A friend in college told me of a research project that had managed to balance a simulated inverted pendulum in 2D using 25 neurons and back propagation. But I had done this exact problem with conventional state space controls using only 5 summations (the equivalent of 5 neurons).

After I finish patting myself on the back, you then wonder what it would take for that 25 neuron solution to keep optimizing down the theoretical 5 neuron solution? The article is an interesting approach to that problem.

The paper they reference used 3456 input neurons and 9 output neurons, with no hidden nodes. They designed their input and output differently, so it's not a direct comparison. The optimized solution has 17 inputs, 2 outputs, and 2 hidden nodes. That's a massive level of optimization.

In addition, it is controlling a coupled 3D system (which is unstable). This is much more than 3 PID controllers.

Whenever you drive/walk in soft terrain, the wheel/leg is constantly climbing the ramp created by it sinking into the terrain. In a perfect system, this determines how much power you need to move. This is why trains are so efficient. A hard wheel on a hard rail has very little deflection -- so excellent efficiency.

Wheels have to climb that ramp for every inch of travel. Legs get to step forward and only take that penalty for each step. If everything else is the same, the legs win on soft terrain.

But everything else is never the same :-). The early legged vehicles used linear motions, which means you have these very long sliding surfaces. This is heavy and the drive system efficiency dominates over the terrain interaction efficiency. Add in the fact that you have multiple axis to drive and the weight and drive losses really add up.

Modern dog and human style walking robots are MUCH better on efficiency than those early designs. However, they require enough sensing and compute to dynamically balance. Legs can do things that wheels can't, but you have to have smart enough software to take advantage of that. The compute available for a high radiation environment is a fraction of what is in your smartwatch. Wheels are still winning on energy efficiency, but at least it's getting closer.

I worked on Dante at CMU and Marsokhod at NASA Ames; and was in the same group that developed Ambler.

That's 5X what is considered a safe dose.

Up to 2mg/kg/day is considered safe. Double that with care. But they were dosing every hour for days!

The introduction to SDR (software defined radio) is much appreciated.

Edit: defined, not designed

If you have a well understood problem space and a team that is up to speed on it, then the "why" is well established and the code is the "what".

However, there are often cases where the code is capturing a new area that isn't fully understood. You need to interleave an education of the "why" of the code.

I was once asked to clean up for release 10k lines of someone else's robotics kinematics library code. There weren't any comments, readmes, reference programs, or tests. It was just impenetrable, with no starting point, no way to test correctness, and no definition of terms. I talked to the programmer and he was completely proud of what he had done. The variable names were supposed to tell the story. To me it was a 10k piece puzzle with no picture! I punted that project and never worked with that programmer again.

Adding iodine to the cow's food made them healthier and that's how they estimated the dose for humans (mcg / kg).

Works on Mac, Windows, and Linux

Zig has a nicer syntax with fewer foot guns than C. It can also compile or link with C.

Some Autel drone are made in the USA, but not all.

Edit: added the Lite and fixed formatting

You may need a different level in different seasons of the year (because the sunlight varies) or if you change latitude (for the same reason). Your needs may be very different to the people around you.

Dr Gominak has done a bunch of research on D3 levels and sleep. Her RightSleep program will walk you through how to properly supplement into the ideal range. She has a few videos on YouTube with all the background info. This is my current favorite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1Qm5x7Lxgc

Having said that, most doctors don't have a clue about D3 dosing. You'll have to do some research.

Most people will overshoot in a month or two if they take 10,000 a day, but I know of people that have taken that level for long periods without ever going too high. It's super personalized.

There are some Antarctic cruise ships that come in and do a day trip. I hear the NSF hates this and makes sure everyone gets back on the boat.

They plan their logistics over a year in advance. Anyone showing up unexpectedly is going to throw that off.

The sun just orbits and never sets. So any normal day/night cycles doesn't exist.

There are other (smaller) bases on the Antarctic peninsula. I don't know what timezone they use. Their supplies are coming in from Chile or Argentina.

The Antarctic Support Contract was a thing back then too. They did most of the day-day operations, while the Navy managed flights, supplies, the mess (cafeteria), and the like. I don't really know the division of responsibilities.

Do you know if they are landing on winter flights, or just doing airdrops? The later is much easier to do. Even in the summer, the C-130s have to fly with enough fuel to return to NZ because there have been times when the winds become too high to land (and NZ is the "nearest" alternate runway).

I was there in the 92-93 season. We were lucky to have e-mail back then.

We did our own special internet link for a project that used spare bandwidth on a non commercial satellite. We had 1.544mbit up and 9600 down. We sent what would eventually be called motion jpeg for "video". There was no audio. The satellite dish was pointed 3deg below the horizon; but we were on a mountain, so that was fine.

McMurdo is a fabulously weird place. The US Navy manages all the food/fuel/housing logistics. Then you get the researchers coming through to do projects. They may be working from McMurdo, but most are just be gearing up to go out on the ice. These are often grad students, researchers, and faculty. So the average IQ is much higher than your typical ski town.

The staff that works the station is there because they like the environment. You find people with college degrees doing maintenance and safety trainings. Most are just there for the summer season (which is now). Some will winter over.

Most of the fuel and cargo comes in once a year. The ice breaker is at the ice dock, so that can happen any time now.

Everything else is flown in/out from NZ at considerable expense. Early in the season the ice is thick enough to land jets like the C-5 and C-17. While they are in the ground, they have to move them every few hours to keep the ice from cracking under all that weight. By this time in the season it's probably just C-130s doing everything. Once the sun goes back down, all flights cease and there is nothing can get out for 9 months.

I just did a housing search recently and found this out the hard way.

Look at the median for an area and then figure that you can go 10-20% below that for a "fixer upper". Even that isn't an option if you don't have DIY skills.