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Iraq Stockpiling PS2 Consoles!
cd-w writes "According to this link, Saddam Hussein is stockpiling PS2 consoles
with the view to using them in weapon technology." Honestly I don't know if this is a joke or not, but its really funny no matter how many ways I look at it. If I was Sony, I would have leaked this story just for the advertising.
BTW, Boris and Natasha don't sound too Iraqi to me.
I understand that US leaders made up funny stories in the 50s (and all the way up to the 80s) just to get more funding for the military, about bad bad communists who slaughter your kids and rape your women as soon as they have a chance - and that your parents scared you half to death with this when you were a child - but hey, it's year 2000 now, talk to someone about it, take some Prozac and you'll feel much better.
Yep!! Its true, Saddam Hussein is stockpiling PS2's and using them to assist in the creation of nuclear weapons...
Now theres gonna be hell to pay when he finds out that all the launch titles are crap!!
The thing that strikes me in this article is the fact that the government knows upwards of 4000 ps2 units have been bought and shipped out of the country. Can someone tell me how the government knows where these playstation consoles are going?
yvan eht nioj
Nah, they're japanese remember. Export restrictions would mean the US would get the crappy ones. Like crypto in the RSA patent days.
#include <ob_beowulf.h>
Please excuse me while I write 'I will Preview before Submitting 100x on the Chalkboard.' as my pennance.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
Except if you read the article, you'll see that he can't because computer hardware is sanctioned, but video games aren't (I don't know why).
If all you had was a bunch of PS2s, a bunch of 286's and American codes to crack, what would you think about using?
hmm...If you build up your nuke facilities with playstations, can you enter cheat codes for unlimited ammo, god mode, or always hit? hmm...
Iraqis read slashdot!! They're building a beowulf cluster of these things!
Do not confuse duty with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different.Duty is a debt you owe to yourself.
How does it approach zero? Technology doesn't design weapons all by itself.
He's going to throw them at his enemies.
...isn't that he's got the machines:
...but where he's going to get enough American teenage boys to fly the planes.
/."
"One expert I spoke with estimated that an integrated bundle of 12-15 PlayStations could provide enough computer power to control an Iraqi unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV -- a pilotless aircraft."
*Packs bags, checks passport, heads off to Switzerland.*
"I'm not a bitch, I just play one on
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
I believe we saw this story on slashdot before http://slashdot.org/articles/00/04/16/1953243.shtm l
back in april.
Also there was a move of some sort by the japanese government to restrict shipments before.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
when the PS2 first came out Japan would not allow the export of them on the grounds that they could be used as a weapons platform. There were many Iraq jokes on this fine site alone. Pretty funny joke and it shows up how silly many people are about tech.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
> I'm very worried about this development; this is serious stuff.
Think on the bright side. Now Saddam can sit at home and fantasize about kicking all his neighbors' asses.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
No he's practicing, and when he get's good enough at one of the games, he's going to chalenge George to a game. He'll put up Iraq as his stake, If George put's up California. Whatever happen's It'll permanently alter the balance it the electoral college
... and soon he shall release his quake mod upon the western world, destroying the infidels...
And what about this:
So is it a 32-bit CPU or a 128-bit CPU?
Random powers of 2 make it sound cooler.
that's my 256-bit worth....
change me
Damn, what happens if he finds the secret 'cheat' settings as well....
Apple cashed in on the hype, but then again, it didn't involve having one of their products bombing an oil field or something like that. I don't think Sony will want this one rumor to spread about... ;)
Sadaam defeats bush in Tekken Tag Tournament!
And Iraq's a communist state?
john
Why wouldn't they just buy Dreamcasts instead if they need computing power so badly. They already come with a modem. This is all horribly false also. By the way........FIRST POST!!! Everyday its the same thing - variety. I want something different!
"This Karma machine only takes quarters..." - matthew good band
I agree! They're out making crappy movies while the country needs them! :)
"Ummmm..."
(except on slashdot, of course. ;-)
"Most Americans don't realize that each PlayStation unit contains a 32-bit CPU -- every bit as powerful as the processor found in most desktop and laptop computers," said one military intelligence officer who declined to be identified. "Beyond that, the graphics capabilities of a PlayStation are staggering -- five times more powerful than that of a typical graphics workstation, and roughly 15 times more powerful than the graphics cards found in most PCs."
This unidentified informant later went on to say: "As I said before - the PS2 is so powerful with its mega-advanced graphics that the evil empire's leader Sadam Hussein is going to use them for Arms. Its just staggering to think that with all the technology our military has, what makes the US Number-Fucking-One in the world -because we kick ass- is going to be defended by the PS2! And you can buy them! If you own a PS2 you will be as powerfull as the US DoD! Wow just think of it - you can own a piece of technology capable of being used just like our awe-inspiring DoD!"
Onlookers from reality were later overheard saying "Most Americans also dont realize that they are being manipulated into being mindless consumer drones - that their media, government and leadership is a shill for business who intend to enslave them... just look at this drivel."
This article is so laughable that it is almost sickening. Imagine: how do you sell a product/idea/meme to Americans? This article is almost perfect. It has the big three:
1) Evil Dictator bent on destroying the American Way(TM)
2) War, Arms, Miltiary (aka Biggest Dick contest)
3) Consumer demand frenzy for the latest product as in : "Look at the alarm this is causing in the Marketplace - the consumer craze! YOU SHOULD WANT ONE TOO! DON'T MISS OUT! (ala McCarthyism, CabbagePatchKids, Elmo Doll, PS2)
For those Americans who read this and think to mark it down as Flame-bait... go back and READ THE ARTICLE AGAIN Im 'right on the mark' and you know it - not only that; but you cant stand that it is true. Wow - I love this article! The only thing that would have made it better would have been mention of the President-Elect's feelings on the issue:
George W Bush later said "In order to maintain the present US®-EvilEmpire(TM) PS2 Arms lead - I would encourage all devout Americans®© to run out and buy a Sony(TM) Playstation 2(TM)®© - Citizens©: Help defend America®! BUY A PS2(TM)®©!"
You guys had to keep asking... sooner or later someone was bound to "imagine a Beowulf cluster of those". Now you know why you get moderated down all the time.
Anyhow, I think we should lift sanctions on Iraq. We've been sanctioning *way* too long. Sadam is not the worry. It's some bitter corporal in the Iraqi army who's the worry. Anybody remember the treaty of Versailles? Those who fail to learn from history...
Actually, if we had taken him all the way out to begin with, this might not be a problem.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
While Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot...
...he's also right about a lot of things.
Right wing doesn't necessarily mean wrong, just as left wing doesn't necessarily mean right.
If the Republican Party didn't base all their social policy on the rants of bible belt preachers - and if they didn't provide a goofball like George Double-Ya as their presidential nominee - I'd be a lot more inclined to support them because their fiscal plans often make better sense than those of the Democrats.
Similarily, the Democrats had a great presidential candidate who just happened to be mostly boring and behaved in a juvenile fashion during the debates, though he supported responsible and realistic social policy. Unfortunately, he just happened to be from the big-labor-unions tax-and-spend party.
If the separation of church and state has really occurred, why is it that the Republicans are still allowed to bring religion into every election?
If only the Libertarian Party had had a chance.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
That hitting up, up, down, down, square, circle, square, circle, start, he wont' be granted unlimited ammo or enter some "god mode" or something.
--
Marcelo Vanzin
Marcelo Vanzin
We should do an EMP over the Middle East. Do you think we could hear the "Awwwwww" from here?
You can tell a college man, but you can't tell him much.
Also, keep in mind that WorldNetDaily is about as far-right as you can get -- not that there's anything wrong with that. ;)
-bluebomber
The Daily Build
I agree. To us, it's a joke... but then, we 'Mericans (as a Canadian friend of mine calls us) can buy a more powerful computer nearly any day of the week, with applications galore preloaded. Iraq, thanks to trade sanctions, is one of the most computing-deprived nations there is. So what if the development tools aren't geared toward their applications? So what if the only programs commercially available for this platform are games? They just might do the open-source thing and 'make their own'. Building chip factories takes resources which the Iraqis don't have; building software just takes smarts.
As you say, hardware's hardware. They've already got the warheads. What they haven't had until recently is the ability to aim them anywhere quickly enough to catch us by surprise. But remember those old DOS/Apple II-era games where you had to shoot a ground-to-ground missile at a city along a parabolic path, possibly taking wind and elevation into account? I betcha one PS2 is at least a little faster than one 286...
---
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
Imagine you're a reviled butt-much who wants to make everybody pay for being hwo they are and not spending every second kissing you *ss.
Your basic psycho- or socio-path will not do. You have to have an ego as big as the pile of bodies in your back yard. Paranoid schizophrenia is an asset in this political arena. You want to kill _everybody_.
Imagine you have minions who say: "But 'O great leader, we need computers to make bombs that'll really scare people and make then pucker when they see you walking away!"
Imagine you have one who says: "Hey, a CPU's a CPU and RAM's RAM. And check out the polygon drawing speed on these babies. We'll out-DARPA DARPA. Uh 'O great leader buy a boat load of these suckers and we'll be able to deliver things that can really go boom."
If I were thee, I would worry.
Hardware's hardware and just imagine the joy YOU'd have hacking some flight sim game to RC a real plane or a real missile.
Its not just the allies who saw the CNN reports of smart bombs doing pin-point landings through the stairwell on top of the roof to blow up in the middle of the building and take out the infrastructure while inflicting the maximum 'colateral' damage...
And these babies were MADE for the kind of fun Sadam wants to have with your office building...
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
If it is true that PS2s are being smuggled into Iraq, and some of them are going unchecked, who's to say they are PS2s? It is quite possible for someone, with a general knowledge of computers, to open one of these systems up and make a few changes. Take out the CPU and set a PIII or something inside of there with it held in place with double sided tape. Maybe even fit a new main board in the box, I have yet to see a PS2 in person so I am not sure if that is possible. My whole point on this subject being,if a PS2 can be smuggled into Iraq unchecked, why can't they change parts of the system and smuggle in pieces to build a normal computer? If this is so, Iraq has found a way to get the computer pieces they need which goes against any embargo or restrictions against them. This could be a problem.
I watch Brit Hume on Fox News
I can just imagine Iraqi intelligence saying, "My, what a great idea!"
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I think we should detonate a nuke in the atmosphere over the Middle East. Sure, the EMP would cause all kinds of collateral damage, but it is the only way we can be sure to wipe out the PS2's!!
-bluebomber
The Daily Build
Umm, dumbass moderator, this ain't off-topic, it was from an N64 commercial. Saddam was playing Starcraft. And losing.
I may be wrong, but I'm never uncertain.
I saw a news item a while back about the Administration's attempts to keep people from exporting supercomputers to China.
"Why?" ran the question. "What can they do with a supercomputer"?
"Military weather prediction" was the answer.
"What about nuclear weapon design?"
"Nuclear weapon design is no longer considered computationally significant."
Yeesh.
The most advamced computers on the Manhattan Project ran on punched cards. Most of our current inventory of nukes were designed on machines less powerful than a low-end desktop.
Fortunately, manufacture of nukes is *considerably* more difficult than design. Plutonium is spectacularly difficult to deal with.
--
Welcome to the Turing Tarpit, where everything is possible but nothing interesting is easy.
Applications for this system are potentially frightening," said an intelligence source. "One expert I spoke with estimated that an integrated bundle of 12-15 PlayStations could provide enough computer power to control an Iraqi unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV -- a pilotless aircraft."
What a load of crap. The Joint Standoff Weapon, which is essentially a UAV that glides, is controlled by two 486s. You don't need 12-15 300MHz processors to do this. You could probably do it with a Palm Pilot (no pun intended) or two.
Note the careful weasel wording. The author is quoting an "intelligence source" which is quoting another "expert".
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
I'm not going to comment on the veracity of the story as such, but the idea isn't that farfetched. SH has a fetish for high tech. If he wants vector hardware and 64-bit CPUs, he can't just place an order with Hitachi or MIPS. The obvious alternative is consumer technology, which is much easier to buy under the counter.
You know, it's this sort of thing that makes me wonder if SH isn't a plant, or at least propped up by his ostensible enemies. If the extremists in that part of the world had some semi-intelligent leadership, they'd be really dangerous. They could buy plans for V2s and such from the Smithsonian and do some serious damage to their enemies.
But what's the use of Obliterating the Spawn of Satan if you have to do it with UnKewl Gizmos? So SH spends big bucks on silly toys like customized SCUDs,superguns, zirconium bombs, etc., etc. Which, even if he had the industrial base to support them, he can't actually use — he has to stay under the western political radar to survive, and dropping nerve gas and fallout on large numbers of people is inconsistent with that constraint.
__________________
with no names for any of the quotes, just people identified as "intelligence sources", "one military intelligence officer who declined to be identified", "One expert I spoke", and "Defense experts", the article smells of lies. a lot.
Mr. President, we must NOT ALLOW A PS/2-CONSOLE-GAP!
kugano
Oh he can start one... He just can't keep it going. What's the limit? 20 days, or something like that. Look to what his father did, during the Persian Gulf War, for an example of executive war powers.
Hi, You forgot Furby, to spy on CIA or anyother alphabet soup organizations.
You do not need much processing power to run UAV -- Progress spacecraft is a pretty advanced UAV -- can dock automatically for instance, and it's computer probably has just a few megs of core memory.
"Applications for this system are potentially frightening," said an intelligence source. "One expert I spoke with estimated that an integrated bundle of 12-15 PlayStations could provide enough computer power to control an Iraqi unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV -- a pilotless aircraft."
There was a guy who bought seven of these babies on Ebay at 1K each.
Don't call my crazy, that's what they called me back in the home!
At least somebody is buying them!
you know, if this story came out last holiday season, it would have reported that Saddam is making a beowulf cluster out of Furbys :)
This should have happened a long time ago!!
p.s. That is an interesting home page link...
IANAL... But I play one on
Umm... did you ever watch Rocky and Bullwinkle? Boy do I feel old...
-bluebomber
The Daily Build
"Hey, relax fella! You need a rest!"
Sean
LOL
Watch it folks, if we don't give him his PS2's, he may be forced into buying and making a raided NES Cluster. Be afraid, be very afraid. Well, i hope they port linux to the NES, then i'd have something worthwhile to do. NESux sounds about right. Imagine what you could do with all 4 buttons? The possibilities are staggering.
---- The geek shall inherit the Earth.
May, just maybe there are some Iraqi people who want to play games. I believe that they are human too (aren't they?) and so they may share some of our emotions.
So Saddam is going to make a Beowulf cluster out of PS2s? All right, de-lurk, Mr. Hussein, it's obvious you are a /. reader...
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
This is bullshit. The reports about a year ago regarding weapons usage was bullshit too. Sony has written the copy for every reference to weapons possibilities. It's pathetic really. I hope no slashdotters are putting serious belief into this stuff...
Why is that right wing propoganda? As opposed to left wing? It's an honest question. Sure, maybe a third of the liberals opposed Desert Storm on pacifist grounds, and maybe another third just because Bush Sr. was a Republican, but plenty of liberals were all for the war.
I think it's just nationalist propoganda, if anything.
--
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
"Why do you think you can't order nukes from amazon.com?"
Not a day goes by that I don't curse them for that oversight. I mean, come on, how come mad scientists are left behind in the e-commerce revolution? eh?
Where can I find mutant, man eating plants online? Where can I get parts for a 1958 Strugarksi model 550 death ray?
It's a damn shame is what it is...
Annonymous Coward -- deep in his mountain fortress
Yeah, I'm gonna go get my BFG!
___
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
well, the graphic idea was just quoted from the 'source'.. from there to reality, there's an ocean in between (literally) :)
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
Global Thermonuclear Warfare, please.
Withdrawal before climax is very ineffective and those who try this are usually called "parents."
This story reminded me of a few things I had seen on ZDNet. Read this and this.
The playstation processor is fast enough to be used as the targeting vision analysis module of a cruise missle. Couple this with the fact that small 50lb thrust turbines are now available for model airplane use....and GPS modules are cheap and plentiful. Ironically, a company in israel manufactures a low cost, very effective autopilot device known as the BTA autopilot which would be the logical choice for an initial guidance controller.
Speculating here...the most likely application would be an airburst dispersal of a bio-weapon over a populated area.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
Perhaps a more likely reason they're hording them (assuming the story is true) is to earn some hard currency by selling them to stupid westerners at vastly inflated prices.
do you think they meant clustered?
hmmm... ok, even if this story is a fake, you must consider the options a sicko like Saddam has at his disposal:
ok, im not a doom-monger, but I do believe Saddam has something big planned for the future.. most likely biological..
with that in mind, think about how easy it would be to distribute a retro-virus of sorts which is released upon first-boot of a ps-2 unit.. (heat from processsor releases seal on airborne virus, etc)
this may sound crazy and i know it makes me look that way... but keep this in mind: ALL S.H. NEEDS AS A MEDIUM OF DISTRIBUTION IS SOMETHING WHICH WILL SELL/DIST QUICKLY. I for one wouldnt think twice in buying from iraqi store owners which makes the whole thing even more nerveracking... just think about all those damn electronics stores around Times Square....
just a thought... but it's probably all BS accept for S.H.'s sick intentions...
-V
"I think, therefore I get paid."
That's an old Bloom County joke. Boy I miss that strip...
Actually, you could probably just change all the snow textures into sand textures in the first MGS and you'd have it.
Let me see if I have this right:
Oil, food, medicine, all tightly controlled. Computers, military equipment, all embargoed. But 4,000 PS2s? "Sure, no problem Saddam, we have thousands in stock. You want next-day air?"
Ignorance is the root of all evil.
Right you are. And medical studies funded by tobacco companies have proven that smoking does not cause cancer. And fundamentalist Christian publications have articles proving that creationism is the how everything came to be.
The right-wing press is infamous for their willingness to print anything that supports their position. After Vince Foster's suicide, all kinds of claims were made in the right-wing press about what investigators found at the scene -- despite the fact that it was fabricated and completely uncoroborated by any witnesses. Rush Limbaugh is a perfect example of right wing "journalists." His shows are comprised largely of half-truths, bungled statistics, and flawed reasoning passed off as truth.
The truth is that Saddam will sell the modified PS2 stations back to the American public but these stations will be fixed to send information to Iraq over the Internet. The type of information will differ from user to user. Obviously Saddam hopes that some high millitary commander will get one and maybe some politicians will get more than one and he'll be able to study their behaviour while they are playing games. I can even predict that there is a plot to buy information from these highly positioned figures where the currency will come as extra points in their favorite strip pocker games (for sure there should be some strip games for PS2 somewhere!)
You can't handle the truth.
This doesn't really have to be a hoax. :)
When PS2 was first released in Japan it couldn't be exported out of Japan because of some regulations that were in place exactly to prevent too powerful computers to get in hand of rogue states. There were a lot of news stories on this topic at the time, here is one for example.
So I imagine someone in the Iraqi military must have read one of those news stories and decided it must be worth a try
Theoretically, 128 bits is exactly the same speed as 32 bits when performing 32 bit operations. 128 bits might be somewhat slower, depending upon where you go on your silicon/ speed tradeoff, because it takes so many more transistors to make a fast adder or multiplier at that many bits (more than linear growth).
I doubt the PS2 is a 128 bit machine, though. It's probably a 32 bit processor, with 128 bit vector operations. Those would take 4 32 bit values and perform the same operation on each of them in the same time a non-vectorized processor would perform just 1 operation. Four times faster, IF your code can take advantage of those constraints.
For graphics, the speedup is probably pretty good; I think transforms are done uniformly on lots of values. I could be blowing steam, though. I'm not a graphics person, either.
Weapons control is probably based on processing of discrete data samples, so I doubt that vectorization would help at all.
So if Saddam is collecting PS2's for weapons systems, he's probably just as dumb as the author who called the PS2 a 32 bit machine then quoted a supporting source calling it a 128 bit machine.
If you are modding me down because you disagree with me, use the "Flamebait" category, not the "Troll" one.
Actually... when I was stationed in Korea, where even the American Newspapers report on local events instead of American events, I read an article about Japan delaying the Export of PS2s because they where afraid they could be used as guidance systems for weapons platforms.
Thankfully, the Japanise where reminded that they where the only nation whose military consisted of large robots controlled by the fantasies of geeks and nerds everywhere.
Personally, I just think it was Japans weak attempt to pretend to have the capacity of a military superpower.
--Cam
All jocks think about is sports. All nerds think about is sex.
Okay, so Sadaam couldn't get a Pentium, so he bought a Playstation. Sounds about as smart as most of the people I work for actually.
There's too much hearsay in this article for it to be true.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
So it's a right-wing advocacy site and it's automatically dismissed as wrong.
that's pathetic.
How about a nice game of chess? :)
Apparently no-one recalls that when the PS2 was
in development, the Japanese Government was
considering placing military export controls on
the console since it could conceivably be used
for realtime terrain-recognition and other
applications in missile guidance.
This was not too long after the psycho North
Koreans did a bit of missile testing over the
Sea of Japan and scared the living shit out of
the Nihonjin.
I suspect some Iraqi engineer read the story ages
ago and thought:
"Cool. Mental note: Buy shitload of PS2s
when they are inevitably released. Build weapons
systems."
Seriously...
Guess again...
Last I heard, the Cruise Missile used an
accelerated LISP machine and some heavymetal
terrain mapping and image recognition
technology. I'd be surprised if they haven't
since upgraded to far scarier embedded toys.
Even smartcard uprocs are more sophisticated
and they're deliberately a few fab
generations behind. I doubt even your washing
machine uses a Z80 these days.
State of the art missile guidance these
days is more like:
- GPS receiver
- spread-spectrum encrypted bidirectional data
stream for video feedback and remote control.
- terrain recognition software.
- feature recognition software to correlate
video input with satellite photos of
buildings etc.
- recognition of RF signatures
of friendly forces to avoid fratricide.
Noting how many millions each missile costs,
I somehow doubt you'd save a few bucks by
skimping on the uproc.
Before too long, smart pilotless attack planes
wielding hydrogen-fluoride lasers will make even
this seem quaint.
this is one of the few postings where "Beowulf Cluster" is appropriate?
Let me ask this question, apart from displaying REALLY nifty graphics, what advantage is there REALLY in bundling 400 PS2s rather than bundling 400 normal CPUs to do defense work?
Somehow I can't see weapons trajectory work being hacked into a beowulf of PS2s.
What I could see though is that being a proposal on the purchase order "We need 400 of these units, pizza, and 400 copies of Tekken XV in order to do vital defense work. Include 3,000 bottles of Jolt, a picture of Natalie Portman and some hot grits and we have this beat America thing down cold."
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
Now, he's going to use his wepons on France:
He's just pissed that he can't play region 1 DVD's until 6 months after theatrical release.
"UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things."
We must invade Iraq, steal all their PS2's, then nuke them into oblivion!
And then, we attain the movie rights and begin production of a game based on the battle for the PS2.
Hi! This is the Sig, blatantly attached to the end of this comment.
Do you know what this means?! I'll finally get those martians for sending radio waves to my dog and having him tell me to kill! And I don't own a dog!
Everybody denies I am a genius--but nobody ever called me one!
It's actually a right-wing advocacy site.
So you are saying that only the left-wing should be allowed to report news?
Maybe you should read more than one day of the site. I've been a daily reader for three years. They are much more of a Libertarian site than anything else.
These are the guys that broke the story about questionable ties the VP had that cost him his home state in the election. They also were the first to report about military ballots sitting on ships that has prompted an investigation by Congress and special mail flights to deliver the boallots. They have also been reporting the federal land grab that lost Gore most of the west.
You may not like your news with a right slant, but they are a solid news agency. And thy have all made public who they voted for in the elections. Can you name me another news source that has done the same?
Viv
-----------
I Use Napster. I use DeCSS. I buy over $1000 a year in CD/DVDs.
Viv
Gmail invites for ip
If you take a look at the rest of the news on the site it becomes quickly apparent that it's not quite news. It's actually a right-wing advocacy site.
There is no way even 1 PS2 would find its way too Irak because of the trade barrier. Hell, the poor people there can't even get medicine... :)
_No_ way they would get their hands on "hi-tech" equipment like the PS2
Btw. do they even use NTSC? I am pretty sure that I read somewhere that the middle east uses the PAL tv-system. I know what NTSC equipment looks like on PAL tv. Not the stuff you wanna create nukes with.
Reminds me of when my father used to work for Crosfield Electronics. They made $100K scanners for publishing companies before the bottom dropped out an you could get what they were making to fit on your desktop.
Crosfield was interested in selling some of the scanners to the Soviet Union ('cause back then, that's what it was called). They had to go through the Pentagon to get an export license, since the feds thought that these scanners might be repurposed for image analysis. In a meeting with the Designated Bureaucrat, my father was asked "Do you think that Crosfield's scanners present a potential threat to Americans?"
My father, ever the wiseguy, responded: "Well, if the scanner was dropped out of an airplane above someone's house, yes, I think they would constitute a threat."
They got the export license.
Dissappointing our kids? Well, we obviously need to invade and get them back!
;-)
For a full refund of course..
I really feel that this site must be owned by Sony. I mean, c'mon. Why else would they talk about the incredible graphics capabilities of the PS2? How could that possible effect the effectiveness of any typical type of super computer. But, as I'm sure the site says somewhere, "The Playstation 2 isn't your typical super computer." :-)
I couldn't tell if you were experimenting with poor-man's cryogenics or looking for the orange sherbet.
"Beyond that, the graphics capabilities of a PlayStation are staggering -- five times more powerful than that of a typical graphics workstation, and roughly 15 times more powerful than the graphics cards found in most PCs."
Looks like they finally understood how to conquer the world.. by making hi-tech cool-graphics movies and/or games.. Will we have a Quake version with the face of Bush as the Final Enemy?
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
Point 1. Britain consists of England, Scotland and Wales.
Point 2. The Assembly is merely an elected version of the old Welsh Office.
Point 3. Your mastery of Welsh pronunciation rules is quite impressive.
Point 4. Ignorance isn't really something you should be celebrating.
Normally I wouldn't waste time commenting on something like this, BUT this post is the funniest thing I have ever seen on /. (I love jokes about the French surrendering.)
Obviously this article is a fake, but it raises an interesting point. Iraq has had a computer embargo since 1989. Imagine what the state of the art was for computing circa 1989. The boxes are old. They probably had mostly mainframe and UNIX servers. Personal computers in that part of the world were quite rare back then. They have been cut off from maintenance repair people, tech support, and software updates for 11 years. They don't have an internet connection. It was cut off by the embargo.
Sure, they can probably get some parts and computers through smugglers. They can probably get some connectivity through their decaying phone system. At 11 years old and counting, the hardware is probably only supported by the vendors. But, vendors aren't going to cooperate. Almost all UNIX and mainframe vendors are NATO/UN based and would face serious consequences for breaching the embargo. Imagine trying to get new parts through smugglers. "No no, I need a model M234412 not M234411! I can't install this software without an upgrade in the compiler!" Think about the technical expertise of smugglers.
Every year hundreds of security holes are found. Patches are created and posted. Imagine being 11 years behind on all of your security patches for all of the computers in your country.
Iraq must be hurting for computers.
Mr Sony-manager-san: Aieee! Yields are down again!
Mr Sony-engineer-san: We'll miss our Christmas pre order deadlines! It's Hari-kiri time!
Mr Sony-marketing-san: What we need is someone to blame, someone who won't sue us...
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
He's planning on bringing about the downfall of Western civilisation by depriving the kids of PlayStation 2. After the abject failure of Y2K to end civilisation, Saddam has decided that if enough kids are deprived of the only Christmas present they want this year, there will be rioting in the streets by Jan 1st, and civilisation will begin to fall shortly after. By about Jan 15th, Saddam "Santa" Hussein will offer to release his stockpile of PS2's in exchange for being voted Undisputed Commander of the World. You saw it here first.
Saddam has obviously been using a pseudonym while trolling for information! He's probably been using us for years, asking about the suitability of various non-computer computers as components of a beowulf cluster!
The bastard!
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Well obviously it wouldn't be different in Scotland as opposed to England as they are both part of the same country - ie. Britain. That was how this entire thread started.
A source close to Government Intelligence services in the UK said: "This is complete cobblers. For a start, the suggestion that there's a shortage of standard PC hardware in Iraq is silly. PCs are commodities like cars and washing machines, and they can get as many PIII and P4 PCs as they like, sanctions or no sanctions".
Seems to hit the nail on the head...
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
not really, here is how you can get some weapons grade plutonium
1. Gather the necessary supplies: one (1) miniature remote control pick-up truck, (1) bottle of prell brand shampoo. One (1) plastic flying/gliding disk (frisbee brand works nicely)
2. Sneak into building of local university where Plutonium and lasers are kept. Note: it may be necessary to use the frisbee to distract/confuse the guard by setting off the motion detectors. The trick here is to make the guard think that there is a glitch in the alarm system. You see, he won't notice the frisbee on the camaras, but the motion detectors sure will. The alarms will go off, but he will see nothing on the monitors. When he leaves the front desk to check it out, you can easily slip by into the room where they keep the lasers and plutonium. IMPORTANT:Don't forget to recover the frisbee. You are going to need it to confuse the guard again to make good your escape!!
3. Ok, you are now in the room with the plutonium. You are going to need to position the lasers in such a way that they reflect off of the mirrors in the room and burn a hole in the wall large enough to pass the plutonium through on the remote control truck.
4. You are almost home now, but this is the tricky part: switch the plutonium in the reactor (it is the stuff that looks like glow in the dark shampoo) with the shampoo you brought with you. You may need to use the laser again to get into the room with the plutonium.
5. That's it!! once you have the plutonium inthe bottle. secure it to the back of the truck, and simply drive it out through the hole you created with the laser.
6. Clean up, cover the holes you made and leave. It's Miller time!! oh, you may need to confuse the guard again with the frisbee trick in reverse to get out of the building. Don't worry though, guards are pretty easy to fool with such a clever trick, and it should work twice in one night.
It makes sense now. I was wondering if CmdrTaco was high or something, laughing at Saddam Hussein stockpiling PS/2s. Although, that would be kinda funny, too.
-- Count Spatula: The Culinary Vampire "...because my cooking sucks."
FBI and CIA can say anything bad about iraq.
even when they buy large amount of PS2.
what happened if they bought large volume of ice cream?
FBI will say, they want to extract the ice cream
and become chemical weapon?
-- Hasbullah bin Pit (sebol)
I knew that the PS2 was ahead of it's time as far as technology goes, but it's pretty obvious why Sadam wants this tech. He is a very old school hacker, reminiscant about his glory days of the seventies and eighties. It just so happens that he wants to play one of his favorite games -- Global Thermonuclear Warfare.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
When they finally do get theres they are gonna find out it has poor DVD playback when they use a Scart cable, in its normal language its a bugger to program for, with BASIC its an insult to iraqi inteligence and the bloody things just droped in price a few days after buying one.
If you ask me they should just stick to dreamcast
Da Cr33p
When told about the awesome power of the PlayStation 2, Saddam Hussein was heard muttering "Imagine a beowulf cluster of those..."
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
If Jordanian and Turkish inspectors rarely examine "small" shipments under 100 poundsThen why aren't they sticking Athelons inside stuffed animals or something?
You slashdot people have very bad taste in humor! Don't you realize how dagerous video games really are?!?!
Just think if Kleybold and Harris had PS2s rather than just plain old PC games -- if they had 15 times as much processing power, think of havoc they might have wreked; they might just have nuked the school!
At home, video games are turning our children into crazed, heartless, violent, anti-social, devil warshipping killers; and abroad, video games are turning our 3rd world crazed heartless violent anti-social devil warshipping dictators into... well... PS2 playing 3rd world dictators!
Stop the madness! We must ban video games for the sake of our children, and our 3rd world dictators!And you slashdot people should stop making light of this serious threat to the moral fabric of our world as well. shame on you all!
--
adrien cater
boring.ch
Point and Grunt
The moderator obviously did not understand the book. It's extreamly un-funny. Maybe it's because I've read both "Ender's Game" and "Peter Pan" this week.
Nipok Nek
Why choose white shoes?
What about a beowulf cluster of communist PS2 consoles?
...let's make it under linux: a million communist cannot be wrong! (quoted by a friend)
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
After watching this on other lists for
a few days. I've come to the conclusion
it was a clever hoax.
Tracy Johnson
Justin Thyme Productions
Sponsors Empire on The HPe3000 at URL above.
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
Things are either true or not. The origin of the story does not determine this.
Some posters dismiss this story as right-wing propagandism. They might be right. And next thing we know, these so called 'compasionate conservatives' blame the 'lefty liberal OpenSource advocates' for giving Saddam Hussain the means to threaten western civilisation once again.
I can think of at least one corporation who would not mind these points of view....
This smells like a hoax - imagine these people putting so much effort into converting the PS2s into viable development stations and networking them? It doesn't seem likely. I get visions of Boris, Natasha, and Fearless Leader working into the wee hours of the night, building new kernel loads...
On the other hand, if this article isn't a spoof, then it could be an elaborate plot to deprive American children of their decadent and infidel Christmas celebrations. Once again, I get visions of Boris, Natasha, and Fearless Leader wringing their hands in glee knowing that they have disrupted life in Frostbite Falls...
Moose and Squirrel, where are you when we need you?
I donate all spillover Karma to the charity of my choice... Ada was still a babe despite what people may say...
How are those Iraqis going to have the time to build bombs while they're distracted by all the PS2's great games? Oh, wait...
...Santa Claus!
Mike
Intel transfer the difficult from Hadware to software, for get more power, programmer need more technology. -- chinaitn
Wait a minute, you mean video wargame technology can be used to make real war? Hello!
So i'm sure they can't call up Dell and order up a bunch of Dual 900Mhz PIII's and have them shipped. They can't buy anything from pretty much anyone if it is considered a computer. A PS2 is not a computer so they buy those and not get bitch slapped by the US Airforce. An embargo is a serious deal that we in the US don't think about. Ever see a picture of a traffic jam in Cuba? All those car's were built in the 50's. No new cars in Cuba.
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
Tech 1: Quick! Launch that nuke to get rid of those mechs.
Tech 2: Just a second, there's a few too close, I'll pop 'em with my railgun before they get in range... there, now I can launch.
<ground begins to rumble, alarms ring>
Supervisor: What the hell!!!
Tech 1 and 2: Oh F#@$!
FYI, California and Utah are both part of the same country. Yet, they have different laws. Why do you think that all laws are uniform throughout a country?
It's also the kind of press videogame crazed teenagers would think would be a cool reason for buying a PS2.
Calum
"We will stalk the infidels with their own hedonistic tools of mindless amusement! We will turn their pig-dog economics against them and kill them in their beds! We will....oooh, pretty pictures. Ibn Abd-el Hakim, give me the controller!"
Here's a tip for the fibbies: It might be worthy to check out whether they're stockpiling flight-sim joypads for the PS2 at the same time.
NES based missile targeting system.
"Will someone PLEASE blow that dust out of the cartridge!!! I'm trying to scud Kuwait!!"
"What do you mean these light guns aren't real weapons!??! I bought 5 million of these systems cause they said they included guns!!!!"
As the world moves forward, and the internet and other communications mediums bring down international barriers from an intellectual point of view, is it completely inconceivable to think that Saddam and Iraq may attempt to sway the leaders of the world by the most powerful method possible : public opinion? If Iraq manage to acquire a large number of Playstation 2's and then create a shop to flog them at bargain basement prices, with prices dropping based on the number of sanctions dropped we could well find riots in the streets of major capital cities around the world demanding a more friendly attitude towards Iraq. Perhaps Sony are also in on this? By supplying a few millions Playstation 2s to the Iraqi leadership they could well pave the way for this sort of return. Perhaps in return a new law will be passed by Saddam requiring all Iraqi citizens to purchase a Playstation 2 within 6 months or be gassed to death? This would certainly explain the measly allocation of Playstation 2's around Europe... Time for a bit of cybersquatting methinks. /me heads off to register.com to grab getyouriraqiplaystation2shere.com
All I know is,... he better not violate the GPL. Release all your kernel mods! You bastard!
"Nate reaches for his nmap."
"Scan them now!"
Someone over there read This Article from April of this year.
-Ando
- Ando
Also, the article neglected to blame the bounty of freezing rain and snow that I'm supposed to get tonight on that DASTARDLY Saddam. That's just shoddy journalism if you ask me.
1) where'd he get all the PSX2s?
2) will ebay be indicted for treason or something?
3) the PSX2 is classified as a computer in England (with the bundled BASIC); how is it not classified as one everywhere else?
4) even if all this is true, the DIA should've done that extra 15 seconds of legwork to figure out no one can make heads or tails of programming them
5) i hope these evil Iraqi computer scientists release the source code to the operating system that they build that allows for distributed computing on linked PSX2s. how are they building this cluster again?
Upshot is, there's no good games out for the PSX2 to distract the evil Iraqi computer scientists from their task of world domination. Hasn't this war been milked dry already? Cripes what a non-issue, but then again... now that Russia's our friends (here's a hint: it was china, not the us, they were soiling themselves over the whole time) might as well keep on demonizing those sinister brown people.
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
the japanese used scrapped american cars to make zeors that were used on pearl harbor.
and a computer used in war is a killer without remorse.
no matter what scrabble brains does, its a grave decsion to under estimate him. one need only look at the grave yard that houses those who did.
Apparently Sadaam could imagine a beuwulf cluster of these things...
What a kludge!!!
Sure the PS2 has the power, but he's going to have to graft on a lot of technology to build a unmanned vehicle. I could see the ability to build simulators, but control systems will be much harder to graft onto the PS2.
It's my understanding that the A-bombs (dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki) were designed without the use of any computers at all. It was the H-bombs that required the use of computers.
WRT what China (or Iraq) could do with a supercomputer, there's still the issue of computer-aided cryptanalysis. Being able to read the other guy's messages gives you a huge military advantage, and you sometimes need a supercomputer to do it in a reasonable time.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
This story brought to you by the same people who claim that Beer Helps Vision.
Right?
Buying hot cruise missles would be both cheaper and more effective.
Well, there goes my insignificant karma.. *sigh*
I think it is a great idea to use the PS2 as missle guidence systems. They are compact, powerfull, light weight, have small power consumption, inexpensive, and they analize graphics/polygons faster then almost anything else close to its price range/availibiliy. They are perfect!
"Iraq has long had difficulty calculating the potential yield of nuclear devices -- a critical requirement in designing such weapons."
Why is this so important? Why not just MAKE one, and if it works, measure the size of the hole?
Seriously, with the import restrictions, the most advanced stuff he has may be the equal to a 486. (on a broad basis) Except for the stuff he smuggles.
so something like PS2 may have superior capability. Looks like he is trying to make a crude cluster of the units:
maybe we can send him all of those old IBM PS2s filling up our land fills. there has got to be a use for them someplace.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
TSIA
-S
This just isn't funny anymore, and it's probably been used more times than the beowulf cluster joke!
The bit about networking them really gives it away--reinforced by the fact that PS2's are the "Big Topic" right now (Christmas).
When I first read it I thought it might be possible--not as a networked power computer or anything (a cluster of cheap pentium linux machines will do a better job!) but as a missile guidance system--just that it's really cheap. Of course, a palm pilot would probably be a much better guidance system, and probably easier to reprogram...
The reason it sounded slightly viable at first was the cheap price and the fact that it would be pretty trivial for a government to come up with interface cartridges--
hmm, come to think of it, can anyone come up with a better price/power ratio for anything around that size? I bet a palm is no where near that much power. OTOH, how much power can a missile guidance system use--bet they still use Z-80's.
There are some powerful defense systems on warships that are still being powered by Z80's including radar, tracking and firing systems.
He won't use them in weapons, he's gonna sell them on eBay and use the proceeds to buy weapons.
-={(Astynax)}=-
-={(Astynax)}=-
"Darkness beyond Twilight"
...you can tell me how Sadam is going to *netowrk* those PS2?!
I suggest he uses a 300B modems -- that will surly alow him to keep up to speed with his missles.
Hey, maybe Sadam is willing to buy some of my 8mm tapes for backup. Any suggestion how much I should be asking?!!
Karma stuck at 50? Add 2-5 inches.. err.. 2-5x Karmas Count to your pen1es.. err.. Karma all naturally and private
From the article:
Most Americans don't realize that each PlayStation unit contains a 32-bit CPU -- every bit as powerful as the processor found in most desktop and laptop computers
and...
At just over 4 pounds, it contains a 300 MHz-driven, 128-bit CPU.
What's wrong here?
I say it's a hoax. While it seems like a plausible thing to do, I just don't think it has happened. And 15-20 clustered PS2s? How many DoD computers completely blow that computing power away?
If Iraq is doing this, they'll be massively disapointed when the find out that they can't get anywhere near the stated performance out of the PS2 without very skilled programmers, all of whom are making six figures writing game engines. They'll have a hard time recruiting anyone "For the glory of Iraq."
If they were doing this, they'd be setting up a cluster of durons, the general purpose CPU and the huge selection of optimizing compilers make the x86 the ideal choice to simulate nuclear explosions on.
A PS2 might be a bit cheaper, with the company footing some of the hardware cost, but I could build a cluster-ready duron for $500 that would massively outperform it in all but the most biased of benchmarks.
But, it's a funny joke, reminiscent of the Macintosh ads.
(We should hope the Iraqis *are* doing this, it'd mean they're no threat at all. It's be like buying C64s to use as targetting computers in SCUDs.)
Well, the processors in the JSOW prototypes were a pair of militarised 486-33s.
I suppose weapons don't need that much processing power.
Boy, is Saddam going to be pissed when he finds out they're all Region 1 encoded!
A choice of masters is not freedom
If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
I'm a Discordian. I'm always bizarrely serious. If what I'm saying makes sense or seems like it could be true dispite every instinct you have screaming that it must be false, then I've done my job well.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It's clearly right wing, but sure, left wing propeganda is common as well (but not nearly as common). I think it's fear mongering for people who don't know or who don't want to know any better.
Propeganda is a relative term, the meaning of it in the Us has changed over the years for reasons I don't want to get into. Really any "bending" of the truth could be called propeganda.
Take this example. I can't remember how many children die per day in Iraq, something like 2000 due to malnutrition due to the war and the embargo. Is this just left wing propeganda? Is it even true? Some are appalled by this, most don't know about it, some don't want to beleive it, some don't beleive it, some think thats just too bad, that they deserve it because Saddam is a ruthless dictator. Take your pick. The truth is tough to find without firsthand knowledge.
This kind of thing happens all the time.
I remember a few years back a confiscated (?spelling?) korean submarine had parts from a Playstation.
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
Actually I hear GWB used to play video games all the time while governor of Texas, so he's got experience.
And, of course, if you remember the Starcraft 64 commercials, Saddam Hussein is bad at least RTSes.
--
Or you can do it the easy and expensive way, and just pay some starving Russian/Ukranian/ Belarusian/whatever techs for some bomb parts.
Anybody who doesn't have their own stash of weapons-grade plutonium by now probably doesn't want any.
--
Welcome to the Turing Tarpit, where everything is possible but nothing interesting is easy.
I don't know whether this story is true or not, but I don't see why CmdrTaco thinks it's funny. Saddam finally has access to the computers he needs to build sophisticated weapons. Ha ha hee hee. Hilarious.
----
"Oh, bother," said Pooh, as he hid Piglet's mangled corpse.
"A single PlayStation can generate up to 75 million polygons per second. Polygons, as noted in the DIA report, are the basic units used to generate the surface of 3-D models -- extremely useful in military design and modeling applications."
The governments of the world don't want him to have computers powerful enough to do anything but play pac-man and a ps2 has enough computing power to calculate any one of a thousand military computations, design new bombs and aircraft these things would take years with their computers. The same reason that one version of the ps2 is not for export to any country. With these he could create a cluster and have a mainframe. That would be pretty cool though a cluster of PS2s take on ASCI white.
"The secret of success is to know something nobody else knows." -Aristotle Onassis
Well, my wording isn't exactly correct but it's close. The cost of computing power nears zero, which I think you'd agree with. Even the cost of engineering design approach zero if you get the design for free somewhere, or buy it for cheap from someone looking to make a quick buck.
Naw, if anything, George "Dubbya" would morph into a 30 foot nose with a McDonald's straw. In other words, Cokezilla!
Better bring in the dumptrucks of nose candy before he heads for Tokoyo.
--
--
Intelligence is definitely a recessive trait.
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
Saddam Hussein was again barred from being within 50 feet of the Baghdad Wal-Mart,
for attempting to purchase more than two units of the Sony Playstation 2.
After a short statement from the Wal-Mart Home office, the manager of the Baghdad Wal-Mart,
Bill Neuman, addressed the crowd from behind a piece of bulletproof glass.
"It's like the sign says. No more than 2 Playstation 2's in one day! The gentleman in question attempted to
violate this rule multiple times. We had warned him before, and he refused to listen. Barring him from
entering Wal-Mart property was the only action we felt that would teach him the lesson he was refusing to learn."
Repeated attempts to contact Mr. Hussein did not yield any results. Sources close to Mr. Hussein, however,
indicate that Mr. Hussein will be forgoing another trip to Wal-Mart, and will skip straight to the Baghdad Toys R Us.
"A Geek for all Times!" - Dave Adler, PMEB mailing list, 3/14/99
PS2's controlling unmanned aerial vehicles? Making up a super computer? Get real people, I think you're overlooking the obvious.. if Iraq sells 4,000 of the ps2 units that are allegedly in their possession on ebay, they could raise enough funds to double their military.
--- One flew east, one flew west.. One flew over the cuckoo's nest.
you could get more CPU power for less with a bunch of 1GHZ athlons running Linux.
and NO, a PS2 does not have 15 times more graphical power than a normal PC 3d card.
that article is clueless.
-I go to Rice, so figure out my email address
IIRC there was a large scale import operation running into Iraq from Jordan during the Gulf War; it's not likely to be much harder now.
freedom, n. Allowing people you don't like to do things you disapprove of.
Now he can team up with the folks at that Czech hospital using the Atari and take over the world. What'll be next Afghanistan stockpiling game genie.
Thanks for the memories
Well, excuse *me* for not being on top of the lame-ass-jokes department. Browsing at 2 usually keeps those from my eyes.
-- Count Spatula: The Culinary Vampire "...because my cooking sucks."
Well, well, well. Did any of yall notice a screw up in this article...Check it out. It says in one paragraph the PS2 has a 32-bit CPU then in yet another paragraph it says it has a 128-bit CPU. Just look at the evidence:
"Most Americans don't realize that each PlayStation unit contains a 32-bit CPU -- every bit as powerful as the processor found in most desktop and laptop computers,"
"The Sony PlayStation 2 is one of the most popular all-in-one home entertainment systems of its kind. At just over 4 pounds, it contains a 300 MHz-driven, 128-bit CPU."
I rest my case If I have a case at all.
"When I look back, my life is not a foreign country, it's more like a library book returned long ago." - ????
Of course it's a hoax; everyone knows that if Saddam was really worth his evil dictator worth in salt, he'd be waiting for nintendo's Game Cube.
He could rule the adults by linking up the Game Cube's to a geostatic topsphere ATG missle array, and he could rule the kids by kicking their ass at Pokeman Stadium
http://www.mp3.com/subatomicacorn
"Old man yells at systemd"
Starting wars for political purposes? That's Clinton (à la Kosovo), not Bush. Clinton bombed a couple of African countries to distract the media and the public from his scandals. The Clinton administration dropped bombs on more countries than any other administration in U.S. history. And there wasn't even a war! Thank God the era of Clinton-Gore will soon be over (except for another six scandalous years for masochistic New Yorkers).
Starting a war "makes perfect sense" to amoral people (i.e. most liberals), but not to people with a conscience. Bush possesses principles, which impose limitations on the courses of action he will consider.
Bush's plan to avert a recession is to return to us the money that was OVER-taxed. The government has plundered the nation's wealth with confiscatory taxes, and Bush, in Robin Hood fashion, will give it back to the people who produced it and rightfully own it.
Here we go. I believe they gave too much away when they mentioned that if Saddam had any problems, all he had to do was wait, and the Internet would provide him the answers. This is an Obvious attempt by SONY to reduce reverse-engineering by linking it to Evil-Bad Consequences. Now, it is no longer simply that SONY will get bent out of shape if you figure out how to remove region coding, oh no..... If you hack your PS2, you could be HELPING THE EVIL TYRANT TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!!!
Very clever of them, I say.
Nipok_Nek
Why choose white shoes?
The Manhattan Project didn't have computers!--they used slide rules. Ask your grandfather about them. Punch cards were 15-20 years later. The Clinton Administration was right, nuclear weapons design is not a difficult thing to do anymore.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Ben
And now Iraqi engineers are plagued with the dilemma: play, or reverse engineer?
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
when i first read your sig i thought it said "mountain of feces" man i'm getting tired...
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
.
Here are some other military applications for common toys:
TickleMeElmo: incendiary explosive
Lego Mindstorm: A1 Abrams Tank
Teletubbies Video Tapes psychological warefare
Pokemon: fusion bomb
Someone you trust is one of us.
Imagine, a single PS2 sitting in a bare white room. A roar fills the world, and tanks roar around the little console, their turrets facing outward. The voice of God, The new Play Station 2, so powerfull, it's considered a weapon!. Voice of Sodamned, The new jihad is sponsered, in part, by the new Sony Playstation 2... Kill your enemies and have a great time doing it! I swear by it, and you'll swear at it, infidels!!
And that's my $0.32 (adjusted for inflation).
In a shocking turn of events, Tiger Electronics recently revealed that their slumping sales on Furby toys, had been bought out by Iraqi officials. Confidential sources have confirmed this, that with a hardware hack made available on the internet recently, that the said Furbies have appeared on the market, modified to deliver Iraqi government doctrine and propaganda.
The toys, described as appearing to have "Black bushy markers scribbled on using Sharpie markers.", have shown up chanting "Death to America!", "God is good!", and "Saddam, our father!" have been confirmed by independant sources as being in regular production. Sanford and Tiger toys have been unavailable for comment.
With their low cost and easily available 8 bit components, CIA and UN officials have been quoted in saying "This has to be the most cost effective form of propaganda we've seen since the printing press was invented.".
Puppet government indeed.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Actually, Iraq is stockpiling them so that the Iraqi Army can learn to kick the Kurd's ass in the new X-Men fighter. Save the Kurd's! Either bring them to the US to train them in Wolverine's new moves, or ship them PS2's!
If it wasn't for those meddling kids!
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
By International standards CBS, NBC, ABC & CNN are consided centre/right media... Just look at how the protests in Seattle were reported. Look at the way those same media outlets keep pushing the personality cult of Alan Greenspan, the hero of global financial 'reforms' that are overiding workers rights & enviromental standards across the world. New WTA rules mean Countries can't even block imports for enviromental or labour reasons. So (for example) Australia can't ban imports of rainforest timber or rice grown on slash n burnt rain forest land. Or compare the way they report the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. For example they went on for a week about those 2 reservists who were killed in Ramallah, yet they never mentioned anything about the 2 elderly Palestinians (one was 82) who were slaughtered by New York Jewish settlers, while the Israeli army just stood back & watched. The 2 old men were trying to stop the settlers from confiscating their olive groves that had been in their family for over 3oo years. (Has anyone noticed that all those troublemaking crazy Jewish settlers have loudmouth New York accents) Plus they never mention the fact that more Palestinians have been victims of Israeli terrorism than Israelis who have been victims of Palestinian terrorism.....Look at that interveiw that NBC's political correspondent (I forget his name) had with Nader. Where he kept on going on about Arrafat being a former terrorist. Yet does NBC ever mention that the former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin & his minister Yitzar Shamir were both wanted for terrorism & murder by the British, & that they were responsable for the ethnic cleansing of Arabs from central Israel in the 40's, using the same technics that the Serbs used in Bosnia & Kosovo - They led the attack by the Israeli terrorist gangs, the Stern Gang & the Irgun, on the Arab village of Dier Yassin, where 260 old men, womem & children were murdered. Then they got on the radio & said that would happen to any other Arabs who didnt leave & 700000 Palestinians were driven out. Then the Israeli govt gave a defacto OK to the slaughter by passing legislation so Israelis could confiscate the houses of the Palestinians who were driven out.
In the time spent to write this article, post it on the internet, e-mail it it CmdrTaco, link it from SlashDot [insert SlashDot Effect here], the U.S. Government has bought enough time to investigate what Hussein has REALLY acquired (no, SlashDot readers still don't know this yet, and we will NOT, either). Whatever he has smuggled in, it/they are SIMILIAR enough to be compared with PS2's, hence suspectible to open debate as to what they are.
I have been somewhat concerned for nearly a year now about micro-computer technology penetrating Iraq, but they needed a diversion. And more importantly, U.S. Intelligence needed a diversion thrown to the think-they're-in-the-know public (so we wouldn't get our hands dirty, and of course, not get us concerned over what's really going on).
Now it's happened ....
"He who questions training trains himself at asking questions." - The Sphinx, Mystery Men (1999)
Not just the PS2, but video games in general. I'm very worried about this development; this is serious stuff. Think about what the Iraqis can learn from video games:
- how to create a plane/tank/soldier with unlimited ammunition
- a full-on frontal assualt by a lone individual will always defeat superior tactics and weaponry
- nothing says "victory" like an rapid-extending Bionic claw
- ninja's are the heart and soul of every nations defensive capabilities: defeat them, and the enemy will fall
- if you fight long and hard enough, you will eventually be faced with the leader of your enemy, who will transform into a hideous, weapon-wielding mutant of some kind. He will, however, have one key weakness you can exploit
For me, the possibility of George W. transforming into a 30-foot tall mutant with machine guns for hands is reason enough to nuke Iraq right now.
You are almost a century off. Punched cards were first used in the 1890 US Census.
Overheard in Sadam's lair: "Take the PlayStation2, stick it into chipmunk - wire it to his brain, insert the Quake game, and use the USB port to wire the PlayStation2 to an andrenaline bag. Make it so that whenever the chipmunk makes a frag, he gets the adrenaline. Then use the FireWire port (I use the term FireWire a: because Sony prefers i.link and b: FireWire just sounds cool) to connect a webcam. Use the USB port once more to wire goggles to the chipmunk. By taking advantage of the PS2's AI capabilities, we'll use the camera and goggles to go with the game so that what the Chipmunk sees relates to what's there. Oh yeah, and give him some grenages, a Glock, and a Deutsch..."
It's all about the Karma Points, baybee...
Moderators: Read from the bottom up!
SIG: HUP
I just dedicated 50 playstions to help with my seti@home.. *snicker*
chained together PS2s acting together to display a hi-rez graphics simulation. However during this display they made sure folks knew that the hardware and software used to do this would NOT be released or sold. It was a tech demo - nothing more. However, it does point out that it's possible to do this and if you know something is posisble you're halfway to doing it yourself..
:-)
Still, I find the idea that these guys are going to be able to do this pretty amusing. One of the articles I read said they might be able to chain together a pile of these to remotely control a plane! Um yeah, I think they certainly could find a better use than that. Another part of the article claimed that they were having trouble calculating yields of their weapons. Hell, wouldn't bigger just be better?
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Of course the Manhatten Project had computers! Remember, at that time "computer" was a job description and not a piece of hardware.
....
Richard Feynman describes punch-card computers on the Manhatten Project in "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman". Admittedly, calling them "computers" is a stretch, but they did do mathematical operations on numbers punched into cards. Output was more punched cards. They used *a lot* of cards
--
Welcome to the Turing Tarpit, where everything is possible but nothing interesting is easy.
If he can get enough of these things on hand, he can actually train his troops to surrender using an advanced realistic simulation rather than the real thing.
Next time the war could last 36 instead of 100 hours. Imagine how much more efficient they'll be at giving up.
Since we're getting into detail on the processor (I dunno why, but we are), I'm going to explain it. The main processor is 128 bit. Secondary processors are 32 bit. Clock speeds also vary. Also note that it is NOT uncommon to have multiple processors. In your computer, you've got one for you video card, one for the general stuff (CPU), and one called a math coprocessor (if you don't have these, it's time to upgrade!).
It's all about the Karma Points, baybee...
Moderators: Read from the bottom up!
SIG: HUP
C'mon, Slashdot, you know it'll only take a couple of stories like this for the government to reclassify the PS2 as munitions and make you go through tons of red tape to get one. Then there'll be the "export-grade" PS2 for selling outside the US and Canada (Code Name: "Pong").
Hey maybe Saddam is trying to corner the world market on PS2's. With Bush and Powell in the Exexutive Branch we can have Bush-Saddam 2 Solid: the Ps2 war. To quench America's unending thirst for well-marketed yet suspiciously rare video game consoles, Bush sends us to war to "protect our freedom"...
...seriously, though, it looks like Saddam is yet another person to be suckered in by Sony's BS-marketing about the "graphics power" of the PS-2. I find it hard to believe that the guts of a PS 2 could make a "supercomputer" more cheaply than a Beowolf cluster of PC's.
"Applications for this system are potentially frightening," said an intelligence source. "One expert I spoke with estimated that an integrated bundle of 12-15 PlayStations could provide enough computer power to control an Iraqi unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV -- a pilotless aircraft."
Yeah, and for that same $4,000 you could buy 2 PC's to controll 2 UAV's.
"Chill, Orrin!"---Trent Lott
Lets face it, as technology improves, the cost of designing weapons approaches zero. Whether the story is true or not, it points to this fact. Lets face it, in 30, 40 years every third world country is going to have some sort of nuclear weapon. A lot of countries will have delivery systems as well. This is just a reality we will have to face. The PS2 Weapon Development Platform(tm) might be a bit much, but how hard do you think it is for Saddam to get his hands on a bunch of PC's?
If all it takes is a cluster of PS2's to make weapons, there isn't much the FBI or CIA can do. While this site reaks of far right wing propeganda (Saddam needs to be crushed and he stole your child's PS2, as well) I certainly don't support it. America needs to realize it will be much, much harder in the coming years to rule the world.
We must invade Iraq, steal all their PS2's, then nuke them into oblivion!
And then, we attain the movie rights and begin production of a game based on the battle for the PS2.
As soon as they learn how to drive them, we're in trouble.
a/s/l here. Sorry, adding domain tags to your s
Sadly, we are at the dawn of a new arms race. Rumor is that Sadam's PS2 hording is a tacticle response to France's recently anounced "Nintendo Beowoulf cluster", capable of surendering over 1,000,000 times a second, in full 16 bit color.
Dirty Pirate Hooker
Enders Game
who that guy in the green fatigues with the funny little beret was waiting outside WalMart at midnight a few weeks ago was!
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
15 PS2s to control an unmanned air vehicle?
If this is true, then Saddam has no chance of controlling his air fleets with PS2s.
I mean, no-one is going to hold of FIFTEEN of the elusive little buggers, getting hold of just one is hard enough.
Clever bastard!
much happy place
I really hope it is a credible news source. Take a look at this article. C'mon, don't you want to believe this is true?!?! If a glass of beer can help protect vision, it must be why I am the only person in my family that doesn't wear glasses.
Mas vale cholo, que mal acompañado.
Saddam is really trying to make a Beowolf cluster of these!!
All those "Can you imagine a beowolf cluster of these?" jokes could really happen!!!
Here's what's really happened:
Saddam and Santa are close buds...and Sony doesn't believe in Santa. So in order to get enough PlayStation 2's in time for Christmas he had to pull some major strings!
Anyone else here remember Toys? In that film a crazy general had an army of brace-wearing kids using realistic flight sims to remote control real planes etc.
Just a thought.
--------------- Delete Windows before you mail me
So this is why I can not get my PS2? If we went to war over oil under the first President Bush maybe we should go to war over this with the new President Bush. It would get is presidency off to quite a nice start and it would get me the PS2 I do not want to pay $1000.00 for on Ebay. Rape and pillage the PS2s of Iraq! Let us show them why The United States won once and we can do it again!
Bingeldac denies any responsibility for the
spelling and/or grammatical errors above.
hey you guys at the nasa, check this out !!! you can buy a few 16x128bit cpus cluster like saddam !! "The Sony PlayStation 2 is one of the most popular all-in-one home entertainment systems of its kind. At just over 4 pounds, it contains a 300 MHz-driven, 128-bit CPU. In addition to a plethora of new games designed to utilize PlayStation 2's hardware, it can play games from the original PlayStation's library, audio compact discs and DVD movies." someone mail him to tell him those are actually far from beeing 128 bit cpus..
Considering the PS2 is most overhyped piece of shit to be foisted on the public in many years. If he had bought Dreamcasts or (snigger) Indremas, he might have a viable network. Otherwise, they would be most useful stacked on top of each other as a nice art piece in his tent.
Psychos do not explode when the sunlight hits them, I don't care how fucked up they are.
Unless the elite Republican Guard become l33t then I don't think we have anything to worry about? Cluster PS2s together into something useful? Puhlease.
He's trying to build a army of killer toys in the factory that his brother owns! He must be using the PSX2's as some kind of controller.
We will all buy the toys for Christmas and....Oh wait. That was a movie with Robin Williams wasn't it? Sorry.
Nurse? More medication please! The voices are making me post stupid comments again!
Are the /. trolls tools of Iraqi intelligence? Is the USDoD planning on bombing /. for supplying military assisstance to Iraq? Are those who mod down "Beowulf cluster" posts working for the CIA? Will Saddam also begin stockpiling nude statues of Natalie P*rtman? Will the Iraqis realize the military potential of hot grits?
-NOC Monkey (OOK!) Experience is what allows you to recognize a mistake the second time you make it.
If you know anything about avionics systems, digital flight controls systems and other technology used for ucavs you see that this a stupid really fast.
You dont NEED that much CPU power for the actual vehicle. To sim the vehicle it will help you out, but is not truly REQUIRED.
For the flight controls, look at the cpus that drive the FLCS on many current jets -- the MIL-STD-1750A. This is a 16bit architechure that can run at up to (the fastest I've seen anyway) a whopping 22.5mhz. It's memory capability sucks. BUT it's fine for a flight controls system. These run stores managemnent systems as well.
Now, things like LIDAR and terrain anaylsis will require more horsepower, but an off the shelf DSP (that I'm sure you could easily get in iraq) would be a much better solution.
Once again this is a crock.
"There's no secret. You just press the accelerator to the floor and keep turning left." -- Bill Vukovich
Our fine soldiers in the US Army needed a motivation for going back to Iraq, and Saddam just foolishly provided one! I can hear the movie trailer now... "The first time it was for Oil, this time it's PERSONAL!"
I doubt the Iraq can afford a single PS2 at the prices they're selling in those parts of the world...
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
He could've at least started stockpiling Dreamcasts. Then, he'd be able to play Chu Chu Rocket against infidel dogs all over the world, via the onboard modem! :D
...I was betting for a PS2, when suddenly a MIG plane stormed my block, bombing the power central and leaving half of town without electricity for a day! And now I can figure who are the shady types that hangs on toy stores and treat everyone a gunpoint when a new PS2 arrives! Maybe we have to send the G.I. Joe or the Masters of the Universe to punish Saddam... hope he hasn't his Mujadin Ken and Barbie ready!
...but the U.S., U.K., France, U.S.S.R., and China developed such weapons with computers that a typical 8086 system would eat for lunch.
So what now... embargo sliderules?
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
I don't particularly like Saddam Hussein, but I'm curious as to why people think they have the right to restrict someone's (or a nation's) computing power. Isn't that a little against the ethic around here?
(Warning - sarcasm and disillusionment follow)
Desert Storm gave Pres. Bush great ratings and that was just over yucky old oil which causes pollution and messes up the environment and unfortunately didn't sit too well with the youth voters so he didn't get a second term. DS2 will be about the PS2, something the 18-25 year old voters can get behind and secure GWB another 4 years. When do we invade?
Did I miss anything?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?