In March I wrote about Standing Cloud‘s public launch of a free service to test drive open source applications. As reported today in TechCrunch, Standing Cloud has now launched it’s Business Edition, a service that enables users to also host applications on any of four cloud providers. As with the free edition, they have made it remarkably easy to get started: you register (including providing payment information), select your cloud provider and application, and go. Currently, the easiest setup is with Rackspace, where Standing Cloud can automatically assign a billing account to you; this easy setup is coming soon for GoGrid and Amazon EC2.

Tonight’s book was Inside Out by Barry Eisler, one of my favorite mental floss writers. Several (four?) years ago when Amy and I were up in Homer, we became obsessed with Eisler’s John Rain books. I miss John Rain but if foreshadowing is to be believed, I expect the next Eisler book will include both Rain and his sidekick Dox. If you like Eisler, Inside Out is fast paced and fun. I found it appropriately cynical about torture, the government, and everything else that was covered, except for the one gratuitous and fully predictable sex scene which was nicely done.

Yesterday, I sent a note requesting something to a long time friend of mine who is an exec at a fast growing tech company. I’m a tiny investor – not on the board – but we are long time friends who have done a lot for each other in the past. My friend is extremely busy so I try to be careful with his time and limit my requests for help.

My friend Sawyer was as disappointed in the outcome of Bilski as he was in the ending to LOST. In fact, he asked if I’d change his pseudonym to Joseph Adama of Caprica but I vetoed this over extreme nerdiness. Nonetheless Sawyer let loose on Bilski and helps clarify both his perspective on why the Supreme Court took such a milquetoast approach as well as what one of the unintended consequences of their action – or lack thereof – will be. And for those of you who have forgotten Sawyer’s background, he’s a patent attorney that is channeling his opinion through me. And we’ve been discussing setting up a very large data center on an island somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

On page 89, the book’s unnamed protagonist said “My brain hurts.” I thought to myself, so does mine. God’s Debris is Scott Adams’ first non-fiction book (yes, that Scott Adams, the father of Dilbert.) Well – it might be fiction, it might be philosophy, or it might be a novella. Or maybe it’s something else. But it’s fascinating. And challenging. But short. It was tonight’s book (although the night is still relatively young so I’ll get started on the next one in a few minutes.)

On my way back from the Homer airport this morning (five minute drive from my house) after dropping off a pair of packages at Fedex (yes – Fedex is here – at the airport – but you’ve got to drop off by 10:30 for next day delivery) I saw a sign that caught my eye. Local. Organic. Wi-Fi. The sign was outside the Sourdough Express Bakery, one of Homer’s local restaurant institutions (it’s been around since 1982 and is on the “must eat there once every summer” list.)

This week’s episode of The Founders appears to be “baby themed.” With cupcakes. Fun stuff. “The Element of Surprise” The Founders | TechStars Boulder | Episode 7 from TechStars on Vimeo.

More jobs – this time in San Francisco. We recently invested in Triggit – my partner Seth blogged about our investment and the rise of real time bidding platforms and we put up a post about Triggit on the Foundry Group blog. Triggit is one of a group of recently emerging companies called demand side platforms (DSP) that provide technology to advertisers enabling them to buy display media across millions of websites. Triggit specializes in using a technology called real time bidding where they bid on and run the ads you see in real time as you move across the web. In the milliseconds that it takes your browser to request a new website, Triggit is looking at your ad impression for its customers and determining how much you are worth, what ad to serve, submitting a bid and tracking the results. Even more interestingly they do this billions of times a day around the world.

One of my favorite things about the month I spent each year in Homer is reading. We don’t have a TV here and, other than going out to dinner for some extra fresh halibut, Amy and I end up spending almost every evening at home reading, writing, or knitting (well – she knits). I usually consume about a book a day (a few take me two days – so it ends up being five a week, or about twenty over the month.)