I live in Brisbane. I’ve been doing robotics for a long time now, with a focus on vision for robot control, field robotics (wheeled, underwater, flying) for applications such as mining, agriculture and environmental monitoring.
I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up (it was the 60s) but that didn’t happen…
I have very vivid memories of this book from my childhood and it was probably influential. I still have it. Be careful what you give your kids! I enjoy reading crime fiction, especially Scandi crime fiction. I learned to dive but haven’t done very many dives (yet).
Interesting ancestors
George Suttor (1774-1859, my gggg-grandfather) brought plants to Australia for Sir Joseph Banks, and was arrested during the Rum Rebellion. Here’s a copy of a letter from Banks to Suttor. My mother wrote a book about his life and adventures.
George Hall Peppin (1800-1872, my ggg-grandfather), pastoralist and sheep breeder. With his sons George and Frederick (1828-1911, my gg-grandfather) in the Riverina district of NSW (Wanganella, Boonoke, Morago) they developed the Peppin merino, a robust sheep that produced large amounts of good wool. It revolutionised the wool industry in Australia and the Peppin merino strain still dominates the Australian sheep population. Frederick sold the Riverina properties in 1878 and invested in properties in the Gregory district of south-west Queensland (Kyabra, Monkira, Abbotsford), where he lost 90,000 cattle and sheep in the Federation drought. He was involved in the Australian Frozen Meat Export Co. which fitted sailing ships to carry frozen meat to the English market; was a councillor of the Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria and its president in 1893-94; vice-president of the Federation league; manager of the Alfred Hospital and a committee member of the Austin Hospital for Incurables.
Annette-Bear Crawford (1853-1899) was a feminist and women’s suffragist (not actually an ancestor, but she’s in the family). She was first president of the United Council for Woman Suffrage founded in 1894. She influenced legislation affecting women such as raising the age of consent to sixteen, the appointment of women as factory inspectors, the Infant Life Protection Act, the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children and helped establish the Queen Victoria Hospital for Women in Melbourne. She said, in 1897, “that most things worth having were originally produced by women. Man is destructive, while woman is constructive“. Her father established the Tahbilk (Chateau Tahbilk) vineyard on the Goulburn River. She married my g-grandfather William Crawford in 1894 but died in 1899, in London of pneumonia. He remarried Evie (my g-grandmother), the daughter of Frederic Peppin.