According to C|Net News the old newspapers are all upset that Google and other search engines are ‘profiting’ from their content.

Web search engines, such as Google and Yahoo, collect headlines and photos for their users without compensating the publishers a cent, according to the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), which announced Tuesday that it intends to “challenge the exploitation of content” by the Googles and MSNs of the Web.

“The irony is that these search engines exist, largely, because of the traditional news and content aggregators and profit at their expense,” WAN President Gavin O’Reilly said in a statement.

Yet what is not stated is that all the newspaper would have to do is put in a simple robots.txt file on their sites. With this file they can ban Yahoo and Google and almost any other search engine they want. Of course that is not what these newspapers want either. They want Google to point people their way when the search results match - they just don’t want Google to figure out a way to profit from it too.

Unlike a regular geocache, a ‘virtual geocache’ is one where there isn’t a box containing a log book and trade items. Instead a virtual cache is a site where such a container would not be appropriate but would still appeal to geocachers. I placed the Days Pay virtual cache in April 2003 at the location of a mural at Richland High School.

The mural of the B-17 Bomber “Day’s Pay” was donated by the Richland High School Class of 1993 to honor those workers who paid for the bomber.

The students raised $21,000.00 to get the 3200 square-foot mural of the Day’s Pay painted, lighted, and maintained.

The “Day’s Pay” is a B-17 bomber bought for the Army Air Corps by the Hanford Engineering Works employees, each of whom donated a full day’s pay.

“Give a day’s pay and send a bomber on its way” was the campaign slogan that inspired the 51,000 workers to contribute nearly $300,000.00 over a 2 month period to purchase a B-17-G for the nation’s defense effort of World War II.

The plane was manufactured by Boeing at Seattle and delivered to the U.S. Army Air Force on July 12, 1944. In a ceremony at Hanford Airport on July 23, 1944, Hanford workers christened the plane “Day’s Pay”.

The plane later served with the 8th Air Force in England. In March 1945, its was decorated with the Air Medal, five oak leaf clusters, and two major battle stars.

The “Day’s Pay” flew a total of 67 missions and survived the war and was considered by those who flew it to be “a lucky plane” because no crew members were ever lost.

In 3 years, the cache has been visited 145 times by cachers from all around the state and country. Most would never have known of its existence without the cache to bring them.

One of geocaching’s side benefits is that many cachers hide caches, virtual or regular, at interesting spots like this one that you normally would not know to go look for when you are visiting an area. Kind of like a geeks travel guide!

Fairway RV Resort
50 W George St.
Walla Walla, WA 99362

• (509) 525-8282
• (866) 855-8282
• http://www.fairwayresort.net
• stay@fairwayrvresort.net
• lat/lon: 46.0767370, -118.3425 (approx)

• Reservations Accepted
• Discounts : 10% - Good Sam, KOA, FMCA, AARP & AAA

From the Website:
Come stay with us in a quiet atmosphere with easy access to many interesting activities in Walla Walla and the surrounding area.

We are located inside the city limits of Walla Walla, adjoining the 18-hole Veterans Memorial public golf course, which includes a pro shop, restaurant and lounge.

You’re within easy walking distance of downtown Walla Walla restaurants, shopping, sightseeing and many events. Enjoy guided or self tours of over 50 wineries and wine-tasting rooms. And art galleries, gift shops, crafts and quilting shops.

All 60 sites are equipped with 20-30-50 amp electric service, water, sewer, and cable TV. Wi-Fi is available on the Frontier and in the lobby. There are 21 tent sites with water and electric available.

Fairway RV Resort is located in Walla Walla, WA, only minutes from many area attractions, as well as only 8 miles to the Oregon border. Enjoy hiking and scenic walks at the Lewis & Clark State Park, a round of golf at the nearby golf course, and fishing in the Columbia River. Not only are there many great activities nearby, the resort offers many as well. Take part in many activities such as Frisbee, football, billiards, and more. The activities are endless. There is also a recreational room for the whole family’s enjoyment.

Facilities & Activities at Resort

• Large back-in sites that accommodate slide-outs
• 20/30/50 amp electric, water, sewer, cable TV, patios, and picnic tables at each site
• Wi-Fi available in the Frontier and lobby
• 24-hour restrooms, showers, and laundry
• 7# bags of ice for sale, plus vending machines of Pepsi and Coke
• Coffee, book exchange, TV, fireplace, pool table, and game table in the lobby
• Local telephone in the Frontier laundry room

Lewis & Clark Trail Park
36194 Highway 12
Dayton, WA

• (509) 337-6457
• Web Info
• lat/lon: 46.288, -118.072

I have just installed the Geo Mashup WordPress plugin which allowed me to create a scrollable Google Map mashup (if only one map pin shows up you can use the controls at the left to zoom out or scroll around), with a pin for each post that has a set of latitude and longitude coordinates. Clicking on a pin pops up a summary and link to the post.

The coordinate sets are added to posts using the Geo Plugin.

I am hoping there is a way to filter coordinates that get displayed. This way I can create a mashup that only displays geocaches, and then have another that only displays something else. I don’t see that feature now - but hoping, even if I need to create some kind of map category that it can filter on.

My shared del.icio.us bookmarks from 02-07-2006

• RSS Aggregator for Wordpress Sidebar
  Friends RSS Aggregator (FRA) Wordpress plugin was built to enable a Wordpress installation to have a livejournal.com-like friends page. By creating a group of friends’ weblog links with RSS/Atom URIs in a particular link category, a user can display an
  (tags: Blog, RSS, plugins, wordpress)
• Quoter
  Quoter allows site users to quote one or more comments, in a similar way to forums. The quoted comment is pasted inside the comment form textarea, wrapped in [quote] tags that, once submitted, are replaced by <blockquote> preceded by quoted comment inform
  (tags: plugin, wordpress)
• Sociable: Quick Social Bookmarking Plugin for Wordpress
  set of icons at the bottom of a post that allow you to quickly bookmark the current page at a number of social bookmarking sites (Digg, Del.icio.us, blink, furl, etc.).
  (tags: plugin, tagging, wordpress)

Location:

• Located on State Route 14 between mile marker 179 and 180.
  Follow Plymouth Rd. toward river turning right on Christy Rd. and immediately to the park.

• (541) 298-7650 - Corps of Engineer Recreation Hotline

• (509) 783-1270 - Gate Attendant - 9am - 5pm / April - October
• Website: http://www.nww.usace.army.mil/corpsoutdoors/parks/plymout.htm (Last Updated: 06/30/1997)
• ReserveUSA Maps & Info
• lat/lon: 45.9337, -119.35

Umatilla Marina & RV Park
1710 Quincy
PO Box 277
Umatilla, OR 97882

• (541) 922-3939
• http://www.umatillarvpark.com
• Park Map
• lat/lon: 45.9234, -119.3298
• Elevation: 296 ft
• Next to the Columbia River, only minutes off Interstate 82, Interstate 84, and Highway 730.

Harris Park
78689 Walla Walla River Rd,
Milton Freewater, OR

• (541) 938-5330
• http://www.co.umatilla.or.us/harris_park.htm
• lat/lon: 45.830278, -118.169444
• Elevation: 2080 ft

The 2006 LIGO Open House is scheduled for February 11, 2006 from 1:30 to 4:30 PM. There will be tours, demonstrations and lots of hands-on science fun. Admission is free and LIGO’s facilities are handicap accessible.

Come out for an afternoon of hands-on, minds-on, family science fun. Hosts will be on hand to help you navigate interactive exhibits and demonstrations, including a 30-foot giant slinky, gravity’s bicycle wheel, liquid nitrogen, and many others. You can even take a safe and fascinating peek at the sun through a solar telescope.

Einstein’s Messengers, the new 25-minute film describing LIGO’s quest to unlock the mysteries of gravitational waves will be shown.

Schedule

• Einstein’s Messengers: 1:30 PM, 2:30 PM, 3:30 PM
• LIGO Tours: 2:00 PM, 3:00 PM, 4:00 PM
• Exhibits and demonstrations will be available throughout the afternoon

Info

• Free admission for all ages
• No reservations necessary
• For more information call 509-372-8300 ext 248
• Driving directions to LIGO Hanford or use the Google mapping function above, under the post title.

RV Resort Four Seasons
1440 The Dalles Military Rd.
Walla Walla, WA 99362

• Picnic Area by creek with picnic tables
• On city bus route
• Next to Fort Walla Walla Museum
• Club meeting rooms
• Woodalls Rating: ****

From WebSite: Yes we said it and mean it. We even named ourselves after it. We can truly boast about our true four seasons here in the Walla Walla Valley. There is no other place like it. We are proud of our home and we welcome you to it.

Walla Walla is rich in history. You can follow in the footsteps of Native Americans, explorers, pioneers, missionaries and trappers. Immerse yourself in the rich history of the Pacific Northwest. The people of the Walla Walla Valley played an important part in our nations’ history that continues to inspire and fascinate today. Come experience their history. Lewis and Clark made their way through the Walla Walla Valley charting their course by the sun with over 300 days of sunshine a year to enjoy, we have it all for you to enjoy.

Reuters reports that Volkswagen’s American unit is working on a prototype in-car navigation system using Google’s “Google Earth” mapping technology. The software would give drivers a bird’s eye view of the road ahead.

The two companies are working with the graphics chipmaker Nvidia Corp. to build an in-car navigation map system and a three-dimensional display so passengers can recognize where they are in relation to the surrounding topography.

The car manufacturer showed off the prototype car at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January.

A spokesman for the automaker said there were no definite plans to use the technology inside cars. But the collaboration between the automaker and Google shows the progress the Web search leader is making expanding beyond the computer realm.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. For most people, being able to see the buildings and the landmarks for reference would be much easier to use than a regular flat map with a moving marker on it.

I have never been one for case mods - but this beer dispensing case mod looks pretty tempting!

Someone called it a “radically overclocked liquid-cooled computer” and I would have to agree.

Hat-Tip to Gizmodo

Just heard about nLite on DigitalLifeTV. It allows you to remove Windows components such as Media Player, Outlook Express, MSN Explorer, Messenger and all the other crud that gets thrown in.

nLite is a tool for permanent Windows component removal and pre-installation Windows setup. After removal there is an option to make bootable image ready for burning on cd or testing in virtual machines. With nLite you will be able to have Windows installation which on install doesn’t include, or even contain on cd, unwanted components.

In other words you can build your own CD that has all the latest fixes and has all the above mentioned ‘crud’ already removed, so they are never even installed.

nLite Features

• Service Pack Integration
• Component Removal
• Unattended Setup
• Driver Integration
• Hotfixes Integration
• Tweaks
• Patches
• Bootable ISO creation

Looks pretty handy! If you like to rebuild your system from scratch once and a while this would be a great tool!

5 People You Meet in Heaven is written by Mitch Albom, author of the acclaimed Tuesdays with Morrie.

After listening to the book I was not real sure what I thought of it. The author tells us that the popular misconception of heaven, people strumming harps while sitting on clouds, is all wrong. He replaces this misconception with his own fantasy that when we die 5 people are waiting for us to help us make sense of what appeared to be meaningless lives. From each person you learn a ‘lesson’ that helps make you ‘whole’.

Sometimes I felt the author was trying too hard to pull at the reader’s heartstrings. The story tries to communicate that people, many unknown to us, affect our lives and we in turn affect others. I suppose in a sense it might give people hope that a meaningless life may in actuality have purpose.

The story is about Eddie “Maintenance” who was never able to escape his childhood home, the Ruby Pier Amusement Park, and was haunted by his memories of being a prisoner of war during WWII. The story begins with Eddie’s death and through a series of flashbacks helped along by the ‘5 people’, Eddie begins to see meaning in his life - not too much different that “A Christmas Carol” but in heaven rather than with ghosts.

The story line that caught me most was when Eddie was with his wife who had passed away 30+ years earlier. She appeared to him as she looked on their wedding day. He asked her if she could ‘appear’ in any form she wanted, and if so could she please change her appearance to how she looked just prior to her death, in her late 40s, rather than like she was on their wedding day.

As a ‘feel good’ story it will probably be popular for quite a long time. I am not sure I would have finished the book if I was reading it, but having the story read to you on CD helps it move quickly. There were no real driveway moments when I felt I had to leave it running after stopping the car.