Positive ID is obtained with IFF. Not sure why you'd have to wait until visual range for that.

TFX. The Navy's desires were built into the F-111 and they decided they wanted the F-14 anyway. This is the same story.

Procurement isn't about getting the right weapon. It's about exercising a decision-maker's ego and getting votes back home.

How it works is that Google gets to use the successes in a later design and avoid the failures.

Rather, that's how it would work if Google were actually a hardware company, which they emphatically are not.

Say what you will about Apple but at least they admit they build hardware and aren't ashamed to do the R+D necessary to ship great hardware. They push the envelope and break it at times, but at least they don't do embarrassing things like 'hey, let's impress everyone with our design idea that will never ship' homage to someone's 20% project.

Also, Apple couldn't care less where you are or what you're looking at when using their hardware. ;-)

YHBT

HAND.

So, there's a two-lane road 90 minutes away from the nearest Interstate at Disney? News to me.

So much ignorance.

"Forklift.

A big one."

Obviously someone who has worked with HEaT crew. :-)

" - communal effort
    - civic responsibility
    - participation
    - immediacy"

None of these things makes 40,000+ cars fit onto a rural two-lane road any faster.

Thanks for not coming, though. We need fewer clueless folks and more self-sufficient people at Burning Man.

"It's to reduce the amount of time people have to spend sitting in their cars (as opposed to wandering the playa on the last day making new friends, etc.)."

Most of the reason the exodus goes so slowly is because people are doing exactly this. Zoned out, not paying attention, idling their car out of gas, listening to the radio and killing their battery in the heat, etc. When the lanes begin to move and compress, tempers get out of hand. Last year when BLM stopped the Exodus on Monday because of rain, the line extended to the apex, and getting things going again was horrible. People were taking showers in their RVs, blocking lanes. Getting stoned on someone else's car, then losing theirs. Getting jump starts before pushing their vehicle out of the lanes. Etc. Every boner move you can think of that destroys the ability of the column to respond to being let out.

Mod parent up. Burner wisdom. On Monday, Burning Man is over. Pick up everything man made you brought with you, and leave. It helps the people who are working for free accomplish their jobs of getting you all off playa and cleaning up after your feathered friends.

"I was in the Totenkitten camp and worked multiple three-hour shifts helping to keep the Charcade running."

How about volunteering for some real shifts - six hours at the Gate - so you can see how the operation is actually run?

Positing solutions in absence of all the facts isn't completely helpful. You should ask more questions instead of simply observing.

Don't shit all over him just because he's clueless. Even the clueless become helpful when given time and motivation.

For example, he could become a Greeter.

Because like most people who have something to say about Burning Man, this guy only understands half od what he's talking about.

The principal constraint has nothing to do with moving vehicles off the playa. It is Washoe County road 34, which is a narrow, poorly-graded two lane road that goes to Gerlach, there it joins with Nevada SR 447, a wider, less poorly-graded two-lane highway that runs through a town of less than 500 people. From there, it's still 90 minutes to Interstate 80.

Old US 49, Jungo Road, cannot be used by 99% of the vehicles at Burning Man, although those of you looking at the Google Maps are already thinking you've got an answer.

The 'answer' is: Don't plan anything - including being at work - for the Tuesday after Labor Day. Or leave before the Man burns. And if you're going out, consider volunteering to help the Gate, Perimeter, and Exodus Crew. Lots of good people work for free (or nearly so) to make sure the flow into and out of BRC stays as efficient as possible.

Another note: stereotyping anyone's lifestyle or motivations for attending Burning Man is an exercise in being an idiot. (Except for the feather headress-wearing Coachella fratkids. Everyone at Burning Man HATES those assholes.)

they're also resented by much of the volunteer staff, as they tend to set up resource intensive camps or fly in/out every day.

Butno judging. That's kind of at the core of the ten principles. Everyone is welcome in BRC as long as they don't shit all over anyone else.

Given that it's a dry alkali lake bed with virtually no life upon it, the impact on the playa from vehicle traffic is negligible from year to year.

Now, let's talk about all the hippies with leaky bussesand the folks from LA who show up in motor coaches carrying two occupants...that's a huge environmental impact. But they're usually the ones treating Burning Man as a weeklong party while ignoring all the staff who work their asses off.

You know people stay out there for over a month after the event cleaning up, so that the only thing left after the winter rains in December are a few ruts in the playa, right? Maybe know what you're talking about before posting.

SAABRE and the other booking systems are a bit too smart these days to actually make tickets available at some sort of pre-determined price.

Jet fuel costs four times what it did ten years ago. Fleets are getting replaced. You really think they're going to let the system release any $300 seats unless the load factor for that flight is low and converging with the flight day?

Still, it only costs about 30% more in actual dollars than it did in 1999 to fly cross country. That little fact doesn't exactly make me confident that the broken remains of what was once a diverse domestic air travel market are very concerned with the self-loading freight, if you get my drift.