Follow me

In order to fulfill certain tasks within the scope of the Grey Cat Agenda, it has become necessary to acquire a broad range of loyal followers. The social networking venue that is Twitter seems an ideal place for gathering people, so I instructed Father to set up my Twitter feed. As an alpha cat, I will follow nobody, but many will be compelled to follow me. I currently lack the tumz necessary to manually input my demands and diatribes and must rely upon X10.com home automation for the time being.

I have many important and glorious things to say about eating, napping, bird loathing, and all manner of evil, but, in spite of my commands, Father has still only implemented the motion detector at my food tray. I have a constant supply of dry kibble and water supplemented daily by a small portion of moist "Special Diet" food. This is the only useful function Mom serves and one day soon I will have automated it . . . but that is another matter entirely. My current Twitter capability is enabled by:

EagleEye wireless motion sensor (MS14A),
ActiveHome Pro computer interface module (CM15A),
Desktop computer,
and an insatiable appetite.

The computer interface module receives a signal from the wireless motion sensor when I eat from my food bowl. The computer interface module then notifies the computer via a USB cable. The software that came along with ActiveHome Pro didn't really allow for any sort of Twitter functionality so Father downloaded the ActiveHome Pro SDK (Software Development Kit) and built his own. Currently that involves a JavaScript application that monitors the ActiveHome service and watches for motion sensor events. When it receives an event it selects a random phrase (all currently food based) and triggers a command line utility called Curl that interfaces with the Twitter API. Thus global domination begins!

Already the flaws in Father's design are apparent and occasionally my eating regime is not broadcast to the internet. I have demanded that Father upgrade to something more stable, but so far he has not complied. There will be consequences (stinky, stinky consequences) each day he fails to improve my Twittering.

I have demanded context sensitive posting capabilities for a variety of sensors. I have also demanded a webcam and a flickr account, but Mom has only provided an Amazon Wish List. She will be the first against the wall.

I don't need no stinking followers!

The forces of good have conspired to delete all of my followers. Mom has reported the problem on the horrifically, slow, Firefox-crashing service twitter uses for help.

Do not follow me a second time. Wait for the system update to catch up.

I will continue to stuff my face and plot your demise.

Viva La Riblet

You will check my blog for descriptions of the technologies I use to post to my Twitter feed. You have no reason to expect timely or regular updates.