5 ms·

Sadly, if you look carefully at the pictures, it's pretty clear it's for a game...and I didn't even need to read that he mentioned that they were game ideas. G

by Bahamut 12y ago

Sadly, if you look carefully at the pictures, it's pretty clear it's for a game...and I didn't even need to read that he mentioned that they were game ideas. Goes to show how dumb people can be.

mattmaroon 12y ago
No it's not. At all. I mean, a rational person might make the assumption that this guy is not actually whiteboarding an ICBM launch from a rented apartment. But there's nothing about it indicating to a non-technical person that it's a game.
- crazypyro 12y ago
  Uhhh? The "mouse click" was a dead give away. Also, Occam's Razor. Is this guy programming a game in his apartment or is he programming a ICBM with 0 related hardware plus probably no other corroborating evidence. No reason to act like it takes more than a couple minutes of investigation to figure this shit out. Edit: for the guy below me, since I can't reply directly, find me a nuclear missile guidance system that is destination controlled by a freaking mouse clicking on a map in the Pentagon and I'll concede the point.
  - Zikes 12y ago
    Yep, you'd never find something so silly as a computer mouse in the Pentagon.
    - idibidiart 12y ago
      except ICBMs are not launched with a mouse click.... wth.
      - mattmaroon 12y ago
        1. How do you know that? 2. How would an average person know that?
  - mattmaroon 12y ago
    It's not irrational to think that launching an ICBM might involve a computer and therefore a mouse. Hell, I'd be surprised if it didn't. I doubt the Pentagon has posted videos of whatever it is they use on YouTube, so it's silly to ask for proof. As I said, I agree that it is irrational to think the guy was whiteboarding an ICBM launch. (Not to mention while terrorists could conceivably get a dirty bomb, an ICBM seems well out of the question.) But there is nothing in those photos that would lead an average person to believe it was a game.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
  - Zikes 12y ago
    I don't need to find a nuclear missile guidance system that is destination controlled by a freaking mouse click, because that is not what is being argued. What is being argued is that it is not out of the question to expect that such a system may or could exist. It's not unreasonable to think that it could. Occam's Razor. Are all of our nukes controlled solely by systems that do not involve a mouse, or might there be a computer sophisticated enough somewhere in that launch process that it might make use of a mouse?
    - crazypyro 12y ago
      We are arguing whether it is out of the question to expect that such a system's TARGETING is based on clicking a point on a imprecise map (per the rest of the whiteboard). It is completely out of the question to expect ICBM to be targeted with a mouse. You are (incorrectly) extrapolating the mouse click to mean that there is a mouse click somewhere in the process and NOT at the exact point drawn on the board. If you follow the flow chart, it says mouse click and then gets the target location based on that imprecise click.
      - ForHackernews 12y ago
        > imprecise click. "Close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and nuclear war" When you're dealing with high-yield nuclear warheads, anywhere within a few hundred miles of your desired target is probably going to be plenty good enough.
        crazypyro 12y ago
        Actually, that's a pretty horrendous common mistake. The maximum of the blast radius of every nuclear warhead is below 50 miles. The biggest one ever designed, but not tested, by the USSR (larger than the US) was 100 MT which would've had a blast radius (third degree burns) of 46.5 miles, if it was detonated at 50,000ft , less with lower heights. That is a far cry from "within a few hundred miles".
        ForHackernews 12y ago
  - kps 12y ago
    Well, there's this: “A left mouse push fires it. Kinda crazy really. We actually asked for a great big red button, but they wouldn't give us one.” ¹ Though that's in reference to submarine-launched non-nuclear cruise missiles, not ICBMs. ICBMs might still rate a great big red button. Not that OP's experience is any less silly. ¹ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3078097.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3078097.stm
- tgb 12y ago
  Honestly I hope that even non-technical people know that the blast radius of a nuclear bomb is somewhere around the size of a city, not several US states. But there goes my optimism again...
  - mikeash 12y ago
    Mostly not. Somehow, the general public has been convinced that nuclear war means wiping out all life on the planet (when in reality it would be horrible, and kill an unimaginably large number of people, but wouldn't even wipe out humanity, let alone all life) and accordingly the effects of a nuclear explosion have been vastly exaggerated in the mind of the average Joe. Part of the problem is probably linear extrapolation from Hiroshima to the Tsar Bomba, not realizing that blast radius scales up very much sub-linearly, practical bombs meant to be used in war are way smaller than Tsar Bomba, and Hiroshima was basically constructed out of paper.
  - mattmaroon 12y ago
    I highly doubt it. Why would they? It doesn't change who wins an NBA game.
- sampo 12y ago
  Common sense tells that anyone who has access to Intercontinental Missiles probably does not sketch a trajectory by hand on a whiteboard in a rental apartment. Even if there were no it-technical context, it could be a plan for a novel or a movie script. Than much even non-technical people with common sense should be able to guess.
- voidlogic 12y ago
  >Rational person might make the assumption that this guy is not actually whiteboarding an ICBM launch from a rented apartment In my mind the real problem is that there is nothing wrong with "whiteboarding an ICBM launch". Me or me and my friends have every right get wargame 1980 or 2014 global thermonuclear war. Its seems like it would be a fascinating intellectual exercise. For that matter why can't people wargame terrorist plots, apply game theory, etc. Between first amendment rights and the need for academic freedom, people should and do have every right to do this. In someone saw this can became concerned, they have have every-right to investigate, but in my mind, so long as it doesn't involve anything official or contacting the people involved without tangible evidence. After all, if I talk about what might happen in a car crash, it doesn't remotely imply I intend to go out and get into one.
tomp 12y ago
Actually, it's not clear at all. The only clue I found that it's only a virtual plan is one mention of "WebRTC" in the third image. Far from obvious for most non-programers.
- madaxe_again 12y ago
  "Mouse click" That's the mouse that you put in the nose of a MIRV, and when it starts clicking its teeth because it's damnably chilly in space, it's time to re-enter. Right?
  - Zikes 12y ago
    Nukes are computer controlled. Computers have mice. Mice are used for things other than playing games.
    - cjslep 12y ago
      > Nukes are computer controlled. "Guided" sure, "controlled" is a bit ambiguous. Launching them requires more than just a click.
      - mikeash 12y ago
        Possibly not, although it's far from clear: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand_(nuclear_war) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand_(nuclear_war)
    - madaxe_again 12y ago
      They are indeed. But the computers which control launch and targeting operations predate mice by decades. Launching is usually an affair involving lots of panels coated in blinkenlights and big clicky buttons, switches under panels, and then, finally, two keys, and a button push. Fun fact: the soviets designed their launch control rooms in such a fashion that one person could turn both keys. Here's someone's snapshot of the control room I'm thinking of - which was a standardised design. Got to push the button! https://www.flickr.com/photos/tpeddle/11427536443/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/tpeddle/11427536443/ Anyway. Take your point, but it'd still require a pretty high level of general ignorance to mistake this for any variety of authentic threat.

by Bahamut 12y ago

Sadly, if you look carefully at the pictures, it's pretty clear it's for a game...and I didn't even need to read that he mentioned that they were game ideas. Goes to show how dumb people can be.

mattmaroon 12y ago

No it's not. At all. I mean, a rational person might make the assumption that this guy is not actually whiteboarding an ICBM launch from a rented apartment. But there's nothing about it indicating to a non-technical person that it's a game.

crazypyro 12y ago
Uhhh? The "mouse click" was a dead give away. Also, Occam's Razor. Is this guy programming a game in his apartment or is he programming a ICBM with 0 related hardware plus probably no other corroborating evidence. No reason to act like it takes more than a couple minutes of investigation to figure this shit out. Edit: for the guy below me, since I can't reply directly, find me a nuclear missile guidance system that is destination controlled by a freaking mouse clicking on a map in the Pentagon and I'll concede the point.
- Zikes 12y ago
  Yep, you'd never find something so silly as a computer mouse in the Pentagon.
  - idibidiart 12y ago
    except ICBMs are not launched with a mouse click.... wth.
    - mattmaroon 12y ago
      1. How do you know that? 2. How would an average person know that?
- mattmaroon 12y ago
  It's not irrational to think that launching an ICBM might involve a computer and therefore a mouse. Hell, I'd be surprised if it didn't. I doubt the Pentagon has posted videos of whatever it is they use on YouTube, so it's silly to ask for proof. As I said, I agree that it is irrational to think the guy was whiteboarding an ICBM launch. (Not to mention while terrorists could conceivably get a dirty bomb, an ICBM seems well out of the question.) But there is nothing in those photos that would lead an average person to believe it was a game.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- Zikes 12y ago
  I don't need to find a nuclear missile guidance system that is destination controlled by a freaking mouse click, because that is not what is being argued. What is being argued is that it is not out of the question to expect that such a system may or could exist. It's not unreasonable to think that it could. Occam's Razor. Are all of our nukes controlled solely by systems that do not involve a mouse, or might there be a computer sophisticated enough somewhere in that launch process that it might make use of a mouse?
  - crazypyro 12y ago
    We are arguing whether it is out of the question to expect that such a system's TARGETING is based on clicking a point on a imprecise map (per the rest of the whiteboard). It is completely out of the question to expect ICBM to be targeted with a mouse. You are (incorrectly) extrapolating the mouse click to mean that there is a mouse click somewhere in the process and NOT at the exact point drawn on the board. If you follow the flow chart, it says mouse click and then gets the target location based on that imprecise click.
    - ForHackernews 12y ago
      > imprecise click. "Close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and nuclear war" When you're dealing with high-yield nuclear warheads, anywhere within a few hundred miles of your desired target is probably going to be plenty good enough.
      - crazypyro 12y ago
        Actually, that's a pretty horrendous common mistake. The maximum of the blast radius of every nuclear warhead is below 50 miles. The biggest one ever designed, but not tested, by the USSR (larger than the US) was 100 MT which would've had a blast radius (third degree burns) of 46.5 miles, if it was detonated at 50,000ft , less with lower heights. That is a far cry from "within a few hundred miles".
        ForHackernews 12y ago
- kps 12y ago
  Well, there's this: “A left mouse push fires it. Kinda crazy really. We actually asked for a great big red button, but they wouldn't give us one.” ¹ Though that's in reference to submarine-launched non-nuclear cruise missiles, not ICBMs. ICBMs might still rate a great big red button. Not that OP's experience is any less silly. ¹ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3078097.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3078097.stm
tgb 12y ago
Honestly I hope that even non-technical people know that the blast radius of a nuclear bomb is somewhere around the size of a city, not several US states. But there goes my optimism again...
- mikeash 12y ago
  Mostly not. Somehow, the general public has been convinced that nuclear war means wiping out all life on the planet (when in reality it would be horrible, and kill an unimaginably large number of people, but wouldn't even wipe out humanity, let alone all life) and accordingly the effects of a nuclear explosion have been vastly exaggerated in the mind of the average Joe. Part of the problem is probably linear extrapolation from Hiroshima to the Tsar Bomba, not realizing that blast radius scales up very much sub-linearly, practical bombs meant to be used in war are way smaller than Tsar Bomba, and Hiroshima was basically constructed out of paper.
- mattmaroon 12y ago
  I highly doubt it. Why would they? It doesn't change who wins an NBA game.
sampo 12y ago
Common sense tells that anyone who has access to Intercontinental Missiles probably does not sketch a trajectory by hand on a whiteboard in a rental apartment. Even if there were no it-technical context, it could be a plan for a novel or a movie script. Than much even non-technical people with common sense should be able to guess.
voidlogic 12y ago
>Rational person might make the assumption that this guy is not actually whiteboarding an ICBM launch from a rented apartment In my mind the real problem is that there is nothing wrong with "whiteboarding an ICBM launch". Me or me and my friends have every right get wargame 1980 or 2014 global thermonuclear war. Its seems like it would be a fascinating intellectual exercise. For that matter why can't people wargame terrorist plots, apply game theory, etc. Between first amendment rights and the need for academic freedom, people should and do have every right to do this. In someone saw this can became concerned, they have have every-right to investigate, but in my mind, so long as it doesn't involve anything official or contacting the people involved without tangible evidence. After all, if I talk about what might happen in a car crash, it doesn't remotely imply I intend to go out and get into one.

tomp 12y ago

Actually, it's not clear at all. The only clue I found that it's only a virtual plan is one mention of "WebRTC" in the third image. Far from obvious for most non-programers.

madaxe_again 12y ago
"Mouse click" That's the mouse that you put in the nose of a MIRV, and when it starts clicking its teeth because it's damnably chilly in space, it's time to re-enter. Right?
- Zikes 12y ago
  Nukes are computer controlled. Computers have mice. Mice are used for things other than playing games.
  - cjslep 12y ago
    > Nukes are computer controlled. "Guided" sure, "controlled" is a bit ambiguous. Launching them requires more than just a click.
    - mikeash 12y ago
      Possibly not, although it's far from clear: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand_(nuclear_war) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand_(nuclear_war)
  - madaxe_again 12y ago
    They are indeed. But the computers which control launch and targeting operations predate mice by decades. Launching is usually an affair involving lots of panels coated in blinkenlights and big clicky buttons, switches under panels, and then, finally, two keys, and a button push. Fun fact: the soviets designed their launch control rooms in such a fashion that one person could turn both keys. Here's someone's snapshot of the control room I'm thinking of - which was a standardised design. Got to push the button! https://www.flickr.com/photos/tpeddle/11427536443/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/tpeddle/11427536443/ Anyway. Take your point, but it'd still require a pretty high level of general ignorance to mistake this for any variety of authentic threat.