Word: pomerleau
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...eyed commuters trying to share the road. Then he careens to the left, skidding onto the gravel shoulder and nearly into a ditch. Finally Todd Jochem, 27, a graduate student at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University, wrests the wheel of the four-wheel-drive Humvee from ALVINN while Dean Pomerleau, a C.M.U. robotics research scientist, makes excuses for their friend's driving. ``I guess he's a little confused,'' says Pomerleau. ``We'll let him try again in a minute.'' Still, ALVINN is a marvel--a road-hogging computer able to drive like a human. Well, almost...
Right now ALVINN is barely a student driver. Small but unexpected events cause him to swerve and shake in gigabyte panic. His performance may improve this month when ``smart car'' map scanning is integrated into the programming. ``There should be a substantial difference,'' promises Pomerleau. The researchers say they are only a couple of years from achieving a preliminary goal, perfecting ALVINN as an anticollision device to jog sleepy drivers before they run off the road. When a car drifts dangerously close to the border of its lane, a road-watching camera would do something like ring an alarm bell...
Growing up in a prim, God-fearing little house across the road from their slatternly encampment, Earlene Pomerleau (Martha Plimpton) watches the Beans' messy comings and goings through her picture window, paying particular attention to hunky Beal Bean (Patrick McGaw), who is not paying much attention to her. He's sleeping with his father's common-law wife, Roberta (Kelly Lynch), while the old man (Rutger Hauer) does time in jail for beating a game warden half to death. This drama is, as Earlene says, better than watching television: it is live, and it is X-rated...