[2858] in Humor
[glen@substance.abuse.blackdown.org: Kangaroos.]
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Gerald Britton)
Wed Jun 23 13:29:15 1999
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 13:28:25 -0400
From: Gerald Britton <gbritton@MIT.EDU>
To: humor@MIT.EDU
----- Forwarded message from glen@substance.abuse.blackdown.org -----
From: glen@substance.abuse.blackdown.org
To: 0xdeadbeef@substance.abuse.blackdown.org
Subject: Kangaroos.
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 12:12:02 -0400
Forwarded-by "Per Hammer" <phammer@raleigh.ibm.com>
Forwarded-by: Gudrun_Hammer@Mitel.COM
This is supposedly a true story from a recent Defence Science
Lectures Series, as related by the head of the Australian DSTO's
Land Operations/Simulation division.
They've been working on some really nifty virtual reality simulators,
the case in point being to incorporate Armed Reconnaissance Helicopters
into exercises (from the data fusion point of view). Most of the people
they employ on this sort of thing are ex- (or future) computer game
programmers. Anyway, as part of the reality parameters, they include
things like trees and animals. For the Australian simulation they
included kangaroos. In particular, they had to model kangaroo
movements and reactions to helicopters (since hordes of disturbed
kangaroos might well give away a helicopter's position).
Being good programmers, they just stole some code (which was originally
used to model infantry detachments reactions under the same stimuli),
and changed the mapped icon, the speed parameters, etc. The first
time they've gone to demonstrate this to some visiting Americans, the
hotshot pilots have decided to get "down and dirty" with the virtual
kangaroos. So, they buzz them, and watch them scatter. The visiting
Americans nod appreciatively... then gape as the kangaroos duck around
a hill, and launch about two dozen Stinger missiles at the hapless
helicopter. Programmers look rather embarrassed at forgetting to remove
*that* part of the infantry coding... and Americans leave muttering
comments about not wanting to mess with the Aussie wildlife...
As an addendum, simulator pilots from that point onwards avoided
kangaroos like the plague, just like they were meant to do in the
first place...
----- End forwarded message -----
