I think I missed a huge opportunity a couple years ago when I blogged about software-defined lenses – I should have filed a bunch of provisional patents – here is a researcher starting to build out these devices.

* “Appointment in Samarra”:amazon by John O’Hara. Great look at smalltown society – the machinations, the viciousness, the artificial stratifications. A much better book than “The Great Gatsby”:amazon, maybe because the setting maps better to my hometown. * “The Truth (With Jokes)”:amazon by Al Franken. Al has done more to move me towards a more liberal viewpoint than anyone. He cracks me up. His attacks on corrupt and two-faced politicians are truly hilarious. Delay and Frist take a beating. He does go in the ditch on social security funding – Al is not much of an economist or mathematician, the notion of “present value” completely escapes him. And somehow he thinks that there is a real fund backing social security – somehow it is ok with him that the social security “fund” is fully invested in US treasury securities; this is to me akin to the GM pension fund being 100% invested in GM stock, a practice which has been judged to be very bad. I actually agree with most of Al’s views on social security funding but he really botches his handling of this discussion. But when he sticks to character and integrity issues, he is generally dead on. And he throws in just enough humility and self-deprecating humour to make himself credible. * “The Wrong Side of Paris”:amazon by Honore de Balzac. Outstanding book. A great break from American and British period fiction – the moral calculus of the characters is so different. You have to wonder why we are seeing the 97th remake of pride and prejudice in the theatres, why is no one dipping into this vein of literature. Ok I am ignorant about the french film making industry, maybe this story has been filmed 6 times. * Oh and a list – the top 20 geek novels. I’ve read too many.

* Nice mention of Judy’s Book over on A VC – “…the brain child of Andy Sack and his partner Chris DeVore…Andy is a smart and scrappy entrepreneur…” * Jobster live is way fun. And Jason continues to post an amazing amount of HR and Job stuff * Martin is trying to kickstart Energy investing in the Northwest – I missed the first meeting but would like to make it to future events * Alex Bosworth continues his stream of innovation with BozPages. * Rich with a couple of date night restaurant recos * Rich also recos Call of Duty2 – also a timewaster at our house. Along with FEAR. * Rich on software – recovering PIDs, Shareware award winners

Great article in popsci about the invention of coloured bubbles. The material science discussion is fascinating.

OK now that I am off the high of the Michigan game, what’s next? Let’s assume enough of the BCS top 6 win out, ie there is no way for The OSU to jump to the #2 position. Si.COM says OSU will get left out of the BCS mix, pushed out by Oregon and ND – the claim being that the Fiesta Bowl holds all the cards and that they may be tired of The OSU.

After a careful reading of the BCS selection rules, I don’t get it. The Fiesta loses Texas to the Rose and so they get first pick to replace. They can pick any BCS eligible team. I think the game is all about avoiding WVU as they are the worst TV draw. So the Fiesta can pick Penn State as their first team. Then they have to list 3 choices for their second team, and WVU as a conf champ has to be at least their #2 pick. And the Orange wins tiebreakers, so assuming both the Orange and the Fiesta choose ND as their first choice, the Fiesta gets WVU (or even worse, USF!!).

Alternatively, the Fiesta could pick ND as their first team, and then they have to list Penn State and WVU as their top two choices in their list of three. Again they lose the tiebreaker to the Orange and end up with WVU.

Either way it seems like the Sugar ends up with the last choice and (assuming The OSU falls this far) will get to pick between The OSU or Oregon. And it has been a while since The OSU has been to the Sugar.

Related post: Most recent NCAA stupidity

• Gave foldershare another try post-msft acquisition. Yet again I hit the 10K folder limit. They talk on the website about how it can handle an unlimited number of files but in actuality it is broken. I have 60gig of music, and a lot from compilation discs, so I end up with a kabillion artist folders in my music folder. And foldershare barfs on it. It does work fine for my photos folder. But the limit is arbitrary and makes the software useless for me. I am also wondering about the lag in syncing – it looks like it is going to take 24+ hours to sync my 3000 photos across 2 machines, I wonder why so slow. Especially since it had all night to run when my network at home and at work were largely doing nothing.
• Haven’t tried it but the way Quintura lets you visually scope your search looks cool. I love personalized search scoping ideas – Swicki (hosting my Halloween search) is another one I am playing with.
• Not clear I need a bunch of free games but here is a pointer to some – between FEAR, Call of Duty 2, Age of Empires III, I have no shortage of ways to burn my time
• Wikicalc from one of the creators of Visicalc. Haven’t played with yet but I will have to.
• Itunes/ipod addons – Poddmax, idleTunes. Haven’t tried either but it seems obvious to me that someone will build a nice business targetting the ipod/itunes customer base.
• Martin’s review of Network Magic – a balanced look. I’m on the board of Pure, I am sure that those guys will make Martin happy with a future release.
• Browser plugins – MSFT makes a developer toolbar available for IE, IE Tab for Firefox, and Ed Bott’s favorite Firefox extensions

Good analysis on used hard drive content. Cross-drive analysis is fascinating. A good reminder – physically destroy your hard disks when you are done with them.

Related posts: Philips amBX, Rootkit safety

Crazy idea from Philips – an ambient controller for entertainment. Can control lighting, airflow, temp based on game activity. Man this could be cool for Halloween prop control as well. via slashdot.

Related posts: Finding Halloween Sounds, Halloween Status 10/16, Halloween Status, Service Roundup 9/30

Great table on brand autopsy on ideas versus opinions. I aspire to always present ideas and positive thoughts in meetings, and keep my snarky unhelpful opinions to myself. (Unless we are talking Michigan-OSU football).

The UM fan base is getting rev’ed up for The Game. Westsider Rider has some of the best:

• A friend of mine on the way to the game gets flipped the bird by a little kid, meaning like 8 years old and his dad pats him on the head and says “Good Job”. We start them young in Ohio.
• This past year in Vegas during the summer I’m walking into the Mirage as I walk in head to toe in Michigan gear, my good luck gambling gear, an old grandma easily 60+ yells at me “Fuck Michigan!” I don’t know what the fuss is, that is pretty much how we say “good morning” to each other in Ohio.
• The one that trips people out is the year Ohio State won the National Championship you can see their crowd in Tempe and read lips as they pan the crowd following the game people are yelling “Fuck Michigan!” Like we have any relevance at that point, that’s how much they care about us. You have to understand, “F M” is a good sentiment for any occasion.

Former UM QB Michael Taylor whines about going to Ohio Stadium. Hey, well, don’t come again if it is so bad.

UM people seem to have thin skins – here’s hoping they have another year to stew in their juices.

Related post: The Game

Great pointer on marginal revolution to a discussion of earthquake survival – basically asserting that the duck and cover strategy is a sure way to get killed, instead you want to huddle next to massive objects. Makes a lot of sense.

Related post: Goats – nature’s herbicide

Time to start getting fired up. Here’s a Michigan fan whining about mistreatment at the hands of OSU fans. Boo hoo. I’ve been to Michigan statement a few times and I don’t seem to remember the red carpet. OK physical abuse is too far but getting upset about someone cursing you? Grow some callouses. Or sit and watch in the safety of your den.

CFN does a nice job ranking the rivalries – of course you know what #1 is

• The return of the spaceship. Alex St John was just 10 years or so ahead of his time.
• LarryO on beeping death – who can forget beeping death? I remember being so excited when I installed the first WFW redir from Jimmo with no beeping.

* Martin and Seattle Biodiesel in Newsweek – congrats! Seattle Biodiesel is a rocket. * John Conners and his first year at Ignition – “It’s a kick.” * The NetworkGarage guys love the Sonos. * NetworkMagic gets a review up on Toms and now available at Amazon. * Phil has a new version of Berry411 out – better and better. * Phil also takes a hard look at the new Google Analytics. And raises some good concerns. * Jason on recruiting budget trends – “Several employers i spoke with indicated that they fully intend to scale back their job board spending and invest those funds instead in the areas of passive candidate recruiting and driving traffic to their own websites” * Phil on searching all sites linked to by a certain page – another great twist on search scoping. * Rich on how to get your music off your ipod

* Kayak Buzz via Scoble. What a travel site can be. * amazon’s mturk that everyone has been talking about. * And etsy is just gorgeous. Via techcrunch. I could play with this thing all day. Amazing piece of work. Will I buy anything? Dunno but I will certainly visit often. Man does Ebay look crufty now.

Related post: Web roundup 11/2