Wanna see a cool hack? Fire up Lijit Live 3D. This is semi-real time view (there are some delays built in to prevent you from getting nauseous) in Google Earth of the geolocation of searches going on across the blogs that have installed and are actively using Lijit search. The geolocation data is coming from Quova – another investment of ours. Lijit told me the integration was trivial, which is great feedback. Seeing this on a 30” screen at 7:30 in the morning is mesmerizing.

I was at a meeting with the other two TechStars founders yesterday (David Cohen and David Brown) to discuss some new and exciting things around TechStars 2008. Jared wasn’t there and in a sudden burst of amazing observation skills, I asked “where’s Jared?” Both David’s chimed in an said “he’s in Iraq.” I had one of those moments where you pause and process the words to try to make meaning of them. Then I remembered that Jared was going to Iraq for Thanksgiving to support the United Way’s efforts to assist in the development of nonprofit and humanitarian organizations. He’s blogging his trip and starts with a thought provoking post titled My Arrival in Amman, Jordan.

If you’ve been following along at home, you know that I just got a new MacBook Pro and am going to give it a shot for a while due to my current frustration with my laptop and all things Vista. My partner Chris suggested to me that it’s not about productivity or frustration; rather it’s my endless desire to play with electronic toys (he is likely correct, but I need a business rationalization for my behavior.)

The notion of “data vs. facts” made its way into several conversations today. I was at an interesting lunch today where we rolled around the in the idea of the different between them and then I had a call with an old friend on my way back to the office where he asked me a series of questions about my view of “fact based organizations” and decision making in startups.

Fred Wilson wrote an excellent post last month titled Saying No. I thought of it today when I found myself tangled up an in email exchange with someone I said no to. I won’t repeat what Fred said (his post is worth reading) but I’ll add to it. I get tons of inbound email from entrepreneurs (and bankers, and lawyers) pitching new investments. I take a look at all of them and always try to respond within a day. I say no to many of them, but I’m happy to be on the receiving end of them (and encourage you – dear reader – to send me stuff anytime.)

Josh Larson, one of the guys at MadKast, is completely obsessed with snow. His new blog – Boulder Weather – is a must read for anyone that lives here and cares about the weather. Josh is pretty sure we are going to have snow on the ground by Wednesday. It was 70+ today (beautiful, perfect November day) and is still around 60 as we settle in for the evening.

Any day now. The first detailed reviews are out – Ben Kuchera has a great one up on Ars Technica subtitled I don’t want to be a guitar hero, I want to be in a band. I hope mine shows up before Thursday so I can spend Thanksgiving playing in my new Keystone band. A new Mac, Rock Band, and a Kindle – all kinds of fun toys to play with.

Pete Warden has a good post up titled Google, Yahoo and MSN Mail APIs. In it, he points at the various “sort of APIs” that are “sort of public.” Later that day, in response to Pete’s post (not really) Google released the Google Apps Email Migration API. Progress. Deva Hazarika – who runs ClearContext – followed with a post titled The three I’s of “Inbox 2.0” where he suggests the issue isn’t the inbox, but the address book. Finally Matt Blumberg, who attended the top secret email meeting that was at Fred Wilson’s office last week, finished us off with In Search of Automated Relevance where he talks about “the channel of communication.”

If you don’t have a vice, I recommend it. My good friend and fellow VC blogger Fred Wilson has a music vice. His blog mixes his passion (ok – kind word for vice) for music with all the other stuff he thinks about, works on, cares about and loves. When he first started writing about music I tended to skim the posts – now I read every one of them and learn more about music from them than I do any other way.