7 stories to read this weekend

It is the long weekend. And unless you are traveling, I believe you might have enough time to sit and read and ruminate on different things. I have seven stories that are food for thought. The topics range from baseball to DNA to the future of news.

• Inventors and Entrepreneurs. My good friend Andy Weissman on his grandfather, who was both an inventor and an entrepreneur. Lovely story.
• NPR’s On Point writes and reports on the rise of micro-labor. It has become a major trend, but we at GigaOM have been writing about it for nearly three years.
• Mary Jo Foley, a long time Microsoft watcher is getting impatient waiting for the Windows 8 hardware.
• Play ball. And in Miami they have come up with a brand new park to play the game of baseball. A closer look at what is the first of its kind 21st century baseball stadium.
• I think a lot about news media and its future. In fact, I think about it all the time. Unfortunately, I am easily discouraged by what I see. However, computer scientists are more optimistic and have created a new framework for a very scientific approach to journalism. (Read the whitepaper.)
• I hate lists, but this one is actually is a good one. SmartMoney writes about 10 things online data collectors won’t say.
• DNA has limits, but those studies that question its value also have limits too. A scientific debate worth paying attention to.