Here’s a back-at-cha to Creative Loafing for including OhMyCharlotte.com in their round up the Queen City’s onliners. Started around two years ago from the team that built INTV.com (Ryan Fields and myself), OMC was our un-funded take on OhMyNews.com for the area citizen journalism.

While the site is a bit dated, the content stays fresh in part due to the work of bloggers in the area that are hooked to the site via RSS. One thing we noticed when we started playing with stats, a heafty round of traffic on the site heads straight for our traffic cams page.

I’ve put together a venue map for this weekend’s events. Use Google Maps keywords “ConvergeSouth 2007 Venues“.

So Bruton Smith wants to build a drag strip. Fine. Just like every other business he can apply and pay for his development permits, and upon approval can get started.

I doubt seriously that the City of Concord wants to block the project.. but grading before permits, or even siting review seems like poor planning on Mr. Smiths part. It looks to me like he promised this thing out the NHRA, didn’t get his planning ducks in a row early enough, and just started hiring work teams in hopes of skirting formal civic planning.

In all this fuss over the speedway owners project I still have not seen on a map where the quarter mile is sited. Seems to me that that is the key to being a good neighbor, finding responsible placement for your noisy activities.

So where on this massive property is he trying to site? Surely not right next to a housing area on the fringes of his tract?

In today’s Charlotte Observer (July 18, 2007), NY Times columnist
David Brooks chats about the differences between President Bush and Leo Tolstoy and their theories of history.

While praising the presidents’ self-confidence in the face of the realities in Iraq, Brooks notes that “Politics is a thin crust on the surface of culture“. David goes on to make an interesting point on how Tolstoy believed that the chaos of everyday experiences is more significant than our leaders policies in shaping history.

I like David’s point about the role culture plays in our views of the past. Policy dilemmas aside, the final say of history is often rich in hindsight and short on the bravado of the times.

Straight on the heels of a few high profile customers dropping their accounts based on the banks illegal immigrant credit card strategy, I find it somewhat ironic how their newest logo work just screams, “designed by committee”. Unfortunately for the chains stockholders they forgot to invite accessible designers to their meetings.

Take a look at the color model on their new logo. Seems oddly difficult to read doesn’t it? Apparently their chief designers forgot that dark on dark color models are not just difficult to read for Average-Man, but they are nearly impossible to interpret by color blind and others with vision impairments.

So what does that have to do with the border you ask? On a related retail note, Taco Bell in their new restaurant designs are moving to larger doors that can better accommodate wheelchairs (and possible larger-framed individuals). While ADA compliance likely drives these decisions, the doors at the new Belmont, NC location are extra wide, like 1.5x a normal commercial doorway.

So, should BofA take their queue from the Chihuahua chain? Only time will tell but the banks woes seem to be mounting which may not be good news for the Charlotte-based brand.

Thank you Al Gore for your persistent and tireless dedication in the fight to stop global warming.

Al Gore’s Recommendations:

1. An immediate “carbon freeze” that would cap U.S. CO2 emissions at current levels, followed by a program to generate 90% reductions by 2050.
2. Start a long-term tax shift to reduce payroll taxes and increase taxes on CO2 emissions.
3. Put aside a portion of carbon tax revenues to help low-income people make the transition.
4. Create a strong international treaty by working toward “de facto compliance with Kyoto” and moving up the start date for Kyoto’s successor from 2012 to 2010.
5. Implement a moratorium on construction of new coal-fired power plants that are not compatible with carbon capture and sequestration.
6. Create an “ELECTRANET” — a smart electricity grid that allows individuals and businesses to feed power back in at prevailing market rates.
7. Raise CAFE standards.
8. Set a date for a ban on incandescent light bulbs.
9. Create “Connie Mae,” a carbon-neutral mortgage association, to help defray the upfront costs of energy-efficient building.
10. Have the SEC require disclosure of carbon emissions in corporate reporting, as a relevant “material risk.”

Watch the testimony on YouTube here.

I attended the NC Science Blogging Conference this past weekend on campus at UNC Chapel Hill.  My thanks to Bora Zivkovic and Anton Zuiker for organizing the con.

In the first session Dr. Hunt Willard, director of Duke University’s Institute for Genome Sciences and Policies reflected on how engaged America was with the space race in the 1960’s when compared with current society.  Another theme of Dr. Hunts presentation was his somewhat unsettled opinion of how blogging could help working scientists.

Early in his presentation, Dr. Willard mentioned Tang, that by-product of America’s space passion, as an example of how engaged the country was with high tech.  Even on our breakfast tables one might say.  A more modern example of space race technology brought down to earth might be GPS car navigation systems, something most people are starting to get a handle on.

It would appear that with genetics, a vastly complex and controversial science topic in America today, one of Dr. Willard’s challenges, especially with his policy role, might be to find his Tang.  While a number of applications for genetics research are being discussed, what one application do you think will make its way alongside Tang in the American vernacular of science and technology?

Blog your thoughts and maybe we can help Dr. Willard find his Tang.

Article tags: sciencebloggingconference tang

GMSV is chatting up Cisco’s vision of automating the ballpark.  In the late 90’s we looked a number of technology angles at the Charlotte Hornets where I was Director of IT.

The bottom line for these stadium technologies is that they are either venue-infrastructure or skybox fodder.  Putting technologies at the seat level is doable, but the payout just isn’t there.  The systems are expensive and the maintenance is through the roof.  If you consider how well ad inventory for these systems has sold in prior trials, you’ll see why Cisco will be buying all their own ad slots.

The angle Cisco seems to be pitching is to promote their consumer facing wifi routers, etc.  Unfortunately for their marketing guns, SMS is where the action is with ballpark automation.  At this point what’s holding things back is more about SMS training for the over 30 set, and creating quick response contests that sponsors can buy into than any “super infrastructure” project.

One area where Cisco could gain traction is with IP telephone.  If they VOIP the concourse they can at least get people past the call quality issue, but home wiring will still be their big challenge since Moms are clearly uncomfortable with orphaned POTS jacks.

Sure Cisco CAN create super fancy infrastructure at the seat level, but they are better off focusing on the back end and using their deployments to showcase reliability to entertainment industry customers, than they are trying to impress Joe Sixpack with touch screens and instant replay. 

Google Earth that is.  This Reuters article talks about the new KFC super logo near Area 51 as if it’s a direct link from Colonel Sanders to extraterrestrials.  The reality is, this is clearly designed as a satellite mapping system branding campaign. 

Consider that within just a few short months the imaging contractors used by Google, Yahoo, and MSN will all pick this up.  At that point the map-bloggers will have a field day.  Smart move on KFC’s part.  Interesting how KFC Pres Gregg Dedrick did not mention satellite imaging in his PR talk, more interesting is that Reuters did not pickup their hidden agenda.