It's kind of cute how the Roomba moves around your filthy floors, methodically getting every corner and high-traffic area, until the battery dies and it stops in exhaustion because it couldn't make it back to the self-charging station, its red light blinking helplessly, as it calls out in that polite third-person voice, "Please charge Roomba." Please!

And then there's the "BigDog," an evolving series of terrifying robots designed by Boston Dynamics. Early versions of BigDog were impressive enough, with their ability to carry heavy loads through deep mud and across icy slopes. And when that video of someone kicking BigDog hit the Internet several years ago, you could [...]

Oh good, these killer drones are getting other, smaller killer drones inside them.

The "Ground Zero Mosque" scandal of 2011 isn't going to be aliens. It's going to be…. .bbpBox{background:url(http://a2.twimg.com/profile_background_images/258724803/JackeeTwitter_Phillip.jpg) #d0e8e8;padding:20px;}

Ok Tweeps, if you'd like to see ME host SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, as 1000s of you have referenced & requested via e-mail… trend #JackéeOnSNLMon Jun 20 19:16:55 via Mobile WebJackée HarryJackeeHarry

… Jackée-related. Oh boy, here we go. JACKÉE'S BACK, BACK AGAIN, TELL A FRIEND.

Now dead birds are falling from the skies of Louisiana. I don't want to go overboard on this, but coming so closely after the mass fish and bird deaths in neighboring Arkansas, I think it's pretty clear: WE ARE TOTALLY IN END TIMES. Everybody panic.

34. Tropic Thunder 33. Magnolia 32. The Last Samurai 31. Far and Away 30. Taps 29. Born on the Fourth of July

The charming short film "Pixels," in which various classic arcade game characters destroy New York City, has been picked up by Adam Sandler's company for a full-length version-a "'Ghostbusters'-style action comedy"! I am withholding judgment, barely. Cast Bill Murray and Sigourney Weaver and we'll talk! Cast Adam Sandler and Rob Schneider and enjoy your giant expensive CGI bomb. The original video, if you haven't seen it, is pretty great though. Enjoy it while you can.

You know what we needed most of all, in the year 2010? A revival of The Boys in the Band. Thuper! It opens February 21! Let us turn the clock back to 1968, when Clive Barnes wrote in the Times: "As the conventional thing to say about Mart Crowley's 'The Boys in the Band' will be something to the effect that it makes Edward Albee's 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' seem like a vicarage tea party, let me at least take the opportunity of saying it first." Duly noted. And 1969, the headline: "'The Boys in the Band' Is Still a Sad Gay Romp." And 1970: "THE BOYS IN [...]

"And this is what the argument boils down to: It's the suspicion that not being on Facebook, which has become so normal among young adults, is a sign that you're abnormal and dysfunctional, or even dangerous, ways."

Today would be a good day to take a pass on attending Occupy Wall Street's "General Assembly" at 7 p.m. (although the 6 p.m. meeting on "Organizing Effectively Without Hierarchy" sounds cool and the 2 p.m. Structure Working Group meeting is a blessed thing). Because tonight, you're going to find out who's a cynic and who's naive, and it's going to get heated consensus-style, as the group addresses Mayor Bloomberg's demand to come in and "clean up" Zuccotti Park, starting tomorrow. The park's landlord's letter to the NYPD, dated Tuesday, asking for help, is full of practical, liability-insurance-based complaints but also has plenty of nonsense, and it's the [...]

Willow Smith, born October 31, 2000, will perform this on Oprah tomorrow. It's going to be huge, yes, though the chorus itself is kinda blah, and she needs to get that Ke$ha rap-singing whine out of her voice. Otherwise? IT'S WILLOW-TIME.

"A three-day, 24-event international competition for humanoid robots ended earlier today in China… Tomorrow, in Singapore, the robots move on to Robocup 2010."

This brief little nugget in the Post today should sound the alarm for all lovers of Freedom and the Free Market: the Department of City Planning is working on a zoning amendment (they have to rezone to do this?) to give away (or sell, more likely?) up to "40 percent of the city's public lots" to shared-car rental outfits like Zipcar. (Are there other outfits "like" Zipcar? We assume they mean "just Zipcar" really.) So, first they turned Broadway into a ped mall-which is turning out to be actually good for drivers, by the way, as the models of better traffic flow seem to have been correct; then [...]

34 "Whatever Makes You Happy"

33 "Nashville"

32 "Ride"

31 "Headache"

30 "Polyester Bride"

Today in things that might kill you: "Thousands of people have been placed under quarantine in a town in northwest China after a man died of pneumonic plague and 11 others were confirmed infected with the deadly lung infection, health authorities said." Pneumonic plague, the story continues, can kill its victims "within 24 hours of infection."

Later this month, the still very new Anne Frank Center in New York is starting a four-session, very cool sounding diary writing workshop, among their many new public programs. What do they know that we don't???

"The Army’s latest scheme to stop homemade bombs is pretty much inspired by "Knight Rider.'" True story! Robot car hates bombs! ("We’re not making KITT," says the KITT-building company honcho, which obviously means the opposite. So this is how it all ends.)

South Dakota is going to vote on a bill that amends its justifiable homicide law! They want to make sure that you can kill people with justification if someone is going to harm your unborn child "or the unborn child of that person's spouse, partner, parent, or child." The amendment passed out of committee with a handy 9-3 vote. So you can see where this is going. (Fun fact: the law as written already allows you to kill to prevent a felony being performed upon your master or your servant.) The personhood movement is achieving success state by state (just like the gay marriage movement, sort of!) [...]

"What if Tom Cruise is a genius?" -Uh oh. Knight and Day is raising some thorny questions, apart from the obvious one related to Cameron Diaz being "the same height as Mr. Cruise onscreen".

Thanks to a variety of factors, including the gigantic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, 2010 is poised to be a big year for Atlantic hurricanes. One member of the Colorado State University hurricane forecast team, which is putting out its full forecast next week, said that 2010 could shape up to be a "hell of a year," and that the forthcoming Atlantic hurricane season could be as active as 2005 — the year of Katrina, Rita, and enough nameable storms that the alphabet was exhausted and we had a Tropical Storm Zeta. Which would seem to indicate that the "hell" in that statement is not [...]

The current expansion of the New York Times into "local" sections, where the news product delivered is provided by students for no pay, has now come to hit us where it hurts-right by our offices. The Times has announced today that NYU students will staff its new "East Village local" web publication. My objections to this are two-fold and related!