JediMaster

The weird thing about Obama is that he hasn't DONE anything. One year in the Senate and then straight to campaigning? On the plus side, he's not "old" Washington like the other 2. However, I think McCain has done an admirable job of staying in the game without being changed. None of the other candidates looked worthy anyway. This country has been on this "left or right" kick for far too long. I want whichever candidate will bring us back to the center, where I am. I don't care a bit about those on either side wanting everything THEIR way. It's called compromise, and in the past couple of decades it seems like that idea has become TREASON! No, do not work with those on the other side!! No!! Whatever.

Heh, the most expensive CD I own is the soundtrack to an 80's film: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Released only on tape and LP in the US, I waited in vain for a CD release for literally 2 decades. Then one day I saw on ebay a 2000 release of the ToD special edition CD from the UK. It was $35 and I JUMPED for it. All the songs from my (now totally dead) tape plus a few more! Ahhh... They had some of the best comedies in the 80s, too. Airplane, Naked Gun, Cheers, Top Secret!, Real Genius...

Those things so break the laws of physics that it's not even possible to grasp just HOW wrong they are.

Has anyone mentioned how crazy this guy must be?? You couldn't pay me enough...

I will admit the idea of a training-only module excites me not at all. If I can't release my frustrations of the day by blowing stuff up, I feel...well, I feel the frustration continue to build! I'm in the "I'll possibly get it after the first combat part is released" camp, although if they make a demo for the training-only initial release I will try that. However, the amount of time I could spend in a tiny demo is probably all I could bear to spend in non-combat anyway!

The 1.14 final (not beta, finally!) for ArmA is out and it really improves performance. Those who never bothered with the 1.09, 1.11, or 1.12 betas will notice a massive jump, but even if you've been using the 1.12 beta it's noticeable. The Warfare MP game mode, which is basically an official BIS version of Evolution or CTI, is great. You can even play it solo as the AI is very competent at getting things done. I highly recommend it!

I remember back at UM we had a capacitor bank there that put out more power than the nuke plant at Turkey Point did in one instant. However, it took days to recharge. Of course, there they were doing cooling laser research, which works a bit differently.

I have lots of DVDs and CDs from the 80s, and also a ton of MP3s I've acquired over the years from friends. Of course, the DVDs are big SF and action films, I never went for the teen comedy/drama stuff like Pretty in Pink or Breakfast Club really. I cared more about the music in the films than the films themselves! However, while I like the big stuff, I'm not really a fan of the more obscure stuff. Same with the 90s. For obscure stuff, I tend to prefer the first 2 decades of rock, up to about 1975. I grew up hearing the 80s stuff, but paying attention to the 60s. So while I love a good INXS or Duran Duran song, I get what I need of them from a greatest hits CD. In fact, many 80s groups are no more than one hit wonders to me, like Flock of Seagulls. Just don't care about any of their stuff other than "I Ran" because that's the only one I heard on the radio! I spent my jr high and high school years listening to the 60s on my tapes and records, and then the CD revolution happened in 1987 with the release of the entire Beatles catalogue on CD. I still have those 21 yr-old CDs today, and the cases are all scratched and worn (but the CDs are pristine!) from how often I've listened to them. Of course, when I went to college is when alternative broke out, especially as Nirvana's "Nevermind" was released my first semester. I also got cable on the TV in my room for the first time and started watching MTV and Comedy Central regularly, discovering MST3K, Beavis and Butthead, and many music videos from the last great era of videos. Let's face it, starting about 1997 MTV really because "teenager TV with occasional videos" and NOT "music TV". For awhile VH1 picked up the slack, but by 2000 it was in the same boat.

Well, to be fair GRAW was made by GRIN which is as you say infamous for ignoring its beta testers. I never played Blazing Angels, so I can't say what it's like. I want RSE back. Was Raven Shield the last thing they did? Or was it GR1? I remember Ubi Montreal created Black Thorn at the same time GR1 came out, and we then had 2 expansion packs for it. Really the main issue is people accepted playing FPS games with a gamepad so the consoles became a viable path, unfortunately. When mouse+keyboard was your only choice, PC FPS were big. Now even PC-only FPS games are becoming the minority! That makes flight sims on the PC a niche within a niche and these companies just aren't interested in that.

I don't know, I think TK's sims are perfect in the area of "serious for beginners". None of the arcadey 36-missiles and mid-air rearming crap but not too demanding on learning buttons and switches. I will concede the lack of compelling story, however other than SFP1 it's all historical campaigns anyway. I guess he could shine it up some with briefings/debriefings having more flash to them, like the old MPS and Jane's sims did. However, it's obvious he spends his time on things that happen in the cockpit and the whole UI/presentation thing takes 2nd place. With his limited resources, that makes sense. I don't give the Russian dev teams the same pass, though, since they DO have more people working on them and could give them a little more soul! My favorite sims from past years were my favorite because they didn't FEEL like sims. From the time you loaded into the main menu I felt more like a pilot prepping to go on a mission, then flying it, then seeing what came of it afterwards. These current ones on the other hand FEEL like simulators! I have immersion in the cockpit (if you're lucky--Il-2 and LOMAC often miss there too) but anytime I'm not in the cockpit it just SCREAMS "this is a simulator." Jane's Longbow 2, for example, made me feel like an Army aviator learning how to fly the Apache and then going out to fight in a real conflict in one. LOMAC, to contrast, makes me feel like a Russian pilot trainee in a simulator at an airbase training for the day I'll get to REALLY fly them. It's a simulator simulator!

"Enhanced" = "Not Very Much" I guess.

I guess I'm most surprised they found X-Plane's code insufficient to the task and that starting from scratch was easier. Of course, I'm no programmer.

Using a laser to fry a guidance system in a warhead is a bit different. Also, taking out anything the size of a plane or larger requires an increase in power by several orders of magnitude. Rockets are easy, they're fragile. Put a small hole that leaks fuel or buckle the side and ruin the aerodynamics and it will tear or blow itself apart. The power problem is also nontrivial. A chemical laser generates the energy by mixing the toxic fluids, but a solid state one uses electricity...from the engines? Not even a 747's 4 engines with alternators driving it will power a SSL directly. You need banks of capacitors charging for one shot...then a looooong time to charge it up again. I think SSL's are topped out at 1kw right now? Not enough, not compared to the chemical one. The day when we can fire a SSL from an airborne platform at a fighter and take it out without getting "lucky" and igniting an external tank or blinding the pilot in the cockpit is still far off. Actually, IIRC the threat of lasers to pilots' eyes is the predominant concern right now. Who needs to shoot them down if the plane will crash on its own once the pilots are blind?

Heh...rain. Don't move to FL!!

I see them every day here, with the 920th Rescue Wing, and they're always flying over my house too. In fact, several of them had those water buckets slung under to help fight those fires here last week. As for Marine One, that flew OVER my house (wow what a racket those 53s make) after W showed up for a rally with his brother Jeb at the local stadium (local = 4 miles away) on its way back here where AF1 was parked. The best part was during the rally some old clueless guy flying VFR flew RIGHT past the stadium and got an F-16 buzzing him for his trouble! Forced to land at Merritt Island Airport and got questioned by the FBI and company for several hours! D'OH!!!

Argh! The wait is killing me! However, it looks like no Su-25 in DCS anytime soon, so I guess we'll all be hanging onto LOMAC for quite some time!

Narrow view? Some might call it pessimistic, but I call 'em as I see 'em. 2001 was a great film but one of the worst predictors of the future ever made, even with a genius like Clarke behind it. Within a year of its release we had man walking on the moon! Within 5 years, the last man left and no one has returned since... Computers you could talk to that took up a room! We get computers you can hold in your hand that can't tell you anything except it's crashed! The only problem with the "black world has it all" theory is that some of the things they supposedly have would HURT the US if they stayed black. Besides, I can name a dozen things out of SF that I KNOW haven't been done because they're either impossible according to the laws of physics as we know it (hyperspace, lightsabers, transporters) or they require a tech we've not been able to create yet (getting around on something other than primitive rocket propulsion). Messing with an idea in a lab and saying "done that" is NOT the same as having practical, operational vehicles. The space shuttle, for instance, isn't really practical and is barely operational. On that I would say we don't YET have a good reusable space vehicle.

The Georgians were tracking the UAV with their own radar and saw another plane approaching. The UAV operator must have been told "he's closing on its six" and turned the camera to see it. What gets me is just how close it gets.

Of course, I'm not so sure about a solid state laser that powerful in just 2 decades. Plus I was skeptical of them using a 767 for it!! It also didn't look right for the beam path. A 747 is being used now because the cockpit is above, leaving space for the laser to go straight to the nose. Here they make it seem like the laser is totally generated from the nose itself. I just doubt we'll be that far with solid state lasers (to be more powerful than the chemical ones we have today) in 20 years. Those still need a ton of development. They also made a comment about Su-30s "not flown by any allied nation"--gee, doesn't give much hope of better relations with India, does it?

The weight of a helmet cam would risk breaking the guy's neck.

Finally! This has been drawn out far too long.

Funny, with the latest patches both FE and WOI run much faster now than at release. They're not faster than WOV/WOE, merely as fast at the best of times. So for installs with all stock planes I now have shadows turned on. It also might be that since I now have an nvidia card instead of ATI it does the shadows faster? I don't know.

Yup, I've been using that one for about 10 years now.

I've watched the first half so far. Very good effects, although I question some of their conclusions! I seriously doubt we'll have a B-1R flying in less than 10 years, for instance!

No, you are not wrong.