Careless code recycling causes killer kangas

[Matthijs 40]

The reuse of some object-oriented code has caused tactical headaches for Australia's armed forces. As virtual reality simulators assume larger roles in helicopter combat training, programmers have gone to great lengths to increase the realism of their scenarios, including detailed landscapes and in the case of the Northern Territory's Operation Phoenix herds of kangaroos (since disturbed animals might well give away a helicopter's position).

The head of the Defense Science & Technology Organization's Land Operations/Simulation division reportedly instructed developers to model the local marsupials' movements and reactions to helicopters. Being efficient programmers, they just re-appropriated some code originally used to model infantry detachment reactions under the same stimuli, changed the mapped icon from a soldier to a kangaroo, and increased the figures' speed of movement.

Eager to demonstrate their flying skills for some visiting American pilots, the hotshot Aussies "buzzed" the virtual kangaroos in low flight during a simulation. The kangaroos scattered, as predicted, and the visiting Americans nodded appreciatively... then did a double-take as the kangaroos reappeared from behind a hill and launched a barrage of Stinger missiles at the hapless helicopter. (Apparently the programmers had forgotten to remove that part of the infantry coding.)

The lesson?

Objects are defined with certain attributes, and any new object defined in terms of an old one inherits all the attributes. The embarrassed programmers had learned to be careful when reusing object-oriented code, and the Yanks left with a newfound respect for Australian wildlife. Simulator supervisors report that pilots from that point onward have strictly avoided kangaroos, just as they were meant to.

Source:

http://www.gamedev.net/

[Tigershark_BAS 0]

Wouldn't surprise me if this is VBS they are talking about you know.

[aj_addons 0]

this should really be in the military stupidity bit i just hope my chopper sim dosent have crazyiness like this in it

[Pipski 0]

lmao! However, it seems there is another side to this story:

http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~susan/joke/kanga.htm

Quote[/b] ]Dr Anne-Marie Grisogono, Head, Simulation Land Operations Division at the Australian DSTO has told us what actually happened and we are delighted to set the record straight.

"I related this story as part of a talk on Simulation for Defence, at the Australian Science Festival on May 6th in Canberra. The Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter mission simulators built by the Synthetic Environments Research Facility in Land Operations Division of DSTO, do indeed fly in a fairly high fidelity environment which is a 4000 sq km piece of real outback Australia around Katherine, built from elevation data, overlaid with aerial photographs and with 2.5 million realistic 3d trees placed in the terrain in those areas where the photographs indicated real trees actually exist.

"For a bit of extra fun (and not for any strategic reason like kangaroos betraying your cover!) our programmers decided to put in a bit of animated wildlife. Since ModSAF is our simulation tool, these were modeled on ModSAF's Stinger detachments so that the associated detection model could be used to determine when a helo approached, and the behaviour invoked by such contact was set to 'retreat'. Replace the visual model of the Stinger detachment in your stealth viewer with a visual model of a kangaroo (or buffalo...) and you have wildlife that moves away when approached. It is true that the first time this was tried in the lab, we discovered that we had forgotten to remove the weapons and the 'fire' behaviour.

"It is NOT true that this happened in front of a bunch of visitors (American or any other flavour). We don't normally try things for the first time in front of an audience! What I didn't relate in the talk is that since we were not at that stage interested in weapons, we had not set any weapon or projectile types, so what the kangaroos fired at us was in fact the default object for the simulation, which happened to be large multicoloured beachballs.

"I usually conclude the story by reassuring the audience that we have now disarmed the kangaroos and it is again safe to fly in Australia.

[aj_addons 0]

lol the fact they fired beach balls makes it even better

[Matthijs 40]

Wouldn't surprise me if this is VBS they are talking about you know.

Me neither.

sqrt(4000km^2)= ~ 65km x 65km

which would be quite feasable for OFP.

Quote[/b] ]lmao! However, it seems there is another side to this story:

In every case, about 20% of what news reporters write is real, the rest is their fantasy. I never doubded that the story would be a bit more nuanced than this. BTW, beachballs make it all even better.

(Yes, I don't like journalists)

[aj_addons 0]

the next upgrade will probably have them surfing

[Rhodite 3]

lol

damn funny reading

and awfully embarresing for the Aussies

[terox 316]

Good job it wasnt the yanks flying the choppers, they would have nuked the joeys and the World Wildlife fund would have been their next target for their search for weapons of mass destruction

[cozza 24]

Kangas with guns. I think I'll stay inside all day and play Flashpoint. Wait. I do that anyway

Preety funny they forgot to take the AA luanchers away from the Kangas. If that was real life. I would have moved from the bush to Melbourne.

[Tovarish 0]

*edit* Bah read too fast and didn't realize Pipski beat me to it

Not exactly all true:

Quote[/b] ]The gist of the anecdote is true, although much that is not true has been added or facts have been exaggerated for humorous effect.

As revealed by Dr. Anne-Marie Grisogono, head of the Simulation Land Operations Division at the Australian  DSTO (Defence Science and Technology Organisation) in the publication Defence Systems Daily, she did not "instruct developers to model the local marsupials' movements and reaction to helicopters" because "groups of disturbed animals might well give away a helicopter's position," nor did corner-cutting programmers seek to save some effort by simply replacing images of soldiers with images of kangaroos without modifying the underlying instructions for their behavior. Programmers did add animated kangaroos to the simulation, and they did accomplish this by replacing the visual representation of soldiers with visual representations of the hopping marsupials (while neglecting to remove the weapons and firing behavior from these representations), but this was all done out of fun (not necessity), and this humorous glitch was discovered right away and not unwittingly (and embarrassingly) displayed to a group of visitors (American or otherwise). Additionally, as Dr. Grisogono related, "ince we were not at that stage interested in weapons, we had not set any weapon or projectile types, so what the kangaroos fired at us was in fact the default object for the simulation, which happened to be large multicoloured beachballs."

So, it was neither programmers nor pilots who "learned a lesson" from this one. If anyone, it was Dr. Grisogono, who has now learned first-hand just how easily an innocuous anecdote can be transformed into something sensational, and how quickly and widely it can be spread.

http://www.snopes.com/humor/nonsense/kangaroo.htm

[ralphwiggum 6]

ok. someone make an addon please

thanx to Tov fro nice work

[m21man 0]

Quote[/b] ]ok. someone make an addon please

I think somebody was working on a kangaroo addon .

[Balschoiw 0]

I guessed that it was a programmers gag. I mean you do beta testing usually