Leslie Dean Brown

Carnivorous plants are fast becoming critically endangered!

March 27, 2016 — leslie dean brown

Carnivorous plants are in danger from poaching and habitat destruction

Illustration by Leslie Dean Brown. © 2015. All rights reserved.

We must assess them all for The IUCN Red List to guide vital conservation action. Thanks to your support, we’ve reached our initial USD 25,000 target, allowing us to bring together experts for the first assessment workshop in August 2016.

The next step will require fieldwork in remote locations to enable the assessment of poorly known species. Assessors will work unpaid but the expeditions need to be funded. Thus, we need to raise an additional USD 100,000 – will you help? Please see the IUCN website for more details.

Why I decided to quit facebook.

March 17, 2016 — leslie dean brown

In recent news, I just quit facebook. I quit because they are encouraging trophy hunting by allowing their pages to remain online. I believe they could do so much better with animal rights and conservation issues.

Illustration by Leslie Dean Brown

Nothing happened. My head didn’t fall off. I enjoyed real life more now. I am happier and much more productive.

I have even started this petition to get more people to quit facebook as a form of protest and defiance.

Mark Elliot Zuckerberg,

The first time I logged on to the internet, the year was 1995. I had to go into a special room at university to access it. Only about 30 computers were connected to the internet for students to use — in the whole university.

A few years later, more rooms appeared throughout the campus. I remember one day in particular. My college buddy could only find a handful of Porsche images *on the whole internet*. I can even remember him printing it out. It was so rare to him it was like a prize. I remember because we had to take turns — using the same internet connection!

Four years later, in 1999, I got “into trouble” for using the internet at work! Yes. “People can see you” he’d say. I had to show my boss that I was searching for material properties online. He promptly wheeled his office chair over. He had called my bluff. And I pointed to the screen. “See?” At that time, people didn’t use the internet for work. No.

I don’t know when it was exactly. I was still at university. All I can remember was that the internet was still fairly ‘new’. The average person still did not use the internet on an hourly or a daily basis (except for email). Anyway, I got this weird “friend request” from this unknown person calling himself “Mark Zuckerberg”. It wasn’t one of my friends. I’m pretty sure it was actually you.

If memory serves me correctly, Mr. Zuckerberg, you actually came to me. I certainly never went out specifically looking for anything like facebook, because I was a nerdy anti-social science graduate. You probably found my email or something.

I decided to accept your initial “friend request” and sign up to this new facebook thing. And because I was introverted and shy, I never really bothered to say anything to you. It was when there was only a few thousand facebook members *in the whole world*. At the time I can remember thinking: “what harm can it do?”. Nobody I knew had a facebook account. I repeat: nobody. And so it began…

[Read more…]

Where do you want to go today? [Windows upgrade psychology]

March 10, 2016 — leslie dean brown

A few days ago I received yet another persistent reminder to upgrade to Windows 10 for free. So I thought I’d share some insights from a long-time windows user. Here is my open letter to Microsoft.

Dear Microsoft,

It all began with that nagging little popup thingo at the bottom right of my computer screen. I don’t know about the other X00 million people, but I personally found that so annoying I soon disabled it. As soon as I realised it wasn’t going to disappear on it’s own. As soon as I saw the pattern. Why did I do that? I did it because I know that it was far easier than upgrading the whole OS.

There’s a famous quote about lazy people at Microsoft:

“I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.”– Bill Gates

Now you have taken to my inbox. Several times in fact. Humans are good at recognising patterns, aren’t they? I’m sorely tempted to label your email ‘spam’, because I don’t recall signing up to any email newsletters about Windows upgrades. What’s next? Are you going to be pestering people to upgrade with facebook and twitter? I really don’t think you should do that. Trust me.

Yes we are busy people. Some of us do need reminders. But what about people with good memories? Do you think we have forgotten about your kind offer? Or are you lumping us all in with the forgetful ones? Thanks. [Read more…]

GoDaddy’s official reponse about hosting trophy-hunting websites!

February 23, 2016 — leslie dean brown

Leslie Dean Brown
Oh I see you have deleted my previous post. How about answering me? I already sent a message to Blake Irving. No response.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/en-gb/203/757/597/demand-that-internet-service-providers-boycott-all-trophy-hunting-websites/

GoDaddy “1/2 Hey Leslie, We deleted your previous posts because it was spammed across several of our postings and not just one. GoDaddy’s goal is the keep the Internet safe, while enabling the exchanging of thoughts and ideas, even if we disagree with their views. While this can be tough sometimes, we think it is overall the best possible experience. If something does violate our terms of service, such as Promotes, encourages or engages in child pornography or the exploitation of children, Infringes on the intellectual property rights of another User or any other person or entity & Contains false or deceptive language, or unsubstantiated or comparative claims, regarding GoDaddy or GoDaddy’s Services.”

GoDaddy “2/2 We take action &, when appropriate, alert the local authorities. Just as you are entitled to voice your opinion on a specific topic, we believe the other side has a right to voice theirs, as long as they stay within the rules. On another note, if a website is registered here but not hosted on our service, there is a not a lot we can do. I noticed the list you sent over had several examples that were just like this. The way the Internet works, the domain name is only the pointer to the hosting server, we have no control over the content. If you feel that this site does violate our terms then feel free to submit your request to abuse@GoDaddy.com and it will be reviewed, by that team.”

Leslie Dean Brown

“1. I had to spam you because you didn’t respond through the official channels. I emailed no less than TEN other very important people besides Blake. No reply from any of them. Hopeless! Absolutely hopeless!!

2. It’s not “overall the best possible experience” for the tigers, lions, leopards, rhinos, hippos, giraffes and zebras that are shot dead by poachers, is it? What you have written is by far the lamest thing I have read so far this year.

3. Yes, you have made it perfectly clear where GoDaddy stand with respect to trophy hunting. Don’t worry, 20,000+ people are now going to get CC’ed your “official” (and quite lousy) response.

4. I’ll actually be hosting this transcript.”

Letter to GoDaddy regarding hosting trophy hunting websites.

February 19, 2016 — leslie dean brown

Hi there,

I’ll get straight to it: I have started a petition against GoDaddy and other ISPs. Why?

Well, you’re hosting half a dozen trophy hunting websites and millions of people around the world don’t like that. Actually, it’s really the lions, tigers, leopards, hippos, giraffes, elephants and other endangered animals that are mainly the ones that don’t like it, but they can’t start petitions, write letters, or speak for themselves, can they? So I’m doing it for them!

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/en-gb/203/757/597/demand-that-internet-service-providers-boycott-all-trophy-hunting-websites/

So far some 16,745 supporters have signed this one petition and it is growing by the minute. I’m sure you don’t want to lose any potential customers. Does *anyone* living in the year 2016 with a conscience want to make it any easier for poachers? I certainly hope not!

It’s not the first time GoDaddy has been in the news with respect to hunting; former GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons previously admitted to hunting elephants and showed zero remorse afterwards!

So it would be really nice to get some positive news from you about GoDaddy’s real intentions on their hosting of unethical content… that way, I can update my signatories and the world can be a much better, nicer place to live in.

Talk to you soon,
Sincerely
Dr. Leslie Dean Brown