A very special tap! – this is very cool looking, inspiration for Halloween – would be fun to do something like this on a small scale with cauldron.

Only one keeper here.

* “Legions of space”:amazon by Keith Laumer. Some of that old time science fiction: manly men slashing their way thru space and claiming the universe as their own. Interesting as a nostalgia piece, not sure I’d pick it up otherwise. * “Simple genius”:amazon by David Baldacci. A really crappy potboiler. My buddy Tim warned me. Sorry I spent the 2 days on it. * “Counting heads”:amazon by David Marusek. Nano-infused future society tale. Tugged at some interesting character issues but didn’t really dig into them. The ending was a little predictable as the story devolved into a typical adventure tale. * “Blindsight”:amazon by Peter Watts. Wow! A head spinning first encounter tale with a deep exploration of alienness and sentience. A deeply alien structure is encountered, and humanity sends the most extreme representatives of humanity to grapple with the situation under the theory that it takes an alien to understand one. An ambiguous, atypical, and probably unhappy ending.

Brian Ruby at Carbon Nanoprobes. Smart guy.

* Have to lead today’s list with the iphone. My lizard brain wants one. The rest of me has no idea why. I’m going to attempt to hold off until V2. * Toolmonger ? Blog Archive ? Magnogrip Magnetic Wrist Band – wow this actually seems super useful. * Nike floor hockey cleaning concept * PuchiPuchi bubble wrap toy. Can you imagine having one of these on an airplane? * Rich and Bob’s advice for lens cleaning tools. * Phoneflasher. Not sure I can pull this off. * Magnatag whiteboards. These appeal deeply to me tho I have no specific need. Maybe I can use one to manage my halloween efforts?

* Games ? Bloxorz – great timewaster * PicLens – nice way to browse flickr. A little unobvious to use. * Socialcalc. I continue to think this is interesting tho I have never installed it. hmm. * Rich’s guide to cleaning up Raw images * The Alphabetizer. I can see myself using this occasionally. * 3 awesome free math programs

Apparently it is time to renew my Microsoft Alumni Network membership. $130. The only value I get is employee discounts on software. It is increasingly hard to justify this, there is darn little I want at the store. If I view the $130 as prepay on software, I have to buy a lot to make the savings add up to more than $130. Used to be I had relatives and friends asking for software a lot but that activity has dried up largely.

Way too much work for a jack o lantern but still cool – instructables : Jack-O-Laser of Doom

Various bits of advice on basketball photography:

* From a pro – The Seattle Times: Photography: Best Seat in the House – 70-200mm f2.8 lens (set at 100mm), ISO 200, 1/250 sec @ f5.6 with strobes – not sure this would work for me ex strobes * From Canon forums – 70-200mm f/2.8…85mm f/1.8…50mm f1.8/1.4 all auggested

In the Science of Love premiere last night, science won. This is classically trashy summer reality TV, but for some bizarre reason we were all captivated with it last night. The guy didn’t seem like much of a catch but that was just part of the appeal of the show.

blog.pmarca.com: The Pmarca Guide to Startups, part 4: The only thing that matters _In honor of Andy Rachleff, formerly of Benchmark Capital, who crystallized this formulation for me, let me present Rachleff’s Law of Startup Success:

The #1 company-killer is lack of market._

Starting to think hard about Halloween. First step is to document last year’s efforts – 2006 Documentation in Halloween 2007 Plan – and from this I can start to create a delta list of things to change.

My Sony - Reader broke, Brad Feld has documented my support experience. Thankfully Sony was responsive and finally got it right, I have a brand new reader now and can get back to using it. I really like the device, and hopefully Sony will get the whole purchase and support solution right for everyone.

Marginal Revolution: Strange maps – i love maps. here is a whole blog of strange ones!

A set of three reads about the nature of the universe and our lives:

* “The Trouble With Physics”:amazon by Lee Smolin. Turned onto this by rich, an interesting walk thru the state of physics and the physics establishment. Comes out pretty strongly damning the conservatism of the current establishment and encouraging more risk taking. Intellectually punishing at times for a non physicist but interesting. * “Cosmic Jackpot”:amazon by Paul Davies. A very different review of modern physics, Davies dives headlong into the “what does it all mean” issue and fully explores the various views held by scientists. A full embracing of the various anthropic theories that purport to explain why life exists. Not as rigorous as Smolin and more philosophical. * “I am a Strange Loop”:amazon by Douglas Hofstadter. I loved “GEB”:amazon back in the day but this book just leaves me cold. I can’t get past chapter 5 – I found myself doing the monday NYT crossword instead of reading the book, and that says a lot. The pace is just too slow in the book.

* The Kwikset Smartscan. Ok I am not sure I really want this. What I’d really like is a lock that could be programmed to respond to my car’s fob. I have to carry the car thing around anyway, why can’t it open my house too? I don’t want my thumb to be the identifying device, I don’t want to encourage anyone to chop off my thumb. * Crystal Weather Station. Looks cool. Why not available in US? * Another doohickey to let you use your dremel – this time as a plunge router * A Drobo storage robot. Sounds way cooler than “hard drive enclosure” * Ceramic Jellyfish – awesome looking