasoned pros plus great food.

JHO dropped by Friday to films some of the action.

More info at http://www.raahauges.com/

Video part 1




Video part 2