UnknownPilot

Agreed. God Bless Texas.

lol, I'm sure it's a blast. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a nihilist, and I don't want to see everyone wiped out. I'm just taking the purely pragmatic, scientific approach. We are overpopulated, that does need to change. And in the grand scheme of things, well, even if we manage to turn this rock into asteroids, it won't really matter, as Sol will absorb it anyway. We're just dust along for the ride, 'cept that we can look around us and marvel at it as we go.

The only thing that makes people beleive they are special, is that they beleive they are special - IOW, self-interest. ;) We are nothing more than atoms. Stardust. Life just like any other. Life itself isn't as rare as some once beleived, nor is it that fragile or difficult to spark. And "intelligence" or not, opposable thumbs and tools or not, the world spun before us, and it will spin without us. It's no different than any other species that has ever lived and gone extinct. The only ones to notice are us. That doesn't mean I think we should just disappear, I very much agree with Commander Sinclair's repsonse to the question of why we should remain in space (Season 1 of Babylon 5), but the only real reason for that to matter is selfishness. It matters to ME and perhaps us as a species. But not to the dinosaurs, not to Algae, not to extremophiles living on black smokers on the ocean floor - and certainly not to the cosmos at large.

I'm sorry, but this is purely emotional. I don't have kids. I don't want kids. And I have no desire to contribute to the over-population problem we have, both in this country and on this planet. But that is neither here nor there. What you are asking is if a person that matters TO ME is considred important by me. And the answer is yes, I feel that they are valued and to be cherished, but only by me, and only because they matter to me personally. In otherwords, it's self-interest. I don't, and can't, expect anyone else to give a rat's ass. If they do, well great, but any thing said outsiders do for them should come purely from their own pockets and time, not through a socialist gov't program.... and I digress. Per the above.... no. This is not a "person" that has become entangled in society yet. There is no real attachment to it by anybody yet (I'm not here to argue semmantics or split hairs, my point is that the level is not even comparable), nor have they managed to get anybody dependent upon them yet. In other words, their presence, or lack of it, equals the same. It's zero sum. I don't. I only care about OUR freedom and rights and Constitution. Other countries are their own problem. Actually.... it's quite the opposite I'm afraid. It's pure selfishness that drives your argument. See, if you really sit down and approach grieving and loss from a logical standpoint, you (have to) realize that the only reason it hurts, is because YOU won't have them around anymore. It is selfishness. I'm not saying that it's bad or wrong. It is what it is. I'm just saying that the real selfishness is the claim that every life is sacred and should be held up as something great. It might be, it might not be. That "life" could be the next Lenin (Vladimir (not John) aka "pure evil incarnate") just as much as it could be the next Einstein. However in all likelihood it's going to be nothing more than a drain on planetary resources providing no good at all and doing nothing of note. Also, it's selfish to insist that somebody should be forced to take repsonsibility for that life, even if it means tossing it into an orphanarium (Futurama term, sorry lol). Or worse, to grow up in absolute squalor and not given the love or care one should be (to do it right). That is a cruel fate flippantly, and selfishly assigned to these individuals, simply because you want to insist that human life is somehow special or important or sacred. (How many kids have you adopted? How many do you plan to?) Quality (of life) - not quantity.

Why? That is a serious question, and not meant to be, or spark, flames.

Yeah, I just saw that, that is crazy! http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/nasa-chile-quake-shifted-earths-axis-shortened-day/19378491

I can't find the clip now, I think it was Jeremy Clarkson who was saying it, the perfect way to get out of doing the school run is to volunteer to do it for a few days running, then mention, off-handedly, about how the other mothers are looking rather fit. And that'll be the last time you ever make the school run!

(not work safe for language - it is, however, true hehe) - Born or unborn, there is nothing special about us -

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/S-foils

That question further enhances the notion that you should pick one type for now and stick with it. I'm just sayin'..... Recovering is dependent upon what is happening. Not every aircraft will stall from the same things, nor in the same way. As above, first key - don't stall. If you have, then you need to restore airflow to the wing. That is generally a combination of reducing angle of attack and increasing speed. In a 109, for example, just let go of the controls and it should nose down and pick up speed and return to controlled flight. Sometimes you can help a plane by using the controls to nose it down a bit. And sometimes you can increase throttle a bit for the same effect. However it needs to be noted that sometimes using control input during a stall can be the worst thing to do as you will induce a spin. Again, it depends on the aircraft and the state you are in at the time of the stall. Also, don't confuse stall with spin. I am not saying that you are, I'm just tossing that out there, as while I think about it, an accelerated stall, like the 190 is so capable of, is almost immediately snapped into a spin if you aren't ready for it and don't know how to deal with it. And at that point (actually in a spin), things change. Fire up the QMB, pick the plane you've chosen to focus on and learn, and have there be no enemy or any other plane in the sky, pick a good altitude (3Km or so, high enough to have altitude to play with, but not so high as to make the plane uncooperative), and just start playing with it. Fly level and reduce throttle until it stalls, see what happens. Then try it again with the flaps and gear down. Then clean (flaps and gear up), while climbing, then again while turning, etc. Each stall condition will result in different behavoirs and require different responses. (a hammerhead, for example, is an intentional stall turned into a maneuver)

Congrats!

Stick time. Stick time, stick time, and more stick time. Watch for the buffeting. This is present in 2 or maybe 3 forms, depending on your rig. The primary is audio. You need enough sound to immerse yourself. Headphones are ok, but the larger the better. Better still are LARGE speakers - either a high end PC sound system, or a full blown stereo system (which is what I use, a Fisher Stereo receiver/amplifer (you only need the amp if you have a unit with a separate tuner), hooked up to my Audigy on one end, and 4 stereo speakres, stacked 2 high on each side of my desk). You dont' want to deafen yourself, but you want to be able to hear all the nuances. And it is part of immersion as well, remember, technically those things were unbearably loud, you don't have to go that far, but it is recommended to at least try to simulate it to some extent. After sound, there are some visual cues of buffeting as well. The screen will shake subtly, depending on what plane, what patch, and what you're doing at the time. If your head/view is turned to the side, you can see slat equipped planes (such as the 109 or La5/7) having their slats extended (which will happen before the stall and not mean an immenent stall in and of itself). Lastly, if you have a force feed-back stick, you will feel it there as well. And of course, being aware of your speed and what you are doing to the plane. Every plane has nuances, the 109 can be man-handled and normally can take it at slow speeds, but won't move much at high speeds, and when it does stall, it should be gentle and easy to recover from. The 190 will snap stall, even at higher speeds, and is likely to go into a spin. Other than just raw random time with the game. Pick a plane. Find one you REALLY like (that is key), and just spend time learning it. Fight against the AI in varying skill levels and numbers, go on line whenever you can and fight against human opponents, study up on how it was used in real life, and learn the strenghts and characteristics of that plane. This will enable you to see more success more quickly (sticking to 1 type for a bit), but also generate knowledge that will carry over to all planes in all simulators.

"Flexible law" is law that is open to interpretation. In a classic sense, it's a law that in theory, when applied only to "bad guys" is ok, but when applied to good guys is not, but yet which is open enough that the system can technically (per the letter) pick and choose. In other words, it's law that most feel should only be applied to bad guys, but could technically backfire on anyone. Flexivle law is ALWAYS a bad idea. Always. It's kind of like the proverbial "arsehole bomb", ultimately it would always kill it's own creator (ie, the wrong, or at least not the intended, target). Further, she only did wrong in waiting so long. And that is only because people get so upset over nothing. She (and the guy she paid) should be given a pat on the back and a "thanks, nice try". TOO. MANY. PEOPLE. This rock can't support 6.5 billion. It is teetering on the brink and that is only with the aid of gene modified crops and ocean de-salinization, yet we still have food and fresh water crises looming on the very near horizon (our aquifers are getting dangerously low, just for but 1 example), and that's without even getting into issues of energy sources. Several years ago (around 04, IIRC), the US Census Bureau reported that we had a net gain of 1 person, every 11 seconds in this country. That is all births and LEGAL (ie, known) immigrants, minus all deaths and emmigrants. And naturally, that was with data that was old even then. Do the math, it's frightening to say the least. Especially when you add in the infrastructure people need. It's not just about the sq.m. of space you occupy, it's about the house you need, the car you need, the roads you need to drive that car on, the gas stations you need to fuel that car, the power plants to power your home, the buisnesses to employ you and the parking lots they need, the stores for you to shop at and the parking lots they need, the schools for you (and your kids) to attend and their associated paved areas as well as athletic fields, all the manufacturing to build the cars and busses and equipment used, resevoirs for drinking water, sewage treatment plants, junk yards and landfills for waste, mines (including the strip variety) to supply raw material, refineries for fuel, and lets not forget about farms for produce and meat to feed everyone (which we are now also trying to turn into fuel as well)... and one could really go on for some length. I just wanted to make and drive home the point. The best thing would be for her to have insisted on a wrap and been smart. But the next best thing would be to handle the cleanup afterward (abortion or miscarriage). Adoption may save HER the trouble, but puts the kid in a bad situation and increases the burden on those of us already here, and the planet at large. I am sure this will be a VERY unpopular post. But the numbers can't be ignored.

The irony.... Jets are now mimicing games! lol (like how in TW the red target box can be seen through dash and floor) Mind blowing stuff though. WAY cool.

If he's a she, then I think there's other things to worry about!

As I had previously mentioned in the DiD thread, my computer took a dump on me. Started with a hard lock, then made some crazy noises when powered off, and it's pointing to the motherboard, though I'm actually still planning to investigate that further. Fortunately, I was lucky enough to find a near duplicate that was destined to be a parts machine. It needed a new OS build and all of my data and software, as well as my RAM. It has a slightly better video card, and the slightly better version of the motherboard that I had. So my RAM dropped right in. The downside is that I lose 200MHz (from a P4 3.2GHz to a P4 3.0GHz), given how much my machine was hurting at times, I am worried about what the loss of 200MHz will do. Anyway, the question - none of my data was affected buy this issue. I was able to plug in my OS drive and copy everything, including the My Documents directory. And then also dropped in my data mirror set entirely in this new box. So I should be good to go. I installed SF2:V from the original file I downloaded when I purchased it, ran it, then copied the Thirdwire directory from my OLD My Docs to the new one. Now I am not seeing my pilots (nor even the generic "Ace Pilot"), and not seeing any of the add on aircraft that I had installed either, which also means that the Expansion Pack isn't seen as being installed either. Anyone have any thoughts or ideas on this one? I could always re-install all the mods by hand again (Expansion Pack and then the other stuff I added as well), but.... I really want to rescue my pilots and their campaigns. (though being able to avoid having to manually re-install all that stuff would be a bonus).

MiGBuster, that seemed to do it. The options ini. But I can't quite make sense of it either, since it's coming from a functional install with all the files that it was functioning with. Either way, I now see my pilot showing up, as well as the add on aircraft, so I'd say it's working (haven't put it back on my desk to really fly a mission to test, but all the indications are there). Now for something else.... on my (dead) PC, I've discovered that when I turn on the power with everything removed, it does not post - but it doesn't make that god awful beeping or squeeling noise either. However, the CPU fan does spin, just from having the PS/u turned on (the toggle on the back of it, not the computer itself). When I put the video card back in, it beeped for a second, then stopped. I hit the power button on the front panel and the fans kicked up to full speed and everything seemed ok, aside from no POST (and no screams from the PC Speaker about the total lack of any RAM at all). Then when I held the front power button for 5 to 10 seconds to shut it down, the same tone came back, this time as a constant short beep rather than a whine, and it was in time with the video card fan bouncing (while the CPU fan was still spinning at a slower than usual speed). I turned off the toggle on the back, then turned it back on, and the fans went back to their thing, CPU spinning slow, and the video card "bouncing" with the beeping matching the rhythm. When I pulled the video card out (after pulling the power first, of course), the beeping stopped, though the CPU fan was still running. I then noticed a little speaker looking thing on the video card itself, so I suspect that is the source of the noise. On the one hand, I'm thinking power supply now. But when I tried another one, I got the same result. Unfortunately the only one I can test with is in the new system I'm trying to build as my stand-in. And that's at home while the down one is here at work now. So it may be difficult to further trouble shoot this. :(

Single. Money just isn't there. It's all going into the mortgage. Same OS - XP Pro SP3 with full updates. As mentione above, I did a fresh OS install, SP'd it, ran all the updates, dropped in my sound card, got it's drivers, got the latest nVidia drivers, installed Foxy (Cougar HOTAS software), then SF2:V, and I ran it once just to create the mod folder. And then tried copying my old folder over top of the newly created one. Some things are probably still different, I don't think I have the latest Java installed or flash player, things like that. I was kinda driving a bee-line for SF2 in the install process.

As I said, I copied the My Documents directory in it's entirety, "Thirdwire" and all, FROM the original hard drive. On the new system, I installed SF2:V, ran it (for it to create the mods dir), then copied the Thirdwire directory I had taken from my old drive, into the My Documents of my new (temporary) system, over-writing the Thirdwire that was there. Should have had all the Expansion Pack 2.0 stuff, all the individual planes I added, all the tweaks I did by hand, and all my pilots. And yet, no joy.

Great choice xclusiv! ZZ Top is one of my all time favorite bands! As for being a "dirty man", here's another one for ya. hehe (they had a performance of the same song in the concert I linked to above, but this was for a TV show so the production values are higher (better video, better sound recording and mixing, etc), just as live and just as rockin' though)

And of course.... don't forget your towel. Lt, It's looking that way (MoBo). But I still worry about the processor. Crazy, just out of nowhere like that. God it sucks. But thanks for the kind words.

Saw that vid linked from another site. GREAT vid. That stupid f*** got what was coming to him, however he got off WAY too easy. He should have been beaten unconcious. The interview though seems a little weird, like either he's not all there, or was just BS'in'. Defintely embellished parts of it, that's for sure. However, that doesn't diminish what he did. Hope the part about him getting his stuff back and that stupid thug wanna-be getting busted is true though.

The Cult - Fire Woman And now The Cult - She Sells Sanctuary

Davan is out of commision for the moment. Thursday night I flew a mission to destroy an enemy fuel tank. It was a great mission with good results. I was, however, racing the clock, trying to wrap it up before 10pm EST so that I could watch Bullrun on Speed. Because the mission and the results were so good, I decided to take a screen shot of the debrief and post it here. However, Bullrun had come on, so I was trying to watch that and type up my post. I had taken to working on the post during commercial breaks. One commercial break I returned to my PC, moved the mouse and nothing happened. So I hit some keys, nothing happened. Tried the caps lock and num lock (to check the lights), nothing happened. I haven't experienced a hard-lock this severe in a long time. With nothing left to do, I reluctantly hit the power button. Then, once it shut down, the HDD and power lights started flashing with some noise coming through the stereo speakers in sync, at a high rate of speed. That scared me, I had no idea what was going on. I reached around back and turned off the toggle switch on the power supply. Once I turned that back on, I heard a high pitched whine from the PSU. Hit the power button on the front and the noise when away, fans kicked on and things started to come to life, but no video, no POST.... no boot. I have since brought it in to work, put another PSU on it and found it doing the same thing. Even when stripped of RAM, Video, and drives. I can only conclude that the motherboard took a dump on me. Or worse, maybe the processor. I say "worse", because it's a P4 3.2GHz chip, well, I found another system at work that I can borrow for now, it's a P4 3.0. So I am losing 200MHz, and I am already struggling with a slide show when things get really busy. This new box has a slightly better video card and a SATA drive, which should be faster, but I had to transfer my RAM, so that remains the same. Ultimately, I fear a further frame rate drop. Which is not good. Not good at ALL. I am very tempted to swap chips. But the last thing I want to do is to either go through all that hassle for a dead chip, or worse, have the bad chip screw this other motherboard (have seen it happen when I worked as a tech for CompUSA). I hate being so damned broke. :( (but of course, I don't qualify for any mortgage relief, because I'm the... well, the wrong "type" of person - AND I have a job and pay my bills, so any "hope" is right out the window for me) At any rate, once I get this new box built (installing XP from scratch) I'll fire up SF2:V and see how it goes. At least I'll try posting that mission report I had written. And hopefully I'll be able to continue the mission. I actually made it something like 14 combat missions (plus 1 carrier trap which I used as a "qualification", and is included as a 'combat mission'), starting at the very beginning of Rolling Thunder, and am now up to June of '67. Just a little over a year to go before I complete the campaign.