The Perry campaign’s journey into the world of instant online communication hit a major cyber-roadblock Tuesday morning, when the governor’s much-anticipated web announcement to officially kick of his re-election campaign fell victim to a database error that kept supporters and other curious web-watchers from being able to see the governor at all.

Multiple panicked reloads were powerless against the error: “Unable to connect to server,” it read. “Too many connections.”

More awesome than I can possibly put into words. More…

Friday Night Lights in Texas.

Sweet, my dream of kayaking on Mars for my 60th birthday is almost feasible. Just a little more terraforming needed.

The city of Houston covers 620 square miles,” he says. “You could put inside the city limits of Houston, simultaneously — I kid you not — the cities of Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago and Detroit.”

More from NPR about taming this monster. Is the sprawl a bad way to build a city? Yeah, but…

Noting the addition of a million people in 10 years, Glaeser says the city succeeds “by providing middle-income Americans with a really astonishingly high quality of life.”

Among the town’s advantages are an average work commute of less than 30 minutes and low housing costs. The National Association of Realtors puts the city’s average home price at around $150,000, Glaeser says. Other perks include a lack of state income tax and a vibrant restaurant scene.

Granted, it’s likely you’ll have to drive 45 minutes to get form on restaurant to the next.

Someone enquired, via twitter, the other day as to the best burger in Austin. My response: what  kind? A guide for the less well-informed. (via kottke)

If you ever had the urge to rent a 132,000 ton cargo ship and go joyriding around the South Pacific, now’s your chance.

Here, on a sleepy stretch of shoreline at the far end of Asia, is surely the biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history. Their numbers are equivalent to the entire British and American navies combined; their tonnage is far greater. Container ships, bulk carriers, oil tankers – all should be steaming fully laden between China, Britain, Europe and the US, stocking camera shops, PC Worlds and Argos depots ahead of the retail pandemonium of 2009. But their water has been stolen.  More

“It’s really going to be interesting when Bonfire is reintroduced on the campus again, and it will be.” Disgraceful and disrespectful to the poor kids who were senselessly crushed-to-death by a giant stack of logs, that was poorly assembled by drunk teenagers.

Once again Texas is No. 1 in the nation when it comes to the percentage of its residents who are uninsured. Awesome.