5 ms·

Darpa Subterranean Challenge

18 points by mhb 8y ago

evo_9 8y ago
FYI - I had to turn off UBlock for this site to load.
- DonaldPShimoda 8y ago
  Loaded fine for me, though it did take a bit to get going.
- shrimp_emoji 8y ago
  µBlock Origin did not factor in for me; I just had to temporarily trust `subtchallenge.com` in NoScript.
- fake-name 8y ago
  Delete the "overlay" div, and it worked fine for me. The content is there on dom ready. Why the fuck is the overlay even a thing? Sure, images may take a little longer to load, but the content is text. This is incredibly stupid.
otras 8y ago
Not directly related to the content, but as a frontend engineer, I'm always curious about the decisions that go into making a complicated web page. In this case, my devtools reports the following as I load the page with uBlock on with good internet: > 60 requests | 71.3 MB transferred | Finish: 13.63s | DOMContentLoaded: 1.33 s Sorting by size shows that it's largely the background images taking up most of the load, with the background header/mountain picture [0] making up 11.8MB of the load. On a similar note, clicking into the tab from a different tab makes Chrome freeze for ~1s on my 2017 MacbookPro. Not quite the most user-friendly experience! [0] https://www.subtchallenge.com/img/header/SubT_Header_Mountain2.png https://www.subtchallenge.com/img/header/SubT_Header_Mountai...
- microcolonel 8y ago
  Yeah, nearly 12MB for a single hero image is kinda silly. Added: One trick I have used for large photographic cutouts is to use svg for the mask, and either embed or reference the lossy image (jpg) from there (gzip settings to undo the expansion factor of base64 are not too slow, so sometimes embedding is okay).
hyperion2010 8y ago
I know that this isn't what they are going for, but I couldn't help but think of one of my favorite pieces of fictional millitary equipment http://cnc.wikia.com/wiki/Subterranean_APC http://cnc.wikia.com/wiki/Subterranean_APC. On a more practical note, here is a link to the announcment for those who can't get the page to load. https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2017-12-21 https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2017-12-21
- glitcher 8y ago
  My first thought was also fictional tech - the mapping drones in Prometheus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO-eduvo904 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO-eduvo904
Mizza 8y ago
I normally imagine tunnel warfare as a World War I thing, but it actually played a huge factor in the Syrian Civil War: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-36961912/syria-conflict-huge-tunnel-bomb-rocks-aleppo https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-36961912/syria...
larrydag 8y ago
Was this challenge specifically made for the Boring Company? Not that I'm being all conspiracy theory.
- luma 8y ago
  Not at all, the challenge isn't about digging tunnels, rather operating in an existing subterranean environment.

18 points by mhb 8y ago

evo_9 8y ago

FYI - I had to turn off UBlock for this site to load.

DonaldPShimoda 8y ago
Loaded fine for me, though it did take a bit to get going.
shrimp_emoji 8y ago
µBlock Origin did not factor in for me; I just had to temporarily trust `subtchallenge.com` in NoScript.
fake-name 8y ago
Delete the "overlay" div, and it worked fine for me. The content is there on dom ready. Why the fuck is the overlay even a thing? Sure, images may take a little longer to load, but the content is text. This is incredibly stupid.

otras 8y ago

Not directly related to the content, but as a frontend engineer, I'm always curious about the decisions that go into making a complicated web page. In this case, my devtools reports the following as I load the page with uBlock on with good internet: > 60 requests | 71.3 MB transferred | Finish: 13.63s | DOMContentLoaded: 1.33 s Sorting by size shows that it's largely the background images taking up most of the load, with the background header/mountain picture [0] making up 11.8MB of the load. On a similar note, clicking into the tab from a different tab makes Chrome freeze for ~1s on my 2017 MacbookPro. Not quite the most user-friendly experience! [0] https://www.subtchallenge.com/img/header/SubT_Header_Mountain2.png https://www.subtchallenge.com/img/header/SubT_Header_Mountai...

microcolonel 8y ago
Yeah, nearly 12MB for a single hero image is kinda silly. Added: One trick I have used for large photographic cutouts is to use svg for the mask, and either embed or reference the lossy image (jpg) from there (gzip settings to undo the expansion factor of base64 are not too slow, so sometimes embedding is okay).

hyperion2010 8y ago

I know that this isn't what they are going for, but I couldn't help but think of one of my favorite pieces of fictional millitary equipment http://cnc.wikia.com/wiki/Subterranean_APC http://cnc.wikia.com/wiki/Subterranean_APC. On a more practical note, here is a link to the announcment for those who can't get the page to load. https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2017-12-21 https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2017-12-21

glitcher 8y ago
My first thought was also fictional tech - the mapping drones in Prometheus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO-eduvo904 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO-eduvo904

Mizza 8y ago

I normally imagine tunnel warfare as a World War I thing, but it actually played a huge factor in the Syrian Civil War: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-36961912/syria-conflict-huge-tunnel-bomb-rocks-aleppo https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-36961912/syria...

larrydag 8y ago

Was this challenge specifically made for the Boring Company? Not that I'm being all conspiracy theory.

luma 8y ago
Not at all, the challenge isn't about digging tunnels, rather operating in an existing subterranean environment.