======================================================================== Cybernetics in the 3rd Millennium (C3M) -- Volume 3 Number 4, Apr. 2004 Alan B. Scrivener --- www.well.com/~abs --- mailto:abs@well.com ======================================================================== [This is a continuation of last month's e-Zine; see the archives listed at the bottom of this document if you haven't read part one.] "Driver carries no cash -- he's married." -- bumper sticker For those of you in a hurry, here is the short version of this month's e-Zine: the future of so-called "coin-operated" amusements will, in fact, involve few coins, and the future of so-called "autonomous vehicles" will, in fact, not be very autonomous. Okay, here's the long version: I was working furiously on completing some programming and visualization work I had been hired to do for the Grand Challenge the week before the race, and I just flat-out ran out of time. So on the evening of Tue., March 9 my buddy Bob B. showed up and I wasn't done, and loaded up my computers with the hope of finishing the work in Las Vegas. We caravanned back to Bob's place, to drop his truck at his house, and then set out from San Diego in my Plymouth Voyager mini-van. Bob likes to drive all night, so I let him, and slept in the passenger seat. It was like time travel; I woke up three times, in Barstow, Baker and Primm, and then we were there at dawn. We'd reserved our rooms starting for Tuesday night so we could check in right away, at the Somerset House (right off the strip and near the convention center; affordable yet with kitchens; learned about it from the Grateful Dead newsgroups in the early 1990s when the Dead played Vegas). ( www.somerset-house.com ) We were able to get a full "night's" sleep Wed. morning, and a shower, before decamping for breakfast and then the coin-op conference at about the time we would've otherwise been checking in if we hadn't reserved Tue. night. Walking to Circus Circus to have breakfast at the buffet, we saw the old Silver City Casino, which used to be the only non-smoking casino in Vegas (to my knowledge) was being torn down. Of course, things are always being torn down in this town, and new things are always being built. We saw a new casino called "the Wynn" -- from Steve Wynn of Mirage, Treasure Island and Bellagio fame -- going up nearby. So at about 3 PM, with an hour left for the day's exhibits, we made our first foray into the Amusement Showcase International (ASI). ( asi-show.com ) We spent the hour getting the "lay of the land" and planning our more extensive visit the next day. A few things we noticed: * The show seemed surprisingly small, especially compared to IAAPA in Orlando last November (see C3M volume 2 number 11). * Stern, the last pinball company in America, ( www.sternpinball.com ) was showcasing a new game, "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" ( www.sternpinball.com/ripleys.htm ) * "Replay Magazine" is still publishing after all these years. ( www.replaymag.com ) * A number of 2D video games from the 1980s are being rereleased as nostalgia items, such as Galaxian, Ms. Pacman, Dragon's Lair and Space Invaders (now in its Silver Anniversary edition!), obviously trying to bring the baby boomers and gen-x-ers who grew up with them back into the arcades. ( www.namcoarcade.com/nai_gamedisplay.asp?gam=spaceqix ) Bob was delighted to find that Hoffman Mint, the major makers of game tokens were giving out free samples. ( www.hoffmanmint.com/tokens.html ) Also, just about every game being demoed had a bowl of tokens in front of it so you could try it for free, and Bob used the opportunity to see if he could collect one of each different token design. The show closed for the day at 4:00 PM. On our way out we passed the "Night Club & Bar & Beverage Retailer Beverage & Food Convention and Trade Show" in the hall next door, which was also letting out, and where they'd been giving away free samples of alcoholic beverages. ( www.beverage-retailer.com/conventions/vegas04/brochure/index.html ) It seemed to be disgorging a lot of skimpily dressed, drunken women. Hmmm. (Why hadn't we go to that show instead?) Then, crossing Paradise Blvd., we met a man who'd attended that show and struck up a conversation. We told him our show had seemed small, in terms of both exhibitors and attendees. He said that last year the beverage show people had been able to get in free to the coin-op show. The I remembered I read this myself on the web. ( www.replaymag.com/detail.htm ) I can't find the link anymore, but I'd also ran across a discussion of how they stopped letting the beverage show attendees -- mostly owners and managers of bars -- into the coin-op show because they didn't want them attempting to buy coin-op amusements directly from the manufacturers, instead of going through their distributors; the distributors had complained. "How stupid," I thought. How else do you create demand? I mean, Pepsi advertises on TV, and yet they still fully expect me to buy their product through retailers; I don't go, "Hmmm, Pepsi, I think I'll call Atlanta and order me some." (In other words, you don't solve channel conflict problems with bad marketing!) But it left us wondering: is the coin-op business in trouble, or just the ASI show? I still had that programming project to finish, so after we walked back to the motel Bob helped me load my two computers -- and a projector and screen I was using as the monitor for one of them -- into my room, and the he walked down the strip to do some gambling while I got to work. I discovered to my delight that there was a wireless WiFi from someplace that I was able to tap in, though it was intermittent. When I finished my programming, and used the newly-written tools to produce new 3D graphics, my next task was to transfer the images from the Linux system where I created them to a Mac iBook laptop that had the WiFi card, so I could upload them to a web site where my client could snag them. ( www.well.com/~abs/EastMojave2004/HD2004_vizpix/000.html ) By now Bob had returned, and he helped debug a Local Area Network (LAN) problem standing in my way. But then the WiFi link kept timing out, and so I was thwarted. I planned instead to cut a CD and take it to Kinko's for uploading later. But now it was dark, and time for dinner, and it was our only night in Vegas. So we went out for some "night life." We first went to Neonopolis, a shopping mall with a collection of vintage neon signs near the Fremont Street Experience, for dinner. ( www.neonopolis.net ) Afterwards we enjoyed on of the shows on the Fremont Street barrel arch, a huge semi-cylindrical color pixel display spanning four city blocks, which features animations synchronized with 550,000 Watts of music. ( www.vegasexperience.com ) There are a variety of shows they cycle through, one per hour, based on pop songs, tropical music (steel drums, etc.), jazz, big band, and so on. But we lucked out and got to see our favorite mix, the "psychedelic" show based on the "acid rock" of the '60s -- all songs which were on the top 40 when Bob & I were in high school. I jotted down the playlist, with the idea of buying all the songs (only excerpted during the show) off of the Apple iTunes store to make a CD of later: * Rock and Roll / Led Zeppelin * Jumping Jack Flash / Rolling Stones * Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds / Beatles * Light My Fire / Doors * Purple Haze / Jimmi Hendrix * Black Magic Woman / Santana * Won't Get Fooled Again / The Who (I must add, however, that a large number of the pixels in this awesome display were burned out. Given what a great draw the system is to the downtown are, I find it shameful that the city allows it to remain partially broken this way.) Next we made our way to the Treasure Island Resort & Casino, now renamed "TI" to sound hipper, and catch the new "Sirens" dancing girls show out front where the pirate ship battle used to be. But though the freebie magazines such as "What's On" ( www.ilovevegas.com ) all loudly proclaimed the new show, none mentioned that it was "dark" the days were were there. (that's Vegas for you.) We showed up and there was a technical rehearsal in progress, and an attentive audience, but no dancing girls. We watched for a while, then did some other site-seeing and called it a night about 3 AM. (After all, we had slept past noon.) Back at the motel I tried again to upload my 3D graphics to the web. I kept getting 80% through and timing out, and convinced that I was "almost there" I kept trying and trying until dawn, when I realized it was a sucker's game. I went ahead and burned a data CD and took it to Kinko's, where it took all of 5 minutes to upload the files. Oh, this was after discovering that the Kinko's on 4th Street near downtown isn't open 24 hours (!), so I had to go back south to the one on Howard Hughes Center Dr. ( www.smartpages.com/home/kinkoscopies964 ) The next "morning" (i.e., 5 hours later) we checked out of our motel, parked at the Hilton next to the convention center, where the "Star Trek Experience" is located, ( www.startrekexp.com ) and had our first meal of the day, lunch at Quark's Bar. I had the Flaming Ribs of Targ, and Bob had the Holy Rings of Betazed. ( www.reviewjournal.com/db/dining.detail?pid=3900&s=1 ) One of these days I want to try a Warp Core Breach, when I have time to sober up afterwards. ( www.startrek.com/startrek/view/news/article/5351.html ) ( ikvbloodlust.net/netgifs/TE03095.jpg ) While waiting for our food, Bob told me about a new gambling gimmick he'd discovered the night before -- he'd read about it on the web, but it had been his first real experience -- in which certain special slot machines some times pay off in commemorative coins that are .999 silver, stamped with patterns unique to the casino they're in, and dispensed in special plastic sleeves to protect them from scratching. He showed me some he'd won at the Bellagio. They were worth $10 each as casino chips (that's what the cashier would redeem them for), but Bob was keeping his as collectibles. ( cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3443&item=3290011509&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW&tc=photo#ebayphotohosting ) (If the above link is gone, go to ebay.com and search for "Bellagio silver strike" for a similar auction.) We realized in discussing it that the coins changed the dynamics of slot machine play for him. Usually he would budget some money for gambling and quit when it was all gone, going home with nothing to show for it. By keeping the coins (which he couldn't put back in the slot machine anyway) he now actually got some take-home value for the slot machine play. He'd spent about $100 getting 10 coins at the Bellagio, so he'd paid about what they were "worth." Next it was back to the AZSI show for a few more hours, just a short walk through the Hilton. Here are a few more highlights: * Stern was touting the designer of their new "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" pinball game, Pat Lawlor, along with about a dozen manufacturing prototypes, one of which was being raffled off. Pat also designed the "Roller Coaster Tycoon" pinball game (2002) which Bob and I had played many times. (I'd found it ironic that this pinball game was based on a computer game!) ( www.sternpinball.com/Rollercoaster.htm ) I got to shake his hand and tell him how much I enjoyed his work. Later we reflected that this one man may well be that last pinball designer in America, or even the world. ( www.patlawlordesign.com ) * Stern was also featuring their new "ToPS Tournament Pinball System" which allows pinball games to be used in tournament play without networking. * With more and more arcades switching from tokens to magnetic stripe cards, the makers of "coin pusher" games -- which used to allow you to win coins if you caused a "coin avalanche" -- are moving to designs which recycle the coins and pay out tickets for prizes. (Of course you can't put the tickets back in the machines.) ( www.mountaincoin.com/ice/pirate.html ) * We kept asking people "what's new this year?" and one guy pointed us to the "Virtual Pinball" game from an Austrian company. ( www.tab.at/TABUE/Index.htm ) It was basically a giant flat-screen monitor mounted at an angle, hooked to a computer running a pinball simulation. It didn't seem to respond to nudging, and I couldn't seem to "tilt" it, which I found a major failing. * Another new thing was a new hardware platform with a periscope- like viewing system, called "Vortex V3." ( www.globalvr.com/products_vortek_v3_intro.html ) The game could be upgraded later with new software. I was disappointed that it wasn't 3D stereo, since it looked like it could have been. * There are new juke boxes that are not only digital, but networked, and able to download songs from a central server, making the music library HUGE and CONSTANTLY UPDATING! ( www.nsmmusic.com ) The sign said "virtually every song ever recorded," so I tried to stump them with "I'm Comin' Virginia" performed by Willie "the Lion" Smith -- which I think is only on 78 RPM records. They didn't have it. My second choice was "Toxic" by Britney Spears, which was currently in the top 10. Fifteen seconds later I was listening to it. * There were a lot of booths devoted to dollar bill changers and similar technology. It seemed it must be important to arcade operators to automate the "cashier" functions of selling tokens or magnetic stripe cards, to reduce cost, errors, and "shrinkage" (employee theft). ( www.innovative-technology.co.uk ) As we walked the floor, Bob and I got to talking about how we would "save" the pinball industry if it were up to us. I was thinking about the lessons learned from "The Innovator's Dilemma" (1997) by Clayton M. Christensen, ( www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060521996/hip-20 ) and its sequel, "The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth" (2003) by Clayton M. Christensen, Michael E. Raynor. ( www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1578518520/hip-20 ) Pinball games "fell off a cliff" by becoming more complex and expensive until they were too costly both to buy and maintain to survive against video games and (worse) home games. Our plan is this: make a very cheap, bullet-proof home pinball game that can be easily reconfigured. Our idea was components such as bumpers and flippers that are wirelessly networked with something like BlueTooth (but cheaper), and programmed with a small PC. The only wires needed would be power. Don't use any celebrity or pop-culture intellectual property, just simple, unadorned pinball with a wooden playing surface and a glass top, and sturdy targets. Grow the home market until you're ready to take on the arcade games with a cheaper, lower-maintenance alternative that can be reconfigured frequently to prevent boredom. You read it here first. (We shared some of these ideas with Pat Lawler. He suddenly had to run off.) We closed the show down. As tear-down began, Bob and I walked back through the Hilton towards my van. On the way he asked if we could stop long enough for him to find and play the slot machine in the Hilton, if there was one, that paid out those silver coins. Sure, I said, and waited for him at Quark's Bar sipping coffee and watching for Klingon women. It turned out that the theme of the Hilton's coins was Hilton logos throughout history, and the last one was from the 24th century (obviously a Star Trek tie-in without the copyright problems). ( cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3289266553&category=3443#ebayphotohosting ) (If the above link is gone, go to ebay.com and search for "Hilton silver strike" for a similar auction.) As Bob showed me what he won afterwards, I began to realize that some of the designs were common, others rare -- sort of like contest game cards. This adds to the incentive for players to keep playing to get the rarer coins. We'd been in Vegas about 32 hours and had crammed in an awesome amount of fun, activity and learning. It was almost time to head out into the desert. Our final stop was the new Fry's Electronics store in Vegas, which I wanted to take a quick look at before hopping on I-15 southbound. (For those of you outside of California, Fry's is a legendary store that started in Silicon Valley and sells everything a geek could ever need at great prices; it also has a very liberal return policy. Rumor has it the 1999 indie "film" "The Blair Witch Project" was shot on camcorders that were bought at Fry's and then returned for a full refund after the production wrapped.) Every Fry's (except the one in San Diego -- poo) has a "theme" that is used to decorate it throughout. The one in Vegas has a gambling theme, no surprise there, and entrance is a giant slot machine.Clues from the Coin-op Convention
~ and ~
Report on the Robot Races
(Part Two)
( www.well.com/~abs/Cyb/4.669211660910299067185320382047/frys_slot.jpg ) Even the barricades in front to prevent people from smashing vehicles into the doors and looting the place are giant stacks of quarters.
( www.well.com/~abs/Cyb/4.669211660910299067185320382047/frys_coins.jpg ) * * * * * * After last month's column, I got two responses: one was an "unsubscribe" request, and the other was the comment, "You sure seem to have an obsession with pinball." Truth be told, I'm an obsessive person. Everything I'm interested in I obsess on. Ever since I began enjoying the work of David Lynch, I've come to understand that this is not necessarily a bad thing. One friend summed it up by saying I'm a "depth first" person. (This is a referenced to a concept from Information Science: a tree-walking algorithm can be "breadth first" or "depth first.") By the way, if you're also a pinball fanatic you may enjoy the Internet Pinball Database (IPDB). ( www.ipdb.org ) So here I am, already exceeding the word count of last month's 'zine, and I haven't gotten to the robots yet. But there is something important here, something I hadn't even realized yet as I wrote last month's. I had enough clues, the silver coins in the slot machines, the giant stacks of quarters in front of Fry's, the "coin push" games that recycle the coins because the arcades are switching to magnetic stripe cards... A week after the robot races it was Bob's birthday, and I wanted to get him some kind of frame to hold his silver coins. I quickly found what I was looking for at a company called Cassidy Frames. ( www.cassidyframes.com/frames/strike.html ) Along the way I discovered that the coins are called "Silver Strikes," and there is a rich web culture built up around them. I passed some links along to Bob, and he found that there are many more types than we'd realized. A few weeks later Bob found a magazine called "Strictly Slots" which had an article in the March 2004 issue called "The 20 Greatest Slot Innovations." ( www.strictlyslots.com ) Number 11 was called "The Bonus: Game within a Game," and described the silver coins he'd started collecting, originally from a slot manufacturer called Anchor Games. According to the article: "Anchor's first proprietary game, called 'Silver Strike,' had a special 'bonus jackpot' of commemorative silver tokens, which were displayed in the top of a slot that had a see-through cabinet." We learned that this innovation happened in the late 1990s, and we'd only now figured it out. Meanwhile, innovation number 18 was called "Ticket In/Ticket Out: The Cashless Revolution." It described a recent innovation by which slots pay off in bar-coded tickets that can be cashed out or inserted in other slots. Finally I began to realize what's happening here. Remembering Marshall McLuhan's famous dictum that a technology is invisible until it becomes obsolete, at which time it becomes an object of nostalgia, I realized that we are witnessing the gradual obsolescence of coins, which have been around for about 2,700 years. ( www.fleur-de-coin.com/e-library/oldestcoin.asp?sec=2 ) Now that they are vanishing as payment for games, coins have re-emerged as PRIZES in those games. The ancient fortune-telling deck the Tarot, forerunner of today's playing cards, uses "disks" or "pentacles" as the suit representing both money and magic. ( www.facade.com/tarot ) Money IS a form of magic. Coinage, paper money, lending at interest, and electronic funds transfer have all increased its magical powers. The use of cryptography for internet commerce represents a new phase in the growth of money's magic. This is one of the central themes of the novel "Cryptonomicon" (1999) by Neal Stephenson. ( www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060512806/hip-20 ) He explores this theme again in his new three volume "Baroque Cycle," set in the 1600s and 1700s, which began with "Quicksilver" (2003). ( www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0380977427/hip-20 ) It deals in part with the beginnings of paper money in Europe, and the problems with coins being devalued due to "shaving" off the metal, a problem solved by the introduction of serrated edges. (Apparently people in marketplaces used to spend more time haggling over the value of coins than the cost of goods! Talk about friction in commerce...) As he explains on his web site ( www.nealstephenson.com ) in article called "How the Baroque Cycle began," "Around the time that I was closing in on the end of 'Cryptonomicon,' I heard from a couple of different people about some interesting things having to do with Isaac Newton and with Gottfried Leibniz. One person pointed out to me that Newton had spent about the last 30 years of his life working at the mint, which was interesting to me. In 'Cryptonomicon' there was a lot of stuff about money, so I had been thinking about money anyway. "The other related thing that I bumped into about the same time -- I was reading a book by George Dyson, called 'Darwin Among the Machines.' He talked a little bit about the work of Leibniz with computers. He arguably was the founder of symbolic logic and he worked with computing machines. I found it striking at a time when I was already working on a book about money and a book about computers that there were these two people 300 years ago who were quite interested in the same topics. And not only that, but they had this big, famous rivalry that supposedly was about which of them had invented the calculus first, although it was really about a lot more than that. "I began to do a bit of reading about that era and immediately got excited about it because so many things were happening all at once during that time period. So, I decided that as soon as I got done with 'Cryptonomicon,' I would turn all my efforts towards trying to write a historical piece set during that era." * * * * * * Question: What do coin-op games and the robots in the DARPA race have in common? Answer: They're both designed to operate autonomously. (Having worked as an arcade floorman, I can tell you that these "autonomous" games require a lot of human intervention. Interestingly, the most common failure mode was coin jams.) * * * * * * "What is Desert Bloom? An experimental test network for unified communications." -- Synergy Strike Force call for participation Around dusk on Thursday 11 March Bob and I finally headed south on I-15, leaving Las Vegas bound for Barstow. We were a little sleep-deprived, so upon our arrival we checked into our motel, the American Inn (which were were lucky to get since the whole town was filled up due to the DARPA race) and hit the hay early. The next morning we took our equipment to Barstow Community College, ( www.barstow.cc.ca.us ) and set up in a classroom that had been designated as the "op center" for "Operation Desert Bloom," Dr. Dave's "shadow event" occurring along with the robot race. ( www.desertbloom.org ) Perhaps a little explanation is in order. Dr. Dave's company, Mindtel LLC, was hired by DARPA to provide the communications link between the race organizers and all emergency services in the area. They did this by having an emergency operations center in a bus, ( www.ideationsllc.com/projects/desertbloom/photos/eoc/eoc.html ) and satellite stations at the race start south of Barstow, CA, ( www.ideationsllc.com/projects/desertbloom/photos/slashx/slashx.html ) and at the finish line in Primm, NV, and elsewhere. But in addition, Dave had organized a "shadow event" that was kind of a "geek fest" of technology demonstrations surrounding the race, involving a loose affiliation of staff and volunteers he called the "Synergy Strike Force," ( aero.mindtel.com:8080/dgc ) and its headquarters was the "op center" at Barstow Community College. ( www.ideationsllc.com/projects/desertbloom/photos/bcc/bcc.html ) This is where Bob and I spent most of Friday. We set up my computers, projector and screen, and were showing the 3D graphics I'd developed. ( desert-bloom.mindtel.com:8080/dgc/Members/abs ) A multi-way videoconferencing link was being set up between us, the starting line, the finish line, and the emergency ops bus. In addition, we had a number of other displays, including a real-time feed of the locations of all the race vehicles, most of which were at the test trials track at the Fontana Speedway. ( aero.mindtel.com:8181/odb-dgc-osd-nii/dgc-webtracking/dgcwbtrkn.html ) This software, by Jeff S. and Steve B., was web-downloadable, so anyone could get a plug-in and watch the same displays. We also had paper maps of the race route on the wall, and some other experimental software showing various ways to track the vehicles. (After the race, RSI ID Technologies Inc. posted an account on the web on their tracking technology and how it was used, called "Successful RFID Tracking During DARPA Grand Challenge Boasts 100% Read Rate.") ( www.rsiidtech.com/solutions_rfid_darpa.asp ) For a while students and faculty from the college, Pentagon people, emergency response personnel (police, fire, etc.) and a variety of "Synergy Strike Force" folks were coming through, to see the side show.
( www.well.com/~abs/Cyb/4.669211660910299067185320382047/ops_center1.jpg ) Volunteers were being deployed to the railroad crossing on the race route to be trainspotters. ( www.ideationsllc.com/projects/desertbloom/photos/johnryan/johnryan.html ) But then, in the afternoon, there was a lull in the action.
( www.well.com/~abs/Cyb/4.669211660910299067185320382047/ops_center2.jpg ) We did some web cruising through the WiFi links provided by Barstow College, and after reading everything we could find about the upcoming race, I found an interesting article on the future of video games: "Life After the Video Game Crash." ( www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/games/crash.html ) A bunch of people went down to the starting line, at the Slash X Ranch Cafe, a local "biker bar" named after the old brand of the ranch where it was located. ( www.1stoptravelguide.com/calif/923xx/barstow/business/slashx/slashx.htm ) One of the jokes of the day was "I read about Slash X on Slash Dot." ( slashdot.org ) We wondered how many people had heard of both before that week. Bob and stuck around to keep an eye on all the equipment. When our relief arrived, we took a break and visited two nearby museums so I could add to my photo collection, to be used if I ever got around to updating my web site on the history of the area. ( www.well.com/~abs/EastMojave2004 ) We saw the California Desert Information Center, ( www.caohwy.com/c/caldesic.htm ) some outdoor displays in Centennial Park, ( www.1stoptravelguide.com/calif/923xx/923image/centpk.jpg ) and the Mojave River Valley Museum. ( mvm.4t.com ) Then we had lunch at Bun Boy in Barstow, sitting at a table with a wood-burned plaque that said "Sit Long and Talk Much," but we had to get back to the college. There was a snafu going on when we arrived involving getting all the volunteers badged, but after Dr. Dave arrived, who'd been doing an arial survey of the race route, ( www.ideationsllc.com/projects/desertbloom/photos/dgcaerial/dgcaerial.html ) and was then delayed by a flat tire,
( www.well.com/~abs/Cyb/4.669211660910299067185320382047/flat.jpg ) it was all squared away. By now the op center was shutting down for the day, and our friend Wayne H. and his daughter had arrived, so we decamped for dinner, and then went to bed straight away so we'd be ready bright and early for the race Saturday morning. * * * * * * "It's control. All these things arise from one difficulty: control. For the first time it was inside, do you see. The control is put inside. No more need to suffer passively under 'outside forces' to veer into any wind. As if... "A market needed no longer be run by the Invisible Hand, but now could create itself, its own logic, momentum, style, from inside. Putting the control inside was ratifying what de facto had happened that you had dispensed with God. But you had taken on a greater, and more harmful, illusion. The illusion of control. That A could do B. But that was false. Completely. No one can do. Things only happen, A and B are unreal, are names for parts that ought to be inseparable...." -- Thomas Pynchon, 1973 "Gravity's Rainbow" (describing the philosophical consequences of guidance systems in rockets) At this point my work was pretty much done, and all that was left was to enjoy the race. Once again sleep-deprived, Bob and I dragged our sorry heinies to Slash X before dawn to get a good spot on the spectator bleachers.
( www.well.com/~abs/Cyb/4.669211660910299067185320382047/slashx_bleachers.jpg ) Wayne and his daughter had been there for a while, and were nearly frozen. I fetched some blankets out of my van to drape everyone in, and especially to insulate our bottoms from the cold metal bleachers. My friends and I had done a lot of speculation on how the teams would do, fueled by information from the web. The best overview article had been in WIRED Magazine's December 2003 issue, with profiles of some of the teams. ( www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.03/robot.html ) The most complete rundown was on the DARPA web site. ( www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/teams.htm ) One thing we noticed in a number of descriptions of technical approaches was that the teams found that the bouncing of their vehicles made the sensors inaccurate, or worse, and that the sensors needed to mounted on shock-absorbing pods to stabilizing. We realized they were recreating the evolution of the head and neck. A few weeks before the race, the favored Red Team, lead by "Red" Whittacre of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), rolled their robot, the Humvee-based "Sandstorm," and destroyed its sensor pod. ( 66.45.232.115/newimages/InvertedWide.jpg ) It had to be hurriedly rebuilt, and still wasn't completely functional by race day. Sitting in the bleachers waiting for the race as dawn broke, we met a young man who was even more sleep-deprived than we were. He was on the CalTech team, fielding the vehicle known as "Bob," and they had been working to replace a broken transmission and fix some flaky sensors. ( team.caltech.edu ) One optical sensor array was being overpowered by the low sun, and so they had programmed it to come on later and were hoping for the best. Finally it was time for the race. The formalities began with the Marine Corps Mounted Color Guard, from the Marine Corps Logistics Base, in Barstow, CA. ( https://www.bam.usmc.mil/mcg.htm ) They ride Palomino mustangs captured as wild horses by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in the Mojave Desert. They were beautiful. Next were some speeches by some of the DARAP sponsors, and the race organizers from SCORE International, who stage off-road desert races such as the Baja 500. ( www.score-international.com ) Then the vehicles began leaving the starting line. The best account of the race I have found on-line is at the web site of Off-Road.com, the second biggest motorsports site on the 'Net. ( www.off-road.com/race/events/2004darpa ) The starting ritual was carefully defined: the team and vehicle was announced, a countdown was started, the starters verified that the vehicle had activated its flashing yellow lights and audible alarm, the chain at the front of the "chute" (made of cement highway barriers) was dropped, and the checker flag was waved at T minus zero. Then, one of several things happened: the vehicle took off, or didn't, or lurched forward and stopped, or aimed for the spectators, or hit a bush and rolled over... Every five minutes, they did it again. (At least that was the plan.) The final results were published on DARPA's web site. ( www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/media/final_data.pdf ) Below I have quoted the official DARPA results, with links to pictures on the Off-Road.com web site, and some of my own comments. Final Data from DARPA Grand Challenge As of 5:00 p.m. PST, March 13, 2004 Vehicle 22 - Red Team - At mile 7.4, on switchbacks in a mountainous section, vehicle went off course, got caught on a berm and rubber on the front wheels caught fire, which was quickly extinguished. Vehicle was command-disabled.
( www.off-road.com/race/events/2004darpa/images/hernandez-DARPA04.jpg ) The Red Team's "Sandstorm" was definitely the star. The vehicles were being released in the order of their point scores during the qualifying trails that week, so we saw the best first. The bleachers faced west, away from the rising sun, and the starting gates faced north. The big red Humvee took off a good clip, made the first left turns, and began following the track counter-clockwise around Slash X, across the highway (State Route 347, aka Barstow Road), and northeast towards Primm. Each vehicle was followed by a chase truck, driven by a former Baja off-road race winner, with a DARPA representative in the passenger seat with the radio control to pause or disable the vehicle (no other controls allowed), and in the back seat was a member of the vehicle team with schematics, ready to answer any technical questions. As the star car, Sandstorm was also followed by two helicopters, one from DARPA and one from a TV news station. Vehicle 21 - SciAutonicsII - At mile 6.7, two-thirds of the way up Daggett Ridge, vehicle went into an embankment and became stuck. Vehicle was command-disabled.
( www.off-road.com/race/events/2004darpa/images/hernandez-DARPA12.jpg ) The excitement was building as the second vehicle also took off at a good clip, cleared the first turns, and scooted across the desert. I definitely was aware of being present at a historical event. Vehicle 5 - Team Caltech - At mile 1.3, vehicle veered off course, went through a fence, tried to come back on the road, but couldn't get through the fence again. Vehicle was command-disabled.
( www.off-road.com/race/events/2004darpa/images/hernandez-DARPA01.jpg ) This was the first vehicle to be stymied by barbed wire. I remember once at at Virtual Reality (VR) talk being told that current "eyephone" technology is so low-resolution that the wearers are legally blind. This was certainly also be the case with these 'bots and their video cameras. Seeing barbed wire is a very tough problem. Vehicle 7 - Digital Auto Drive - At mile 6.0, vehicle was paused to allow a wrecker to get through, and, upon resuming motion, vehicle was hung up on a football-sized rock. Vehicle was command-disabled.
( www.off-road.com/race/events/2004darpa/images/hernandez-DARPA13.jpg ) Vehicle 25 - Virginia Tech - Vehicle brakes locked up in the start area. Vehicle was removed from the course. This was the first failure witnessed by the crowd in the bleachers. Vehicle 23 - Axion Racing - Vehicle circled the wrong way in the start area. Vehicle was removed from the course. Another failure, this one rather comic. Vehicle 2 - Team CajunBot - Vehicle brushed a wall on its way out of the chute. Vehicle has been removed from the course. A slight whoopsie and this 'bot was disabled. Vehicle 13 - Team ENSCO - Vehicle moved out smartly, but, at mile 0.2, when making its first 90-degree turn, the vehicle flipped. Vehicle was removed from the course.
( www.off-road.com/race/events/2004darpa/images/hobbs-EnscoEntryroarsofftheline.jpg ) This was a dramatic development, in clear view of the bleachers. We heard a rumor that one of the waypoints was inside a ocotillo bush near the start, and several of the vehicles hit the bush. I think this one rolled as it hit it. Wayne's daughter was disappointed, because this little six-wheeled critter, nicknamed "David," had been her favorite. Vehicle 4 - Team CIMAR - At mile 0.45, vehicle ran into some wire and got totally wrapped up in it. Vehicle was command- disabled.
( www.off-road.com/race/events/2004darpa/images/hernandez-DARPA19.jpg ) Once again barbed wire stopped a 'bot. This one was was all tangled up, proving again that barbed wire is a serious hazard. At this point we moved out of the bleachers and down to the road right next to the course, to get a closer look at the vehicles as they passed. The next vehicle out was the high school entry, nicknamed the "Doom Buggy." I'd read that during the trials it had aimed straight for the spectators; one student compared it to the "Deathmobile" float in the climactic parade scene in the movie "Animal House." Vehicle 10 - Palos Verdes High School Road Warriors - Vehicle hit a wall in the start area. Vehicle was removed from the course.
( www.off-road.com/race/events/2004darpa/images/hobbs-DoomBuggysteersastraightlineintothewall.jpg ) Just like in the trials, the "Doom Buggy" went into "Deathmobile" mode and aimed for the crowd, in this case straight at us. It was stopped by a concrete barrier and a hurricane fence, which it knocked over. It then backed up (!) as if to try at us again, but it was disabled. Vehicle 17 - SciAutonics I - At mile 0.75, vehicle went off the route. After sensors tried unsuccessfully for 90 minutes to reacquire the route, without any movement, vehicle was command-disabled.
( www.off-road.com/race/events/2004darpa/images/hernandez-DARPA23.jpg ) There was a long delay as they waited for this vehicle to get its bearings. During the delay the news helicopter, which had no radio, landed on the course, further delaying things. (Later we heard a rumor that "the Desert Bloom helicopter collided with the DARPA helicopter," which was impossible, since Desert Bloom only had a light plane.) Vehicle 20 - Team TerraMax - Several times, the vehicle sensed some bushes near the road, backed up and corrected itself. At mile 1.2, it was not able to proceed further. Vehicle was command-disabled.
( www.off-road.com/race/events/2004darpa/images/hobbs-DavidFacesoffwithGoliath.jpg ) This vehicle, nicknamed "Goliath," may have also been foiled by the waypoint in the bush. Vehicle 15 - Team TerraHawk - Withdrew prior to start. Vehicle 9 - The Golem Group - At mile 5.2, while going up a steep hill, vehicle stopped on the road, in gear and with engine running, but without enough throttle to climb the hill. After trying for 50 minutes, the vehicle was command-disabled.
( www.off-road.com/race/events/2004darpa/images/hernandez-DARPA15.jpg ) Vehicle 16 - The Blue Team - Withdrew prior to start.
( www.off-road.com/race/events/2004darpa/images/hobbs-BlueTeamwobblesoffthestartingline.jpg ) The Blue Team's motorcycle fell over in the chute. Later we heard a rumor that all of its systems hadn't been switched on properly. What a disappointment that must have been. At this point Bob and I decided to beat the traffic and exit the parking lot ASAP. We grabbed some breakfast at a truck stop called Mrs. B's, and headed back over to the op center at Barstow College. We hadn't been at the op center for fifteen minutes when the last icon stopped moving on the map display, and a few seconds later the official race web site said the race was over. We were absorbing this data when my friend Lisa T. called me on my cell phone from San Diego. She'd been following the race on the web and wanted to know if it was true. Later we were told that the vehicle that made it the farthest (over 7 miles), the Red Team Sandstorm, had gotten stuck on a hump at the Daggett switchbacks, broken a front axle, spun its front wheels until they caught fire, and was also leaking fuel. This lead the DARPA rep to disable it, and they jumped out of the chase truck and extinguished the fire. Exhausted at this point, Bob and I loaded up my equipment into my mini-van and retuned to our motel for a much-needed nap. That evening there was a party at the finish line at Buffalo Bill's in Primm, at the state line (though none of the vehicles had made it more than about 5% of the 140 mile course). Bob and I drove out for it, stopping at Calico Ghost Town to buy some of their great canvas silver ore bags (good for holding coins!) and play an antique pre-flipper wooden pinball game, ( www.calicotown.com ) and we also stopped at Afton Canyon, "the Grand Canyon of the Mojave," to enjoy nature a little and see a piece of the historic Mojave Road. ( www.ca.blm.gov/barstow/afton.html ) Soon we arrived at Buffalo Bill's in Primm.
( aero.mindtel.com/~mindtel/Alan1/EastMojave2004/HD2004_digipix/Mojave4019.jpg ) We had to wait a little while in the casino to meet up with my friend Steve P., who had tickets for us to the race reception, so Bob found another Silver Strike and won some coins with pictures of Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill Hickock. Steve appeared, and we joined the festivities in the main showroom. It was free food and a cash bar, with some more speeches by the DARPA sponsors and the SCORE organizers. It was announced that the race will be repeated in about a year, and since no one had claimed the prize, it would be doubled to $2 million. We also were showed video highlights of the race, and heard from each team leader. They all said "we'll be back," and the representative of the Palos Verde High School team seemed really proud that after their 'bot had hit the wall, it had BACKED UP! We also found out that some of the groups that hadn't made it into the race had banded together and formed the International Robot Racing Federation, ( www.irrf.org ) and they are planning their own raced in the fall of 2004, near Las Vegas. I hope to be there. There was an after party in Dr. Dave's suite upstairs, we finally got our Synergy Strike Force hats and t-shirts, and then it was back to Barstow for Bob & I. The next morning we packed up and headed home. When I reached my own driveway I'd logged 1,100 miles on the mini-van. * * * * * * "It was a special moment." -- iRobot CEO Colin Angle, 4/13/04 on being told of the first robot casualty in Iraq ( edition.cnn.com/2004/TECH/04/12/tech.arms.robots.reut/index.html ) A few weeks later I was sharing my adventures with my friend Phil P., who works at the Neurosciences Institute. ( www.nsi.edu ) This is the institute founded by Dr. Gerald Edelman, a world-class researcher into both consciousness and robotics. His latest book is "A Universe of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination" (2001) by Gerald M. Edelman and Giulio Tonomi. ( www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0465013775/hip-20 ) Phil told my that NSI has built a robot onto a Segway chassis, and is entering it in a robot soccer match, which is also sponsored by DARPA, as part of their Mobile Autonomous Robot Software (MARS) program. ( news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3486335.stm ) Each time consists of a human on a Segway and a robot built onto a Segway base. Both players must be involved in scoring (as in some coed sports). Phil said their biggest competitors were from Carnegie Mellon University. (Sound familiar?) The difference between their approaches was that the CMU robot was programmed, while the NSI robot was trained. As Phil put it, "Our robot doesn't know how to play soccer, it just knows that it likes to play soccer." He told me how when it's time to recharge the 'bot, instead of hacking some special mode for it to return to the charger, they just hold out a soccer ball, and robot follows it wherever it's lead. * * * * * * "We don't serve their kind here! ... Your droids. They'll have to wait outside." -- Mos Eisley cantina bartender in "Star Wars" In pondering the lessons of the robot races I have come to this conclusion. We'll get a lot more "bang per buck" from our robots if we have Robot Wranglers, to put out the fires, untangle the barbed wire, perform field repairs, take over and tele-operate through the dangerous parts, and so on. In peacetime, a wrangler might ride a motorcycle, leaving it to the 'bots to carry the heavy tools and spare parts. In wartime, the human becomes a weak link, so they may have to play a "shell game," and hide in a robotic vehicle. But it is clear to me that 100 robots and one human will always beat 100 robots alone. * * * * * * So, to summarize: the future of so-called "coin-operated" amusements will, in fact, involve few coins, and the future of so-called "autonomous vehicles" will, in fact, not be very autonomous.
Errata: In some versions of last month's e-ZIne I referred to a friend as Will W.; he's really Will A. C3M regrets the error. Addendum: An insightful and in-depth analysis of the SPAx (where x=M) problem, and the futility of content-based filtering, appears on the web site of Colin Fahey. ( www.colinfahey.com/spam_topics/spam_the_phenomenon.htm ) ======================================================================== newsletter archives: www.well.com/~abs/Cyb/4.669211660910299067185320382047 ======================================================================== Privacy Promise: Your email address will never be sold or given to others. You will receive only the e-Zine C3M unless you opt-in to receive occasional commercial offers directly from me, Alan Scrivener, by sending email to abs@well.com with the subject line "opt in" -- you can always opt out again with the subject line "opt out" -- by default you are opted out. To cancel the e-Zine entirely send the subject line "unsubscribe" to me. I receive a commission on everything you purchase during your session with Amazon.com after following one of my links, which helps to support my research. ======================================================================== Copyright 2004 by Alan B. Scrivener
