Kate's Comment

So on Sunday, the second day of our week’s skiing in Whistler Blackcomb, I had my first and last incident of the skiing season yesterday. Izzy and I were doing a double-black diamond in very low vis (low cloud). We did the hard part just fine and it was quite smooth. She had stopped and I thought I had a…

At my home office I’ve got three screens plus my Mac Air (see right). I’m driving the middle one as a secondary monitor for the ‘Air and the other two from a Mac Mini under the desk. In a perfect world I would want to be able to drag things seamlessly between all four screens. I have been reliable informed…

I have recently hugely enjoyed an iPad game called Rimelands: Hammer of Thor. It is a turn-based role playing game where you can specialise your character into any one of three trees; barbarian (melee), assasin (ranged), shaman (magic) or a combination of the three. It is set in a delightful post-apocalyptic world with a fusion of steampunk and magic. It…

I just got a GoPro Hero 2 for Christmas and have been using it while skiing but had a couple of issues with it. SD card error / how to format the SD card in the GoPro The first problem I ran into was that I had just stuck the SD card in assuming that the GoPro would be okay…

Sadly we (Izzy and I) have yet again failed in resolution not to end up in hospital during our holiday. :/ On the plus side, I did manage to wear a humorously (in)appropriate T-shirt for the occasion (see right)! :p I am starting to think I should stop telling doctors about my clotting factor V mutation (see inset) whenever I…

I have recently completed a major upgrade of BOB, mainly adding a plethora of new sensors. The picture below gives an overview: Head BOB’s head needs to be able to turn for “pet like” behaviour and to maximise the usefulness of the “ears” and ultrasonic sensor. Having added several sensors to BOB’s head meant that the cabling was going to…

In order to give BOB all the capabilities I need more than the 4 standard sensor inputs. To that end I ordered two HiTechnic sensor multiplexers, one powered one (the one in front of him in the picture) which can do any sensor and one for just touch sensors (the one connected in the picture, distinguished by a lack of…

Some of BOB‘s new sensors have arrived (see right)! With them I hope to turn him into something resembling a robotic pet. I am still awaiting the HiTechnic sensor multiplexer (I ordered the ones shown ones from Lego UK for simplicity) which will allow me to connect so many sensors to the NXT control brick. At present he just avoids…

My true first beginnings as a hacker were with Lego technics. I was very lucky that my Dad got me one of the very first systems for controlling Lego from a computer back in the late 80′s. At the time it was only officially available for schools, but he pulled some strings. Lego Mindstorms NXT My childhood love of Lego…

At home we have one central media PC (a Mac Mini) in the lounge. We only ever watch stuff either off BluRay or streamed from BBC iPlayer of Netflix. As an aside, we have recently cancelled our television licsnse; you no longer need one if you do not watch live TV. The HDMI outputs from the Mac Mini and the…