Ashes to ashes and bumper replacements to bumper replacements

Today I have a few words of update in procuring a bumper replacement for the Suburban. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, refer to the post "bedknobs and bumper replacements" (http://cudgc.blogspot.com/2006/10/bedknobs-and-bumper-replacements.html). To make a long story somewhat shorter, we ordered a large bumper replacement called the "Ranch Hand," only to find out a month later that the company doesn't make it anymore (apparently that news was a shock to them too).

Anyway, we ordered a different bumper replacement from a different company, who assured us they had it in stock. Two months and a credit card bill later, we've been charged for yet another bumper replacement that doesn't exist. The company representative had this to say:

Company Rep.: "I checked over there, and yeah, we don't have it."
Pete: "Then why'd you tell me you had it in stock?"
Company Rep.: "Well, our guys that make it, well they're from Texas. We try not to do too much business with them."

From this we can draw two conclusions. First, Texas is apparently a universal scapegoat. Second, never buy a bumper replacement that you can weld yourself.

Approved

Sketchiness: approved. Not that we've really done anything too sketchy (err, not yet anyway), but at least we have signs to point to when we do.

The sign for when we disapprove is a little less PG, so I had to leave it off. Those who know us know exactly which three letter word is on it.

On another note, the mysterious package from Singapore has now made its way from Canada to a DHL impound site somewhere in Ohio. At least it's getting somewhere.

Today in the lab

"Frick. I definitely have an essay due today, but I don't know what it's on. I think I'll just write three pages and say I misinterpreted the assignment."

Yeah, back to business as usual. Oh, and we got the MechE's a new computer:

Yes, it is made by Craftsman, and it spews out screwdrivers and sockets instead of bluescreening.

On another note, we're expecting a package from Singapore containing some of our old stuff from last year's car (GPS receiver, the third LIDAR, the gimbal assembly, things like that). It turns out the package has already visited the country once, where it sat in a warehouse unbeknownst to us before getting shipped back to Singapore unclaimed. See, that's the problem when you ship sketchy stuff overseas: eventually, people start to ask questions. Anyway, we found out today that the stuff made it back to this side of the pond, but it is sitting somewhere in Canada.

I suppose the moral of the story is that if you don't claim your sketchy stuff, it goes to Canada instead.

Just another manic Monday

I thought I'd amuse you all with some snippets of conversations taking place in the lab today.

Pete: You know, no matter how much work you have, you can always enjoy your steel-toed boots.
Noah: Yeah, I agree.
Pete: You walk around, thinking, "nobody can get to my toes."
Noah: Yeah, I wore them at the hockey game.
Pete: Ah, a perfect place to wear them.
Noah: Yeah, I'd be sitting there, and I'd have to ask someone to get off my feet. I wouldn't even feel them there.
Pete: Yep, you'd never know someone was standing on your toes.

Aaron: CORBA... the very close relative of Satan.

Mark: As a guy who makes his career with probabilities, you definitely got screwed.

Aaron: If you take the characteristic of a moving average filter, it definitely looks like my ass.
Brian: What, it's all bumpy?

I'll be your server today

Well, the media cart of science has been relieved of duty as a test server, primarily because the rest of the server parts came in from NewEgg. This is what the new server looks like:

Slim and sexy, no? Well, we'll see if it's too hot for its own good (pun is most definitely intended, as cooling and power consumption are the key issues to test here). Oh by the way, that sticky note on the side of the server reads "please convert to pose estimator."

The media cart of science as test server

Yet another of the many faces of the media cart of science:

This time, the MCOS is acting as a test platform for server evaluation. We're contemplating building our own bank of servers for the car, since fully-assembled Blades cost a lot and are awfully power hungry.

One year from now

One year from "today" (ok not really today, but I forgot to post last Friday), we will all converge on an as-of-yet-unnamed location in the West to test cars that can drive themselves in traffic.

One year from today, I hope more of these progress bars are full:

Actuation and Mounting:
[I---------]
Pose Estimator:
[IIIIII----]
Sensing:
[III-------]
Local Map:
[II--------]
Scene Estimator:
[I---------]
Planner:
[IIII------]

Keep your fingers crossed.