Thursday, June 23, 2016

messy premonition conjure

“I have lost friends, some by death…others by sheer inability to cross the street” – Virginia Woolf


My odd and colliding thoughts here-  first, now stay with me, a tiny metal squirrel, obviously for someone obsessed by squirrels enough to wear one.

Second crashing thought below:  Robots!
Good news, now Boston Dynamics 'Spot' is housebroken!


And that led me into why there aren't any squirrel robots, but WHAMMO, I discovered there most certainly are-  and here is example #1:
Mr. Jack Koff built one of CHM’s more interesting and early robotic artifacts—Squee: the Robot Squirrel. Squee was the idea of early computing popularizer Edmund Berkeley. Berkeley began working as an actuary for Prudential Insurance but quickly rose to prominence for two reasons: one, he co-founded the Association for Computing Machinery in 1947, still the world’s leading body for computer science professionals; and secondly, he wrote the hugely popular book Giant Brains or Machines That Think (1949). Two years later, in Radio-Electronics magazine, Berkeley published plans for what is perhaps the world’s first personal computer, Simon.  Here it is on a 1951 Electronics magazine-  it's a 
DIY kit and Koff sold over 400 of 'em



Next Robo-Squirel point:  Researchers at San Diego State University and the University of California (Davis) spent a portion of a $325,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to construct a robotic squirrel named “RoboSquirrel” to answer that question.

RoboSquirrel is “a taxidermied actual squirrel that is stored with live squirrels so it smells real. The body and tail are heated with copper wiring, so the snake can see the squirrel’s heat signature as if it were real. The tail is controlled by a linear servo motor that makes it wag back and forth.”
“Robosquirrel” moves on a track near a rattlesnake nesting in grass. Approaching the snake on the track, the robot squirrel can flip its tail back and forth — with or without heating it — and then retreat.  Talk about out of control government spending.  Now info like that sure doesn't come cheap.  Thanksgod our government is tracking those squirrel movements and buying snakes to egg 'em on.  


OK, enough fooling around, I have to show you what I have done today in the Autobiography Project.  I told you that I have a pile of unquieted tops that I have either made myself or bought at antique sales and junk shops.  I also have a few piles of unfinished blocks and tops that I cannot use in my tower without being quilted, SOooo today I started getting them ready to work on, layering them, and cutting backs.One of the ugly old tops-  bleeh.

Here we have stacks of backing, stacks of fiberfill, and the cut up quilt tops ready for pinning

Another old unfinished top, but they one needs to have it's appliqué finished too-  I will just zip around the unseen shapes with the machine-  it was ugly enough not to finish before, and cut up it has retained it's title.

 NINETEEN of them, layered, pinned and ready to quilt.  Tomorrow the whole day is accounted for. Once I finish this pile I can get back to cutting up actual finished work again-  can't wait.  

So. to date~

The second full lawn and leaf bag full of scraps, too heavy to lift!!

Going out for spaghetti tonight, I deserve it!    




Yesterday morning dog walk at 6:30 AM-  how spectacular is that!

1 comment :

Carol said...

Sandy, wonderful, exuberant and thought provoking as ever. Love yr blog.
Warmly
Carol Kenner
Yr former neighbor