The peoples inhabiting the Gangetic delta have never been nomadic. To say that 80 million people migrated EVERY YEAR when Bangladesh was part of India is incorrect. Property documents can be traced back to the 1st century AD, showing that the land has been continually farmed and occupied for well over 2000 years. Movement to the higher grounds you speak of has never been an option because said high ground happen to be occupied by tribes that are extremely hostile to 'low landers'.
It's not half bad... and it can be configured to use either the IE or Gecko engine (which, unless I'm completely mistaken, is at the heart of Firefox).
I know it's not fashionable on slashdot to come out for an airline, but in this case, I'm kind of glad that I fly Continental all the time-- they appear to take care of me. First they offer to refund my ticket because *I* was late getting to a flight, and now free wireless.
When will people understand that Linux is for real men who honed their skillz by walking uphill both ways to the mainframe building in order to run their punch card programs?::sigh::
Off the shelf hardware: we use one P4 3.2Ghz for general control, and an Athlon64 3800+ for vision processing.
Software wise, it's a bit of a hodgepodge-- we fully recognize the need to clean it up. The control comp is using Windows Server 2003, and most of it is written in C#, simply because it helps us to develop interfaces with our control hardware quickly.
The vision computer runs gentoo Linux, 2.6.12 kernel. All the vision code is written in C-- simply because that's what most of us are most comfortable with. Whether or not we port our C code to C#, or back port our C# code to C remains to be seen.
Notable features? We use three primary sensors: GPS, Vision (stereo and single lens cameras) and LIDAR. We take immense pride in the fact that our primary lane detection camera is a $100 webcam operating at 640x480 resolution. Our design is robust enough that the car can continue on its merry way even if two of the three primary sensors are taken out of action.
We absolutely refused to shell out 10K (250K in some cases) for a commerical LIDAR solution. We basically built, stabilized and hardened our own LIDAR. The judges are out on whether or not its better than commercially available solutions, but it certainly equals any (reasonably priced) solution out there-- and my buddy and I built it for only 2.5K.
Algorithm-wise, we're taking the mountaineer option instead of the God option. That means that we're using genetic optimization techniques in conjunction with kalman filters to 'grow' our way around obstacles and stay within bounds instead of detecting every single obstacle in an x km radius, plotting it and calculating splines/best possible courses through the minefield. The three inexperienced freshmen came up with this solution... and in most of our benchmarks, it doesn't take more than 45% of our control CPU's power to use this algorithm.
We're not trying for overkill. Our objective when we started the project was to find out what was *just* enough to get past the course. This means that we've been able to keep our costs under control.
I'd direct you to our website... but we've not had the time to put one up. Eventually, we'll get around to it-- but right now, the car has taken priority.
Off the shelf hardware: we use one P4 3.2Ghz for general control, and an Athlon64 3800+ for vision processing.
Software wise, it's a bit of a hodgepodge-- we fully recognize the need to clean it up. The control comp is using Windows Server 2003, and most of it is written in C#, simply because it helps us to develop interfaces with our control hardware quickly.
The vision computer runs gentoo Linux, 2.6.12 kernel. All the vision code is written in C-- simply because that's what most of us are most comfortable with.
Whether or not we port our C code to C#, or back port our C# code to C remains to be seen.
Notable features? We use three primary sensors: GPS, Vision (stereo and single lens cameras) and LIDAR. We take immense pride in the fact that our primary lane detection camera is a $100 webcam operating at 640x480 resolution. Our design is robust enough that the car can continue on its merry way even if two of the three primary sensors are taken out of action.
We absolutely refused to shell out 10K (250K in some cases) for a commerical LIDAR solution. We basically built, stabilized and hardened our own LIDAR. The judges are out on whether or not its better than commercially available solutions, but it certainly equals any (reasonably priced) solution out there-- and my buddy and I built it for only 2.5K.
Algorithm-wise, we're taking the mountaineer option instead of the God option. That means that we're using genetic optimization techniques in conjunction with kalman filters to 'grow' our way around obstacles and stay within bounds instead of detecting every single obstacle in an x km radius, plotting it and calculating splines/best possible courses through the minefield. The three inexperienced freshmen came up with this solution... and in most of our benchmarks, it doesn't take more than 45% of our control CPU's power to use this algorithm.
We're not trying for overkill. Our objective when we started the project was to find out what was *just* enough to get past the course. This means that we've been able to keep our costs under control.
I'd direct you to our website... but we've not had the time to put one up. Eventually, we'll get around to it-- but right now, the car has taken priority.
I forgot to mention that we went into the April test with a little bit more than one month of development time...
Yesterday, we had an 12 hour stress test where we covered all of last year's course, and a little bi more-- without any outside assistance. All we have to do now is work on speeding the car up a bit... but we've left enough slack in our systems to allow for that.
I generally put my money where my mouth is-- this is no exception.
Just so all you geeks out there know, the final lineup for the DARPA GC has not been decided yet.
Several teams with extremely competent designs will be site tested by DARPA officials during the week of August 15th.
Keep your eyes on the Princeton University team (disclaimer: I'm heavily involved in developing software and lasers for them). We barely missed the cut in April, but we're gearing up for the second round of qualification tests in August. We've taken an approach very different from the other teams (we love to hate on CMU and Stanford for their bloated budgets and hardware), insofar that we've refused to let our budget rise over $40000. Furthermore, our work is done ENTIRELY by a team of six undergraduates, three of whom are freshmen (I'm the only senior on the team).
Is this a shameless plug for the Princeton team? Hell yeah. But I just felt that it should be known that there are people in this competition who are trying to THINK their way out of the maze instead of BUYING their way out of it.
is that his blog doesn't even render properly in my browser (Firefox, Unbuntu).
Step right this way, ladies and gentlemen. Spew out your opinion and throw internet standards to the wind... it's all okay because you've got a big AdSense cheque coming your way.
wondering at how quickly and why the Chinese are catching up with the US.
Commentary on/. trends aside, is there any particular reason for America's tendency to send many, many more unmanned than manned missions into space? Surely the fact that unmanned missions are cheaper alone did not result in the creation of this policy.
I love how the damned link was/.-ed before there were even any comments.
All said, it sounds like a pretty cool endeavor-- even though I can't see it.:)
For those of you unwilling to read the article, it basically says that the Russian rocket carrying the spacecraft malfunctioned and didn't reach its planned orbit. The solar sail craft appears to be in a lower orbit, unharmed.
Slashdot Mirror
What is the "party" you speak of?
The peoples inhabiting the Gangetic delta have never been nomadic. To say that 80 million people migrated EVERY YEAR when Bangladesh was part of India is incorrect. Property documents can be traced back to the 1st century AD, showing that the land has been continually farmed and occupied for well over 2000 years. Movement to the higher grounds you speak of has never been an option because said high ground happen to be occupied by tribes that are extremely hostile to 'low landers'.
As the only slashdotter i could find out there who actually likes cricket:
AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH
!!!!
Well... they won't win the Test, they'll draw it. But they'll still take home the Ashes-- what a glorious day it will be. :)
About bloody time. It's been what? 15, 20 years now?
Reason #18774952 to not outsource: all your tech support will sound/read like this.
If you'd read some of the discussion above before mouthing off, you would have seen that Maxthon uses the IE 6 Trident engine.
Clearly, hardpressed coders such as yourself don't have to plan for another eventuality.
Try Maxthon.
It's not half bad... and it can be configured to use either the IE or Gecko engine (which, unless I'm completely mistaken, is at the heart of Firefox).
Good lord! According to the third one down, I need to ask for Apple's permission to do my summer internship.
Weak.
So weak.
OMG OMG OMG OMG. Streaming fvsking audio! What a major innovation! Yeah, go ahead and mod this a troll... my karma's unshakeable.
I know it's not fashionable on slashdot to come out for an airline, but in this case, I'm kind of glad that I fly Continental all the time-- they appear to take care of me. First they offer to refund my ticket because *I* was late getting to a flight, and now free wireless.
I like.
When will people understand that Linux is for real men who honed their skillz by walking uphill both ways to the mainframe building in order to run their punch card programs? ::sigh::
Actually, we've received clearance to take part in another site visit to qualify for a spot as a semifinalist in the NQE.
We've been give a second change.
Off the shelf hardware: we use one P4 3.2Ghz for general control, and an Athlon64 3800+ for vision processing.
Software wise, it's a bit of a hodgepodge-- we fully recognize the need to clean it up. The control comp is using Windows Server 2003, and most of it is written in C#, simply because it helps us to develop interfaces with our control hardware quickly.
The vision computer runs gentoo Linux, 2.6.12 kernel. All the vision code is written in C-- simply because that's what most of us are most comfortable with. Whether or not we port our C code to C#, or back port our C# code to C remains to be seen.
Notable features? We use three primary sensors: GPS, Vision (stereo and single lens cameras) and LIDAR. We take immense pride in the fact that our primary lane detection camera is a $100 webcam operating at 640x480 resolution. Our design is robust enough that the car can continue on its merry way even if two of the three primary sensors are taken out of action.
We absolutely refused to shell out 10K (250K in some cases) for a commerical LIDAR solution. We basically built, stabilized and hardened our own LIDAR. The judges are out on whether or not its better than commercially available solutions, but it certainly equals any (reasonably priced) solution out there-- and my buddy and I built it for only 2.5K.
Algorithm-wise, we're taking the mountaineer option instead of the God option. That means that we're using genetic optimization techniques in conjunction with kalman filters to 'grow' our way around obstacles and stay within bounds instead of detecting every single obstacle in an x km radius, plotting it and calculating splines/best possible courses through the minefield. The three inexperienced freshmen came up with this solution... and in most of our benchmarks, it doesn't take more than 45% of our control CPU's power to use this algorithm.
We're not trying for overkill. Our objective when we started the project was to find out what was *just* enough to get past the course. This means that we've been able to keep our costs under control.
I'd direct you to our website... but we've not had the time to put one up. Eventually, we'll get around to it-- but right now, the car has taken priority.
Off the shelf hardware: we use one P4 3.2Ghz for general control, and an Athlon64 3800+ for vision processing. Software wise, it's a bit of a hodgepodge-- we fully recognize the need to clean it up. The control comp is using Windows Server 2003, and most of it is written in C#, simply because it helps us to develop interfaces with our control hardware quickly. The vision computer runs gentoo Linux, 2.6.12 kernel. All the vision code is written in C-- simply because that's what most of us are most comfortable with. Whether or not we port our C code to C#, or back port our C# code to C remains to be seen. Notable features? We use three primary sensors: GPS, Vision (stereo and single lens cameras) and LIDAR. We take immense pride in the fact that our primary lane detection camera is a $100 webcam operating at 640x480 resolution. Our design is robust enough that the car can continue on its merry way even if two of the three primary sensors are taken out of action. We absolutely refused to shell out 10K (250K in some cases) for a commerical LIDAR solution. We basically built, stabilized and hardened our own LIDAR. The judges are out on whether or not its better than commercially available solutions, but it certainly equals any (reasonably priced) solution out there-- and my buddy and I built it for only 2.5K. Algorithm-wise, we're taking the mountaineer option instead of the God option. That means that we're using genetic optimization techniques in conjunction with kalman filters to 'grow' our way around obstacles and stay within bounds instead of detecting every single obstacle in an x km radius, plotting it and calculating splines/best possible courses through the minefield. The three inexperienced freshmen came up with this solution... and in most of our benchmarks, it doesn't take more than 45% of our control CPU's power to use this algorithm. We're not trying for overkill. Our objective when we started the project was to find out what was *just* enough to get past the course. This means that we've been able to keep our costs under control. I'd direct you to our website... but we've not had the time to put one up. Eventually, we'll get around to it-- but right now, the car has taken priority.
I forgot to mention that we went into the April test with a little bit more than one month of development time...
Yesterday, we had an 12 hour stress test where we covered all of last year's course, and a little bi more-- without any outside assistance. All we have to do now is work on speeding the car up a bit... but we've left enough slack in our systems to allow for that.
I generally put my money where my mouth is-- this is no exception.
Just so all you geeks out there know, the final lineup for the DARPA GC has not been decided yet.
Several teams with extremely competent designs will be site tested by DARPA officials during the week of August 15th.
Keep your eyes on the Princeton University team (disclaimer: I'm heavily involved in developing software and lasers for them). We barely missed the cut in April, but we're gearing up for the second round of qualification tests in August. We've taken an approach very different from the other teams (we love to hate on CMU and Stanford for their bloated budgets and hardware), insofar that we've refused to let our budget rise over $40000. Furthermore, our work is done ENTIRELY by a team of six undergraduates, three of whom are freshmen (I'm the only senior on the team).
Is this a shameless plug for the Princeton team? Hell yeah. But I just felt that it should be known that there are people in this competition who are trying to THINK their way out of the maze instead of BUYING their way out of it.
Honest typo... it's Ubuntu, not Unbuntu, as my previous post put it.
is that his blog doesn't even render properly in my browser (Firefox, Unbuntu). Step right this way, ladies and gentlemen. Spew out your opinion and throw internet standards to the wind... it's all okay because you've got a big AdSense cheque coming your way.
Point taken. :)
wondering at how quickly and why the Chinese are catching up with the US.
/. trends aside, is there any particular reason for America's tendency to send many, many more unmanned than manned missions into space? Surely the fact that unmanned missions are cheaper alone did not result in the creation of this policy.
Commentary on
Damn dude... 1Kbps up and down? For 27 bucks a month?
:)
All I can say is that you got taken for a massive, massive ride.
I love how the damned link was /.-ed before there were even any comments.
All said, it sounds like a pretty cool endeavor-- even though I can't see it. :)
Looks like the mission got off to a rocky start: Solar sail space launch failed.
For those of you unwilling to read the article, it basically says that the Russian rocket carrying the spacecraft malfunctioned and didn't reach its planned orbit. The solar sail craft appears to be in a lower orbit, unharmed.
You have sex with a yellow woman with blue hair? I'll pass...
The only place where pi is funny is when it smacks into someone's face, Three Stooges style.