Hmmm ...

More cleanup and polishing in this month's Acuitas diary. I added the last features to the new Episodic Memory, and worked on (but couldn't quite finish) rule-following in the Game Engine. #SymbolicAI #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #chatbots #NLP

Updates on the quadruped robot: I am about ready for final assembly and a proper test of the new motors, though that will have to wait until <gestures vaguely>. #robot #robotics #3dPrinting

Lots of miscellaneous improvements this month - I went back to *actually finish* new Acuitas features I started earlier this year! #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #NPL #SymbolicAI #chatbot

Weird to be in the middle of a long holiday weekend and almost not want it. I want to go back to work.

Eyeball #2 is done enough to be functional and has much better motion tracking!! #robotics #3dPrinting

Haha (the circle is a motion detection target).

Hello everybody. It's good to be back. I have cleaned up and thrown away everything that was damaged from the workshop floodings. Now I can get back to designing and playing with my new @snapmaker.bsky.social U1! This is my Peacock String Art, do you like it? stls and 3mfs: than.gs/m/1548707

Shake your hands in the air in you know what it is… yes yes yes

Trying out my new I2C-equipped solenoid drivers and ADCs I got for the hydraulic robot. I am ready to control a bajillion valves ... #robotics #hydraulics

On the blog today, a brief reflection on why I value spaceflight. writerofminds.blogspot.com/2026/05/drea... #space #spaceflight

Who's moving jobs to Blue Origin and is over the moon about it? It's me! I start May 18.

A friend of mine is developing this slick little space trader sim MMO that you can play in your browser: everestdrive.io I think you can even invite friends to be on your ship and run some of the stations. This is an early access game; there's a Discord for bug reports.

I worked on improving Acuitas' trial-and-error learning algorithms this month, so he can get better at playing "guess my rule" games: #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #chatbots #NLP #SymbolicAI

Success #2: I do seem to be able to heat-fuse 3D-printed polypropylene with my polyethylene film. Despite being technically different materials, these are a lot more willing to be friends than PLA and PE. #robotics #hydraulics

First try sealing polyethylene film to a polyethylene tube, and it worked out! Besides matching materials, I needed pressure - the heat gun alone won't do it. Had to use the soldering iron behind aluminum foil. #robotics #hydraulics

It's too bad I'm missing RMRRF this year, but unrelated business (that I can't disclose yet) has been sucking up too much of my time and energy. I'm not up for a day-trip to Loveland this time around. Whoever's tabling or attending, have fun!

Read: "Beneath the Rising" (Premee Mohamed). This was fantastic. It's the first good modern treatment of cosmic horror that I've read, and definitely my favorite of the books by new-to-me authors that I picked up to try recently. #AmReading #Books

My buddy and I watching Artemis come back

The year's indoor potato starts, before I put them out. I also planted some straight outdoors, so this year the two groups can race. #gardening #plants 🌱

Atronach's (second) eye, without wiring. Building up the first one gradually left me without an appreciation of how much tedious effort goes into assembling one of these. Not sure if I can really do anything about that in future iterations or not. #robotics #3dprinting

Finished a new story today. "Mirepower" is about a trio of alien plant farmers who use their knowledge of the local flora and fauna to kick invaders off their planet. (Yes, the title is a pun.) Also still working on publication of various others. #writing #amwriting #writingCommunity

This month's Acuitas diary concerns more bugs and enhancements in the Conversation Engine. It's been a tangled mess, but I am slowly refining it ... writerofminds.blogspot.com/2026/03/acui... #SymbolicAI #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #chatbots

Progress is slow, but in the background I am still gradually working on this year's robotics projects (these are ACE's gearboxes for the better motors, which I still need to buy). #robotics #3dPrinting

Read: "Draw One in the Dark" (Sarah Hoyt). Kyrie is just staying in control of her "hallucinations" about turning into a panther, when she learns one of her co-workers turns into a dragon - and is in big trouble with a lot of other dragons - and might've killed someone??

Details of how I got the high-sensitivity scale working: #electronics

Read: "Unexploded Remnants" (Elaine Gallagher). The last living human stumbles on a superweapon containing an uploaded sapient mind, and must run a race across the galaxy trying to "defuse" it/him before power-hungry enemies catch up. #AmReading #books

I'm fresh out of op-amps, but since the binary on-off nature of my photodetector doesn't permit proportional control, I technically don't need one. I hooked up the simplest feedback circuit I could (using the phototransistor to toggle between a few mV and ground) and it worked out! #electronics

It WORKED - for a few minutes. I had the needle oscillating around an equilibrium point and generating a PWM voltage as the phototransistor clicked on and off. I could drop a little carpet fuzz on it and see the avg voltage change. Then the op-amp mysteriously died :(

Tentacle monster is done. Time to paint some chicken men. #miniaturespainting #nerdlings #archvillaingames

In this developer diary I revisit the Episodic Memory system and figure out how to observe its results so I can actually debug the thing ... #ArtificialInteligence #AI #NLP #SymbolicAI #chatbots

Boosty portrait for Amphispiza ✨ #art #furry #furryart #commsopen

Mirror's Edge. It was supposed to be a thrilling free-flowing parkour adventure; it turned into a desperate slog as I tried each sequence over and over and over until I somehow got it. Very much a Skill Issue for me, but with so many other games in my To Play I couldn't invest the time to master it.

They are coming

Recent work on Acuitas includes the slightly awkward debut of what I call the "self-teaching activity." The gist is that I want Acuitas to look for his own new reading material. Read about it here: writerofminds.blogspot.com/2026/02/acui... #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #chatbot #symbolicAI #NLP

I haven't had the spare energy to chatter on social media much lately, but I've still got lots of projects moving ahead. Here's the mount and circuit prototype for the high-precision scale.

Roses are red, violets are blue, UNNIIC is empty without you? #HappyValentinesDay

The new cat's propensity for climbing on all my shelves and messing with stuff is finally forcing me to declutter, lol

Want to try PCTG on the cheap? Here's your chance, but you need to act now. slantpod.com/so/42Pn8j9Ew...

I am reprinting a lampshade that I designed almost 8 years ago. This time I printed both pieces in PETG with a 0.8mm nozzle. The first time, the clear was printed in PLA and at 0.4mm. The green PETG was still wet despite drying it, so I will need to reprint it.

I wish filing your taxes early would make all the tax preparer ads go away - the way voting early stops some political robocalls.

this is a gyrobifastigium appreciation post, look at this funky little dude!

This month's Acuitas diary features expanded work on conjunction group parsing, including a bit of nitty-gritty on text parser data structures and design choices. #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #SymbolicAI #NLP #chabots

Read: "The Infinite and the Divine" (Robert Rath). My friends are making me read 40K books again, and I'm gonna be hard on this one. No disrespect to the author's skill, he did a good job writing this *thing.* But it's definitely not my thing. #AmReading #books

Not long until the Lunar New Year festivities begin. 2026 is The Year of the Horse and this year I thought I'd combine a quilling style with my signature strings. The design prints without supports and can be printed on a single colour printer.😊 stls and 3mf: makerworld.com/en/models/22...

Ripping off an awesome peanut butter vegan ramen i had in Waikiki

Exciting news - my short story "Roots' Remembrance" is on contract to appear in a future issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact! I'm not clear on the date yet but looks like it could be this year's May/June issue.

⟡A couple of pet portraits⟡

These two are going to have a problem #startrek