Time for our biennial system build exercise. We built two systems over the last two weeks. While I still use my MacBook Pro for 95% of my productivity work, the Mac game market is moribund, and there is some joy in building a machine from components. So for the fun of building, and for gaming use as well as other general use, we built out two different systems:

* Cases. Very different choices. Air cooling for both, we’ve had 3-4 liquid-cooled systems. Liquid cooling looks awesome with the right fluids and lights, but – another maintenance hassle; sometimes catastrophic failures; and they just aren’t any quieter really. ** First system is an Antec 1200. Classic full tower case, tons of drive bays, tons of fans, full complement of front panel ports. Nice clear sides, some cool interior lighting. Nice looking final system, but a little time consuming to pull together – particularly all the cable connections for fans and front panel connectors. But looks nice complete. ** Second system is built around a High Speed PC Tech Station. An open, “caseless” system, super easy and quick to assemble, and gives nice open access to all elements of the system. The finished product looks messy but that is part of the appeal. No protection from the elements either. Massively faster to assemble tho. * Motherboards. The Antec has an ASUS P6X58D and this is a great board – USB3, SATA3, designed for overclockers. Probably should have gotten this board for both systems. The second has an ASRock X58 which is fine and a little cheaper but lacks the USB3 and SATA3 support. For the price-difference, probably should have goen with the more future-proof board. Both boards seem pretty equivalent otherwise. * Processors. Intel i7-920 2.66Ghz quad-core on both. Not the most expensive but overclockable. On the first PC with the Antec case, we installed a higher capacity cooler for overclocking support – a noname generic cooler but something like this one that we picked up at a the local parts store. * RAM. 6GB of Corsair Dominator Triple Channel ram (3x2GIG) on both systems. Pretty easy to install, tho absolutely no documentation on the fan, but there was really only one way to try to install it and it seemed to work. * Power supplies. The Antec has an OCZ 1000W. This is a solid supply with tons of connectors, certainly good enough for nearly any system. But the Enermax Galaxy 1250W is super nice because of the modular cable system – you only attach the power connectors you actually need. Cuts down massively on cable clutter, particularly helpful for the caseless system. I’d go with modular supplies every time in the future. * Hard drives. Both machines have 2 1.5TB WD Caviar drives, 7200 RPM. Nothing fancy, amazing how cheap drives have become. Considered faster drives but they contribute to noise and, based on past experience with 10K rpm drives, not clear they add that much performance. * DVD/Blue Ray drives. Not having strong opinions on drive vendors (partly because I’ve had bad drives from every vendor in the past), we scattered out purchases around here. Both systems have the same bluray drive – an LG drive. One system then has a Samsung DVD burner, the other a Pioneer. * Removeable media. Both systems have a 17-in-1 Sony memory card reader. Neither has a floppy, thank goodness Windows install doesn’t need that anymore. * Video cards. OK we really wanted Radeon 5970s but these are mythical. The 5870s are near-mythical, almost like unicorns. But they are findable on ebay for near MSRP and that is the route we went. Expect to pay $500 or so. Standard ebay warnings apply – look for vendors with long selling histories, flawless reputations, US-based, etc. We had no problems. The caseless system also has a second card, a 5770, the goal is to be able to run directx games on one display while running other apps on the other card, I’m not convinced this is actually possible. * Software. Win7 ultimate, from MS Company Store for $50. Worth renewing my alumni membership for this. Installed easily, 64bit on both. Unlike vista, this version really seems to work and driver software seems plentiful. The experience isn’t flawless – IE hung when downloading the latest ATI drivers and we had to use opera/chrome/firefox; and the homegroup network UI is ill-considered at best, the networking UI is basically awful. Inventing funky abstractions like homegroups and libraries isn’t that helpful, lipstick on a pig. I just want to see the machines and devices on my network as a first step, is that so hard? * Other software. Opera, Chrome, Firefox, Acrobat, Steam (with COD4, L4D2), Zune, Office10Beta, FileZilla, Tunebite all installed fairly quickly.

Machines both running well and seem to be happy so far. What do we still want?

* SSD drives. Also near mythical, impossible to find. Will have to add these post holidays. * 5970 video cards. * A desktop power switch for the caseless system. With no case, there is no obvious power and reset button, just little switches on the motherboard. One idea is to switch to a PS2 keyboard and enable powerup from keyboard in the BIOS.

• @Andy_Staples why stop at 1 team. If paying the cost to crack open, let’s add 3-5 and really grab tv share in reply to Andy_Staples #
• Big10 expansion – why stop at 12? http://bit.ly/86KGsF #
• Best books I read 2H09 – http://bit.ly/5f2sfX #
• RT @tylercowen: Hugo Chavez: “If the climate was a bank, they would have already saved it.” Via Angus. #
• An agenda for the BCS – http://bit.ly/6dgrXq #
• @bfeld our dog had acl surgery 9 mos ago. Recovery a hassle but has turned out fine. Good luck in reply to bfeld #

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• Toshiba Escargot Vacuum. Japan only, boo hoo.
• The Storyboard book. Very nice.
• See-through sink trap. Not clear that I want to see what is in there but still a cool idea…
• Design plate challenge. Great looking plates…
• Wireless HDMI. Way too expensive, and hate the resolution limit.

OK I don’t love the BCS but I am not a college football playoff nut either. College basketball is great in March but the rest of the season has been sapped of its vitality and that would be terrible for football.

The BCS has been made the bad guy in all these and they just sit back and let themselves get hammered, trying only the most pathetic PR response. Hiring a fancy PR firm, which the BCS has done, isn’t going to help. No amount of spit and polish is going to make a crappy message look better.

The BCS needs to quit letting others set the agenda and needs to go on the offensive with their own agenda. Here is one proposal:

• What is the real problem with the matchups created this season in the BCS bowls? No one knows how to evaluate all the unbeatens – is an unbeaten TCU better or worse than Cincy or Texas or Boise or ? And are they really better than any 1-loss teams out there?
• We don’t know how to evaluate these teams because the regular season is a failure – there is little/no meaningful cross-conference play. Imagine if TCU had had to play a couple SEC teams or Cincy a couple Big-12 teams and so on. Meaningful interconference play during the season would help bowl seeding dramatically.
• The NCAA let schools add a 12th game to their seasons a few years back – and rather than adding meaning interconference play, everyone has gone on a cupcake search. These games have added nothing to the quality of the sport. These games could and should be replaced with something more meaningful.
• The idea then: grab the 12th game back. Ask all schools to hold a weekend in mid-October open. At the end of the previous weekend’s play, seed all the FCS teams into meaningful interconference games. And have a grand mid-season interconference weekend full of meaningful games.
• This would bring a level of excitement to the sport in October that would be unprecedented. A weekend of great games. The excitement of seeding announcements the weekend before. It would be an event on the scale of March Madness but unique to football in structure. It would be like a midseason Bowl season.
• We would hold off creating BCS ratings until after this weekend so that the ratings can benefit from the information learned in this weekend.

Rather than sitting back passively and being blamed as the bad guy ruining the sport, the BCS could go on the offensive with a proposal that would materially improve the sport. And it would maintain the character and history of the bowls, while improving the postseason matchups.

There are many ways the mid-season seeding could happen and there is no need to get caught up in our undershorts of any one system. A proposal below but the exact form doesn’t matter.

• Pick a weekend 6 weeks into the season – halfway point. All schools hold the weekend free for a game to be scheduled, and they agree to provide a playing facility every other year. Gate will be evenly split between schools, no one should care where a game is played. There is a debate to be had about games played on campus or at neutral sites, I have no strong position, there are good arguments for either.
• Scheduling is done completely blind of any rankings, human or computer. All that is considered is FBS conference rankings up to that point in the season.
• Conference standings are split in half – upper and lower. If you are in upper half, you will play an FBS team in the upper half of another FBS conference. Lower half, then opponent in lower half of another FBS conference. Seeding happens within these halves then.
• Unaffiliated teams are grouped with existing conferences for this exercise. ND with Big10, Navy and Army with BigEast, etc. A best estimate made of where they would rank in conference standing.
• The out-of-conference lineup rotates each year according to a known schedule.

So applied to this year’s Big10 standings (approximate midyear , based on memory):

• Iowa Plays a 6 seed from Pac10
• PSU plays a 5 seed from Mountain West
• OSU plays a 4 seed from WAC
• Wisconsin plays a 3 seed from Sun Belt
• MSU plays a 2 seed from Big12
• Notre Dame plays a 1 seed from CUSA
• Northwestern plays a 12 seed from MAC
• Minnesota plays an 11 seed from SEC
• Purdue plays a 10 seed from Big East
• Indiana plays a 9 seed from the ACC
• Illinois plays an 8 seed from the Pac10
• Michigan plays a 7 seed from the Mountain West

The conferences were just listed arbitrarily west to east. The next year they would rotate so you get a mix of seeds from conferences every year.

This system doesn’t screw up conference standings, in fact in reinforces the conference games as conference standing impacts seeding. It doesn’t screw up bowl affiliations, bowl economics, bowl season. It doesn’t screw up BCS participation except for at-large teams, and it can only improve the quality of selection. It creates a huge amount of midyear excitement, almost a 2nd bowl season. And it is scalable -- if only 3 conferences want to participate at first, fine, do it with just 3.

OK so there are a ton of details to work out but the core is this – the BCS needs to create a positive agenda and get out of their reactive position, and there is plenty of opportunity to improve the regular season.

Techstars expands to Seattle

• Awesome Studio Mango rugs. Love the asymmetry.
• Hometown Jigsaw Puzzle. Would order one but 2-3 weeks for production…
• Compartes Chocolates. Not really a chocolate fan but these are just so great looking…
• Blue shift bumper sticker. Geek humour.
• Tyler Cowen’s book list. His recos have a high hit rate.
• Pocket Ref book. If Kurt recos, it will be good.
• 3d power plug. Doesn’t exist but if it did…
• Cole-Bar Hammer. OK I only drive about 30 nails a year but still this looks like a winner.
• LED Bed. Looks like effective birth control to me.
• Motif cube. Looks puzzle-ish but isn’t.
• Power Plug with USB. Way underpriced.

* “Under the Dome”:amazon by Stephen King. An impermeable dome settles over a New England town, and Lord of the Flies/Kristallnacht ensues. No supernatural baddies here, just ill-behaved humans. Ultimately there is a supernatural cause for the dome, but all the real evil in the book is 100% human in origin. Somewhat entertaining but very very long. Amazon says 3.5 stars, a shorter crisper version might have warranted more.

* “Asterios Polyp”:amazon by David Mazzucchelli. A very grown up graphic novel. Asterios lives a self-absorbed life, but late in life starts to reflect on his path and what he really values. A very compelling tale. Super easy to get through but packed with insight. Amazon says 4.5 stars, I’m good with that.

Blogs and tweets galore today about Big 10 expansion – the discussion all centering on who should be the 12th team, particularly if not ND?

I’m not in love with the idea of expansion, but if it is going to happen…it is all about money. If ND won’t join in, no single other school will make a real contribution to TV viewership. So why stop at 12 teams? Pick up 3 or 5 and really increase TV footprint. Again assuming ND won’t play:

• If 3, go after Rutgers, BC, Syracuse. Good schools, pick up major East Coast interest. BC can’t be that committed to the ACC. Syracuse is a great bball program and can be a great football program. Rutgers is the weakest but the potential TV market is huge. And this expansion would be big big news and would drive interest.
• If 5, add in Pitt for sure. Not thrilled about WVU as the last add, no population base for TV or recruiting. What about UConn?

These would be dramatic moves but if the Big10 wants to grab the spotlight again, a one team expansion of someone besides ND is just not going to do it. It is a “me too” move and pretty boring.

OK two more crazy ideas, but in the vein of “let’s get the spotlight of football back on the Big 1o”:

• A 2 weekend playoff at end of season. Trim off one game from 12-game schedule, have two play-in games from the top 4 teams. Pair up everyone else in seed order for a final 12th game.
• Heck with eastern expansion, merge with the Pac-10. The Pac-10 tv offering sucks, the BTEN network could pick up all the Pac-10 content and Pac-10 footprint.

Point being, if you can’t get ND, don’t screw around with half-measures. Go big or go home.

Tim motivated me to look over all the books I’ve read in the last 6 months. Some great ones and some dreck. The ones I am glad I read:

• “The Road”:amazon by Cormac McCarthy. Brutal, spartan. Viggo is the right man for the role.
• “The Chatham School Affair”:amazon by Thomas H. Cook. A nice little tale of small town adultery and how it rips apart the lives around it. Edgar Award winner tho certainly not structured like a typical mystery. Hard to find.
• “The Power Of Myth”:amazon by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers. Classic book about some of the deep issues of life and humanity.
• “QED”:amazon by Richard P. Feynman. Simple (to the degree that anything quantum can be simple) explanation of the basics of quantum electrodynamics.
• “The Post-American World”:amazon by Fareed Zakaria. A little dated by financial events but still good.
• “Consider Phlebas”:amazon by Iain M. Banks. Seemingly a space opera but actually a thoughtful book about humanity, the futility of war. Must read the epilog.
• “The Tourist”:amazon by Olen Steinhauer. Excellent tale of a CIA agent dealing with betrayal at many levels and his own secrets. Emotionally crushing ending.
• “Await Your Reply”:amazon by Dan Choan. Strange tale of a serial ID thief trying to find a life for himself.
• “In Pale Battalions”:amazon by Robert Goddard. A woman gradually discovers the truths about her family and background – the cruelty and crimes during WWI which defined her life.
• “Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America”:amazon by Robert Charles Wilson. Excellent tale of post-apocolyptic America. Classic tragedy themes narrated in a folksy Twainish style.
• “The Only Three Questions That Count”:amazon by Ken Fisher. One successful investor’s view on how to invest. The discussion on national debt levels alone is worth the book.

Books I wish I hadn’t bought: Air by Geoff Ryman, The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Barry, Third Degree by Greg Iles, T is for Trespass by Sue Grafton, The Singularity Is Near by Ray Kurzweil. All bad in their own way.

• Wish I could get more Taylor Swift news. #
• @brucery agree, chex mix are nasty in reply to brucery #
• RT @timoreilly: “If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.” –General Eric Shinseki #
• Rose bowl tickets confirmed – http://bit.ly/5M0XKC #
• RT @fromedome: The Nook is the new Zune: http://bit.ly/5kunUg $BKS $AMZN #
• RT @Wally1440: About 1,000 Rose Bowl tickets offered to public were sold in 10 mins today. Ohio State has sold out its 25,000 tickets. #
• Um, golf is not his problem – Tiger Woods Is Taking ‘Indefinite Break’ From Golf (NYTimes) http://bit.ly/5HreNp #

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Hurray, got the mail from the ticket office today, we’ll be there. Not like it was hard to get them – apparently the alums didn’t snap up all the tix as there will be a public sale.

As Rose Bowl prep, some reading:

• A nice primer on Rose Bowl and bowl system history. There is no NCAA football championship, the bowls are not about a championship. Important to remember as we get into the silly season now with everyone gnashing and wailing about the BCS.
• Bowl gifts. Pretty standardized across all the games at this point.
• OSU 7-0 all time against Oregon, yay!
• But the Oregon trolls are out in force in the comments here
• The Rose Bowl is pretty rarefied air for Oregon – their usual destinations are El Paso, San Diego, Las Vegas, etc.  Welcome to the big time.

• @philbogle gdocs latex support not as cool as i had hoped – wish allowed inline latex editing rather than insertion of an object in reply to philbogle #
• RT @mckoss: Learn, Act, Give - World Aids Day 2009 - http://www.quip-art.com/225 #
• Can’t wait for GTA V:Tiger Woods edition #

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• RT @edsbs: New EDSBS! Mangino Motivationals. Order now for the holidays! http://tinyurl.com/yeg39gy #

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OK somehow I have managed to jam a few books into the last month despite all the other things going on.  I will say this, time pressure makes me a little more selective.

* “The Road”:amazon by Cormac McCarthy. Boy I’m late to this one. Brutal, spartan tale. Touching but deeply sad. Going to be the feelgood movie of the holiday season! Viggo is the right guy for this role.

* “The Chatham School Affair”:amazon by Thomas H. Cook. A nice little tale of small town adultery and how it rips apart the lives around it. Depths of darkness here, and some unexpected twists. An Edgar Award winner tho certainly not structured like a typical mystery, probably will appeal to more types of readers. Amazon says 4 stars, I’d say 4.5, this one will stick with me for a while. Surprisingly hard to find – this is why the retail bookstores are in trouble, too much crap on the racks, not enough of this kind of book.

* “Air”:amazon by Geoff Ryman. A small town in Central Asia is brought forcefully into the information age. Highly recommended, award-winning but blah, just doesn’t click for me. Not terrible but just uninteresting. Maybe deeper in the story ramps up but I gave up after 50 pages. Amazon gives 4 stars but I can’t give it more than one.

* “Consider Phlebas”:amazon by Iain M. Banks. His first? Culture novel about a far distant future. Seemingly a space opera but actually a thoughtful book about humanity, the futility of war. Better than I first thought. The epilog to the tale really ties it together. Amazon says 4 stars, this seems right.

All Big 10 honors announced – only 2 Bucks on first team, Tressel passed over yet again for coach of the year. What does the guy have to do?