Hitec Robotics

Hitec Robotics - Saw this on one of the gizmodo's CeBIT feed. It's looks kinda cool. Programmable robot with IDE support for scripting the robots behaviour.

Software provides three programming levels: Robo-Script / Remocon both have GUI support, where you can click on servos and modify them to create event-based behaviours. You can also hierarchically create composite behaviours by assembling simple behaviours together. Excellent. You can also program at the Robo-Basic level (hey how retro) - which allows you more control over directly controlling servos (controlling motion, processing feedback).

The servos themselves seem pretty nice with reliable 3-D yaw and roll re-calibration built-in.

But the price! €869-€1049 - and no shipping to Ireland.

Now if it only wasn't 9 months till Xmas... oh I know - Happy Spring Equinox!

White Elephant

If revenge is a dish that best served cold, then regret is a room full of half-opened flatpack items. Flatpack rates highly on my list of "sucky things about modern life" (modsuck: verb, "Blackberries have modsucked my life"). What? Modern life sucks? If you disagree, please press 1.

Why do I continually find myself holding the ubiquitous allen-key, staring dumbly at brazenly vague instructions, head throbbing uncontrollably. Well, the hangover is a dead-giveaway, highlighting a second scourge of modern-life: drunk online shopping (DOS). Suddenly all those shiny things seems so much nicer. Not that DOS is wrong per se, but when the result is flatpack...

So here's my suggestion, patent pending: someone somewhere should invent a USB-based breathalizer and link it directly to an ewallet, or better still integrate it with Amazon 1-click. Want to buy that nice shiny thing? Just blow in here. Sorry not tonight sir.