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WestAir

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    Leader in Catastrophic Failures
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  1. Couldn't find if someone else asked already; I installed the mod. Looks great. Landed on Minmus and my kerbals were walking on air. (The old sea level?) I could jetpack to the new terrain, but if the kerbals walked they slowly rose upwards into the air. Ships and planted flags etc all sunk to the new terrain heightmap. Happened to anyone else?
  2. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55614074 "He added that it was possible that the plane broke apart when it hit water, based on debris found so far. "It possibly ruptured when it hit waters because if it had exploded mid-air, the debris would be distributed more widely," said Nurcahyo Utomo." As for any sort of dual engine failure, that would not result in the accident we've seen. We used to do those for fun in the sim if we had time to burn and finished all our important sim stuff for the day, though I'm not sure how Indonesian training works. If I were to take a complete shot in the dark with no other information than what's been shown, I'd say this were something along the lines of American Airlines Flight 587. It might explain why fishermen claim to have heard bangs prior to the crash. I will say that I've always been critical of people who play investigator prior to the facts, so feel free to be critical of my presumption lol.
  3. The crash area is very small. I strongly doubt this was a mid air breakup. Stalls are not necessarily free falls and can happen at any airspeed, including very fast speeds. Very likely structural damage caused by terrain. If this data is made from recorded groundspeeds, then it's only relevance is to show us that the descent became more vertical over time, rather than showing us either indicated or true airspeed. As far as speculation goes, this crash is very tough. All we know is it hit the water intact at a near vertical profile while transmitting data until impact. Much like the Atlas 767 crash, we're going to need the flight data recorder and voice recorder to put together the pieces.
  4. I wonder if you couldn't fire prograde in orbit of a binary black hole, and time it to get the exhaust to push you at the 45 degree X intersection of the figure 8 orbit, since the ship would be moving so much faster in the same direction. EDIT: I think not. Exhaust moving slower than you in the same direction wouldn't help accelerate you. Damn you, Newton. Foiled my boostrap acceleration device.
  5. This is hands down my favorite post in this entire KSP forum.
  6. I imagine the last state of human society will be one where big brother works in tandem with ultra-transparency. I imagine that, while camera's and Siri will remove any real privacy for the people, our future leaders will also have a 24/7 dash-cam and everything they do will be scrutinized as harshly and unfairly as the rest of us. I imagine Star Wars would have ended a lot differently if Palpatine had a camera on him at all times.
  7. Back to the frightening future of AI - I think one thing that a lot of futurists miss is that there's never only one of anything. If there's an AI that's doing deep fakes and hurting humanity, there will invariably be an AI that lives to counteract it. Much like the Ecosystem - once one organism exists, another will appear to smite it. There's a natural checks and balances at play with this sort of thing. And besides: once we've become completely inundated with fake news and deep fakes, and everything that can be real can also be fake, the only thing that will change is our willingness to act on new information. Physical needs and infrastructure won't lose value: We'll still need homes, roads, food, and language. All the fluff - like history and politics - will undergo a metamorphosis that I can't even begin to imagine.
  8. One thing science fiction stories have against them from the start, is that technology is made to solve problems, and good stories have problems that are hard to solve. Let's face it: By 2400 we'll probably have thought to thought communication and complete augmented reality. Your friend from Spain will think a joke at you in real time. There will probably be some sort of system in place to filter and weed out fake news, and whatever body sensors you're wearing will not only forewarn you about any growing issues to your body (I.E. "Your blood sugar is getting high. Don't eat that next Ritz Cracker") but it'll probably know you well enough to answer any questions or concerns you're thinking about before you even think about it, based entirely on predictive models. And getting back to a story; I imagine by 2400 if you're shot in the chest, your clothes or whatever will be smart enough to call the police and medics for you with full details on the type of wound suffered, your location, and who shot you. That sort of cuts down a lot of drama for sci fi stories, especially on NCC 1701-D where someone is wounded or kidnapped or under mind control every other week. And so a sci fi writer needs to dumb down the helpfulness of next gen technologies to make their story work. Otherwise there's no entertainment to be had. If I were to improve a tri-corder it would be to remove the handheld entirely and make it a thought-based virtual tool that uses the ships powerful external and internal sensor network to gather data, and using your own intent you (and not those around you, unless you so wish) can see all of the pertinent data you desire at will and to the extent you need. But that is very hard to visualize, explain, or use in a TV show. TL;DR - A tricorder is clumsy and unrealistic because it needs to be for the story to work.
  9. Surely you don't suggest that this will still be an obstacle to overcome in 500 years? The human brain relies significantly on the configuration of neurons, axons, and dendrites. Just because we haven't replicated it doesn't mean it's impossible. There's also no evidence to suggest that alternative methods of logic and reason-driven processing are impossible.
  10. If a mechanized workforce can allow for a labor-free society, even without post-scarcity, then the meritocracy grinds to a halt. If people don't work because the robots took the jobs, then there needs to be a way for society to determine how assets/goods are distributed. What form of capitalism will a labor-free (or non-compulsory labor) society adapt? I'm not smart enough to answer that, but it's a good question. Edit: The same applies to when only the biggest, largest corporation can produce any sort of complex good, and 99.99% of the community is unable to compete, and therefore cannot enter the market as a seller.
  11. (Edit: I went through a phase where I was writing my own sci fi and your threads really stoke my creative side. Keep it up, brother! These thought games are excellent.) The current processing design used for modern computers, if history is any indication, will not be the same design used by computers two centuries from now. Everything changes, and I think the problem, Dragon, is "when" not "if" some college project or research team will invent a completely new and fundamentally different processing design that bridges the gap between modern computing and human computing and can learn and reason. There is a ridiculous demand for this sort of capability, and I assure you there are thousands of people feverishly pursuing computers that can think. We're a smart enough species to make it happen, eventually. As for the other point on cheap labor versus mechanized labor, I also think that's a modern phenomenon and one that won't exist in, say, 2920 society. Sure, we might still have sweat shops in 150 years, but nothing lasts forever; Eventually the human element will get replaced, probably once the next iteration of future computers begin to design their own replacements better and faster than we can, and especially when said machines begin to operate everything from the acquisition of resources to the building of equipment. In this example, there's no way a fully autonomous Nike can compete with a Nike that hires labor. Full stop.
  12. Alright so, again let me clarify that I'm not an expert. That said, it's been my observation that computers are very good at monkey see monkey do. There will come a point where computers will be used to create screenplay, will write books, and will create paintings and furniture based only on examples. In fact, there have been examples of all of the above. For instance, there's a webpage you can go to where you can draw a sketch and a computer will finish the painting for you. There are websites where a computer will write a story for you based on your own concepts. Moving forward - especially when decades turn to centuries and so on - we'll reach a point where computers will do these things far better than we could. That's just my opinion. Sort of. Today there are no computers that can think critically or, really, think at all. I'm assuming eventually - given enough time - we'll have computers that can. And how amazing will it be to have a Judge or CEO or Prime Minister that is programmed to follow the law, is completely selfless by design, is incapable of lying, and has only the best interests of the public in mind? I'm surely not the first to imagine peerless leadership, and I would be lying if I said I wouldn't support replacing humans with their fairer creations with that regard. Imagine a leader that can't be bribed and won't lie. I guess I'm imagining Lt. Commander Data from Star Trek running for public office. And it's got my vote. Absolutely. I can't pretend to know through what medium a hot war will be fought in 2040, let alone 2540. That said, there's an argument to be made about the absolute lethality and efficiency of a computer based "SkyNet" system. We already know no human chess player can beat the computer chess player that comes with every version of windows. In what way could a human General outsmart a computer General if said computer was designed well enough? What happens when a computer can look at satellite data, social media, and other sources to accurately map enemy movements and distribution and can strategize against it in real time? When a computer can tell a grunt on the ground to duck because a sniper miles away is aiming at him? When a computer can coordinate individual assets in a manner we couldn't dream of today? I mean one day these small cheap unmanned robot vehicles are fast enough to shoot down individual bullets with their own bullets? I'm just imagining a playing field where the human element isn't just irrelevant, it's obsolete. And I can't imagine that being a bad thing for us; but I've been wrong a lot of times before.
  13. I am not an expert in any of the discussed fields, That stated, in my uneducated opinion, I can see a mechanized workforce becoming the norm - especially in response to the fragility of service based economies as a whole. You already have automated checkout scanners, automated phone lines, automatic trains. We're working on automated cars and buses and planes.There will come a time, probably in our life-times, when any occupation you can think of can be done better by a machine; up to and including public office. Where does that leave us? Better off, I hope. As for large militaries using mechanized assets to fight each other, with super-intelligent computers out-strategizing each other, I can't say where we fit in the mix. It'll certainly be interesting to see.
  14. Clone. But what if whenever you died they used your physical remains to rebuild you? Used your brain as the material to rebuild it with the same roadmap, etc... Would THAT person be you, or a clone?
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