Schnittertm

Depending on the plane and on the sophistication of the plane the costs might actually not be that much lower or lower at all for certain planes to model, just think of the PMDG aircraft that are modeled to exacting standards or the up and coming A-320X by Flightsim Labs currently entering the beta stage, which will also, as it looks, be a simulation of the Airbus A-320 that is as complex if not more so than most planes in DCS, at least from a modeling perspective and what the developer wants to achieve. There might not be as much of a market for the highly modeled and overly complex airliner planes either.

What I did to solve that problem is, to buy a USB hub, connect most of my flight sim gear to it and plug the hub only in if I need it into one of my front USB ports. Since they are easily accessible for me that is not a problem. Also, if I need any other controller (e.g. 360 pad or Arcade Stick) I plug them into my front USB as needed and unplug as soon as I'm done. The only thing I had to do, is disable the analog stick on my G13, as I usually use the display in that for temperature and load monitoring, so it needs to stay connected. Still, it is a problem that sadly many developers seem to overlook. Another problem, which prompted me to buy a 360 pad is, that some games refuse to work with any other controller than the 360 pad, unless you get some kind of third party software and even with that it might not fully work.

Level of Detail. It governs the complexity of the 3d models at different ranges from your point of view. Basically, the further away an object is, the less detail it will have, which is often done in several stages in the rendering engine. This is done to reduce load on your GPU while redering far away objects, especially if there are lots of them. Also, with far away objects you wouldn't be able to see much of the detail anyway.

They had three or four testflights with one prototype, the last of which ended in a crash, probably due to problems with one of the engines, killing the test pilot. Naturally, as the war ended, they never really got to an operational use. But it is true, it will be hard to get an accurate flight model, as the number of flights and the data for them is very likely not enough to create an accurate model based on those numbers, if they ever did record any and if the records still exist.

So, I was just browsing Kickstarter again and while doing so I stumbled upon this KS project: Now, this Kickstarter is always one of the kind that I am very cautious about, as it doesn't show of any of the - possibly supposed - work that has been done for the project. Now, my questions would be, can this be legit (I am of the opinion it is not, but I may be mistaken) and has anyone ever heard of this Chris Donovan offering this Kickstarter? Does he have the skills, machines, access to the hardware and capabilities to make this happen?

They might ask Frontier Development for help on that, I mean they have an entire galaxy, called Milky Way by some, created procedurally and are working on figuring out how to do planetary landings. As for a new X-Wing or Tie Fighter Space Sim, I would definitely be on board for one of those, it has been too long since the last one.

Ah, you know, game AI will sort itself out once Skynet is installed and operational. ;)

Yep, same here, even though I'm a bit disgruntled at the stunt Amazon pulled here in Europe (which is, I think, the only place to order the Collector's Edition), putting the EU version on the UK store only and therefore having me pay even more, because of the currency conversion LBP to EUR. As is par for Europe, though, the price was not adjusted from US to European currencies, which means 99.99$ = 99.99£. *sigh* Still, I believe it to be worth every cent.

Yet it is that ease of use and the low cost that actually led to the creation of weapon systems like the Stinger/IGLA, as it is also beneficial to your own military, which would also employ them. As a soldier, no matter the intelligence level of the individual soldier, you'd want a system that is as easy and as fast as possible to deploy in a combat situation, a system that, at its peak requires little or no thought, increasing reaction time to and survivability of a threat (in this case from the air). As a nation, you'd want the system as cheap as possible, as you would either be able to buy more, put funds towards other equipment or, if that is your fancy, save the taxpayer some money, though most politicians are a bit stingy in that respect. The problem arises, when those weapons are exported and sold to other parties which later are then considered undesireables at the least and enemies of the nation at the worst. Then, suddenly, your own, expensive, equipment is under threat from your own weapons. Then you do need intelligence services to find out where those weapons went. If they weren't sold illegally, tracking those weapons should at least be reasonably easy, as you at least know the amount and general area where they were last. With weapons sold illegally or a track to them that has grown cold, you only know a probable amount of those weapons existing somewhere and you'd know how long they'd hold out with factory equipped parts, but that is it. You will have to use other means to find out their whereabouts, some of them highly undemocratic and certainly questionable, as some intelligence services are known for operating outside the boundaries of certain laws. If their actions are justified is a debate that can easily drift into the political, so I will keep shut about my thoughts on that matter. The only defense against these weapon systems, other than finding them and taking them out of action (through destruction or buying them back), as I see it, is proper training of the pilots/aircraft crews and installation of early warning and defense equipment, as is done on modern aircraft (e.g. MWS, Flares). Still, manpads will be a threat for low flying aircraft and despite all the training and equipment meant to defeat them, they might claim multi-million dollar equipment for a the exchange of a small, disposable launcher. It might be unsatisfactory to know this, but if there were such a thing as the perfect defense, then no one would use or even produce manpads.

Well, what can you say, Wehrmacht uniforms, designed and made by Hugo Boss.

Most movies of that kind are American and most countries being the 'bad' guys there usually were customers of the Soviet Union/Russia, so it figures that MiG's would be the bad guys. In WWII movies the bad guys always fly Messerschmitts or Zeros.

Yeah, that's what I thought, too. Some other things, that gun on the big drones looks a bit like a 30mm cannon, which means that in this fantasy they have pretty fantastical one-hit one-kill ammunition. Then, there is the thing that none of the F-16 started? Unlikely. The drone starts up the radar and goes unnoticed? Similarly unlikely. Also, you wouldn't pack your planes or vehicles that tight and parking B-2's in the open, before you have them loaded and started? Come on. The most realistic one would be the last drone, as it is small enough to be deployed quickly and might actually be used as an assassination tool. The others? Too large and would be deteced and shot down by air defense before they'd inflict much damage, if the trucks themselves wouldn't be apprehended beforehand for driving into areas where they should not drive to.

I don't think rational thought is one of the strenghts of humans, especially in the case of extreme, genocidal circumstances. You are facing the exctinction of all life as you know it, that life is squished into a few space ships, wolves snapping at your heels at every turn, wolves disguised as sheep among the flock, many are just normal humans torn out of their normal everyday lives, not knowing if they will survive the next day or where they will sleep or if they are ever going to step foot on a planet ever again. The circumstances don't get more extreme than that. Add to this that you have people with different views on religion, politics and other sensitive topics which people will only forget about for a very short while and you have a recipe for disaster or at the very least for a lot of disagreements. Even the soldiers will have problems there, because, even though they have been trained to be professional and rational, they are still humans, prone to mistakes and now the government and the nation/planet that they serve is, in a sense, not there anymore. What are they fighting for then? In these rather extreme circumstances it is not hard to imagine that it is dog eat dog out there. Most humans will only work together as long as there is a benefit in it for them. If that is missing, then you will have rebellions, dissent and a whole lot of other stuff. A mix of normal people from differing cultures, interspersed with extremists and criminals makes a very explosive mixture in and of itself already. You can look at every series and will find a lot of logic errors and other such mistakes, just as in the real world. I mean, remind me why it was necessary to have all the Battlestars and Mk. VII Vipers linked into the same defense mainframe on Caprica? It was that singular, big mistake that even enabled the Cylons to destroy the colonies, otherwise they would have had to go up against a whole fleet fully armed and battleready Battlestars with support fighters, which would have been more than powerful enough to take out several Cylon Basestars each. But, alas, a small subroutine in an insignificant navigation program disabled all but one of the new high tech Battlestars and their support fighters. As for equipment decissions, well, they may also have been dumb, but considering that these kind of decissions are often made by politicians and not people in the know, it is kind of understandable. Apparently, at least according to a study of the German MoD, of 109 possible Typhoon fighters only 74 are available and only 42 are actually combat ready and that is not the only equipment problem. Lobbyists, contracts, incompetent politicians, wrong decissions, all that can lead to such problems. That computer system in BSG was probably proposed to be cost saving and therefore the politicians said, yeah, okay, lets do it, it will makes us look good in the eyes of the voters and we haven't heard anything from the Cylons in over 40 years. As for what I found annoying about BSG 2.0, well, that was the underlying implications of providence and that everything has happened before and will happen again and its religious undertones of supernatural providence. But then again, if you consider the end of the series, maybe they were programmed that way.

Right now it isn't, but the September newletter hinted at it being available in the near future.

You know what they said "Nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be shure!" ;)

A new update has been posted on YT regarding pre-alpha work on the comms systems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkJjCGhJq6s

So very likely the same problem as we have with the current Rechtschreibung, where many still use the old, 'out of date' expressions. I mean who doesn't remember Delphin and Photo.

But is it really the case that two wrongs don't make one right. It certainly needs to be considered where the right and wrong comes from, then, doesn't it? Let us consider the legend of Robin Hood. He stole from the rich and gave to the poor, mainly because the rich were in power and taxed the poor in such a way that the poor weren't able to feed themselves and their families anymore. Also, the poor were not able to mount an effective defence against trained and armed soldiers. Now, legally, and since everyone in this society agreed on property being generally a personal thing, Robin Hood was certainly wrong in doing what he did. But from a moral standpoint many, I included, would argue that he was right in what he did, he corrected the unjust law imposed upon those that were not able to defend themselves against the lawmakers. It is a bit of what, in D&D terms (other nerds might know that), is considered a Chaotic Good character, a character that does what is morally right, but not necessarily while abiding the law or while even outright breaking it. As for the apple example. Yes one might consider it his property, but if he is in a society that considers everything common property, then he would be wrong doing so, he would be going against the general consent of that society. Therefore he might consider it stealing, but by the rules of that society it would not be stealing. That person might even be reprimanded for not sharing the apple and considering it his personal property. Right or wrong, moral or immoral, just or unjust, those are terms that philosophers have struggled with since the homo sapiens became sentient and societally develop enough to create, consider and enforce such concepts. We still haven't found a way to objectively judge either of those things, as they are very subjective objects, that are influenced by how evolution has developed us. We might never find an objective basis for either of that and only go by a general consent of what the majority believes to be the good and the bad of those above concepts. If Tasmanian devils would be sentient enough to develop concepts of right and wrong, then you might find for them that it is acceptable for only the strongest to survive, as female devils give live birth to more infants than she can feed and therefore competition for the zits giving milk is fierce. Roughly 60% of the littler will not survive this. This, again, might then go into property considerations, if someone is able to conquer property from someone else, because he is stronger, then it would be possible that it is not considered theft. If someone was weaker and just slyly taking it, he might be considered a thief. Bottom line, this is a subject that we humans will struggle with for, if we live that long, millenia to come and a subject that will always be changing. It is certainly easier talking about the physical properties of a stone.

In turn you could say you are only liberating stolen goods from a legal thief. Many rich people aren't rich because they just got lucky or in the right spot, but because they exploited other people, more guillible people or legally stole from them. Also, I would still remind you that stealing must not be universally wrong. It is, though not with humans, quite possible to imagine a hypothetical society where each and every one shares equally in all property available. There you would not have stealing. Stealing really only works with concepts like personal property, if there is no personal property, it can't be stealing.

From a human point of view no war is justifiable, that is right and no war will ever be without controversy. WWII, the allies bombed to death more civilians than the axis, yet they are the good guys. The US used the first and the last nuclear weapon in anger and lets hope that the one on Nagasaki will be the last nuclear weapon used in anger ever. But war is just a perversion of the struggle that is life. Life, on its most basic level, does mean struggle, struggle for survival and for resources that ensure that survival. Almost all animals are territorial to some part and will aggressively pursue any and all interlopers, if they are able to. Humans are also still just animals from a pure biological standpoint, only that we have a bigger brain and more brain power and should know better, but apparently we don't. Well, I guess Einsteins quote about the infinity of the universe and that of human stupidity was right. While I share your view that especially religion is one of the prime causes of struggles today, that don't necessitate a war for resources, but a war of ideas, I don't think that struggles or wars would end if you'd just take religion away. We humans are quite apt at conjuring up, if you will, reasons for fighting each other. In the not to distant future we will have to face a problem of overpopulation, which certainly will end in bloody struggles. We will also have to face the problem of certain resources becoming more and more scarce, e.g. crude oil and rare earths, which are materials used to, especially in the west, ensure our standard of living. An industrial and commercial sector that is mostly driven only by profits and more profits, but not looking early enough for sustainable alternatives is just exacerbating this problem. All in all, it would be nice if we humans remember that Earth doesn't need us to go on, but we certainly need Earth. Same with the Universe, the Universe is no entity, but if it were, it couldn't care less about this infinitesimally tiny spec somewhere in the arm of one of its hundreds of billions of galaxies with hundreds of billions of stars each. Maybe I'm just realistic or even pessimistic, but certainly cynical in that I believe that humanity is ****ed, as it is slow to change and tries to often change things when it is too late.

Nah, we are just average armchair philosophers. The real ones in the universities would probably laugh at us. However, have fun with that Tequila. Oh, and would you like a slice of lemon to go with that?

Exorcet, to it seems that, concerning morality, there is only a binary choice for you and one of it is right, the other is wrong. Where does our sense of morality come from is always tied to our evolution and our growth as a species. Morality is in itself an idea that certain things are the right thing to do and others aren't and that there sometimes is a conflict between ideas of what to do in certain circumstances and a decision can not be easily reached. If we didn't evolve into a species that thinks killing its own is bad in most circumstances we wouldn't be arguing hypothetical cases where we have a decision between the right to live of one man and the right of live of five people. Rights in itself are an idea created by man to ease societal interaction and are based on a moral basis, that has changed over time. For many laws this moral basis is the decider for the laws, which is why someone that killed in defence of his or others lives is usually free to go, if the evidence supports that it was in defence and that this was the only possible outcome. Laws have to change and be flexible, because while many are derived from a moral standpoint, it is a aggregated subjective moral of the society and not an objective, universal morality. An objective morality would not change and therefore, at least for the laws dealing with moral behaviour, would not necessitate a change of the law. Aggregated subjective morals of a society do necessitat the need to change if the overall view on moral changes. This is why the death penalty is abolish in most European countries. It is not 'moral' anymore, yet it was once. Stealing is only wrong, because in our society we have a concept of property, one that we even extends to living things among others (e.g. cattle, pets, plants, even other humans). Again, stealing is only a matter because we decided that individual property is the way to go, but how about a society where all property belongs to everyone? Then it wouldn't be stealing anymore, it wouldn't be wrong anymore to take other things. Torture to get confessions are wrong, yet torture, again, is not always wrong. There are men and women out there that, mostly for sexual pleasure, let themselves be tortured. In this case the parties involved in this voluntary torture agreed to do this, no rights are harmed. The rich man that gets scot free of his position is still wrong, because few are the cases where a rich man hasn't exploited other people to get where he is. It is still seen today. Is it moral for, say, Walmart to pay their people a wage, from which they can't support their cost of living or their families unless they get aid from the government or take on other jobs, while Walmart makes billions and billions of profits? It certainly doesn't seem right to me, it certainly doesn't seem moral to me and the exploitation comes from the fact that many that work there have no other option left, be it because of age, of education or intelligence or other reasons. That is pure exploitation, if only of those that can't chose any better. Yet there are people that say it is moral of Walmart to do this, why? What makes their subjective idea of morals better? Is it better? Is it right for managers to have contracts nowadays that give them bonuses even if they don't meet the goals, that pay them millions upon millions of dollars in some cases? I don't think it is right. Is it right to exploit your position to evade the law, even though the law purports to treat everyone the same? I don't think that should be the case. If you are rich and evaded taxes for a certain percentage of your wealth or income you should be treated just the same as a poor person that did the same in relation to their wealth and income. If the poor person goes to jail, the rich person should, too, yet this is often not the case. Slavery, well, slavery it an interesting subject, but if your rights of freedom are violated, yet you still have a better life than you would have while being free to do what you want, because your 'master' treats you right and gives you certain freedoms, wouldn't it be prefereable to give up some of your freedom for a better life? Wouldn't it make the master or mistress a moral person if it treated its slave with respect? A rethorical question, I know, but the answer would be, that in these cases slavery or being a slave might be a moral thing or at least the right thing. Nowadays we have corporate masters and some forms of legal 'slavery', see my Walmart example above. Some can't get out of that thing, they need that job, just to be able to somewhat survive, they need additional help because of the way things are handled, they have no chance to improve themselves to get away from it all, but they also feel that they should not try to be a burden on society. The laws actually support the case of what Walmart is doing. Walmart can say what we are doing is legal. Is it moral, in this case not, at least not to the majority of people. Most do have the moral stance that if you work, even if it is the worst job on the planet, that you should at least get paid enough to support the basic costs of living (e.g. being able to pay the rent, transportation to and from your workplace, buy food, pay the bills). This, now, would necessitate a change or adjustment of laws, based on the majority subjective feel of morality in the society. One thing I can see is, however, despite all the above, that morals are not binary, but circumstancial. Subjective ideas that have a certain quality to them, the quality of some being better than the other. This can lead to you doing things that are wrong, but moral or right but immoral. While right and wrong and moral and immoral seem to be existing indepent of each other, they are certainly influence each other. With an overlying, objective, universal, testable and verifyable set of rules for morals it would be so much easier, you wouldn't have to rely on a changing set of rules and morals overtime, that come form an amalgation of subjective ideas, some of which have been deemed better, others which have been deemed worse.

Pst, Flagrum, didn't you want to say "I want to end A's live", or were you really talking about suicide?

First, it would be nice of you to tell me which you think the natural state of the system of morality is. Where does it come from, why is immoral to kill, to steal, to torture? I mean there are species that survive on stealing, that commit infanticide. It is moral for them to do it, it is right for them to do it, as it is all about the propagation of the species and that would be a basis for constructing morality. Everything that is good for oneself or the species is moral, everything that is detrimental is immoral. However it is only the amalgation of a majority of subjective judgements on the matter. Yes, logic exists, humans can set up rules for what logic is and isn't, however it is a stretch to say that all subjective ideas are equal and none is better than the other. Similarly humans do not inantely know that putting their will before others can not be justified. Ideas have strange quality in that the subjective idea of jumping off a cliff without parachute is worse than the idea of doing the same with a parachute. One will lead to serious injury or even death, an outcome not preferable, while the other will lead to you usually landing unharmed. In that alone you have already a different quality to an idea. Putting your own will above that of another can be quite helpful to you, if it helps you or even others to survive, by stealing food or by killing someone that threatened to kill you or others and moved to do so. In both cases you are putting your will to survive above the others will to kill you. So, in my opinion your logic is already flawed, as subjective rules almost demand a different quality to each rule. Which brings me to your equation. You are there, you can chose to do something or to do nothing. In both cases the outcome will be the death of sentient beings, one or five. Yes, you did not put the trolley on track, you did not put the people on track, but you are right then and there and see it happening and have a choice you could make, a choice that must come from what you see and your gut feeling of what is right or wrong in your mind. It is not like with Israel vs. Hamas, because in thise case, at least I assume, you are not there and you can't make a choice on the matter. You not doing anything can be construed as a denial or failure to render asisstance to one of the two parties involved. In the first example with the switch, you'd have the choice to pull the switch or not. In the second you can push the man or not, in the third, again, you can pull a switch or not. Just because you chose inaction does not absolve you of any and all responsibility. People will die and how many will die is up to your choice and cogitating on that choice is what makes up this test. The thing is, if there is a switch and you pull it, most people would accept that as moral and an accident, as only one person died in the accident and not five. In all likelyhood any charges for manslaughter would be dismissed in this case, because of the circumstances. You can't count on it, but it is very likely. In the second case, even though you would safe five people through your action, you would probably get sued for manslaughter. I believe that this fear of punishment is already a deterent and a deciding factor on how and why people mostly chose how they chose. As for my enhanced scenarios, they were more about having to make a choice in other circumstances than the ones proposed. The also added in information from Flagrum, as he mentioned children, which many see as to be worth more to protect than adults, mainly because they have less ability to fend for themselves or protect themselves from assaulters. A very wise programming by evolution for a species that is not able to put out hundreds of offspring in a single load (e.g. spiders). It also dealt with missing information in choices and how that could affect them. Based on the information you had and on the decision you made with amount of information and with your gut feeling (your moral compass so to speak) you made a choice, yet after the event happened you gain more information and find out the choice you made was wrong. In this case you would have to adjust your behaviour and moral compass slightly. This is what happens on a daily basis with each and every human. We get new information, we process it and we act on it both on a conscious and unconscious level, but still a subjective level. Information may be what we hear, see, learn, remember, etc. but it is usually influenced by subjective ideas from other people. This all together forms a whole, this forms a societies moral compass. This is what makes slavery good on one day and bad on the next, so to say. Slavery in and of itself must not necesserily be a bad thing, if the slaves are treated good and have certain freedoms and are just locked in a contract of servitude. The thing is morality is, as many things that deal with emotions, feelings, internal judgements and such, a very grey area in human interactions. There is no objective morality and no natural laws that guide morality from which we could derive the information we need to make moral decisions. Concerning the notion that some are less equal in front of the law than others, it is true. If rich people get caught for tax evasion they often have both the money and the connections to get off easy, say by paying a lump sum or getting the very best lawyer. A poor person can not do that, they often go to jail for that, precisely because they can't afford the best lawyer. It is an injustice in the system. Diplomats are even better off, they can get away with murder and the worst they must fear, because of diplomatic immunity, is a deportation to their country of origin, where the crime might not even be sentenced, were you might not even have a trial. State leaders often can, for example, avoid traffic, by using the police to make way, a perk the common man has not. They get a level of protection that is certainly needed in this world for their position, but again it creates an inequality before the law. Laws are, at the end, just the ratified subjective will of the majority (at least in most western countries) of people of a society to govern base matters of morality. Yet again, laws are changed all the time, because, again, there is no objective morality to derive them from and subjective ideas can have different levels of quality.

So, where do you derive your moral compass from, that tells you that not putting your will above that of another person is 'right'? That already is a moral judgement, where you assume that this is the natural state of the system. Yet, you would have to test and prove or disprove this hypothesis. Is understanding rights, which are made up by societal rules, both in the animal kingdom, as well as human society the basis? If so, then we should acknowledge that human society is hierachical in structure and then it is right for some to put their will above that of others, as it is accepted by that society. That is a problem, right then and there, because there are daily things that happen on small, as well as large scales. So, which is the natural state? A society where each individual is totally equal in rights and duties or one where some have more duties, but get a leeway in rights (because they are state leaders or diplomats or just rich people). If anything, nature shows us that it is just that inequality that breeds evolution. Some genes give an advantage and survive, others are neutral and may survive, yet others are detrimental and might not survive. But in all of this there is variation, not a clear cut border. This is also evidence in paeleological findings. You can't find a clear cut line between a homo erectus and its direct predecessor and ancestors. The changes accrued over time and then some one decided that we call this type of skeletal build Erectus and the other Egaster. So, how can we arrive at equality of morals if nature itself is not fair. Too big, too small, too fat, too slim, too dumb, too intelligent. Again, you are asking for an absolute measure of morality that I can not see. Same with the trolley. Do nothing? That, too, is a moral judgement, because you had the opportunity to do something, yet did nothing, so you valued that life of one person higher than that of five or you valued your own peace of mind higher than that of all six persons involved. You see, that is the crux of that problem, not doing anything does not magically absolve you of any or all moral obligations. Deciding to do nothing is still a decision, a subjective descision, that says I don't want to get involved, I needn't get involved and it is right by my moral compass.