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United States Software Entertainment Games Hardware Linux

Government Linux Gaming Supercomputer 179

Posted by michael from the dream-come-true dept.
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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Government Linux Gaming Supercomputer More

Government Linux Gaming Supercomputer

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  • GOVERNMENT LINUX GAMING SUPERCOMPUTER?!? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 22, 2004 @09:53AM (#10598048)
    error: oxymoron overload!!!

  • Complex people ? (Score:3, Funny)

    by thrill12 ( 711899 ) * on Friday October 22, 2004 @09:54AM (#10598060) Journal
    "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 [severin.ch] for the simple simulated persons ... ?
    I guess it's part of the job...

  • Greetings professor Falken (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 22, 2004 @09:54AM (#10598062)
    How about a nice game of chess?
  • Is Ash from "Army of Darkness" "This is my...... BOOOOOMSTICK!!!!"

  • Ah, yes (Score:3, Funny)

    by JoeWalsh ( 32530 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @09:56AM (#10598076)
    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.

  • And it's name is: (Score:5, Funny)

    by Prince Vegeta SSJ4 ( 718736 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @09:56AM (#10598079)
    WOPR

    Please select a game

    • city under siege
    • chess
    • tic tac toe
    • Global Thermonuclear War
    • CowboyNeal's Wild Wild West

  • WHAT A WASTE!!! (Score:1, Redundant)

    by ferrellcat ( 691126 )
    In the end, it will just start playing TIC-TAC-TOE then finally give up!

  • yes, but can it.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by spectrokid ( 660550 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @09:56AM (#10598093) Homepage
    simulate fighting republicans and democrats after their voting- supercomputer goes tits up on election day?

  • Who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 22, 2004 @09:57AM (#10598095)
    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!
    • I do not even think that Linux is a great step forward as Battlefield Simulation has been done on Sparcs for over a decade. The British system used in Bosnia could accept map data for anywhere and test a battlefield of up to 8 different enemy armies (war are not always just between just 2 sides).

      When I worked on this, the problem was that map data was of countries and wars are often on borders. The world, as we know is not flat like a map, and the errors between 2 sets of map data will occur at the borde

  • Clarification (Score:2, Insightful)

    by dasuridai ( 606603 )
    That is U.S. Government supercomputer.

  • Does it have the UT2004 voiceovers? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Gentoo Fan ( 643403 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @09:59AM (#10598115) Homepage
    "Wicked sick!"

  • CS? (Score:5, Funny)

    by poison_reverse ( 647609 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @09:59AM (#10598123)
    counter-terrorists win!

  • Good news! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:00AM (#10598134) Journal
    Between this, Tux Racer and xbill, Linux now has three games!
    • 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.

    • Re:Good news! (Score:2, Informative)

      by Rikus ( 765448 )
      There are actually many games that are either written for or will run on Linux. Just go to the sourceforge games section [sourceforge.net] and see for yourself.
    • Between this, Tux Racer and xbill, Linux now has three games!

      I was going to make this funny post about "We're gaining on the Mac gamers" and link to the Rooster Teeth (Red vs Blue fellas) site where they have the Mac Gamer "switch parody" video but the bastards took it down.

      Does anyone have a copy of that or a link somewhere? I think I've deleted my copy.
  • .. it runs games like Star Wars:Battlefront.

  • Checking Facts (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:02AM (#10598153)
    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.

  • Interesting idea but... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by farlcow ( 671869 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:03AM (#10598162)
    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?
  • ...Cougaar [cougaar.org].

    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!

  • Silliest comment in article... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Glock27 ( 446276 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:08AM (#10598217)
    "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.

    Why, you both fall down of course!

  • This is new? SimWar? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by slowhand ( 191637 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:08AM (#10598223)
    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...
  • I've been playing this game for quite a while now. It's called America's Army [americasarmy.com]. What's their server IP?

    Live in your world. Get pwned in mine. [jinx.com]

  • Deja Vu? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Does this sound Strangely Familiar [slashdot.org] to anyone?

  • Best part about /. ? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Are all the dupes I get to read from as little as two days ago. [slashdot.org]
  • Especially the one with Slim Pikens riding the A bomb.
  • For those who checked the screenshots in the article, doesn't that second one look suspiciously like a certain motorcade route in Dallas?

  • government uses linux a lot (Score:5, Informative)

    by carnivore302 ( 708545 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:15AM (#10598279) Journal
    The article suggests that the US government doesn't use linux supercomputers all that much. Because I felt the opposite is true I did a quick search on google which confirmed my initial beliefs. Mind you, I don't know if all these stories are true or hoaxes, but a couple of interesting ones are

    Linux NetworxTM EvolocityTM cluster supercomputer to study smallpox genomics in light of the threat of possible bioterror attacks here [linuxmednews.com]

    The Linux open-source operating system powers a new government supercomputer that will help meteorologists forecast the weather more accurately. here [gcn.com]

    New SGI supercomputer to scale Linux to 1,024 CPUs
    The National Center for Supercomputing Applications will use it for research here [computerworld.com]

    And the list goes on and on.

  • COOL! A Police Academy 6 simulator (Score:5, Funny)

    by hal2814 ( 725639 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:16AM (#10598292)
    '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).

  • All residents of Ames, Iowa (Score:5, Funny)

    by RealProgrammer ( 723725 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:16AM (#10598294) Homepage Journal

    ..please report to the disintegration chamber [ericweisstein.com]. Your former city has been destroyed.

  • "the red team" -- Awesome they have Halo on the XBox!

  • What kind of movies the guys from Red vs Blue [redvsblue.com] could do with this system!

  • Semi Dupe? (Score:4, Informative)

    by drew ( 2081 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:24AM (#10598368) Homepage
    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 [slashdot.org]

  • Getting a bit unfair now (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:26AM (#10598378)
    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

    • Re:Getting a bit unfair now (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tbone1 ( 309237 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:49AM (#10598695) Homepage
      You know, this has always been the way it's been, even before Rome and Carthage were duking it out.

      At the same time, consider that the US troops put themselves at greater risk by attempting to reduce the risks to civilians, even in enemy territory. And they try to keep things like electricity, water, and sewer systems running. Terrorists aim for civilians and infrastructure.

      And if you are hoping for Communist China to be a world-saver, go stand in front of that advancing armored personnel carrier and ask their opinion.

      Go ahead, mark me as flamebait, but worrying about how we can make things fairer for people who try to kill innocent civilians seems like some REALLY misplaced worry.

      • I think the point is maybe they wouldn't need to kill innocents if they had other options which the technological advances have cancelled out
        .

        Also what happens if heaven forbid the USA with its technology, happened to be doing something wrong and the people couldn't defend themselves. What options are they left with?

        I don't think they are looking for a 'saviour' in China just something to counter balance (-their words)

      • APC? (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        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.

    • Re:Getting a bit unfair now (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Since you seem to be coming from an objctive point of view, almost anthropological, here's my take on the issue you raise:

      There are two diametrically opposed endeavors that comprise warfare regardless of time period. There is a technological advantage, and there is a tactical advantage.

      For a less technologically advanced force to prevail against a more technologically advanced force, it must employ superior tactics. The opposite also holds true: A technologically superior force can get by with a less

      • Very true and makes a very scary point, if the americans can conquer the tactical side so decisively, then what other options do other forces have? Will it push them towards more extreme methods of war? How can we rely on the USA to be a world 'policeman' if it appears to be politically rotten (character + money = politics!?!?)

  • Ender's game (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The current attack on Fallujah is being coordinated by a 6 year old kid who thinks he's just playing a video game.
    • Yeah...I kind of noticed that, too. With Dick Cheney standing right behind him. Proud grandfather that he is, he yells "Yaaayy! You won!" no matter what happens on the screen.

      I really want to know if they have a specual module featuring a "pissed-off insurgents who respawn faster than you kill them" mode, sort of like Nightmare mode from Duke Nukem. Come to think of it, if an actual game had been modelled a little more closely after Fallujah, reviewers probably would have put it down as unrealistic.

  • When do we get to play? Freeciv geeks would go NUTS over this thing.

    Or, if they wanted to make half a million /.ers simultaneously spooge, they could GPL it.

  • 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

  • I hope these guys read Sun Tsu.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by killpog ( 740063 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:32AM (#10598440) Journal
    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.

  • Is it only me or (Score:5, Funny)

    by panurge ( 573432 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:35AM (#10598478)
    Am I insulted by the idea of being modeled by a Pentium? I think I deserve at least a couple of Opterons. And, the day I'm having today, I'd need at least 4G of Ram and a dedicated interrupt controller.

    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.

  • OSGW: Open source guerrilla warfare would help... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bennomatic ( 691188 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:52AM (#10598736) Homepage
    If they want to get a good simulation of battling against an ad hoc local army which has no centralized command, they should consider letting people from the public command small numbers of opposing (i.e. defending local) troops.

    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?

    • 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.

      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

  • 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
  • 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

  • social factors included? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by actiondan ( 445169 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @11:33AM (#10599195)
    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?

    • If those airstrikes involve nuclear weapons, then yes because all the insurgents and terrorists will be vaporized along with everything else.
      • f those airstrikes involve nuclear weapons, then yes because all the insurgents and terrorists will be vaporized along with everything else.

        True enough.

        So the most effective way to deal with domestic crime is the nuclear annihilation of cities where criminals are. Glad we cleared that up ;)

    • I work on another project at the ISI, and if I were to make a guess on whether social factors would make it into the simulation, I'd have to say yes. Emotional and psychological modeling have been given a lot of attention here, and I'd be surprised if we didn't use the technology we've developed over the last few years...
      • That's good news!

        How are such models tested? Are social models of real situations created and then tested against how real events pan out?

        This must be a _really_ hard problem to model - cultural and historical factors are going to have a huge impact on how people react to things like airstrikes or ground assaults. Will they stay indoors until the fighting is over or will they come out with weapons? What about if their cousins house is hit? What about if they hear a rumour that a religious site was attacke

  • Yawn. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by PMuse ( 320639 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @11:34AM (#10599208)
    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?
    • You know, I'm as much a "why is this news" guy as the next but in this case, give it a break. It's Friday afternoon and they just found a neat article on a cool simulation the gov't is running. Why not post it?

  • Incomplete information... (Score:3, Funny)

    by gmuslera ( 3436 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @12:12PM (#10599619) Homepage Journal
    the article don't have all the required information for a linux game:
    • where is the torrent link to download it?
    • it is gpl?
    • it requires more hardware than doom3?
    • supports punkbuster?
  • 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).

  • 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

  • '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...
  • Wonderful, I just KNOW someone's going to be camping the fucking barret, not to mention the planes. God damn campers. I'll show them. Lets see how the army deals with TKs.

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