Bullethead

Apologies in advance for the compacted nature of this post but it's that IE 10 carriage return problem. So all I can do is put breaks within lines to separate things.*************** @ Olham: If the whiteman is an illegal alien in the US, then Germans are illegal aliens in Germany :). I mean, Homo erectus was the 1st guy there, but he was replaced by H. heidelbergensis, who was replaced by H. neanderthal, who was replaced by H. sapiens. And within the latter group alone you've had the "native" Mesolithic folks replaced by Neolithic farmers coming up the river valleys from the Middle East and Asia Minor. Then Indo-European folks came in off the steppes and seem eventually to have become Celts. Finally, another group of Indo-Europeans became Germans and chased the Celts not only out of Germany but most of Europe in general.******As to my own ancestors, modern genetics have shown I'm a total mutt, so I had ancestors on both sides of pretty much every migration and invasion, ever. I got my ribcage, shinbones, and various parts of my skull from a Neanderthal. My Y-chromosome goes back to the 1st wave of Indo-Europeans coming into Europe, my mtDNA comes from North Africa, my ass comes from West Africa, and my shovel-shaped teeth, which came from China via Beringia as the glaciers melted, met up all these other parts in the New World.***********@ Tranquillo: Of course it's not their fault they're armadillos, but it's not the fault of smallpox, anthrax, or any other disease that they're what they are, either. Still, they're all in the same general category of living things that cause nothing but problems and should be exterminated. Nobody has any sympathy for the microbes so why feel sorry for armadillos?

Armadillos are illegal aliens, not native to the US, so deserve no sympathy. Besides, they absolutely tear up your lawn. I can't even begin to count the number of times I've sprained an ankle stepping in one of their rootings. DEATH TO ARMADILLOS!!

Thanks for the info, although it is rather depressing.

For the last couple of days, this forum is not recognizing carriage returns when typing in posts. Thus, it's impossible to separate paragraphs. What's up with that?

Some armadillos carry leprosy but don't suffer from it themselves, although they can pass it to people and apparently each other. Dogs don't get leprosy so I have no fear for Ofilosa from chewing one up. This has been known for like 30 years so I'm surprised at the 2011 date of that article, acting as if it was a new discovery. 35 years ago in Texas, armadillo races (with the losers being barbequed and eaten) was a popular small-town community event all over the state. But all that disappeared overnight once the link with leprosy was discovered. All too bad because the races were fun and armadillos taste good. But armadillos are horrible pests. While it's true they do eat fireants (a fellow illegal alien from south of the border), they spend most of their time totally destroying your yard, leaving ankle-twisting holes all over the place. This is why most armadillos got eaten at the races; the whole point was to kill them off.

My collie dog just killed an armadillo. GOOD DOG! I hate armadillos and kill every one I get a shot at, so was glad to see the dog finally earning her keep. And I was quite impressed. Years ago she chased and caught an armadillo but chipped a tooth on the armor and AFAIK hadn't messed with them since. Probably got clawed up, too. I've got scars from those wicked claws. But I the dog's been thinking about what went wrong back then because she sure got it right today. This is the 1st time I know of a dog managing the trick and armadillo invulnerability to coyotes and such is probably why they've spread like they have. I'd post a pic but they're pretty graphic. Anyway, anybody else's dog ever manage an armadillo?

But my rig has given me great times in Skyrim, X-COM, Dishonored, and quite a few other games that have come out since I got it, so I don't consider it wasted money. And surely I'd have bought a new rig then anyway. It's just that WOFF was the main thing I was hoping to play on it. So, if I have to buy another rig before WOFF comes out, I'm sure it'll find other uses as well.

Who thinks you must have 8 controllers for flightsims? Some marketing suit at a joystick company? If you're a serious simmer, whether online or off, you MUST have a fully programmable stick/throttle HOTAS system with enough buttons and hats to have every essential command for combat at your fingertips in 1 click. Thus, any "all in 1" stick with only a few buttons and a slider for the throttle is a non-starter. And because Saitek STUPIDLY quit putting a rocker bar for the rudder on their throttles (best rudder controller ever) a couple generations ago, you also now need a separate set of pedals. Twisty sticks for rudders just suck, end of story. So that's 3 pieces of gear--stick, throttle, pedals--although some brands sell the stick and throttle as a set so if you go that way it's only buying 2 items. If your game supports TrackIR, then that's also a required controller. It's the greatest thing since canned beer. Scratch that; it's the greatest thing since bottled whiskey. There has never been a better way to do views in a flightsim. Which, unfortunately, a lot of developers now use as a crutch and implement assinine view systems totally unworkable in combat without TIR (OFF's base of CFS3 is a classic example). That's all the must-haves. Top-end HOTAS stick, top-end HOTAS throttle, rudder pedals, and TrackIR. Everything after that is just conspicuous consumption. The market provides extras like separate throttles for multiple engines and/or mixture and pitch controls. There are various gizmos that are just extra buttons, which you don't really need if you have a decent stick/throttle HOTAS system. And if you go online, a headset with a mic is pretty much required, although that's not technically a controller. The only way to must-have more than this is if your teacher is talking about control axes instead of controllers. In that case, obviously you need 4 axes at a minimum: yaw, pitch, roll, throttle. But having 3 more for trim of elevator, rudder, and aileron really helps, which any modern HOTAS will also provide. For #8, a built-in mouse CAN be helpful if you're into sims of modern aircraft with MFDs on the instrument panel you actually have to use. However, usually you don't need this because there are keyboard commands for all the MFD fucntions, which you can program on your HOTAS without having to mouse the MFDs.

Yeah, I missed you all, too. Still no WOFF I see, and the computer I bought for it is 1.5 years old now . Oh well, still a great rig for other things . I keep wondering why OBD doesn't take pre-orders for WOFF. All I can do to hurry things along from where I sit is throw money at them and I'm quite happy to do so.

Well, having been a game dev in my day, I think Flyby's view is entirely accurate :). The first game I did, I had both legs in casts so could do anything but sit there and write code and test it on a laptop while consuming insane amounts of nicotine and caffiene to counter the painkillers. By the time we released it, the casts were off, no more pain killers, and I was in physical therapy, so there was nothing for it but to drink heavily while answering all the support questions. Being a game dev takes decades off your life. I'm glad I'm out of that racket and I have nothing but respect for those who keep at it.

"It is good that war is so terrible, otherwise we'd become too fond of it." General Robert E. Lee "Next to a battle lost, the saddest thing is a battle won." Duke Wellington But there's always some jerk who makes it necessary. So always remember: He who has nothing to die for has nothing to live for. Keep your bayonet sharp and your powder dry.

Mostly it was an unwillingness to share prior to the US getting in the war itself.

Especially when it's followed by the "peace to end all peace".

The Allies had a significant advantage over their enemies in having more powerful engines and better turbochargers. Part of this, perhaps a large part, was from using gasoline with significantly higher octane, but the bottom line was that standard Allied planes could generally fly faster and higher than standard. The Mossie was definitely in this category, being able both to fly very high and go very fast while up there, so it took specially modified German planes, available only in small numbers and with very limited endurance, to catch them. The main difference was that all the RAF bombers you list were designed from the get-go as night bombers. As such, they expected to face minimal opposition (mostly flak) so had little defenses. This allowed them to be essentially dumptrucks for bombs. The only daylight bombers the RAF had at that time were the Battle and Blenheim, both of which were slow and inadequately armed with both bombs and defensive MGs, so got slaughtered. The Mossie just happened by pure chance to have become available right at this point (it was a private venture and was initially rejected by the RAF, and only reconsidered once the Blenheims and Battles were no more). The US OTOH built all their bombers for daylight precision attacks. Thus, they put a lot more of their available weight into armor and defensive MGs, which limited their bombload, but they were also reasonably fast. Their medium and light bombers (B-25, B-26, A-20, and A-26) were all quite successful. The A-26, in fact, might have been superior to the Mossie in several respects. Well, the USN had a dozen or so battleships for such occasions and they seem to have worked reasonably well. But I agree, those earthquake bombs might have done a better job on some targets.

Thanks for the tip :)