Dog Tracking

I recently spent some of my free time looking for an acceptable tool set to develop software to track Dexter. He is kind enough to use a litter box most of the time, and my goal is to use computer vision to give him positive (and maybe negative) feedback to help him reduce his error rate.

I spent some time looking at IM but eventually settled into openCV. It supports rudimentary firewire capture and includes a "highgui" toolset to help gui novices, such as myself, display results quickly. Installation required building the libraries and I wouldn't have been able to decipher the error messages had it not been for Surgey Ten's blog.

Now I'm working on identifying the dog object. Once it's accurately recognized, upon entering and exiting the litter box a positive reinforcement statement will be played.

Later on, and this I think is the trickier part, if the dog-object sub-divides then a negative reinforcement statement can be played. I think the tricky part has something to do with differentiating the head and rear of the object -- so as not to scold a sick puppy. But, I guess, many would argue that negative reinforcement directed at a Chihuahua is ineffective.

The Laptop That Wouldn't Die

So Nicole and I won the bid for this Gateway SOLO PRO 9300 laptop maybe six years ago. After trying out all of the small Linux variants I could, I finally settled on Puppy.

I think it runs alright on this old thing. Sure, it's a beast, but it's the only computer we have that we can use while sitting on the couch, with our feet up, without squinting.

But it's not without it's troubles. At some point along the way I've had to repair the CD-ROM, the keyboard, the trackpad, the power supply. And I'm not taking buying new parts, I'm talking 'breaking out the soldering iron' repairs. Oh, and I also gave it a two-toned paint job. And we never did get a battery for it. I guess because a new battery costs more than what we paid for the machine.

So last week the thing started arching near my leg and I put it away. I'm sure Nicole was a little excited, in some way, expecting that we'll sometime soon get a new laptop for her. But, once again, I dug out the soldering iron - found a new power adapter plug - and got the thing working again.

I hear you can get brand new netbooks in the $200 price range nowadays...

Skin Cancer Sucks

But I'm very glad that our civilization has great doctors. I currently have another hole in my face - perhaps 2cm x 3 cm -- which should be repaired tomorrow. It freaked out Nicole. It freaked me out while it was happening, but I felt more comfortable than when I tried to have the surgery earlier only to be told that we'd have to wait until we could get a plastic surgeon involved. That time I had to fight through the fog of the pseudo-Valium to understand what Dr. Carruth was telling me.
This time he dove right in, sending unneeded bits of flesh popping off my face. While he was working I was about to ask what the foaming sound was until I smelled the charred skin. I couldn't feel, but I could hear the scraping of the blade across my skin as he removed samples.
The samples are analyzed to determine the extent - and fortunately for my nervous ass, they only had to take 2 samples (sessions) before they could tell me it was gone.
So now I wait, with a hole in my face, fully conscious, dreading tomorrow and all the while hoping to get it done with! Maybe later I'll attach a picture.

So now it's just over a week later and I'm feeling much like my old self. Dr Gibson managed to hide the massive hole in my face with a cheek flap rotation. I still have steering strips from the corner of my mouth running up along my nose up to my eye, and then across to my hairline, and then down below and then to behind my ear. The line ends in what Nicole expects will be a cool Z - shaped scar. Last Sunday(?) I had the drainage tube removed from behind my ear. There are a lot of stitches still in my face which I intend to have removed Monday.

But it's amazing! I'm so grateful that so many people are so good at what they do!