Revisions, May 21/95-May 18/96
This is the Turtle Trax revision history for our first year. Some of the original links have been removed because the pages referred to have changed or no longer exist. In particular, we do not put Turtle Happenings pages in an archive, so the current page is unlikely to reflect the changes listed here.
May 18, 1996
A breakthrough for the Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM)! Someone has watched it until destruction for the second time! One other visitor stuck with it all the way last week, but it was Netcarta's robot.
May 11, 1996
- Added biographies of Hilu and Four Spot to Who's Who Underwater at Honokowai.
- In Turtle Happenings this week, we point to an Earth Times article concerning the US shrimp ban, and we thank Rob Benner for choosing Turtle Trax Cool Canadian Site of the Day.
- Posted "Hatchlings be careful", artwork (49K JPEG) and haiku by Ryan K, in the weekly Spotlight On Student Art. This is a repeat from March 9, 1996.
- Posted the weekly Toon: Howzit Nose The Way (3 panels, 169K).
- Oops. Replaced the JPEG for Panel 3 of last week's toon, since we somehow dropped the punch line from it.
The Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM) entranced one viewer right up until signal loss last week. The effect was probably humbling, since we weren't asked to enshrine a name in the Distinguished BogusCam(TM) Watchers Hall of Honoured Distinction and Persistent Perseverity.
May 4, 1996
- Added An Underwater History of Honokowai (1988-1995) to Who's Who Underwater at Honokowai. This describes the changes we've witnessed underwater over the past eight summers. Warning! This essay contains several inline images, and the page weighs in at around 373K.
- In Turtle Happenings this week, we have the poignant story of Rosita, a loggerhead who made an incredible migration. For various reasons, we've also retained the Kuwait turtle rescue story.
- Posted "Turtles are choking", artwork (65K JPEG) and haiku by Ward E, in the weekly Spotlight On Student Art. This is a repeat from March 16, 1996.
- Posted the weekly Toon: Talks Are At An End (3 panels, 180K).
Not a single Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM) watcher for the whole week, a major bummer dudes.
April 27, 1996
- This was a busy week for Turtle Happenings. There was an announcement of the launch of the "Turtle-Safe Shrimp" program, proposed changes to TED regulations in the US, and good news for the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge. Most exciting for us, however, was the way Turtle Trax was used to help save two trapped sea turtles in Kuwait.
- Added a biography of 1991 Turtle 10 to Who's Who Underwater at Honokowai.
- Posted the new address for the Sea Turtle Restoration Project of Earth Island on our How You Can Help page. You can now direct your donations directly to the Sea Turtle Restoration Project.
- Posted "Ancient turtles of the sea", artwork (76K JPEG) and haiku by Ian D, in the weekly Spotlight On Student Art. This is a repeat from February 24, 1996.
- Posted the weekly Toon: Four "Gone" Conclusion (3 panels, 188K).
Only one Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM) watcher kept doggedly watching till the crash, although there were quite a few who started to watch. Still, the Neilson people have been round and have assured us that we are trouncing the Fox NHL Playoff ratings.
April 20, 1996
- In Turtle Happenings, we tell you what we know about a new sea turtle organization, and note the visit of one of our favourite authors.
- Posted "A poacher steals eggs", artwork (69K JPEG) and haiku by Lee O, in the weekly Spotlight On Student Art. This is a repeat from March 2, 1996.
- Added a link to the Almost Amazing Turtle Cam! to the Turtle Transporter. This isn't a sea turtle page, but it is a lovable turtle cam and it was the Hip Herp Site for this past week.
- Posted the weekly Toon: Bonding With Howzit (3 panels, 192K).
Two intrepid Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM) watchers went the distance this week. One claimed his place on the List of Distinguished Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM) Watchers. You don't know where to find the list? Hint: You have to watch the Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM)...
April 13, 1996
- This week, Turtle Happenings features a Tampa Tribune article about fibropapilloma tumors in turtles.
- Posted "Turtle by the sea", artwork (74K JPEG) and haiku by Kevin S, in the weekly Spotlight On Student Art. This is a repeat from February 17, 1996.
- Posted the weekly Toon: Barf's Up! (3 panels, 194K).
This week, one person found The Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM) intriguing enough to watch until the camera gave out. A number of others began to watch, but were called away on what were undoubtedly urgent matters.
April 6, 1996
Excellent week for The Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM) reception, apparently. Three watchers kept at it until camera failure, and two of them even owned up to it. We admire their honesty and lack of shame.
March 30, 1996
- Thanks to the kindness of Ruth Baretto of York University and Matthew Godfrey of the University of Toronto, we have finally obtained an appropriate photograph to use with our description of the leatherback turtle.
- For a change, there's encouraging news in Turtle Happenings. A recovery plan for sea turtles in the U.S. Pacific has been announced.
- Added introductions to Garland and Ted, sea turtle researchers, to the Turtle Trax--Cast of Characters.
- Posted "Hatchling to the sea", artwork (56K JPG) and haiku by Kayla R, in the weekly Spotlight On Student Art. This is a repeat of February 3, 1996.
- Posted the weekly Toon: Piercing In Sight (3 panels, 223K).
Someone out there was linking to The Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM) last week, but although we had quite a few people arriving there, no one managed to make it all the way to the bitter end. We think this is a sad reflection of the ever-shortening attention span of people these days.
March 23, 1996
- Updated the Sickbay Bibliography, a list of articles and Web resources that will be of interest to students and potential researchers. We've added a few more links to journals and authors, but the most important change is that we have now obtained the latest Balazs-Murakawa bibliography (March 7, 1996) and added a page for it. You now have your choice of both the traditional alphabetical organization and our "library fetch" arrangement.
- Added biographies of Goofyfoot, 1992 Turtle 7, and 1993 Turtle 8D to Who's Who Underwater at Honokowai.
- This was a slim week for Turtle Happenings. We report the latest news of the young turtle that was injured near our dive site a few weeks ago. There is also yet another alert concerning the seemingly endless assault on the US Endangered Species Act in the US Congress.
- Posted "Ancient turtles", artwork (76K JPEG) and haiku by Ian W, in the weekly Spotlight On Student Art. This is a repeat of January 27, 1996.
- Posted the weekly Toon: Howzit Nose Trouble (3 panels, 198K).
For the second week in a row, nobody watched the entire The Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM). Undoubtedly this is the dawn of a new age of Web awareness and responsibility, in which people will no longer waste bandwidth on frivolity. We'll watch for a similar fall-off in visits to Sounds of the Turtle, but so far, its popularity has not been affected. This is somewhat of a relief, since we'd hate to think that our opportunities for bandwidth waste were being wasted.
March 16, 1996
A disappointing week for the The Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM)--nobody watched. The frivolity factor was kept up by visitors to Sounds of the Turtle, since not a day goes by without at least one person falling for it.
March 9, 1996
The bogons did a lot of travelling this week--from Hawaii to the basement and back. A viewer from the Islands stuck with the The Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM) until meltdown, but declined to be immortalized.
March 2, 1996
Only one persistent visitor to the The Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM) this week, a modest person who retained anonimity.
February 24, 1996
We had three determined visitors watch The Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM) until picture break-up. One was sufficiently numbed by the experience that he identified himself, thereby becoming a member of the Distinguished BogusCam(TM) Watchers.
February 17, 1996
- Posted a summary of the latest Marine Turtle Newsletter (No. 72, January 1996).
- Posted "Turtle by the sea", artwork (74K JPEG) and haiku by Kevin S, in the weekly Spotlight On Student Art.
- Posted a progress report on the Juno Beach Pier Proposal in Turtle Happenings.
- Posted the weekly Toon: Howzit Pokes A Grand Clam (3 panels, 200K).
Now for the Frivolity Report: an astounding total of 4 (yes, four) people stuck with The Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM) last week. Typically, they were all too modest to provide us with names.
Howzit is extremely pleased at the attention given Sounds of the Turtle, a bandwidth waster if there ever was one. A total of 27 requests for those, ummm, noises.
February 10, 1996
- Kirk Taylor chose Turtle Trax as the Hip Herp Site of the Week for the week of February 4-10. Howzit was cautious about the whole thing (74K JPEG).
- Added Raphael, 1992 Turtle 26a, to Who's Who Underwater at Honokowai.
- Started a new feature called Turtle Happenings. We often receive interesting information that might interest other sea turtle lovers. This page will allow us to share with you. Right now, your support is needed to help prevent development that threatens a major nesting beach in Florida. Use the email forms on the Turtle Happenings page to register your protest. An important vote is scheduled for February 13, so we urge you to act right now. A few moments of your time could make all the difference.
- Replaced the 1993 video image of Clothahump in the Dedication with an image from photo-CD. The 1989 video image will be upgraded to a photo-CD image Real Soon Now.
- Added three new colouring pages to Kidz Korner.
- Posted "Mother Sea Turtle", artwork (49K JPEG) and haiku by Uday K, in the weekly Spotlight On Student Art.
- Reorganised the Front Page.
- Posted the weekly Toon: Going Overboard (3 panels, 207K).
Two brave souls ventured all the way through The Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM) last week without claiming the recognition. One resorted to anonimity in order to keep the librarians at the university library unaware of exactly how the public terminals are being used. It is a pity that such diligence should go unacknowledged.
February 3, 1996
The The Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM) has been repaired, and someone from the United Arab Emirates persevered to the bitter end. This person modestly decided to remain anonymous, however. Puzzling, is it not?
January 27, 1996
- Added student artwork and poetry to the Sea Turtle essay by the Grade 6D class of Sir John A. Macdonald Middle School.
- Added a Spotlight On Student Art page to the Kidz Korner so that you can see what you'll miss if you don't follow the links in the Sea Turtle essay.
- Added instructions to Kidz Korner for building a Turtle Sundae, a dessert for the whole family.
- Posted the weekly Toon: Chipwrecked! (3 panels, 213K).
The The Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM) seems to be missing a few parts at the moment. That's okay, no one watches it much these days.
January 20, 1996
- Turtle Trax has been rated as one of the top 5% of all sites on the Internet by Point Communications! We thank them for their kind review. Howzit would thank them too, but he's busy (105K JPEG).
- Since we are wearing the Top 5% badge, we thought we should also acknowledge our McKinley rating. Turtle Trax was awarded four stars by The McKinley Group some time ago, but we just got the badges today. Howzit appointed himself to decide which badge to use (84K JPEG).
- Added The Turtle Trax Colouring Pages to Kidz Korner. These are GIF line drawings suitable for colouring either by printing them out for traditional colouring, or by loading them into a paint program.
- Added Kidz Korner Kartoonz, a collection of the early Trax Toons suitable for kids.
- Revised the Toon Archives so that the archives now start at the beginning of the story. One cartoon was dropped as unsuitable for kids, and we changed the punch line of Stuck On Or Out? (3 panels, 184K GIF). The old punch line wasn't original anyway.
- Posted the weekly Toon: Goodbye, Mr. Chip! (3 panels, 209K).
Not a single soul endured the whole The Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM) last week. We were stunned.
Well, maybe not. Our server has been unstable this past week. We apologize to anyone who has been suffering through it. We think that several bogons got stuck somewhere in the demodulator, but go figure, our provider wants to explore some other ideas first.
January 13, 1996
- Added Kidz Korner, a place for sea turtle lovers who are young and young at heart. (Excuse the spelling, we left the name up to Howzit.)
- Removed Year of the Sea Turtle, since it is no longer 1995.
- Posted the weekly Toon: Meanwhile, Back At The Circuits (3 panels, 214K).
Yet another hardy soul trekked all the way through the Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM), but was too modest to leave a name. In other frivolous uses of bandwidth, 13 people couldn't resist checking whether that really was the sound of a turtle being dropped into the ocean.
January 6, 1996
- Turtle Trax has become an official member of
io.Community, a wonderful community service program and one of the things that makes our ISP, Internex Online (io.org), a place we want to be. We'd like to express our deepest gratitude to madmagic@io.org (Patrick Burton), who administers this program, and to Internex Online for providing an example for the rest of the net to follow. The turtles were (mostly) enthusiastic (79K JPEG).
- Updated Who's Who Underwater At Honokowai. We've added 1995 information for the biographies already there, and added one new turtle: 1993 Turtle 11. This turtle is interesting for several reasons, described in her entry.
- Posted the weekly Toon: Shake And Break (3 panels 194K).
Our first overseas visitor to complete the Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM) has been added to the honour roll.
December 31, 1995
- Added a Quick Contents feature to Fibropapilloma Tumors At Honokowai, S 768 -- Dire Threat to All Marine Life, Threats to Marine Turtles, and About Turtle Trax. It should be obvious how to use it and it should make it easier to get around. If not, let us know.
- Added another frivolous diversion to Sounds of the Turtle. This is the noise made by a turtle returning to the ocean. Really it is.
- Revised the Revisions. The revisions page was getting too long, so we decided to move the history to another page (this one).
- Cleaned up various pages so that Turtle Trax looks presentable to those of you with text browsers or cruise with images turned off. We try to keep the pages accessible to all browsers, so if anything breaks your browser or looks (unintentionally) silly to it, please use the comments link we added to most of the pages last week.
- Posted the weekly Toon: A Resolutionary Concept (3 panels 216K).
One person followed the Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM) to the bitter end last week, but did not choose to join the honour roll. Folks, if you don't celebrate your frivolities, what is left in life? Boring stuff, that's what.
December 24, 1995
- Revised Howzit's Letter to Santa to change the reference to the EPA. While the EPA in Florida has been enormously helpful, in yet another flip-flop the EPA in Region 9 (includes Hawaii) has gone back to permitting Maui County to proceed with plans for new injection wells.Yes folks, they really do drill holes into a volcanic island, pump millions of gallons of effluent into it every day, then claim there is no demonstrated harm in the nearby ocean. For more on injection wells and how they might be affecting turtles, see Sickbay.
- Posted the the weekly Toon: Howzit's Holiday Garland (3 panels, 201K).
- Added an email link at the bottom of each page. This makes it easy for you to tell us what you think or when things are broken.
- There are also some new links scattered here and there. A turtle project in Costa Rica needs help. We checked the status of S. 768 and H.R. 2275 (no change), but this check is too irregular, so we added some links that will help you keep track of this legislation yourself.
Best of the season to Turtle Trax visitors.
December 17, 1995
- Added the essay Fibropapilloma Tumors at Honokowai to the Sickbay. This essay is an attempt to answer the question we are asked most frequently, namely, "What do you think is happening to the turtles of Honokowai?"
- While cleaning up Howzit's hard disk, we came across Howzit's letter to Santa Claus. Howzit insisted that we share it with you, so we added it to the front page.
- Posted the the weekly Toon: A Choral Band of Shrimp (3 panels, 206K).
Howzit must have a fan out there somewhere who has linked to Howzit's special JPEG (89K), because in the last three weeks it has become our most requested JPEG. You can see all of the Toon character's special JPEGs by visiting Turtle Trax Toon Cast of Characters.
December 10, 1995
We noticed that someone from Japan showed up and collected the Gamera JPEG (79K). We're glad the Big Guy has made his way home. On other frivolous fronts, chalk up one more hero who has struggled through the daunting but still Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM).
December 3, 1995
No Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM) heroes this week, although we admire the poor soul who hung on for 43 transmissions.
November 29, 1995
November 26, 1995
- Added an intriguing proposal from Lee Ann Cruz, a lady living in the Phillipines, to How You Can Help.
- Finally got around to running all the HTML through a syntax checker. We have over 175 pages and we found errors in about 15% of them. Virtually all of them were minor things that did not show up in Netscape 1.2N and many other browsers, but Lynx and probably the Netscape 2.0 betas (which are fussier) were finding broken pages. It's all fixed now.
- Major revision of the Toon Archives. Now the pages flow nicely from one to the next instead of requiring you to go back through the contents page. Part of this revision involved renaming all the graphics files, so they now are named in publication sequence. If you use them in a screen saver (as we do) the new names let the Toons come up in chronological order. (If you don't have them in your screen saver, why not?)
- Posted the weekly Toon: An Unexpected Collar (3 panels, 211K GIF).
Again only one brave soul ventured all the way through the Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM). We hope this isn't the same person every week.
November 19, 1995
We omitted the Frivolous Bandwidth Report last week, sorry. Nobody stuck with the BogusCam anyway. This week, exactly one person struggled through the Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM), but 17 people wanted to hear the sounds of the turtles.
November 12, 1995
- Tuned up the images for Glimpse of a Turtle House and one or two other places. Many of these images were chosen for illustration and not aesthetic value, but that is no reason not to tune them up a little. A lot of them looked flat on our monitors, but they don't anymore.
- Checked that all the links at The Turtle Transporter still work, and added a new pointer to Islander, the magazine of Mahalo Air. This month's issue contains a reference to Turtle Trax.
- Posted the weekly Toon: Turtle Thoughts (3 panels, 192K GIF).
November 5, 1995
- Posted a summary of the latest Marine Turtle Newsletter (No. 71, October, 1995).
- Upgraded the images for Who's Who Underwater at Honokowai, excepting Tutu's image, a video frame. There's not much you can do to improve one of those. Hang on, though, we got excellent portraits of Tutu this summer. Real Soon Now.
- Posted the weekly Toon: Paper, Scissors, Rock, Leg (3 panels, 189K GIF).
Let's see what nonsense people have been up to at Turtle Trax. 23 of you visited the Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM), but only 9 people actually tried it out, and one of you heroes stuck it out till the bitter end. 47 people checked out sounds of the turtles, and 37 of them actually listened!
October 29, 1995
Only one persistent soul this week for the Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM). Maybe the net is becoming a less silly place, but we doubt it. A friend of ours with extensive net experience claims that people are invariably attracted to net.nonsense. That probably explains why 26 people were curious to hear sounds of the turtles.
October 22, 1995
- Updated the status of HR-2275, the Young-Pombo attempt to destroy the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
- Posted the weekly Toon: Coming Unglued (3 panels, 189K GIF).
Yeah, we know, you want the Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM) report. Two people persevered until camera failure. Three people engaged in unnatural bogon manipulations and as a result, received BogusCam(TM) images that had been timewarped. We do not recommend this procedure, it hurts your head.
October 15, 1995
- Posted the weekly Toon: Still Not Going (3 panels, 186K GIF).
Someone out there must be linking to the Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM). We had over 400 hits on it last week, and a staggering 8 people hung on until the camera failed. We're not sure what this is telling us.
October 8, 1995
- Updated the status of HR-2275, the Young-Pombo attempt to destroy the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
- Posted the weekly Toon: Stuck On Or Out? (3 panels, 195K GIF).
- Removed the link to the Turtle Trax masthead JPEG (59K). We noticed quite a few loads for this image. We suspect that new arrivals expect the link to do something else rather than fetch the masthead JPEG.
This week, three more people heroically stayed with the Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM) till the bitter end. We are, frankly, flabbergasted.
October 1, 1995
- Posted the weekly Toon: They All Look Alike (3 panels, 210K GIF).
Again this week, someone stuck with the Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM) until the inevitable camera failure. This is either admirable perserverance or insanity, we're not sure which.
September 24, 1995
September 19, 1995
- Since the Toons are better read in chronological order, re-arranged the Toon Archive so that the oldest Toon is at the head of the page.
We'd like to honour the brave soul who persisted with the Awesomely Way Cool BogusCam(TM) until the camera had one of its regular failures. We promise to deal with that pesky octopus Real Soon Now.
September 17, 1995
- Posted the status of US Senate Bill S-768, including news of the introduction of HR 2275, a companion to the Senate initiative.
- Posted the weekly Toon (since removed).
September 10, 1995
- Posted the weekly Toon: Human Exhalations (3 panels, 194K GIF).
September 3, 1995
September 2, 1995
- Moved the Future Archive to the Past Archive. Thanks for your patience, and to those who peeked ahead--shame on you.
- Posted the weekly Toon (3 panels, 199K GIF).
Once we recover from the jet-lag, we plan a number of additions and changes for Turtle Trax. We had an excellent two months of diving conditions, and made over 24 hours of videotape and took more than 800 photos. We'll be sharing the best of this and lots more with you over the weeks (arrrgh, months!) ahead.
June 30, 1995
- Posted a whole boatload of Toons from the Future Archive. We know we can trust you not to look at Toons whose archive date has not yet passed.
- Fixed a lot of redundant ALT text. There's more to fix, but it will have to wait.
June 25, 1995
- Posted the weekly Toon (3 panels, 177K GIF).
June 23, 1995
- Put WebComics pointer back on the weekly Toon. David deVitry has just finished moving to a new site and has added Turtle Trax to his Weekly Page One. Mahalo, David.
June 20, 1995
- Removed pointer to WebComics from the weekly Toon, since David deVitry has not added Turtle Trax to his weekly pages yet, causing some confusion. It will be replaced when David adds Turtle Trax.
June 18, 1995
- Added the Caribbean Conservation Corporation page, an opportunity to volunteer to work with sea turtles in Costa Rica, or if you can't do that, to "adopt-a-turtle".
- Posted the weekly Toon (3 panels, 177K GIF).
June 13, 1995
- Added a return pointer to the WebComics weekly page from the weekly Toon. Thanks to David deVitry, who now points to the Turtle Trax Toon from his WebComics pages.
June 11, 1995
- Posted the weekly Toon (since deleted).
June 9, 1995
June 4, 1995
- Added an open letter to all U.S. senators opposing Senate Bill S-768.
- Added the turtles' reaction to the selection of Turtle Trax as "Cool Site of the Day" for May 28, 1995.
- Added an acknowledgment of the contribution to the development of Turtle Trax made by Tony Burns.
- Added a link to the Turtle Transporter pointing to the wonderful collection of pages that make up the Smithsonian's Ocean Planet WWW Exhibit.
- Posted the weekly Toon (3 panels, 203K GIF).
May 29, 1995
- Fixed broken links at Revisions, The BogusCam(TM), and the Turtle Trax Toon.
May 27, 1995
May 22, 1995
- Added information about the CTURTLE mailing list to The Library.
- Added new instructions for accessing the Sea Turtle Online Bibliography to the Turtle Transporter.
- Added the address for the Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research to the list of organizations acccepting donations in How You Can Help.
- Added a postscript to the Archie Carr tribute.
May 21, 1995
Version 1.0 of Turtle Trax is online!
What's Changed Lately
How You Can Help
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Last modified 99/06/19
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