Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for October 16

Skip to the bottom where John Metta reveals the formation of a new blog covering the Gorge tech scene: “[O]ver the next couple weeks, I’m slowly building up the infrastructure for a way to Engage The Gorge (Site launch scheduled for November 1st). It’ll start small, because that’s all I can do. It’ll just be an article here and there thanking someone for what they’re doing. Just some quick write-ups and podcasts helping to make people look good.”

Marshall Kirkpatrick writes “International recommendation technology provider Strands has announced the five finalists in the Strands $100K Call for Recommender Start-Ups. From music to video to pharmaceutical drug development recommendations, these plucky startups from all around the world will now present at the Association for Computing Machinery’s Recommender Systems 2008 conference in Switzerland and one will be offered a $100k investment from Strands.”

Mike Rogoway writes “Free Geek’s Kevin Berg tells me this morning that someone broke in to the group’s Southeast Portland thrift shop early yesterday morning and stole a Mac.”

Via the WhereCamp PDX blog “On Friday evening, WhereCampPDX kicks-off with an art opening at Olympic Mills! The exhibition is called Equilibrium, the Human Mashup and presents artworks that explore the ways art and technology deal with Momentum, Maintenance, Multiplicity, and Mobility.”

Via the Shizzow blog “We made a few enhancements and some bug fixes this week as proof that we really do read all of that stuff that you post for us on Get Satisfaction.”

Via the Oregon Blogs blog “For a little while, things were starting to seem disappointing in the ORBlogs effort. I origionally shot for Oct. 1st to get the BigBark code running, giving us a near immediate availability of the aggregator and Digg ranking. However, the time I’ve spent away from Java has made that nearly impossible. So we started talking about what the best options are, and if we should step back from the BigBark code at all.”

Amber Case writes “The date’s been set. Due to scheduling conflicts (including the event being really close to Thanksgiving) CyborgCamp Portland will be held on December 6th, 2008, at Portland’s CubeSpace.”

Via the LaunchPad Coworking blog “For this installment, a virtual chat with Carolynnn Duncan, founder of CoffeeWithAnExpert, an online/offline way for entrepreneurs to find the right person with a skill that can solve a micro-problem in their business. Duncan has been partnering with coworking spaces [like Portland’s CubeSpace] to offer her program.”

Via OnStartups “If you’re one of those rare entrepreneurs that has the discipline to stay reasonably focused on what you should be working on, feel free to skip the rest of this article with the comforting knowledge that you have my admiration and envy.”

Darius Monsef writes “As an internet entrepreneur you never have enough time complete all the things you have on your list get done. Often working out is not high up on that list, but I’m going to encourage you to put it up there at the top… Membership fees cost around $20-50 a month and I promise you you’ll get a great return on your investment of cash and time. Have more energy, feel better, be happy, sleep better, be more successful…”

Via the Eclipse Foundation “During November 2008, we are inviting individuals to organize and attend Eclipse DemoCamps around the world. The Eclipse DemoCamps are an opportunity to showcase all of the cool interesting technology being built by the Eclipse community. They are also an opportunity for you to meet Eclipse enthusiasts in your city. You don’t need to be a software developer to attend!”