Dogfish Head - Raison D’Etre – wow, seriously good beer.

jkOnTheRun: Sandisk 1GB SD card down to $29 starting tomorrow – amazing.

Cool Hunting: Jahan Khalili’s X-Ray Lamps – ok I don’t really want one of these lamps but I love the idea of getting old xray films and using them for halloween decorating – obviously i want some human skeleton films. Not much on ebay or via google.

I’ve had “The Strange Death of Liberal England”:amazon by George Dangerfield on my “to read” shelf for years, something about the title intrigued me. But the idea of actually reading an in-depth tome on british history from 1910-1914 was pretty offputting.

Well I finally cracked the book last week. What a marvel. A seriously engaging book. History, but written almost lyrically at times – it felt as if Faulkner was writing history, with moments of dry British snarkiness. The last chapter takes a complete right turn, introduces the life, early death, and poetry of Rupert Brooke, and somehow makes it a relevant metaphor for all of Britain.

Along the way you learn more than you thought you wanted to know about Asquith, the House of Lords, Parliament, the trade unions, the suffragette movement (those were some bad-ass women!), the early days of the modern Irish state, etc, etc. Not a light breezy read, but an excellent book.

Hey this feels pretty good. Light and zippy. Blog integration is decent tho a few bugs and shortcomings.  Nice importation of all firefox settings.  I don’t think I will stick with it quite yet because of the problems listed below but it is a great attempt. 

• I’ve come to depend on the IETab firefox plugin and flock doesn’t support yet, so that is a major bummer
• The blogging feature doesn’t allow me to set category or keywords on an entry so that is a non-starter.  oh wait i guess it does, tho not in the entry editting window but in another window that pops up when you try to publish – kind of odd

Blogged with Flock

* We’ve got a new version of our website up – Ignition Partners — HELPING ENTREPRENEURS SEIZE OPPORTUNITY - way more modern * and we expanded our last fund * Mpire hires a new ceo. * I can’t keep up with all the jobster news but jason’s blog is a great place to start. Among other things, they’ve acquired jobby. * The judysbook team has done a lot of site upgrading recently too – looks waaaay better.

I’m way behind honestly on reading ignition portfolio news, I have missed a bunch of stuff…

I get a lot of visitors looking for info on the best college stadiums. Well here are some pointers to web resources:

* College Stadiums Football Photos 8x10 – nice aerial and in-stadium photos for a lot of the top stadiums. Great gift for fans. * NCAA attendance stats for 2005 – a loud full stadium is a good stadium * Saturday Shrines on Amazon. * Fanblogs points to Dennis Dodd’s 2003 rankings which I think are crap. Fanblogs also points to the Rivals 05 rankings which I like better. * Sporting News/MSNBC rankings here which I also wonder about. * Football Digest rankings – I can get behind these!

My view is – any full loud stadium on a Saturday afternoon or evening is a great place to be. I haven’t been to that many, but my views on a few:

* Ohio Stadium – great crowd, great band, great pageantry, great architecture. A+. What did you think I’d say? * Michigan Stadium – great crowd, but kind of characterless architecture. B+ * ASU in Tempe. What a great setting. Too bad the team isn’t consistently better. B+ * UW. Another great setting, but a team that is a snoozer. Still where else can you moor your boat for a tailgate picnic? B * Rose Bowl. Great potential but too many empty seats – not being on campus hurts. B- * Pitt Stadium. Great location, right in the thick of things. Great crowds, inconsistent team. B

Martin came by and updated us on Imperium Renewables today (nee Seattle Biodiesel). Sounds like they are hitting on all cylinders, man I wish I’d been smart enough to invest.

* “No Second Chance”:amazon by Harlan Coben. Another great whirlwind mystery by coben. Man no one writes an airline reading book like this guy. * “Guerilla Warfare”:amazon by Che Guevara. Interesting as a historical read, insight into the thinking of a very influential figure in the americas. Uplifting in many ways, a strong advocate for the people, and very anti-terrorism – contrast with the revolutionaries in the news these days. I faced a dilemma when I finished this book – i travel with light paperbacks and usually leave them sitting in the airport or hotel, hoping that they will find their way into the hands of another reader rather than collecting dust on my shelves. But dropping a book named “Guerilla Warfare” in an airport, a book which includes pictures on how to modify a rifle to launch Molotov cocktails – well I figured it would freak someone out and have some probability of causing some crazy law enforcement scramble. So I threw it in the trash sadly. * “Manhunt”:amazon by James L Swanson. Great accounting of Booth’s actions and escape. If he hadn’t broken his leg jumping to the stage, he’d have escaped and wouldn’t that have been dramatic.

If I were going to college today, I’d be studying materials science. In fact I’ve been looking at online master’s degree programs – UW and Columbia both have interesting programs. A better use of my time than Oblivion.

I’d be studying materials science because things like the following fascinate me:

* Batteries that recharge in seconds – ScienCentral Video News: Super Battery * Massive increases in data density on disks – heat-assisted data storage * Just because you can make them – gold buckyballs

An interesting experiement – The Furrygoat Experience: Virtualization (Portable XP?) – someone is going to figure out the consumer use scenario for VM technology and make a lot of money. The ideas of portability, disposability, malware resistance are so powerful and so relevant for the broad consumer market.

* I thought someone had been moving things on my desk when I was not around but now I know what is really happening – Variable physical laws * I am not sure a 1000 HP ethanol viper is really what the greens had in mind * Art museums here we come – How to get your kid into a better college

• Using Lala a lot these days! We’re investors, but I do love it.
• The IETab plugin for firefox is a requirement if you use OWA. Awesome.
• Trying out google browser sync…
• Carbonite – love the idea and the team is very responsive. They don’t support USB-attached drives for business reasons which is kind of a bummer. But the app does seem to work well.
• Windows Vista user accounts – probably the only software feature of vista that is a “must have” for me. I run all our machines in user mode today and it is a pain in the ass.

A VC: Productivity Apps In The Cloud – “Except all of Microsoft’s editors, including the flagship editor Word, lack the simple functionality of being able to edit and save directly on the web. And as I sit here dreaming about being able to use Google Spreadsheet, that is the one function I want.”

Me too. I use half a dozen machines regularly, i use kiosk machines, I want all my docs everywhere. And I don’t need all the features of high-end office apps. Writely is fine for me, I am sure an online spreadsheet will be good enough too. And I am so tired of installing software on machines.