The Idiotarod

I just learned tomorrow is the IDIOTAROD!! I've never been, but here is what I found out. If anyone know more info please share! Man, I wish I found out about this earlier...G2 has to enter a cart next year!



DETAILS ARE LIMITED, BUT HERE IS WHAT I FOUND:

The Iditarod is the famous long-distance race in which yelping dogs tow a sled across Alaska. The IDIOTAROD is pretty much the same thing, except that instead of dogs, it's people, instead of sleds, it's shopping carts, and instead of Alaska it's New York City.

The fourth annual event happens January 27, 2007. Teams of five will race for cash prizes and glory.


*Who can race?*

Anyone. Everyone. You can forward this website to anyone you know.


*Isn't it going to be cold?*

You can count on it. Might be snowing.


*What's the route?*

That's up to you. We will give racers a starting line, two checkpoints and a finish line. You choose the fastest path. You will be held at each checkpoint for the facing of trials and challenges that will build your character as you journey toward victory.


*Are there rules?*

Yes, so many you almost can’t count them on your fingers. There will be referees along the route to disqualify cheaters.



*Does my team have to bring its own shopping cart?*

Yes.


*Can we modify our shopping cart?*

As a general rule, you can attach things to your cart, make a riding platform, and grease up your wheels. You can also chop up the cart and rearrange the pieces -- but they all have to be accounted for and present with your cart. Your shopping cart can not be motorized, or pushed/pulled by any other vehicle (i.e. it can’t be towed by someone on a bicycle.)


*What do I do with my cart after the race?*

Please just don’t leave it at the finish line. That’s littering. Please make sure any objects you bring to the race go home with you or go somewhere useful. You may want to donate your cart to a supermarket. Or put your TV in it and call it your mobile entertainment center.


*What is this going to cost me?*

Dignity. Plus, there is a $5 per person entry fee.


*What are the philosophical consequences of Kurt Gödel’s incompleteness theorem?*

It proved conclusively that truth is not equivalent to provability – that there are things that are true that can not be proven in any formal system, and hence no formal system is able to give a correct, consistent answer to every question. This undermined the Logical Positivism movement in philosophy which advocated that only what is provable should be believed to be true. Gödel demonstrated, in effect, that hopes of reducing mathematics (and by extension all of the sciences) to an axiomatic system, as envisioned by mathematicians and philosophers at the turn of the 20th century, were in vain. His findings put an end to logicist efforts such as those of Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead and demonstrated the severe limitations of David Hilbert’s formalist program for arithmetic. His findings strongly influenced the (later) discovery that a computer can never be programmed to answer all mathematical questions.