OT: Daydream in blue

Recently net’s crackpots were stirred by news about a little company called Steorn. Apparently Steorn invented a device that produces free energy.
That’s right, free energy – and I quote:

1. The technology has a coefficient of performance greater than 100%.
2. The operation of the technology (i.e. the creation of energy) is not derived from the degradation of its component parts.
3. There is no identifiable environmental source of the energy (as might be witnessed by a cooling of ambient air temperature).

While 1. is meaningless and 2. is debatable - 3. is just too vague to approach. Is there an outside source of energy or isn’t there? Or to put it more simply – where’s the little hamster at?
I guess insolitology needs an update.

Who's driving this project?

I’ve been noticing subtle shifts in project David’s scope and direction. While I’ve been trying to steer things in a more intellectual direction, a tranquil state, making things cool, something was pulling the project the other way. The activities were getting physical, more kinetic. We stopped looking at stuff – stuff was being thrown now. We stopped pointing at stuff and twaddle – we crawled, walked, climbed and grabbed.
Somehow David took over. I guess this is how all things come to pass – you turn around and it’s there. Yesterday you were in control, today you’re just along for the ride.
Still I am the current project manager. I am responsible for delivering deliverables on time, meeting project goals and staying within the budget. I ain’t giving up just yet! Not while you’re under my roof…

… and that’s how you turn into “dad”.

Teeth counter #1

Teeth count is now at six!

A random thing you will want to, but probably shouldn’t do as a newfangled dad #7

Teach your baby how to climb stuff.

Remoting

As of today David can be operated by remote control. I don’t mean he listens to voice commands or anything. You operate David by placing the TV remote control at the desired location and just hang around.
Special sensors (ESP) enable David to immediately recognize an available remote control is within his domain. He then proceeds to locating the device (usually takes about 12 seconds) and then closes in for the grab. Once the device is acquired it is promptly put in the mouth and chewed. Unless of-course the batteries fall out – then those are put in the mouth and chewed.
In any case, remoting is a quite useful feature as it enables us to “program” David to do various tasks, such as climbing onto a chair, couch or a bed. Yey!

Upgrade

In a few short months we will upgrade David to version 2.0. This will be the first mayor release since the beginning of the project. In light of this paramount event I've equiped myself with the new operations manual for babies v2.0.
If you thought managing baby was hard, you’ll never make it in phase two. Everything you think you know is useless, anything you actually do know has no bearing. It’s Alice through the looking glass all over again. And you better take the Red Queen seriously – you need to run just to stand still.

David's coming back!

Although we talked each day, although i could see him via video-calls, although I was almost there – it was not enough. It’s like using remote connection, the resolution is all wrong, the colors are missing and everything is slow.
That got me thinking. Will all this technology that we’re trying to reinvent – really help us communicate faster, cheaper, longer? Or will it finally enable us to travel remotely and stay home?

Void

David went on a trip with mom. So this week all his methods return void...

OT: My friend needs the internet

This is both funny and sad. In the 21st century, the future of all my childhood SF movies, with most people talking about broadband, net neutrality and web2.0, my friend lost his internet connection.
He was trying to switch his ISP (i did the same last year) and ended up in a no man's land between the bullying former ISP's parent company (i know!) and the incompetent current ISP (who now claim to be able to connect him by the end of next month).
I hope my netless friend gets back to the future soon as I miss having him around. But then again, internet is a big place. Perhaps there's a 2.0 version of him floating around...

Implementing interfaces (IThrow)

The most important aspect of baby development is the correct and timely implementation of various interfaces in the Human.Babies namespace.

David has just implemented the IThrow interface today.

namespace Human.Babies
{
   public interface IThrow
   {
       void Throw();
   }
}

Note that the method accepts no parameters. There is no way to specify the direction, force or the object of the operation.

Aibo vs. David

I won’t even pretend I have time to blog anymore. David finaly implemented the ICrawl interface! This means a sharp decrease in time I have available to blog (or do anything!)...

...and increases the chances of »someone« pressing the wrong button. I found that MSWord auto-recovery functionality doesn’t always get you what you wanted.

David has been developed to the point of being compared to other top products in the field of AI. Here’s the technical specification part of the Aibo vs David comparison table:

Aibo Ers-7 (mind service pack 2) vs. David (Comparison table)

	Aibo	David
Development time	6 years	8 months
CPU	64bit RISC	Brain
Main Memory	64MB SDRAM	Neural net (unknown capacity)
Additional Memory	Flash, PSM	None
IO	CCD camera, stereo microphones (2), speaker, heat sensor, infra-red range finder, acceleration detector, touch sensors, electric static sensor, pressure sensor, vibration sensor…	Eyes (2), ears (2), mouth, heat sensors, pressure sensors, taste sensors, acceleration sensors, balance sensors…
Power source	DC7.2V (Lithium ion battery)	Food – any
Power consumption	1.5 hours – fully charged	3.5 hours – fully fed
Dimensions (l, w, h)	319 x 180 x 278 mm (not including tail)	120 x 170 x 750 mm (not including hair)
Weight	0.3 kg	10 kg
Operation temperature	5-35 ºC	37 ºC

Ascii David

A photo of David - geek style.

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Debugging (part II)

I was on my own again.

I raided the home pharmacy (with my dad being an MD I do not use the term haphazardly) and found nothing (nothing I’m allowed to use on a 9.5 kg humanoid). It was time to go out and buy some drugs. This being the information age – the age of web 2.0 shops and services – one does not expect leaving the comfy chair would be necessary. In my country one would be wrong.
So I ventured out (physically walked!) in the friezing cold (ok I’m exaggerating here!). To my horror the pharmacy was packed. I had to wait in line while bunch of old ladies (with mean elbows!) got the info on the latest fad diseases. Meanwhile my wife sent me a MMS photo of David looking like Regan Teresa MacNeil at her worst. I’m not sure what happened next but the line in front of me was suddenly cleared. A few of the old ladies were moaning and the clerk was looking at me kinda funny but I paid cash and was out of there in a flash.

Remembrance of Things Past

I'm in a proustian mood tonight. Browsing through my so 80’s collection I’m playing for David I stumbled upon Bryan Ferry’s Don’t stop the dance. Now for those of you who never owned an Amiga in the Amiga days, who never subscribed to Eurochartand never heard of Dr. Awesome of the Crusaders it wont mean much. To me it means a world of things.

What will David’s 20s collection be like? Will I get it?

A perfect excuse

David ate my blog post!

I'm sorry!

I'm sorry! I humbly apologize. I haven’t been taking care of this blog for a month now. I could list you tons of excuses buit the fact remains I’ve bloged not a single line this month.
I was toying with the idea od writing a substitute blogger to fill in when I can’t be bothered to write. But decided it wouldn’t be fair to you. So I apologize again and I swear I will…

Respect!

I want to be a cool dad, you know? I’d hate being one of those uncool parents that show up at the wrong time, wearing the wrong things and saying the wrong thing to the wrong people. That would make me a failure in my book. So I’m doing some Googling on trends and music, joining cool IRC channels (avoiding the lame ones), learning how to sphr33k 4s h4xor lol! and correctly misuse the punctuation marks.
I do wonder if my hard earned skills will ever come in handy. I wonder if my dad went through all this? All I can say is - respect!

Debugging (part I)

A few days ago David started acting strangely. He was less cheerful then usual and that is a bad omen. He was crankier then usual; a regular mr. Ganglion! He was throwing more exceptions then usual - plus me and mom developed a splitting headache - so I knew we had a bug on our hands.

It was time to fire-up those debugging tools! The first tool you should always use in such situations is a Home Medical Encyclopedia. This is the kind of book your grandma buys from a ruthless encyclopedia salesman. This informed me David is either perfectly healthy, he is dying or any number of things in between.

My second weapon of choice was (of course) The Little Search Engine That Could. Only this time it couldn't. With links like: a survey, a credit card (I can still see the friggin’ numbers!) and ovaries I walked away with a strange feeing baby fever has more to do with female adult mental disorders than David!

So I phoned my dad who told me to sit tight and to call back if the fever gets up to 40°C.
Needles to say I wasn’t satisfied with this…

Geektionary: Mom

A generic BabyEvent and BabyException handler.

Implementing interfaces (ITurnable)

The most important aspect of baby development is the correct and timely implementation of various interfaces in the Human.Babies namespace.

David has just implemented the ITurnable interface today.

namespace Human.Babies
{
   public interface ITurnable
   {
       void TurnLeft();
       void TurnRight();
   }
}

Through the magic of abstract classes and inheritance we also get Turning and Turned events to bind on mom. She loves it and I recorded the first build on cam. You might have noticed I haven’t bloged any of the previous interfaces. Eg. yesterday’s post was a result of the IGrabber.GrabObject method. That is because they we’re already implemented at birth. Anyway, here’s a short list:

• ICute
• IGrabber
• IKicker
• IScreamer
• IDemandable
• ILovable