gugalura

Last month, I found and bought online a Mannheim Steamroller (MS) CD “American Spirit”, featuring the legendary C.W. McCall. It can be ordered directly from MS by clicking here.

As Mary and I were heading to and from Florida, we listened to this CD and it really struck a chord in my “roadgeekness” with the songs “Wolf Creek Pass”, and of course “Convoy”.

Now you may wonder, “What does C.W. have to do with Mannheim Steamroller (and vice versa)? Here’s the story…

In 1972, Chip Davis (”Mannheim” creator) and Bill Fries (a.k.a. “C.W. McCall”) were both working for an Omaha advertising firm. Together, they created the ficticious trucker C.W. McCall, and created some local commercials around this character.

In 1975, Davis and Fries released the first C.W. McCall album “Wolf Creek Pass”, and one year later (1976), they released the song “Convoy”, a ficticious story of truckers “Pig Pen” and “The Rubber Duck” (C.W.’s CB “handle”) crossing the nation in a huge convoy and defying the “bears” (police) while talking on to each other on their CB radios. “Convoy” was the catalyst for the 1970’s “CB craze”, and soon enough, Americans were buying CB’s (originally with 23 channels, later expanded to 40) like hotcakes.

I was 12 when “Convoy” came out, and my dad bought us a 23-channel Cobra CB at the Naval Air Station Atlanta’s PX while he was in the Naval Reserves as an aviation electronics tech (2nd class petty officer). Once he got it hooked up in our car, I couldn’t wait to get on. I even had my own “handle” (”The Rattler”, a name that I thought was cool at the time). We had a great time going between Atlanta and Florida giving/receiving “smokey reports” (reports of police cars spotted along the road) and “ratchet-jawing” (talking) to other CBers. Little did I realize at that time how “Convoy” would influence me as a roadgeek.

Radiowise, I gravitated away from CBs by 1980, but in 1987, I studied for and earned my Amateur (Ham) Radio license (callsign KC4AZO), which I have proudly held since. Ham radio and roadgeeking have since become 2 intertwined passions of mine.

BTW, my dad bought the CB rig when the FCC still required licenses for each rig. All you had to do, though, was fill out the application, mail it to the FCC (as opposed to taking a test), and they mailed you back a CB callsign. Our CB callsign was KAMX 5963. Soon afterward, the FCC dropped CB licensing requirements, and sadly, CB became an anarchistic “free-for-all”.

Roadwise, I will be forever grateful to Mr. Davis and Mr. Fries for “C.W. McCall”, for their songs “Convoy” and “Wolf Creek Pass”. Everytime I hear them, especially “Convoy”, I always pine for traveling up and down the highways that have changed America and, in their own way, contributed to the prosperity of this great nation and allowed us, as roadgeeks, to explore this nation in ways the common folks could never do as they do now.

God Bless America, God Bless America’s Roads, and God Bless the Great American C.W. McCall!!!

LET THEM ROADGEEKS ROLL, 10-4!!!

As I have teased throughout my guest-blogging time over here at Right Reason, Nietzsche's antagonism towards religion notwithstanding, there is a way in which his philosophy can be reconciled with religion. Of course, since many–if not most–conservatives are the religious sort, this issue is of at least passing interest. It also tends to engender disbelief, as in “What?!?! Nietzschean thought can be reconciled with religion?!?! What are you smoking?!?!” These thoughts–and many others, some of them unprintable on this fine, family-friendly blog–oftentimes come to mind when one is told that Nietzschean thought can suggest an endorsement of religion. So click on the extended entry and let's see if we can't subvert the dominant Nietzschean paradigm when it comes to matters religious.

I know, I know, it’s cool to abuse Web 2.0 right now. There’s been a ton of Web 2.0 backlash: a lot of the terminology (including “Web 2.0″ itself) is cringe-inducing and companies with horrendous ideas are getting tons of venture capital thrown at them for merely including the world “social” in their business plans.

This criticism is perfectly justified and the bubble is going to explode. Back in the day people thought they would make billions with websites where you could buy cat food online. Now people think they can make billions with websites that have “social networks” for cats. No, seriously. More than one.

But because of all the trash out there, it would be easy to miss the fact that there are valid ideas in the Web 2.0 world. In the original bubble and crash, were there a ton of garbage websites out there? Sure. But did we also have some awesome sites like Amazon and Ebay that we still use today? Sure. Likewise, sites like Digg or YouTube will be around for years to come and will be enjoyed by many.

So I’m going to try to find some Web 2.0 ideas that can be applied the MMO world. I’m sure there’s going to be or already has been a lot of pontificating on this very subject probably with words like “folksonomy” and “clouds” being bandied about. So I’m going to try to be as concrete with my ideas are possible. To be honest, none of these concepts would be a selling point for me in deciding between games but I’m just going to throw them out there.

Feed Me

I want to be able to log on to Netvibes and have a tab fully dedicated to my MMO of choice with tons of delicious feeds. I’m going to use Netvibes and EQII as an example of what I would like to see, but you can substitute any feed-reader and your MMO of choice.

* Official News (obvious)

* Dev Tracker (preferably with different categories for Technical, Design, etc.)

* Community News Aggregator (one feed which aggregates all the community blogs and fan-sites)

Okay, those are fairly straightforward. But let’s get more MMO specific…

* Server status

* List of friends/guildmates with online/oflline status and current zone information

* News specific to my Guild, both player generated (i.e. guild news postings) and automatic (guild status points)

* Ranking of Guilds on my server

* Ranking of Wizards on my server

* Ranking of Gnomes on my server

Heck, let’s get even more specific on the rankings. Let me choose to have an automatically updating ranking of most damage done with a single spell by Gnome Wizards on Antonia Bayle in the level range of 10-20 in the Commonlands. You have the data - use it.

I’d also like to stick a widget in there which lets me search an item or player database.

The idea here is for me to be able to open one web-page and have absolutely all the news, resources and information I need, updated in real time.

Let Your Users Do the Work

Your users are an amazing resource. May as well tap into them as they are the best marketing department you can find.

The obvious one is supporting the people who contribute to your community with blogs, podcasts and fan-sites. For instance, EQII has the Town Crier which helps users find blogs and fansites they might not know about.

You could also make it easy for your players to capture screenshots or gameplay video and automatically upload them to a Flickr group or YouTube. Alternatively, a game could have it’s own screenshot or video sharing page, with rankings for the most popular or most commented on media. Similar pages could be set up which allow players to post stories or artwork and let others comment and vote on them.

Every game should have a Wiki with user contribution. We all know official documentation is hopelessly lacking and dated. New users often have to spend extensive time searching for bits and pieces of information on the forums and it’s so important to get new users over that initial learning curve. By having a Wiki, you have an up to date, living resource that can benefit both new and current players.

The final extension of this concept would be to allow for some form of user-created content in the game, itself. But that’s a topic I’ve discussed before already and is too in-depth to get into here.

Get Social

I firmly believe that it’s the social connections we make which keep us playing an MMO. The friends we make and the community we become a part of may just be the most important factor in our enjoyment of any game. So if a company can in any way facilitate those social interactions, they should definitely do it.

I don’t use Facebook or MySpace so I’m a little out of my depth here, but what I am envisioning is a Facebook-esque page for each player. This page could have all of their character information updated automatically along with whatever personal data the player chooses to enter. There should also be room for a player’s journal or blog, favorite screenshots and in-game videos and some fun widgets (some of which could be created by the company and some by users).

And of course, there’s the social aspect. A player should be connected to his friends from the game, guild, and people known in real life. Each of these “classes” of people could have different permission settings when it comes to viewing that user’s page.

The great thing is that MMO’s already have so many ready-made social groups. In addition to player-made groups like guilds or a friends list, each player is part of server, a class, a race, a level range. These groups are the perfect foundation for creating a social network.

Players should be able to send and receive messages or media between individual players and to send out group messages to all of their friends or guild. Friends should also be able to comment on the aforementioned screenshots or journal postings on the page.

And Back Again

Can we take some of these social and community aspects and bring them back into the game? Sure. Players could be awarded titles or house items for having, say, one of the top ten most popular screenshots in a given week. Badges could be given for having a great page in the social network or for other ways of participating in the community. This would tie everything back together and encourage people to utilize the community features. And likewise, the community features would encourage people to keep playing the game.

MMO companies have always been been leaders in building online communities. I know that SOE has already tried to accomplish many of these goals with EQ2Players. I’m just suggesting they keep at it and take it to the next level.

Chennai, Aug 6 (IANS) In a major victory for Indian pharma firms, a Madras High Court bench Monday dismissed a controversial claim by Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis that it should be given the right to patent life-saving drugs and prevent their generic manufacture in India.

Justice R. Balasubramanian and Justice Prabha Sridevan summarily rejected Novartis’ challenge against the constitutional validity of Section 3 (d) of the Indian Patents Act. The division bench also declined the multinational company’s plea to declare the statue as non-compliant with the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), the global intellectual property treaty.

The bench noted that TRIPS itself provided for a Dispute Settlement Board to adjudicate all issues relating to the treaty.

“As the participating nations themselves had created a dispute settlement mechanism, we see no reason at all why we must disregard it,” the court said.

Nationally, the judgement is a major victory for campaigners who say MNCs try to patent life-saving drugs by merely producing new forms of existing compounds, or by twisting the intellectual property law by a process dubbed “ever-greening” - indefinitely perpetuating patent protection by passing off variants and derivates as fresh inventions.

Globally, the judgement is set to be welcomed a millions of patients, particularly in the poorest countries of the world, for whom Indian generic drugs often mean the difference between life and death.

Novartis had moved the court when the Assistant Controller of Patents, Chennai, rejected its application for a patent for the beta-crystalline version of its drug, imatinib mesylate, which is sold under the brand name Glivec and is used in the treatment of blood cancer.

In January 2006, the assistant controller had invoked Section 3(d) of the Indian Patents Act to deny the company’s claims of discovery of a new form of a known substance because it had not resulted in “enhancement of its known efficacy”.

Novartis challenged the controller’s decision - its appeal is pending before the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB), Chennai - and questioned the validity of the relevant section, which was introduced in the Patents Act, 1970, through an amendment in 2005.

Novartis counsels argued that the section was vague, arbitrary and ambiguous and gave unbridled power to the authority to use or misuse it.

The bench upheld the contention of the central government, the Cancer Patients’ Aid Association of India, Mumbai, and several other rival pharmaceutical companies which stressed that the section was neither vague nor arbitrary. The global pharmaceutical giant could not pretend to be unaware of what it meant by “enhancement of known efficacy”.

“We reiterate that the amended section, along with its explanation, is capable of being understood and worked out in a normal manner not only by the patent applicant, but also by the patent controller. In other words, the patent controller would be guided by various relevant details, which every patent applicant is expected to produce before him, showing that the new discovery has resulted in enhancement of known efficacy and that the derivatives differ significantly in properties with regard to efficacy,” the court pointed out.

The company’s argument that the provision violated Article 14 of the constitution (right to equality before law) and its claim that it had been discriminated against were also turned down.

The right of Indian citizens to have easy access to life-saving drugs could not be denied, the bench added.

Had a great day at Hennepin County Public Library (HCPL) on the outskirts of Minneapolis, Minnesota. HCPL has a great team managing their web services. They have 4 librarians working on web development (all former adult, teens or childrens librarians), 2 programmers who are also librarians, an intranet staffer, a support staffer and an Office products trainer. All ILS and PC management are handled by their network services department, which is large to enable to manage all their PCs at their 26 branches.

Sharon McGlinn, manages their new Book Space, the adult reading area. It comprises booklists, forthcoming books (hugely popular), new materials, book club information, find a good book advisories. Sharon worked with 5 adult services librarians to develop the goals for Book Space, then worked with their graphic designer to produce the look and then with Glenn Peterson, one of their developers to get the required functionality.

Their webpages are mostly dynamic, database driven. They have one blog for the Book Space page, but their categorisation determines which genre page the feed will go to. Glenn has developed staff templates to simplify the adding the adding of blog content. Sharon keeps the site current by sending reminders out to staff, including suggestions for contributions - they need to keep the content dynamic. The challenge is to find people who will be passionate about the website and contribute to it.

Glenn Peterson developed a booklists admin function with their ILS, to simplify the generation of booklists. It uses the bibliographic numbers from the catalogue, cover images from Syndetics and a preview facility to see how it looks before going live. Book Space also includes topselling lists, book club info and user created booklists - only need a username and password to add one. Each staff generated booklist includes more the of the same type authors, related lists, awards lists, Syndetics content and live links to the catalogue. User generated lists pulls content from the catalogue, they can add comments and make it public or keep it private. Sharon then chooses appropriate user generated booklists to be rotated through the Book Space homepage as a highlighted list.

Where forms aren’t in use, they use Dreamweaver for webpage editing. Their website gets over 140,000 requests per week, with 12-15,000 individual visitors each month. They have submission guidelines for user created booklists, which now number more than 200 (in less than 2 months). They are now looking at their options as to how to manage these booklists, as it has turned out to be wildly popular.

Book Space also contains their audio book information, both linking to their audio CD collection and their downloadable audio - which they get through NetLibrary and Overdrive, so only for MP3 formats, not iPods. Their research books and authors sections links to relevant databases and websites. Book Clubs list needs to be further developed, Sharon is looking to get the book clubs themselves to contribute content. The book clubs can reserve the kits online, by title, by date of availability and more (another script from Glenn).

Christine Clifford took me through Reference services. They use Tutor.com’s “Ask a Librarian

#701: A POEM, IF YOU WILL

The Clay Pot That Emptied Itself

There are few thoughts
in this empty vessel,
steeped in a chemical bath
at the cost of forty dollars a month.

I once worried over timecards
and transportation and shopping and
and where my next cigarette was
inside a dry skull with a dull thud.

Now there are the small, white pills
taken in the morning
before I’ve given any thought
to this or that or why I’m here;

little, white, divided pills
that smell like paint thinner
stop all the worry and consideration
that once led down endlessly forking roads.

The thoughts that were are gone:
the electric charge of hypotheses,
the rise and fall of battles won
and lost and begun and imagined.

I am left to forage for animal fulfillment
among food and drink and people
to satiate every present, terminal desire.
I am left hard-pressed at day’s end

to recall a distinct impression;
There are only rapid snapshots,
soundless, thoughtless scraps of one thing or another
to which I have lost all attachment.

(this poem was originally posted by Schmutzie at Schmoetry)

John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee character reflects on the arrogance of modernity in the 1973 novel, The Turquoise Lament.

“The idiot idea that we are the biggest, the greatest, the most powerful people who ever walked the earth. Know something? Think this over. I could take you to the high country of Peru, to a quarry area near Sacsahuaman, and show you where a particular block of stone was quarried and dressed, and I could show you that block of stone half a mile away. It was transported there during the time of the Incas. If, on the basis of national emergency, this nation were to be required to devote all its technological skills, all its wealth, and all its people to moving that block back to the quarry, we would try and we would fail, my friend. It weighs twenty thousand tons! Forty million pounds! The only time we ever move that much weight is when we let a vessel as big as the Monterey or the Mariposa slide down the ways at the shipyard, into the harbor! We have no cranes, no engines, no levers to budge that much mass. Do you think the Incas knew something mankind has since forgotten? Bet on it. Knowledge is the most priceless and most perishable substance on earth.’”

“And I have thought it over, many times, and it always makes the back of my neck feel chilly. I’ve vowed that someday I will go look at that block of solid stone in the hope that if I see it once, I will stop thinking about how to move it back to the quarry whenever I wake up in the middle of the night” (Page 77)

It’s a Dr. Seuss world out there for sunflower lovers.

There are plenty of happy yellow faces, but look beyond the classic giants for shapes and colors that may surprise you.

Small ones. Tall ones. Sunflowers of pinkish rose and sunflowers of mahogany and gold. Those of burgundy so dark it dissolves almost to black. Flowers with green centers and flowers with twisted petals.

Sunflowers, those icons of summer cheer, are coming into their own in Alaska.

Even the familiar yellow Mammoths are amazing when you take the time to look up-close at the heads and leaves, says Anchorage metal artist Cindy Shake.

Seven or so years ago, when she was living on Government Hill, she bought sunflower starts at Alaska Mill and Feed. They took off, growing, growing and growing until they were taller than the house.

“It was wonderful. They looked like giants. I am quite tall myself. I don’t know if there was a Freudian thing going on there or not,” said Shake, who is 6 feet tall.

She and her son, Gus, now 10, charted growth so rapid the stalks seemed to stretch up before their eyes.

Gardeners, make note for next year: With good sun, a little fertilizer and enough water, sunflowers will grow for anyone. Forgiving, Shake calls them.

All around Southcentral, sunflowers — Helianthus annuus — are beginning to bloom. Their heads may seem to be uniform yellow circles but in reality are more like ovals, with personality. They are often planted in stands, which helps them withstand wind and makes a catchy display.

All lined up, they’re like “a row of children holding hands,” Shake said. One of her favorite views of sunflowers is from the back, where she finds detailed texture in the sunflower heads.

Once, she used the giant leaves as place mats for an outdoor dinner party. At season’s end, she chopped off the spent heads, hung them upside down where her hanging baskets had been and watched the birds flock for a fall feast.

“I wasn’t quite doing the Martha Stewart thing, but I probably came close in an Alaskan way,” Shake said.

She photographed the sunflowers too and has designed metal sculptures based on them in the years since.

She welded metal sunflowers onto the back of a chair from the West High School auditorium and painted them in subtle tones. The chair was sold in an auction to raise money for the auditorium restoration. She has made sunflowers out of copper and out of steel.

Richard DeRoux, a disc jockey for years in Juneau who now lives across from Westchester Lagoon, is growing Mammoth Gray Stripes in pots on his deck. They get their name from the seed coloring.

The tall spikes create boundaries that give the feel of an outdoor room — or a jungle.

Wind is the enemy of Mammoth sunflowers in pots. They get so tall and top-heavy that during dry spells he must water daily, if not more, to keep them weighed down.

“I’ve had them blow over and just hope they don’t clobber anything else too badly when they do,” he said.

He makes his pots more interesting by surrounding the sunflowers with poppies, bachelor buttons and other wildflowers.

DeRoux sees so much personality in sunflowers, he names them. “Betsy is outdoing Arnold by quite a deal here.”

Retiree and full-time home gardener G. Gordon Pyle planted maybe 100 sunflowers this year in his yard on Willow Street in West Anchorage: Mammoths and Velvet Queens, which also grow tall, in dark mahogany-red.

Pyle hoped to make “a sunflower statement” and line his whole yard. He has garden beds everywhere rich with topsoil and compost and bursting with poppies, ligularia, all kinds of flowers and foliage. Some sections may be too shaded with birch and spruce for sunflowers, though. He’s rethinking things for next year.

Unusual sunflowers intrigue Palmer organic farmer Sarah Bean. Many varieties are native to North America.

“I like them to be stunning, with really attractive color contrasts. They have to be beautiful,” she said.

Bean also requires the flowers to be sturdy enough to be hauled in her truck. She planted about 500 sunflowers of around a dozen types along her vegetable rows. The blooms are just beginning to open. She cuts the stalks and sells the flowers on Saturdays at the Anchorage Farmers Market at 15th Avenue and Cordova Street.

Among her favorites: the burgundy-shaded Moulin Rouge, mahogany and yellow Jolly Joker, with its semi-double blooms, and Strawberry Blonde, with subtle rose and lemon shades. Then there’s Sunbeam, with a center that is close to chartreuse green.

The cut flowers last about a week, almost as long as sunflowers in the field.

“I can see why some people get tired of the motif,” Bean said. “But a bouquet with a sunflower in it, you can’t help but like. A happy bouquet.”

That philosophy is prompting P & M Garden Services on Eagle River Road to sell individual pots of dwarf sunflowers known as Big Smile at the nursery, outdoor markets and Wal-Mart.

P & M is hoping to extend the garden buying season in a state where it usually shuts down in July. The Big Smiles were the favorite of the store’s former owner, Paul Dinkins, a horticulture innovator who died in April.

“This is the first year we’ve grown them this late, trying to get people to take them into the fall,” said P & M manager Debbie Bacho. It’s “instant color.”

Sunflowers are just friendly.

“Even though they are so tall, they are very welcoming. They are not daunting,” Shake said.

Find Lisa Demer online at adn.com/contact/ldemer or call 257-4390.

[From Palm PR] Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq:PALM) and Astraware Limited today announced the first two games for Palm's new Foleo(TM) mobile companion — Astraware Sudoku and Astraware Solitaire. Additional titles from Astraware will follow.

The Palm(R) Foleo mobile companion is for people who understand that sometimes less is more. With the press of one button, the mobile companion's large screen displays wireless e-mail from a paired smartphone. A smartphone is great for finding quick bits of information or sending a brief response to an e-mail. But there are times when a full-size keyboard and a big screen is preferred to view attachments, type longer e-mails, or to get a bigger-screen look at web pages and photos. Plus, Internet access is available anywhere there is cell phone coverage, or when the Foleo is within range of a Wi-Fi hotspot.(1) With Foleo's instant on/off capability, light and small size, and 5-hour battery life, Palm expects the mobile companion to establish a new category of personal-computing products.

Astraware Sudoku is a logical puzzle game suitable for players of all abilities. Features include six levels of difficulty, pencilmarks in a choice of styles, optional completion and tracking of pencilmarks plus an advanced hint system. In addition, it comes with a selection of built-in puzzles and, after registration, allows the addition of pre-built puzzle packs available free from http://www.sudokuoftheday.com.

Customers who register Astraware Sudoku are rewarded with additional capabilities such as a puzzle creator and a puzzle solver that can be used on other Sudoku games found in newspapers, online or in books. The game also includes a “Puzzle of the Day,” which delivers a new puzzle daily to the Foleo plus the ability to share personal completion times or compare scores with other players worldwide. (2)

Astraware Solitaire features 12 of the most well-known and best-loved single-player card games including Klondike, Spider, Freecell and Pyramid. Each game has a wide range of custom gameplay options so users can enjoy the games with their favorite variations on the standard rules. The game's style and interface has been designed to mirror the feeling of playing with real cards and offers a range of display options as well as detailed statistics to track progress. Astraware Solitaire has been optimized for the high-resolution display on the Foleo mobile companion and for use with the trackpoint controller.

“The Palm Foleo is a unique and exciting new type of device, and we're thrilled to make two great popular games available for its users,” said David Oakley, chief technology officer for Astraware. “The Foleo is an ideal companion for high-powered, time-starved executives, and Solitaire and Sudoku are ideal games to let them relax once their work is done.”

By building the Foleo on an open Linux-based platform and publishing the tools developers might need, Palm hopes to establish a vibrant developer community to create new applications that extend the mobile companion's built-in capabilities. Astraware demonstrates the ease with which exciting technology and applications can be ported to the Foleo mobile companion.

“Business productivity is a major driving force for mobile computing; however we also believe in the importance of balancing work and personal time,” said Mark Bercow, senior vice president of business development for Palm, Inc. “This is why we give mobile professionals the option to relax with a game of solitaire or a stimulating puzzle during downtime.”

More information about Astraware is available at www.astraware.com.

For more information on the Foleo mobile companion, please visit www.palm.com/seefoleo. To sign up for notification about Foleo availability, please visit www.palm.com/foleonotify.

Radio 2.0 blogger Mark Ramsey highlights today an announcement from Philadelphia’s WXPN; they will be gathering the 885 Most Memorable Musical Moments. [885 corresponds with WXPN’s FM frequency 88.5 — clever.]

He posits that which may be on other people’s minds as they see more and more social media vehicles emerge: “One of the toughest parts of integrating social media tools into a radio station website is plugging in those tools which listeners actually want to use on a radio station site as opposed to wherever they’re accustomed to using them now.”

As some major media companies spread themselves thin over all platforms to little effect, this becomes more apparent. Separate YouTube & Flickr accounts, Facebook and MySpace pages go only as far as the effort put in will take them. The decline in corporate interest in Second Life presence, both fiscally and in actual presence, points to a collective realization that perhaps the wrong tactics were used. The “L.A. Times” recently featured an article about this exodus.

Presence is not the only factor; being at the cool party doesn’t necessarily make you cool. Being able to make use of social media in a manner apropos the community and tool itself is key.