Good morning!  A beautiful Saturday, sitting outside enjoying the morning... and I am anticipating a mountain bike ride with my friends in a bit... but I am also a bit melancholy, as it is now, unofficially, the End of Summer.  My kids are back in school, there is football on TV, and the air has a slight bite to it.  It has been a great summer for me, and I am not ready for it to be over!  Nooo...

NY Times: New Kindle Leaves Rivals Farther Back.  I just bought one of these for Megan, arrived yesterday.  Really impressive little device.  Smaller thinner lighter brighter cooler than Kindle 2 (which I have) which was smaller thinner lighter brighter cooler than Kindle 1 (which I had).  Definitely the future of reading. 

Dog bites man: Blockbuster plans to file for bankruptcy.  And so electronic distribution trumps physical once again.  How long before this happens to Barnes & Noble? 

Apropos: View from the trenches: surviving change... 

Also: Phone numbers are dead, they just don't know it yet... 

Good to know: Ogling beautiful women a natural reflex for men.  Um, duh. 

The Onion wonders: Are tests biased against apathetic students?  It is so interesting the way test results are compared against "common knowledge", as a way of testing the tests.  I am in the middle of this with my daughter Alex, who has taken the SATs ahead of applying to colleges... far more time and energy goes into explaining why SAT results are incorrect (because they don't match "common knowledge") than goes into analyzing those results to learn what is really going on... 

Very important for future reference: Vanderleun's 330 word guide to writing a book proposal.  I *must* do this.  I must I must I must... 

Coding Horror: Vampires (Programmers) vs. Werevolves (Sysadmins).  "The art of managing vampires and werewolves, I think, is to ensure that they spend their time not fighting amongst themselves, but instead, using those supernatural powers together to achieve a common goal they could not otherwise. In my experience, when programmers and system administrators fight, it's because they're bored."  I love it. 

TheScientist has A Q&A with Frank Gehry as he shares thoughts on his latest creation, the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health."TS: When designing the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, were you inspired by the diseases and patients it was intended to treat? FG: Well, I work with the clients and they have programs, requirements for their labs and for their equipment and things like that, so we respond to that...  we take our direction from them as clients and explore ways to make their lives more interesting and better through the building."  How awesome is that building?  I suspect it will indeed influence the work done inside of it! 

Important work: How to sail downwind faster than the wind.  Interestingly it is necessary to accelerate the vehicle externally to a speed higher than the wind, at which point it can stay there.  Seems like cheating, doesn't it? 

Did you know?  Clean people feel morally superior.  As we should :) 

Zooborns of the week: Komodo Dragon hatchlings!