Looking for a talented roboticist for your startup?

Don't hire Simone Giertz! She delightfully displays her handiwork here for Stephen Colbert.

The Economist suggests this as the theme song for the bloodless bureaucrats that run the European Union in Brussels. (Kraftwerk — the surreal transmogrification of Bach and Beethoven.)

That's reality for kids growing up these days.

A robot without a voice is like a soprano with laryngitis.

Sounds are next for the designers of Willow Garage's PR2, whose cousins, R2D2 , Wall-E, and MO all have superb voices.

Ah, pure reason — with no humanoid emotion.

Insert endorsement for YouTube clip by

self-styled movie critic to show great wit.

In a dangerous lapse of judgment, Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Elaine of Seinfeld)

pawns her Emmy to Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul.

Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) goes undercover as Matt, a radar technician, at Starkiller Base. He may be all-powerful, but his employees pick up on him right away.

Susan Boyle stunned Britain's Got Talent when she sang this song

from Les Miserables : an amazing rendition.

Even more surprising and delightful was child opera phenom, Jackie Evancho. She was age 9 when she sang Ave Maria on America's Got Talent .

And here in 2016, at age 16, Jackie wows the crowd again with Someday at Christmas. Look at the rapt expressions on Howie Mandel and Simon Cowell.

British child prodigy Alma Deutscher not only plays violin superbly (here at age 11) but has been composing and orchestrating entire sonatas and operas for years.

Here she reveals the secret that unlocks her creativity: "waving around a skipping rope." What?

OK, neuropsychologists. Good luck figuring this out. Alma needs to be included in every account that attributes creativity to mere practice. So does child math genius Terry Tao. Practice just polishes the biological diamond.

A beautiful rendition of this gypsy violin favorite — music I grew up with — to be savored while drinking tea from the family samovar.

To play this well, Hyun-Su must be one of those rare Korean Jews.

My trumpet teacher would also play Czardas, as in this virtuoso performance
and here by the incomparable Rafael Mendez .

Commemorating the passing of the father/son Saxton horn dynasty (from my youth in band,) —thanks, Marsha S!

Tangentially, on some bygone trip to London was this signage in Hyde Park: "Kindly Refrain from Expectoration."

Another long time favorite, here played by Stefan Milenkovich.

Here Philippe Hirschhorn performs this stunning cadenza from Paganini's Concerto No.1 Opus 6.

(The context was "robots vs humans". Obviously, human violinists will be amazing us a while longer.)

These are stunning musical animations from the geniuses at Animusic: Aqua Harp , Resonant Chamber,

Harmonic Voltage and Acoustic Curves .

In contrast, the Rolling Ball Marble Machine is real, and so is this robot playing an unmodified clarinet .

MIT's Professor Noam Chomsky, the famous theorist of language, did say "Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously" to show that syntax and semantics are separately processed.

The Chomskybot in turn repeatedly generates paragraphs that Chomsky might have written — perhaps after too much schnapps. (After you click on Chomskybot above, click "Next Paragraph.")

"Come on, lads. Let's do the treadmill." Sounds like The Beatles, but it's actually OK Go.

End Love and White Knuckles .

I hope I'm not the only member of the self-styled, liberal elite that likes Country and Western music. This is one of George Strait's best (and a great West Coast Swing.)

And, other wonderful YouTubes from Glee:

Total Eclipse of the Heart ,

Uptown Girl , Torn , and Smile .

Rumba is one of my favorite dances, and here's a wonderful example from Jason Mraz — a catchy tune and ethereal lyrics.

And here's a beautiful video of rumba . Warning: this is "PG-13."

Tim Minchin: a cynical, straight Elton John.

Pastafarians believe that God created cephalopods (and more!) in His own image.

Wiki describes the beliefs of this fanatical sect.

Prayers not bringing you vast material wealth? You may just need a technological boost.

And here, the delightful Edward Current naughtily inquires, " what if God disappeared? "

Baba Brinkman is angry and blunt here on pseudoscience: homeopathy, parapsychology, et al. Warning: this violates my "PG-13" code, but it's sooo well done.

The music is Spoon's I turn my camera on.

So, what do you get when you combine a Terminator with a rubber ducky? a BeatBot — product of a very cool San Francisco robotics firm)

Donald Trump is clearly the only one qualified to interview himself — and particularly not that lightweight, Jimmy Fallon. (But, I'm really praying for Sarah Palin to join The Donald's political team.)

Or, to get an even smarter version of The Donald,
you could insert an AI module.

Sarah Palin is one of my favorite politicians.
She unintentionally holds the comedic highground.

In 2015 we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Einstein's General Relativity. Here, physicist Brian Greene demos it to gadfly Stephen Colbert. (Hat tips to my lovely dance partner, Sharron, for this and the one below.)

Colbert asks the tough questions (at great peril) to the arch conservative Smaug, who reveals he will support Rand Paul in 2016 to put America back on the gold standard.

This was at the 2016 White House Correspondents' Dinner hosted by Barack and Michelle.

The entire speech was a gem. (Don't miss the video with John Boehner.)

Guided by the uber-charismatic J. R. "Bob" Dobbs, the faithful of His Church strive for Divine Slack. Here, an unauthorized excerpt from His Book of Bob .

Who knew glycolysis could be so catchy?

Ok, many of my friends are computer geeks.
They do have some redeeming qualities —
like nifty collections of pocket protectors.

Who knew that Prof. Richard Flavell (Yale) — wizard of immunology — was also the next Paul McCartney?

Some of my friends are head freezers — they've signed up with Alcor to cryopreserve their heads, to be uploaded to a mainframe post-Singularity and maybe even downloaded to a new body. It's not without peril.

a quaint little ditty from the 80s

Cool promo combines history lesson with buzz on Motorola's Honeycomb

What you get if you put a dozen SSDs into a RAID array

All of mom's wisdom and admonitions in 3 minutes.

They've got the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
All we Jews have is I have a little dreidel.

It turns out it just needs a makeover — by the Maccabeats.

What's up with all those "Jewish" Nobel Prizes? ?
(My favorite non -explanation is that

the Swedish Nobel Committee just loves Jews.)

David Hyde Pierce shows it also extends to Broadway.

Three billion hits on YouTube! Go, Bruno!

An East Coast Swing, as seen on Dancing with the Stars

Here, the multi-talented Neil Patrick Harris opens the 2013 Tonys.

A spectacular dance by the world champions.

Just a very pretty song.

Here is the international cast: so moving!

Three great tenors. Thanks, PBS!

a beautiful guitar solo. Another lovely song:
Heaven's Gift by Gypsy Enchantress.

Paul's still got it.

that brings an old product into the Third Millennium.

Assumes an articulate author, appropriately adept
at alliteration.

Perhaps my introduction to dancing
And, here's the The Lone Ranger,
and Zorro , and Roy Rogers.

"You rrrooook mahvelous, my dahlings"
(and you know who you are!)

Sacha here — working the edge.
(BTW: his cousin, Simon, is a superstar neuropsychologist, who specializes in autism.)

Here master comedian Baron Cohen
inspects Jimmy Kimmel for viruses
while maintaining social distance

Cross Colbert and Carl Sagan and you get Seth Shostak
SETI's most entertaining lecturer .
This student film by Seth shows his many talents.

Like the Bellagio Fountains in Vegas, only funnier.

The Mythbusters provide an explanation .

superfast!

An essential tool for would-be DJs and rap artists.

An incredible melding of physics and music from artist engineer Nigel Stanford .

Hummingbird feeder on your head, robobutt, robomusician, robo-cocktail mixer, etc.
And, more wacky science (color perception and electricity from fruit) from Vsauce .

My favorite Kaiser Permanente Ad.

The aria Deh vieni alla finestra .

Gustave Flaubert said that God's most sublime three creations were Hamlet, Don Giovanni , and the sea. Perhaps he was talking about this aria.

I first heard this piece live at a Christmas party in 2014.
For Valentina fans here are two more:

Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody
and the Rachmaninoff Prelude in g minor op. 23 #5.

Here, with four phantoms.

very cool demo of quantum locking.
(Thanks, Bill Berry (see next photos!)

My buddies - Jonathan Root and Bill Berry - at work.

Here is Bill - just hanging on ;
Bill - getting inflamed ; Bill - on vacation ;
Bill - in a somber, meditative mood .

He's the best in the world (from someone who knows.)

Thank you to (great juggler) Bill Berry .

Juggling robots have a ways to go .

World champion, Timo Boll, versus KUKA robot. Wow!

In 2017 — incredible progress at Boston Dynamics since Google sold them to Softbank in Japan (much better than America at nurturing industrial robots.) Don't miss this!

I backpack every summer in Yosemite where Alex Honnold is Crown Prince of the Big Wall climbers. He climbs 3,000 foot rock faces with no rope and no gear.

Alex has been featured on CBS's 60 Minutes (above link), and in a NatGeo Special .

I was amazed by Fearless Felix's jump from the edge of space at 39,000 meters.

Realistic career advice from the Onion .

And, here is Black, the id-persona of rock, in Wonderboy .

Ok now, this has gone on too long (according to Jack and Will Ferrell — don't miss this one !)

Cheers, Bob “ out ”