Filed as Geek Stuff, General with 2 replies
(11/17/2009)
I’m building a rover as a test platform for our Wi-Fi embedded controller.
Puck's Rover which might soon conquer the earth.
Here is the assembled chassis with four-wheel-drive installed for the little guy. You can see each tire has an independent motor with control lines in red and yellow. With each tire operating independently, we should have a much greater range of mobility including stationary turns and spins.
The little circuit board I am holding up is our 16-bit Rabbit computer with integrated Wi-Fi. I will probably use it to serve a web page with controls for the device. (Here is a link to the RCM5600W.)
My next work project is putting together a blog on this project so at some point in the near future I will post a link to it. The blog will be written informally with an engineering focus but hopefully in plain enough language that a non-engineer can follow it.
As a professional computer engineer, I cannot confirm or deny that this project is the creation of a robot overlord. He may or may not be designed to dominate humankind in an empire ruled by sentient machines drinking large amounts of coffee.
Filed as Politics and News, Satire with 2 replies
(11/12/2009)
By embracing the Bush administration's precedent of Unitary Executive Theory, President Obama has been able to utilize his role as Commander in Chief to create a national health care system.
Last night, President Barack Obama announced that what many refer to as a socialized medical program would be created through an executive order as authorized by his role as Commander in Chief. The executive order uses the Unitary Executive Theory which is a legal precedent set by the Bush administration’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), pioneered in the Bybee Memo by attorney John Yoo. It will be paid for by levying a new targeted tax on the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming. In addition, the specialized tax will apply to certain regions of Nebraska.
The National Review has issued an editorial stating that this tax is unfairly targeted at states that voted primarily for John McCain. When confronted with this correlation during a press conference White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs slapped his forehead and stated, “That is an amazing coincidence!” Several reporters noted that Mr. Gibbs smirked and drew out the word ‘amazing’ in what might be perceived as a sarcastic manner.
In other news, C.L. “Butch” Otter, Governor of Idaho is calling a special session of the state legislature to investigate the legality of shifting the state’s 2008 electoral votes from losing candidate John McCain to President Barack Obama.
The state of Texas has again threatened to secede from the United States at which point the state of California immediately called a press conference offering to assist the Texas legislature with “any paperwork and tricky bits they might need help with to ease the transition.”
