3 machines at work, 7 at home, and I occasionally need a spreadsheet on all of them. Office is too expensive and overkill, OpenOffice is overkill. I need something lightweight. Trying out Spread32 at the moment. A couple other choices at tinyapps as well including visicalc. Actually I’d love a server-based spreadsheet, a self-hosted open source version of this, so i wouldn’t have to install anything or worry about moving my spreadsheet files around with me.

Must subscribe to phil’s blog. Also his 411 app is way cool – makes me want to develop a blackberry app.

Well the Bucks won by an un-Tressel like margin of 21 points. And the offensive numbers in aggregate look good – 462 total yards, 5.1 yards per rush. And some good individual plays by Holmes, Hamby, Childress, Ross and Pittman on offense. But really the offense looked tentative the entire game, and error-prone (4 fumbles, 2 INTs as I recall). Zwick was forcing the ball a lot, Ross with the exception of his one long run didn’t look materially better than last year. The team needs to grow a lot in the next couple weeks or the Big 10 season could be tough.

Defensively the team looked tentative the first quarter, no surprise given the number of players gone from last year. But then the guys put together three strong defensive possesions in a row in the 2nd quarter and seemed to find its legs. And was helped by a truly terrible Cincy punting game – the punter kept hitting line drives that skipped through the end zone, great for distance, but lousy for field position.

The best thing about the game – OSU was clearly in command despite all the tentative play and mistakes. With growth they could be a great team this year.

Complete Big 10 results and discussion over at Big 10 College Football - Fanblogs.com: Big 10 Results 9/5

Just One Look by Harlan Coben is the first I’ve read by him, and it was pretty gripping. OK not that original – an ordinary family’s life comes unwound when a secret from the past surfaces; not everyone is who they seem to be; eventually the cops, US Attorney’s office, and organized crime families are all drawn in. But nicely paced and interesting characters. The resolution is a little weak but still a good yarn, I’d pick up more by Coben.

Read a pair of his – Nine Crazy Ideas in Science: A Few Might Even Be True and 8 Preposterous Prepositions. There were some interesting articles – the one on the abiogenic origin of oil/gas/coal was interesting and obviously very relevant to our lives. But a lot of it just didn’t grab me.

The Seattle Times: School lends helping hand with computers for Uganda – nice press for this effort at Forest Ridge.

I’ve been goaded again to look at I-884: The Education Initiative and to encourage others to look at it. Seems like a very worthy effort –

* Create 10,000 new high-quality preschool spaces for children who need them most * Reduce class sizes and improve student achievement by fully funding Initiative 728; * Raise the base pay for teachers and school employees, and community and technical college employees, to to what they would be receiving if the Legislature hadn’t suspended I-732 last year; * Provide additional classes in high school and support parent involvement; * Expand Promise scholarships for the top 30% of graduating high school seniors and financial aid to keep college affordable for working and middle class students; * Fund 25,000 additional enrollment slots in college in community and technical colleges and four-year universities and 7,000 new enrollments in high demand fields; * Invest in university-based research that generates new businesses and jobs.

Insightful – Crappy video games to get more expensive to produce - Archives - Blog - 0xDECAFBAD Blog: Of course, if you’re striving for some semblance of realism in games, the costs will likely approach and exceed the cost to produce movies

OK nothing that educational here, just some fun reading.

* The Vanished Man by Jeffery Deaver. My first Deaver, I wasn’t that impressed with the main characters in the series, Lincoln Rhyme and buddies. But a well crafted story that kept the action moving along.

* Blind Lake by Robert Charles Wilson. Great characters, a good story. The characters had real human depth, they weren’t just set pieces moved around for the purposes of the plot. And the story raised and explored big questions, without feeling the need to provide a metaphysical explanation of the entire universe as is lamely attempted by so many science fiction novels.

Anxious to install the upgrade but per at least one user i maybe should wait just a few days…

…they arrive Friday 9/17. Two containers from Door to Door. I’ll have a week to unpack foggers, lights, cabling, sound systems, tombstones, cauldrons, fake trees, doghouse, coffins, compressor, pneumatic systems, skeletons, etc etc etc. I’ll lose my garage from 9/17 til late November as it becomes staging and workspace for props.

This year – I’ll add some more tombstones, and probably a few more pneumatic effects.

Deep Green Crystals: Review of Whipple Supercharger Systems Programmer for the 2002 Avalanche – way to go martin. Who is your local installer?

Boing Boing: The eyes have it – and who doesn’t need an extra 20 or so eyeballs. A million and one uses at Halloween time. Thanks Shawn.

Phones as wallets, walljacks as access points. Fascinating. Seems like as Moore’s law drives the cost of including additional electronic functionality to zero, we are going to see all kinds of interesting combos. The premium is going to be on clear understanding of the scenarios and usage models, leading to useful integrations. Just because you can slam a camera into a vacuum cleaner doesn’t mean you should.

Site News - Fanblogs.com: Conventional Wisdom: Week One – I half expect to see, 5 or 10 years from now, a couple of PSU assistants holding up Paterno’s still employed corpse between them on the sidelines. We can call it “Weekend at JoPa’s”.

Seriously. This HAS to be a huge recruiting impediment for Penn State – every kid knows that Joe is leaving sometime, no one wants to sign up for a program where the coaching regime may change half way through.