DARPA Semifinalists Selected 89
An anonymous reader writes "DARPA has selected thirty-six teams as Urban Challenge semifinalists to participate in the National Qualification Event. Both the webcast and press release can be found on the official site. Dr. Tony Tether reports that only 1 of the top 5 previous teams was rated in the top 5 of teams this year and 3 of the top 5 were not in the challenge finals last year. 'The semifinalists will compete in a final qualifying round at the site on October 26th and be whittled down to 20 teams. Those teams' vehicles will have to perform like cars with drivers to safely conduct a simulated battlefield supply mission on a 60-mile urban course, obeying California traffic laws while merging into traffic, navigating traffic circles and avoiding obstacles -- all in fewer than six hours. The team to successfully complete the mission with the fastest time wins.'"
Course Prep? (Score:2, Interesting)
If the competitors aren't careful, there might be some new wrecks to add to scenario training...
Don't disturb my circles. (Score:3, Interesting)
The death of Archimedes, among many other scientists during warfare, gives the lie to your words
Military might does not exist to defend science or civilisation, or any of the other things which we like to tell ourselves; far from it. It is used most often (including in our time) to brutalise others into submission and fealty, often at the cost of all of these values we pretend to hold dear. It's entirely unconnected to the existence of science or civil society, which is dependent on a stable wealthy society, not a warlike one - note that a strong military is not necessarily linked to a peaceful society or good science. Further to that, the use of force (or the threat of it) within civil society is not necessarily related to the use of force between nations in wars, so your argument of removing all military and police is really tilting at windmills.
This meme of virtue and physical force nurturing a delicate civilisation has been with us since the Romans, and it was a lie then, as it is now.
It's sad that many of our best endeavours have been linked to war (Archimedes for example also designed anti-siege equipment), but it doesn't mean that war produces the best of our science, or is the best use of our time. e.g. things like the atom bomb and nuclear power are often used as an example of advances given by warfare, however the groundwork for that was laid long before the second world war broke out, in efforts unrelated to warfare, by people like Rutherford and Bohr. Radar was discovered in 1904, etc, etc. If we spent half the time and money (not all but half say) we do killing each other on perfecting science and technology like this for civilian use, we would be a lot further on. That's a choice the US is confronted with today, and I don't believe they've chosen the balance wisely.