Friday the 13th!  Yay.  Was it back luck?  Nah; I am back home after a couple of days in Vista, had a nice quiet day of working and coding (!), and am looking forward to a nice weekend.  Who knows maybe the sun will come out and I can sit by my pool and read, or I can hang out and watch basketball, or take a little ride or two, or maybe even blog...

Uh oh: Mississippi River heading into Atchafalaya.  A nice post explaining the problem and the solution.  Looks like rural Louisiana is going to be flooded to save New Orleans.  Sigh. 

Go Rabo!  Peter Weening is presently leading the Giro.  Nobody expects this to last, but after his solo win on stage 5 he deserves it.  Excellent. 

Robert X Cringely: Why Microsoft bought Skype.  This totally makes sense to me, they bought it because they couldn't afford not to, they couldn't let Google do it instead.  And as Cringely points out the price tag has nothing to do with value, and everything to do with Google's make or buy decision.  Still I have to say, I don't get it.  In the long run there's no there there. 

So Google have announced their Chromebooks.  Interesting.  I view these as somewhere between Netbooks and iPads in their usability, but somewhat less than iPads in their functionality, at a similar price.  From that aspect, doesn't seem like they'll be successful, but I've been wrong before... 

A few thoughts on Chromebooks from Alex Raushmayer. 

How iPad will kill Google's Chromebook from Mike Elgan. 

And meanwhile: Amazon has a whole family of Android devices coming this holiday.  So be it. 

And meanwhile: the HP Veer is out on AT&T, Engadget's review.  It's teeny, and they like it. 

John Biggs: the New Yorker iPad App is the beginning of the end of print.  Huh.  And for me, the New Yorker is one of the few magazines (Wired being another) which are worth reading on paper.  We'll have to see how this plays out; I must confess I have not [yet] checked out the NY iPad App. 

Regardless of tablets, we are witnessing the end of print.  The web has ended print publishing, slowly but surely, and there will come a day when magazines are as rare as chiseled stone tablets.  Whether electronic tablets can prolong the format remains to be seen.

Johns Hopkins' Applied Physics Laboratory have been awarded a contract for Sailing the Titan Seas.  "The Titan Mare Explorer, or TiME, would perform the first direct inspection of an ocean environment beyond Earth by landing in, and floating on, a large methane-ethane sea on the cloudy, complex moon."  Excellent. 

Kid of the day: A baby mountain goat. 

Have a great weekend!