Archives: June 2005
Thu Jun 30, 2005
High performance computers bring crash simulation times down
According to a Silicon Graphics press release, their servers are delivering record new speeds on a standard 3 car crash simulation using LSTC software. The high performance computing available from several manufacturers makes such simulation more practicable, more realistic, and cheaper. More...
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Sun Jun 26, 2005
US "Oil Shockwave" - a simulation or a publicity stunt?
According to Yahoo news, a crisis simulation exercise has found that "Oil Dependence Creates Severe National Security and Economic Risks". However at least one sponsor of the simulation knew that already. Is this simulation or a publicity stunt? More...
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Four practical examples of simulation
Recent posts on this blog have been very theoretical: so here are four good examples of simulation as a useful tool, accepted as part of everyday life: in chemical spill tracking, traffic flow modelling, surgical anaesthesia, and waste water flow. None of these seem at all remarkable to us nowadays; all of them enhance life, or make it safer. More...
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Sat Jun 25, 2005
Is the nature of our attention to signals changing?
O'Reilly's Radar has a post about Linda Stone's theory of the changes in the way we pay attention to external inputs (eg telephone calls, emails, meetings, networks, etc.) Highly relevant to our expectations of simulation, and its vocabulary. More...
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Wed Jun 22, 2005
Umberto Eco, small worlds, and the assumptions we bring to simulations
I've been reading Umberto Eco's book, "The limits of interpretation" (1990), and especially the essay on "Small Worlds", by which he means, in effct, fictional worlds. I take this to mean simulated worlds as well. It's very enlightening on the ways in which simulations work for us. More...
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Sun Jun 19, 2005
Games As Political Lessons
A good summary of some recent 'political games' or simulations on WorldChanging. More...
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Simulation and our changing culture (and two clever boys)
Yesterday my two sons, aged 8 and 10, raised over £30 for their school by selling CDs of computer games - simple simulations which they had written by themselves - at the school fair. Forgive parental pride: I know there is nothing more boring than the achievements of other people's children. But it made me think a lot about the cultural implications. More...
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Sat Jun 18, 2005
Celera Releases Genome Data
According to BioIT World, from 1 July Celera will make freely available its formerly proprietary human, mouse, and rat genome sequences, previously only available on subscription. The end of a long controversy, not relevant to this blog. Also a giant step for simulators?
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Fri Jun 17, 2005
"All but war is simulation".
I've been intrigued by what this motto means. (It belongs to the US Army's Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training, & Instrumentation, or PEOSTRI - one of the largest purchasers of simulation in the world.) So I asked. More...
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Thu Jun 16, 2005
The Goffman effect
Grant McCracken's blog, in an essay on what makes a good diary blog, refers to the "Goffman effect": deliberately associating with people who get the rules of everyday life wrong, in order to identify better what the social conventions are. Teaching machines to simulate humans may offer an alternative Goffman effect. More...
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Wed Jun 15, 2005
US army recruit numbers falling
According to a report in the SW Flordia Herald Tribune, US General Michael Rochelle told "a luncheon for workers in the computer simulation industry in Orlando" that the army was having problems meeting its recruitment targets. More...
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Outsourcing simulation away from the USA and Europe?
A recent news story, derived from press releases by or about Infosys and Quest about work on the Airbus 380, claims that "Several Indian third-party CAD/CAE companies are raising a toast to the never-ending spat between Airbus and Boeing, which is compelling both to reduce costs through outsourcing to low-cost destinations." More...
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Tue Jun 14, 2005
IBM models the brain
According to an IBM press release, IBM and the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) have started a project to model the human brain. More...
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The cost of simulation?
Some recent contracts. More...
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Sun Jun 12, 2005
Avatars for Aspergers
Brigadoon is an on-line community for Aspergers sufferers within the 'Second Life' massively multiplayer on-line simulation. More...
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Fri Jun 10, 2005
Google making 3D map of San Francisco
According to John Battelle's Searchblog, Google is making a 3D online version of San Francisco, or at least the outside of the buildings, as photographed from trucks in the streets. Massive simulations used to be the preserve of the "military-entertainment-industrial-complex"; perhaps we should add 'search engine' to the list. Uses for the technology are not quite clear: possibly the most realistic 'Yellow Pages' ever. But how often will Google update it? And what use is a virtual world if I can't have an avatar inside it?
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On-line games: I'm still brooding about them
The more I look at MMORPGs the more astounded I am by the amount of activity related to them, the number of people who play them, the complexity of the world they constitute - and the amount of money made by the companies who own them. Don't think that all these games are just a few geeks having fun and doing a social experiment. More...
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Real enough to kill: on-line games and 'reality'.
On-line games are spilling over into reality. Rebang's weblog quotes a BBC report of a man who murdered a friend who borrowed and sold a virtual sword, which the first man had won in an on-line game. More...
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Tue Jun 07, 2005
Buckminster Fuller "world game" updated?
Spaceship Earth - the Game being developed at Calit2, claims to be an updated version of Buckminster Fuller's World Game. More...
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Simulation for its own sake - virtual world games
Building virtual worlds in which to live a virtual life is now becoming big business, according to O'Reilly's Radar, which claims that resellers of virtual artefacts are making six-figure incomes. But what are the existential or psychological implications? More...
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Mon Jun 06, 2005
"War evolves, you have to adapt"
The US army has rushed a new type of simulator into service, according to press reports. Apparently 30-50% of deaths and injuries to US troops in Iraq occur during attacks on convoys - so the military have urgently commissioned a Humvee simulator. More...
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Sun Jun 05, 2005
Modeling the Personality & Cognition of Leaders
Modeling the Personality & Cognition of Leaders, a paper given at the May 2005 SISO BRIMS conference, sets out to adapt a personality profiling framework to model behavior and choices of political and military leaders.
This raises interesting questions and opportunities.
More...
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Schneier on the Dept of Homeland Security
No less an authority than Bruce Schneier points on in his blog the growing concern about money being spent by the US Department of Homeland Security.
We've pointed out on this blog that DHS is creating something like the 'dot-com boom' for simulators, second hand towns, etc. These may be good products and may teach useful lessons, but as with the first dot-com boom, it's important to distinguish the good from the less good. Simulation matters; it also matters that it doesn't get a bad name.
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Thu Jun 02, 2005
BVR Systems quarterly results
BVR Systems, an Israeli manufacturer of military simulation systems, announced a net loss of $0.2 million for Q1 2005, compared with a net loss of $0.2 million in Q1 2004. Q1 revenues are up to $4.9 million, compared to $2.9 million in Q1 2004. More...
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