You've Come a Long Way, Baby

You've Come a Long Way, Baby was an advertising slogan for Virginia Slims cigarettes, a brand which was designed exclusively for women.  The concept was women want a slimmer, more stylish cigarette because that's your way, baby.

This is not fiction and feast your mind for a moment on just how much that expression angered feminists around the world when the corporation was using it to hustle cancer sticks.  To the Moon, baby.


Don't ever call Marjorie Darrah 'baby' unless you know her exceptionally well.  Since I don't, I'll go with her formal title of Professor and she has designed an algorithm for team operations of autonomous drones.  This is somewhat akin to a study reported yesterday in which MIT researchers have discovered team or platoon operations with autonomous trucks offer multiple savings.  (Ithaka: Birds, Bimbos and Bussing the Freight)

Marjorie Darrah, professor of mathematics at West Virginia University.
Credit: Image courtesy of West Virginia University - Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

"Someone on the ground sets an area to be scanned by the UAVs.  Within the area, the person selects different priority points for information-gathering.  The algorithm then sets what coordinates are surveyed by which UAVs, and determines a plan for them so that it also covers as much of the area as possible without depleting the battery life," said Marjorie Darrah, whose project is funded by the Army Research Laboratory.

- Science Daily

While we have substantial reservation about defense contracts, Elon Musk does it too and he didn't sell his soul.  That Darrah's research demonstrates the efficacy of team operations in sweeps by military drones doesn't mean it's all they can do since that type of algorithm would likely be applicable to many types of operations of that nature.  For example, animal conservation relies on similar types of surveys although I don't believe there has been any use of coordinated drones at this time.

Civilian operations can also utilize UAVs in teams with the genetic algorithm. The team-approach is useful for monitoring biological threats to agriculture, detecting fires, conducting transportation surveillance and managing natural disasters.

Marcela Mera Trujillo, a mathematics graduate student in Darrah's lab, is working to use a similar genetic algorithm approach to employ various mapping techniques in another civilian application. She is creating highly detailed, high resolution 3-D maps using multirotors that fly over structures and capture images from many different angles.

- Science Daily

Thrashing Darrah as a warmonger looks extreme if it's based solely on working a defense contract.

Ed:  you're just extending femme privilege and going soft on her because you think it makes you look like a gentleman but it doesn't fool anyone

I don't believe that's true about going soft but I do like her.  She's got the perfect comb-it-with-your-fingers haircut, she doesn't screw around wasting time with make-up, she's cracking smart, and she has dimples.

Imagine, if you will, just how much a scientist will be goaded for having dimples.

Ed:  you don't know that!

Nope, I don't.  It seems logical, tho.