* Andy gives kudos to ops and test folks. Hear Hear. * Rahul likes this discussion about the declining value of content. Not totally sure I buy it, aggregators are valueless if there is nothing to aggregate. But an interesting discussion. * Rich finds an even better online chinese dictionary. I am learning every day from Rich these days. * Dave on yp pricing and the coming collapse

EarlyStageVC: Web 2.0 - Over and Out – great article. Hard to get excited about Web2.0 ideas, they have entered the realm of the ordinary. When a startup says “we are going to have a social network and user generated content and feeds and etc etc etc”, it is about as distinctive as saying “we are going to have an office with a copier and a fax machine.”

Is Vista Reliable? Using Vista’s Reliability Monitor – useful tool. My Reliability Score was at 10 the first day I started up the system and has dropped every day, I am now at 5.02. In my ~4 weeks of running vista on one machine, i’ve had

* 11 Miscellaneous Failures – “Disruptive Shutdown” – whatever that is * 6 Windows Failures – “OS Stopped Working” * 4 Application Failures – “Stopped Responding” * and a whole load of failures that vista hasn’t recorded for some reason. Daily app hangs. a half dozen BSODs. One reboot where Windows told me my BIOS was no longer ACPI compatible (went away on next reboot).

Oh and I still have never been able to get a print driver working for the printer shared by the XP machine in my office. (So how do I print? You’ll find this hilarious. I open up a remote desktop connection to the XP machine and print the file from that machine.) And any number of apps I have tried to install aren’t Vista compatible.

The latest fad in creating machines that can learn – Learn Like a Human. I’ll bet now that if we ever learn how to create a human-level aritificial intelligence, it will take just as long to train as a human takes, and it will be just as opinionated and judgmental and arbitrary as a human is.

One thing I have plenty of is fog. Between my whole yard fog system and my 4-5 point fog systems, i have fog galore.

This year I’d like to do a little more with fog and lighting. Fog Machine Vortex is one idea i may try. Another I am working on is to project a ghostly image onto a dense area of fog – kind of like fogscreen but way cheaper.

Scientists collaborate to study biologically assembled quantum electronic systems – interesting, lots of people think about how to embed electronics into biological systems or how to use electronics to control chemical processes – here are some people doing the opposite, using biological processes to assemble electronics at the nano level.

* Toolmonger Finds: Snap-on’s New Micro Pneumatics – small pneumatic tools. * Yoggie, the miniature security appliance. Not sure why, it is just cool. * A bookshelf made of…books.. Wonderfully recursive. * The linksys kiss. Kind of a dvd player but with some media extender wireless goo whacked on the side. I wonder if 3 years from now anyone will still have a vanilla dvd player – i wonder if we won’t all have various combo devices (game consoles, media extenders, etc) instead. * Unbreakable screwdrivers * Wood case computers and peripherals – Suissacomputers, Woodcontour. Probably a really bad idea but cool.

Download.com has quite a few, Koolmoves has been downloaded a ton and is reasonably priced. You can get the macromedia/adobe tool but even at educational pricing it is very expensive. COffeecup firestarter is another reasonably priced choice.

Via Techcrunch, TheFunded which tracks feedback on VCs by funded companies. This s awesome, more transparency and communication is always good. I note Bessemer is rated highly, I’m on a board with some Bessemer folks and I would have to agree, they are great. I hope all the Ignition portfolio companies rate us, and rate us honestly.

Hack the Bracket - Statistics and analysis to help you pick your bracket. – found via SI, a really quality matchup-by-matchup analysis. The buckeyes look pretty safe in round 1.

* Tong Family Blog: Camcorder Recommendations – rich does a nice job of reviewing high end video cameras. for the 27 minutes of filming i do a year, i don’t need any of these, but… * A projector with an ipod dock! Who doesn’t need one of these. * The USB flute. And to the writer who sneers at “rocking out (with a flute?)” – go dust off your Jethro Tull LPs. * Etymotic earcord winder. OK I might actually need this. * MoGo mouse. This looked very cool when I saw rich with it. * Super Paper Mario for the Wii. Mario. Wii. * A chumby of course * The Vectrix 3-wheeler because it is just awesome. * The Callaway FT-i, this is all that separates me from Tiger Woods. (I kick myself that I’ve never invested in a golf enthusiast company, because golfers will buy anything). * The MSR Reactor because you never know when you need to cook in gale force winds.

WhoseTube? Viacom Sues Google Over Video Clips - New York Times – one has to wonder why this is limited to video material. If I am the owner of say the “Ford Mustang” copyright, or “The Who” copyright, or the “Nike” copyright, why do I let Google profit off the search results for these terms? Shouldn’t I demand complete control over the results page and any revenues associated with it? If it was my copyright and I had worked hard to market it, I don’t think I’d understand why Google was allowed to make money off of it.

A TeleNav! app was slammed on my blackberry today. I didn’t ever install it, it just showed up on the homescreen. Basically a kind of spam from cingular I assume.

Anyway i tried it. It wasn’t terrible, but I can’t see why anyone would bother, the google maps app is so much better. The telenav app is a bit of size/speed pig, it doesn’t show traffic data, no satellite views, no white/yellow pages lookup, an annoying upsell ad on the front page. I deleted it.

NCAA Tournament Schedule - Deadspin – thursday 4:10 pm PDT for the buckeyes