things I've learned:
need two motors per four leggs, not one,
need stronger joints.
and I probbably don't need expensive motor speed controllers I bought.

gallery has been and will be updated periodically.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbPDbVqqAIM

how does it turn/why am I holding it with a piece of wood?
this is just left part of the body.

I'm working on 8 legged, large spider-like robot (1.5x1.5 meters, about 50kilos)
Starting with a wooden prototype as opposed to computer simulations/cad drawings,
in order to save time.

gallery, will be updated as I progress.

and a short video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAWtSfaqgIA

this leg design is called "klann linkage"

just a prototype of a prototype, still walking kinda crappy.

after looking at the rorschach test, I wanted more.
supirisingly, I couldn't find any rorschach generators online,
so, python, tkinter and randomwalk with random size blobs and simmetrical reflection,
I thought that some tweaking or more complicated algorithm would be needed but this works great.

click on a canvas for (re)generation.

examples and source.

while looking at context free art I was thinking wow those pictures are very nice and I want them on my
desktop and on my walls and all over my body. 
(its a context free language used to describe recursive patterns whose execution is then represented by
images. images that tend to look natural and lifelike because lifelike things tend to describe
themselves in similar ways.)

when talking about things in this language, its all about probabilities and not about fixed
values, so every time a picture is generated from the same description, it looks different!

SO: hourly wallpaper generation.
here is my /etc/cron.hourly/wallpaper.sh:




#!/bin/bash


/usr/bin/cfdg -w 1680 -h 1050 /etc/wallpaper/symchasm.cfdg /tmp/b.png && /usr/bin/display -window root /tmp/b.png

logger "new wallpaper generated."




I have tiling wm so this is useless for me.
but, just a thought. 

bunch of selfish prisoners having sex and mutating. WHOA.
very basic evolutionary algorithm, a last night's play.

a problem:

Will the two prisoners cooperate to minimize total loss of liberty, or will one of them,
trusting the other to cooperate, betray him so as to go free?

In the iterated prisoner's dilemma the game is played repeatedly.
Thus each player has an opportunity to "punish" the other player for previous non-cooperative play. 
Cooperation may then arise as an equilibrium outcome.

solutions:

I didn't get tit for tat which I originaly expected,
nor did I manage to get a cooperative equilibrium. cooperation does evolve, but it doesn't last,
strange, I expected that cooperative species will raise and stay dominant as I enlarge the number of
interactions before a step in the evolution. (its rational to be nice if you need to stick around)

need to think about this some more.

I'll post more info and code later or never.
screenshot and someone with a different approach and a spacial dimension.