The Challenge area includes the Departure Area, Departure Line, Challenge Route, Checkpoint Area, Arrival Line, Arrival Area, and any other area that has been assigned to DARPA for the purpose of conducting this Challenge. The specific boundaries of the Challenge area will be briefed to the Participants at a pre-Challenge brief shortly prior to the Challenge.
It sounds like they give the details of the route only a short time before the actual race (maybe a couple of days? hours?) so it would probably be a good idea to have built-in GPS to assign the waypoints quickly, easily and accurately.
The point of the exercise is to see how well the robot car can deal with "unknown" conditions, so I would wager that pre-driving would be discouraged.
In fact:
Vehicles that cannot demonstrate intelligent _autonomous_ behavior will not be accepted as Participants.
In order to qualify for the Grand Challenge cash award, the maximum corrected finishing time of the winning team must be less than six hours. Additionally, to ensure safe operation during daylight hours only, all vehicles must be removed from the route ten hours after their departure.
If you want the money you have to do it in 6 hours. This is just over 40 mph. But some of the route is paved which should allow for higher speeds for parts of the course.
The rules also state that the route will be navigable/avoidable by a standard 4x4 pickup (HINT HINT).
Having driven out in the desert, even on the dirt roads, most of it can be driven at 60+ mph. You just have to be ready for the parts that can't be driven faster than 5 mph.
If IE wasn't so heavily linked to the OS, this really couldn't happen. MicroSoft has insisted on having both IE and Outlook linked into the OS despite having only superficial benefit by this decision. The amount of security risk by this decision is huge though.
There are at least 2 additional things that I believe are largely responsible for the recent drop in attendance that are directly the fault of the people who are organizing COMDEX.
1) The way they handled the merging of the two venues. "Oh, Creative, we don't think you'll mind giving up the prime real estate for this location in the back corner." This decision drove out most of the multimedia people last year (I don't know if they came back this year). But even the thought that they might do the same thing again on such short notice has kept me from even considering a return this year.
2) They are charging more for the small booths causing fewer businesses to use them. These booths are a major incentive for many people to show up. Everyone knows they can go on Microsoft's or IBM's website to see what they are up to, but it was very convenient to go to the show and see a bunch of smaller companies and see what they had available all in one place. But with higher fees, they are systematically driving those people out.
These are things that weren't outside of their control.
In addition to other benefits of working the public sector already listed, I enjoy 40 hours/week = 40 hours/week. This isn't true for all positions, but if I need to work more than 40 hours, I either get overtime or comp time.
Promotions are also a more regular thing. They are usually based on time served and exams rather than your ability to suck up to the boss.
You are also generally allowed the luxury of not having to push a product out to meet a profit timeline. You can make sure it is done correctly and you don't get fired if my findings show that a project is not feasible.
I also find it is easier to get a public sector job that you can believe in. Something that makes you feel like you make a difference in the world as opposed to just making money.
And it is harder for your pension to get raided.
Now the cons.
You do have to deal with the occasional person who matches the sterotypical model of a government worker. Someone who knows they can't be fired easily and so they do the minimum of work and will try to take credit for the work of others.
Also there isn't a "get rich quick" option. No stock options or profit sharing.
Another drawback (at least for California State workers) is that every year, you become a political pawn in the budget process.
Explaining the reasons for their actions validates the action and gives the terrorists publicity for their cause. This can encourage further acts of aggression.
PETA, like the Sierra Club, is full of people with more money than their conscience can handle. So they join the group and perform high profile acts that make very little difference to the problem. They focus on the pretty animals just like the Sierra Club focuses on the nice scenery.
Just more people who are trying to justify their wealth.
I guess we need to create a.pdy top level domain so that we can tell these folks to just deal with it.
Even if it is not on a direct path to the Milky Way, as they approach each other, the gravitational effects they have on each other will become greater and will draw themselves towards each other.
This may not cause them to collide, but it does greatly increase the chances of it happening.
Signal quality is essential to HDTV. The advantage of a digital signal is that if you receive it, you get pretty much perfect reception. With an analog signal, you get more static as you lose reception quality. With a digital signal it is pretty much all or nothing.
Many cable companies already use a digital signal. I don't know how compatible that signal is with the HDTV programming however.
I think the Earth would look better over there.
on
Wormholes? Maybe.
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· Score: 2
I have to wonder if experimenting with wormholes on our one and only livable planet (for the moment) is really a good idea.
What would happen if someone creates a wormhole here and since it would be centered around our planet, could conceivably trap us in and deposit our planet in a completely different area of space. What would we do then? Hope that after creating the phenomena once that we could repeat the process in reverse and get us back?
I am glad that we don't have that technology yet and I hope that when we do that people are cautious enough not to risk the entire plant just for their own curiosity.
Of course it may be really cool to have new stars to observe at night.
Unfortunately, this type of legal case may give AOL an excuse to pry into the actions of its customers.
The thing that strikes me as odd is that, from my experience, Europe tends to hold the individual responsible for their own actions a lot more than we do in the US. I wonder if this is a disturbing trend of change, or if they are targetting AOL (offended at the A of AOL).
That is an interesting thought: AOL-G (America On-Line: Germany). I wonder if they get offended by that reference. Its almost like they are expressing some sort of annexation.
The english language is full of inconsistent rules for making words plural. It also depends on what you are discussing since the plural of mouse in the computer world is mouses.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree.
My life is so much more interesting since I allowed Grand Theft Auto to bleed into my real life.
It sounds like they give the details of the route only a short time before the actual race (maybe a couple of days? hours?) so it would probably be a good idea to have built-in GPS to assign the waypoints quickly, easily and accurately.
The point of the exercise is to see how well the robot car can deal with "unknown" conditions, so I would wager that pre-driving would be discouraged.
In fact:
So a marker based vehicle would be right out.
The rules also state that the route will be navigable/avoidable by a standard 4x4 pickup (HINT HINT).
Having driven out in the desert, even on the dirt roads, most of it can be driven at 60+ mph. You just have to be ready for the parts that can't be driven faster than 5 mph.
If IE wasn't so heavily linked to the OS, this really couldn't happen. MicroSoft has insisted on having both IE and Outlook linked into the OS despite having only superficial benefit by this decision. The amount of security risk by this decision is huge though.
There are at least 2 additional things that I believe are largely responsible for the recent drop in attendance that are directly the fault of the people who are organizing COMDEX.
1) The way they handled the merging of the two venues. "Oh, Creative, we don't think you'll mind giving up the prime real estate for this location in the back corner." This decision drove out most of the multimedia people last year (I don't know if they came back this year). But even the thought that they might do the same thing again on such short notice has kept me from even considering a return this year.
2) They are charging more for the small booths causing fewer businesses to use them. These booths are a major incentive for many people to show up. Everyone knows they can go on Microsoft's or IBM's website to see what they are up to, but it was very convenient to go to the show and see a bunch of smaller companies and see what they had available all in one place. But with higher fees, they are systematically driving those people out.
These are things that weren't outside of their control.
In addition to other benefits of working the public sector already listed, I enjoy 40 hours/week = 40 hours/week. This isn't true for all positions, but if I need to work more than 40 hours, I either get overtime or comp time.
Promotions are also a more regular thing. They are usually based on time served and exams rather than your ability to suck up to the boss.
You are also generally allowed the luxury of not having to push a product out to meet a profit timeline. You can make sure it is done correctly and you don't get fired if my findings show that a project is not feasible.
I also find it is easier to get a public sector job that you can believe in. Something that makes you feel like you make a difference in the world as opposed to just making money.
And it is harder for your pension to get raided.
Now the cons.
You do have to deal with the occasional person who matches the sterotypical model of a government worker. Someone who knows they can't be fired easily and so they do the minimum of work and will try to take credit for the work of others.
Also there isn't a "get rich quick" option. No stock options or profit sharing.
Another drawback (at least for California State workers) is that every year, you become a political pawn in the budget process.
YMMV
Explaining the reasons for their actions validates the action and gives the terrorists publicity for their cause. This can encourage further acts of aggression.
I believe in Todd.
No wait, I believe in Wally.
I believe that Wally is Todd.
Just more people who are trying to justify their wealth.
I guess we need to create a .pdy top level domain so that we can tell these folks to just deal with it.
This may not cause them to collide, but it does greatly increase the chances of it happening.
Many cable companies already use a digital signal. I don't know how compatible that signal is with the HDTV programming however.
What would happen if someone creates a wormhole here and since it would be centered around our planet, could conceivably trap us in and deposit our planet in a completely different area of space. What would we do then? Hope that after creating the phenomena once that we could repeat the process in reverse and get us back?
I am glad that we don't have that technology yet and I hope that when we do that people are cautious enough not to risk the entire plant just for their own curiosity.
Of course it may be really cool to have new stars to observe at night.
The thing that strikes me as odd is that, from my experience, Europe tends to hold the individual responsible for their own actions a lot more than we do in the US. I wonder if this is a disturbing trend of change, or if they are targetting AOL (offended at the A of AOL).
That is an interesting thought: AOL-G (America On-Line: Germany). I wonder if they get offended by that reference. Its almost like they are expressing some sort of annexation.
child -> children, gold -> goldren
I don't think so.mouse -> mice, house -> hice
The english language is full of inconsistent rules for making words plural.
It also depends on what you are discussing since the plural of mouse in the computer world is mouses.