Arduino pet robot head taking shape...

My ideas for an Arduino-based pet robot are slowly taking shape in spare minutes. I have a basic movement-based vision system up and running.

At the moment, it has basic (LDR-based) stereo light input, which feeds a weird real-time event integrator algorithm and some associated data structures - one per sensor. These feed a further algorithm which calculates the position data being sent to a servo upon which the two LDRs are mounted (revolving left and right in the the Y axis). The act of turning this "head" servo to indicate captured attention creates new input data itself, leading to complex feedback.

The whole thing is designed to produce nothing more controlled than emergent behaviour. For example, I never told it that if I sweep my hand in front of the sensors from left to right, the head should turn to follow it. Nor did I tell it that if I sweep my hand the other way the head should follow. For a laugh, I mounted the device in front of the computer's monitor, set the wallpaper to black and moved a small white window around. The head followed it, slowly losing interest when it stopped. I placed the device in front of a TV and let it track moving objects. It's weird to watch the head suddenly take an interest in things. At some point, I'll post a video.

The next phase is to add more LDRs to resolve movement in more detail, followed by a second servo to control the head's X axis (sothat it can look up and down), but already this project is getting very interesting.

The silent treatment...

He he.... do you get a lot of those "silent" phone calls from cold callers? Want to stop them permanently? Here's how. It takes a couple of months for them to stop, but I've done it, it's a lot of fun, and it worked for me.

You receive a silent call. Don't hang up. Every few seconds, keep inquiring, "Hello?" When someone eventually takes the call, keep on asking "Hello?", "Is there anyone there?" "Speak to me." etc. Never be tempted to make any noise other than you trying to hear a reply.

Basically, you're making it appear that there's no sound at your end - even if there's some background noise at your end. Sometimes, the other party will begin again. At other times they'll start again but louder. But the funniest for me is when they begin shouting to see if it clears the line. Have fun. Try asking: "Is this a dirty phone call? Eventually, the caller gives up and marks you down as a trouble maker. Do it a few times and the calls miraculously stop.

Sticking in the boot...

The Daily Mail: it just can't allow anyone their moment in the sun, can it? There always has to be a nasty, pointless little dig. Take the story about Rachel Riley, about to take over from Carol Vorderman on Countdown.

The main online headline is "Rachel Riley's Countdown to 'the coolest maths job in the world'. It's a feel good story of what can happen if you work hard and do your best, have a great personality and are universally liked. But look at the sidebar on the right of the page and there's different slant on the story:

"Countdown girl says it's the coolest job in the world... not surprising when you're getting £100k and still living with your parents. Rachel Riley is just 22."

So what if she's getting £100k for doing sums on telly. That's her job. So what if she's 22 and living at home? Those are her circumstances. Why is the Daily Mail trying to get its readership to think less of her remarkable achievement? Go to a newsagent on any given day. You'll discover that this is the Daily Mail's job. It's a nasty, selfish, mean-minded job.

And on, and on, and on...

Oh God! The Brand-Ross Dissonance is still rumbling on. This was a pre-recorded show. As a jobbing freelance writer, if I were to send in a piece of work that wasn't fit for printing, my editor would throw it back at me to be done again. Magazine articles can take a considerable amount of time to write, but this was just an hour of improvised radio. Why did no one think to simply tell those working on Brand's show it needed re-recording? After all, it's not a solo effort kept secret until transmission. Radio is a team effort.

UPDATE: According to a report in The Guardian, no one bothered to listen to Brand's show before broadcast. Oh dear...

When the music stops...

I've never seen BBC1's Saturday night sequin-fest "Strictly Come Dancing", so I was perplexed that one of the biggest breaking stories yesterday was the announcement that contestant John Sergeant has quit the contest. Now I know a little more, I'm not surprised he went.

The reports on today's news ran with clips of the judges really laying into him. It's not a serious competition; it's a popular entertainment show. It doesn't matter who wins. but it seems the judges forgot that. Does it matter if he looks like an embarrassed butler as he respectfully twirls his dance partner around? It's funny, and it's meant to be funny.

"If the joke wears thin," says Sergeant, "if in fact people begin to take it very seriously, and if people really are getting so wound up that it's very difficult to carry off the joke, then I think it is time to go."

After hearing a selection of the personal comments the judges threw at him week after week, I'm not surprised he decided to call it a day. Who wants to attempt comedy with that level of heckling going on?

Death by committee...

The case of "Baby P", who died with over 50 deliberately inflicted injuries on his body, is being called "tragic". It's not tragic at all. It's a bloody disgrace.

It's emerging that Baby P's death was occasioned by a catalogue of failure involving too many parties fighting each other, and which left a toddler in the care of people who were deliberately harming him. A foster place was found to take Baby P out of harms way as early as December 2006. He was actually placed in care for a while, but a social worker then returned him to his abusive parents after what ITN calls "a frank exchange of views". That implies office politics. If true, ask yourself who plays office politics with a child known to be being beaten up by his parents?

At a case conference, the police, who wanted Baby P placed in foster care for his own safety, actually allowed themselves to be overruled. They even signed a care plan that sent him home for further abuse. The BBC's "Panorama" programme even discovered documents that show social services had been over-optimistic about his mother's ability to care for Baby P, and had focused on the needs of the parents rather than a child who had been admitted to hospital several times with deliberately inflicted injuries.

There's a full timeline of this poor little sod's short and painful life on the BBC news site. If you can bear it, take a good look at the graphic of his facial injuries.

In the UK, people are sent to prison as punishment, not for punishment. While that's a standard that must be upheld in any decent society, I find myself on the brink of hoping the parents get what they bloody well deserve - but also hoping that the people who should have cared for Baby P don't get to walk away from their "mistake". I'm certain I'm not alone.

A code in the dose...

Why is it that I can go for five years without so much as a sniffle, then when I decide to start a blog, I get a real thumper behind the eyeballs? One or two people have been in touch to tell me I haven't posted for a few days. The reason is the streaming cold in the nose I caught at a party.

And why is it that when you have a cold, people ask what you're taking for it? The answer I give is nothing, and here's why: the only thing that slows a cold is keeping warm and sipping warm drinks. Rhinoviruses prefer cold conditions to multiply, so keeping your breathing apparatus temperature up a bit slows them down - sometimes to the degree that your immune system can get a lock on them and start blasting away. When asked a few days ago why I'm not taking a super-strength mega-vitamin, I couldn't resist misquoting a character from the sitcom "The Big Bang Theory" - mega-vitamins to treat a cold are just the recipe for very expensive urine.