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Government Linux Gaming Supercomputer
pupkick writes "Wired news has a story about a government supercomputer running Linux that 'pits two opposing teams of soldiers against one another in a fight for control over a city under siege.'"
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error: oxymoron overload!!!
"This technology has not really been used for immediate battle planning before," said Bob Lucas, a division director at the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute, or ISI, which helped port the Urban Resolve software to the Linux supercomputers. "The vast majority of people are computer-generated. Some are very complicated and consume a whole Pentium by themselves. Some are so simple, you can run a few hundred on a computer."
... ?
I wonder who they chose to model for the simple simulated persons
I guess it's part of the job...
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
How about a nice game of chess?
Is Ash from "Army of Darkness" "This is my...... BOOOOOMSTICK!!!!"
President Bush Supporter
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/2 0/2013233&tid=126&tid=137&tid=185&tid= 14
I've heard of that. Isn't it called War Operating Planned Response, or WOPR for short?
I think there was a movie about it a while back.
Please select a game
In the end, it will just start playing TIC-TAC-TOE then finally give up!
simulate fighting republicans and democrats after their voting- supercomputer goes tits up on election day?
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
This has very little to do with technology. Was simulations have occurred for eons. They are moving to electronic formats. The validity of these simulations is only as good as the understanding of the real life situation, modified down for the capability of the programmin team to capture this in a computer program.
The fact that it is running Linux is the only reason it appears on Slashdot. And it is the least interesting part of the article.
Thanks and have a nice day!
That is U.S. Government supercomputer.
"Wicked sick!"
counter-terrorists win!
_+_+__+_+_+_+_+_+_+++
when i moo u moo - just like that
Between this, Tux Racer and xbill, Linux now has three games!
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Yeah yeah! but does it include the BFG?
.. it runs games like Star Wars:Battlefront.
I am the maverick of Slashdot
We all know how poor the other countries in the world are so there's no need to specify.
They need to double check their facts:
From the story:one at the Maui High Performance Computing Center in Hawaii and the other at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio
From Photo Gallery: thanks to two supercomputers in Virginia and Hawaii.
How seriously can one base decisions on the results? We've had weather simulation software in development for decades and the weather man on TV still can't tell me if it's going to rain tomorrow. It seems this simulation takes human emotion/reaction into account on a large scale, I would think that is much harder to simulate than a weather pattern. Also, who is in charge of programming the human simulations? I would hope they would consult very closely with people actually from the area in question.
Do you think we could run this game on a beowulf cluster?
slashdot could link to the story on the 3rd, and 10th of November.
...Cougaar.
There are a bunch of distributed agents scattered around lots of machines; some use more resources than others, and the system moves them from machine to machine in response to high loads. Nifty stuff, and open source - BSD licensed!
The Army reading list
Sounds like something that has already been done (in the private sector), only using a collection of PCs, not huge government computers. Link
if i had to be stranded on a desert island with only one game, it would probably be freeciv.
and i believe doom3 has a linux client.
no, im not a very serious gamer, but its not like there aren't _any_ games.
Why, you both fall down of course!
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
IIRC, Maxis, the company that brought you SimCity, SimEarth, SimTrain, SimAnt, SimWhatever has contracted with companies for several years providing its simulation engine for use in petroleum refinery research, manufacturing automation, factory floor managment simulation. I would be surprised if they HAVE NOT done similar work with DoD. Me thinks a nice beowulf cluster of xboxes running linux would make a nicer story...
Busy aligning my non-linear thoughts.
Live in your world. Get pwned in mine.
Speak truth to power.
Does this sound Strangely Familiar to anyone?
This is a repeat story Friday October 22, 02:52PM
Are all the dupes I get to read from as little as two days ago.
Especially the one with Slim Pikens riding the A bomb.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these!
For those who checked the screenshots in the article, doesn't that second one look suspiciously like a certain motorcade route in Dallas?
Brendan "Beej" Dery "Only in Canada, eh?"
...have a torrent? ^_^
Gr@ve_Rose
!ekoj on si aixelsyD
Lots of details, please....
Linux NetworxTM EvolocityTM cluster supercomputer to study smallpox genomics in light of the threat of possible bioterror attacks here
The Linux open-source operating system powers a new government supercomputer that will help meteorologists forecast the weather more accurately. here
New SGI supercomputer to scale Linux to 1,024 CPUs
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications will use it for research here
And the list goes on and on.
Please login to access my lawn
'pits two opposing teams of soldiers against one another in a fight for control over a city under siege.'
So I imagine one groups of soldiers is led by Capt Harris and the other team is led by Lassard and that zany Police Academy squad (minus Mahoney of course).
..please report to the disintegration chamber. Your former city has been destroyed.
sigs, as if you care.
so my question: now that i've imagined a beowulf cluster of these, would such a thing make for the mother of all MMPORPGs? consider:
1. imagine a beowulf cluster of urban resolve boxen.
2. ?
3. profit!
ed
"the red team" -- Awesome they have Halo on the XBox!
What kind of movies the guys from Red vs Blue could do with this system!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Not exactly a dupe, because it is referring to a different article, but this article is discussing the same project that was covered Wednesday in The War of the Virtual Worlds
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
Back in the cold war there was a bit of a counter balance to the USA's military technology from the USSR, and both countries tended to support countries fighting against the other (see russian migs in Korea, US troops in Vietnam, Stinger missiles in Afghanistan). In the horrific act of war there was a counter balance to make things fairer, so technology alone couldn't prevail, and the most technologically advanced countries couldn't impose rules over their 3rd world adversaries. With the dissolution of the USSR this counter balance is relying on increasingly ancient Soviet technologies, which are becoming ineffective against Western military advances (how many planes did the Iraqi army shoot down? How did the Iraqi Soviet era tanks compare to the Americans) Not to sound like i am supporting one side or the other, or sound like i am supporting the actions of supposed terrorists, I am starting to think the idea of war in this world is getting a bit unfair and one sided. Some people put the defeat of the IRA partially down to the introduction of body armour for the british troops, their Armalites just weren't effective any more. How can peoples who want to fight counter this? The only weakness that currently can be exploited is Wide Spectrum electrical weapons (sorry probably wrong name), that can fry electronics of the more advanced Western armies (US army no longer teaches troops to read maps, only GPS). But this is increasingly countered by 'hardening' installations and equipment. Is there any wonder that 'terrorists' or 'rebels' have to resort to alternative weapon systems and war methodology? What hope do they stand in the modern battlefield? What hope for the future, China is the only real counter weight but they don't seem too keen on sharing. Whatever side you were on
The current attack on Fallujah is being coordinated by a 6 year old kid who thinks he's just playing a video game.
Or, if they wanted to make half a million /.ers simultaneously spooge, they could GPL it.
Another one bites the dust
Hell, I was dialing in over 300 baud modem to W.O.P.R. back in 1983 playing "Global Thermonucluear War."
Come to think of it...I never did beat that game...
-JT
Reminds me of some random movie I watched on TV a few years ago... a quick Google turns it up as Wargames (1983). Not exactly a good movie, but it's pretty relevant to this article.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086567/
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10);'
No wait, they do... General Norman Schwarzkopf said he never understood the true meaning of the word Byzantine as it applies to politics until he had taken command in the middle east. And he had studied the area EXTENSIVELY prior to his deployment there. These systems are modeling behavior of of crowds, soldiers in combat, "battlefield detainees", traffic patterns, weather, weaponry, supply lines, AND the political climate. The people playing these games ain't high school video gamers. They are retired or otherwise very experienced military personnel that advise the JCS. All of them are very well educated in the art of war, and it's drawbacks. That's why they're so quiet about it.
"Strange game...the only winning move is not to play."
It's a pity that in a battlefield simulation all that processing power would be wasted as I'd just be an immediate civilian casualty, but with luck I might manage to drop my old Laserjet 5M out the window on one of the combatants first.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
is there two simulations of this or is it a dupe??2 0/2013233&tid=126&tid=137&tid=185&tid= 14/
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/
methinks it is a dupe!
'By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes'
Why do they need a supercomputer for a war simulation?
Oh wait, I know, they probably just got their multiplayer prerelease version of Doom 4.
One futuristic but likely scenario is Korean/Chinese soldiers battling American national guardsmen in Los Angeles. When groups like the Korean-Americans refuse to assimilate, they become a problem.
Anyone else think of Wargames?
"A" city under siege??
Bagdad or Pyongyang? (I hate non-specific discussions.)
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Bush's suggestion that the only problem with the war currently was that we "won too quickly," that the enemy was supposed to stand, fight and be killed instead of retreating and coming back with car bombs the way they have, is ridiculous. It shows how out of touch he and his advisors are with the real world. All you have to do is look at American history: George Washington lost just about every battle he fought in, but the tactic of fight, retreat, and live to fight another day won the war.
Since they seem to be unwilling to learn from history, before our beloved administration engages in another wasteful bloodletting, maybe the high end of the chain of command should take a moment to see how regular people would fight if thrown into the situation.
Heck, make sure some 10-14 year olds are able to play. They're brutal! I remember when Warcraft came out, those little snots would pull some amazing tricks to kick butt right out of the gate. Remember the Grunt Rush offense?
The CB App. What's your 20?
Ok where was the download link again? Couldn't find in freshmeat or sourceforge...
-- There is no spaam
Your tax dollars at work.... let old, rich, military leaders play video games. Oh, Oh, right but its for national security.
Hmmmmm how much do i get for finally beating Doom3 then?
...and it should be known by now
If they would put it online so everyone who wants may join a session, and even better if the clients would have the GTA3 or battlefield look and feel.. hehe
Rimember: Jappi Pipol In Da Jaus
I think the government is using the wrong type of simulation. They should be using a LAN game of Stratego to practice military their military strategies. If you think about it, every war could be won using Stratego to plan military maneuvers.
For instance in Iraq we could be sending out Miners to detonate roadside bombs. Instead we are sending out scouts blindly into battle. The only option is for the US to set up a bomb shield around their flag in the bottom left quadrant of Iraq and use a Marshall and a General as a strike force. That will show them.
So, they're on a contract for the DoD, they built 2 supercomputers in 2 different locations, and they wrote a game engine, all for $195,000? I need some of that cost-of-living decrease...
I wonder if this urban conflic simulator includes factors such as the fact that airstrikes of any intensity will always lead to some civilian casualties, which will in turn lead to easier recruitment by the bad guys.
If this simulation doesn't include such social/psychlogical factors then I submit that it is pretty useless in determining the optimum strategy for urban conflicts.
"The old crusade days when you go into a city with catapults and rubble everything are over,"
Tell that to the people of Falluja right now.
Are air strikes really the most effective way to deal with insurgency/terrorism?
a story about a government supercomputer running Linux that 'pits two opposing teams of soldiers against one another in a fight for control over a city under siege.'"
Why is this news? The govt runs battle simulations on computers. Linux runs computers. What part of this didn't we know and why do we care?
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
But right in line with how things have been going over the last couple of centuries. The revolutionary war against brittain was fought using geurilla tactics learned from the native tribes. The brittish cried foul, saying that the yankees were'nt fighting "fair". We fast forward to 'nam, where the VC would hit and fade, hit and fade... hit and fade. This tactic has the advantage of continually reducing both enemy numbers and moralle. America cried foul, said the VC weren't fighting fair, took their ball and went home. Now the same thing is happening, a smaller, weaker enemy is using guerrila warfare to constantly harrass a larger and better equipped force. The tactic works, and always has worked.
The chains are broken
Loki is free
Ragnarok is at hand...
Oh please. If this the linux hardware belongs to the government, it'll be...
Republicans vs. Iraqis.
Republicans vs. Unemployed
Republicans vs. Non-upperclass
I think I am about to get flamebaited to hell by Bush lovers.
We all know you can't play games on Linux, so the only real question is are they multibooting with Windows XP or good old Windows 98SE.
Yes, it was the APCs that ran over the crowd. The footage of that didn't make it out of China. I weep
when I think of the courage of that guy before the tank. Had the students won, a peaceful unification of China would have been possible. Now China will obtain a modern military before political reform and inevitably be tempted to use it. This path will ruin our new century.
Shazbot!
Except for the native americans.
"Heck, make sure some 10-14 year olds are able to play. They're brutal! I remember when Warcraft came out, those little snots would pull some amazing tricks to kick butt right out of the gate. Remember the Grunt Rush offense?"
That strategy is credited to South Korean Yoon Kwang-Ung, not "10-14 year olds", stop being racist.
From the article (really):
"If I'm wearing a red jersey and so drunk I can't stand up and I meet a guy in a blue jersey who's so drunk that he can't stand up, what happens?" joked Davis.
The answer is: Nothing much. (Or maybe Red vs. Blue gay porn).
Well WTF do you expect when you smear napalm jelly all over yourself, toss handfuls of matchbooks around and scream "Light me on fire! Go ahead I dare you!" at the top of your lungs.
Must be putting HALO to the extreme
Does the left wing think these types of comments are funny, witty or informative?
It's cool to play pile on and all but come on... this comment had zero thought, zero inspiration and zero humor in it.
I suppose that's Bush's fault too right?
Did they program into the simulation that we have the Keystone Kops running this administration? They would probably attack the wrong city, with troops with broken down equipment, in search of weapons that aren't there, sparking a nationwide uprising. Supercomputer simulations aren't going to address problems like those. Well, maybe a wiser administration in the near future could use this data.
President Bush is personally involved. He was war gaming YEARS AGO...
After losing a game of chess early in his administration, he realized all he had to do was capture Sadam Hussein ("the king") and the war would be over. Even now, told of American casualties, he looks confused and says, "Yeah, but they're only PAWNS !"
I need to know what the subscription cost is per month! I need to budget my game money!
I saw something about this on TV, I think on a Frontline about video games. There were these larger-than-life screens - (3) two-meter square arranged dressing-room mirror style - that each soldier in training interacted with. It used voice recognition, and AI (no expanation as to what kind of AI). In the episode, the man's task was to move a woman and her wounded daughter off the road so that road could be used for transport. Also, there would be some danger to the woman if she stayed.
Wargames have been used in the military for centuries. Chess is a great and well known simulation designed to improve your critical thinking skills. Recently it's been proven by Gary Klein in his excellent book Sources of Power training shouldn't be academic. I think we'd all agree that it's one thing to read about, say, being a firefighter, and quite another to run in to a burning building and make decisions that affect dozens or hundreds of lives. Simulations are designed to train your mind to become accustomed to these situations, and are probably the single most effective tool in doing so.
What I want to know is how long before one of the cadets in training hacks the computer to turn the odds in his favor.
Why don't we just use gas chambers? Low tech, efficient, and proven.
Hmm... I think you'd make an excellent recruit for the movement. Here's your pistol and swastika armband. Zeig Heil!
(Score: -1, Stupid)
Submitted. ages. ago.
pk
Oh you mean like this?
So... I don't have to imagine a beowulf cluster of these!
Thanks for the lead into my next comment. Next time, just use Yahoo Search to find the article.
Indeed, Chinese agents are enterin the USA from Mexico.
If you hate what is happening to our nation, the USA, then join me in writing the following on the November ballot.
president: Bill O'Reilly
vice-president: Tammy Bruce
'pits two opposing teams of soldiers against one another in a fight for control over a city under siege.'
Sounds like Washington, D.C. around election time...
1) The United States military does not condone "siege mentality", although it has been a tried-and-true strategy of warfare for over 3 thousand years. Gen. Patton's methods of massed armoured attack has been the preferred method since WW-II. Neither current training or doctrine support such "static" methods. When the USMC tried it in Fallujah in April, 2004, they were overruled by the DoD. 2) While linux might be a good OS for computer cluster technology, it does not scale to the level of "supercomputer" as defined by a CRAY or IBM or NEC or SGI implementation. I am not trying to be a troll here, but only to represent the truth (however painful.)
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
You half-witted PC bonehead! It's not racist if s/he had not come across that tactic anywhere else. Hell, it's not racist because he doesn't even make or state any fucking stereotypes! Crawl back in your hole, you ignorant piece of shit - I've had enough of judgemental fuckheads like you.