From: adw3345@ultb.isc.rit.edu (Derrick Williams)

 So to make up for my tremendously exciting and thrilling job at my
company, I'm taking engineering courses at my local community college
at night for the fun of it. This is at a community college, not an
engineering college, so I am able to use the qualifier, "for fun".

 What they pretty much do is have you go to a few lectures a week, then
give you a set of keys to the lab and you work on projects that reflect
principles you learned in the classes. For your final project, you get
to do something you want to do, so as long as the instructor approves of
it.

 My final project is a cat tracker. In a closed environment, such as my
studio apartment, there are sensors that track an emitter worn by the
cat. All this stuff is hooked up to my computer, which displays a map
of my apartment, and a little cat icon that shows the X,Y, and Z
co-ordinates of the cat. When Boris the wonder cat goes into the kitchen
for munchies, the little kitty icon traces Boris' path through the
house. When Boris chases his tail, the icon goes around in tiny circles.
When Boris drinks from the toilet, the icon disappears because the bowl
blocks out all the signals.

 I was proudly explaining my cat tracker to a classmate, and she
shattered it all by saying, "But if you're in the house and can watch
the cat, what good is it?"

 You know, she had a point. I could use it to prevent Boris from going
to certain places in the house. If Boris was not allowed in the study,
the computer could sound an alarm when Boris went there. But being
liberal and easygoing cat owner, I don't care where Boris goes. Boris
eats his cat food on the kitchen table because I step on it when it's on
the floor. We share diseases all the time.

 So, it would only be useful to track the cat when I'm not there. So
henceforth, Boris may become the first cat connected to the Internet.
Finger a machine, and you get a diagram of the house with a reference of
where the cat is. Connect to a machine with a X terminal and watch
Boris wander around, real time.

 Put that in your internet christmas tree and smoke it.

 However, I need to be connected to an internet site. I can get ISDN.
Any takers?


                                                   Derrick