The self-driving CAR REVOLUTION was kicked off by The 'DARPA' Grand CHALLENGE to make an autonomous car traverse 132 mi. of a desert.

They defended the grains of SAND in the DESERT to the LAST DROP of their BLOOD.

I didn't want to do MOVIES with HUNDREDS of camels CROSSING the DESERT followed by tanks and this and that.

I do spend a lot of WEEKENDS on the road. I have to pace myself. It can be pretty BUSY, but I'm not out in the Afghan desert with 70 POUNDS on my BACK, away from my family for a year at a time. I keep a good perspective on it.

I can bat in the morning, AFTERNOON, evening, night, on ice, desert, WHEREVER and WHENEVER. It is almost NIRVANA for me. It takes me away from the stresses of LIFE.

Yet the WONDER of it all is that, while engaged in a seemingly ENDLESS struggle, the Israelis have managed to TURN a desert into a GARDEN.

Spanish alone was UNDERSTOOD or spoken here; our FRIEND, the countryman, stuck to us most nobly, he understood us not a bit better than the rest but SAW that we were in DISTRESS and would not desert us.

The COOL parts - the parts that have won Dubai its reputation as 'the Vegas of the Middle EAST' or 'the Venice of the Middle East' or 'the Disney WORLD of the Middle East, if Disney World were the size of SAN Francisco and out in a DESERT' - have been built in the last ten years.

The DAY I initiated DIVORCE proceedings against Michael FARMER, I was READY to retire to a desert cave and rethink my life.

The idea that somewhere in the DESERT far away you have a CO2 absorber that's removing the CO2 from the air is an attractive one. It's a costly PROCESS that many will say is too EXPENSIVE, but so are fuel cells in cars. It's a MATTER of POLITICAL will to move this forward.

I'm from Victorville - it's about an hour-and-a-half away from LOS Angeles, up in the desert. They call it Victimville because it's kind of VIOLENT. It's a beautiful PLACE, THOUGH. It's quiet.

I READ Gide's 'The Immoralist' over and over as a TEENAGER. I was obsessed with it. It's written with such SIMPLICITY and DREAD, and the desert, the shabby colonial world, is brought right into your consciousness WITHOUT being over-explained.

I did GROW up next door to Steve MCQUEEN, who was a very famous movie star at the time, but as a kid it didn't impress me. We always had great FUN with him. He would take us out on Sundays on his motorcycles, RIDING around in the DESERT; he was like a second father.

Within two hours of where I live, you have mountains and desert as LOCATION. I like the natural ELEMENTS that ABSTRACT into light, texture, SHAPE and shadow.

We've SEEN computers PLAY chess and BEAT grand masters. We've seen computers DRIVE a car across a desert. But interestingly, playing chess is easy, but having a conversation about nothing is really difficult for a COMPUTER.