Prosper.com looks like a really smart implementation of peer to peer banking. It’s a little like eBay, with borrowers in the role of sellers and lenders in the role of buyers, the lowest offered interest rate winning the bid. Loans are repaid by automatic payment from the bank, and Prosper.com takes something from Grameen in harnessing the power of groups to motivate borrowers to pay on time.

Microwaves are not just for popcorn any more: now you can use them to drill holes in concrete, glass and ceramic.

I like to watch Bay Area real estate prices rise with the kind of sick, nervous anticipation I used to reserve for Gilligan’s Island. The plot’s utterly unrealistic, the characters are impossibly stupid, and it’s going to get get much worse before the whole structure comes crashing down in a melee of palm fronds, feather boas and histrionic recriminations. Zillow is the perfect tool for keeping up with the price of property. I can enter any address I want to get a surprisingly accurate market price for the property.

Louis Friedman, executive director of the Planetary Foundation, has some less than complementary things to say about NASA’s new budget, and its continued codependence on the space shuttle.

Video Bomb is brilliant, like Flickr for found video.