It's the Alexis edition of my blog, as she turns 17 today... congratulations, to the most wonderful kid imaginable... and meanwhile, we find:

Chest Beating: NEMA Working Group 6 have approved supplement 145 to the DICOM standard, "Whole Slide Imaging for Microscopy".  This means that the huge complicated images created by scanning entire microscope slides can now be stored using the DICOM standard, a major step forward for my company Aperio and the entire digital pathology community.  It will take time for this standard to be adopted and propagate, but just having a standard is a major step forward, and every journey starts with the first step.  Yay. 

From the August 9 issue of the New Yorker: 

• The Wheelhouse - "Herzog and de Meuron reinvent the parking garage" - and how great is that?  I've always admired the spiral parking of the circular Marina Towers adjacent to the Chicago River... 

• Empty Chamber - "Just how broken is the Senate?" - judging from this article, the answer is very broken indeed.  Yikes. 

Here we have the T.O. Acorn's Squirrel of the Month.  A great feature, and a great choice :)