[dubious elise]

Hmm, I dunno about you guys, but I think I speak for all of the teams that got from the Airport to their hotel downtown in Atlanta when I say that powered sidewalks and escalators are marvelous. On our way back to the airport, we were all really tired and when we got to the second down escalator (the extremely long one) in the Marta station and were horrified to find that the down escalator had been almost entirely disassembled and the only way down was the steep staircase. Not bad in terms of excercise, not good in terms of having to balance so much equipment and luggage at once!

Other than cellphones, I think that the development of mass media has done more harm than good. This is purely a personal perspective, but I truly feel that the expansion of television networks and other forms of mass media have cut right into humanity's own creative vein. Just look at what happens when you walk up to someone on the street and tell them that you build and compete robots - they ask if it is anything like "Battle Bots", which, IMHO, is about as far away as you can get from the true meaning of FIRST. Maybe I'm just a curmudgeon, who knows.