Speaking of things I want

Today, all the buzz is about iRobot’s ConnectR. This from the people that brought us the vacuum robot that bumps into stuff and uses fancy algorithms to determine a decent cleaning patterns. What you may not know is that they also make robots to mop your floors, clean your pool, and sweep out your gutters.

The ConnectR is different though. It doesn’t do your household chores, it connects you to a remote location by giving you a little Roomba you can drive via the internets. It’s equipped with a camera that tilts so you can see, and it has a speaker and a mic so you can hold conversations with the people you’re with.

Features missing (and I hope they’ll add before the 2008 release):

• Camera pole – it’d be nice to have the camera at eye level instead of “up-skirt” level. Then again, it might just be nice if the eye-level pole was adjustable *wink* *nudge*
• Screen for your face, or something else. What good is it if I can see you, but you can’t see me? Ok there’s a ton of spy applications, but if you’re going to “connect” with someone, ya got to see them, period.
• Record – One of the things I hate about life is that you can’t record every second of it. But here you could. Ah technology.
• Hackability – iRobot is usually pretty hack friendly, wanting to see what customers do with their roombas. They even went so far as to release a product called Explorer that is designed to be programmed and stuff. As of yet I see no indication that the ConnectR will be an open platform.

I’ve signed up to be a tester. I hope they pick me, but not being part of a family or having pet I’m not sure they’ll find me to be a good candidate. What I really want to try out is giving fencing lessons remotely. I’m in Indiana, but a high school in Jersey wants a guest instructor… that kind of thing. It’d be hard to show the action I want, but then as a coach in a group class, I don’t often do a lot of body actions that an advanced fencer couldn’t show the class for me.

EDIT: For a homebrew project that accomplishes a smilar task see http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2007/09/dude_sends_robot_replacem.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890

I want to quit

Not my job job, but my position as secretary of the Indiana Division. It’s a volunteer position, and stuff just moves too slow for me, not just the officers, but the division as a whole is so resistant to change. I think that’s the best part about the way RCF is set up. Changes happen at my pace… fast.

One of our officers has yet to attend a division event since before June. She wonders what we’ve talked about. She gives me extra gray hairs on my head. But then I try to make changes that’ll make it easier to host events, generate more revenue for the division, and increase the quality of fencing, and they’re all met with “We didn’t do it this way before.” or “Why are you treating this as if it’s an elite event”. BECAUSE WE ARE THE INDIANA DIVISION OF THE UNITED STATES FENCING ASSOCIATION!!! THAT’S WHY! It is elite. It’s the best shot fencers have at learning what it is like at the national level. Year after year we’ve blown it, fudged the rules, slacked on the quality, and short changed ourselves till we have no semblance of what we’re supposed to be.

Events cost money to run. They take time to plan. I have a day job. Those three things combined mean that people need to chillax and let me do my work, or step up and take on some of the burden themselves.

Girl Lab

I wonder what the market potential would be for a web site where you send in your emails, IM conversations, and other digital correspondence with a woman. A team of women review it, then send you back a report of whether she’s in to you or not. I wonder if women would want a similar service for guys.

WOTD Discontinued

I don’t have the heart to continue the WOTD here. I may resume my emails at some point. I’m kind of interested to see where the story of Alfonso and Leona goes.

I want

I want to go see the Statue of Liberty. It’s been too long since I was last there.

Statement

I was not designed to handle days like today.

Toaday’s WOTD = Lame

It’s “varicolored” and I bet you can guess its meaning. So I’m skipping it.

Instead, I’m going to write a time-capsule of sorts to be mailed off later this week. What kinds of things would you be interested in knowing about someone a year from today?

Anagram

From Joe’s blog:

“Will Read = All Weird”

Surprised? Me neither.

WOTD x 5

Alfonso read,

This panjandrum of a captain had us loaded on a truck with the other civilians. His own soldiers didn’t respect him; his roueish ways with the women overshadowed his rank, his uniform, his command. To him, he probably seemed like an outstanding guy, and couldn’t figure out why he couldn’t get ahead in life. He wasn’t ugly by any means, he spoke clearly, he seemed decently educated, but he was too ignoble to ascend the ranks any further and found himself stuck at ‘captain’. At least that’s what I think. The turpitude I have for the captain knows no bounds, and yet I must let him do his job because he’s here to ‘protect’ me. I wish he had left Leona and me in that crumbling town. We may have been in harm’s way, but at least we’d be together.

That brief moment they’d shared, just talking, was the ‘ne plus ultra‘ of my month, scratch that, year, maybe even life. I didn’t want it to ever end. Everything she said struck a chord with me; I could relate and empathize with each word that left her rosy lips. But I digress, the day’s rations are on their way, so I cease my drizzle and set this potboiler of a journal aside for now.

Pumpkin Time

I need plans for Halloween! Will travel!

UPDATE: plans will include the GD and Lady Hizzle! Location: TBD