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No Cash Prize for Next DARPA Grand Challenge
General Lee's Peking writes to mention an Associated Press article about a sad development in the DARPA Grand Challenge. Because of some new DoD-related legislation, the organization will no longer be able to award the $2 Million prize to grand challenge winners. It's not all bad, though; they still get a trophy. From the article: "The absence of a lucrative cash prize has forced some teams to retool their game plan and others to drop out. Some fear it would be harder to attract corporate sponsors and hurt media coverage of the race, which drew a throng of reporters last year and inspired a PBS documentary. 'The icing on the cake is gone,' said Ivar Schoenmeyr, team leader of California-based Team CyberRider, which is retrofitting a Toyota Prius hybrid."
So much for recovering my development expenses on these ideas:
note: Sharks with Lasers is someone else's idea so I clearly can't try to compete with that one.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Stifling innovation- find out the Congress folks who pushed this legislation through and make sure their staff do a little "constituent services"
Not sure exactly what you mean there, but the Defense budget is the largest it has been in ages, it's perplexing that they'd choose to cut here, unless there's some bizarre (well, not in light of the privatisation of many military services and operations) pressure to keep this in other hands, ahem, those which would prefer to sell goods and services they develop at great expense (and thus need reimbursement) and clearly some bunch of college yahoos couldn't do as well.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The DoD could always offer other forms of remuneration to the winner. Such a awarding contracts for supplies, such as $500 toilet seats and $250 hammers...nyet?
I'll give 10 to 1 odds that this is a result of some asshat policy maker (probably the one that spends all his time playing WoW) changing the rules without actually sitting down to think about the consequences of his shiny new policy... that kind of thing is a LOT more common than someone executing part of a far-reaching-conspiratorial-plan...
Oh god, that woman is John Romero!
Solid Snake's gonna be VERY disappointed...
...wait, what DARPA were we talking about, again?
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
Step 1. Buy Lexus LS460 with autopark
Step 2. Put ls460 backwards at starting line, tell it to park at finish line.
Step 3. Profit.
Business as usual for the military industry.
What if they don't need the contest anymore? Last year's winner did amazingly well from what I remember. What if they already have what they want?
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Yes. The money which is no longer available was prize money, as well as milestone prizes for the track B teams. The difference between track A and track B is that track A gives all its technology to the government at the end (in exchange for $1 million of development money), and track B has no such obligation. The track A funds (contracts rather than prizes) are still fully intact, so all of the track A teams are still in it. What's been cut out is the incentive for track B teams to enter. These are the teams that are NOT giving technology directly to the government, and are using the race as a vehicle for development of technology that can truly benefit the world in ways other than making robot death jeeps. Say, for example, saving hundreds of thousands of lives in traffic accidents every year.
So yes, I would much rather see a portion of the DoD's budget spent encouraging development of revolutionary safety technology for civilian drivers rather than a big contract to a traditional defense contractor for something that directly kills people. (Keep in mind, the funds were not -cut-, DARPA's authority to use them for prizes was simply removed.)
Interesting enough VW have already done it, see:n s_its.html
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/04/vw_abando
The VW Lupo is available but it only does 78.4mpg(US). Their development car did much better: 0.89 litres of diesel per 100 kilometres (264 mpg) top speed was still 75mph. but they could not make the commercial version cheaper than $25K
I should have been more specific: by "asshat policy maker" not thinking about the consequences of "his shiny new policy", I should've said "the shiny new policy they just wrote".
El Presidente may have signed it... but you can be damned sure he didn't actually write the thing. Someone else did, and then they managed to asskiss enough politicians to get 5 minutes of his time, during which, he likely signed a policy that, as a whole, had very little to do with the DARPA prize, but probably contained some obscure fucking clause...that some nimby-pimby shit for brains managed to... .. . . . . I'ma stop now... I'm feeling a little stabby....
Oh god, that woman is John Romero!
$25M for first family car that gets over 100 mpg at $40,000 price
To be awarded posthumously?
It's easy enough to build such a car. Easy enough that it's been done many times over the past century.
All you have to do to achieve it is give up something else. We can strive for efficiency, but we canna change the laws of physics.
KFG
It sounds like it's just a bureaucratic (sp?) paperwork shuffle. The money will be available. And if not, I'm sure they can find a few congressmen/women to either put pressure on the DoD or write a bill to specifically authorize the money. No one wants to look either "soft on terror" or "unconcerned about troop safety", so this will all work out. Hell, I'm sure Bush, as CIC, can move the money if needed.
-- Fugacity: Confusing chemists since 1908
RTFA - Although DARPA has pulled the award, the current legislation does not bar awards. It moves the authorization level up one position above the DARPA director.
All they now have to do is get permission from their boss.
It appears they have chosen the ignorant route and - instead of getting requested authorization - simply claim they are not allowed
Sounds like typical Government Bureaucrats to me.
Oddly enough, the President doesn't get to decide exactly what obscure sections go into a defense spending law. If he did, you can bet that companies located in districts represented by Congressmen on the appropriations committee wouldn't just happen to get lots of big contracts.
Sure, you can maybe blame him for not vetoing the spending bill, but unless he really cared about this one expenditure, why would you expect him to?
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to take a long shower, because I fell really dirty after actually defending the President. But can you please save your blame of him for the tons of things that are actually his fault?
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
That's already been done. It's called "Open Source".
Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
Give up? What are these laws you talk of, I don't know about you, but I'm American: I give up nothing and I write my own damned laws!
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
Why in the world would you say that? You're not one of those people that thinks bigger necessarily equals safer, are you?
Sure, you might have to give up the ability to, um, I don't know. Help me out here - what exactly would you have to give up? The ability to accelerate quickly? Nope. The ability to decelerate quickly? Nope. What would you have to give up? Which "laws of physics" would one have to change? (I have an MS in Astrophysics, so don't feel that you have to speak to the layman.)
I will say this - when you're accelerating quickly you won't be getting your 100 mpg. But you can have the ability to accelerate quickly (say in an emergency) and still average 100 mpg. Forgive me for saying so, but it's not rocket science. :)
OK, so maybe you'll have to give up your "8 MPG" license plate (I actually saw one of these), but really, is that asking so much?
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Not sure exactly what you mean there, but the Defense budget is the largest it has been in ages, it's perplexing that they'd choose to cut here
Two things:
That said, the US defense is the smallest it's been in ages and re-equipping three branches of the military is not cheap.
I'm on the Princeton DARPA team, and we're on Track B. The prize money at the end was a nice incentive and certainly garnered attention for the competition, but that's not where the real harm lies. For passing the site visit, there was a prize of $50,000, and for making it to the finals, a $250,000 prize (don't quote me on the amounts, that's just my recollection). These milestone prizes would've gone a long way to offset the financial disparity between Track A teams (who've received substantial DARPA grants) and the Track B teams. We're on a shoestring budget, and that money would've been incredibly useful. Instead, we now have to go the entire distance without a dime from the government.
------
http://pave.princeton.edu/
Just using today's technology, you could probably get pretty close to 100 mpg with a Prius
I could achieve it with a Chevette using yesterday's technolgy. Hell, I got 60 mpg out of a box stock 1976 Fiesta, in traffic, once upon a time, as a demonstration of how much driving style effects gas milage (the Prius is not immune from this effect. Some of its reported efficiency comes from the fact that its drivers are preselected to focus on economy in their driving). I'll give you 3000 mpg gallon with yesterday's technology; if you're willing to give up enough for it. With real mpg figures, not some conversion of mppc (miles per pound of coal) into mpg.
If we're going allow conversion factors I could also build you a car that gets the equivilent of 3000 mpg, burns a wide variety of bio or synthetic fuels at the same time and costs only a few thousand dollars, but you'd have to give up far too much for most people to bear.
Chiefly their lack of physical fitness.
KFG
The prize money is kind of like a lottery drawing, except that it's based on knowledge and skill, not so much on luck. It attracts teams who will enter despite the fact that there may be better returns on their investments of time and creativity.
The cash price would generate far more media attention than a simple awards ceremony. If we want to encourage people to invest in science and technology, this is a good way to do it.
It was non-sensical to kill it.
I'll make a public committment of $200 towards a future Darpa Grand Challenge prize, if 10,000 other people will do the same. (I'll leave it as an exercise to Slashdotters to figure out the best way to use pledgebank along with a credible escrow system to accomplish this.)
Please do not look at absolute dollar values, they are nonsense. Look at defense spending as a percentage of GDP. The US defense budget is about the same size as it was during the isolationist period leading up to WWI. In terms of percentage, the US spends about 3.8% of its GDP on defense, putting it in the same area of the list as Tanzania.
Keep in mind that a significant percentage of defence support is now performed by private industry, thus increasing the overall budget and the Pentagon does not perform a considerable amount of services itself. it's said to be more efficient, but when the DoD performed its own services the money largely stayed within the department. Further, these large requests of 70 and 80 billion to support the war on terror, are they included in these figures?
Thanks to the neglect of the military under Clinton, the Air Force has ancient aircraft and can't maintain them all because they break so fast, the Navy has too few ships and many of those still in service have entire systems which are inoperable due to neglect, and the Army can no longer rely on unlimited overseas basing, unlimited Navy sealift and unlimited Air Force airlift and so must get rid of all their heavy artillery and heavy tanks to transform to a lighter force.
The Clinton administration hardly neglected the military. Clinton didn't actively seek out conflicts to expend material on, the largest being the Serbia/Bosnia conflict, which he brought NATO in to a significant degree (as it was most member states' own backyard this seems fair.) Clinton prefered diplomatic engagement, building support over unilateral moves. Clinton was more fiscally conservative than his successor.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
However, if your concern is that you want the *ability* to accelerate quickly - e.g., in an emergency - then you can still get your 100 mpg.
.if you're racing something that can be related to what you're selling).
Right, if you give up that accelerating most of the time. That's something to give up. Some people won't. It's what they primarily want out of a motor vehicle. There are also still tradeoffs to be made, since an engine that isn't capable of that sort of acceleration can be made smaller and lighter, but then we're getting into the 3000 mpg territory I was talking about and not a mere 100.
Various efficiencies of the power plant my also vary with speed and acceleration. That's why our cars don't all just have gas turbines in them. They tried 'em in road racing and they sucked. They tried 'em in oval racing and they were so good they were banned (there were market politics involved in this. Win on Sunday, sell on Monday . .
Oval racers don't do much in the way of sudden accelerating.
And, yes, of course, you can't have an unaerodynamic car or a ridiculously massive car and still get 100 mpg. However, I don't see that there's anything unrealistic that you have to sacrifice.
The realism of the sacrifice is an issue I did not address. I simply stated that to get one thing you will have to give up some other thing. I'm often chided on this very forum for suggesting "sacrifices" that are "unrealistic;" and yet I obviously think they are realsitic, because I have really made them.
I really can't tell if you're being sarcastic here or not.
Q.E.D. Ha, ha, I'm only being serious.
The first phrase makes sense, but you seem to be implying that the only way to get 100 mpg is to go really, really slow.
No, I was primarily making a social commentary, but I am implying that the slower you go the better the milage you can get. Taken to its logical extreme you will get the best "milage" by simply being content with where you already are. This applies to human power just as well as mechanical power.
However, as I said, I can make a Chevette that gets 100 mpg, while only using technology that was available at the time it was made, but the higher you want its potential performance the more you'll have to give up in milage. I'm not working with a clean slate with that one. For starters I have a given power plant with certain built in inefficienes.
The second quickest, cheapest way to increase its milage is to shed mass, but you'll have to give up passenger carrying capacity for that. The next is to reduce rolling resistence, but you'll have to give up tractive force for that. The next is to change the final drive ratio, but you'll have to give up acceleration for that. The next is to tune the engine for maximum efficiency, but again you will have to give up some acceleration for that as well. It's innate in the device. I could be on to certain aerodynamic changes, but you may have to give up "styling" for that (Hey, it's not exatly my favorite, but I don't actually object to the way a Chevette looks).
Of course the cheapest way to increase milage (irrespective of a specific target) is to simply teach you how to drive it. With gentle, unhurried patience.
Depending on local conditions this may, however, result in your getting to work at a slower average speed. It might well take as much as . . . a couple minutes longer.
On the other hand I might well beat your Porsche on my bicycle. The world is a mass of variables and one of the essential problems with designing a road vechicle is that you have to take them all into account.
For years Jaguar battled American complaints that their cars overheated. They couldn't understand it, because they kept improving the cooling system year on year, but the complaints kept coming.
So, one year, they actually sent some of the engineers to America, go figure. Their reaction?
"B
The military has been neglected and mismanaged since the Reagan administration ended. He rescued us from the Hollow Force era, and the military has been living on the results for too long. I've been in the USAF since '81 and have not seen it this bad.
It has been under continuous drawdown, procurement of new systems is not done with thought to economies of scale, and services like the Navy and AF are slashing personnel to pay for few and overpriced new systems.
It is, provably, a bipartisan clusterfuck.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/C?c109:./temp/ ~c109i6ly2s
Signed on October 17th. Look in Section 212, which has this:
(A) by striking `Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency' and inserting `Director of Defense Research and Engineering and the service acquisition executive for each military department'; and
Emphasis mine. You can see that now they have to add a dude (assuming that Director of Defense of DARPA is now "Director of Defense Research and Engineering", otherwise it's out of DARPA's hands all together). Maybe it's just a matter of signatures, but I can see how they have been forced to put the award on hold until they can, you know, obey the law as Congress has fiddled with it. And I confess that I haven't looked at the legislation that this section amends, which is:
Subsection (a) of section 2374a of title 10, United States Code