Burger and chips

Tonight I went to one of those dinner parties where everything comes together effortlessly: where the wine flows, the conversation meanders from one thought-provoking topic to the other, the guests all get on even though they don't all know each other, and the food has you down on your knees begging for more. Thick, crispy, homemade chips; homemade organic beef burgers; guacamole; tomato and coriander salsa; green salad; and an apple crumble, made with Pink Ladies and brown sugar, so divine I actually, for once, left my vanilla ice cream on the side.

Comfort food fit for a dinner party due to the quality of the ingredients, the attention to detail and the great company.

Links today:

+ Making memories stick. Some moments become lasting recollections while others just evaporate. The reason may involve the same processes that shape our brains to begin with.

+ Sex and the single robot. Kim Jong-Hwan, the director of the ITRC-Intelligent Robot Research Centre, has developed a series of artificial chromosomes that, he says, will allow robots to feel lusty, and could eventually lead to them reproducing. He says the software, which will be installed in a robot within the next three months, will give the machines the ability to feel, reason and desire.

+ Couch potato contentment. Most people are happy being unfit and overweight, a survey reveals.

+ Robot wars. Robotics and the future of warfare. "Within 25 years, non-biological intelligence will match human intelligence in areas in which humans now excel, principally in pattern recognition. It will combine these abilities with the inherent advantages of machine intelligence, such as speed, easy sharing of knowledge and skills."

+ Nuclear now! It's time to stop global warming. The solution is reliable, renewable, and affordable: clean, green atomic energy.