Respect | Happy Birthday to the Man in Black

Johnny Cash was born on February 26, 1932, and passed away on September 12, 2003. I had a weird night when Johnny Cash died. I'll tell you about it somewhere else.

This is the first time Johnny Cash played "Man in Black", on February 17, 1971. He needed cue card to help him remember the lyrics.

DangerWatch | Animals

I have been collecting odd tidbits about animals for a while... animals are odd, and interesting. And sometimes dangerous! Here's a bit of it all.

First, let's get to the scary ThreatWatch-type bits, so we are not lulled into letting our defenses down out of sheer cute-ness.

An ancient antibiotic-resistant bacteria was found in an isolated cave. Let's hope it never gets out. or breeds. [cbc]

But some may be trying to communicate, like this beluga whale [bbc] and this elephant [cbc]. In fact, animal speech may be more complex than we ever thought. [cbc]

Speaking of elephants... here is one painting a picture... of an elephant.



This video about the anatomy of an ant colony is cool.



And some mourn their dead, like these giraffe. [bbc] Some hold funerals, like these western scrub jays. [bbc] Let's hope the fore-mentioned ant colony never gets it together enough to exact revenge for pouring concrete down one of their cities.

And I find crows amongst the scariest of animals... they can reason about causes. [bbc] Wasps are right up there, but just because they're nasty. And becoming more populous. [cbc]

But don't forget the animals close to home... here is a video of a feral cat hunting birds.



Then again, they could all just be dizzy nuts, like this confused duck.



Speaking of ducks... this is totally heartwarming and cool... this is a video of ducks that had been rescued from a hoarder that kept them in pens, without access to adequate water of nutrition... and this is the first time they have ever been introduced to life in a pond.



Finally... here is a video of a squid's membrane pulsing along as it listens to Insane in the Membrane by Cypress Hill.

DoomWatch | Robots!

It seems inevitable.

And ListVerse has at least 20 reasons to be terrified:
10 Reasons to be Terrified of Robots [ListVerse]
10 More Reasons to be Terrified of Robots [ListVerse]

First... in 2011 ASIMO advanced from being an "automatic machine" to an "autonomous machine".



They have started to think for themselves. [wired]



They have started to communicate. [BBC]

And they can be outfitted with terrible things to outfit onto robots:



Plus great minds at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge are assessing the risk of a robot uprising, as we speak! [BBC]

For Valentine's | "Voice Over, a short film" by Martin Rosete

The Olden Days | Destination Earth (1956)