Tech Entry 1

Why is robotics so confusing? I mean sure it's a complicated process, but what the hell is up with my bad luck? Nothing ever goes to plan. I can have *everything*, every component in these dumbed down tutorials designed for babies, and I can follow them to a T, and yet I just *cannot* get anything to work besides a... motion sensor. At least that works, right? But not Arduino IDE, it just doesn't want me to see if my ports are working. What sucks is that they were working just a few weeks ago! So what gives now? A broken data cable? That can't be because it's supplying power to my arduino nano right now! My bad luck makes me facepalm so much, it's probably why I have such a flat face.

I only have roughly 1 and a half hours left before I have to pack up my laptop and go back to my brothers house. I'm currently at my dads house for the weekend, and it's generally a better environment to work on robotics. I have the entire upstairs to myself and I've converted it into a sort of makeshift lab. My office is where I do most of the work and Jezelle's old room is where my 3D printer is, but I think the outlets there are bad because my printer has been failing me lately. Hopefully it's just a clogged nozzle.

My Decoy charge worked! Well, the mechanism at least. Upon ignition, the magnesium filler fell out of the plastic casing and blinded me temporarily. There was supposed to be repeating loud bangs but I didn't want to risk drawing attention. 

I've probably spent over $200 on components and the fact that nothing is working is stressing me out. I have more components on the way so hopefully I'll be able to complete my radio transmitter and receiver project this month.

I should also hopefully be able to begin work on the telepresence drone this coming weekend. It looks like I'm on my own because Michael doesn't even reply to my questions, he just ignores them and wants to talk about his nightmares or fantasies or whatever. I try to comfort him but... I'm no therapist! And he hasn't answered any of my questions for help at all! Right now it's somewhat okay because the AI and body won't be too complicated, but what if that's done and we begin work on the humanoid? When the AI gains some semblance of consciousness? Am I going to be alone on that too? Without Michael, this will become a lifelong project, if not longer. With him, it may only take a year or two.

What I thought was sick was seeing his search history, or rather a glimpse of it. "How to make a robot girlfriend". Ha! He's given up on my advice. His problem is that he thinks my tips will make him an "asshole" even though they won't. He trauma-dumps as his opening, he talks bad about himself the entire conversation, he dresses up like he's still spoon fed by his mom as she sings "chugga chugga", I honestly don't know how to help him if he's just going to disregard my advice and give up! An AI will never be his girlfriend, as it doesn't have the capacity to feel anything. Even if our project was a success in the end, the AI probably won't feel that way about him if it's modeled after me. Thankfully he lives in Poland and I live in the US, so he can't just run over here with his pants around his ankles...

Speaking of Poland, there is a reason for more of my stress on getting telepresence working. Most of my genius friends are polish and live in Poland, but the problem is that "Puddin" has sent his wanker boys to the border for yet another "special military operation". I worry about my friends there. A server I can connect to so I can control scout drones and ground drones to create fake road stops could maybe buy my friends enough time to evacuate. In case an invasion happens, I have faith in their military to help, but I'd like to see the safety of my friends first hand, and ensure they are safe.

There's much to do, and I can't do anything if Arduino IDE is gonna continue shitting on my plans.

UPDATE: I am *so* immensely stupid! I brought a WHITE charging cable and not my BLACK data cable! I had to look at my Amazon orders and was reminded that the data cable is black! WTF is this white charging cable??? I don't even remember where I got this one! That's another weekend wasted!