Slashdot Mirror
Virtual Tourists in the Swiss Alps
Roland Piquepaille writes "Farmers in Switzerland receive money from their government for letting their cows eat young trees in the Alps. But why? Because this is improving the mountain views for tourists who might return year after year and spend their cash in the country. As the Swiss government wants to wisely spend its money, it is using a computer model of the mountains populated by virtual tourists -- or software agents -- which tirelessly take the same roads again and again and give their appreciation about the best spots. The Economist reports about these virtual tourists in this very cleverly-titled article, "Computer browsers." What will be the next logical step? Pay more the farmers with the strongest potential to improve the views for real tourists? Wrong. Instead, real hikers will be invited to explore the virtual Alps to give their feedback. Their observations will be then integrated into the software managing the virtual travelers. Read more for pictures and references."
Can cows eat wood? The trees I'm familiar with in the northeast are such that by the time they're a half a meter tall, their trunks are already wooden. I wasn't aware that a cow could eat wood. The other possibility is that they're eating the trees at such an early age that the plant tissue is still soft, which would mean that the trees are still very small, and would barely be disginguishable from tall grass, in which case it makes you wonder why go through this strange process of needing cows to deal with the problem rather than just hiring a guy with a lawnmower to just clear the area out in one day. Also, how big of a problem is rampant tree growth? They don't exactly grow like weeds that need to be trimmed every week.
Michael is perhaps the most hated editor on Slashdot, with the absence of JonKatz. Before signing on as an editor on Slashdot, Michael Sims was busy making a name for himself as a colossal jerk in the Censorware scandal. He then moved on to Slashdot, his feeling of self-importance and small-mindedness in tow, where his ability to abuse his power is exercised constantly.
Modus Operandi
Michael is known for his derisive attitude towards Slashdot readers, unrealistic and hypocritic stance on nearly every issue, and generally obnoxious behavior.
Injustices
Facts
michael is constantly posting stories from Roland Piquepaille [slashdot.org]'s blog [weblogs.com].
Compare Google search 'site:slashdot.org "Posted by michael" "Roland Piquepaille writes"' [google.com] to any of the other mods. michael nearly doubles the number of the next highest Roland spammer, simoniker [google.com].
Commentary
Why the obvious favoritism to Roland Piquepaille? Either Piquepaille is in cahoots with michael, or he just knows how to press his buttons. In either case, an questionable degree of preferential treatment is being shown.
Facts
Michael links to a 40MB file on the front page of Slashdot, leading to a massive Slashdotting of a NASA server. [slashdot.org]
Commentary
You have to wonder what michael's intentions were in placing such a link? This kind of crap has been going on for a long time- front page links are made without regard to the server, file type, or file size. This time, it is impacting a taxpayer-funded government agency.
http://slashdot.org/search.pl?tid=&query=roland+pi que&author=&sort=1&op=stories
/. is getting to be less about interesting technology and more about Politic(ly correct in the editor's eyes)s and linking to this guy's blog-vert. It is not even timely anymore, either.
I'm beginning to lose interest because the signal to noise ratio is getting low.
Did anybody else instantly think of Roller Coaster Tycoon when reading about this? I know I did. Sounds exactly like an expansion pack--RCT: Swiss Alps Edition. The "autonomous agents" would be similar as well I would think, since RCT park guests have a aesthetics variable wherein they evaluate an area's value based on the surroundings.
Nothing disturbs me more than blind loyalism towards some unrealistic and over-idealistic notion of one's nationality.
So obviously he get's some special preferential treatment for these "stories". The fact that they appear with amazing regularity is a sign of some arrangement. The first guess is that one of the editors is either a friend, gets a benefit, or even owns the site. In other words, an abuse of the editing position.
Then again, maybe this is an order from higher up. It would be interesting to know if it is one editor that keeps approving Roland's submissions, or they get spread out. If it's one editor, it's a position abuse. If it's equally spread, it's a command from higher up.
Doesn't anybody see that this is an urban legend? Because eliminating trees and shrubbery from the mountains'/Alps' slopes also eliminates their extensive root systems. Which are fundamental to keeping the dirt together and on top of the bedrock. Dirt that has an extremely important 'sponge' function: it collects and holds water (rain and melted snow) and - under 'normal' circumstances - releases that water gradually over time into the valleys and river systems. Without trees and shrubbery on the mountains the rain and melted snow are NOT collected NOR held, but flow almost immediately into the valleys and river systems. Since these cannot handle all that water at once, the result is flooding! We see it every spring time. And every new skiing piste/slope aggravates the problem!!!
The forest is regrowing to somewhere near its original boundries. Early lumbering practices did not take forest renewal or any other conservation strategy into account.
In the south, there are mountains with unforested tops. The local name for them is "Balds". They tend to reforest when grazing is no longer done. As a result, many scenic balds have disappeared. Local hiker maintaining clubs have resorted to hand cutting of brush and newly emergent trees to keep balds open. The USFS has gone so far as to uses bulldozers to reopen some.
Experience has shown that allowing grazing eliminates a lot of hard work. Onced a place is cleared, the livestock will eat the tender emerging tree shoots before they have a chance to grow to any size.
Grazing is so efficient that the problem of overgrazing of leased National Forest land by ranchers in the American West has long been recognized as a major problem.