Google will be sponsoring 20 Drupal projects as part of their Summer Of Code this year, that's a phenomenal result for the Drupal community.

Thank you to Google for the unbelievably generous support. This represents $100,000 worth of financial contributions to Drupal development, $10,000 of which will be donated to the Drupal Association.

A few of the projects that will be worth keeping an eye on are the Jabber/XMPP integration, RSS/Atom improvements, an SMS framework, and an automated staging environment toolkit.

After all the speculation over the past few days it's finally happened.

The two companies will continue to operate independently, Google said as it announced the news on Monday.

Damn, there go all the “GooTube” and “Yoogle” mashup parodies then.

Update: Interesting commentary about the deal at Read/Write Web:

There is a LOT of talk about the deal, but for me it's significant as a watershed moment for the Web and online video. If Google is willing to spend $1.65B on the leading online video company, then they must believe that for both YouTube and the online video industry as a whole - there is a lot more growth to come.

Holy shit, that's one big earwig. Run for your lives people!

(What the hell kind of pesticide are the Germans using?)

Hat tip: Boing Boing

Update: Damn my weakness at entomology. According to this post on the Google Earth forum it's a thrips. Poor thing got squished between a glass plate and the film during scanning.

Google Mars.

Via Eric (via Wolf) comes this very daft idea of searching for "Unfortunately" plus your first name.

I'm a sucker for a daft idea.

Unfortunately Garrett re-injured his shoulder in his first match and has undergone shoulder surgery
*sniff* such a promising Curling career too
Unfortunately, Garrett does not tell it.
You're just not asking the right questions
Unfortunately, Garrett would not have been the subject of a Behind the Music episode if his story ended there.
I always go that little step too far... It's a failing I know.
Unfortunately, Garrett also includes a disappointing, confusing, frustrating, and mostly irrelevant subplot dealing with Galt's family.
Aha! You said "mostly", that means it was at least partly relevant
Unfortunately, Garrett and his mystic scarab were buried under several tons of rubble during his final battle on Pago Island.
I miss my scarab, he was very mystical