Kate's Comment

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…

I have a fairly cheap and generic 32″ LG 1080p screen connected to my media computer (a Mac Mini) as a backup to the projector which doesn’t work well during the day time. We mainly use that machine for watching stuff from Netflix (astonishing quality by the way!). In my office I also have three 27″ Samsung SyncMaster TA550/T27A550 LED…

In stark contrast to my assertion that the Internet of Things revolution is about to ignite, driven by hackers, I have long contended that we don’t actually need more than one or two personal information devices in our lives (I still expect the Internet of Things to be made up mostly of autonomous devices). Thus far my personal experience is…