Outrage

Thought i'd dust off the car today, as its been about 4 years, and got a bit carried away. washers in all the pushings to stop the chassis rattling, regreased the gearbox, cleaned all the contacts, cleaned and setup the shocks properly (oil dampened progressive coils dont you know, eat that Tamia Fighter Buggy with your crappy plain coils on plastic sliders)
could do with a new speed controller as the metal contacts are pretty worn and its reluctent to reverse, perhaps i'll be persuaded to spend a couple of quid on an electronic one off fleabay (parrently they improve battery life too)
tis much faster than i remember! could do with new tyres as slips and slides all over the shop at the moment.
Bwarp!

This week i 'ave been mostly drinkin'

...Asda Extra speccy columbian fairtrade coffee. bit over roasted for me mefinks, and now we know for next time...

of grass being greener, and growing faster, on the other side

from what i understand (and it is understandable) people spend their entire (genuinely entire) working lives trying to escape the cube farm. so how come no one will let me in one?!?!

i'm praying (yes its getting religious) that once driving is undercontrol i should get in to one without toooo much of a problem, and im getting all the dim replyio applications out of the way for free. I'm telling everyone this, but that only highlights how little there is going on in my life at the moment; categorically, nothing.)

Then again, maybe i'm just not what people are looking for. call me a pessimist.... "you pessamist"... but outlook at the moment is so bleak.
Am bored of the everlasting holiday, and hoovering and mowing are getting repetative, the grass dosent grow fast enough to warrent it, and the carpet dosent bloody grow at all!
the Cat and I are going to get fat.

Streamlined contol

Streamlined contol
Originally uploaded by olly rob.

The old control system was
A: not very stong due to its vertical configuration
B: Rubbish because of poor valve set up. each move built up more and more pressure in the system and eventually it became very heavy to move. now it has "ports" (missing hoses) to let out the used air, and allow for much smoother lighter action. i moved the horizontal pivot piston too to allow for a wider range of movement with less load.
I'm sure you are as impressed as I am.

Webcam

Latest lego thingy. a Pneumaticly powered/controled gimble for a PlayStation2 Eyetoy.
iT should really run off a pump or a compressed air tank (apparenlty they are the basis for some of the lego robotics systems i found out afterwards) but it works ok-ish with a master cylinder.
an afternoons work well done mefinks!

Automower

While looking for the correct spelling of Husqvarna for a raather witty msn message;

"By the power of my Husqvarna, i shall smite the crap out of you"

(i was strimming some long medow to within an inch of its life) i came across das Automower.
its pretty cool, and a nice idea. i dunno how much it would cost though.
However, the programming on it looks far too simple for my liking :S
its got no system to its mowing, a completley random pattern, which the website claims makes for a even lawn with no patter visible. but it also means there are little tufts which by the rules of chaos theory (if you can call them rules, being chaos) which will never get cut, or very rarely.
Anyhoo, the point i was getting at;
I could SO make a better one ;-p
and why isnt is solar powered too?