Filmmakers mull terror scenarios for Army October 10, 2001
LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) - Some of Hollywood's top action filmmakers - men behind such octane-fueled thrillers as "Die Hard"
and "Delta Force One" - are helping the U.S. Army dream up possible terrorist threats America might face in the future and how to handle them.
The counter-terrorism brainstorming sessions are the latest focus of the Institute for Creative Technologies, formed in 1999 at the University of Southern California to develop advanced training programs for the Army, institute officials said Tuesday.
[...]
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, declined to describe any of the scenarios discussed by the latest panel at its first meeting earlier this month, just days after the September 11 aerial assaults on the Pentagon and world Trade Center that left at least 5,000 people dead.
But one official confirmed a report in the entertainment trade paper Daily Variety that participants included "Die Hard" screenwriter Steven E. De Souza, television writer David Engelbach ("MacGyver") and movie director Joseph Zito, whose credits include "Delta Force One," "Invasion U.S.A." and "Missing in Action."
Also joining the panel were directors Spike Jonze ("Being John Malkovich"), David Fincher ("Fight Club," "Seven"), Randal Kleiser ("Grease," "Honey, I Blew Up the Kid") and Mary Lambert ("The In Crowd"), as well as screenwriters Paul De Meo and Danny Bilson ("The Rocketeer.")
For example, I could not think up the scenario in the link because I was not even familiar with the infrastructure involved, or the possibility of cascading system collapse.
I wonder how much game design will be influenced by recent events.
Granted I am not expecting Microsoft Flight Simulator, 2002, Terrorist Edition.
But I wonder how, in games like Civ III, and others in the gendre, they will include the potential for the outrageous without screwing up game play.
Take for example, the scenario discussed in this paper. Yes, very radical, but effective.
and would we even want such a capability in a game, to give terrorists ideas? At this point we have the issue of realism in gameplay vs helping the sociopaths of the world.
I am not saying that this would drive the fragile minds of children over the edge. I am looking at those already warped and twisted by years of training in training camps with the very best of modern mind flushing techniques. Do we want to help wackos like these?
[Just a disturbing thought, from the middle of a hangover on sunday morning.]
If it is just a matter of pissing away the money on lawyers, that isn't enough.
Somehow I recall some sort of case where the two sides wanted to settle, but....
But the lawyers saw that they were going to make so much money that they threatened to sue their clients if they did settle in advance to minimise the costs.
And then there is the legal argument that since companies are so beholden to their stock holders, and with certain stock holders so argressive in trying to jerk the company around... well not suing would open them to legal liabilty from the stock holders for not maximizing profits.
I remember all that hype about episode 1 for star wars and people lining up for months in advance.
Heck I remember when Episide one came out the first time, when it wasn't even known as episode one (heh), and I went to see it on a whim. Didn't even know what is was supposed to be, had never read a magazine, never saw any promo.
but the audience participation, the booing at Vader when he first came out, etc. it was all great stuff.
I imagine some folks lined up, I didn't notice this the time I saw it. Just seemed like a cool movie.
Of course, at that time, almost everyone was shell shocked, and it was not on the radar yet
In this situation, war has not been formally declared. Usually, in a war, such laws are "for the duration". Since we are not "formally" at war, there is no such limitation.
Freedoms lost may likely be a permanent loss, unless people strive to make sure otherwise.
In a formal war, there are certain things that happen, certain laws that get passed "for the duration" - but since we are not at war, laws passed tend to be NOT for the duration. Which means that they will be more permanent.
We need to be alert for this. This is not always a good thing.
For example, the airlines all want a bail out, which i can see. but now everyone else wants a bail out, a subsidy, etc. as much as it hurts, the US cannot be the defacto insurance company of last resort for the country. Isn't that why we have insurance companies?
unlawful to manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic in any interactive digital device that does not include and utilize certified security technologies
Actually, could this law, if it is as described, out law all student programming. Could turning in homework that did not have appropriate security measure would be illegal. Could you would have to arrest every student and teacher in the USA for criminal conspiracy. You couldn't read a book and do exercises in the safety of your own home.
He has effectively outlawed the teaching of technology and self instruction.
The question I have is if "Offer to the public, traffic", etc means "sell" - If you give it away, is it trafficking, or offering to the public? It could be one of those things that depend on the exact legal phrasing.
The thing is that the most effective tool to promote Linux is stuff that works well and delivers the goods. Delivers the goods means delivering what people want. This may be very different from the needs of a programmer, for example.
This is one thing that MS is still working on after 20 years, with occasional interferance from marketing, and which they occasionally get right. Of course, their marketing department has often shaped what people want, but that is another story.
If Linux evangelists insult the people they are trying to convert, then people will not convert. If they ram it down the throat of someone, then they object, just like people object against MS.
Remember, to do better than MS you do not have to be as good as MS. You have to be many times better.
So why is this rubust and successfull, gpl'ed program dead
Actually, the message asked if the program was on its' deathbead, since there were certain changes in libraries that threaten to make it unbuildable on modern systems.
So it is not dead yet.
And somebody with spare time could turn around and patch it as a summer project or something.
6. a common platform for Web of Trust will emerge. It will be anchored in real relationships since the NANs will be so local. Accordingly the
NANs will become, strangely enough, the native environment for conducting ordinary purchases, sales and settlements in a way that the globally visible, anonymous and hacked Internet never achieved.
7. the global Internet will come to the NANs for various confirmations of location, authentication and reputation. A reputation on the Internet
will be unthinkable if you don't have a reputation someplace in the NAN environment, Like, who the heck are YOU, if nobody knows you on the NANs?
Which is the way it was, sortof, before AOL discovered the Web, or Microsoft with MSN.
Speaking of which, how much you want to make a bet the Microsoft either tries to take it over, monopolize it, or outlaw it as competitive to them?
Redmond, WA - Microsoft, in what is being regarded as a bold move, has hired Vince Glortho, Keymaster of Gozer the Gozarian as Vice President in Charge of Keeping the Internet Gateway.
I can see the next ghostbuster movie running in my head as I read this.
I think we should probably have a set of faked passport profiles, with names insulting to MS.
Some of these can get passed around.
Seriously there is nothing wrong with having a good system running things, as long as you can trust the gatekeepers.
The problem is that you cannot trust these gatekeepers.
Like Ceasars's wife, they should be blameless.
They need to prove they are pure as they driven snow, and this would probably require completely open books, and completely open records of all significant meetings, not just the symbolic ones.
Obviously all Microsoft security measures are
viewed as another marketing tool.
Microsoft obviously is defining security in terms of the availability of non-Microsoft product. The availability of non-Microsoft product is a threat to the security of the Microsoft Market, and must be stopped at all costs.
See how simple things are when you put customers last?
I do not see how any anti-spam technology could be enforced by specifying a Microsoft email Client. I would need a lot more detailed, unbiased technical data before I trust MS on this one.
The Loebner Prize, like the Turning Test itself, is not highly regarded by the professional AI community: the doyen of classic AI, Marvin Minksy, is on record as describing it as stupid, obnoxious and unproductive. He went as far as offering $100 to anyone who persuaded Hugh Loebner, the New York businessman who created the competition, to stop. Loebner replied that as this will only happen when someone wins the gold medal, Minsky was in honour bound to pay that money to the winner and was thus a co-sponsor. To date, the behaviour of the humans involved has been considerably more entertaining than that of the robots.
While not an AI specialist by a long short, I suspect that this is because the work in the field has rendered the tests used somewhat irrelevant. The work in emergent behavior, for example, could be seen to make a case that the Turing Test might even be a hinderance.
a quick and dirty product that uses a Paradox database engine under Windows to generate a mass of perl scripts to auto generate a simple web store, complete with graphics, etc., which are then uploaded by the program to you site on a Unix server.
By Stumpworld Services, the owners of which have since sold the company and got out while the getting was good. It is now integrated with a hosting service, which cuts out the hassle of mom and pop businesses trying to deal with clueless ISPs.
The date of the original software press release to market was July 15, 1998, and there was an extensive beta period before then.
I think there is enough prior art to have this covered.
Re:Wouldn't a better solution be ...
on
New Cube controller
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
TeamLeader says: "Hooray! Alpo tea map roach debase Rama vest. Bay techno wide sighter cove randy pee pear two sell bacon desense!"
Actually that's a brilliant idea.
simulate radio noise/interferance/jamming by jumbling the text.
speech to text is not bad right now, given training, and so this may be practical in a year or two.
But this is where the command macros could be useful. a single word or letter combo translates to a full string of text. etc.
Slashdot Mirror
You could also go down to you local lumber yard and get some sheets of Wood Venier.
I am still waiting for Norm on the Old Yankee WorkShop to build one of these.
but you didn't read that far, I see.
You must have missed this news item then....
As seen here:
http://www.cnn.com/2001/SHOWBIZ/News/10/10/rec.ter ror.scenarios.reut/index.html
Filmmakers mull terror scenarios for Army
October 10, 2001
LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) - Some of Hollywood's top action filmmakers - men behind such octane-fueled thrillers as "Die Hard" and "Delta Force One" - are helping the U.S. Army dream up possible terrorist threats America might face in the future and how to handle them.
The counter-terrorism brainstorming sessions are the latest focus of the Institute for Creative Technologies, formed in 1999 at the University of Southern California to develop advanced training programs for the Army, institute officials said Tuesday.
[...]
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, declined to describe any of the scenarios discussed by the latest panel at its first meeting earlier this month, just days after the September 11 aerial assaults on the Pentagon and world Trade Center that left at least 5,000 people dead.
But one official confirmed a report in the entertainment trade paper Daily Variety that participants included "Die Hard" screenwriter Steven E. De Souza, television writer David Engelbach ("MacGyver") and movie director Joseph Zito, whose credits include "Delta Force One," "Invasion U.S.A." and "Missing in Action."
Also joining the panel were directors Spike Jonze ("Being John Malkovich"), David Fincher ("Fight Club," "Seven"), Randal Kleiser ("Grease," "Honey, I Blew Up the Kid") and Mary Lambert ("The In Crowd"), as well as screenwriters Paul De Meo and Danny Bilson ("The Rocketeer.")
[...]
For example, I could not think up the scenario in the link because I was not even familiar with the infrastructure involved, or the possibility of cascading system collapse.
Why help them with the research?
Granted I am not expecting Microsoft Flight Simulator, 2002, Terrorist Edition.
But I wonder how, in games like Civ III, and others in the gendre, they will include the potential for the outrageous without screwing up game play.
Take for example, the scenario discussed in this paper. Yes, very radical, but effective.
and would we even want such a capability in a game, to give terrorists ideas? At this point we have the issue of realism in gameplay vs helping the sociopaths of the world.
I am not saying that this would drive the fragile minds of children over the edge. I am looking at those already warped and twisted by years of training in training camps with the very best of modern mind flushing techniques. Do we want to help wackos like these?
[Just a disturbing thought, from the middle of a hangover on sunday morning.]
Hopefully so
I do recall the story from a few years ago, it is one of those things that sticks in the mind.
Filing under "urban legend"
I am reminded about the george carlin discussion of the evolution of names describing a medical condition
Shell Shock -> Battle Fatigue -> Post Tramatic Stress Syndrome.
a motion from the descriptive term to the professional, less intimate, term.
Similarly
Janitors -> Custodians -> Maintenance Professionals
and so we come to:
Lawyers -> Attorneys -> ??? Rights Transition Officials or something ???
I'm sure something will come up
Somehow I recall some sort of case where the two sides wanted to settle, but ....
But the lawyers saw that they were going to make so much money that they threatened to sue their clients if they did settle in advance to minimise the costs.
And then there is the legal argument that since companies are so beholden to their stock holders, and with certain stock holders so argressive in trying to jerk the company around ... well not suing would open them to legal liabilty from the stock holders for not maximizing profits.
again, the lawyers win.
Shoot all the lawyers, now, I say now!
Heck I remember when Episide one came out the first time, when it wasn't even known as episode one (heh), and I went to see it on a whim. Didn't even know what is was supposed to be, had never read a magazine, never saw any promo.
but the audience participation, the booing at Vader when he first came out, etc. it was all great stuff.
I imagine some folks lined up, I didn't notice this the time I saw it. Just seemed like a cool movie.
Of course, at that time, almost everyone was shell shocked, and it was not on the radar yet
In this situation, war has not been formally declared. Usually, in a war, such laws are "for the duration". Since we are not "formally" at war, there is no such limitation.
Freedoms lost may likely be a permanent loss, unless people strive to make sure otherwise.
True enough.
In a formal war, there are certain things that happen, certain laws that get passed "for the duration" - but since we are not at war, laws passed tend to be NOT for the duration. Which means that they will be more permanent.
We need to be alert for this. This is not always a good thing.
For example, the airlines all want a bail out, which i can see. but now everyone else wants a bail out, a subsidy, etc. as much as it hurts, the US cannot be the defacto insurance company of last resort for the country. Isn't that why we have insurance companies?
Actually, could this law, if it is as described, out law all student programming. Could turning in homework that did not have appropriate security measure would be illegal. Could you would have to arrest every student and teacher in the USA for criminal conspiracy. You couldn't read a book and do exercises in the safety of your own home.
He has effectively outlawed the teaching of technology and self instruction.
The question I have is if "Offer to the public, traffic", etc means "sell" - If you give it away, is it trafficking, or offering to the public? It could be one of those things that depend on the exact legal phrasing.
Any interviewer I have known would have wanted to see code samples of some sort, with a discussion of how it worked, etc.
or have a stack of test questions to see how wise they were in the ways of programing
Uncommented code? ACK!
It just sounds like truly awful interviewing techniques.
This is one thing that MS is still working on after 20 years, with occasional interferance from marketing, and which they occasionally get right. Of course, their marketing department has often shaped what people want, but that is another story.
If Linux evangelists insult the people they are trying to convert, then people will not convert. If they ram it down the throat of someone, then they object, just like people object against MS.
Remember, to do better than MS you do not have to be as good as MS. You have to be many times better.
Actually, the message asked if the program was on its' deathbead, since there were certain changes in libraries that threaten to make it unbuildable on modern systems.
So it is not dead yet.
And somebody with spare time could turn around and patch it as a summer project or something.
7. the global Internet will come to the NANs for various confirmations of location, authentication and reputation. A reputation on the Internet will be unthinkable if you don't have a reputation someplace in the NAN environment, Like, who the heck are YOU, if nobody knows you on the NANs?
Which is the way it was, sortof, before AOL discovered the Web, or Microsoft with MSN.
Speaking of which, how much you want to make a bet the Microsoft either tries to take it over, monopolize it, or outlaw it as competitive to them?
I can see the next ghostbuster movie running in my head as I read this.
God, the boys in the research labs...
Where are the Ghostbusters when you need them?
[snort]
Some of these can get passed around.
Seriously there is nothing wrong with having a good system running things, as long as you can trust the gatekeepers.
The problem is that you cannot trust these gatekeepers.
Like Ceasars's wife, they should be blameless.
They need to prove they are pure as they driven snow, and this would probably require completely open books, and completely open records of all significant meetings, not just the symbolic ones.
Sorta
So is this the best example to use for a successful implementation of mod_perl?
Interesting to since what was nappening behind the scenes away from the marketroids.
Microsoft obviously is defining security in terms of the availability of non-Microsoft product. The availability of non-Microsoft product is a threat to the security of the Microsoft Market, and must be stopped at all costs.
See how simple things are when you put customers last?
I do not see how any anti-spam technology could be enforced by specifying a Microsoft email Client. I would need a lot more detailed, unbiased technical data before I trust MS on this one.
None of this "simply trsut me" junque.
a couple of them in fact. (look to the bottom of the page)
a quick and dirty product that uses a Paradox database engine under Windows to generate a mass of perl scripts to auto generate a simple web store, complete with graphics, etc., which are then uploaded by the program to you site on a Unix server.
By Stumpworld Services, the owners of which have since sold the company and got out while the getting was good. It is now integrated with a hosting service, which cuts out the hassle of mom and pop businesses trying to deal with clueless ISPs.
The date of the original software press release to market was July 15, 1998, and there was an extensive beta period before then.
I think there is enough prior art to have this covered.
Actually that's a brilliant idea.
simulate radio noise/interferance/jamming by jumbling the text.
speech to text is not bad right now, given training, and so this may be practical in a year or two.
But this is where the command macros could be useful. a single word or letter combo translates to a full string of text. etc.