Fish stocks in international waters are being plundered to the point of extinction, a leading conservationist group has said.

Illegal fishing and bottom-trawling in deep waters are to blame, according to a report from WWF.

It says the current system of regional fishing regulation is failing to tackle the problem, with not enough being done to enforce quotas or replenish stocks.

It says species under severe threat include tuna and the orange roughy.

The orange roughy is targeted by bottom-trawlers, which drag heavy rollers over the ocean floor, destroying coral and other ecosystems.

Deep-sea fish stocks ‘plundered’ [BBC News]

Scary stuff, just like the looming climate crisis. Speaking of which, you should check out An Inconvenient Truth, over at ClimateCrisis.net. Click here to see the trailer.

Over on the forums of Massively Online Gamer (a killer podcast), SlothMan uses the following animated GIF as his signature. I’d pretty much ignored it for a bit until I realized what it is … LotR: Fellowship of the Ring, subtitled by MMORPG players.

It is somewhat hit or miss, but if you’ve ever played an MMORPG, you’ll get some chuckles and a maybe even a belly laugh or three. Enjoy!

As if Clerks II was not enough to feed my Kevin Smith fix, An Evening with Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder … the long awaited sequel to An Evening with Kevin Smith … is poised to drop.

Todd, Matt and I drove to LA almost just over two years ago to hear Smith speak while they were filming this DVD. God only knows why it took so long to come out, but it is sure to be freaking hilarious. Enjoy!

Imagine a user comes along and submits a feature request to your project. After approval and clarification from someone with the appropriate user role in your project’s development team, that task will become part of the project’s Version Map.

That user, as well as any other user of the Bounty Source system, could then proceed to place a monetary bounty on that task. All bounty amounts are publicly viewable and the total adds up with every posted bounty. When a developer shows interest in writing the solution, they can create a “Solution In Progress” and keep a developer’s journal that will be open for all to view/comment upon.

After a solution has been submitted and approved, the funds will be released to the developer — but not until a “Disputable” period has passed in which any user can raise concerns with the solution, should they have any.

bountysource.com

Today, I found bountysource.com by way of digg.com. The quote above describes the site and the services they provide. Recently, folks have started grumbling about the usefulness and relevance of SourceForge.net; long the 800 lb. gorilla of FOSS project management. However, many think it is simply used as a loss leader for the VA Software’s commercial application, SourceForge Enterprise Edition.

Along comes bountysource.com. These folks offer similar services and they have great valueadd … bounties. As someone whose core business depends on FOSS technologies, I’ve often wondered how to get the attention of the devs of particular projects. Also, as someone who has developed against four different FOSS applications, I know how thankless the job can be and how hard it can be to find time to meet the demands of the user base. Until bountysource.com, there was no way I knew to address the competing demands of both sides of this sticky problem.

Bug and feature bounties are the ideal solution for everyone. By placing a bounty on a particular feature, the end user puts his money where his mouth is. This should really help FOSS devs separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to bug hunting and feature requests. Moreover, this concept provides two important processes which can further expand the FOSS infrastructure/agenda:

• First, it provides a business model that should allow motivated FOSS devs a realistic way to make a living from their efforts (or at least a profitable side business) and eventually leave the corporate ghetto behind.
• Second, it provides folks who are building FOSS-based enterprises a concrete way to invest their money into their busniess and feel confident they will see a meaningful ROI.

To be certain, bountysource.com seems raw and still very beta. They are marrying commerce and FOSS in new and innovative way. I wish them well. Their success gives me another tool to build my business by responding to market demands more quickly. Should they stumble or fall, someone should grab this BIG IDEA and run with it.

I love digg.com. A lot of folks still don’t get the power of this site. At some point, I’ll write detailed review of digg.com to help put that power into layman’s terms.

Until then, chew on the fact that I never read The New Yorker. Don’t get me wrong, it is a great magazine. I’ve read it plenty of times in the past. But until today, The New Yorker was not on the radar for me because I have too many other pressing information demands. However, digg.com just put it back on the radar with this online interview with Terry Semel, CEO of Yahoo!. After checking out the video, be sure to digg it here.

Shot at at a breakfast sponsored by the Newhouse School and The New Yorker, the Semel interview is about an hour long, but definitely worth watching. Shot on Thursday (May 11), Semel outlines the future of the web and media over the next 25 years. To my mind, his vision is almost dead perfect.

In addition, Semel addressed the controversy over Yahoo! providing the Chinese government the email addresses of suspected dissidents and the resulting arrests. He does so in a way that is unflinching. yet still respectful of the business, social and cultural ramifications of the decision.

As a Yahoo! shareholder, I was glad to see the entire interview. It helped reaffirm my belief in the direction Semel is taking the company and addressed my concerns about the company as a corporate citizen of the world. And, I’d never have seen the interview were it not for digg.com.

NOTE: Thanks to Lee Odden at TopRankBlog.com for posting the original link which was picked up by digg.com.

Consider the most memorable moment of Super Bowl XL three months ago: On the touchdown play that secured a fifth Vince Lombardi Trophy for the Pittsburgh Steelers, a white quarterback born and raised in Middle America and drafted in the first round (Ben Roethlisberger) handed off to a black tailback from a small town in North Carolina who made the roster as a free agent (Willie Parker). He reversed the ball to a player with a Muslim-sounding surname but who was raised in the Pentecostal faith (Antwaan Randle El), who then threw it to a wide receiver born in Seoul, South Korea, (Hines Ward) to parents of mixed races, for a game-clinching 43-yard hookup.

NFL becoming a league of nations :: Len Pasquarelli (ESPN.com)

Before I comment, let me clear that I despise the Steelers. While I don’t think Carson’s Palmer’s injury was intentional, if Palmer is in the game for 60 minutes the Bengals go deep in the playoffs and maybe even hoist the Lombardi Trophy. OK, with that off of my chest …

This article by Len Pasquarelli is a great read. Consider that the current leadership of my beloved USA seems hell-bent on pissing on the rest of the world and ignoring our multi-cultural roots. With this in mind, Pasquarelli’s article … especially the example quoted above … serves as a great reminder of the things that make America great and that once provied us the moral authority to suggest that the rest of the world follow our democratic lead.

Check it out. Then, check out Pasquarelli’s article on the emergence of Nigerian athletes in the NFL. The world is getting smaller. Let’s all learn to adjust.