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scottobearNewt decided to come talk to me right as I was coming out of a long soak in the tub... he went to leap up on the windowsill, slipped, and dunked his rear-half into the draining water (it was only lukewarm, rather than my preferred scalding at the start, luckily.) He promptly leapt out of the water about 5 feet in the air (a little low.. probably because of the water's drag), using only is hind legs, and left a creamsicle colored blur, shaking off the water as he ran. I caught up with him, and gave his moistened booty & belly a warm fluff-dry. He wasn't too crazy about that in his shocked state, but coped with it...eventually allowing me to swaddle him like a baby, albeit a baby that was licking his won ankles in an effort to get his fur in order.
He seems quite content now... I'm doing laundry shortly, and so he'll have a huge fresh sheet to run in circles on and a pillowcase to play "cat in the sack" with.
I'm contemplating a multi-player game online in the toybox. Something like vampires or space wars, but maybe a little different. A seagoing pirate game, perhaps, or a "tag, you're it" sort of thing. I'll have to review how hard it'd be to write something like that while I'm on my back, and what sort of bandwidth it'd suck up. Probably do a beta-test thing for a while first, with maybe a test pool of about 25 players to see how it works. I'll post more here about it as I think of things, and if it gets off the ground, open up users afterwards. (Not a for-pay thing, just a fun, free game... the way the net is meant to be.)
Today is chores day... I have to pick up a good load of provisions and get the laundry out of the way, so it's time to sign off for now. until later, dear journal!
'Iceman' Grabs Shark to Save Men
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - An Icelandic fishing captain, known as "the Iceman" for his tough character, grabbed a 660-pound shark with his bare hands as it swam in shallow water toward his crew, a witness said Thursday.
The skipper of the trawler "Erik the Red" was on a beach in Kuummiit, east Greenland, watching his crew processing a catch when he saw the shark swimming toward the fish blood and guts -- and his men.
Captain Sigurdur Petursson, known to locals as "the Iceman," ran into the shallow water and grabbed the shark by its tail. He dragged it off to dry land and killed it with his knife.
"He caught it just with his hands. There was a lot of blood in the sea and the shark came in and he thought it was dangerous," Frede Kilime, a hunter and fisherman who watched from the beach, told Reuters by phone from Greenland.
Icelandic author and journalist Reynir Traustason, who knows the trawler captain, said the act was typical of the man.
"He's called 'the Iceman' because he isn't scared of anything," he said. "I know the people in that part of the world. They are really tough."
Kung Fu Robots!
Martial arts robots hit Asian tech fair
Humanoid robots capable of performing somersaults and complex martial arts moves were demonstrated at Asia's largest electronics and computing fair in Tokyo on Saturday.
Visitors to CEATEC 2003 (Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies) met Morph3, a human-like robot about 30-centimetres tall developed by researchers at the Chiba Institute of Technology in Japan. It can perform back flips and karate moves thanks to 138 pressure sensors, 30 different onboard motors and 14 computer processors.
Another miniature humanoid robot on display was Fujitsu's HOAP-2. This droid has been programmed to perform moves from the Chinese martial art taijiquan, as well as Japanese Sumo wrestling stances.
HOAP-2 is designed as an aid to robotics research and therefore runs on open source, Linux-based software. Fujitsu believes it will sell between 20 and 30 of the robots to universities and companies in 2004.
But impressive as these high-kicking robots are, Frederic Kaplan, at Sony's robotics laboratory in France, says making more agile robots is not the biggest challenge facing robotics researchers at the moment.
"There are challenges in terms of mechanics still, but the biggest gap would be in intelligence," he told New Scientist. "One of the key things we are looking at now is developmental robotics, where a robot learns."
Squish things on your scanner! (Example is a Cadbury Egg) Some of these are tempting to make into icons. Kiwi fruit is nifty, too.
He seems quite content now... I'm doing laundry shortly, and so he'll have a huge fresh sheet to run in circles on and a pillowcase to play "cat in the sack" with.
I'm contemplating a multi-player game online in the toybox. Something like vampires or space wars, but maybe a little different. A seagoing pirate game, perhaps, or a "tag, you're it" sort of thing. I'll have to review how hard it'd be to write something like that while I'm on my back, and what sort of bandwidth it'd suck up. Probably do a beta-test thing for a while first, with maybe a test pool of about 25 players to see how it works. I'll post more here about it as I think of things, and if it gets off the ground, open up users afterwards. (Not a for-pay thing, just a fun, free game... the way the net is meant to be.)
Today is chores day... I have to pick up a good load of provisions and get the laundry out of the way, so it's time to sign off for now. until later, dear journal!
'Iceman' Grabs Shark to Save Men
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - An Icelandic fishing captain, known as "the Iceman" for his tough character, grabbed a 660-pound shark with his bare hands as it swam in shallow water toward his crew, a witness said Thursday.
The skipper of the trawler "Erik the Red" was on a beach in Kuummiit, east Greenland, watching his crew processing a catch when he saw the shark swimming toward the fish blood and guts -- and his men.
Captain Sigurdur Petursson, known to locals as "the Iceman," ran into the shallow water and grabbed the shark by its tail. He dragged it off to dry land and killed it with his knife.
"He caught it just with his hands. There was a lot of blood in the sea and the shark came in and he thought it was dangerous," Frede Kilime, a hunter and fisherman who watched from the beach, told Reuters by phone from Greenland.
Icelandic author and journalist Reynir Traustason, who knows the trawler captain, said the act was typical of the man.
"He's called 'the Iceman' because he isn't scared of anything," he said. "I know the people in that part of the world. They are really tough."
Kung Fu Robots!
Martial arts robots hit Asian tech fair
Humanoid robots capable of performing somersaults and complex martial arts moves were demonstrated at Asia's largest electronics and computing fair in Tokyo on Saturday.
Visitors to CEATEC 2003 (Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies) met Morph3, a human-like robot about 30-centimetres tall developed by researchers at the Chiba Institute of Technology in Japan. It can perform back flips and karate moves thanks to 138 pressure sensors, 30 different onboard motors and 14 computer processors.
Another miniature humanoid robot on display was Fujitsu's HOAP-2. This droid has been programmed to perform moves from the Chinese martial art taijiquan, as well as Japanese Sumo wrestling stances.
HOAP-2 is designed as an aid to robotics research and therefore runs on open source, Linux-based software. Fujitsu believes it will sell between 20 and 30 of the robots to universities and companies in 2004.
But impressive as these high-kicking robots are, Frederic Kaplan, at Sony's robotics laboratory in France, says making more agile robots is not the biggest challenge facing robotics researchers at the moment.
"There are challenges in terms of mechanics still, but the biggest gap would be in intelligence," he told New Scientist. "One of the key things we are looking at now is developmental robotics, where a robot learns."
Squish things on your scanner! (Example is a Cadbury Egg) Some of these are tempting to make into icons. Kiwi fruit is nifty, too.
