Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Celebrating 2 years of K-Landnews

Two years and 1200 posts later, what can we say? We'll take a short break for a couple of days.

Thank you to our readers, the proud, the few, the eccentric! Semper wry.

In terms on numbers, we are utterly insignificant, which is kind of nice because we do not have to field too many questions.

Well, no any more. As we said earlier, for some time we felt like a free Facebook help desk.
Seeing the misery of some Facebook users, who were bullied, who had their account access stolen, who waited for ages for feedback from the FB, was gut wrenching. But we answered every single email.

Trolls have not been a big issue for us after we changed the "Comment" settings to moderated comments.

The dumbest comment we received related to a post about the EU novel foods directive, a brilliantly stupid piece of EU regulation that slapped a blanket ban on traditional foods not in wide use in the EU in late 1990s.

There is a traditional tea called Muña from South America, which happens to be the best beverage for a queasy stomach.

And which happens to not be "food" according to the EU.

Rest assured, you can buy Muña in Europe, just not as people food. What was the label again? Botanic specimen? A pound of botanic specimen...

So, this guy writes a comment dissing our well-researched description of Muna. Offensive enough, he included a link to Skeptic magazine.

But no contact email, sadly. Because this prevented the blogster from writing the only insulting email since being on the web: you idiot. Anyway, comments became moderated and the trolls found other feeding spots.

Did we learn anything in the two years as mini-media moguls?
Writing a post a day is work.
Writing a good post every day is impossible.
It is extremely tempting to include names of public figures, even as "memes" only, but we are still very restrictive on this.
We may be very proud of a post but it receives only one or two page views.
We may think a post is boring, only to find lots of people read it.
The surveillance state exists. See the dedications below.

Plans for the future?
More work on our latest venture, an "art" blog. We had to call it something, and with people squatting blogger dot com addresses like f@@@ing crazy, we took the first artsy one and made up a reason. Have a look if you have not done so

Details?
No.

Do you have a regular job?
No. Having lived and worked in, what, five countries is not the best resume for a job in Germany, too scary, unless you show up recommended by a friend of daddy, then it is cool again.

Hopes?
To be wise enough one day to know when to call it quits.

Dedications
To our readers.
To the other animals in our lives.
To the humans who try their best in the face of adversity and hardship.
To scientists with empathy, and to level-headed observers.
To those no longer with us.
To the victims of the War on the Sensitive.
To the surveillance state, thank you for pulling back the veil.*


* Okay, so that sounds a bit grand standing, doesn't it? Here is a brief explanation in smaller font.
If you think, just because you live in a Western country, no one will waltz into your house and snoop around while you are away, you are wrong. We decided to interpret it as a friendly reminder. It certainly beats getting all depressed and feeling violated. Plus, there is only so much energy available each day, and those of you who have lived with and cared for someone who suffers from bouts of, well, PTSD, will understand. And a sneaky visit is still better than jackboots in morning.
You're good as long as the line I'm being followed by a moon shadow doesn't trigger all-out paranoia.

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