Archives: August 2005
Sun Aug 28, 2005
Why 'amateur' is not a bad word.
FM Publishing quotes an essay by Paul Grahamabout why bloggers and Open Source software ventures are sometimes better than the corporate equivalents. (newspaper coverage, proprietary software, etc...). It's because amateurs do things for love, and 'people working for love often surpass those working for money'. Thanks, guys: you're 'speaking to my condition'. More...
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3D moving clip-art? Off-the-peg military models.
RealDB, a Canadian company, provides a library of 3d models of military hardware, in .flt and .3ds formats. Licenses allow unlimited incorporation in derivative work, subject to small conditions. More...
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Thu Aug 25, 2005
Massively multiplayer US military exercises, Gestalt LLC, and XML/SOAP.
Mediachannel reports a major US military exercise in Korea, involving the distributed simulations of tens of thousands of aircraft and troop movements. This is based on technology developed by Gestalt. More...
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Wed Aug 17, 2005
Courses in emergency response and incident simulation
According to Courier News, Arkansas Tech University has a new Emergency Operations Center developed under the objectives of a $500,000 Congressional Grant Award of September 2004 that was secured by Congressman John Boozman.
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Tue Aug 16, 2005
Talk and BBCTV appearance about simulations in business continuity.
I've just given a talk to the Continuity Forum on how to organise exercises/ simulations to train people to use Business Continuity Plans. Such is the interest in this subject at the moment that the BBC turned up and filmed the session, which was the lead item on the London BBC News tonight. More...
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Mon Aug 15, 2005
Definitions of simulation.
At university they told me always to start an essay by defining the terms I was using. I ran across the Free Dictionary which includes different definitions of simulation under different categories. Clearly the word is used by different disciplines with subtly different meanings - which in themselves are only a subset of the 'normal' meaning. A little research confirmed this impression. More...
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Fri Aug 12, 2005
CAE first-quarter results
According toa press release, CAE's latest quarterly results show 15% higher revenues, with the increase due mostly to its civil and military simulation divisions. Good news for the new CEO. More...
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Tue Aug 09, 2005
Coincidences and simulations: more conspiracy theory.
An article in 'Global Research' perpetuates the story that anti-terrorism exercises anticipated the 7 July London bombings (like the 9/11 attacks, etc etc.) Peter Power, the consultant who inadvertently started the rumour during a BBC interview, has received an 'extraordinary number' of messages about it.
What I hadn't realised, though, is that Power's exercise was actually under way when the bombings occurred, and the players had to make a quick transition from exercise to reality.
More...
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Sat Aug 06, 2005
That US oil shock simulation again...
An earlier posting on this blog referred to a simulation of the effects of a major oil price shock, conducted by the US National Commission on Energy Policy and "Securing America's Future". I expressed some doubts at the time about the validity of the simulation.
However, there's no denying the impact of something like this if you pitch it at the right level. Recently, it has been quoted by the Irish news service Finfacts and the London Financial Times, as well as several blogs
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Fri Aug 05, 2005
Code Zoo: open source simulation packages
O'Reilly's 'Code Zoo' project has a page of open-source software for simulation. Code Zoo is a directory of re-usable open source components for programmers. More...
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Thu Aug 04, 2005
Serus: a case study
According to Information Week, Serus has just raised $5.3m in a second round of financing. An interesting company in several ways. More...
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Wed Aug 03, 2005
Cheaper: more available: better.
An article in "DC Velocity" ("Logistics Solutions for Distribution Centre Management") recounts the usual corporate press release stuff about how someone used a simulation package. It also makes important general points: simulation is getting cheaper, better and therefore applicable to more situations. The bottlenecks are people: attitudes and training. More...
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Balancing the Japanese budget (virtually)
Interesting article in Gamasutra reports that the Japanese Ministry of Finance has produced a free game allowing players to try to balance the Japanese budget. More...
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