Slashdot Mirror
The Pentagon's Ultimate Home Theater
Steve Silberman writes "I was the first reporter to see the inside of a new battle-simulation system designed by the Institute for Creative Technologies, a 'military-entertainment' think tank sponsored by the Defense Department. Starting in September, Marines, infantrymen, and Air Force pilots will train for war in Matrix-like rooms in Oklahoma simulating urban and desert environments, with surround sound and photorealistic rendering of bombing runs and other scenarios. It may or may not be the future of military training, but it's certainly the future of home gaming. My article, 'The War Room,' will appear in the September issue of Wired."
That's military code for "Doom 3."
If they lose a life in the simulation, do they die in real life too?
503 Sig Unavailable
The Signature could not be accessed. Please try again later or contact the administrator
This is the real FPS game.
Gentlemen this is the war room, you can't fight in here
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I'm glad to see them put my taxes to good use ...
So realistic, you'll leave with sand in places you've never thought possible!
But the REAL question is, "where can I get one?"
Bunny hopping their way to victory!
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
How long will this take to get to home gaming though?
Or will these leave millitary use and get sold to private companies to have people pay to play in them?
Never Smoke A Banana.
How many times have we seen people pass off "stories" when they're just trying to get some attention. This guy was completely upfront and honest about a story he wrote that is of interest to many here.
Intution is of no use when there are snipers hidden in a street to kill you and you panic. That is the army tries to replace intution with training.
As a man under fire, my friend used to say how many times training and automatic reflex saved his life instead of intution. if pentagon thinks they can replace training with intution they are building a bad army.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
...if the geeks behind it ever use it to play counter-strike.
It's called Snow Hall I believe and it's at Ft Sill in Lawton, OK. I have friends up there that work at the place but they've never mentioned any signifigant upgrades. But being the military it does not mean that it didnt happen and they were probably not allowed to tell anyone at the time. I'll have to visit sometime to check it out hopefully.
Jesus christ, this is the sort of training they get?!
Limited Lethality my arse. Nothing dropped from a fighter-bomber can be considered "limited lethality" - Kinetic energy alone does a good job of eroding that particular definition
Anybody know of a peace simulation?
Say hello to my little sig.
Glory to the Room! sounds like fun
I already read the article in the processed-dead-tree-carcass, delevered-by-internal-combustion-engine copy of Wired. I'm amazed /. posted this story so late.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
more like FP FOR PHAILURE!
I joined the Air Force as an officer 6 years ago, and just left a few months ago. When I originally went to Carnegie Mellon University, I took multiple classes in Virtual Reality. Unfortunately, the AF would not allow me to take the time off to pursue a Masters in Virtual Reality there... as they needed my computer skills immediately.
I guess I was just 4 years early... those skills are in very high demand, now.
-Hell hath no fury like that of a woman scorned for
Hmm. Can they use all that nifty technology and virtual reality to make sure Military Police and Military Intelligence units understand the Geneva Conventions?
Seriously. The leadership failures that allowed (or even encouraged) the US military atrocities at Abu Ghraib have cost us far more than any VR simulation, and will continue to cost us as a nation for decades, in both world respect and in the recruitment of America-hating terrorists.
Perhaps the miltary should shelve some of this gee-whiz "VR-tainment" favor of simple classrooms with wooden benches and a blackboard and high-ranking instructors who state unequivocally that torture is un-American, repugnant to our values, and will not be tolerated at all in the US military.
Paraphrasing the Christian Bible, Mark 8:36,for what shall it profit an army, if it shall defeat the whole world, and lose its own soul?
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
oh get a grip.
first at least he was honest - he didn't put it forward as "hey take a look at this article I found" - hea was upfront that it was his article
secondly - it is possible for someone to be a reporter AND an editor. Next you'll be winging about someone claiming to be a songwriter AND have the gall to describe themselves as a singer.
what really bugs me is that you post that moan as an anoymous COWARD.
A good reason to sign my life away to the military!
Art Schools Dietzilla
play military spec Battlezone?
Since the VR is so realistic, why not use it instead of sending the pilots up in tin cans to get blown to pieces by the enemy? Actually, for the bombing runs, you wouldn't need any simulation - program the plane with a target, press the big red "Go Bomb" button and sit back to watch the wacky results. Same goes for the tanks - in fact they're even more simple (much like the people who usually drive them I guess).
Why are the machines of war still designed to carry meat-sacks around inside them?!
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
Another way for you bloody Yanks to kill people. Mod points and karma be damned.. surely there's a better way to spend your money. If you put half as much energy and cash into education maybe you wouldn't be the dumbfucks you are today.
-- "...I'm a bad guy because I, well, I sing some rock-and-roll songs." M. Manson
Taxpayer-funded plastic surgery.
Spoiler alert!
The last paragraph of the article gives the main surprise away of one of the best science-fiction books on Earth: "Ender's Game"
I recommend Ender's Game, easy to read and great, and recommend against reading the last paragraph of the article if you haven't already.
- -- Truth addict for life.
"Hi. I am a Wired writer. I would like to advertise my employer and possibly to third party suck-ups. Will you not join me in some ass kissing?"
I had a friend that used the VR lab at school to make a simulation shooting range/battle arena program. It didn't have great graphics or anything since he was a programmer, and not an artist but it was entirely usable.
You used some kind of wand thing and some goggles and when you had on the goggles you saw a gun in place of the wand, and targets and everything. You could even interact with controls in the virtual environments to bring the targets closer and all of that.
It was pretty fun to play around with, much better developed and more impressive than I can give it credit for since I only played with it breifly.
I can only assume that the govt spent more time and money to make this "futuristic training sim" but if two college students can do something similar in a month, I'm not all that impressed. Don't get me wrong, I am sure it is much more sophisticated than the one I saw, but surely over-priced and over-hyped just the same.
Just my 2 cents.
Aircraft training simulators, GCA radar simulators, ATC Tower Simulators, blank bullets and lasers, villages and buildings, etc. Wargames are just simulators in low tech (done in the real weather).
Soldiers are athletes; the harder they train, the better they perform. Great performance means living to a soldier, an athlete just gets a chunk of metal.
War is inevitable as long as one person does not like what another posesses, believes, articulates, or appears.
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
Why are the machines of war still designed to carry meat-sacks around inside them?!l y&threshold=2&commentsort=0&tid=126&mode=nested&pi d=10035085
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=118857&op=Rep
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I also think that, especially in today's environments, that the military has a healthy respect for human life outside of its own. How one achieves an objective is rapidly becoming just as important as accomplishing it. US policy is being judged on how well a soldier responds to a shoot/don't shoot scenerio or how much collateral damage is inflicted in an operation. Especially now that media organizations around the world can publicise every incident in near real-time.
Yes, as a profession of war, the military must accept a doctrine of kill or be killed when in combat but it is simplistic in the extreme to imply that means the military has no regard for human life.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
I am tired of the miliporn covered on /., its getting to be like Popular Science. Not one of these billion dollar toys could prevent twenty halfwits armed with boxcutters pulling the US economy down to its knees and dragging the entire nation into a paranoid delusion that is likely to last decades.
1. Where the FUCK is Oklahoma?
2. Why the hell are they playing Doom3 there?
They should have put it in California, then charged everyone to play it. You could have cleared up that state's phiscal woes within a couple months. People would drive days to play it.
One day, the Army will get it right, and people won't know what to do with themselves...
Such sophisticated system should be TOP SECRET computer operation by the armys. Who ordered details of location and super-capability should be punished severely.
I suggest you read Slashdot
How does that make you feel? Knowing that you are playing the same games that are used for training for soldier's in the army?
Am I the only one that is scared by that thought?
Is our nation a nation of war and destruction? Are our future young children going to grow up being trained to kill?
I know it's a bit of a stretch to say that playing one of these games makes you suitable to the army. But it's still kind of frightening. Aren't we as civilians supposed to be spending our time actually building our country? Does anyone else think that we should be thinking about this?
I value the future of our country; and I do not want us mentally to be become hardened killers... I honestly hope I am not alone in this.
By the way, did anyone else think of Bradbury's short story "The Veldt" when this article came up?
P.S. Strange that this short story is available on the web... Hmm, google is great, what can I say... Buy one of Bradbury's books if you haven't, he's a great read.
Oh, and if any country could claim credit for winning WWII, it would have to be the Soviet Union.
And if any country (besides Germany) could claim credit for starting WWII, it might be Russia. Stalin signing a pact with Hitler probably enboldened him to start the thing in the first place.
Several years ago, I came across a history book on WWII, encapsulating WWII from the 4 allies' perspective. It was basically the French, British, Russian, and US high school syllabus.
All 4 sections were strikingly similar in one respect.
"We won, everybody else helped"
The Onion also mentioned something related to that in the Oval Office
One of the main objectives of simulating wars is to know how to avoid war in real life. Are you trying to say that we should avoid peace in real life?
Coincidently, New York Times Magazine is also publishing a story about ICT in this weekend's edition:
S .html
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/22/magazine/22GAME
The article is very vague about the display hardware. Anybody know more? How is this different than the CAVE and other comparable systems?
Immersive Displays:
Fakespace Systems:
http://www.fakespace.com/products1.shtml
Visbox:
http://www.visbox.com/x2.html
Barco:
http://www.barco.com/virtualreality
have you seen http://www.americasarmy.com/?
Don't you hate meta-sigs?
2. Built in Lawton, OK (Ft. Sill) so the 9th Circuit Court cannot close it due to a resemblance to Disneyland.
Disney building interactive simulators! Wow! The imagination runs wild!
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
"These young warriors will live, play, fight, and die in the Matrix." Ummm, no, they won't. They will live, play, and fight in the Matrix. Only as they lay bleeding in some godforsaken desert, will they realize that they are going to die for real, and that all of their training was designed to make them forget that one simple fact. Don't glorify war - it gets people killed.
The sims described are in many ways like the "Shoot/Don't Shoot" sims police go through to determine when to pull their gun. What? You don't remember the stories about how the Army accidentially miscalled a situation at a checkpoint and they shot and killed innocent civilians? You don't think this training tool could help? The fact that you and that twit of a parent can't see anything but the fact that this is being used by the military and therefore must be inherently bad just shows your propensity for being reactive.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
it's a good call, really, we need to train our future soldiers how NOT to treat prisoners, since common sense isn't a req to join the military.
CB$@#UNB
free ipod and free gmail!
Perhaps these are better transcriptions.
"After all, what good does it do a person to acquire the whole world and pay for it with life?" -- Scholars Version
"For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?" --Revised Standard Version
I wouldn't want to be accused of promulgating the equivalent of the hopper's bible....
life and not soul? that's interesting... i wonder how it got to be soul in that translation.
does Greek have another word for soul, or is it interchangeable with life?
they both make sense... so i guess the idea shines through
As long as it isn't the royal wee he's talking about. Gotta draw the line somewhere.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
Common sense is also not a requirement to get a driver's license. Driving accidents kill more Americans than military actions do. So maybe we should force everyone to go through similar training to be allowed to drive a vehicle. For driving in LA, you'll be able to actually fire off some virtual rounds as well. Even better, actually encourage drunk virtual driving, just so that the trainees see what will happen when they get behind the wheel.
Our founding fathers removed the guys in charge. Be American. Vote incumbents out.
I am upset that we cut funding for social security and medicare yet have no problem funding entertainment theaters.
I am not saying this is not cool. Just that I do not understand why we need all this and why we are all paying for it when other problems need fixing.
http://saveie6.com/
and half a dozen Windows and Linux boxes down the hall
Reading the article showed me it was not an all Linux shop.
Makes me wonder what the Windows boxes are for, to inject some realistic unpredictability or the DRM?
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
The word (transliterated) is "psuche". From what I can gather, it refers most commonly to the "breath of life," or "vital force". This greek concept can be extended to encompass an immortal soul, but such an elaboration may not be what the author of Mark intended.
"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" implies that is is foolish to risk corruption and immorality for the sake of worldly glory.
but
"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own life?" implies that is is foolish to risk bodily injury and death for the sake of worldly glory.
I don't know greek, and am not much interested in Christianity, so I can't comment on the theological implications.
...is to teach the prospective soldier how to survive combat. Ask any of us who've been there. Drill sergeant's are indeed mean SOB's - on purpose and following their scripts. And yes, you get the occasional sadistic dickhead, but they tend to get weeded out, because those types generally can't get the job done.
Yes, the military invests too much time, money and energy training it's troops to want to throw them away. Poll any couple of dozen flag officers or old NCO's at random - you'll fond them extremely reluctant to send their boys and girls into harm's way. By the time they reach their rank, they've generally seen way too many kids killed (including their own buddies). Now the politicians are another group entirely, unless one happens to be a blooded combat vet...
So bring on the sims - the more realistic, the better. They're just another version of the day/night live fire courses, but safer. But sooner or later the kids have to be exposed to real bullets and bombs in their training, or they'll freak when they get into real combat.
Folks, war sucks. People get killed. That's why the training is hard and sometimes brutal. Better to sort 'em out then and send 'em home alive, than to find out in combat and send 'em home bloodied, maimed or dead.
Remember this:
Freedom comes in boxes - jury, ballot and ammo.
Best,
Mal the Elder
The executive producer of JFETS is Rob Sears, and he's quoted as saying
roughly 1/4 of the way into the article. He's wrong entirely on his second reason. The ICT program has been in the works longer than Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz have been in their current positions. From the beginning of the article: Rumsfeld began his job in 2001, and at the time these decisions were made - guessing 5-7 years ago - he was still working in the private industry. Wolfowitz was appointed in 2001 also, and Prior to 2001 he was not involved in defense or military preparedness spending. Mr Sears needs to check his facts on who is responsible for what. President Clinton and his staff pushed the ICT initiative - not Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz or Rumsfeld. This administration simply gets to enjoy the fruits of someone else's purchasing decisions.I bought it earlier this week... I've suspected that for a while that the magazine place I go to puts things out before they're supposed to.
Intuition is reflex.
The US Army hones the proper reactions to a given situation into reflex.
my friend? anecdotel (ie flamebait)
if THE pentagon (you do speak english?) thinks they can supplant intuition with reflex, they are right on the target. the mind reacts to stress in one of two ways - unconsciousness or hyperconsciousness. the mind is heavily conditioned due to the training it receives.
Theologically, "soul" makes a whole lot more sense.
Contextually - you know, that pesky thing scholars like to ignore too often - "soul" still makes more sense.
Mark 8:34-36 (KJV):
34 And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. 35 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it. 36 For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
Consider also that words like "breath" and "life" are very often used to describe the non-material part of a person, sometimes regarded to be, symbolically (or perhaps literally), the breath of God. These kinds of ideas fit best with the English word "soul."
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
This is quite different from 'Ender's Game.' Unless there were some sort of multiplayer mode (more than one room?) it would be just one person, in one room. Networking the rooms, though... awesome.
It took a year to convince the bitter half that a home theatre was a good idea. This may take a little longer.
Right. They'll have sockets embedded in their heads to jack in, and if they get killed in the sim, they really die. And the whole system is powered by their bodily heat.
Probably "Holodeck" is what he's thinking of.
Oh yeah, sorry.... I forgot there's so much more idealism in the lower income groups. And that college education, they could have gotten that anywhere. Its just coincidence they get that in the army. Yeah, they love their country and the opportunities it has given them.
Well, the same word (psuches) is used throughout the greek text, so it would seem that the translator is imposing his interpretation upon the text by using two independent english translations of psuches.
This interpretation may be in line with theological tradition-- but new translations are frequently commissioned with the intent of realigning ones faith with the "original" sources.
The Revised Standard Version is not exactly a radical translation-- in fact, it was adopted by many American Protestant and, IIRC, Catholic and Orthodox churches.
The Scholars Version is pretty radical-- it's used in the Jesus Seminar's Five Gospels which aims to determine which of Jesus's sayings were actually said by Jesus. Naturally, the academic credibility of such a project rests on a linguistically accurate translation. (The fifth gospel, btw, is the Gospel of Thomas, discovered among the Nag Hammadi texts in 1945).
The context here, I think, is that Jesus is promising eternal life--be prepared to give up your life for me-- and in return, you'll get it back. If you will not-- and instead seek material wealth, you'll die anyway. The exhortation is "follow me", not "be good".
Will it simulate mopping the commodes?
A quote from the article: "I keep two measures of success in mind for JFETS," he tells me. "Number one, I want guys who have been to the Middle East to go into those rooms and have their hair stand on end. And number two, to have the project be an election-year trophy for Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz so they can say, We're transforming the Army."
Election-year trophy? WTF?!
Divide by zero hurts my brain.