It pains me to link to the blog of an obvious Michigan fan, but he has earned my admiration: “Also: I’m taking requests. I have a database of most plays/drives that happened in D-I last year. If you’ve got any ideas as to how to use it, I’m listening. If you know SQL and would like to try something out yourself (Bueller? Bueller?), I can give you a public login.” Studly.

Michigan still sucks but this guy is cool.

Rich has shamed me a little unintentionally – he’s been a posting madman up at Judy’s Book and has like 80 more posts than I do. I just added a handful of reviews tonight, I am determined to catch up with Rich.

I am threatening to pull well ahead of him on an investment that is currently in steath beta tho. A little internal competition is healthy.

After expunging the Netgear SC101 disaster from my network, I found that I had lost about 10% of my ripped CDs – notably all my Led Zep.

So time to rerip. After reviewing all of Rich’s goodness on codecs, I decided it was time to go lossless. On my new WidowPC rig, I installed:

* dbpoweramp for ripping * the flac codec for lossless support * accuraterip to help insure correct ripping

So starting the process now. Will take months to complete as a background task. Glad I still have all the cds around. I rip to flac for longterm storage, and then convert to mp3 so that the ipod and other devices can deal with. Really not much more painful than ripping straight to mp3 – dbpoweramp does a pretty good job at batch conversion.

Besides winding down the auto industry, and engaging in unnameable rituals in the U.P., they apparently spend all their time obsessing about the decline of their football program as compared to that of The Ohio State University.

Wow so far behind on installing software…

* Rich on how to fix search provider slamming in firefox * Great article on spywareinfo on how to use the vmware browser appliance to have a completely secure browsing experience * Another guide to must-have firefox extensions * Rich on how to see what flipping codecs you have in the chain on your machine. I don’t understand why this is so hard on windows. Also some ogg/flac playback goodness from rich. oh and another tool from rich to debug the codec chain * Installing frontrow on any mac * Last.fm player – i’ve started playing with on my mac. pretty good experience so far. * Google local mobile on the blackberry – cute toy but i never really find a reason to use it.

* “The Armada by Garrett Mattingly”:amazon. Best. History. Book. Ever. Mattingly is a genius is at getting inside the heads of the main characters. What were the personal issues in their lives, the petty jealousies, the obligations, the ambition, and how did this all come together in their actions. I came out of the book feeling like I knew and admired the principal actors on all sides. The book also illustrates just how vital logistics and communications are in war – you’d have to say the spanish “lost” because of failures in these areas, not because of bravery or military tactics. Just a great book. You wonder if it could be written today – the author clearly takes some poetic license in describing the moods and feelings of characters – in the day of “a million little pieces”:amazon controversy, could a modern author do this? And yet this is what makes the book special. * “Death at la fenice by donnna leon”:amazon. Solid mystery set in venice. Not quite as good at transporting to a new country as say “Martin Cruz Smith”:amazon, and the guilty party was fairly evident early on, but solid characters with depth. First in a series. * “Seven types of ambiguity by elliot perlman”:amazon. What an intriguing swirl of characters and events. Misunderstandings, miscommunications, false assumptions, hidden feelings – they drive the story in a very unique way. A long read but compelling, I was driven to finish. * “the wave by walter mosley”:amazon. classic science fiction – character stumbles across mysterious events which, when unveiled, explain the fundamental nature of the universe or of humanity. tries to be profound but pretty thin gruel, especially after just reading seven types of ambiguity. Contrast with… * “Singularity sky by charles stross”:amazon. Reasonably good modern scifi. Fairly classic “humanity discovers strange artifact which reveals deeper nature of universe and changes everything” but handled deftly. Author doesn’t try to wrap up the entire nature of universe in one book but instead tells a natiural narrative and unveils some of the mystery. * “Home Land by Sam Lipsyte”:amazon. I half hate, half love this book. A very inventive voice, spinning metaphors and similes left and right. An interesting construct and a universal theme. But poisoned with exteme profanity, seemingly just for shock value. Would have been better if he had invested more in character development and in exploring the construct of the book, rather than reverting to profanity. * “A Feast For Crows by George R. R. Martin”:amazon. Contrast with jordan -- martin is so much more engaging. Unlike your typical fantasy epic where all the heros live – they drop like flies in this series, and no one is purely good or evil. Yet martin keeps you engaged. This book was so long he had to split it in two and it shows – the book doesn’t quite hang together. But as part of the series it is fine.

Oh and a cool gift for a reader – the thumbthing.

* The guys at Pure Networks have made their photocast powertoy available – “Network Magic PhotoCast allows people to easily share photos with each other and stay up-to-date when new photos are added. PhotoCast is a small screen-saver like application that allows you to subscribe to a friend’s photo collection. “ * Alex Bosworth is tracking the web2.0 battles * The guys at Mpire have launched mpire researcher – “Want to know how much the stuff in your garage is worth? We’ll tell you. “

I haven’t had time to play with all these but they all look interesting.

These seem cool. Now I just need the “Bring Your Hands Through” Gloves and the “Keep Your Head Down” Visor and I will be doing great.

* Tom Evslin nicely makes the case for at least thinking about nuclear. hear hear. * Martin on legislative efforts here in WA to encourage renewable fuels, and on the coming wave of diesel car choices * Also congrats to martin on recent financing

Among other reasons, we’ve been learning lots of new medical vocabulary in our household: clostridium difficile, celiac disease, lymphocytic colitis, flagyl, budesonide, not to mention tamiflu and telithromycin. Not all this was eventually important to know but it has been an interesting winter.

Good list of tips on how to do it right. This tool bag might be helpful too – looks a little more organized than my current bag with everything piled into one spot

Man these look great – look at the scenery around the fishhook and bench sites – i am jealous.

Been using the Mac RDP client today – on the lan at home. have to say it works pretty well. a little problem with color mapping, but otherwise seems solid.

The Ticket Reserve is an options market for sports tickets. Very cool. You pay the quoted prices on top of the face value ticket prices. Seahawks Super Bowl spots going for $750, up $250. $100 for an all-BCS bowl pass for OSU for next year. Very tempting.

Love the fact that the web has enabled so much personalized production. Things I’ve noticed recently:

* Visa cards with whatever photo you want on them at AmericaFirst * Custom designed ice cream flavors at eCreamery * Get Logos made for your business or whatever at Logoworks or GotLogos * Custom foam cushions of any shape, with any fabric cover, using a variety of foams, at Foamorder.com. I’ve actually used this service and it worked great.