Femtogram of Fun Friday

Nothing but cleaning up and a few nit picky things in the kitchen left! Things should be back to normal by tomorrow. I am working on getting some pictures together to show how I blew, I mean invested, a crap load of money.

I think I covered plenty this week and I also felt the content was pretty solid. I hope you all liked it.

Automation Observations
I have been harsh on the robot world in a few posts. I did it mainly as a funny thing, but I do think automation is an issue we will have to confront going forward as a job force. One of the best things about this site is the comments section and last post had a couple of additional thoughts I wanted to cover.

An anonymous reader offered (bold my emphasis):

Meh - its just the economy's way of signaling what will be important and what will not in the future.
OK so no jobs hammering down spikes. What about a guy or a team of guys to design the spike hammer robot? Maybe another guy or team of guys to service the spike hammer robot, etc.
It also allows for advances in human society (albeit at the expense of now obsolete workers) - but that's the way its always been. Time was, we needed to dedicate all our human capital to manual labor in order to function. Now with machines doing much of that, it frees up human capital to think about, and work on things we find important.
You are probably a great example of this - molecular biology was a pipe dream until this century. There was simply no way we could allocate a decent % of our workforce and human capital into this field. Imagine this back in the 1800s. Hey honey, I successfully manipulated this gene which will cure cancer - unfortunately I didn't have time to tend our field and now we will die of starvation - pity!BTW, that's the main reason I think that education is so hugely important and what we need to focus on more in this country. As machines do more and more of what we humans can do with our arms and legs, the only advantage we have is our brains. We use it to innovate, to create the machines or the processes that make more of our manual labor obsolete. If you don't have an education to do one of those innovative type things, be warned - those educated people are right now thinking about a machine machine can outwork you any day!

Several great points and I think a great comment overall. I certainly did not mean to say machines were "bad", just observing their rapid progress. As Anon says, it has always been this way. I wonder though how far this can go? An interesting thought experiment.

Reader Watchtower adds:

What strikes me as strange is now that we have all of these machines doing a lot of the manual labor that we used to, we are shelling out $40 - $100 a month to go to the gym and 'exercise'.
Not only that, but we are using machines to provide resistance (work) in order for the human body to function as it was meant to (smiley).

Oh the irony indeed! Good one.

Friday Night Entertainment
Friday night's post: 80% of the time, it works every time!

Treasure Hunters?
Thieves broke into an exhibit and stole a 75 ounce gold bar that came from the wreck of the Santa Margarita, which sank in 1622:
Gold bullion stolen from Florida treasure museum
I remember some idiot talking about the stock OMEX, which specializes in deep sea recovery of wreck treasure. Yeah, that worked out!

This is How the Zombie Apocalypse Will Come to Pass
First off, some research:

Parasite Infested Zombie Ants Walked the Earth 48 Million Years Ago
A parasitic fungus called Ophiocordyceps unilateralis that infects a plain old carpenter ant and takes over its brain, leading the ant to bite into the vein that runs down the center of a leaf on the underside. The ant dies shortly thereafter, but the fungus gains the nutrients it needs to grow this crazy stalk out of the ant’s body and release spores to create the next generation of ant-controlling fungi.
This cryptic cycle has been going on for at least 48 million years.

Uh oh.
Here is some troubling video:

Try and sleep tonight!

Facebook in History?
EconomicDisconnect does not use Facebook. As I understand it, it's main function is to allow old flames to find you, or allow you to search them out late night after too many wobbly pops. There are a couple I would be afraid of finding me (crazy!), and a couple I would be afraid to find (too hot for words).

What if historical figures had Facebook? Here is an awesome work up using such things as Abraham Lincoln, The Titanic, and the Dinosaurs:
If Historical Events had Facebook Statuses
Very original.

Happy Birthday
On this day in 1977 Voyager 2 was launched.

Pictures for the People
In color even!

Give the little guy a fist bump already!:

That was a really good one.

Great artistic rendering of a top battle from the expanded Star Wars Universe:
Corran Horn vs. Shedao Shai

Awesome!

Note: the funniest FAILBlog I have seen in some time was out today but this is a family blog so I left it off. No reason you cannot click to see it if you want though!

Rock Blogging
At last, we come to it!

Lurker requested Patsy Cline and "Crazy". Not sure if he thinks I am, the markets are, or something else. In any case, here she is in all her glory:

Timeless that one.

Gawains wanted some Marshall Tucker Band and "Can't You See". Yet another song I really like and had no idea who performed it! Thanks!:

Wonderful.

I had never heard "Jailbreak" by Thin Lizzy, but it was pretty good, via Watchtower:


I have always loved this song by Tracy Chapman. Please enjoy "Fast Car":

That song hurts.

What did mama say? L.L.'s said "Knock You Out" I believe:

Best way to stop an opponent in boxing is by body shots. They just go down and they are clear headed, but do not want to get up. It's crazy to watch happen.

Two songs left. A duo to send you off on the weekend. What to play?

One of my favorites, The Who and "Behind Blue Eyes":

In the studio on one of the iterations of the line "But my dreams.." (1:43 mark) you can hear Roger Daltrey's voice quiver, but they left it in to better capture the emotion of the song. I think that was genius!

Last call! If you were a sailor heading out to sea, well, behave accordingly!

I used this list of the greatest metal songs ever for the next selection. Not MY list, but a good list any way you look at it. Uh-oh, I may have played all of them! Ok, let's go with Motley Crue and "Shout at the Devil":

Nasty good!

Have a good night.