Piece of Mind

Whatever was written on the paper, it must have some kind of political meaning. So far as he could see there were two possibilities. One, much the more likely, was that the girl was an agent of the Thought Police, just as he had feared. He did not know why the Thought Police should choose to deliver their messages in such a fashion, but perhaps they had their reasons. The thing that was written on the paper might be a threat, a summons, an order to commit suicide, a trap of some description. But there was another, wilder possibility that kept raising its head, though he tried vainly to suppress it. This was, that the message did not come from the Thought Police at all, but from some kind of underground organization. Perhaps the Brotherhood existed after all! Perhaps the girl was part of it! No doubt the idea was absurd, but it had sprung into his mind in the very instant of feeling the scrap of paper in his hand. It was not till a couple of minutes later that the other, more probable explanation had occurred to him. And even now, though his intellect told him that the message probably meant death — still, that was not what he believed, and the unreasonable hope persisted, and his heart banged, and it was with difficulty that he kept his voice from trembling as he murmured his figures into the speakwrite.

He rolled up the completed bundle of work and slid it into the pneumatic tube. Eight minutes had gone by. He re-adjusted his spectacles on his nose, sighed, and drew the next batch of work towards him, with the scrap of paper on top of it. He flattened it out. On it was written, in a large unformed handwriting:

I LOVE YOU.

That’s from 1984 (finally got around to it =D).

‘Tis beautiful.

I hear it so much nowadays (no, not directed towards me!) that the phrase no longer stirs up any thought. But this is different. I almost fell into the toilet (jk!) when I read that. It was a big ‘aww..’ moment.

“I Love You” used to require immense courage, crazy preparation, and well-timed execution. Now it’s a day to day thing.

I propose we reserve “I Love You” for informational purposes only, to not contaminate it, and find some other phrase to convey day-to-day emotions. How about, “I’m hungry”? =D

I just spent about 20 hours last week reading up on robotics, when I should be doing… many other more important things.

Mostly from this site -
http://www.societyofrobots.com/

They explain things assuming you have no electrical knowledge at all (I have almost half a degree! =P), so it was a pretty easy read. Still very interesting concepts, though. Surprising how simple some of the algorithms are that will allow you to do very cool things.

I’m not sure how I found it, but it’s amazing. It’s like… a whole new world for me =P

I think I just found myself a project for this 2 weeks break – a 2 wheels (differential drive) robot that does something simple. Following shadows or something.

Went on a shopping spree and ordered probably way more things than I will ever need… $150 worth of resistors, capacitors, transistors, regulators, random chips, etc. servo motors (4!), photoresistors, phototransistors, infrared LEDs (for making an encoder), an IR range finder (from ebay!), a bunch of sensors, a microcontroller board (Arduino Duemilanove, amazing stuff. why build my own if I can get an Aruduino for $30 =P), and a huge NiMH battery pack.

Let’s see how this will turn out…

Most of the things have arrived already (from digikey). Still waiting for the servos. Played with the microcontroller board quite a bit. They make it too easy =P digitalWrite(), digitalRead()… I almost lost hope in microcontrollers after the crazy PIP project (all assembly).

It’s a strange feeling. I’m usually a software guy, but this stuff attracted me like nothing ever did before. Maybe it’s what I really want to do. Maybe I’ll even switch to electrical :O.

Hope I didn’t just dump a huge amount of money in for nothing =P. At least now I have my own stock of electronic components. Took me 2 hours to sort everything… and I somehow forgot to order wires. Guess I’ll be stealing some from school =P.

Artistic talents much?

The aftermath