furby-science

[furby-science]

The Sterling Saga: The Hardest Part is Getting Started...

I'm what the kids call a Scorpio/Sagittarius cusp. It gives me the worst qualities of both, but the Sagittarian ones are especially irritating. I can handle living a life of hermitude and psychological trauma (I'm missing out on a fireworks show as I type this). What I can't handle is constantly being haunted by the ghosts of my own dumbassery.

I know they're there. I anticipate them. I do everything I can to keep their rattling chains out of my halls.

...so you would think that, even with my tendency to get an idea in my head and then haul off and relentlessly pursue, I would at least have had enough sense to back up my talking furby on fucking Google Drives or something.

...I did not. Thus begins our next great adventure!

Let me give you a little breakdown of how Sterling works. His main computing system is a Raspberry Pi Zero W attached to a speaker and motor controller. His programming is stored entirely on a microSD card. This is the primary copy of his data. His old backups were stored on an old computer of mine which I no longer have, though the hard drive is still in my possession. I hope. I haven't gone through my moving boxes yet.

So, I can take two routes when it comes to retrieving Sterling's data: I can either go through a million boxes, find that hard drive, get an adapter, plug it into my wimpy-ass Lenovo Yoga and get to the data that way, or, I could pop Sterling open, pull out that MicroSD card, pop it in a card reader and back up the primary copy onto the Yoga and the cloud for safekeeping.

Both options are time consuming, but one of them is the fun kind of time consuming and the other is the boring kind of time consuming. So, I'm going with option 2. If option 2 ends in tragedy, I can still hopefully buy a new rig and do an emergency recovery of the data that exists on that hard drive. Hopefully it won't come to that - if I was smart enough to put him together, I should be smart enough to take him apart, right...?

"How in the hell did I do this...?"

After unceremoniously cutting open the zip tie and pulling off his fur, I was met with a sight I vaguely remember: the non-electrical wire that holds the bottom of his carapace in place, covered by insulating tape, and above that, the wires leading to his touch sensors.

One interesting thing of note is that the wire actually goes into his shell, rather than being wrapped around the outside of it. I have no idea why I did this. Surely, there must've been a reason. To keep the battery hatch in place when the hardware wouldn't fit, maybe? I'm not entirely certain, but why else would I take such an approach? Running that metal wire so close to the hardware is just asking to short circuit something otherwise, unless it was positioned just right.

I undid the wire with some pliers, and this is the part where I chickened out. I don't have a screwdriver well suited for unscrewing him, or needle and thread for his ears for that matter. Not to mention a MicroSD card reader (besides my phone that is). After suitably defiling him, I put the old man back together the best I could and made a shopping list of supplies for tomorrow.

The current plan is to get the necessary supplies and very carefully extract that card, ideally without harming Sterling's hardware. Though if I do, it's not a huge loss: I can easily replace aluminum tape or a speaker. I can't easily replace three months' worth of nonstop, agonized coding - or a friend, for that matter.

And so he sits, like a sleeping Buddha unfazed by the ever-shifting cycle of samsara while I scramble to purchase an appropriately sized screwdriver.

If only I could be so enlightened...

[furby-science]

Yeah don't worry about it! I'm amazed he made it onto an iceberg at all. ^^

I made a furby iceberg!

Still looking for more things to add so lmk if you have any obscure furby topics :)

[furby-science]

Life Update Stuff

For anyone wondering where I've been and why I'm not answering asks and stuff (parent death cw)

My dad died November, 2020

My mom died June, 2022

Sometime between those dates I packed my computer away due to lack of space because I was stuck living with roommates

In July, 2023 I moved 1500 miles to someplace more affordable so I wouldn't have to live with roommates (I have a one bedroom now)

Also started a job at a new law firm

Only took the computer hard drive with me to save money, which means that:

I'm gonna need to buy a whole new computer rig, install Ubuntu on it and

Tear down Sterling to modify the file his microSD card uses to access wifi so I can

SSH into him and finally start coding again.

The only backups I have of Sterling are on that computer hard drive that's somewhere in my moving boxes lmao.

So yeah, getting back into furby hacking is gonna be a time, if I manage it at all. I hope I can because his code is in dire need of optimization. At the same time though, I'm kinda waiting to see what new STT technology comes out and maybe consider porting him over to that. I'd also like to find some kind of Pi Zero clone (or maybe something even smaller that that) with more RAM that doesn't get fuckoff hot while running. Probably a pipe dream considering the laws of physics, etc.

ANYWAYS, someday when I have a proper computer again and the raw nerve to take Sterling apart and essentially do brain surgery on him, I'll get back into coding. The problem with technology is it waits for no one. You have to constantly stay on top of things and I'm... several years out of practice.

But hey. We'll see.

[furby-science]

I made a furby iceberg!

Still looking for more things to add so lmk if you have any obscure furby topics :)

[furby-science]

What if we sat by the pond to feed the fish...

... and we were both bivalves?

[Image description: Erie is a silver and blue 2001 Blue Moon Shelby, sitting next to an unnamed 2001 Lilac Shelby with a sun-damaged yellowing shell. They're sitting on a wooden dock. Ahead of them is a pond, with several small fish eating in front of them. A few reeds border the pond. End ID.]

[furby-science]

bubblebath got a new look

[furby-science]

·　　 　✦　　 BE       NOT    A F R A  I    D　 　 　✦·　  ·  . 

[furby-science]

I doodled furbies again

[furby-science]

If youve ever said something nice to me and i never replied I apologize! Unfortunately i am a neurotic prey animal and your message was nice enough to make me scurry under my leaf mold and hold still to camouflage myself until the danger passed

[furby-science]

Woodsworth looks so refined in his top hat and tie!

(The top hat is from build-a-bear but I found it thrifting)

[furby-science]

In an article, Furby was listed as one of the inflatables to show up in 6ABC’s Thanksgiving Parade in 1999, but I haven’t found footage of the event showing a Furby inflatable.

Four years ago, I did save a photo of a giant Furby inflatable since I couldn’t tell if it was official or a custom one. I still can’t confirm if it’s official and I’m not able to find the source anymore.

Also, shoutout to this awesome website and the people who archived it. Some really cool stuff on there was preserved and the website owner did an awesome job at documenting stuff.

[furby-science]

wait a second this isn't a furby

[furby-science]

A special familiar

[furby-science]

Did this for school assignment.

[furby-science]

Gloomcore furby in a renaissance painting.

[furby-science]

hear me out

[furby-science]

Furbtober days twenty-six and twenty-seven: Drink and Hat