While I’m usually amused by the copyright gaffes I see, I laughed out loud when I saw that Google News was still Copyright 2007 (thanks to dschwartz for the tip.) Dear Mr. Google: It’s almost February 2008. Oh – and make the date a variable! I guess I should be nice since I’m sure some of the companies I’ve funded haven’t fixed (or variable-ized) the copyright dates on their site.

In his post titled Feed Archaeology Charlie Wood writes about the little known NewsGator Archive Service. NewsGator has archived all the RSS feeds that its users have subscribed to since it started. Since it only archives feeds that users subscribe to, there isn’t a spam / splog problem in the archive. If your blog magically disappears (like Charlie’s did (due in his case to a server that died) you can easily recover it from the NewsGator Archive Service. In addition, if you use FeedBurner for your feed, your readers might not even notice.

If you know me, you know that I have a weird obsession with bathrooms. It goes back a long time and definitely has some strange psychologic underpinnings that I’m sure Dr. Freud would have fun discussing. I don’t fight it – I just roll with it. Several years ago, I had a discussion with Heidi Roizen about her failed attempt to get her name on a bathroom at Stanford during their fundraising drive for a new building on campus. The rejection came with the admonishment that it wasn’t an appropriate thing to do. I laughed and told Heidi – “no problem – I’m sure I can get one at MIT in no time – they are more flexible in their thinking about what is appropriate.” Boy was I wrong – I’ve written about the story before on this blog if you are interested. The bottom line is the request apparently went around the system before being crushed by the bureaucracy somewhere at MIT. Their loss.

Great advice from Julie Alexandria on WallStrip to all the big thinkers in Davos who are Scornful of US Policies and worried about the impact of the fall of the “wounded giant.” To you, Julie says “Eh screw it. Let’s dance.” I loved George Soros’ quote: ““The current crisis is not only the bust that follows the housing boom. It’s basically the end of a 60-year period of continuing credit expansion based on the dollar as the reserve currency.” Is the US finally having it’s post-Edwardian England moment?

Andrew Hyde – the wonderful, fun, and friendly founder of StartupWeekend – wrote a great post recently On Burning Out. He’s back – after taking a long break – which is great. Last week I had dinner with another long time friend and entrepreneur who told me he “had the blues.” His company had a strong 2007 and is well positioned for 2008, but he’s been sick since the holidays, has been feeling down, and can’t seem to shake it.

The TechStars 2008 Applications are now open. Last year we had 302 applications and accepted 10 companies. 8 of the 10 companies are now either financed or profitable and several have received acquisition offers. If you apply before March 3rd, you are invited to come to our TechStars for a Day program. We are having a TechStars party in the Bay Area this Thursday evening January 24th from 6pm to 8:30pm at the Plug and Play Tech Center (440 N Wolfe Road in Sunnyvale, California.) Space is limited so if you are want to come, please sign up for the event on Facebook or drop the TechStars folks a note.

I was a keynote speaker at the University Venture Fund Conference last Friday. I had a great time and was blown away by the quality of the 300+ undergrad and graduate students from around the country who participate in the UVF program. Most of the conference was very relevant and substantive, including a great list from Martin Plaehn’s (Bungee Labs CEO) titled Quick Hits: Do’s and Dont’s of Entrepreneurship which was posted earlier today on Will Price of Hummer Winblad’s blog. I’ve known Martin since the mid 1990’s when the company he was running (Viewpoint) bought a company I was chairman of (Thinkfish) and while we haven’t worked together since, he was in fine form on Friday and brought back good memories.

I’m not a macroeconomics guy – never have been, never will be. I don’t watch CNBC, Bloomberg, CNN, or even Fox News. When I was on the board of several public companies, I used to hit refresh on my My.Yahoo home page about 371 times a day – I no longer have a My.Yahoo home page (or any public company board seats – never again.) I’ve learned that the day to day macro stuff doesn’t impact what I do. It’s just noise. And I have more than enough things that I chose to focus on, so I do my best to consciously filter out the noise.

A humorous view on sales executives. My apologies to all my friends that are in sales. I love each and every one of you. (Thanks for the link Tim.)