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bloggery
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Saturday, June 30, 2001
My shipment of Throwbots has already arrived. Instead of building the individual robots, I built the suggested Super Throwbot. There were lots of pieces left over, so I amended it somewhat. The triple ball-and-socket joints and the double worm-screw torso are aces.
 
Hello to the folks from Lugnet!
Friday, June 29, 2001
After work TV-browsing found me watching the finale of Hakaider. Japanese super hero robot movie, apparently in a revisionist mood. The more-bad-than-Hakaider robot featured razor sharp wings (didn't the X-Men member Angel have wings that shot razored feathers?). He also rambled on a bit about being Justice , but we'll let that slide because it's all about robots fighting robots. The biggest battle pitted Hakaider against what can only be described as a "Boss" robot, in the video-game sense. Physically, it resembled equal parts the monster from The Thing and Tik Tok from Return to Oz with the dubious fighting skills of the bad robot from The Black Hole.
I think I'll just throw out some names. Use them for this MOC or something else!
Congenitor. Plazmod. Sikheer. Balls. Dactyon. Whew. That's all I'm good for today.
The new Roborider in town is another MOC. (Sorry to say that the gunsel Wilmer had to be sacrificed. He was like a son to me, really he was.) But this new Roborider is chock-full of features. Most notably, it can drop onto all fours and ride. And! And! And! He can sit down and ride wheelchair style! The wings act as skid-supports. His head inclines 90° to accommodate both modes. He has wings, which really remind me of the poster art for that movie, Michael. Hidden worm-gear action provides for a wide range of shoulder rotation and serves as a suspension for the arm wheels. A transparent blue wheel under his chin gives the impression of a carefully tied, if voluminous, cravat. The only notable flaw (aside from the piebald colors) is the pair of wheels that - pardon my lack of delicacy - dangle between his legs. Sort of like a hamster.
I have no good idea what his name might be. Send your suggestions to What's my name?  Those pesky Bionicles, with their Olympian haughtines, will rue the day they crowded in on the Roboriders' turf, those ingrates. Other items in cam-view are the relative newcomers Blaster, Millennium and the Onyx/Power/Frost Comborider, which is not as lame as I thought it might be. 
Thursday, June 28, 2001
One step forward, two allemande-lefts. The power outage had a good effect: the actual cam no longer has annoying glowing trails at lower color depths. (A Gauss effect?) Lower color depth is good because it stresses the server that much less and makes the "streaming" faster. (Almost one frame per second!) But the camera mount is not responding again.
The cam was down from about 11:10 pm Wednesday to 4:30 am Thursday because of a power outage. Most unfortunate. The RCX software will have to be re-loaded, which will have to wait until I'm actually awake. In fact, I'm going to turn off the computer until then just in case Seattle City Light hasn't quite fixed everything.
Wednesday, June 27, 2001
It's an obsession! I just ordered three more Throwbots from LEGO directly.
Perhaps I am seeking a type of harmony through the contemplation of Throwbots. On my way home from work, I'm going to pick up more Roboriders: so that I can construct a particular "Comborider". All this in addition to a Throwbot, Millennium, that I won at auction a couple of days ago. I fear that a great reckoning is approaching the Bionicles ... a Ragnarok of tiny little proportions. No new-agey, no-cream-puff-eating flapdoodle for me! If I want a cream puff once in a blue moon, by gum I am going to have one! Alas, it was merely OK and not a great cream puff. So I guess Manjit was right after all.
This is a very nice little webpage that Kyle has created. I hope it has brought him much comfort and joy. Does anyone else think that Kyle needs a new hobby?
The blog is good, but a bit clunky. The fact that users have to log into the Blogger service via a web portal is unfortunate. The alternative provided by Blogger is interesting but you have to be logged in ALL THE TIME. Far too onerous. So, the process is blog page log-in, blog page edit, blog page post+publish, webcam page view.
The reason images don't show up in the blog-page preview pane is because the preview pane is hosted at blogger but the images are hosted on Geocities which blocks http fetches from IPs outside their network.
Tuesday, June 26, 2001
The longest-standing unfulfilled request for the cam is to add a function that will point the camera in some arbitrary direction. e.g., a button that says "lava lamp" and the camera will go directly, without pause to point at the lava lamp. I still haven't thought of a way to do it that is both easy and effective. It will involve at least one rotation counter and some programming.
There have also been suggestions that I get a cat. Maybe. Some day. The bird-feeder cam will return. This I swear. And I haven't forgotten about the project to allow a cam to be driven all over the house.
The regular webcam page is here and the interactive page is right here.
Hey wait, Vince, I thought I was the BIGGEST fan of Kyle's Webcam...hmmm.....arm wrestle ya for the title!!
I have always been the BIGGEST fan of Kyle's cam. NO ONE likes it more than me. So, please give me due credit!
Manjit is the first to accept my blog invitation. Hooray! Manjit has always supported the important work of my webcam. The cam's view of Manjit:
Forearm?
Monday, June 25, 2001
Dancing about are some LEGO Throwbots, Roboriders and Bionicles. Starting at the door and moving clockwise, to the right: Dust and Electro are engaged in a charming sarabande. Spark is doing a more athletic move based in funk. Gali, as usual, has been attracted to the barre. Lewa, in green, is apparently attempting a Cossack sort of maneuver. Aqua, right behind Lewa, is just jumping around like a happy idiot. Langastino (look up) is striking a very expressive pose. Trust me, it's expressive. Pohatu (brown head) ... who knows. Kopaka doesn't dance, although he has been spotted shredding with that big shield. Blaster seems to have the Cossack crouching kick down cold. (The Roborider dude (I found out he is called "Blacklight." -ed.) behind Kopaka's shoulder is doing the twist.) Way up on the featured stage on top of the computer case is Wilmer. Yes, those are guns on the ends of his arms, but they are full of happy dancing ammo. Back down on the main floor, Flare (orange wings) and Jet (yellow propellers) are whooping it up.
Sunday, June 24, 2001
The current view is through the office door, toward the living room. Out of focus, as usual. The blob in the middle is the footrest for the infamous Pillow Chair. Rescued from oblivion when some friends moved out of their apartment, the Pillow Chair has been something of an albatross. It looks cool-ish, but is broken down and not all that comfortable. Merely adequate.
I came across a veritable throne in Madrona at another friend's house last night. A rolling pampas of a chair. A great chair. The Pillow Chair's reign as Only Lounger may soon be ended.
Thanks to Ellen Edgerton's link on the moviemusic.com message board I found this neat-o web logging thingie. The idea is to leave some commentary on a given image. Another toy to play with.
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