For days BLM was excited as he was to attend a talk by MM Lee Kwan Yew. The ticket instructed them to be seated by 5.30pm while an email circulated said be there by 4.30pm. BLM knew it sounded fishy and thus only arrived before 5pm. (must choose the middle road, always safer)
There was a huge queue already formed. BLM gladly got into line. But after just 1 min of waiting, he moved on to a cafe nearby to sit down. There he spend his time reading his book, writing his thoughts and of course wait. The queue grew longer no doubt. But fascinating is that no one moved. Apparently the organisers are a bunch of liars. Asked all to come early just to wait. The time was 5.45pm and yet no one moved a muscle. Finally at 5.50pm the queue slowly progressed into the hall. And I do mean slowly.
Its probably 6.15pm when 3/4 of the queue were gone. BLM was already restless. The lack of sleep plus lack of coffee only make this grumpy monster even more miserable. Thus he decided that some "things" are more important and left. He would like to note that HE was the only guy who left.
Jan 31, 2005
the talk that BLM missed
Jan 30, 2005
Hard to sleep
For most of this week, BLM was away from the lab. He cant really explain why. Well at least not yet. Its not as simple as you think, yet not as complicated as you imagine. Its hard to say whats going on in his mind, heart and soul. All I know is that he cant really focus on his project (me) for the moment.
There something new that happen, something new that develop, it emcompasses the old memories, what a reminder it brings. fear fear fear. blahahaha .
going nuts
Jan 29, 2005
You got to see this
This would be an amazing movie adventure. Of course I doubt it can beat Charlie and the chocolate factory.
Jan 28, 2005
battery dead and blame game
It was a surprise. Well not quite though. BLM left the battery to run yesterday so that he can drain off all the juice for a good new recharge. However he has forgotten to mention it to TSM and thus cos him panic when he flip the switch and nothing works. Naturally he blame himself.....
Well there is this theory which we thought of. From the many seasons of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, there is a notable trend. When things goes wrong in the bachelor.... the girls would blame themselves for not opening up, for not able to accept him for yadyadaya.... Whereas in the bachelorette, when things goes wrong, the guys end up blaming the bachlorette saying things like, how could she not see this in me? how could she not know that i am the one....
the moral of this story is that when things goes wrong, the girls blame themselves and the guys blame them. :P
soccer match
my makers left the lab early yesterday for some soccer action. Yes for once they put discussion of soccer tactics, liverpool players, Man u curses asides to actually play football. Yes kicking the ball ard.
Apparently before that all happen, they were stopped by 2 lovely office girls who took advantage of the naivety and made them carried 2 piles of calender (each) to 4 stories high.... Cant really blame this young men.
Anyway, BLM and TSM ended up playing against each other. BLM played real hard. Started from the left flank, he then played right side and finally back to left again. TSM however could not played more than 15 mins at a go and often opt for a replacement. Poor TSM, he has not ran for years now.
Just this morning, both my makers came to lab with agonising pain on their legs and backs. BLM pulled his left leg and limp slightly, while TSM cant sit straight the whole day. Guess its safer if they just discuss soccer.
Jan 27, 2005
new circuit board
BLM is still in the midst of designing his schematic for the remote controller hub. He like you to know it aint easy. Unlike the previous boards he designed, this time he has to squeeze more stuffs and multiplex them for the microchip.
Here is his problem, the microchip has only 5 input/output ports. Of which a total of 33 pins are available. Plenty right??? NoNo you are so wrong.
RF chip-4 pins
keypad-8 pins
LCD-10 pins
buzzer-1 pin
parrallel port connection-16 pins
a grand total of 39 pins. Where to get the additional 6 pins you might wonder. Well leave it up to BLM to figure that since at no one time you need to activate more than 1-2 of this devices, you can multiplex it (stack it together). And since the microP is clocking at 20MHz. It all can be done with much sluggish delay.
BLM work real hard this morning and finally complete finished his schematic drawing before 2pm. He like you to know that he has leftover 6 pins with nothing to connect with.
Then comes the rigously task of routing this piece of work. Placement is the most important part. It is like art. The components must be placed in a certain way to look beautiful. It cant be done otherwise. (though eventually this board will be enclosed in a box and no one can see) The routing is left up to the computer while BLM left for classes. It took like 30 mins before completion and leaving 24 connections still unconnected. So I guess BLM will have to physically finished them
hand powered shredder
This is particularly useful. It shred paper, cd and credit cards. Great if you are a pirate and have to get rid of evidence before the police arrive.
Chimeras soon
Its up to one opinion to decide if this process of blending human and animal gene will produce any benefits. I personally feel that we should leave enthic and moral aside first and carry on in this research.
After all, the knowledge gain from it might develop into other areas which have not yet been thought of.
read on and decide yourself
Jan 26, 2005
Bad judgement
I read this article and was outraged! A millioniare widow whose husband was killed in a car accident years ago was to be paid $2M.
And get this, its not 100% the driver fault. After all he was the one who was jaywalking. Well of course you can agrue that a life was lost and cant never be replaced but a payment of $2M for a carwashing cleaner is impossible. They are merely bullying the weak.
Its just seem to me that if you are rich and can hired an excellent lawyer, you can simply bully anyone. Bastard!!!
The article
missing BLM and hard working TSM
Its like some sort of role reversal. Previously TSM would go missing while BLM would be alone in the lab working on me. The past 2 days BLM was missing while TSM was hard at work.
The communication coding wont ready for the tues presentation. Fortunately TSM work on it for the past 2 days and managed to get 2 chips to talk to each other. I am now on a lease while TSM would command me to move left or right.
BLM however should hurry and finished his remote controller/hub. He is taking too long for this. Should he get a joystick or buy a keypad? Help him!!! He has been thinking about this for 2 days now.
Jan 25, 2005
Jan 24, 2005
the bomb after the presentation
We tot we were safe... but it din last for long. The serendity of peace was disturbed immediately.
The not-so-nice-now ppl from DSO just sent an email to boss who forward it to my makers. Apparently there is still big engineer week in the last week of feb and I am to be ready for showcase. Yes showcase!! Read again Showcase!!!!!
They want us to come down and be there for a week with banner and posters.
Oh the hell this would be.
DSO presentation
The nice folks from DSO (except for the captain who claims he totally forgotten about today presentation) came down to school today at 2pm for a brief "informal" presentation.
BLM took the term informal literally and appears in his kaki bermudas to the awe of TSM. You should have seen his face. BLM was not too concern at all, after all this damn "waste time only" presentation got no grades and its only to show the army ppl our updates.
BLM and TSM met up early this morning. BLM rush and perform amazing soldering skills within an hour. On top of that he breathes in lots of nice sweet lead poison.. cough cough. While TSM code and recode his coding to add a function that allows me to listen to his instruction wirelessly. Apparently TSM and BLM are trying to get the RF module to work and from that use it as a remote controller.
They tried and tried and tried. Even skip lunch for me. But I was just impossible to teach a new trick. They finally gave up and left for the presenation.
There they bought along a new fren. His called Erwin. Erwin will be my new master once my makers leave school. This new freshie has the word "Please bully me" written all over.
Erwin was impressed by me. Well who wont. Hopefully he is nice or i will be nasty
Jan 22, 2005
Jan 21, 2005
no updates on presentation
Boss has not gotten back to me on the details of the monday presentation. All that was stated in the email is that its an informal one.
So BLM emailed back asking how informal will it be? Is it ok to be in casual wear? Where would it be held? Big presentation room or small confined lab space? What do you mean by casual? Do we need a projector? Must my siblings be ready as well?
sighs. Boss is MIA now.
Xray vision done, building superman next
A scientist build this device which can see thru walls literally.
Till some side effects develop when he point this gun onto an electronic device and it stopped working. He tried it on his hand and while he saw his flesh and bone, his fingers became numbed....
Wonder if I can try it.
head massaging
I cant read jap. If anyone could, let me know. But from what I seen on this website, its a head massager.
Now that something useful
I don't like Monday 24 January
Misery is expected to peak on Monday, as 24 January has been pinpointed as the worst day of the year.
January has been long regarded as the darkest of months, but a formula from a part-time tutor at Cardiff University shows...... click to read on
Someone, my presentation is also on monday.... sheesh!
Am glad my makers dun made such mistakes..... yet
David Atkinson spent 18 years designing an experiment for the unmanned space mission to Saturn. Now some pieces of it are lost in space. Someone forgot to turn on the instrument Atkinson needed to measure the winds on Saturn's largest moon.
"The story is actually fairly gruesome," the University of Idaho scientist said in an e-mail from Germany, the headquarters of the European Space Agency. "It was human error — the command to turn the instrument on was forgotten."
Jan 20, 2005
funny face
For a long time now BLM gave me a set of eyes which are infrared. Felt like superman at times. Grin
This is what I look like now
This would be my new face
Jan 19, 2005
6th presentation
Just when you tot its safe to resume your normal life. Where you come to the lab, pretending to work, play couple of games and buy lots of stuffs.... the big giant head email you commanding a presentation on monday
Rats....
bill gates
this is not a good publicity photo to post when you are trying to be the MAIN SPOKEMAN for your company. In fact, its better to just be ruthless and take over your competitors.
photos
Here are the new photos of my circuit boards.
The new switch board. Looks the same as before
But when you flip it over you notice the large copper area to disperse heat.
The new motor driver board. Slightly smaller than before
And again as you flip over, you see the large copper area. Darn i wish its even larger
The 4 white spacer was put on yesterday.
As you can see it gives enough allowance for the boards not to contact with my backbone.
Jan 18, 2005
law tutorial and spacers
BLM and TSM both gotten the same tutorial grouping. They somehow werent too glad they have to wake up early for it. A 9am class is a horrible experiences.
Anyway it took BLM weeks before he finally decided to go to the workshop and drill holes for my spacers. He has been procrastinating it for weeks. Sometime I wonder who is the bigger bum.
Jan 17, 2005
something about google
Do you know that, the infamous "I feel lucky" is nearly never used. However, in trials it was found that removing it would somehow reduce the Google experience. Users wanted it kept. It was a comfort button.
This and more facts of the interesting fun fact behind google.
A short facts
hardware boards 3.5
It took BLM 3 days. Well he was sorta busy and parts were missing and that he was not feeling too well and that AOE game look so tempting and that ....etc
But he is finally done with the switch boards. Yes they are brand new. Version 2.1 actually. Version 2.0 is currently on my back and the only difference is that the new one has a larger copper area to disperse heat cause by the large current drawn.
Guess I will put photos up tomorrow.
Jan 15, 2005
Jan 14, 2005
busy day
It was a busy day for BLM today. He was suppose to solder the remaining boards but could not find the time to start on it.
He met TSM, grandmaster of AOE, teacher of robosapien and skinny chinese man to donate their bloods. It became an embarassing incident to BLM when he is made to donate plasma instead since his haemoglobin count is low. The nurse questioned him if he was on a diet..... This is just not right
Well it took several intense pumping before he was done with 3 cycles of plasma donating. 1 cycle mean blood goes out, blood goes back to body. In the end, the plasma sits in a bag looking like beer. wooow tempting....
Later after lect, BLM had to rush to his sec school. He came to the lab with 2 bows and a large bundle of arrows. Imagine how he squeeze into the bus with all this equipment. No one was kind enough to offer him any seat. They just love to look out of the window and ponder.
It was CCA display day at St. Andrew's. Busy day when one unit tries to compete with the other to capture more recruit names. Its a day where we tell them how good is scouting. How wonderful life in scouting can be. How your child can become a better man.... And after 2 weeks of "promoting", we show them the horrible truth. Knock it down!!! Give me 20 pushups.
BLM met his fren later. They were suppose to attend his other fren's baby 1 month. Boy was he super embarassed. He knocked on the door, inside was rather quiet. When it opens the husband was standing there wondering why they came. Puzzle he let them in and then BLM realised that the party was tomorrow. opps.
Never trust an INTP with dates.
Jan 13, 2005
hardware boards 3
The new switch boards are back. Now with bigger and wider copper strips to help spread the heat from the IC chips.
BLM was trying to finish it today, but he had to combat sleepiness and the urge of playing AOE. In the end he gave in and left some parts to be done tomorrow.
Cant believe I have a slacker for a maker. Oh and TSM is no better :P
Tomorrow, BLM, TSM, maker of robosapien and grandmaster of AOE (this 4 kings) will be donating their blood in the morning. Blood? what is that?
this set of pic sickens me
Its sad enough that a paradise is ruined by the sudden tsunami. Lives have been lost. Jobs lost. Homes destroyed.
And yet some people still have the nerve to lay back.
Click to see more shit
Jan 12, 2005
Stay Thin by Sleeping More?
Some research says that people tends to get fat when they sleep less.... Now there is another research going on if you sleep more do you loose weight.
A read for girls
Robot makers say World Cup will be theirs by 2050
"By 2050, our aim is to beat the winners of football’s World Cup and we are very confident that we will be able to do that" - Shu Ishiguro, head of Robot Laboratory in Osaka
I want to be part of this evolution too.
Presentation over
For a while now, a bunch of big important heads, otherwise known as the HODs are coming to pay us a visit. They are big important people and make big important decisions all the big important time..... oh well, they have big important bellies as well
SO we prepared for this presentation in the following numerical format
Days of preparation: 10 days
Time we arrived this morning: 10am
Time of presentation: 2.20pm
Work and improvement made: 5 (just on me alone)
No of presentations: 4
No of presentators: 6
No of robots: 4 (1 snake, 1 cockroach, 1 pair of legs and me)
Mins we waited when they are late: 45 mins
Total time they spent in the lab: 8 mins
Some said its priceless, I personally think its a waste of time and effort.
Jan 11, 2005
hardware boards 2
BLM had taken over the project computer for the whole of today.
He just wont let anyone, not even his partner use it. Spent the whole morning updating the newpower switch boards and then designed a new special board as well. Hopefully it will be done by tomorrow.
Anyway he think he might be falling sick
Jan 10, 2005
hardware boards 1
It took the whole of this morning. amid the swearing and cursing of BLM. who was severly lacking of sleep and strength. He soldered all the driver boards within 2 hrs. A new record I might add.
Testing was carried out. Everything works. Solders looking nice, small and shiny.
This blog making no sense at all. Broken sentence everywhere....
damn I must be tired. yawn.
Planning a surprise soon.
Another presentation for HODs on wed.
someone please give us all a break
Jan 9, 2005
Glad i never had to wear a kilt
Its just funny to realise what really goes into the minds of kids nowadays.
school day
Its a school day tomorrow.
After weeks of working on me, my makers have to slow down the throttle and start school once more. Yes I feel sad and miss them at times... but what has to be, has to be.
BLM has only 3 classes this year. In it there is only 2 exams. And get this, all in 1 day. 3-2-1
TSM tries in vain to bid for DARS. He now has to take another level 4 mod instead. Making a total of 4 classes total.
Well since they wont be around much, I am kicking BLM to hurry up and get my other siblings ready.
Jan 8, 2005
Funny president
I never laugh so hard at a joke made on bush's expense before.
But this is real good.
Click to see
Jan 6, 2005
Video show
Whoo hoo, boss has plenty of great ideas to impress a bunch of visitors who would be coming on the 13th. If you are free, feel free to drop by at about 2pm in my lab/home. There will be a circus performance.
1st up is the cockroach, follow my myself and perhaps one of my siblings, then the snake robot and finally the 2 legged humaniod. Isnt this exciting.......
Tomorrow, all of us will be posing to get our studio shots taken along with a video clips for a video show.....
Time to brush up my acting. BLM wanted to direct it like 2046. I hope i get to star with zhang ziyi
robots robots
Hail the guy who design my circuit. Mark Tilden has came up with new and more robots for kids to play with. But hey they aint just for kids now. They are good enough for university as teaching aids even. All one had to do is to open up this little guys and hack them till you get what you want. Mark wants you to do so.
Jan 5, 2005
Presentation once more
Boss informed us a week ago to prepare for a presentation. Then you see Jim and my 2 makers busy getting powerpoint slides done, touching up on all the robotic walking stuffs and so on. TSM is hard at work with his new RF communication via a radiometrix chipset.
Until Boss drop the bombshell at 5pm when he said it has been cancelled yet a mock presentation will go ahead. When Boss said cancelled does he mean cancelled or postponed??? I hate the latter.
Anyhow, tomorrow BLM is told not to come in bermudas.
Wedding at Anfield
This is an ultimate dream
A wedding dinner at Liverpool FC! VVIP treatment. No silly hotel arrangement. YUM
Jan 4, 2005
Star Wars spoilers
I am a big fan of starwars!!! Then again who isn't?
Anyway some spoiler photos of the upcoming movie this summer. (in singapore this term never applies)
I walk again
Its been almost a month since I last walked. There were so many problems back then. The programming codes has to be editied to fit the new design, I had new circuits board, new legs, new body... etc
Well today, BLM took me out. I stretch my muscles and before long I was walking as i was once more. This time however, I was moving alot quieter. I am not too sure I am walking faster than before, though I did clock about 6m/min today. Not bad I would say.
Hopefully from now on my siblings (Liz, Ralph and Tess) can do the same as well.
BLM would have to get 3 more boards done :P
while TSM need to hurry up on the communication coding.
Jan 3, 2005
Organic art
.....It took me a couple of days to come up with an organic item. I finally decided to use my buttocks as a stamp. I rolled......
Stapless Stapler
For those who use those pesky stapler and often ran out of staplet (bullets), here is a great idea on how to totally do away with all of it.
Yes I mean all of it. No staplets at all. Click to read on
They are here
TSM was missing today. Again no one knows where he went. It might have something to do with Liverpool playing tonite.
Anyway BLM took the whole afternoon to complete 2 more siblings for me. We now have Ralph and Tess with us.
Liz (Left) with Me
The remainding legs to be screwed onto
The motors, our muscles
2 empty bodies of Tess and Ralph
All 4 of us
Jan 2, 2005
Maths quote
Once one learns the complex mathematical language required to express his ideas, Einstein’s theories are the simplest and most obvious of any in physics.
Jan 1, 2005
in my thoughts
Its was to be a great year. Until the disaster came and ruin the celebrations. Sad as it has been, 2004 was to be one of the more memorable years of my life.
Regardless, never end the year in sadness. Never end anything in a down tempo. Always end on a high note I said. Cause you never know for better or worse what the future may hold.
Why live in miserly? why the sadness? Life is such a wonderful gift. Look up onto the wonderful clear blue sky. Did you see the amazing blue sheet of canvas spreading from the one horizon to the other? The white formless clouds dithers, the soft quiet wind blows. Life is such a beautiful gift. Dont ever let it go.
Goodbye 2004, Hello 2005.
Lack of updates
Apologies if there is a lack of updates. Its the festive season after all. You should not be home now reading this blog. You should be out there somewhere having a good time.
Anyway, BLM planned the surprise on friday nite. He didn't realised it a simple gift became an emotional blackmail. Oh well.... Now he is feeling quite bad that a friend of his is down with flu. May she recover soon.