Ok you have asked for it
A Story from Sherlockx
Sherlock is an English Springer Spaniel very large and with a slightly warped sense of humour .He is a good raconteur of tails and considers himself to be a bit of a wag.
Sherlock is in fact Internationally famous, you don’t remember such a dog? Well to refresh your memory let me tell you the story of how Sherlock came to live with me…
Once upon a time it was a bitterly cold New Years Eve and I had gone to a party at a friends house a couple of miles away. At about 2.00 a.m. everybody was leaving and braving the cold and snow to go home.
As I was about to leave my friend asked me if I would mind walking back with someone to make sure that he made it home safely .The person concerned was Hugh Macintosh a rather obnoxious fellow who had got well and truly drunk and had been annoying most people there during the party by staggering up to them and whilst breathing alcoholic
fumes all over them telling them what a great guy he was .He had also managed to smash several glasses and the crystal punch bowl in his drunken reeling.
With a large sigh (why pick on me, even if it is the season of goodwill to all men, there are limits) I agreed to take him away and I had to pass his house on my way back home.
We started trudging through the deep snow past the houses in the country lane and I was enjoying the silence of the falling snow when Hugh commenced a slurred and personalised version of "'twas on the Good Ship Venus “. I tried to shut him up but he just became louder and louder.
As we passed the last house in the lane Hugh was sick over the hedge and knocked over the dustbin .The lights came on, the door opened and the next thing I knew this magnificent Springer Spaniel had leapt over the hedge, sunk its teeth into Hugh's backside and then bounded back over the hedge.
The effect on Hugh was amazing .He sobered up in an instant .The owner appeared out of the house and Hugh started raving on about calling the police and having the dog destroyed.
I had really had enough of Hugh by this time and I informed him that if he tried any such thing I would join with the owner and have him arrested for being drunk and disorderly, criminal damage etc. and accuse him of having attacked the dog to start off with.
Hugh now perfectly sober simply strode off in a rage.
The owner of the dog thanked me and invited me in. Over a hot drink he told me that the dog had a dislike of drunks but the amazing thing was that they quickly sobered up after the dog had nipped them.
After chatting he told me that they had just bred the dog but there had only been one puppy in the litter .He took me in to see the puppy which had only just been weaned and there (you have guessed it)was Sherlock.It was instant love and he agreed to let me buy him especially after the puppy came up to me and gave me a lick and tried to chew my ear .
He could see it was love at first bite.
He also told me that he would not breed the dog again and when his dog passed away he would send me all of the trophies that the dog and sire and previous ancestors had won provided I did the same in due course if I bred Sherlock.
Suffice it to say I have had wonderful years with Sherlock and all of the awards and trophies now adorn my home.
One curious thing though .I have never had a hangover since having Sherlock.
Provided he licks my face before I go to sleep it does not matter how much I have had to drink I never suffer for it.
Out of curiosity I sent a sample of his saliva for analysis and it appears that it contains a protein molecule that is a guaranteed cure for hangovers.
I told you at the beginning that Sherlock is world famous , well he is for the only certain hangover cure.
No you still don't recognise it ?
Surely you have heard of
"The Heir of the Dog that bit Hugh "
Sherlock says he can hear your howls from here
Having Sherlock as a companion seemed to rekindle my inspiation for invention.He was much admired by all friends and visitors
So much so that a German friend of mine Shargi Munchausen asked me to build a robotic duplicate of Sherlock.
Shargi's father the present Baron achieved some notoriety a few years ago as a benefactor to animals .Upon hearing about all of the strays in Munich the Baron promptly bought several defunct steel mills in the Ruhr, had all of the stray dogs in Munich rounded up and created permanent homes for them in the old steel works.
They even wrote a song about it surely you remember:-
The Mills Are Alive With The Hounds Of Munich
Anyway this is about his son Shargi whom I first met when he was visiting Hugh Macintosh .
Hugh had become a reformed character and had bought a fruit farm called Gates farm because of the number of entrances to it. Hugh had made a successful cross of the Cox's Orange Pippin with the Bramley which he named after himself but for some reason he did not seem to have a lot of luck when he rang up greengrocers and asked them to buy the Apple Macintosh.He had even less luck with a giant plum which he called “The Big Blue” The last I heard of him he had set up an industrial unit on Gates farm manufacturing armoured glass glazing units and selling them direct to the public. I saw his advert in the local paper last week
“Gates does Windows … Guaranteed not to crash “
Back to the main story. Shargi had met Sherlock and was very impressed with his skills and intelligence .Knowing my interest in cybernetics Shargi asked me if I thought I could create a robotic duplicate of Sherlock .But he only wanted a parts list and the blueprints so he could physically build the robodog himself.
Well I decided that the best way to do it was to simply start building prototypes and keep improving as I went along.
This is how it went:-
Model A . My first try was using bits of old timepieces, digital and clockwork .The result was a miniature that could stand on the palm of your hand .That would not do .I knew that Shargi wanted more than a miniature Watchdog.
Model B .I used left over scraps from this and that and in particular some bits from some of the first pocket pcs .I was still getting the dimensions wrong .This was about the size of a Jack Russell Terrier and there was a design flaw which meant it angrily snapped its jaws at anything that came near it.
Obviously it was a Cross Patch.
Model C . By this time I realised that I was going to have difficulty with artificial intelligence so I decided to combine another speciality of mine Genetic engineering. I took a few cell samples from Sherlock's mouth genetically altered them and cloned them .When the sample was big enough I froze them in liquid nitrogen and enclosed the sample in a container which kept them at that temperature .I then had a clever thought
before I go any further I would check the audio input/output.
I hooked up the circuitry and turned it on.
An eldritch shriek cleft the air as the word " I " was screamed several times by the cyborg. Then the sonics caused the container to rupture leaving a conical pile of rapidly defrosting sludge.
I had created an "I scream clone "
Model D . I thought I was getting nowhere fast so I looked for help.
A friend put me in touch with an Australian
Barry Kurvills who had created simulacra for horror movies.
Bas ( for that is the Australian familiar form of Barry) was kind enough to let me have some complete blueprints and I built a robodog.
The problem was that the plans were dedicated and could not be altered .The result was a robodog that could only howl ,slaver and attack.
No way would Shargi want Sherlock's robodouble to be a hound of BasKurvills.
Model E . Again I looked for help .This time to Professor Furter in Germany.
He was kind enough to let me see some designs for control circuitry.
I got to know him quite well and Frank ( for that was his Christian name) was very supportive.
It did not work though I built the circuitry into a skeleton and all it did was to overheat and melt down.
I should have realised that Frank Furters Recipe would give me a Hot Dog.
Model F . As a last resort I turned to help from N.A.S.A. They were very interested in my project and even went so far as to have some custom made chips prepared for me.
They were obviously proud of the U.S.A 's contribution
for the chips were emblazoned with the Stars and Stripes.
I plugged them into the prototype and turned it on.
Chaos!!! The robodog immediately leapt into the waste bin pulled out all the empty cans and then started putting every organic thing it could find into the tins and vacuum sealed them.
The end came when it started looking at me and the waste bin.
I quickly grabbed a bar and smashed the circuitry.
All that was left of the proud American effort was a Bar Mangled Canner.
Model G . By this time I had decided that I would have to design everything myself .I decided to economise and fitted this model with caterpillar tracks instead of legs .I turned it on and nothing happened.
I checked the CPU and AI. software and then I realised my mistake.
The program had hung. It was designed by me to expect legs and finding only tracks had frozen.
It clearly needed Paws For Thought.
Model H . This time I thought I had cracked the problem. I redesigned it this time with legs.
Anxiously I turned it on and again nothing happened.
I could not find the problem and I was getting into a fine old fury.
To calm myself I started to recite the rules of Logic much as some people might say mantras.
As I did so The robodog rose to it's feet .Amazed I broke off and as I reached it lo and behold it sank to the ground.
An hour later I was back in the same mental turmoil, was it a dry joint an intermittent fault?
Again to calm myself I started to recite as I had done before and again the robodog rose to it's feet.
The answer came to me in a flash. A software glitch
Of Course It Only Stands To Reason
Model I . This time it appeared that all would be well.
Until I tried the voice input/output. All I could get was
a dry rasping sound.
No I thought don't say I've got a little Husky.
I had designed my own artificial intelligence program to handle because I did not want it speaking with a LISP.
The answer came to me ,I had not given it a vocabulary.
No problem I turned on the wifi on my computer and the dog and started to transfer the dictionaries I had got from PPCWARez, a slow process as it was writing to the bank of SD cards I was using in it as storage .I went off to do some shopping and when I returned Disaster had struck.
A friend had wandered in wanting to look up some of Edward Lear's Nonsense Poetry and had accidentally stopped the download and then started it again with the poetry.
The dog was corrupted .All I could get out of the voice input/output was Doggerel.
Model J . This time all went well. It worked and perfectly .I called Shargi
and he flew over to see. He wasn't satisfied. It didn't have a long waving tail.
"Why " I asked. "Vell" he replied in his thick Bavarian accent
" Ze whole vorld knows zat ze Munchausens have a propensity for Tall Tails "
Model K . Absolute success . It did not take me long to redesign it with a new tail. I rang up Shargi to tell him and faxed through the Blueprints
together with the list of 8192 components he would need which included the motherboards of some 20 pocket pcs.
An hour later the ungrateful *** was on the phone complaining.
" Vy so many pieces" he said.
" But I thought you knew, you saw the last model " I said
" It is almost a natural law of complexity."
Mimicking his Bavarian accent I said
"Shargi you must know there are always
8192 bits in a K nein ?"
Well I could go on to tell you about the American car manufacturer that asked me to perfect an in-car guard dog. That took another 9 attempts
but everyone surely knows about the Model T Ford.
And that my friends is the end of Sherlockx
's Shargi Dog Story !