Updated my Python install and NumPy/SciPy on my Mountain Lion machine. A couple of sites provided great guidance:

* “Python, NumPy, SciPy instructions”:http://www.thisisthegreenroom.com/2011/installing-python-numpy-scipy-matplotlib-and-ipython-on-lion/ provide good guidance on getting python, brew, virtualenv, and bumpy up to date on osx 10.8. The scipy instructions are busted tho * “SciPy instructions on StackOverflow”:http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12092306/how-to-install-scipy-with-pip-on-mac-mountain-lion-os-x-v10-8. Once you have Python and Numpy installed, these steps solved the SciPy install. OK well no they didn’t. Still working on. * UPDATE: Back to a later post from the first author: “Compiling SciPy on Mountain Lion”:http://www.thisisthegreenroom.com/2012/compiling-scipy-on-mountain-lion/ – and I have SciPy working now.

Eh. All the characters were unidimensional cartoons. Northern politicians all were noble public servants with hearts of gold – even the politicians that had to be bribed into voting for the 13th Amendment ultimately did it with enthusiasm and clearly were good people. The politicians against the amendment were clearly despicable people, and the Southerners were all clearly corrupt hateful people. I was bored, this did not seem real.

I’ve actually seen a lot of the Oscar and Golden Globe slate this year:

* Argo, Django Unchained, Life of Pi, Silver Linings Playbook– all very memorable and very different from one another. * Les Miserables, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, Zero Dark Thirty – all entertaining, all worth a viewing, not sure they are best of anything tho. * Beasts of the Southern Wild – didn’t see in the theater, watched at home. Not my taste. Don’t really get all the hoohah. * The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel – didn’t see in theater, watched at home. Didn’t bother to finish, sad and boring. * Amour, Moonrise Kingdom – haven’t seen.

I am pushing myself a little this month.

* “Real World Haskell”:amazon by O’Sullivan, Goerzen, Stewart. Functional languages have always seemed like a research toy to me. But some of the smartest guys I know are using the concepts at least in commercial products, and “this post from John Carmack last year”:http://www.altdevblogaday.com/2012/04/26/functional-programming-in-c/ has stuck with me. So I pretty randomly grabbed this book, I could have just as well grabbed a book on Clojure or Erlang. Makes my head hurt but that is probably a good sign. UPDATE: well, Haskell is interesting, but we really need a functional language with great readability. Some of the decisions the Haskell designers made create nearly unreadable code; maintenance seems like it would be a disaster. * “Vaccines”:amazon by Plotkin and Orenstein.This one is a total brain buster for me. But I am trying to get smarter about one of our portfolio companies, “Paxvax”:http://paxvax.com, and they tell me this is the text. I am pretty much lost three chapters in. Again probably a good sign.

* “The Machinery of Life”:amazon by David Goodsell. I have a reasonable understanding of atoms and electrons and electron-based chemistry, particularly for semiconductor materials. I have never really understood biochemistry – protein chemistry, DNA, etc. I love this book because it builds up from atoms to proteins and other biochem molecules, and has tons of great pictures. It does gloss over some steps and I’d love understand the electronics of protein folding, transcription, and other processes, but still this is a great book. Buy the physical edition, the pictures are absolutely critical. * “The Half-life of Facts: Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration Date”:amazon by Samuel Arbesman. An engaging discussion about the rate of change in the things we think we know. Not prescriptive, but an important paradigm to keep in mind. * “Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything”:amazon by Joshua Foer. I found this book to be unbelievable and strangely depressing. I don’t doubt that these extreme memory techniques work or that these memory athletes exist. But the characters seemed almost farcical, and the use to which they put their memories seem such a waste. I gave up on the book, I wouldn’t be shocked to find out some parts of it were exaggerated.

We always get some board games over the holiday season and have some gamefests. Settlers, Ticket to Ride, Survive have been winners in past years. This year we tried 3:

* “Seven Wonders”:http://www.amazon.com/Asmodee-SEV-EN01ASM-7-Wonders-Game/dp/B0043KJW5M/ref=sr_1_1?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1357360279&sr=1-1&keywords=seven+wonders. This was the real winner of the holiday season. It seemed crazy complex at first, but the game play is swift, there are many ways to win, and everyone is in the game until the last turn. Excellent game. And there are a bunch of expansion backs for it I see. This might be my new metric for judging games – if it has expansion packs, then it has probably found a good audience. * “K2”:http://www.amazon.com/Heidelberger-Spieleverlag-HE344-K2-Game/dp/B0049HLTNW/ref=sr_1_1?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1357360503&sr=1-1&keywords=k2. This one seemed promising, and it is not a complete disaster, but there are some problems in the end game that left us all feeling a little deflated. The bottlenecks at the top of the mountain really stymie play at the end. * “Kingdom Builder”:http://www.amazon.com/Queen-Games-60832QNG-Kingdom-Builder/dp/B0063I6Y2G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1357360009&sr=8-1&keywords=kingdom+builder. Good reviews on Amazon and on some game sites, but this one is a dog. As one player described it, “This game is what I could come up with in 10 minutes”. We may have to go into the game design business.

Per @CFTalkThrough, through 14 bowl games, attendance is down more than 11 percent from a year ago. 574,095 in 2011, 508,969 in 2012.

Too many bowls? Maybe. But “looking at fan bases countrywide”:http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/the-geography-of-college-football-fans-and-realignment-chaos/, when you take 5.8M fans out of the market for bowl tickets because of OSU (#1 fan base nationwide) and PSU (#3 fan base nationwide) suspensions, well, sales are going to drop. Replacing these schools with NIUs and Minnesotas and the like simply is not going to move the same volume of tickets.

It probably doesn’t help that some of the other top programs – Texas, Auburn – had off years, and USC is in El Paso.

The market needs the top teams to have good seasons to make the postseason compelling.

Ok I got an iPad mini for Christmas – thanks family! The lack of retina display does bother me, it is super noticeable. I will certainly upgrade to an iPad mini retina when it exists.

But it is interesting to see the impact on the rest of the gear in my bag.

* obviously the big iPad will not be in my bag much anymore, the mini is just so light and convenient. I need to figure out what to do with old iPads. Can I use them as monitors for raspberry Pi’s? * do I need to carry an eInk kindle anymore? On the one hand, the mini fits nicely in a hand and so can supplant the kindle. On the other, the mini is so light, there is really no problem carrying both, and the kindle still has that great battery life. * needless to say the Surface is rarely in my bag – and it now seems really obese in light of the iPad mini. * I used to carry a 17” laptop. Now I’m at 15”. Really wondering if 13” would work just as well .. And for the first time considering the 11” Air. I pretty much run every app full screen at this point, is the larger screen buying me that much?

* Great list of tools from Patrick Rhone at “MinimalMac”:http://minimalmac.com/post/38230590462/some-tools-that-made-my-computing-life-better-in-2012. Installed doublepane right away. * “Infoxicate”:infoxicate.com seems like it could be IFTTT only really useful. Tho seems to be just a concept so far. * Powerpoint is so dull. I love “Haiku Deck”:http://www.haikudeck.com. And “Timeline”:http://www.beedocs.com seems interesting. Both seem to really highlight the story and emotions of a story, unlike powerpoint which creates seas of dot points. * I want an “Eve Alpha”:http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ciseco/eve-alpha-raspberry-pi-wireless-development-hardwa. Not sure why. * I should have followed @randfish’s guidance and made some “minted photo calendars”:http://www.minted.com/photo-calendars this year. * If someone starts challenging your database knowledge, whip “this chart”:http://gigaom.com/cloud/confused-by-the-glut-of-new-databases-heres-a-map-for-you/ out. And hit them with it. * “Tinybasic for raspberrypi”:http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/2277. Historically this was an important inflection point.

* “Black List”:amazon by Brad Thor. Eh. A treasonous cabal plans an apocalyptic cyber-attack on the US. Pretty standard suspense tale, some interesting characters left completely undeveloped, pretty standard plotting. * “The Quantum Thief”:amazon by Hannu Rajamiemi. Very nice tale of distant future with terribly advanced nano/cyber systems. Difficult to tell where humanity leaves off and technology begins. * “Stone Arabia”:amazon by Dana Spiotta. Odd tale of a grown woman and her brother struggling with mortality, relevance, and their own identities. Can’t say I loved it but there was some draw.

and some nonfiction:

* “Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder”:amazon by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Black Swan was better structured, but this is an interesting follow-on and has kept the material fresh. If you haven’t read one of Taleb’s books, you must. You may not buy it all but it is a very valuable point of view.

“A nice article”:http://radar.oreilly.com/2012/11/to-eat-or-be-eaten.html from @mikeloukides that extends on the “software is eating the world” idea, and talks about how the world is eating software. Programmable behaviour is getting stuffed into everything, and the trend is just going to accelerate.

I’ve got a pile of computers on my desk right now – Arduinos, Raspberry Pis, Beaglebones. They just keep getting cheaper. And faster. And lower power. And re-imagined in new form factors – go look at the number of Arduino variants you can buy. And I’ve got a pile of super cheap sensors on my desk – cameras, audio, pressure, temperature, humidity, IR, you name it. Computing and sensing is getting so cheap, it is going to be embedded everywhere – and not just in the obvious places, but in objects made of “fabric or paper or wood”:http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=3794, or in “plastics”:http://www.3ders.org//articles/20121122-printing-electronic-sensors-using-low-cost-3d-printers.html. This last one is really fascinating, combining 3d prototyping and electronic behavior, I can’t wait to play around with this.

And the world is getting more capability to build these devices. Prototyping with 3d printers. Funding bootstrapping by Kickstarter and its ilk (for example “circuits.io”:http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2012/11/28/circuits-io-kickstarter-like-electronics-funding-raspberry_pi-robotic-shield-on-launch/). Easy sourcing via services like “Maker’s Row”:http://makersrow.com.

Exciting times. I got involved with personal computers because I was excited about bringing computing power to everyone. This next wave of bringing computing power into everything seems even more exciting.

It is fascinating to me that a site like “MCM”:http://www.mcmelectronics.com/content/en-US/raspberry-pi has to limit raspberry pi sales to 25 to a customer. Many possible reasons for this of course, but exceedingly interesting.

A random collection of links I’ve noticed in the past month or so, need to follow up on most of these.

* “APDuino.org”:http://apduino.org/. Standard software for managing an arduino fully populated with sensors. Feel like arduino hw and sw ought to evolve to include more sensor capability by default * “Understanding coin cell limitations”:http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2012/11/15/ee-bookshelf-understanding-coin-cell-limitations/. Great stuff. Batteries are behaviourly way more complex than you would like. * “Voice modifier shield for arduino”:http://learn.adafruit.com/wave-shield-voice-changer/overview. I have a “Boss VT-1”:http://www.bossus.com/gear/productdetails.php?ProductId=414 which is ridiculously pricey, I would love to have a bunch of cheaper alternatives * “ARM-powered Arduinos coming”:http://hackaday.com/2012/10/03/finally-an-arm-powered-arduino/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+hackaday%2FLgoM+%28Hack+a+Day%29 * “GPS for power tools”:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/technology/computer-precision-for-power-tools-novelties.html?_r=0. Interesting. In not too long we will just describe to our power tools what we want done, and let the tool do all the decision making. * “Kickstarter sensor projects”:http://postscapes.com/internet-of-things-and-kickstarter. I’m tempted to buy one of each * “USB analog gauge”:http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2012/09/18/usb-analog-gauge/. I have a ton of old gauges, they are beautiful, this is exactly why I bought them. * “Fritzing”:http://fritzing.org/. I need to understand Fritzing more deeply. * “Reactive LED light panels”:http://www.evilmadscientist.com/2012/octomods/. I love these things tho I have no practical use for them. * “PureVLC”:http://purevlc.com/. Making every LED light a router.

A handful of airplane reads:

* “Up Against It”:amazon by M. J. Locke. YA SF, set in the asteroid belt. Nice technical treatment of asteroid belt life and some interesting political plotting, but tissue paper thin characters for the most part. * “Red Hook Road”:amazon by Ayelet Waldman. In a Maine coastal town, a wedding day turns to tragedy, and the families involved wrestle with that tragedy through the years. For a book that features a horrific tragedy in the first chapter, I found it a little hard to engage, but eventually a couple of the characters hooked me. * “A Very Simple Crime”:amazon by Grant Jerkins. Very quick tale of murder, and since damn near every character is a psychopath or insane or otherwise deeply disturbed, it is hard to sort out who is really guilty. * “Spiral”:amazon by Paul McEuen. Teeny robot drones combined with fungal-based bioweapons! Some fun concepts but the story devolves into the classic madman-taking-over-the-world pattern. Not bad but pretty forgetful. * “Swordspoint”:amazon by Ellen Kushner. An evocative fantasy about a master swordsman and assassin. Nice language but the story itself kind of bored me and I gave up. * “Before I Go To Sleep”:amazon by S. J. Watson. An amnesiac struggles to regain her memories and her life, and slowly realizes that those closest to her may have been using her amnesia for their own ends. Very compelling mystery tale.

And then some meatier choices:

* “Makers: The New Industrial Revolution”:amazon by Chris Anderson. Very nice quick walk through of the maker revolution – personalities, tools, markets, business models, applications, etc. Enjoyable tho at times a bit overstated. * “Hellhound On His Trail”:amazon by Hampton Sides. The story of last days of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the chase after his assassin. Very good telling of a piece of critical American history. Despite having lived during the time, and having been in DC during some of the riots, my knowledge of the details of the event (and the emotional impact it had on the nation) was very slim.

Hey, Ohio State had a bye, I had to watch something. 3 observations after watching “the show”:http://www.bravotv.com/start-ups-silicon-valley:

* I am now embarrassed to say I work in the tech industry. * Apparently there are just as many venal, shallow people in the tech industry as there are in Orange County, the Jersey Shore, or any other reality show setting * If someone ever shows up with a camera and says they want to put you on a reality show, why would you ever do anything besides run away? They are not there to burnish your image.