The War Of The Virtual Worlds

man_ls writes "The University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute is working with the U.S. Joint Forces Command to harness supercomputer power, to simulate a virtual continent for use in urban battlefield situations. The simulation, set in the year 2015, involves 100,000 entities to simulate, although the system can support more than a million."

Comments

What about the weapons?

[diablobsb]

Yeah yeah! but does it include the BFG?

Re:What about the weapons?

[Anonymous Coward]

2015? they have more then just the BFG
there is FBFG, VBFG, BFHC...
(fucking big fucking gun, very fucking big fucking gun, big fucking hand cannon ...)
but in the future, as star wars has shown us, it will be lazers and lightsabers. and for some reason only the neo wannabes will use lightsabers.

Re:What about the weapons?

[The Meeper]

Future? Star wars? I believe you'll find that "a long time ago" is not the future, even "in a galaxy far far away."

I'm wondering...

[gustgr]

may I play age of empires on it?

Re:I'm wondering...

[ArsonSmith]

screw that, GTA all the way.

Re:I'm wondering...

[tonsofpcs]

If I am one of the people inside this simulator, can I be sitting in a room playing with a gnu/linux machine running this simulator [repeat ad infinitum]??

Just wondering...

Oh yea, also, is it processor dependent, or can it be recompiled for my Amiga?

So there is a market

[Anonymous Coward]

for the SX-8

My next Christmas present?

[WilliamGeorge]

Wow, like a Total War game but on a bit larger scale. It just mde it to the top of my wishlist :)

Bush Mode

[Tablizer]

I switched it into G.W.Bush Mode, and ended up with a big charcoal sphere :-P

Re:Bush Mode

[Coneasfast]

I switched it into G.W.Bush Mode, and ended up with a big charcoal sphere :-P

impressive! when i tried in Bush mode, i didn't even get a sphere!

Re:Bush Mode

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

How strange: personally, when I switched to G.W.Bush Mode, I ended up choking on a pretzel...

Re:Bush Mode

[killjoe]

It looks like they are trying to make sure simulation handles a war with china. Then end result of that might just be a big charcoal sphere.

Re:Bush Mode

[EvilAlien]

I fell off my Segway.

Re:Bush Mode

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but have you tried God Mode yet?
It starts with a killer 6 day work week, where even the smallest detail matters. From there on it gets a little better. I quit when they were about to nail me to a sign post -- it just stopped being fun...

Re:Bush Mode

[Anonymous Coward]

Sewgay?

Remember..

[turboflux]

Keep your Sims happy!

Re:Remember..

[AndroidCat]

With that setup, think of how many swimming pool ladders they could remove with one command.

I know this .. I know this..

[pronobozo]

I have heard about this before.. I think it's called UT2015. I had found the leak on the net. :-P

As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[beppu]

I believe today that there is a need for all people of good will to come with a massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "We ain't goin' study war no more." This is the challenge facing modern man.

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[Anonymous Coward]

...massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "We ain't goin' study war no more." This is the challenge facing modern man.

Well, W didn't study war before invading Iraq, so I guess he lived up to those words.

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[Planesdragon]

Dr. King's death is the ultimate rebuttal to his words as you quoted them.

Unless, of course, you consider his assassin a man of good will.

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[deathcloset]

"We ain't goin' study war no more."

quite the opposite, I think. If we learn not history, well then are we not doomed to repeat it?

Ignorance is far from bliss - whomever came up with that saying was ignorant to the joy of knowledge, methinks.

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[DNS-and-BIND]

Wasn't MLK assassinated by a man who didn't like the fact that he was speaking out?

Here's another quote for you:

"If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun."
-- The Dalai Lama

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[Lord_Dweomer]

The real challenge comes in making sure everybody goes along with it. If all the good natured people were to stop studying war, we would be defenseless if the ill-natured people were to want to conquer us.

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[hunterx11]

Someday, someone will create a board so large with a nail so sharp that you will destroy yourselves!

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[Kaa]

I believe today that there is a need for all people of good will to come with a massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "We ain't goin' study war no more." This is the challenge facing modern man.

The very obvious consequence of this would be that all people of good will will get the shit kicked out of them by people of ill will who do not seem to have a problem studying war.

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[gehel]

"If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun."
-- The Dalai Lama

But is the Dalaï Lama reasonable ? I wonder ... Aristote had that kind of differentiation between heros and reasonable people ...

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[inKubus]

If we learn not history, well then are we not doomed to repeat it?

We learn from history than we can never learn anything from history.

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe today that there is a need for all people of good will to come with a massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "We ain't goin' study war no more." This is the challenge facing modern man.

That's a bit like curing disease by refusing to study it. Security through obscurity does not work with source code or psychology.

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[kentheteck]

And suppose we acheived peace and convinced the whole world to disarm, who would protect us from other worlds? Just because we have not found other worlds capable of posing a threat does not mean there aren't any. I for one welcome our robot overlords.

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[Short Circuit]

There are a few things I've learned that I'd rather forget. And a few things I've seen that I'd rather forget. Like photographs of mutilated children from Rwanda and a video of a girl getting shot in the head.

It's been a couple years since I've seen either of those things, and the memory still makes me queazy.

I'd ammend the saying to read, "Ignorance is bliss, for those items one would prefer to forget."

Another saying, with another meaning, could be, "Ignorance is bliss, for those items one would wish to ignore."

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[thomas.galvin]

"We ain't goin' study war no more."

quite the opposite, I think. If we learn not history, well then are we not doomed to repeat it?

And those of us who do learn are doomed to know it's repeating. C'est la vie, I suppose.

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[killjoe]

The only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history.

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[Anonymous Coward]

> Like photographs of mutilated children from Rwanda and a video of a girl getting shot in the head.

Don't worry. None of those things happen in the simulation. Then they won't happen that way in war. Isn't that how it always works?

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[wattersa]

Evil will always triumph because good is dumb.
- Dark Helmet, Spaceballs

I wish it were possible to not study war. Of course I would prefer it if everyone went about his business (his because it's usually the male population) without feeling the need to dominate other people or extract money from them or capture them as human slaves. As one of the militia leaders said in Black Hawk Down, "there will always be killing. This is how things are in _our_ world." The main benefit of having a highly trained fighting force is that you can strongly motivate people not to misbehave, especially if you are the world's "911" service, set on a hair trigger to attack and destroy anyone who launches a first strike of WMDs against another country. I know it's a rosy view but it beats the alternative I think. Yeah, I know that something should have been done about Rwanda. Don't forget that there is an African Union and there are neighboring African states that are supposed to send troops into areas like Rwanda, as was done with Liberia last year. Hopefully Darfur will motivate them more than Rwanda did.

In any case, "We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us." (unknown, attrib. to George Orwell). I for one hope that our forces remain the best in the world and that the new administration has a more globally conscious intervention policy.

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[Gentlewhisper]

"And suppose we acheived peace and convinced the whole world to disarm, who would protect us from other worlds? Just because we have not found other worlds capable of posing a threat does not mean there aren't any. I for one welcome our robot overlords."

It is not like our puny M16 rifles and bazooka launchers are gonna do us any good then.

To guard against that possibly, please refer here for some reference starship designs!

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[ashitaka]

Read the sig.

Too many are living in past assumptions about war.

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[Lust]

But perhaps this should be part of a miliary college or proper government organization rather than masked as an acedemic endevor by an institution such as USC? I think you'll find most computer scientists involved in this work are happy to receive funding / support of DOD, regardless of the purpose of the work.

I find it amusing that universities will quickly turn down funding from cigarette companies because it is dirty money while military funding is fair game.

Oh, and by the way...we've done alot of the shit kicking over the past couple decades. I wonder if we're seen as good-willed?

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[Anonymous Coward]

and the grad students who coded this world will take their experience, create a complex subscription only world simulator, and make megabucks. urban planners would love to have something like this.

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[Jubedgy]

Whether or not the Dalai Lama is reasonable, Natural Law theory says that by by trying to kill you, the other guy is forfeiting his natural right to live, and thus it is morally justifiable for you to kill him (but you don't have to if you don't want to).

Utilitarianism would probably also agree that trying to shoot the other guy would be ok. Kant, however, would probably not, since your intention would be to kill or wound the guy.

As for Divine Command Theory? I don't know, go read the bible or something to see what God would say.

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[beppu]

Weapons are the bearers of bad news;
all people should detest them.

The wise man values the left side,
and in time of war he values the right.
Weapons are meant for destruction,
and thus are avoided by the wise.
Only as a last resort
will a wise person use a deadly weapon.
If peace is her true objective
how can she rejoice in the victory of war?
Those who rejoice in victory
delight in the slaughter of humanity.
Those who resort to violence
will never bring peace to the world.
The left side is a place of honor on happy occasions.
The right side is reserved for mourning at a funeral.
When the lieutenants take the left side to prepare for war,
the general should be on the right side,
because he knows the outcome will be death.
The death of many should be greeted with great sorrow,
and the victory celebration should honor those who have died.

Lao Tzu (from the Tao Te Ching)

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[Anonymous Coward]

If we don't study war, we have two options:

1. Leave ourselves totally at the mercy of people who *do* study it.

2. Ride in there, guns a-blazing, and hope God will just make things turn out OK.

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[holderofthering]

Black Hawk down, Never really happened. I know there is the movie, and there is the book, etc, but it didn't happen.

Now hear me out. Going through London, A cabby picks us up. One of my friends mentions the billboard for "black hawk down" and the caby pipes up "That didn't happen".

We al give Him a look, and he tells us that he was their when they say it all happened. That its all made up.
He could be Lieing to me, But I believe everything cabby's tell me.

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[Anonymous Coward]

There is an ugly economy to violence.

It's easier to take by force than it is to buy, to burn down a forest than to grow one. If there are not those who would stand up and fight, there are those who will take everythinhg by force.

Nations exercise the right to control violence and force with greater violence and force, because in every nation there are those who would use force to achieve their political ends. So without the ability to monopolize force, a nation would descend into anarchy.

That's the dilemna, as I see it.

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[rxmd]

Whether or not the Dalai Lama is reasonable, Natural Law theory says that by by trying to kill you, the other guy is forfeiting his natural right to live, and thus it is morally justifiable for you to kill him

By which logic, of course, in trying to kill him, you are forfeiting your natural right to live. Enter, blood feuds and the like.

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[DaddyDonMynack]

And as the Dalai Lama once told Carl Spackler "at the moment of my death, I would reach total conciousness, so I've got that going for me."

Gunga-Lunga.

wargames?

[eobanb]

This reminds me of Wargames. In case you haven't seen it, it involved a 'supercomputer' that could play out various scenarios leading up to a nuclear war. In the end the computer figured out that, like the game tic-tac-toe, if both sides were even remotely intelligent, there was no way for either side to win.

Re:wargames?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for nothing. Who hasn't seen Wargames? Hey guys, I got another HOT movie tip for you: there's this movie with Bill Murray and he catches ghosts in NYC. It's CRAZY FUN! It's called Ghostbusters. Check it out. It rules!

Re:wargames?

[Gr8Apes]

Reminds me more of one of several Star Trek episodes, namely the one where two worlds had computerized war and the people would be "dead" and walk over to the "vaporization" chamber.

Re:wargames?

[drlake]

Funny, just reminds me of a networked version of Civilization...

Re:wargames?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just what i was thinking. Wouldn't it be fun? I would cheat though. :)

Re:wargames?

[Coryoth]

What a sad state Slashdot has come to when someone (with a remarkably high UID I note) uses the phrase "In case you haven't seen it" With respect to the film Wargames.

This is Slashdot - you used to be able to assume everyone would have seen Wargames. I don't know whether this is a dilution of the geek quotient here, or a sign that the Slashdot audience is now made up of 15 year olds, but I fear for Slashdot's future.*

Jedidiah

* Not really, Slashdot went to hell a long time ago, but it still provides amusement such as this.

Re:wargames?

[Ironsides]

It also assumes that the countries are launching nukes from their own soil and care if there country gets turned into a glass parking lot (Hence, MAD[Mutually Assured Distruction]). This also does not work when you do not know where the nuke has come from.

Re:wargames?

[DNS-and-BIND]

The WOPR dealt exclusively with NUCLEAR war. MAD doesn't apply to countries who train and export suicide bombers.

Re:wargames?

[snuf23]

That would be episode 23 "A Taste of Armageddon". One of the best Star Trek episodes of all time in my opinion.
The computers simulated the attacks and calculated the casualties. When you number was called up you headed over to the handy dandy vaporization chamber. Of course the girl Kirk is hot for gets her number called up and well lets just say there is a great speech about how war is meant to be ugly and brutal. The sanitized, computer controlled war was indefinate with no end in sight.

Re:wargames?

[Anonymous Coward]

not true, in tic-tac-toe if you move first you can always win

Re:wargames?

[deesine]

lol...Only true if you're playing 5 year olds.

Really though, didn't you mean to say, "If you move first, you can never lose"?

If not, I can only assume you haven't played anyone with skills greater than the average elementary school student.

Re:wargames?

[Gumph]

Sorry but the WOPR had different scenarios it could act out, one of which was definitely chemical warfare and there were many others.
it is just that broderick had to go for the big money and play global thermo-nuclear war.

Re:wargames?

[DNS-and-BIND]

Why was it at SAC then? SAC doesn't control anything but nuclear bombers.

Re:wargames?

[Gr8Apes]

I either missed the end, or they left it hanging. I don't think they solved anything in that episode, other than getting their ship back.

Re:wargames?

[KlausBreuer]

Actually, the computers decision had little to do with tic-tac-toe (although he did play that as well)
Instead, he ran through all possible permutations of nuclear war, and always came up with the same answer: no winner.
Quote: "What a strange game - the only way to win is not to play."

But then, hey, surely I'm preaching to the converted - you must *all* have seen that movie.

Re:wargames?

[metlin]

Well, atleast the sense of humour is more or less still intact ;-)

That's nothing

[antifoidulus]

When Duke Nukem Forever comes out, everyone's computer will be able to handle millions of bodies!

Re:That's nothing

[Tibor the Hun]

you know what would be funny?
if they renamed DNF to Duke Nukem Never as a joke, recognizing that it did take them a bit longer than anticipated to release it.

Re:That's nothing

[Kehvarl]

What would make that doubly amusing is, if they renamed it prior to releasing it, then they would -still- never have released DNF.

Re:That's nothing

[daeley]

You heard about the sequel, right? Duke Nukem Forever and Ever?

Re:That's nothing

[Mr. Bad Example]

> When Duke Nukem Forever comes out, everyone's computer will be able to handle millions of bodies!

Computer? Big deal. I can personally handle millions of bodies now.

Disclaimer: Number of bodies handled may be subject to restraining order limitations.

A strange game.

[Anonymous Coward]

The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?

The hard part

[moorcito]

Now the hard part is convincing everyone that real-life wars are outdated and we should start using the virtual battlefield.

Re:The hard part

[syrinx]

Now the hard part is convincing everyone that real-life wars are outdated and we should start using the virtual battlefield.

Wasn't there a Star Trek episode about that? If I remember right, Kirk came and convinced them that real war is better, or something.

Re:The hard part

[AndroidCat]

Wars will still be costly with this virtual battlefield. Think of all the quarters needed to play!

Re:The hard part

[datbox]

Parent Modded Insightful???

*Shakes head*

Re:The hard part

[drlake]

Yah, should be modded "delusional"...

Re:The hard part

[Culture]

Yeah, but hopefully Captian Kirk will be able to rescue the victims of the "virual war" before they march into the disintegrators.

Re:The hard part

[snuf23]

The episode is "A Taste of Armageddon". Definately one of the best of old Trek. Two planets basically have their war controlled by computers. The attacks are simulated, but casualties are calculated. If the computer says you died in the attack you walk over to the disintegration booth.
Kirk has a great rant at the end telling them that war is meant to be horrible to prevent it from existing perpetually.

Re:The hard part

[shadow_slicer]

Will never happen.
The US will settle on Microsoft War.
The British will settle on Microsoft War Express.
The rest of Europe will flip-flop back and forth on deciding on either an open source app or MWE.

China will develop their own Sun Tzu battlefield.

Russia will use telnet.

The Middle-east won't really use virtual battlefields, but instead use trojan elements to utilize advance features in Microsoft War to frag harddrives.

Re:The hard part

[stonecypher]

It didn't work for Vendikar or Eminiar 7.

wow

[WormholeFiend]

to simulate a virtual continent for use in urban battlefield situations

That's one big fucking city.

Re:wow

[SpiffyMarc]

They're simulating the Clone Wars breaking out on Coruscant.

Re:wow

[Gamasta]

It's a prelude to the matrix, you know... "there used to be cities that spent hundreds of miles" -- I wonder why I haven't seen any matrix quotes in this story.

Red vs Blue

[Anonymous Coward]

Two groups of officers, the blue team leaders of the coalition, and the red team leaders of the adversary, control their forces from separate command posts, rooms full of monitors at which specially trained aides enter make the moves ordered by commanders.

Any cute tanks?

You can also find...

[AviLazar]

this article on Wired News

It's the smell!

[centauri]

Word to the wise: don't make this virutal world too perfect. Entire crops could be lost.

And in the future

[aicrules]

the search for WMD is as simple as:
SELECT w.GPSCoordinates
FROM Weapons w
WHERE w.DestructionType = 'Mass'
AND w.Owner 'United States'

Re:And in the future

[miscGeek]

SYNTAX error near Owner

Re:And in the future

[aicrules]

Yea, I missed the open close angle brackets being HTML'd in preview.

Harsh Realm

[rve]

Reminds me of this
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0182587/

Re:Harsh Realm

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually this http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086567/ hit my mind as soon as I read the post.

Re:Harsh Realm

[dunhamrc]

Or how about this:

A Taste of Armageddon

I'll be on the lookout for a government notice in the mail telling me to report to the nearest disentegration chamber.

Re:Harsh Realm

[MrScience]

Reminds me of an excellent game for the Apple IIe, A Mind Forever Voyaging. You played a character in a city simulation to determine long-term ramifications for political decisions. Very thought provoking for an 8th-grade student.

Re:Harsh Realm

[stonecypher]

And as we all know, everything in harsh realm and the x-flies was actually a Star Trek episode.

Is it just me?

[Kazrath]

Or does Timothy post the vast majority of articles historically?

Now a whole continent?

[bmf033069]

It seems that countries are now too small or uninteresting to take over. Witness all of the current successes. What continent now will be suspected of having WMD's?

Re:Now a whole continent?

[ryanmfw]

We all know Antarctica has been developing WMDs for some time now. U.N. Sanctions have *not* been working, the inspectors have been kicked out, and Antarctica's leader will do anything to harm the U.S.

Or as the good book said:

[glrotate]

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace
Eccl. 3:8

Blessed be the LORD my Rock, Who trains my hands for war, And my fingers for battle;
Psalms 144:1

God may love peace, but he's no sucker.

Re:Or as the good book said:

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Thou shalt not kill. No exceptions given, not even for self-defense.

Re:Or as the good book said:

[drlake]

If you're going to quote the Old Testament, at least be accurate. The Hebrew in Exodus 20:13 is more consistent with "Thou Shalt Not Commit Murder." It's just frequently translated as "kill", even though the rest of the Old Testament makes a mockery of that translation.

Re:Or as the good book said:

[Anonymous Coward]

Thou shalt not kill. No exceptions given, not even for self defense.

Yeah but it doesn't say anything about accidentally pushing someone off a cliff, or letting the toaster slip from your hands and land in the bathtub where someone is taking a bath. Therefore I gotta say "Thou shalt not kill" really means "Thou shalt not commit murder 1. Everything is else is not so bad."

Re:Or as the good book said:

[pjt33]

Actually, Torah provided for protection of those who killed another without malice aforethought. See Deut 19:1-13 (KJV, NIV).

Re:Or as the good book said:

[Jason Earl]

That's hilarious. You clearly need to re-read the Old Testament. On several ocassions the Lord commanded the Israelites to destroy every man woman and child in a city. On at least one ocassion (I'm not a Biblical scholar) Saul was even commanded to kill all of the animals in a city. Saul got in trouble because he decided that instead of destroying perfectly good animals that he would use them as sacrifices.

Perhaps you should have quoted the New Testament.

Re:Or as the good book said:

[killjoe]

Salt the earth so that not even the crops can grow back. That old yahveh was one hell of mean and venegeful son of a bitch. He didn't think anything of wiping out the entire planet except for noah and his familiy.

Re:Or as the good book said:

[wattersa]

Thou shalt not kill. No exceptions given, not even for self-defense.

A passage cited by every pacifist, or by any person against a particular war (when it suits him). That no exceptions were given in that commandment implies a false dichotomy of "kill and go to hell" or "don't kill and not go to hell." I disagree. The "murder" translation of that commandment is probably a better one, else how could God endorse a war by the Israelites in self-defense?

Re:Or as the good book said:

[TedTschopp]

Yeah, and most middle of the road Christians today think he is the same God that's still around, its just that he's saving up his pissed off attitude for one last go around before he brings it all to an end. Some of the more conservative Christians would call it delayed gratification on His part, and there is a bit of truth in that position.

Ted Tschopp

Re:Or as the good book said:

[arose]

The Bible is like a box of chocolates...

Re:Or as the good book said:

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the proper translation is "Thou shalt not murder." The word in Hebrew is specific to murder (as opposed to killing) of humans.

Re:Or as the good book said:

[csguy314]

Perhaps brother Malcolm said it best:
"Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone lays a hand on you, send him to the cemetery."

Re:Or as the good book said:

[Profane MuthaFucka]

OK, the New Testament.

Jesus said: "Thou shalt not kill. I am not joking, I am fucking serious. You people who think they can kill someone and get into heaven are going to be really surprised when you are getting anal raped in hell."

OK, maybe not those exact words, but I have a feeling that Jesus and God were fucking serious when they said don't kill each other. They weren't the ten suggestions, right?

Re:Or as the good book said:

[killjoe]

If you read revelations it says in there he is going to kill about 2/3rd of the earths population. It looks like he is going to spare more then one family this time but he is going to kill off a lot of animals too. When he comes back the only people he is going to care about are christians. The jews must be pissed because they will no longer be his favorite children. He is going to kill them all.

Re:Or as the good book said:

[joss]

Well, wtf is the difference exactly ? Sounds like another convenient word like terrorist where the only real distinction is whose side you're on. In fact, it fits perfectly with that.

The terrorists murdered some people.
We killed some terrorists.

English is full of irregular worsd like this, I'm firm, you're stubborn, and he's pigheaded.

Re:Or as the good book said:

[joss]

Well, wtf is the difference exactly ? Sounds like another convenient word like terrorist where the only real distinction is whose side you're on. In fact, it fits perfectly with that.

The terrorists murdered some people.
We killed some terrorists.

English is full of irregular worsd like this, I'm firm, you're stubborn, and he's pigheaded.

Re:Or as the good book said:

[drlake]

There's a huge difference. If you actually read the Old Testament (more properly known as the Hebrew Bible) you would see that there is no biblical prohibition against killing in general. YHWH routinely instructed the Hebrews to kill other people.

Moralizing about human behavior from a book that doesn't even apply to most people in the first place is rather silly, but if you're going to do it at least get it right. For those who are confused by my comment about the Old Testament not applying, read the New Testament. The foundation of Christianity is a new covenant with "God", which replaces the previous covenant (the Mosaic one, including the Ten Commandments). The prevalence of christians using the Old Testament as justification for their beliefs just demonstrates their ignorance of their own religion and their lack of understanding that under their own doctrine, the Ten Commandments do not apply.

Re:Or as the good book said:

[joss]

Maybe I'm being stupid, but I'm still not quite sure what the difference between murdering someone and killing them is, and I don't think rereading the old testamnt is going to help.

Re:Or as the good book said:

[Anonymous Coward]

open the good book sir, and read to me Psalm 137:9.

i wanna see how it translated the verse about killing babies in your version.

Re:Or as the good book said:

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Psa 137:9 Happy [shall he be], that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

If you just look at this verse, of course it looks bad, because it's taken out of context. When you look at the context of the lines around it it's not bad at all. Read a little more, and you will see that the author is talking about dashing Iraqi (Babylonian) babies against the stones. It changes the entire meaning of the quote, does it not?

Re:Or as the good book said:

[Psyqlone]

Thou shalt not kill. No exceptions given, not even for self-defense.

Since we seem to cutting rather wide swaths today, "No exceptions given," should include the animals and plant life that living beings use for food.

...including you!

Come to think of it, there are no exceptions here either, are there?

You may answer for your sins. ...now.

Re:Or as the good book said:

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Your criticism makes the most sense of all that have been given to that commandment. I am a bit surprised at just how aggressively some people have pointed out that it's really just a prohibition against murder, as if that makes other kinds of killing acceptable.

Re:Or as the good book said:

[Allasard]

>Maybe I'm being stupid, but I'm still not quite sure what the difference between murdering someone and killing them is.

It comes down to justification.

Murder is causing an unjustified death.

However outlawing murder still allows for killing people:
- in war
- as punishment
- etc...

Re:Or as the good book said:

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still not quite sure what the difference between murdering someone and killing them is,

Easy: Killing is killing, and murder is killing that has been forbidden by the government.

So executing criminals, shooting enemy soldiers, or defending yourself against a slave uprising are not murder, as long as your government approves.

Of course, once you know that, the commandment becomes kind of meaningless: "Thou Shalt Not Kill Without Government Approval", which is equivalent to "Don't do things that are illegal"

Re:Or as the good book said:

[Psyqlone]

Your criticism makes the most sense of all that have been given to that commandment.

"Thou shalt not kill..." is less of a commandment than it is a misquote. The closest transliteration is "You shall not do murder."

I am a bit surprised at just how aggressively some people have pointed out that it's really just a prohibition against murder, as if that makes other kinds of killing acceptable.

You stood corrected because you misquoted scripture. Granted that it means more to some folks than others, but you also appear to imply that all killing is murder when there are legal, moral, and practical differences between what sort of termination of life is considered murder and what is not.

Let's try this. Is it somehow acceptable to you that termination of animal and plant life is done to provide you (and people you care about) with food?

Re:Or as the good book said:

[Profane MuthaFucka]

I don't want to waste your time, so I'll lay it out. I don't believe in any gods. I don't care if I misquoted scripture. I don't care if it really talks about murder, and not killing in general. My purpose was strictly political, to point out that justification of killing using a technical and lawyerly interpretation of the holy books of any religion is fucked up.

You want to be a lawyer? Go to law school. They can teach you a hundred different ways to twist an interpretation to support whatever kind of killing you want to do.

You want to be moral? Don't kill people, and then claim that God likes it because the other guy happened to be an opposing soldier.

There, now you know exactly where I stand.

Re:Or as the good book said:

[Psyqlone]

I don't want to waste your time, so I'll lay it out. I don't believe in any gods. I don't care if I misquoted scripture.

...kinda figured. I'm not that religious myself, but I also try to avoid questioning or taking a dismissive attitude towards other peoples' beliefs.

...but that's me.

I don't care if it really talks about murder, and not killing in general.

The Scripture doesn't always define the differences clearly. Over the centuries, that sort of thing led to all kinds of misunderstandings. ...still does, I guess.

My purpose was strictly political,...

Oh for cryin' out loud.

...to point out that justification of killing using a technical and lawyerly interpretation of the holy books of any religion is fucked up.

The histories of religion, ethics, and law have always intermingled. They influence one another. You can try in vain to separate them. You might even succeed ... for a while, but they will not remain separate.

You want to be a lawyer? Go to law school.

...invalid premise. Not all killing is murder from a legal standpoint, or morally. You don't need a lawyer to prove it.

They can teach you a hundred different ways to twist an interpretation to support whatever kind of killing you want to do.

...invalid premise. You've also yet to prove that I've killed any more than you have, or that I want to.

What is your problem, anyway? If you're trying to suggest that all killing is murder, you will fail.

You want to be moral? Don't kill people, and then claim that God likes it because the other guy happened to be an opposing soldier.

Morals have been used to justify horrendous crimes against humanity.

So have politics.

There, now you know exactly where I stand.

You stand corrected, MuthaFucka.

Re:Or as the good book said:

[Anonymous Coward]

no idiot the original Hebrew directly translated says. ..

thou shalt not kill from a hidden place.

that is completely differnt from you dogmatic translation.

You can read but you obviously can't learn.

Re:Or as the good book said:

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Oh, you are such an idiot. A cunt, actually.

Re:Or as the good book said:

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Eat a bowl of cock.

Re:Or as the good book said:

[stonecypher]

On several ocassions the Lord commanded the Israelites to destroy every man woman and child in a city.

So? He also made these supposed "thou shalt not kill" type laws, and he's the judge at the end of the road. If you have a real missive from god, you're allowed to break his rules.

On at least one ocassion (I'm not a Biblical scholar) Saul was even commanded to kill all of the animals in a city.

The bible has nothing to say on the topic of the needless killing of animals. This isn't a sin even without a missive.

Saul got in trouble because he decided that instead of destroying perfectly good animals that he would use them as sacrifices.

You're missing the point of that story, which was that God was pissed that Saul sacrificed animals to someone other than Him. It's that whole thou shalt not worship others before me thing. He's a jealous god. No three-ways.

Perhaps you should have quoted the New Testament.

Haughty is a tone best suited to those who're right.

Re:Or as the good book said:

[Psyqlone]

Oh, you are such an idiot.

...grazed a nerve, didn't I?

A cunt, actually.

Try unclenching your teeth and your fists. It's easier to type that way.

I don't know if you have people in your life who care about you, but if you do, I wonder how they put up with your abusiveness and venom. Is this how you deal with folks who dare to disagree with you in person?

Re:Or as the good book said:

[Profane MuthaFucka]

I am bouncing my cock on your forehead, as the spasms start to subside. Now, I squeeze the head just a little bit, and some spunk oozes out and drips onto your waiting tongue. For a couple seconds, our bodies are joined together by a filamentous bridge of semen, stretching from my cock to your nose.

Power of Supercomputing

[reporter]

This article is the perfect reason why we are better off with the West having a lock on supercomputing. Having the best supercomputers means that we can have the best ability to defend ourselves from external hostilities: Islam, China, etc.

There is no equivalence between China and the West. The West should have the best computers and the best weapons. Western values (e.g. democracy, human rights, compassion, equality of women, etc.) are the finest human values in the world, and we have a vested interest in ensuring their survival -- and dominance. The hordes of immigrants fleeing to the USA (and the rest of the West) is a big clue.

On a side note, what percentage of the 100,000 entities in the battlefield simulation will be robots? The Department of Defense has been trying to increase the number of robotic/autonomous fighting vehicles in order to minimize the loss of human life on the battlefield.

Further, we must eventually ratchet up the number of entities to more than 10 million. The Chinese (including those in Taiwan province and Hong Kong) have a well known disregard for human life (e.g. the rape and murder of Tibetans). The Chinese would readily sacrifice 10,000,000 civilians (not merely soldiers) by using them as human blockades against American mechanized armor.

Re:Power of Supercomputing

[lilmouse]

Western Values (e.g., the "Old Boys" network, allowing near monopolies, keeping minorities in their economic place, and a "free media") certainly are the finest human values in the world, and Bush and Co are certainly striving to ensure their dominance.

This system is just another way to train our soldiers to be ready to go into important areas of the world and protect our oil, I mean, interests. While it does show our technical superiority, our moral superiority may be a bit lacking... I'm all for cool electronic toys, but maybe spending money on social projects might be a bit better.

On another note, I really recommend reading "Forever Peace" - it's a brillaint look at how technological superiority isn't necesarily useful.

--LWM

Re:Power of Supercomputing

[DNS-and-BIND]

Get bent. I live in China right now, and personal connections (guanxi), monopolies, oppression of minorities, and a totally unfree media are exactly what exist here. Get outside your home country once in a lifetime, and see what's outside. Parochial twit.

Re:Power of Supercomputing

[KrackHouse]

I think you're confusing the governments with the people. Remember the tank guy during the massacre? How is that not a value we should admire? It's easier to justify collateral damage if you can just call them a bunch of wacky commies. You classify Islam as an "external hostility". My advice to you is READ a freaking booK(other than the King James version of the bible). An encyclopedia would be a good start.

Your post is well written but wrong. Broad generalizations are a sure sign of ignorance.

Re:Power of Supercomputing

[Anonymous Coward]

Heinrich von Treitsche was the better hysterical militant. You should read his essays to better understand the faults of your own position if it is reflected in what you have written.

Re:Power of Supercomputing

[ryanmfw]

Wow, Islam is hostile to the U.S.? Talk about a lack of perspective. I know why you're saying Islam(it's a religion, not a thing, it doesn't have emotions) is hostile towards the U.S., because some Muslims(psuedo-Muslims, perhaps) do. But, that reasoning is flawed. It's like saying the U.S. is anti-Islam because one person(you) doesn't like it.

Also, about China and "the finest human values in the world", what are you talking about? You think those 10 million civilians would just stand there? It's almost racist to think that Westerners are the only people that have good human values, and are the only ones willing to fight for them, as if the Chinese *people* somehow have different ones that are less good(which is all subjective anyway) *.

*Two things: a)If Chinese people had different human rights, you couldn't really judge them, as you'd be judging them based on your Western ideals, which either cannot be applied or can be applied both ways, as you cannot imply a preferred "direction" for that judgement to go. b)The Chinese people have the same human rights, and somehow do not seem to have the same problem with their government as you do. Considering that you don't live there(most likely), I'd take their word over yours. I'll take as their word that there hasn't been a coup(as the military is still composed of Chinese people), nor a revolt for some years.

Re:Power of Supercomputing

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a "Schaum's Outline" and learn some arithmetic.

One guy in front of a tank does not mean that 1 billion Chinese have decent moral values. Millions of Chinese kill female fetuses with malice and planning. This sick behavior is the reason that the ratio of male babies to female babies is 1.20.

The normal ratio is 1.05. The USA and Japan, both Western countries, have a ratio of 1.05.

In order for the ratio to be so lopsided in China, millions of Chinese must have a brutal attitude towards women

Further, thousands of Chinese (include Taiwanese) buy human organs cut from unwilling prisoners.

Are you a Chinese bigot? You smell like one.

Re:Power of Supercomputing

[ryanmfw]

OMG, you stupid troll. I AM A WESTERNER. I DON'T AGREE WITH THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT. I just don't agree with the idiotic parent that the CHINESE PEOPLE are somehow less human since they don't have the same values. YOU ARE A MORON. You are the racist that somehow managed to make a giant strawman on which you were able to pin a bunch of junk upon since you are unable to actually argue the points logically, only emotionally.

Re:Power of Supercomputing

[ryanmfw]

Oh wow, you can copy and paste. You probably didn't even write that originally, you probably just got it from some anti-chinese bigoted website. Bigot.

Re:Power of Supercomputing

[Rayonic]

> On another note, I really recommend reading "Forever Peace" - it's a brillaint look at how technological superiority isn't necesarily useful.

You really got your ideals from a cheesy sci-fi novel with a message to push?

I guess some people really dig the idea of perpetual (and literal) "class warfare", and endorse the idea of forcible brain-washing for everyone. Sheesh.

Re:Power of Supercomputing

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever, you Chinese bigot. You can be born in the West and still be a Chinese bigot.

You ignored the key point of the grandparent article: Chinese murder female fetuses, resulting in a ratio of 1.20 male babies to female babies.

Now, you say that Chinese culture is equivalent to Western culture. You must be a Chinese bigot. Prove what you say and go and live in China. You pig.

Re:Power of Supercomputing

[ryanmfw]

You troll. Slimeball. Ineffective moron.

Re:Power of Supercomputing

[Anonymous Coward]

I am Chinese, my parents having come from the mainland, and have been back before. This is what I've observed when I talk to them.

In regards to human rights, the well educated chinese people(primarily those that live around urban areas) have a perception (and rightly so) that China is rapidly changing and that their personal rights are improving an increasing. For this reason, they are reasonably content knowing things are getting better anyway.

As for the rest of the Chinese people, the uneducated majority, the ones that dont live in cities and some that do, etc. keep in mind these people and even many of the educated ones have had their heads filled with Maoist and communist propaganda for the past 60/70 or more years. Their generation, their fathers' generation, their grandparents...

These people are really in no position to be granted the full rights we have over here. These people are completely uneducated, many dont even speak Mandarin Chinese(the official language of china), let alone being able to read. Their concern is honestly focused on survival. Yes I do have several members of my family that are uneducated. You can't really talk to them about these issues.

Before they can be granted full rights, there needs to be a better educational infrastructure, there needs to be a way for these people to gain rudimentary analytical skills, with their minds focusing on something other than whatever it takes to fill their stomachs. (for this there also needs to be a more developed economic infrastructure)

At least with some developed skills of reasoning, they can
1) intellectually challenge the prevailing propaganda.
2) understand what a human right is
3) understand how it benefits them
4) understand what their current system is
5) understand the need for change.

Most of the chinese people still aren't ready yet for the full set of human rights as set forth by Western Ideals. To force that upon them overnight would result in an anarchy worse than the draconian order they have now.

Re:Power of Supercomputing

[lilmouse]

> On another note, I really recommend reading "Forever Peace" - it's a brillaint look at how technological superiority isn't necesarily useful.

You really got your ideals from a cheesy sci-fi novel with a message to push?

More's the pity I can't - it'd be nice to go around with a storybook look on my face! Forever Peace is recommended reading, that's all. Yes it has lots of lofty ideals (defend democracy, don't let religious nuts destroy the world, etc), but it also has an interesting picture of what technological superiority gets you... what it doesn't.

The story reminds me of the book.

Rhetoric about "Western values" being so great reminds me of why I have problems with our current policies.

--LWM

Re:Power of Supercomputing

[ryanmfw]

All I can say is thank you. :-) Very well said and informative. I just don't have any modpoints!

Re:Power of Supercomputing

[focitrixilous P]

Broad generalizations are a sure sign of ignorance.

There is irony in this somewhere. Not that I disagree, but the irony is painfully obvious in statements like that.

All general statements are false, including this one.

Re:Power of Supercomputing

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the chinese people still aren't ready yet for the full set of human rights as set forth by Western Ideals. To force that upon them overnight would result in an anarchy worse than the draconian order they have now.

I, for one, believe that a Chinese wrote the above nonsense. This bigot really believes that allowing freedom of speech is, in effect, to "force" freedom of speech on the Chinese.

I do, however, agree with the bigot in one sense. He states repeatedly that the behavior of the typical Chinese is atrocious but that this behavior will improve in the future.

No one knows whether the behavior will improve in the future, but the current behavior is indeed disgusting. For whatever reason that the Chinese value system came to be, that value system is indeed starkly different from the Western value system.

Re:Power of Supercomputing

[Gentlewhisper]

In order for the ratio to be so lopsided in China, millions of Chinese must have a brutal attitude towards women

Go fuck yourself.

The only reason why this happens is because of the one child policy, and it is not as widespread as you think.

Only more common in the "proles" if you may, of the Chinese population, because sons always carry on the family name, and hence are more desired offsprings to have, in view that they can only have one.

But it ain't as bad as you think, in the major cities where people do know better, they still have girls all the same.

Re:Power of Supercomputing

[Gentlewhisper]

Chinese murder female fetuses, resulting in a ratio of 1.20 male babies to female babies

Yeah! And you American white trash kill fetuses like ants. And not just killing them with medicines and herbs, you must actually use a small pipe to mush them up into bits and suck their remains out!*

Such hatred for human life... America!

*Next time you pick up this girl at the bar and make out with her without protection, remember this! You God-less animal!

Re:Power of Supercomputing

[KrackHouse]

Hey that's a good point. I sound sort of hypocritical. :) Though it would make for a good Yogi Berra esque quote.

Re:Power of Supercomputing

[depth_13]

well...i wouldn't call them my ideals, but the author of Forever Peace and more importantly The Forever War was a Vietnam vet. I think he might have some insight into war that I should pay attention to or at least think about from time to time.

Re:Power of Supercomputing

[ryanmfw]

You finally got it! I'm so happy for you! It's *different* from the Western value system. Hooray! Maybe you'll soon realize that it's all relative and we can get on with our lives. Stop being a bigot, moron.

Re:Power of Supercomputing

[Rayonic]

it has lots of lofty ideals (defend democracy...

Defend democracy with mandatory brainwashing? Even if everyone voted for it, you'd still have to force it on those uppity third-worlders.

Rhetoric about "Western values" being so great reminds me of why I have problems with our current policies.

Western values? Ah, you must mean equal rights for women, freedom of religion, anti-slavery laws, democracy, etc.. Yeah, those are pretty terrible.

Reminds me of "A Taste of Armageddon"

[nz_mincemeat]

...as in the ST:TOS episode.

Now where are the casaulty units? :p

Re:Reminds me of "A Taste of Armageddon"

[Arcturax]

Also reminds me a little of that Dr. Who episode where the people of Atrios were fighting a losing war and it turned out they were fighting a dead planet who's fleets were all controlled by a war computer.

Re:Reminds me of "A Taste of Armageddon"

[Mr. Bad Example]

> Reminds me of "A Taste of Armageddon"

Interestingly enough, "Armageddon" comes from "Har-Meggido", meaning roughly "tastes kind of like chicken".

Re:supports entities?

[Anonymous Coward]

" ... for use in urban battlefield situations. The simulation, set in the year 2015, involves 100,000 entities ..."

The professional mass-homicide folks have barely started WW-III, but in case this one doesn't provide enough entertainment, they've begun to plan WW-IV.

Tax dollar at work

[DrAmes]

Notice the minimized browser in the bottom screenshot?

Re:Tax dollar at work

[Anonymous Coward]

i also noticed a big K on the taskbar @ bottom/left...

sig - anony_mouse_cow_ard

Re:Tax dollar at work

[Anonymous Coward]

Notice the minimized browser in the bottom screenshot?

not only that... the truck's front (up to the front wheels) are inside the SUV's trunk up to the back wheels! whoever programmed the collision detection must not have been paying too much attention to details

Re:Tax dollar at work

[DrAmes]

I've actually worked with that simulator before -- bad collision detection is probably the least of it's worries.

Re:Tax dollar at work

[Anonymous Coward]

and another thing..... the moped/motorcycles all have white outlines...... very strange

Re:Tax dollar at work

[Anonymous Coward]

No, actually they're predicting that by 2015 America's enemies will have created prototype versions of modular combat vehicles which can combine into more powerful forms.

Rumor has it the government will be contracting with Japanese firms to create our own version.

Re:Tax dollar at work

[Anonymous Coward]

whoever programmed the collision detection must not have been paying too much attention to details

There is no collision detection. That's an N squared problem, and in a game with 100,000 entities, N*N is unfeasible.

The Blue Team is just flying Airborne Lasers to incinerate terrorists from 10 miles high. Effort spent on fine-tuning ground movement is wasted on them.

Re:Tax dollar at work

[Anonymous Coward]

Notice the word "diguy" in the upper left?

That stands for "Dismounted Infantry Guy", and is a program from Boston Dynamitcs, www.bdi.com. It's a skeletal-animator.

Re:Tax dollar at work

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.tec.army.mil/research/products/TD/tvd/s urvey/OpenScene_ModStealth.html

Re:Tax dollar at work

[jericho4.0]

Collision detection has come a long way since you last looked. :-) Smarter algorithims don't check every object against every other, usually using a binary-tree or something to keep things orginized.

In the context of this game, collision detection is not needed, as it is simulating larger scale stratagy.

Re:Tax dollar at work

[okmnji]

Well, as I go to USC, where ISI is located, I know why that browser window is there. USC Football is ranked first in the nation, and it looks like the browser window is about how Miami beat out Oklahoma for number 2. Researchers need to laugh at OU too...

But, back on topic (sort of). What's with all the random pedestrians? and the white truck that seems to be fused to the backend of the white jeep? Methinks my TAs need to do a bit more debugging.

Re:Tax dollar at work

[Odin's Raven]

That stands for "Dismounted Infantry Guy", and is a program from Boston Dynamitcs, www.bdi.com. It's a skeletal-animator.

IIAJSD (I Am A JointSAF Developer), and the Urban Resolve exercise that Wired is writing about is one of the exercises I work on. Yes, the animation of the humans you see in the 3-D picture (the application is called "ModStealth") makes use of Boston Dynamics' "DI Guy" software. The screenshots don't do justice to the animations - you'd need a movie clip for that - but "DI Guy" does a really nice job.

And for those who aren't familiar with the terminology, don't read "Dismounted Infantry" too literally - a lot of mil sim software uses "DI" as a catchall term for "people who ain't in vehicles". "DI Guy" is used for all the human 3-D animation, both military and civilian.

Re:Tax dollar at work

[Odin's Raven]

not only that... the truck's front (up to the front wheels) are inside the SUV's trunk up to the back wheels! whoever programmed the collision detection must not have been paying too much attention to details

IIAJSD (I Am A JointSAF Developer), and I actually work on the Urban Resolve exercise that the Wired article is talking about.

What you're seeing in that screenshot is basically the same kind of artifact that you'd get from lag if you were playing an online multiplayer game like Diablo II. These exercises are running on a large number of networked computers, distributed across a great many locations. (Believe me, they're not flying everyone to Hawaii just because the supercomputer cluster is down there. Oh, how I wish life were that good. :-)

What happens is that the machine drawing the 3-D view hadn't gotten the "hey, I stopped moving" update for the truck at the moment the screenshot was taken, and thought it was still moving forward. But on the machines simulating the truck and Jeep, the truck really had stopped without plowing into anyone. Had the screenshot been taken a moment later (after the packet updating the truck's info arrived), you would've seen the truck drawn at its correct position, midway between the Jeep in front and the station wagon behind.

In Diablo II terms, if you've ever hit some lag on the net, you might have seen a monster go shooting clear across the dungeon, then suddenly reappear right in front of your character. It's essentially the same thing happening here.

Re:Tax dollar at work

[LnxAddct]

Ever hear of a collision octree? Collision Detection hasn't been O(n^{2}) for a while. Hell, we can easily do real time collision detection amongst two models each composed of about 16 million polygons on your typical desktop system.
Regards,
Steve

Re:Tax dollar at work

[danila]

Then how do you model bottlenecks in the road system?

Re:Tax dollar at work

[Anonymous Coward]

I was modded Informative for that? Uh, somebody wanna take a look at this? There's a mod on crack somewhere that hasn't seen enough Voltron.

Re:Tax dollar at work

[jericho4.0]

Traffic density per km of road. One it passes a certain amount, traffic slows down. Or maybe a stripped down collision detection, that only triggers when the centers of two objects get too close. Most large-scale 'simulations' use shortcuts like this. Modelling collision detection on the level of fenders bumping into each other (what started this thread), would be very expensive.

Many modern 3D games have great collision detection, since the development of algorithims that combine the rendering and collision detection. This only is applied to objects that are going to be rendered anyway, so is useless for simulation.

well..

[Anonymous Coward]

well... some people are bored
Why not use it to simulate paint drying?

More specific scenario needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of good guys and bad guys, they need a simulator where you are this military force propping up a hugely unpopular puppet government. You can go on missions with the puppet government's national guard, but you can't send in their national guard by themselves or they'll ally with the "bad guys".

And maybe a scoring system where if you have to keep troops there to support the government against its people indefinitely, you get no points, if the puppet government turns into a repressive dictatorship, you get one point, if the people overthrow the government and replace it with a fundamentalist theocracy, you get 2 points, and if you're right in the middle of a big urban street battle with the bad guys and you get a message that says "your capital was just nuked by a country you've been paying no attention to at all", you lose.

No, actually, that'd suck. Nevermind.

Re:Uh oh

[Reducer2001]

I suppose we should be happy that they're actually going to prepare for the next war.

gta

[Anonymous Coward]

sounds like one big GTA game ... without a storyline

Re:Uh oh

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

I suppose we should be happy that they're actually going to prepare for the next war.

"prepare"? They're not preparing for anything, they're warmonging. That's a case of war creation more than anything else...

2015 ?

[Jesrad]

How peculiar... This is exactly the year that John Titor predicted as the explosion of the US Civil War into a full-blown WW3. ::dons tin-foil hat::

Re:2015 ?

[Anonymous Coward]

How peculiar, this is exactly the year that tens of thousands of other writers seeking a "near future" date have chosen.

PERHAPS IT IS MORE THAN COINCIDENCE?!?!!?!

Re:2015 ?

[Anonymous Coward]

How peculiar... This is exactly the year that John Titor predicted as the explosion of the US Civil War into a full-blown WW3. ::dons tin-foil hat::

John Titor is still a nut in our time.

/ Anonymous Coward from 2036

Re:2015 ?

[Jesrad]

Thanks, you made my day :)

Re:Uh oh

[DAldredge]

Are you talking about China or the USA?

wanna make it really cool?

[Anonymous Cowpat]

hook it up to America's Army. A 100,000 player MMOFPS/RTS, with a command structure, a continent to fight over and no modular missions. A big-picture, constantly changing war. Wanna make it even cooler? have new technology appear every few years, have the ammount of new weapons you can build related to how much of the land/natural resources you control - have things built on percentages, not just numerical limits.
Of course, the thing is that this just becomes a big computer game rather than a military training system, but like America's Army which is really designed to get people to sign up for the US Army, (as long as everything is realistic) this would actually allow the powers that be to know just who the best leaders/tacticians/strategists are in a time of crisis, without having to actually get a few 1000 soldiers brains blown out to seperate the wheat from the chaff.
Oh, and have the 'leaders' in a virtual command HQ, which could potentially be overrun / blown up.

Wait... that was the entire plan for my world-dominating computer game... d'oh. No-one do anything with it for a while, will you? I'm just popping out to the patent office.

Re:wanna make it really cool?

[xsupergr0verx]

Apparantly you don't play many games online in public servers. A character named "GOATSE!" always runs into a group of teammates and shoots an anti-tank rocket directly into the ground, or equivalent.

Re:wanna make it really cool?

[Anonymous Coward]

have the ammount of new weapons you can build related to how much of the land/natural resources you control - have things built on percentages, not just numerical limits.

and we can call it C&C red alert!

oh wait.....

No Comment

[Anonymous Coward]

[...] external hostilities: Islam [...]

Re:Uh oh

[ryanmfw]

Well, while that's possible, it's unimportant. I'm glad our military is doing this after all. We wouldn't want to get caught without skilled commanders, or even modern strategy. Before World War 2, France had the largest army in Europe, yet it managed to lose because German generals(specifically Guderian) pioneered new strategies. Most people don't think about this, at least Americans, but there are other armies out there that are advanced too. Maybe not as powerful, but still there. We need to stay focused on keeping the lead, instead of relaxing on our supposed invincibility.

The scene...

[skabb]

The whole article reminded me of the good old amiga days...
- "look! 100 bobs on the screen at the same time! "
- "Nah.. thats nothing, here's one million"

dude, it's the matrix...

[svoloch]

except all the people are white...

Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum

[Anonymous Coward]

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.
-- Vegetius

Re:Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone has been playing Rome: Total War haven't they?

Re:Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum

[xmod2]

You cannot prevent and prepare for war at the same time.
-- Albert Einstein

Re:Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum

[Anonymous Coward]

I much prefer

"let him who desires war prepare for war"

Insider scoop

[Anonymous Coward]

Judging by the screenshots (http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,65403 ,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1#) this is running the ancient ModSaf program (http://www.sisostds.org/webletter/siso/iss_75/art _367.htm). The WIRED article quotes a guy who "ported it to Linux"- which isn't very impressive, because the original platform was Solaris

ModSaf has been populating tank simulaters with NPC targets since 1982.

Insterestingly, the "supercomputers" this runs on were first purchased for Beowulf use- but the clustering software was removed for this project.

Re:Uh oh

[Anonymous Coward]

We need to stay focused on keeping the lead, instead of relaxing on our supposed invincibility.

Yea, like your invincibiliy in Iraq...

The REAL simulation:

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the spread on Miami this weekend?

Aww..

[cybrchrst]

Just when the roleplayers said that PVP was dead, the Army goes and makes a whole continent dedicated to PVP play in 2015.

The real question is where are the soldiers going to bind and who is going to rezz them. And will the Army ban soldiers that corpse-camp?

I always wondered.

[Lumpy]

why the US govt does not use sometihng like the american army game to test tactics and run simulations and train on..

some of the tactics I hear about in IRAQ I know I have used in counterstrike years ago.

the FPS gamer is one of the greatest resources of tactical study.. add in a prize for a team that can push out the blue team from the fortress and you just trained your soldiers in the blue team in real combat technique.

Re:I always wondered.

[Anonymous Coward]

the FPS gamer is one of the greatest resources of tactical study.. add in a prize for a team that can push out the blue team from the fortress and you just trained your soldiers in the blue team in real combat technique.

'Cause we all know the FPS gamer is so knowledgeable about combat tactics. Yessir, and Counterstrike is the best way to simulate urban warfare, peacekeeping, low-intensity conflicts, etc. And they would be like gods if they were in patroling in Iraq right now!

Re:I always wondered.

[Prof.Phreak]

...but, in games, folks aren't afraid of death. Ie: I woudln't object going on suicide run if my team wins in a _game_... but I wouldn't do that in real life.

Re:I always wondered.

[drlake]

The military does use simulations to train on. This is just a larger version of command post exercises which have been used to train commanders and staffs for years. At the individual, the Marines were using a Doom mod to train soldiers with years ago.

Re:I always wondered.

[jericho4.0]

Because FPS gamers can't carry packs. They don't have the shoulders for it.

Seriously, you're mostly right. A week of playing counterstrike teaches you what works(mostly), and what doesn't (always) work. It teaches you to think where the enemy might be, rather where you last saw him, and to be aware of cover, escape routes, sight lines, etc.

Re:I always wondered.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, you're mostly right. A week of playing counterstrike teaches you what works(mostly), and what doesn't (always) work.

Yeah, Counterstrike and AmericasArmy are GREAT teaching tools. They're just like real life!

Everyone knows that real battlefields never get anywhere near civilians. Everything that moves is either a teammate or a deadly enemy.

Also, real battles always take place between exactly even numbers on each side.

Re:I always wondered.

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, there are some peo[ple that say "military training is needed for combat"

yet we get our asses handed to us on a platter by these non military gurella cel's daily in Iraq.

the same happened in Korea, Vietnam, and every other "war" we have been in for more than 15 minutes. (desert storm was an exercize NOT a war.)

Re:I always wondered.

[Gentlewhisper]

'Cause we all know the FPS gamer is so knowledgeable about combat tactics. Yessir, and Counterstrike is the best way to simulate urban warfare, peacekeeping, low-intensity conflicts, etc. And they would be like gods if they were in patroling in Iraq right now!

Make the American peacekeepers in iraq jump up and down like bunnies even as they are walking, and we got a mutiny on our hands....

Re:I always wondered.

[Anonymous Coward]

sorry but gurellas kick american soldiers asses on a regular basis. and the FPS gamer has MORE training than they do.

Parent Comment is Flamebait:

[glrotate]

Islam means "peace". It is a "peaceful religion"(tm).

Just look at how well Islamic countries get along with their neighbors.

Re:Parent Comment is Flamebait:

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually Islam means 'submission' (to the will of God).

RTFD?

boycott KDE

[Anonymous Coward]

I was sick looking at the bottom of the screenshots. KDE. In use by American terrorists...

Shit. Hurry up Osama, get it right next time.

Well see, they run MySQL

[Anonymous Coward]

and don't have any complaints!

KDE and SI.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone else notice the window tab with
Mozilla browsing @ si.com "NCAA Football" ?

Oh yeah, "we are hard at work here.. don't pay
any attention to the other work spaces.. Move
a long, nothing to see here..."

Very true

[Infonaut]

But also very, very difficult.

The unfortunate problem is that even if some are ready to give up the study of and preparation for war, others are not. I might be able to convince another American that it's a good idea, and I might even be able to convince a German or a Finn. But as an American how could I convince a Chetchen, or an Iranian, or a North Korean? Would their own leaders even want to convince them of the rightness of disarming? Leaders of "good will" have always been few and far between.

How can we all stop preparing for war? That is the challenge, but so far I've not encountered any plan that seems even remotely practical, given the cultural, ethnic, and religious schisms that divide people across the globe.

Re:Very true

[l0b0]

You seem to be talking about Chetchens, Iranians, etc. as the people, not the leaders. In that case I'd like you to get off your ass and talk to them, because there are plenty of reasonable people who just want to "live life, make business". Sorry to say it, but you never hear about Achmed the Dr. Med. or Yanna the housemaid in the news. And oh, if you want world peace, why don't you stop bombing people who have never been a threat to you? Mod me all you want, but there's plenty of people who view the US as expansionist brutes.</rant>

Re:Very true

[Koyaanisqatsi]

The failure with your reasoning is that you assume your side is righteous and would be willing to disarm and the other would not. Just as the *people* in those countries you mentioned is peacefull (in general), people in those so called *evil countries* is also (generally) peacefull.

And just as the leaders of the so called "evil countries" are (arguiably) evil, you will have to admit that your own king is also (arguiably) evil.

Bottom line? We're all the same: the idividual wants piece, but give him power and he'll screw you up most often than not, color/religion/origin non-withstanding.

Wake-up and and see the world. It stinks, but its also beaultiful mostly

Re:Very true

[Short Circuit]

It sounds to me like you're confusing American people with American leaders. Popular vote vs electoral college aside, once a President is elected, he's stuck there for four years, unless he's convicted in an impeachment. So a candidate's running platform can have little to do with what he actually does in office.

Don't blame me, I wasn't old enough to vote. (I first voted in 2001.)

Re:Very true

[Infonaut]

I understand completely what you're saying. Yes, there are plenty of people who view the US as expansionist brutes. Believe it or not, a lot of Americans aren't interested in bombing people who have never been a threat to Americans.

But that sort of underlines my point. It's difficult to even get Americans to understand that bombing the crap out of people isn't always the smartest way to make the world a safer place. It's that difficult for me to convince the guy sitting next to me that invading Iraq wasn't the smartest way to fight terrorism, or that constraining freedoms in the US isn't a good example of democracy in action.

So if it's that difficult for me to convince another American of this, and we have the same cultural and religious background, and I'm in the same freakin' room with the guy, how difficult is it going to be to convince someone whose cultural and economic reference points are completely different?

I'm not saying this means we should not try to engage people from other cultures. I've done a lot of traveling and I always try to elicit opinions about the United States, our leaders, our foreign policy, and the impact of American culture. But I do think that while people are people, people are also not the same. Their beliefs and values are shaped by their culture and history, and not everyone follows the Judeo-Christian beliefs that have defined the United States and Western Europe.

Even if the United States put down its weapons today, the world would still be full of war and conflict. If the United States laid down its weapons and completely demilitarized, would that truly make the world a more peaceful place in the long run?

Maybe it would, but I'm not so sure. With the US out of the picture, someone else would step into the power vacuum. Maybe it would be Russia, and maybe it would be China. Would a dominant Russia be more peacful than the US? Would China?

Re:Very true

[FLEB]

And oh, if you want world peace, why don't you stop bombing people who have never been a threat to you?

Recursive comment there... should've at least thrown a warning.

Re:Very true

[Pentagram]

The unfortunate problem is that even if some are ready to give up the study of and preparation for war, others are not. I might be able to convince another Chechen that it's a good idea, and I might even be able to convince an Iranian or a North Korean. But as a Chechen how could I convince an American, or a German, or a Finn? Would their own leaders even want to convince them of the rightness of disarming? Leaders of "good will" have always been few and far between.

A. Chechen

Re:Very true

[Infonaut]

Actually I was only using the example of Americans, Germans, Finns, etc. because there are some shared religous and cultural norms that would allow me as an American to convince one of these people as to the need for disarming. By the same token it would be difficult for a North Korean or Chechen to convince me of the need for disarmament.

My point was that for a wide variety of reasons it is difficult for the message of peace to pass through these religious and cultural walls. It becomes doubly difficult given that most often it is leaders talking to leaders, rather than regular individuals talking to regular individuals.

I agree with you that the world is beautiful. I just happen to think that while the variety of cultures and religions across the world make life interesting, human nature is to define each other by our differences rather than our similarities. So finding worldwide peace is not something we'll reach for a long, long time.

Re:Very true

[Yet Another Paranoid]

..stop preparing for war.. ..stop preparing for war.. ..stop preparing for war..

Re:Very true

[Infonaut]

Does Switzerland prepare for war or not?

Re:Very true

[Yet Another Paranoid]

Sorry if I don't understand you. I 'm not an english speaker.

I post about the "preparing" word. If American are only preparing for war... ufffff...

Re:Very true

[Fred_A]

Actually I was only using the example of Americans, Germans, Finns, etc. because there are some shared religous and cultural norms that would allow me as an American to convince one of these people as to the need for disarming.

Actually the mindset and cultural differences between the US and most of Europe are immense. It is a common mistake (made on both sides) to think that there is much of a common ground.

You'll probably have the same rate of success with koreans as with europeans.

Re:Very true

[csguy314]

I might be able to convince another American that it's a good idea, and I might even be able to convince a German or a Finn. But as an American how could I convince a Chetchen, or an Iranian, or a North Korean?

How about just convicing one American? The president...

Re:Very true

[Jason Earl]

I spent my high school years as a Gringo in Peru. While I was there two of my Peruvian friends were killed by terrorists from Sendero Luminoso because they looked like the might be Americans. So excuse me if I have a strong opinion about this subject.

One of the things that I saw while I lived in Peru was that most Peruvians (as individuals) were as nice a people as you might want to meet. Most of the anti-American sentiment that existed in Peru, and there was a *lot* of it, was the direct result of manipulation by various Peruvian political leaders. Peru is a fairly screwed up country, and the political leaders there spend most of their time blaming their problems on the Devils in the United States. Now, I am not going to say that the U.S. hasn't forwarded some pretty bad South American foreign policies over the years, but Peru's major problems stem from rampant corruption of their own political system and not from any policy that the U.S. might have adopted. About the worst thing that U.S. has done in recent years is loan Peru money so that its corrupt leaders could waste it on gewgaws or leave the country with it. Despite the fact that Peru's problems are almost entirely of Peruvian manufacture the United States is every Peruvian politician's favorite scapegoat, and the Peruvian population is uneducated enough that they buy these lies wholesale.

As an example, at one point the government-sponsored TV station ran a totally bogus news story about a string of child abductions in which it was alleged that an American was running around Lima abducting children and stealing their corneas for sale in the U.S. I remember seeing one of these broadcasts on the news and the main graphic featured a silohuette with a question mark on its face backed by a U.S. flag (how they knew it was an American that was stealing the eyes was never told).

Months later one of the independent newspapers ran a story exposing the "Gringo saca ojos" story as a complete fraud, but by then the damage had been done. Heck, my father's SUV was actually attacked by a mob in downtown Lima, and the only thing that saved him was A) he spoke Spanish, and B) he had two of my little sisters in the SUV with him. He was finally able to calm the crowd down by pointing out that he was a father as well, and that he had his two little girls in the car with him. As it was quite a bit of damage was done to the car, and the incident scared the heck out of my entire family.

So what's the point to all this? The point is that it doesn't matter that the people in a country are sane if the people in power in their country are not sane. Most people believe what they are told, even cynical and well-educated people like the average American. If Peruvians are told by the government that America is responsible for their problems, then a lot of them are going to believe it. On a similar note if Moslems around the world are told that America is "the great Satan" by their religious leaders then no amount of positive PR is likely to make the average Moslem disbelieve that. America is a big target, and we make more than our share of mistakes, but much of the hatred for America is nothing more than shrewd political maneuvering. America is the enemy that all sorts of political leaders use to rally the uneducated and ill-informed into their causes.

My grandfather was an missionary for the LDS church (the Mormons) right before WWII. He barely escaped Germany with his life. A few years later he was back in Europe with a U.S. bomber squadron blasting the life out of people that just a few years earlier he had been teaching about Jesus Christ. My Grandfather loved the German people, but for whatever reason they let themselves get put into a position where the folks running the country were insane and dangerous, and so for the sake of the rest of the world he volunteered to blast Germans to bits, many of them complete innocents. Since the German people were unwilling to remove the threat that Hitler represented by themselves, my g

Re:Very true

[stateofmind]

But l0b0, I'm Josh the Programmer in the USA, I have no control to stop the bombing, etc. No more then you can control your goverment. Whatever your goverment does, doesn't reflect you right?

I hate it when people attack the citizens of the USA. Last time I checked, I can't stop our goverment from being "expansionist brutes" or anything else they are labeled as. The majority of Americans want to "live life, make business" just as much as you do.

Josh

Re:Very true

[Anonymous Coward]

But also very, very difficult.

This is the backwards thinking that keeps us in the truly dire mess of physical violence and suffering. Why don't we put $1bn into studying diplomacy? Just a $1bn worth of research, compared to god knows how many trillions of dollars into war and our own demise.

Re:Very true

[penniwinkle]

"There will always be wars and rumors of wars"-Jesus. But that doesn't mean that our military needs a "Forbin Project" toy to practice with. We have already bullied the world into pushing back with low tech.

Re:Very true

[Anonymous Coward]

But isn't America the one true democracy in the world, where each man and each woman have a say? Where those elected are in power to represent on your behalf?

You're right, of course, but hopefully those who this comment is aimed at will actually get it.

Re:Very true

[l0b0]

But l0b0, I'm Josh the Programmer in the USA, I have no control to stop the bombing, etc. No more then you can control your goverment. Whatever your goverment does, doesn't reflect you right?

I could have understood someone from (fill in your favorite dictatorship) saying that, but an American? As long as you vote, you're part of a democracy, and that means your government reflects you (the people).

Re:Very true

[Anonymous Coward]

We can stop worrying about war after a really really big one. Untill then, give me your crap, I diserve it.

Re:Very true

[ocelotbob]

Being prepared to fight and willing to fight are two separate things. Being unprepared to fight leads to incidents like rwanda, where hundreds of thousands of people died because the UN was unwilling and/or unprepared to fight to try to keep the country together. Yes, it is immoral to fight unprevoked. It is just as immoral to prevent a fight if you have the power to do so.

Re:Very true

[danila]

If the United States wanted, it could. If Bush said (yeah, impossible, I know, but bear with me anyway) and Congress approved it (and American people at the referendum) that in 10 years the military budget will be decreased 95% and a detailed plan for this drawn out, this would be a strong enough argument to persuade other global powers (EU, Japan, Russia, China) to do the same. Then, together these countries could manage to persuade "rogue states" such as Iran or North Korea to follow suit, and give what limited power (police more than military) would be left to the (reformed) United Nations.

The problem is that the world "leaders" (or shall we call them "world hindrances") are mostly rather stupid (Bush may not be the total moron he looks like, but he is clearly not intelligent). Powerful and rich don't mean smart. Most leaders simply don't see a world without wars and don't understand why it would be good, so they don't try to achieve it. Hopefully, the technological progress will make them obsolete as we will gradually destroy the need for nation states and even societies.

Re:Very true

[ratamacue]

How can we all stop preparing for war?

Reduce the size of government. The less power and revenue available to government, the less trouble they will cause.

Re:Very true

[Anonymous Coward]

What these "sane" people, all over the world, need to do is kick the loonies out of power

I agree. George Bush is a good place to start

Re:Very true

[stateofmind]

That is what our schools teach us when were young, and that is what the rest of the world is told. But the people are rarely represented. Look at Vietnam, the country was screaming for it to end, and our government turned a deaf ear to our screams.

Unfortunately our President decided to make a mockery of the U.N. and go out on his own. He can wage war for 90 days without congressional approval. And the whole congress approved the war...

I wish the world would remember (including America) that the governments of countries do not represent the people in terms of their words and/or actions. Some Americans are ignorant, and think since the terrorists came from the Muslim world, then all Muslims and Islam must be evil. We have murdering Christians here, but that doesn't represent all of the Christians. And so on...

My point being, other people of the world shouldn't hate the citizens of America, were just like you. We want peace, not killing or war. And we know about as much about our government as you do.

Take care,
Josh

Re:Very true

[stateofmind]

"that means your government reflects you"

That's how it is suppose to work, but it rarely does. Plus the President of the USA can wage war for 90 days without congressional approval.

America is actually a republic, not a true democracy. If we were a true democracy, we would vote on every decision.

In a republic the people are (supposedly) represented. However that doesn't mean our elected officals have to vote the way we want them to. Plus our goverment is influenced heavily by big business (corporations).

Josh

Re:Very true

[Yeechang Lee]

I spent my high school years as a Gringo in Peru.
[...]
My grandfather was an missionary for the LDS church (the Mormons) right before WWII.

Was your dad a Mission President in Peru?

Yeechang, a fellow four-digit Slashdot ID holder whose dad was head of the Korea Taejon Mission '92-'95

Re:Very true

[meta-monkey]

Man, I would sure like to have some of whatever it is you're smoking. So, after everybody disarms, we'll all get on a mountaintop and join hands and sing about coca-cola. Oh it'll be glorious, Bush and Osama hugging like old friends, Kim Jong Il will put on a dance number, and Saddam, released from prison, will bring presents to all the boys and girls. Oh, if only that evil nasty U.S. would just lay down its their weapons...

Grow the hell up.

Re:Very true

[Jason Earl]

As a matter of fact, he was, and the two friends of mine that were killed by Sendero Luminoso they were (Peruvian) LDS missionaries.

Re:Very true

[lpangelrob2]

One of the most insightful posts I've ever read on /. -- a corollary of the above is that in addition to Americans needing to get out of their own countries and explore the world, so do people in other countries. At some point, the Internet was supposed to be an avenue towards that goal, but like most communication mediums, it's had its ups and downs.

On a side note, it seems to me that religious missions would be the only way to do so, because few people from other groups would be willing to put themselves in serious danger for no earthly rewards.

Re:Very true

[slaad]

As long as you vote, you're part of a democracy, and that means your government reflects you (the people).

It is only a very small reflection though.... The government doesn't have to act in accordance with what the majority of people want. This may put them out of office a year or two down the line, but in the meantime, it is what it is. Furthermore, even if every decision made were an accurate reflection of what the "country" wanted, it would be a majority decision. Any way you look at it, there will be millions of people opposed to just about anything that gets done. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that if I only was going to do one thing with government, my time would be better spent writing letters/talking to congressmen than it would be actually voting.

Re:Very true

[Jason Earl]

Thanks for the compliment.

On a side note, it seems to me that religious missions would be the only way to do so, because few people from other groups would be willing to put themselves in serious danger for no earthly rewards.

I wouldn't say that the time I spent in South America on my own mission was "without earthly rewards." I learned Spanish, I got to meet some very interesting people, and when I came home I had made it through one of the trickiest parts of young adulthood without any serious mistakes. By the time I was 21 and back in school I was prepared to seriously buckle down to my studies. Most importantly I got to see first hand what real poverty looks like. It makes it a lot easier to be happy with what you have when you have seen what the average person in Huancayo, Peru has to look forward to.

Interestingly enough, its not just the missions to foreign countries that teach this kind of thing. My little brother is currently on a mission in Texas, and he sees much of the same stuff there. A lot of the people that are interested in talking to LDS missionaries are going through very difficult trials (which is probably why they don't slam the door :). The insights into life that you get by dealing with people in these situations are almost certainly worth the price of admission.

Heck, even if I wasn't religious myself I would probably consider sending my own children on some sort of mission. It's a good experience.

Re:Very true

[metlin]

Great post, brilliant and insightful.

Thank you! Added you as a friend.

Re:Very true

[Anonymous Coward]

Reduce the size of government. The less power and revenue available to government, the less trouble they will cause.

And instead of having American soldiers rampaging through the streets of Fallujah shooting terrorists, we can have American ex-soldiers rampaging through the streets of New York shooting civilians, because there ain't no government to pay their wages and there ain't no police to stop them. Sounds good to me... not.

Let me guess..

[cybrchrst]

The name of the computer with the simulation is WOPR and the name of the AI in it is Joshua and the head designer is a reclusive scientist named Professor Falken.

Needs some work...

[Serious Simon]

Some of the vehicles have very complex behavior sets, but even the simple 'bots "know" how fast to go on which roads, to turn corners, to avoid collisions and to stay on the roads,

Hmmm. On this picture there are several cars that have seriously run into each other, and at least one that swerved off the side of the road...

Re:Uh oh

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people don't think about this, at least Americans, but there are other armies out there that are advanced too. Maybe not as powerful, but still there. We need to stay focused on keeping the lead, instead of relaxing on our supposed invincibility.

I agree. We do need to keep our military on the cutting edge. I'm just worried that this is prep for aggressive wars, as opposed to defense from an invading force. It seems to me that, while your example compares us to pre-WWII France, we are closer to the Germans*, preparing a new strategy so our next act of aggression goes over a little better than our last.
After all, this seems concerned with urban warfare on a foreign continent.

*obviously we are, despite our agression, still morally superior to Nazi Germany. As long as we don't start rounding up all the Arabs and throwing them in camps.

You do know that the US lost the war gaming

[Anonymous Coward]

of the Iraq war?

The generals wouldnt believe that the iraqis would attack them with road side bombs and suicide bombs. And when the US general in charge of the iraqi side did use tactics such as this, killing a lot of US troops, the generals for the US side declared it null and void and ordered the troops back to life.

And you think a computer simulation is going to help the US win wars? BWUAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA YOU DUMB CUNTS!

Re:You do know that the US lost the war gaming

[Anonymous Coward]

And when the US general in charge of the iraqi side did use tactics such as this, killing a lot of US troops, the generals for the US side declared it null and void and ordered the troops back to life.

That's not true at all, but it is based on a real incident. In the Iraq war game, the Iraq side managed to sink the US aircraft carriers.

They did this by driving up in small boats filled with dynamite. In real life, there would be sailors on deck to shoot those attackers. In the wargame, they didn't use the full complement of Navy crew, because it'd be a waste of their time to just guard a ship deck for the whole 2 weeks.

So, the Iraqi attack wasn't plausible at all. The referee correctly judged this, and revived the battleships.

There were no roadside bombs or suicide bombs in that wargame because it only lasted 2 weeks, which is as far ahead as the Pentagon was planning. If you remember the actual Operation Iraqi Freedom, the first 3-4 weeks went just fine, and only later did the guerrilla attacks start. The military's wargames was to plan how to INVADE a country, not OCCUPY it.

Re:You do know that the US lost the war gaming

[diver501]

To settle some urban myth about this Topic. I was the blue force (US) operator for this event. Yes the real guy behind the scene controling the whole blue force for this war game. Here is what really happened. The event was supposed to be a few weeks long and the initial phase was to get the component commanders on the US side up to speed since it was being staffed by actual destroyer squadron staff personel. The attack in question went down during the early phase of the game which was to be used to build the DESRONs situational awareness becuase in the real world no one goes into this cold turkey. The red forces had been involved in the planning process for about a year. The DESRON had been there for 2 days. Some of the Blue force ships hadn't even been tasked for patrol routes while the desron was still figuring out what assets they had. I was the only Blue shipping operator on the game floor at the time and was helping the DESRON get thier starting positions set up and I was controling roughly 100 entities, carriers, cruisers, amphibs, landing craft...etc. A phone call came in from the red force operators. griping that some of the ships needed to have thier names changed and while I was in the middle of making changes they started the attack. (reminescent of the scene from clear and present danger when Jack Ryan is on the phone to distract the deputy sec while he was routing around in his computer.) By the time I noticed that weapons where being fired it was too late.(fool me once) So the attack was registered null and void primarily becuase the exercise was still in set up phase, and as was stated because the multiple simultaneous attacks would not have gone unanswered. becuase there would have been multiple crews all responding and not just one operator being distracted. The Red force General cried foul because he was trying to win and boo hooed that it was scripted for the US to win. The war game wasn't being run to see if we could be winners it was being run to test new command and control ideas and to train the desron staff. Yes it was a game, games differ from real life, you need to set up the game board in a game. If we were playing checkers and I wouldn't even let you get your side ready to play why did we bother to get the checker board out? Once the exercise was being played out for real it was a fairly executed and adjudicated by the White Cell (Judges/exercise control personell)

Several fictional stories have this as a premise

[samberdoo]

I like the one where if your side had 10,000 casualties in the cyber war then 10,000 people had to report to the extermination camps. 100,000 or even million entities on a whole continent is a very sparse array. Doesn't sound very realistic.

Re:Uh oh

[Poppler]

AC wrote: Yea, like your invincibiliy in Iraq...

Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the parent used the word "supposed".

I hear...

[mdxi]

...that this is gonna be one of the launch titles for the PlayStation 3. Mmm, clusterfragging...

Re:Several fictional stories have this as a premis

[Anonymous Coward]

100,000 or even million entities on a whole continent is a very sparse array.

The reporter got it wrong, this project doesn't do a "continent". It does only the island of Indonesia, and really only one city on that island.

100k?

[Lord_Dweomer]

100k entities? Battlefield:1942 eat your heart out.

Seriously though, this is good for gamers, because this technology will inevitably end up in our games. Planetside tried to make a FPS with that many players, and while their cone of fire killed it (among other things), I definitely see FPSs going in that direction in the future, especially with the increasing availability of broadband.

I've always wanted to have large historic battles, but since the numbers of soldiers were so large back then, it wasn't really feasible for a FPS, but now perhaps they could do it after all. Can you say Battle of Helms Deep with every character being a real person?

Re:100k?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are seriously overestimating the number of people who want to participate in your fantasies.

Re:100k?

[Kaa]

I've always wanted to have large historic battles, but since the numbers of soldiers were so large back then, it wasn't really feasible for a FPS, but now perhaps they could do it after all.

It's still not feasible for an FPS primarily because not many people are interested in playing as peon #27419 who gets to stand in one place for an hour or so and then gets killed by a canon shot/cavalry charge/etc.

But for an RTS this works well. Check out the TotalWar series of games, especially the latest Rome: TotalWar. You can have several thousand troops fighting on the screen at the same time and the fighting is hugely more intelligent than your usual "gather tanks and throw them at the enemy, rinse, repeat" RTS stupidity.

Can you say Battle of Helms Deep with every character being a real person?

That's fine. You be one of those orcs in the back rows. Don't go far away from the computer, in half an hour you might need to move forward a few paces... :-)

Re:100k?

[l0b0]

Can you say Battle of Helms Deep with every character being a real person?

Yup, and here's a sample of the chat:
Orc_5235: Nuh uh, no way I'll be in front
Orc_9873: AOL
Orc_632: Uh huh!
Orc_1236: n00bs! 1'll sh0w y4!
Orc_1236 was killed
Orc_1236 has left the game

Re:100k?

[Feanturi]

Can you say Battle of Helms Deep with every character being a real person?

I can see it now:

G1mli: I roxxor dude!! 27!

L3g0las: You teh suxxor!! 29!!!!

Gimlet: 38 over here!

Legolamb: Ph3ar me, 40!!

etc etc

Re:100k?

[Lord_Dweomer]

Interesting point, and I'm glad you brought it up. I wonder if a wave spawning system such as in bf1942 would help fix that boredom problem? And there's no reason that everybody has to be fighting in one area, plus when you throw in archers, not everybody would be waiting in line to charge.

And I'm not saying that we absolutely need 100k people for this battle, but a couple thousand in one battle seems reasonable.

Re:100k?

[hugg]

I don't see why you'd need to actually simulate 100k entities -- you would want to use some sort of level-of-detail calculation to simplify the stuff that is not of immediate concern to the goals of the simulation. For instance, why simulate traffic in Reston, VA when the focus is on an incident in downtown DC?

Rather, the simulation should simulate the macro-scale flow of traffic in these areas and only simulate down to the individual car when a player is near those areas. Of course, maybe it's easier (and better grant $$) to just throw a buncha supah-hardware at the problem.

Re:100k?

[nothings]

SIMNET is 10 years old and could scale up that large, so I doubt there's much relevance to this new thing for gaming.

Re:100k?

[danila]

Actually most military simulations suck nowadays in terms of technical sofistication and (alas!) graphics. So there is no useful tech here that an RTS developer would want. If Creative Assembly, EA or Blizzard were making games for Linux-based supercomputers, they would beat these JFCom guys easily. The fact is that a) they design for desktop computers and b) they need a balanced product with graphics and gameplay. There is nothing magical about simulating 100,000 objects. Rome: Total War easily does 2000 on a desktop, with much better graphics and with no horses overlapping an elephant. LOTR: Battle for Middle-Earth will do about the same.

Re:100k?

[Anonymous Coward]

SIMNET is 10 years old and could scale up that large

This JFCOM project is SIMNET-derived in an indirect way, but the networking protocols have been rewritten at least 3 times in the interim.

The original SIMNET absolutely could not scale up. It was a BROADCAST protocol! That means that every connected computer sends all its updates to every other connected computer, creating an N-squared traffic level that will oversaturate any networking hardware.

Re:100k?

[nothings]

I'm pretty sure SIMNET used local rebroadcasting nodes, not direct multicasting from all peers to all peers.

I did google before posting, and saw multiple references to it having been run with >1000 clients.

Re:100k?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure SIMNET used local rebroadcasting nodes, not direct multicasting from all peers to all peers.

It didn't. Google results can be confusing, because many other softwares has used the name "SIMNET" since then.

multiple references to it having been run with 1000 clients.

If you are going to cite a source, why not actually CITE the SOURCE?

I searched for "simnet military", and read the first 10 results. None of them gave a node count of even 300. However, one article (http://www.sisostds.org/webletter/siso/iss_39/art _202.htm) was illuminating because it contains this line:

1. SIMNET is not a person, place or thing nor system. It is an idea. Like the idea of the American West it is constantly changing.

That is wishywashness and untrue. Simnet IS a system- a specific set of software and protocols. But if you did take his standpoint, then EVERYTHING in military simulation is still Simnet.

Simnet can't use 1000 clients any more than ethernet can use 500 clients.

SIMNET was replaced with DIS, which was replaced with HLA, which was replaced with MPI.

Mods Smoking Crack

[Anonymous Coward]

50% Troll, 50% Flamebait... despite the fact that we did just invade a "single defenseless country in the middle east", and have a belligerent administration in power which has expressed it's desire to change to world by force?

Honestly I'd give it an insightful. Maybe flamebait, but instightful too.

Sure You Can Simulate 1 Million people

[Anonymous Coward]

But five bucks says it doesn't even get 1.3 fps

Re:Uh oh

[ryanmfw]

Thank you, couldn't have said it better myself.

A bit too late?

[mobiux]

"One experiment in this series, "Urban Resolve," began October 12. Set in the year 2015, in JFCOM's description, "it involves a U.S.-led coalition force that must confront and overcome a skilled adversary who is equipped with modern capabilities and is operating in an urban environment." "

Don't ya think they got this running about a year too late? Might have been helpful in this other thing going on in the meat world.

Re:A bit too late?

[Kwil]

Actually.. that one is scary.

Is the US planning on invading other first world countries now?

Re:A bit too late?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it would have been sufficient to get the "coalition" part going... before worrying about simulating it

I'm not sure

[chaffed]

But is this the average population of a United States city?

Then again I can't imagine bush holding on to power for that long.

Mod +1 for paranoid

CounterStrike...

[tktk]

So they'll be playing a huge version of CounterStrike?

How about

[phrenq]

How about a nice game of chess?

Re:How about

[l0b0]

Sure, when the MMOCG comes along, with 7.1 sound and extra gore!

And that reminds me of "A Taste of Armageddon"

[Killjoy_NL]

...as in the ST:TOS episode.

Now where are the casaulty units? :p

WHAT THE HELL!

[pronobozo]

if it's 2015.. where are the flying cars? better sell my moller stock.

Still no cure for cancer

[Cryofan]

and still no cure for the idiocy that afflicts American minds so they we let the military industrial complex and the religious nuts control what we do with our tax dollars.

Heaven forbid we stop riling up the Muslim world, leave them in peace, and instead concentrate on curing diseases that kill thousands.

3000 Americans died in WTC 911. But every day 5000 Americans die, many of cancer and heart disease...

Lunacy....

Re:Still no cure for cancer

[killjoe]

We can't leave the muslims alone, they control a part of what is israel. Israel must be in the control of the jews before the prophesies can be fulfilled and jesus comes back.

That's what this war is all about. Laying the groundwork for the return or jesus. God has chosen G.W Bush as his instrument in facilitating the return of jesus.

Re:Still no cure for cancer

[bnenning]

Heaven forbid we stop riling up the Muslim world

Certain members of the Muslim world are riled up because we allow women to drive cars.

3000 Americans died in WTC 911. But every day 5000 Americans die, many of cancer and heart disease...

Everybody dies eventually. (Although I support anti-aging research to possibly correct that). There's a huge difference between dying of natural causes and being randomly blown up by lunatics. A nuclear bomb detonated in a major city could kill a million or so directly, and inflict trillions of dollars of economic damage. It's easily worth a few hundred billion to reduce that probability. (Whether current policies actually do reduce it is another matter).

Re:Still no cure for cancer

[enjo13]

How does throwing money make a cure magically appear? Do you think we haven't cured cancer because god feels like we haven't spent enough on it yet?

Our obsession with military and military technology may be a bit scary, but it's not an either/or for curing cancer or anything else for that matter. Cancer research has a LOT of funding, and very little success to show for it.

Re:Still no cure for cancer

[MinimeMongo]

...But every day 5000 Americans die, many of cancer and heart disease...

Actually 1,500 Americans die each day due to cancer. It is a decreasing cause of death.

Re:Still no cure for cancer

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyday 150.000 HUMANS die. Not just americans, you know...

Re:Still no cure for cancer

[Cryofan]

Well, I know it, well I know it. But these topic is about how America spends its money on war, instead of medical.

Re:Still no cure for cancer

[Anonymous Coward]

aye. and we're close to seeing 50k annual flu deaths now. perhaps not quite this year but within 2..3 for sure. that's up from 20k 20 years ago.

Re:Still no cure for cancer

[Psyqlone]

3000 Americans died in WTC 911. But every day 5000 Americans die, many of cancer and heart disease...

...guvverm'nt oughta do somethin' about it, huh?

Re:Still no cure for cancer

[meta-monkey]

Heaven forbid we stop riling up the Muslim world, leave them in peace, and instead concentrate on curing diseases that kill thousands.

I think you're putting the cart before the horse here. The U.S. doesn't really give a care about the Muslim world, and would gladly "leave them in peace," so long as they stop flying planes into buildings and taking over our schools and shooting children in the back. But they're not going to do that.

The problem with your mode of thought is that you assume that because you would react one way to stimuli, everyone else would react the same way. This, however, is not that case. You have to look at the cultural background of a person, and how this colors his thought.

Islam is not a religion. Islam is a culture. It is a way of life. Mohammed was not just a prophet, he was a statesman and a warrior, too. So the Koran does not just instruct Muslims in how to run their churches, but how to run their countries, and their businesses, and their armies as well. Worse, unlike Christianity, Islam never had a Reformation. Prior to the Reformation, the Catholic church wasn't that much different than Islam of today. People in other lands doing things you don't like? Not worshiping The One True God? Why, they're heritics, and of course it's okay to kill women and children, because they're heretics! Thankfully, we outgrew that. Less Old Testament (crazy instructions on running every aspect of your life), more New Testament ("Give to God what is God's, and give to Caesar what is Caesar's"). Christians realized it would be a good idea to separate our religions from our governments. It took a few hundred years of war, but it happened, and that's modern western culture for you.

For Islam...no such luck. At one time, Islam was the pinnacle of scientific and artistic achievement in the world, but no more. Times changed, and they did not. Christianity today is nothing like Christianity of 500 years ago. Islam of today is the same as Islam of 500 years ago. Non-believers are infidels, and it's perfectly acceptable to kill their women and children. The government must be run according to the teachings of Mohammed. If it is not, it must be made to. Muslim extremists are boiling with hate and rage. Infidels lead the world in science, art, culture, military power, and wealth. The culture of Islam demands the forceful conversion or deaths of infidels. That is why they attack, and why they kill, and why, even if we "leave them alone," as you suggest, it would do no good. It would make the situation worse, because then instead of fighting them in their cities and streets, they'd be fighting us in ours.

The answer is not capitulation. The answer is victory. The Islamic culture is broken, and it needs to be fixed. Terrorism and war in the middle east will not stop until their broken culture is shattered and reassembled. It'll be hard work, and it'll take decades, but it will happen. The only other alternative is perpetual suicide bombings, beheadings, and bombed out schools.

Re:Uh oh

[Pompatus]

We need to stay focused on keeping the lead, instead of relaxing on our supposed invincibility.

Here's some statistics from wikipedia....

The United States military budget is larger than the military budgets of the next twenty biggest spenders combined, and six times larger than Russia's, which places second. The United States and its close allies are responsible for approximately two-thirds of all military spending on Earth (of which, in turn, the U.S. is responsible for two-thirds), dollar for dollar. Military spending accounts for more than half of the United States' federal discretionary spending, which is all of the U.S. government's money not spoken for by pre-existing obligations. [1] (http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/ArmsTrade /Spending.asp)

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in 2003 the United States spent approximately 47%, of the world's total military spending of $956,000,000,000 USD.

I think the US is doing everything to stay on top militarily.

War of the worlds?

[Kaitnieks]

The chances of anything coming from a virtual Mars is virtually a million from one... But still, they come.

Distributed?

[DogDude]

What I want to know is do they need distributed computing clients? I mean, why would I want my extra CPU cycles to work on finding life outside of this planet or curing disease when I can help with WAR?!?!

Huh?

[drlake]

"prepare"? They're not preparing for anything, they're warmonging. That's a case of war creation more than anything else...

Since when did training become warmongering? Since you obviously have some serious misaprehensions about the military, I should point out that "warmongering" is more accurately an activity of civilians rather than the military. Look which parts of our government wanted this current little war we're in...

Software and IT, come and get it.

[Politicus]

Could this be the start of a national subsidy to the Software and IT industries ala aerospace and agribusiness?

Re:Uh oh

[ryanmfw]

Thanks for the stats. Mainly I was saying that we need to stay on top strategy wise. We need to hone our skills. We've got well trained men, well maintained equipment, and a lot of supplies to back it up, but, we haven't seen any *major* war in 50 years. We don't have any commanders who've had to deal with an enemy that is nearly as advanced as we are, only with well, n00bs country wise (I always said I'd rue the day I said n00bs, but it's almost fitting).

Re:Uh oh

[ryanmfw]

Gitmo..... :-) And the Japanese internment camps.

I can imagine it now!

[Anonymous Coward]

The president: sorry folks, I got fragged. Please do not fight back when the Korean army arrives.
Army generals: ok!

WASP simulations

[Cinquain]

Seeing some of the the results of current action in Iraq leads me to believe that WASPs are programming both sides of the simulations that the soldiers are traing with. Red Teams against Blue teams just seem to prepare us for civil wars fighting each other. That is the problem with fighting against guerrillas - they refuse to do what they are expected to do. We won the revolutionary war because we refused to fight the way we were expected (I don't know why we lapsed back into fighting in ranks in the civil war). Who is going to program a simulation where your sister straps on C4 and blows herself up in a crowded bus? Silly us. Until it becomes "old news" and "everyone is doing it", the WASP get really bent out of shape if you behave in a "crazy" manner. "Must'nt have you bringing your crazy ideas into our simulation..."

Good luck

Too complex

[mekanizer]

This is far too complex, way to many stuff to simulate, it's not like a Nuclear simulator where everything or almost is destroyed in a certain perimiter with some factors such as wind. This thing will be a good video game for the U.S. military at the best.

Re:Too complex

[Jubedgy]

After reading the article, I think it's geared more towards the officers learning how to react to situations in environments that are tough to simulate in the real world rather than grunts learning how to not get killed. It's not perfect, but it's better than nothing. I'd say at least one step above a video game.

This is a bad idea.

[Jookey]

This simulation sounds like a bad idea. As with any mathamatecal model, it is only as good as the assumptions made, regardless of the resolution. This is exactly the kind of thinking that screwed us up in vietnam. Our foregn policy was being decided by mathmaticians when it should have been decided by historians. I get the impression this is planning for the next Faluja. Our problems in Iraq are not due to bad tactics, they are caused by bad strategy. I dont care how well your soldiers are trained; in urban combat the best kill ratio you can hope for is 10 to 1. We don't need more teraflops we need some good old fashoned common sense. http://www.exile.ru/archive/by_author/gary_brecher .html/

Joshua?

[changa]

Shall we play a game?

SC

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember guys, No Rush 5 minutes, and you can't abuse Carriers.

And as Mr. Miyagi once said:

[wass]

(really through a dialog):

Daniel : Hey - you ever get into fights when you were a kid?
Miyagi : Huh - plenty.
Daniel : Yeah, but it wasn't like the problem I have, right?
Miyagi : Why? Fighting fighting. Same same.
Daniel : Yeah, but you knew karate.
Miyagi : Someone always know more.
Daniel : You mean there were times when you were scared to fight?
Miyagi : Always scare. Miyagi hate fighting.
Daniel : Yeah, but you like karate.
Miyagi : So?
Daniel : So, karate's fighting. You train to fight.
Miyagi : That what you think?
Daniel : [pondering] No.
Miyagi : Then why train?
Daniel : [thinks] So I won't have to fight.
Miyagi : [laughs] Miyagi have hope for you.

Peace Simulator

[mekanizer]

Should'nt they be working on a Peace Simulator instead of a War Simulator ?

Wait...

[fl3shymut4nt]

didn't the aliens in the "War of the Worlds" die because they lost half of their flu vaccine somewhere in England?

Re:Very true: Talk about Chechen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Talk about Chetchen... You guys in US think you know everything. I live in Lithuania - the country that was first to get out from USSR, and now happy new EU member state.
I know what Russian (Soviet) oppression is. War crimes by Russian army are taking place in Chechnia for almost 10 years with small time-out between 1st and 2nd Chechen war. "Cleaning" happens every week: Russian solders come at night - take away teen chechens, torture them and in a few days family finds mutilated bodies somewhere in a suburbs. And these facts are not "chechen-terrorist's" propaganda - it is from human rights organizations, PACE and radio liberty http://www.rferl.org/ http://svoboda.org/.
You cannot imagine what happens in Chechnia. The things US army did in Iraq prison is NOTHING compared to atrocities of Russian army in Chechnia.
Now Russia is talking "War against Chechen militia is war agains terrorism" - so convenient and so un-true. They started this war 400 years ago and the last 2 episodes are 1995-1997 and 1999 till now.

New acronym...

[TrevorB]

I guess we have a new acronym now..

MMMRPG: Massive Multiplayer Mainframe Role Playing Game.

Perhaps thats the noise the simulated people make when you frag them...

MMMRPG! (thud)

Re:New acronym...

[Anonymous Coward]

That was a boring comment.

Public Policy Simulator Needed

[Felgerkarb]

While I think this is pretty cool, even if only for the 'gee whiz' factor, and I think anything that maintains and supports military preparedness is a good thing (especially if it can be done virtually), I think this is missing the point.

I don't think the issue is that the U.S. Military is losing wars, or is somehow not prepared tactically/strategically speaking (though funding and morale may be an issue). I mean, the initial stages of the conflict in Iraq were a military success. Similarly, Afghanistan was a successful military action. This simulator will not address the political/economic/ethnic/religious realities that have to be addressed after the fighting stops.

So, if this helps plan for urban combat, and potentially reduce military and civilian casualties, it's a great thing. But, ultimately, the U.S. has no trouble winning wars.....if I may borrow a cliched phrase, the problem is winning the peace.

For an interesting analysis on the logistics of 'nation building', please see this recently completed report.

Re:Very true: Talk about Chechen?

[Infonaut]

Hey, I'm not arguing with you. I have read plenty about the atrocities in Chechnia. I resent the assertion that everyone in the United States thinks they know everything. Only Bush, Rumsfeld and the neocons think they know everything. I certainly don't know everything, and I get as much of my news from abroad as possible.

My point was simply that people in very different circumstances, with very different history and religion and societies have a difficult time even talking about peace.

The experience of Russia and Chechnia only confirms that.

Shadowe

[Shadow of Eternity]

i can see it now: "OMFG H4X!!!1111"

Re:Very true: Talk about Chechen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Read this on Radio Liberty http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/9/D3D756 0D-9436-40DF-A6CD-5DA07EBD075C.html
(Russian Colonel Withdraws Request For Pardon)
In short: Russian Colonel Yurii Budanov got drunk, kidnapped young Chechen woman, raped and killed her. Was sentensed for 5 or 7 years, all honours/awards taken away. One year after the sentence he requested for pardon and this request proceeded through all the institutions to president Putin.
There was a very good joke in Russia: "Budanov pardoned Putin by withdrawing the request" (It whould have been outrageous if Putin pardoned colonel, on the other hand, Russians whould not understand if Putin refused pardon).

Russian saying comes to mind: "You wont get it without a pint of vodka"

Re:History Lesson, learned and forgotten

[Tuna_Shooter]

QUOTE: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." CITES: George Santayana, The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress: Reason in Common Sense 284 (2nd ed., Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, New York 1924 (originally published 1905 Charles Scribner's Sons)(appears in chapter XII, "Flux and Constancy in Human Nature")). George Santayana, The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress 82 (one-volume edition, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, New York 1954)(appears in Book I, Reason in Common Sense, chapter 10, "Flux and Constancy in Human Nature").

Best way to handle urban battlefield situations...

[Anonymous Coward]

iddqd

Not True!!!

[DelawareBoy]

If you remember, Global Thermonuclear War was only one option... I seem to remember a large range of wars, including a Biological Outbreak.

Re:Not True!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Computers at SAC only deal with one thing - nuclear weapons. Less-than-nuclear scenarios are other commands.

Simulate some integrity

[vandan]

It's a pity someone in the US can't simulate some integrity.

With the 2 mainstream presidential candidates fighting over who is tougher on terrorism and how many more soldiers to deploy, it's little wonder ther rest of the world is becoming increasingly alarmed and anti-American.

If the money the US spent on so-called 'defense' were put towards addressing some of the gross injustices ( 3rd world debt, Palestine, multinationals 'acquiring' the world's resources at the expense of practically everyone ), there would be no need for an army. There would be nothing to defend from.

And yes I reject the idea that there are religious fundamentalists that can't wait to take over the world, or destroy us because the 'hate our freedom' or some crap like that ... with the one exception of the Christian fundamentalists that are currently in control of the US ... but I understand that we can't defend ourselves with weapons from them - we'll have to be more creative.

Would you like to play a game?

[bot24]

Mutually assured destruction fixed most of the major threats didn't it? Does the US possess enough and fast enough weapons to actualy attack safely?

planetside

[crabpeople]

"Planetside tried to make a FPS with that many players, and while their cone of fire killed it (among other things)"

well planetside has recently made a comeback for me. I dont know what you mean by cone of fire killed it as most of the weapons have "a cone of fire" and yet i still manage to use them.

also they have recently added some new Mechwarrior type battle robots and really its the only MMOFPS (well i dont know any others).
planetside rocks. you can fight on huge continents, fly ships, teamplay and moreover you are encouraged to. they even made it so 512 mb of ram is actually playable! continent load times also have been DRAMATICALLY improved.

the only thing i dont like is the repetition of base design. i mean do all the tech plants have to look the same? the diverse environments make up for it tho.

Re:planetside

[Lord_Dweomer]

What I was referring to about the cone of fire was that it was the primary reason that Planetside drove away the vast majority of FPS gamers. People expect to be able to get headshots, and the CoF killed that. Part of the fun of playing a FPS for long enough was becoming good enough to the point where your skill could let you tear through people who were not as skilled even if they were better equipped.

a more telling output

[wattersa]

$ psql world_arms;

Welcome to psql 7.3.6-RH, the PostgreSQL interactive terminal.

world_arms=# SELECT countries.shortform, count(wmd.serialno) as total_wmds from countries, wmd where countries.idx = wmd.owner order by total_wmds desc;

shortform | total_wmds

United States of America 354,757
Russian Federation 241,095
United Kingdom 17,120
France 2,043
China 2,021
India 346
Pakistan 299
Israel 170
...
Iraq 0

world_arms=# \q

$ mail president@whitehouse.gov -s "You're full of shit"
You lied to the American public and the world about Iraq's WMD capability to justify an invasion you had been planning since before you took office. Furthermore you seem to have no problem with our country leading the world in inventory of WMDs. I'd like to personally call you an asshole. That is all.
.

Re:a more telling output

[aicrules]

Why on earth does France have nuclear weapons?

Re:a more telling output

[wattersa]

So they can act influential ;-). try here for starters!

Hmmm...

[Reteo Varala]

Otherworld, by Tad Williams, comes to mind when reading this one...

Any other ideas besides war?!?

[SIGPrez]

Am I the only one who finds that the U.S. is more and more focused on war?

Many comments see this as a positive sign of _preparedness_. Others talk about the coolness of this as a wargame _technology_.

For myself, all I could think when I say this article was: geez, can't the US focus on anything but war these days.

I am sure the association between WARmongerer and US, in the minds of people of all other countries, is increasing rapidly these days.

Re:Any other ideas besides war?!?

[Jubedgy]

This is an application developed specifically for the military. The military must remain trained, and it is far easier (and cheaper) to do it in simulation rather than try and do it in real life.

Just because our military ensures it is well-trained does NOT mean our country is focused on war. The purpose of our military is to protect US (assuming you are an American citizen). Would you want an untrained police force fighting crime? An untrained fire department fighting fires? An untrained surgeon operating on you? I know I wouldn't. I also wouldn't want an untrained military trying to defend me. It would be suicide for them and useless for us.

If you can think up a better way to train our war forces using scenarios other than war, I'm all ears. Unless and until we no longer have a need for a military, we had better keep it trained as well as we can.

Screen shots looks more like GTA3

[TiggertheMad]

I kept thinking, wow, portland has got a lot more traffic than I last remembered...I wonder if I can car-jack that Abrahms....

Re:Best way to handle urban battlefield situations

[Anonymous Coward]

idspispopd

WMD

[zogger]

smallpox infected blankets
Little Boy
Agent Orange
"Depleted" Uranium

pot, meet kettle
kettle, meet pot

Careful what you wish for, maybe some day some other large faction will decide that the US needs "intervention".

I know it's more comforting to think that your leaders and by automagical transference your nation down to anyone "you" are always the good guys, but history has shown there are no "good" guys, just various regimes throughout history take turns back and forth being the more-wrong bad guys du juor.

Unfortunately

[DaveAtFraud]

There are far too many people in the world who continue to practice the following:

"War is regarded as nothing but the continuation of state policy with other means."
-- Clausewitz

With far less at stake I cut the cards, scan for viruses, lock my doors, etc. Likewise, any nation would be foolish to trust the rest of the world to do them no harm. This is especially true in an era when people like bin Laden, the butchers who could perpetrate an atrocity like occurred in Beslan, the Madrid train bombers, etc. are lose in the world.

Re:Very true: Talk about Chechen?

[Anonymous Coward]

All that you say about Russian treatment of Chechens may very well be true but if the US takes the stance that Russia is wrong for retaliating when their theaters and schools are attacked, then the US would be wrong for retaliating when American theaters and schools are attacked.

This seems like the tv show Harsh Realm

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.tvtome.com/HarshRealm/

Re:Uh oh

[EzInKy]

I agree. We do need to keep our military on the cutting edge. I'm just worried that this is prep for aggressive wars, as opposed to defense from an invading force. It seems to me that, while your example compares us to pre-WWII France, we are closer to the Germans*, preparing a new strategy so our next act of aggression goes over a little better than our last.

Defense is only for survival, it takes offense to achieve victory. Even France, an ally, had to be attacked in order to defeat Facism in WW2.

So...

[shutdown -p now]

Simply put, the guys are running one giant UT2004 botmatch on a cluster? Great, but I want live feed!

The problem with preparing for war

[aepervius]

is that sometimes, you are so prepared that you feel the need to create your own war, out of various reason (religious, self righteousness, hidden WMD). A lot of people around here feel that the US long ago went beyond the "preparing for war" step and are way into the "being a master at crushing opponent mercilessly" and thus those other country feel the need to take "inssurance" that the US will not do war against them, for example by seeking out WMD themselves or targeting local population to make sure any battle would be extremly bloody. In other word, when the #1 army in the world is preparing for war, and you do not have any chance with conventional way, then use the dirtiest nasty trick you can to make sure that #1 army will hesitate a bit.

I have to wonder anyway why US has to prepare to war against country half the world away which could not care less about the US if left at their own devices. Especially with Checheny which is right now mostly a russian problem. How about a new US doctrine "Let other be". US might try that and becomming the #1 preparing for diplomacy, would be nice isn't it ? And by diplomacy I do not mean putting a lot of pressure on the population by cutting economic aids or closing markets. Or what about #1 helping countries without STRING attached ? Or how about being #1 at helping themselves by transfering a big part of their military project to education, or social ?

Re:The problem with preparing for war

[nounderscores]

"to take "inssurance" that the US will not do war against them"

Hmm. How come other countries don't just pay America to not do war against them. Trying to build a WMD is like trying to buy a pistol while the Mafia has Tommy guns.

Re:The problem with preparing for war

[thrash242]

Especially with Checheny which is right now mostly a russian problem.

Really, now? What do you think about this?

I think that this goes to show that these people aren't just politically motivated--as is the common belief--they're mainly motivated by a very dangerous religious fanatacism. As far as I know, the US has nothing to do with Russian and Chechnya. But then, why are they crossing our borders?

Yeah... it's flashy, but it's aging.

[Ayanami Rei]

This is the future
Agent-based modeling owns the skies. :p

Re:Yeah... it's flashy, but it's aging.

[Anonymous Coward]

Agent-based modeling

Funny that "agent based" models have only recently gotten the semantic complexity of even original ModSaf units. It's a rare "agent" that does better than a DFA.

See here's the thing.......

[/dev/trash]

The WTC bombings were in reaction to the 2nd Second of Crusades back in the day.

In other words, someone somewhere will ALWAYS feel the need to attack someone else.

Re:See here's the thing.......

[jadel]

One of the reasons given by Imam Samudra for the Bali Bombings that killed approximately 200 Australians was that we had sent troops to East Timor to help when Indonesia withdrew.

Re:See here's the thing.......

[/dev/trash]

Yep. And that's one guy. Perhaps another guy was pissed off but he's a wuss. He has kids. He instills the hate into them. They're wusses though too, but have kids. Finallly one of them is angry and has the balls to blow something up.

Oh, kinda like Morrowind...

[DourSalmon]

but smaller.

Re:Very true: Talk about Chechen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, here we have the Bush administration and the PATRIOT act. A most invasive legal mesure that makes the US a police state. A million times worse than the USSR. Sure the PATRIOT act dosen't affect 99.9998% of the population but not just terrorists are getting caught, innocent drug dealers are getting busted with it.

Lucky for us we have Communist protesters who really do know everything. With their guidence hopefully we can turn into the next Soviet Union, and turn away from the everyday oppression of American life. Yep, I don't wanna hear anyone talking to this US citizen about lack of human rights, they're all a bunch of whiners. I have to stand in a line at the airport for god's sakes (yet I'll still bitch about lack of security).

Message for the Chinese Bigot

[Anonymous Coward]

The imbalance is widespread and has nothing to do with the one child policy. Here are some ratios of male babies to female babies for various states.

1.05 USA
1.05 Japan
1.05 Vietname

1.20 South Korea
1.20 India
1.20 China
1.10 Taiwan

Yeah. Chinese culture is inferior to Western culture.

The Chinese deliberately brutalize women.

Re:Very true: Talk about Chechen?

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell? You need a beer!

POLAND!

[Anonymous Coward]

How can you forget about Alexander Kwasniewski from Poalnd?

Re:Very true: Talk about Chechen?

[dunkelfalke]

i am originally from estonia (now from germany) and i say you write bullshit, former neighbour.

what the russian soldiers do is mostly the revenge for the chechen gruels.

kurad! there are too many stupid nationalists in former baltic countries and all they do is sitting on their arses and hating russians and worshipping their ansestors fighting for the waffen ss instead of just living and working peacefully and productively with russians.

except that gta has been leaked

[nounderscores]

Rockstar Games has vowed to track down the "thieves" who leaked GTA san Andreas to the p2p networks

I wonder if they're going to run them over multiple times... before shooting them. and jumping on them.

Neeeeeeeeat!

[LifesABeach]

Why is it that the JFC gets all the good toys!

I think I'm going back to school, if only to get an 'evaluation copy' of this game!

Oh, man if I had mod points

[LunarOne]

You'd be modded up. Most Americans feel they are well-perceived around most of the world. Sadly, this is just not so. Even traditional allies like Canada have provided little support in recent conflicts from both national leaders (excluding Don Cherry) and the general population. And, while Britain is still a monstrously strong ally, it seems to be the leadership rather than the people who give that strong support.

I live in the U.S. and love this country and have made better friends here than anywhere else. However, Americans need to realize that they are increasingly becoming disliked in more than just Islamic radical circles, and take action to be a good world community participant.

Re:Oh, man if I had mod points

[Fred_A]

It's not a matter of liking or disliking, it really is a difference.

Just like most people in the US probably percieve the Japanese to be part of a very different culture with very different values, Eurupeans and US people alike should realize that their values are similarly extremely dissimilar.

While suddenly realizing that the other is very different to oneself may lead to animosity, it doesn't have to be so.

The real problem is in believing that others will react to a given situation in the same way that we would because we assume they share the same system of values. Lately this has complicated US/Europe relations a lot.

Re:Uh oh

[taradfong]

I think that rather than make more nuclear weapons, we should get more use out of the weapons we already have. --Jack Handy

Whats gonna happen

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, i know this, after 5 minutes of simulation:

- Some soldier are going to cry: Nerf teh pedestrianz0rs, they are hard to kill!

- Avatar soldiers are getting killed because of lagged city vehicles running them over.

- Enemies fly up in the air because of faulty code and the developer will say "There are no bugs!"

- Some soldiers just wont get it and will start baseraping immediately.

- Someone will drive up a tank next to a building, exit and jump into a house to snipe people from, just like in Battlefield:Vietnam.

Re:Uh oh

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlikely. "Only an Idiot fights a war on two fronts. Only the heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Idiot would fight a war on twelve fronts."