Hi Roger,

I almost never visit the Earthboppin bulletin board. And this is the first that I have heard about any of your computer programs being criticized there. Can you provide some specifics?

One of your computer programs generates data regarding the positions of the sun and the moon in the sky at specific times. How could anyone have an objection to your creating a computer program like that?

Regarding bulletin board programs,

You have probably seen my notes posted here regarding the creation of a new bulletin board at one of my Web sites. It would be mainly for science researchers to use to report on their efforts.

One of the reasons that such a bulletin board is needed not only for the science of earthquake forecasting but for many other areas of science as well is because science researchers are often extremely sensitive to criticism. If they think that they might get criticized for taking a public stand on something they simply won’t state what they believe. In my opinion, that is one of the main reasons that very few professional researchers are willing to post notes to the EarthWaves board. There have been too many hostile notes posted here in the past. However, this is Canie's bulletin board. And I fully support her right to determine what should and should not be allowed here.

If and when the bulletin board at my Web site becomes fully operational it will enable researchers to report on their efforts without having to deal with that type of destructive or research limiting criticism. People will need to have my permission to post notes on the board in the first place. And I am planning to monitor those posts myself. Anyone who engages in that type of critical negative behavior on the board will be temporarily or permanently banned from posting notes there.

So, if someone wanted to propose that earthquakes occur when giant earthworms are having underground fights near earthquake fault zones then he or she would probably be allowed to say that knowing that he or she would likely be regarded as being a rather strange person by scientists around the world. However, if someone else then posted a note on the board attacking that person, the person doing the attacking would no longer be posting notes there. Why would such an attack be necessary in the first place? No scientist would ever take the original poster seriously.

Right now I am having conversations with computer programming personnel regarding how to develop a Perl language bulletin board that will allow people to submit picture files along with their posts. If science researchers want to report on their efforts it is essential that they have the ability to add tables and charts to their posts. But, there won’t be any pictures of a person’s favorite pet animal unless it has the ability to tell that an earthquake is approaching. And some animals have been reported to actually have such an ability.

Some highly modified version of the WWWboard CGI computer program that I understand Canie used to create this EarthWaves board looks like the most attractive program at the moment. It is written in Perl. And that means that I myself can work with the program code. And perhaps even more important, the person who wrote it has stated in the documentation that it is okay for people to modify his program’s code.