Wow. Gorgeous site, and some really great desktop backgrounds among.

AppJet, the engine behind EtherPad, has been acquired by Google.

This means EtherPad will be shut down come March. This approach to this reminds me of something the Drama 2.0 Show <a href=”http://www.drama20show.com/2008/12/03/silicon-valley-the-only-place-where-getting-a-new-job-acquisition/” rel=”nofollow” title=”‘The Only Place Where Getting a New Job = Acquisition'”, about Six Apart’s acquisition of Pownce”>said a year ago, before it became a porn site:

[A]nytime a failed startup is “acquired” and the service is shut down, you don’t have an acquisition. You have a Silicon Valley signing bonus.

I don’t mean to suggest EtherPad failed (from the reactions this story gets, it would seem this is not the case), but I agree with Drama’s main point: when the acquired company is shut down as part of the agreement, it is not so much acquired, as the founders are hired with sign-on fees.

(Via Jacob Kaplan-Moss)

And on the topic of clothing, Simplebits have made a fine-looking T-shirt.

Wow, that is one wonderful wrist watch. I want one of those.

(Via Put This On.)

A detailed description of Backblaze‘s setup, getting a lot of storage to fit in a limited budget.

This is quite old news (1 September), but I didn’t read it the first time around, and was reminded of it today via a newsletter from them.

New non-profit from American Association for the Advancement of Science, dedicated to help US Federal Government make use of the expertise of its citizens.

(Via Anil Dash, the lab’s director.)

A collection of HTML elements and CSS styling, to test a font’s usefulness on the web. Made by Tim Brown of Nice Web Type fame.

Marvellous. An entire site dedicated to shoelaces.

(Via Put This On.)

Jason Santa Maria in A List Apart on how to pair web fonts in the new world of @font-face.

Jeremy Keith has a post on a new visual cue he has developed for Huffduffer, to signal a small change. The change is akin to the visual feedback one gets in Super Mario when scoring points, and I must say, it’s quite well-executed.