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The concept that we could possibly be living in a computer simulation comes from a 2003 paper published in Philosophical Quarterly by Nick Bostrom, a philosophy professor at the University of Oxford. With current limitations and trends in computing, it will be decades before researchers will be able to run even primitive simulations of the universe. But a University of Washington team has suggested tests that can be performed now, or in the near future, that could resolve the question. Currently, supercomputers using a technique called lattice quantum chromodynamics (LQC), and starting from the fundamental physical laws that govern the universe, can...

A decade ago, a British philosopher put forth the notion that the universe we live in might in fact be a computer simulation run by our descendants. While that seems far-fetched, perhaps even incomprehensible, a team of physicists at the University of Washington has come up with a potential test to see if the idea holds water. The concept that current humanity could possibly be living in a computer simulation comes from a 2003 paper published in Philosophical Quarterly by Nick Bostrom, a philosophy professor at the University of Oxford. In the paper, he argued that at least one of...

A U.S. supercomputer has won back the crown in the never-ending battle for the world's most powerful supercomputer. Its victory is the latest milestone marking the steady climb of computing power all across the globe. The Top500 industry list gave its No. 1 ranking to the Sequoia supercomputer housed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California — a spot earned by Sequoia's ability to crunch 16.32 quadrillion calculations per second (16.32 petaflops/s). Such supercomputing power is used by the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration to simulate nuclear weapons tests for older weapons that have been sitting in the U.S. arsenal....

The Australian Parliament’s Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade has just released a transcript of a Feb. 7, 2012 hearing during which it took evidence on the F-35 program by noted opponents of the program, representing the Air Power Australia think-tank and a private computer simulation firm, RepSim Pty Ltd. Part of the hearing describes the outcome of a famous – but disputed – simulation of F-18E and F-35 fighters engaging in combat against Chinese air force fighters carried out by the Rand Corporation. The outcome is even more disastrous for the Western fighters than previously reported. http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/verbatim/4/133273/f_35-fares-worse-in-rand-wargame.html

For those that were wondering how my predicted simulation worked out, it was okay if you switched Gingrich and Santorum's numbers for the most part, moved Bachmann to where Santorum was and bump Paul up more. I've done some analysis on the results. I was in the process of doing a county-by-county note update, but after 30 counties of 99, it's taking too damn long. So I'll just get to the basics: As for accuracy, it seems I know the people of Davis County like Rush knows his glorious naked body /sarc. It was my most accurate projection county-wise though...

I've put up a free economic simulation engine online that lets you analyze and compare the effects of various economic changes against a baseline. The idea is to attempt to illustrate how macro economic changes actually effect people. Raise and lower taxes, fuel prices, introduce real estate and food pricing bubbles, sin taxes, carbon taxes, and more, and see how the effects of these all play out against various demographics of low, medium and high income. You can see how much less or more cash at the end of five years each demographic has to spend, how many more payments,...

cientists are planning to use the largest supercomputers to simulate life on Earth, including the financial system, economies and whole societies. The project is called "Living Earth Simulator" and part of a huge EU research initiative named FuturIcT. Supercomputers are already being used to explore complex social and economic problems that science can understand in no other way. For example, ETH Zurich's professor for transport engineering Kay Axhausen is simulating the travel activities of all 7.5 Million inhabitants of Switzerland to forecast and mitigate traffic congestion. Other researchers at the ETH -- all working within its Competence Center for Coping...

U.S. scientists say they have created an automated program designed to "debug" the nation's nuclear test computer simulations. Purdue University researchers, working with scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, said their program, called AutomaDeD (pronounced like automated), finds errors in computer code for complex "parallel" programs. Because international treaties forbid the detonation of nuclear test weapons, certification is done using complex simulations. The researchers said such simulations, which may contain as many as 100,000 lines of computer code, must accurately show reactions taking place on the scale of milliseconds, or thousandths of a second. "The simulations take several weeks...

The U.S. Strategic Command last year held one of its largest major exercises simulating a nuclear attack on the United States and a counterstrike involving bombers, ground-based missiles and submarine-launched missiles. Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton last week told the House Armed Services subcommittee that the exercise was “the most extensive nuclear command, control and communications field exercise in over a decade.” “It demonstrated the full range of nuclear deterrence capabilities by integrating submarine strategic deterrent patrols, more than 90 aircraft sorties, an ICBM test launch, and five days of continuous airborne command-and-control operations,” he said. The exercise, held from...

Manned aircraft will be able to penetrate future advanced defenses. Now somebody tell the simulation gang. Historically, there has been a mismatch between the air combat attrition predictions of analysts’ computer models and the actual attrition experienced in major air campaigns. Simply put, the models have always erred on the pessimistic side. Understanding the sources of this mismatch is important today because many Air Force and Pentagon experts are at it again. This time, they are claiming that even stealthy fifth generation fighters and B-2 bombers cannot penetrate future threat arrays without unacceptable losses. They conclude that the Air Force...

More so than in most other places, modeling and simulation are critical to training in Korea. Units in Korea do not have access to live combat training centers such as those found in the United States and Europe. Large-scale maneuver training areas, for example, are limited. Environmental and political restrictions severely limit training and traffic congestion curtails the ability of units to get to training areas. Modeling and simulations are a cost-effective means of overcoming these obstacles. Exercise Key Resolve is an annual training event that is designed to ensure that the Combined Forces Command (CFC) is ready to defend...

Rochester, NY (OBBeC) - Researchers have reported new revelations on how the body responds to flu. According to the report, scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center have for the first time -- with the use of a computer simulation -- successfully tested a major portion of the body's immune reaction to influenza type A, with implications for treatment design and preparation ahead of future pandemics. The work has been accepted for publication, and posted online, by the Journal of Virology. The new "global" flu model is built out of preexisting, smaller-scale models that capture in mathematical equations millions...

Goldilocks isn’t the only one who demanded everything to be “just right.” The Earth and its fellow seven planets also needed perfect conditions to form as observed, and those right conditions occur rarely, a new computer simulation shows. The new simulation, described in the Aug. 8 Science, is the first to trace from beginning to end how planetary systems form from an initial gas disk encircling a baby star. “The really striking result of the new model is how chaotic and even violent the average story of a planet’s birth is,” says Edward Thommes, an astrophysicist now at the University...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A California man has pleaded guilty to providing restricted software products to China, marking the first successful U.S. prosecution for illegal exports of military-related software code, U.S. prosecutors said on Thursday. Xiaodong Sheldon Meng, 42, formerly of Beijing and now a resident of Cupertino, California, has pleaded guilty to violating U.S. laws on economic espionage and arms export controls, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement. Prosecutors said Meng improperly installed a demonstration unit of a simulation product at the Peoples' Republic of China Navy Research Center and exported to China a restricted visual...

THE NEW WORLD DISORDER N. American students trained for 'merger' 10 universities participate in 'model Parliament' in Mexico to simulate 'integration' of 3 nations -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: September 25, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2006 WorldNetDaily.com American University Professor Robert Pastor WASHINGTON – In another example of the way the three nations of North America are being drawn into a federation, or "merger," students from 10 universities in the U.S., Mexico and Canada are participating annually in a simulated "model Parliament." Under the sponsorship of the Canadian based North American Forum on Integration, students met in the Mexican Senate for five...

The compelling rabbit cage experiment that proved the collapse of the World Trade Center was a controlled demolition was just the kind of cutting edge science needed to unravel the conflicting stories coming out of the massacre at Qana. Prepare to have your mind opened wide...

Via Little Green Footballs. This video/computer simulation is exceptional The Pentagon Attack Simulation Maybe this video, one of the most amazing computer simulations I’ve ever seen, will finally convince the Truthers (aka, 9/11 conspiracy rubes) that American Airlines Flight 77 really did deliberately plunge into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, carrying 53 passengers, six crew members, and five Islamic terrorists from Saudi Arabia screaming “Allahu Akbar!” in the cockpit. Click here  It’s a clinical presentation, but absolutely horrifying if you allow yourself to imagine what the passengers experienced as the plane flew only feet off the ground, snapping lamp...

The Army is paying Iraqi immigrants $220 day, plus board, just to be themselves. [. . .]Some 250 Arabs and Kurds, including about 50 from metropolitan Detroit, occupy the 18 ethnically, politically and religiously diverse villages that comprise the fictitious province of Talatha, located at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, La. "When we come here, we act like we are back home," Amir Saymari, 30, of Dearborn, Mich., said. "We teach them about the culture, and we teach them about the Iraqi people." Some role players portray local officials such as sheik, imam, mayor and council member....

The multiverse theory has spawned another - that our universe is a simulation, writes Paul Davies. If you've ever thought life was actually a dream, take comfort. Some pretty distinguished scientists may agree with you. Philosophers have long questioned whether there is in fact a real world out there, or whether "reality" is just a figment of our imagination. Then along came the quantum physicists, who unveiled an Alice-in-Wonderland realm of atomic uncertainty, where particles can be waves and solid objects dissolve away into ghostly patterns of quantum energy. Now cosmologists have got in on the act, suggesting that what...

I just joined www.smartstocks.com and have created a group for freepers.Its a stock market simulation game that lets you pick real stocks from the stock market and track how well you do with them.They give you 1 million dollars to start out with and they track the rise or fall of the stocks in each group.The group I created is called freepers rule and the password to join the group is freeple.Once you sign up go to the left hand side of the page and click groups then scroll down the list of groups. freepers rule is about 1/4 of...