Caitlin Burke

After Lola disappeared in December, a fairly dark female appeared on the scene. After a few weeks, this relationship didn’t work out and she left the park.

Pale Male now has a second “girlfriend”. They seem to be much more of a couple and I wouldn’t be surprised if she becomes the permanent mate.

More pictures—and video!—at Urban Hawks

More at Kate Beaton’s LiveJournal.

Roses are red, violets are blue. Sugar is sweet, and I think I left the iron on.

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I’m crazy for you! Get it?

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I’d touch you without gloves. If I could, I mean.

More at McSweeney’s.

More at Defective Yeti

Full size, and more, at Richard Thompson’s site.

Wolfram Alpha has some curves and projections for the day.

We would like to present you, a relaxing video of an adorable little kitten playing in the garden. It’s filmed entirely on the Phantom HD with framerates ranging from 400 to 800 frames per second.

Alan Taylor created The Big Picture at Boston.com when he was working at the site. He’d been monitoring the wire services for photos for years, finding them a rich source for telling stories of the day in a dense and moving way. The site agreed, and he built the feature, assembling wire (and some other) photos into essays that are beautiful but also thoughtful and honest.

The Atlantic, a old media publication that has been embracing the Web with stunning effect, has been assembling an incredible team of voices for its site, and it wisely snapped Taylor up this year.

Now Taylor’s new home is live. I think you’re going to want to follow it.

In Focus with Alan Taylor [web]
In Focus with Alan Taylor [Twitter]

Auger-Loizeau is making pet robots. Sort of.

To satisfy the basic robot criteria, each one has been given a normative utilitarian aspect, performing basic services for their human hosts:
1. Mouse Trap combined with coffee table Robot.
2. Flypaper combined with Robotic clock.
3. Pest Control combined with lamp shade Robot.
4. Fly Stealing Robot. (this is a pure entertainment robot)
5. U.V. flykiller Parasite Robot.
The CDERs are autonomous as a consequence of using the Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) as energy source.
Their motivation, via programming, to capture biomass gives them agency.
They move or have mechanical moving parts.
They can sense their environment.

In other words: Trouble brewing.

More at Carnivorous Domestic Entertainment Robots

Update: Robots to get their own internet: “Wikipedia is something that humans use to share knowledge, that everyone can edit, contribute knowledge to and access,” he said. “Something like that does not exist for robots.” … RoboEarth is likely to become a tool for the growing number of service and domestic robots that many expect to become a feature in homes in coming decades. So … calorie counts and so on? Terrific.