Via Rahul at JB, All Things Distributed: On the Reliability of Hard Disks. Fascinating. A 6-10% failure rate for hard disks, wow. Another great argument for redudant storage.

Demystifying Display Connectors – some stuff in here I didn’t know about HDMI, DVI, UDI, Displayport, etc.

Milk Desk – i love well designed office furniture. I have a custom desk now that I am unhappy with because, despite massive passthrus, it just can’t handle the cabling and desk space demands of all the accesories needed. I am designing my own desk right now, some cool ideas in this one.

* Via Rahul Pathak, Boyd’s Law of Iteration: speed of iteration beats quality of iteration. Great pithy maxim. Doesn’t apply so well to heart surgery or parachuting, but really valuable for domains in which the cost of and individual failure is relatively low. * And Dave says “When you understand a market, opportunity is everywhere”. Again so true in so many domains – deep understanding yields insights.

* Need a new tiny PC for carrying around – OQO 2.0? One of the small Sonys? I don’t need a desktop replacement, just something small for classroom/cafe use. If it is big, I won’t carry it. * Need to set up an Amazon store. Maybe for Halloween. * Microsoft Robotics Software – interesting, tho it requires download of so much crap. * Mic zooming HD cameras. * The annoying need for notepad paste. I do this and it’s graphic friend “paintbrush paste” all the freaking time. * How to get slickrun to activate with Windows-R * Photostamps. Personalized stamps. Another good halloween or xmas idea * Aboutus. Intriguing.

* CrunchGear ? Blog Archive ? Tivoli Table Stereo for Audiophiles – these tivoli products seem way cool. * 181 things to do on the moon -- why to go back * nanotext to fight counterfeiters – kind of cool, but how does the clerk at the 7-11 check for nanotext? * Are You Watching This? – what is hot in sports tv right now * Ignite Seattle – Hey I think Ignition should be an honorary sponsor * Mapping Books – i love anything that is bookish * wikicalc goes 1.0 – must try this * the time fountain – i love stop-action photography * Folded lens – simple yet awesome

* 4 Websites I wish someone would launch - Naffziger’s Net – some nice ideas. I really would like the intelligent email assistant – something that would autocorrelate all my amazon emails or my travel emails and bring the key stuff up to the top of the mail. * Phil’s latest berry software * good pointers from rich for some little photo utilities. probably same thing bob is recommending * rich also on software to assist with learning chinese

* Great sequence of pages on quantum wells of various dimensions, shapes, and potentials * Another great set of pages on density of states

this stuff is mind twisting.

Nice work by the JB team – best deals on roses.

Oh and Rahul’s blog – good stuff.

Supplementary notes, Quantum Mechanics

oh and who can live without the britney spears’ guide to semiconductor physics? the internet is awesome.

Some books I’ve been reading to help me in my coursework:

* “Quantum Mechanics Demystified”:amazon. High ranking on amazon but really terrible as an introduction. Very little conceptual discussion, just lots of math wanking. Maybe useful as a reference. * “Nonclassical physics”:amazon by Harris. Fine text. Good mix of concept and math. Very good at explaining relevancy of concepts * “Electronic properties of materials”:amazon by Hummel. Good, a little stilted – I first guessed it was written in the 40s. Also terse, but some very helpful explanations of lasers, of electrons in crystals, etc.