Take a look at what's on the slab at Boston Dynamics in Waltham (the robot wears tennis shoes!):

Via Benjamin Spear.

Greg Cook reports on the latest from the Rose Art Museum front.

The Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled today a boy who spent four days in the hospital after having his leg ripped up by a neighbor's pit bull can make his case to a jury that his landlord was partially to blame.

Redgoldfly took this photo of a 3/4-inch bug in Waltham and wonders: What is it?

Copyright Redgoldfly. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.

The Globe reports.

Joel Brown disputes:

... Right. Although his resignation is dated Aug. 31, its announcement now via email last night to "the Brandeis community" is NOT a coincidence. Reinharz's disastrous handling of the university's plan to close the Rose and sell its collection to solve Brandeis' financial problems has been a worldwide embarrassment and has alienated many in the university community, including some donors. ...

A “Voter Choice” initiative petition turned in to the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office on Wednesday would give Massachusetts voters a chance to change to a voting system that lets voters rank their choices instead of voting for only one candidate. The change would apply to key races, including for governor, lieutenant governor, secretary and treasurer, among others, starting after January 2012.

Amanda Cather, a farmer at Waltham Fields, describes the helpless feeling watching an entire tomato crop die because of late blight - the fungus that's spread across New England this rainy summer (and the fungus that caused the Irish potato famine):

... Heavy on the vines and almost ready to ripen, the fruit turned rotten in a matter of days. From one Saturday to the next, the vines withered and died on their trellises. The second succession, planted right beside the first, was hit next. Despite spraying copper, an organically approved fungicide, we saw the blight appear in our cherry and plum tomatoes as well. Once the disease appears, there is no organically approved method of destroying it. ...

IBM says it's buying Ounce Labs of Waltham, which makes software to scan other software for possible vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers.

More details from IBM.

Greg Cook gets the scoop.

I must confess that Michael Jackson's death did not send me scurrying to the media in search of retrospectives or remembrances, until Michael Thomas wrote this op-ed piece in Sunday's New York Times. Michael is a former Bay Stater who related his days of growing up in Waltham and idolizing the Jackson 5 to family struggles he's experienced in his own life: