20070303

Indian tanning

The animal hides I harvest this year will be braintanned. It just logically follows that if I shoot it myself, and dress and butcher it myself, with ammunition I handloaded myself, the rest of the animal deserves preservation that I can also accomplish. Ever the cheapskate, I want to do it cheaply even if that means more work, and maximize the products resulting from the animal.

I mentioned this to the two female offspring units, and they sound very enthusiastic about helping me. They'll get to keep some bones or other animal parts to show at school, maybe.
Mlle. Sklodovska is very interested in beadworked American Indian clothing, and a chamoised antelope hide would serve very well for that.

We'll see whether this enthusiasm persists when it comes time to scud a sopping wet hide, or mash an antelope's brain in a bucket.

Firstborn's infatuation

Firstborn now cares for a Tamagotchi, having seen many of her friends caring for them.

These devices appear to have been Furby-ized since I first heard of them maybe 15 years ago; hers has a little IR window through which it can communicate with others nearby, ostensibly so they can exchange electronic genetic material and procreate. Hers has had offspring.

For all I know, these little buggers can receive data through the screen flicker of a computer monitor (not the first time this has been done). This would enable Firstborn to download changes to her pet from one of the fansites, such as new foods, grooming, tricks or a simpler feeding schedule.

She has already "lost" 3 of her pets in this device, one because of a hard reset (I think), others not because of hardware malfunction, but because it must just have been their times to die. She was devastated the first few times, but now sniffles a bit and starts the pet over, always with the same name.

Gets me to wondering: is anybody hacking these things, distributing communicable diseases through the IR port? And how much protection is their Japanese maker placing on these devices to immunize them? And can the immunity also be transferred from device to device?

There's a networking-security graduate thesis in here somewhere.