Antarctic Robots Exceed Expectations. 43
scrondle writes "Robots deployed by the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory outperformed expectations. Scientists involved in the research believe they may be poised to do the first robotic traversal of Antarctica."
Third post (Score:1, Funny)
They actually went ahead? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:They actually went ahead? (Score:2, Funny)
Excellent! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Excellent! (Score:2)
Re:Interesting story (Score:1, Offtopic)
Yep - go for it. It just has to be more interesting than the thing about the 1m^3 box.
Re:Interesting story (Score:3, Insightful)
Antartica is a little more than snow and David Attenborrough. Antartica is one of the few extremes left on this planet.
It's very hard for life to exist there all year round, and having robots that can run successfully there isn't quite as exciting as a rover wheeling it's way around the surface of Titan, but it has a HELL of a lot more relevance and will be able to tell a heck of a lot more about our own planet.
Re:Interesting story (Score:2)
Right. It's also got penguins. It must run Linux.
It's because of the... (Score:3, Funny)
Geez, how many dupes of this story do we need?
Re:It's because of the... (Score:2)
Fortunately, in Antarctica, the dust melts.
Re:It's because of the... (Score:2)
At -40 degrees Celsius ? What's it made of - frozen nitrogen ?
Do they run linux? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Do they run linux? (Score:1)
OK, I'll bite...
Deep Impact [nasa.gov], because nothing crashes like Windows.
Re:Do they run linux? (Score:1)
Re:Do they run linux? (Score:2)
It's more complicated than you might think...
First of all, you need two machines, so that when one of them dumps the core, control can be passed over to the other. Then the first machine must go on a long march to the sea and back, in order to recover from power loss. Then control must be passed again, and the other machine marches to the sea while the first machine resumes debugging of the core. After a while, the core has been debu
IAAAE (Score:2)
My website [gdargaud.net] has already been on the front page of slashdot, so I'm not really kharma whoring, but yes, we do run Linux there. I got back last months from 12 months in Antarctica, spending the winter at the new station of Concordia [gdargaud.net] on the high Antarctic Plateau where we had temperatures of -78C (no, not including the windchill). I was doing atmosphere science there, in charge of 8 experiments as part of a team of 13 people. I had something like 10 PCs with me, many of whom died at
Re:Nice (Score:2)
Re:Nice (Score:1)
No polar bears in Antarctica (Score:3, Funny)
1) One of your friends have put on a costume to scare you.
2) You joined the wrong expedition, the one going to the Arctic (think North Pole) instead of the one going south.
3) You're hallucinating
Take your pick what's the most likely.
Terje
Re:No polar bears in Antarctica (Score:1)
Re:No polar bears in Antarctica (Score:2)
Re:No polar bears in Antarctica (Score:2)
Re:No polar bears in Antarctica (Score:2)
Sorry, I can't remember what brand of soda pop it was. :-)
Sea Leopards fill a similar ecological niche in the Antarctic that Polar Bears fill in the Arctic. I think Sea Leopards would make mincemeat of Polar Bears if someone were nutty enough to import some Polar Bears down there...
Re:No polar bears in Antarctica (Score:2)
Sir, I salute you. A truly unique combination of talent.
Re:excellent. (Score:2)
Coming soon to a theater near you... (Score:5, Funny)
Some software changes... (Score:2)
More Info (Score:3, Informative)
Miskatonic Expedition (Score:2)
Miskatonic University, however, has a rather sm
Re:Miskatonic Expedition (Score:2)