Randox

These are my rules, coming from a combination of roleplay and hard learned lessons. Rules for Space and other Places All solar panels will be retracted prior to, and for the entire duration of, all EVA activities. All manned landing craft operating in a vacuum must be equipped with RCS. If the ship makes it to orbit, it's not hypothetical. If you forgot something, deal with it. Crewed vessels are not permitted to land on Eve. All unmanned craft are to be equipped with OX-STAT solar panels as backup. All interplanetary missions (can comprise more than one ship) are to contain at least one veteran crew on the roster. All interplanetary missions must additionally include at least one crew from each specialty. All flight capable vessels are to be crewed by at least one pilot. All craft must mount mission appropriate communication gear. Rescue missions are top priority. If extraction is not possible, accommodations and supplies will be air dropped.

I used Magic Carpet Ride for a while. Now, I normally use Flight of the Silverbird, and a song called Heroic Return (premiumbeats.com). For heavy lifters, something like Jump! (the opening makes a decent countdown) followed by Strength of a Thousand Men or Cannon in D Minor are suitably epic. But it has to be a BIG rocket! Flight of the Silverbird Heroic Return (it's a game trailer, only way I can find it on youtube) Jump! Strength of a Thousand Men Cannon in D Minor

Yes and no. I am at this point basically unwilling to go without some form of docking cam mod. There is simply no way to get a good sense off all 3 dimensions at once with a 2D display, making docking an exercise in tedium and frustration. With a proper docking cam type readout (it doesn't need to be a camera, I just need the distance and relative velocity readouts), I can setup the perfect dock a few 10's of meters out, and jump into first person from another vantage point (on another vessel) and watch it happen. When I upload pictures like this: They aren't static shots. That ship I am looking at is currently moving towards the station (where I am viewing from) at probably 0.5 m/s, and docked with the station successfully a few seconds after that picture was taken. I love watching ships dock like that, and I can't set that up without an information read out that lets me know I have everything lined up correctly, and the ship will drift in without any fuss.

Sadly, no. I've yet to come across a situation where both the command pod needed to immediately separate, and I could react fast enough to issue that command. The parts we have to work with aren't ideal either, as they spend too much dV on a sustained burn, instead of the high thrust required to separate the command pod (quickly) from a powered vehicle that could potentially have a very high TWR. I'd rather have an ejection system that can accelerate the command pod at 10g for 2 seconds than one that can only accelerate me at 2g for 10 seconds, because the kinds of failures that can kill my crew usually happen at the end of the launch stage, when TWR is at it's highest. I would also be a lot more willing to use something like that if there was an automated launch system that could detect things like exploding engines and fuel tanks, decoupler structural failure, and initiate the ejection sequence immediately. An option for the ejection thrust to be slightly offset would also be nice, so that the command pod gets out of the rockets way automatically, very important with a short burn duration where the user may not react fast enough to steer manually.

The best route would be to design a game around the natural advantages of our brains, which basically boils down to how we recall information. Our knowledge is stored as patterns of connected neurons in the brain. These grouped patterns will respond to a similar input, with the level of similarity determining the strength of the response. The key advantages to this process is first, that it requires a very small sample of the stored information to actually work. The second is that it doesn't require a precise match, which allows us to deal with novel information. So I could show a picture that is a partial silhouette of something like a dog or a mouse, and as long as it includes some defining characteristics, it shouldn't be hard for most people to guess at what the outline is. That's minimal information. You could also show someone a picture of a dog that is a breed they have never seen before, and that person will be able to tell you that it is indeed a picture of a dog. They don't need to have seen that breed or that specific dog before, because their brain has built up a definition of what a dog looks like, and can match that to new information. The caveat to this approach is that even though computers are bad at this particular kind of information processing, they can still do it through brute force and clever programming, ultimately culminating in the simulation of the same neural networks our brains use. Yes, a conventional computer simulating a neural network has to put considerably more 'effort' into the same process vs a human, but it ultimately grants the computer all our abilities once the hardware is powerful enough. Ultimately, with enough advances in computer hardware, we should be able to create computers that can marry all the advantages of conventional computing to the advantages of neural networks that rival or exceed our own in capability and speed. We just haven't figured out how to do it yet. As for right now, I think that games like Charades probably give us the biggest advantage over computers.

EDIT/REWRITE: Looking at the stuff on WILD, I think I figured it out. What I experienced after doing this wasn't the usual sleep paralysis state, which is why it didn't match previous experiences. I was actually asleep, but because I was doing the finger thing, I had accidently locked my awareness to my real body, which I guess makes it impossible to dream, and instead causes many of the same hallucination issues that sleep paralysis brings with it. The trick with that scenario seems to be accepting what is happening, and genuinely expecting that your wishes will be fulfilled. It's weird, because the dead giveaway is the buzzing sound, so I was assuming that along with the sensation of tight muscles, that was just the beginning of sleep paralysis and I would have to ride it out, then I thought my door was opening, panicked, and forced myself to wake back up. If I am already asleep by the time that buzzing starts, I think I can work with that. It's not a pleasant state, and it gets worse the longer it keeps up, but it means I got my consciousness to the dream world intact, and if I am asleep and not just hallucinating, that means I can control the scenario. I guess what I should have done was stopped the finger movements, relaxed, and tried to 'leave my body' instead. So it looks like I'll end up doing a variation on the WILD instead, but yeah, I think I can work with that. It occurs to me that this could lead to my biggest problem. Without my unconscious mind getting the dream going, what will I dream about? I guess, for now, Skyrim here I come

I think if you get rid of the dam, the water will flow out. I had a couple floodings working out my own dams, and this was always the case. Unless the land where you flooded forms a bowl, in which case I guess you've have to dig a trench to drain it, if that's even possible.

I salvaged as many parts from my previous computer as possible, and while I've replaced all the important hardware since, I still have the DVD drive and SD card reader. Only issue is that my case has no proper mounting point for an SD card reader, so I had to settle for something a bit more improvised: -I found my whiteboard eraser fluid by taking this picture I keep the cover plate over it (like the one between the reader and DVD drive) when not in use. Easy enough to take off and reattach. I've also kept the faceplate for the SD card reader, incase I forget where something goes, or I have a case that can mount it properly in the future. Mostly I just use it to grab pictures off my phone. Also, I have the most...slapdash triple monitor setup I've ever seen, created by not throwing out monitors since 4:3 was a thing: -Immediately to the right of my right screen is my TV, also hooked up to my computer (duplicating my main screen). -I normally keep the left screen off and the center screen in front of the keyboard. Only moved it for demonstration purposes. -That's a Wombat Crossing sign. The top got cut off. -My Stereo is from 1999, making it closer to my age of birth than the present day (SA-AK47; still going strong, excellent quality!) -I have a back scratcher. Everyone should have a back scratcher! -Everyone should keep a stormtrooper helmet on the shelf above their TV. You never know when you might need it!

Nice. Those dams are tricky, though I've had good enough luck with them provided that I don't build them downstream from a plain, and don't build them up to the shoreline. For example, despite wasting a lot of potential height, this dam makes all the power for my city (I think it stabilized around 1000 power). I suspect it works well because there is a decently strong current.

I don't care if it's useful or not, it's a cool feature, and will probably become one of my favourites. I've always wanted to be able to see cutaways of the parts, in part because I am very suspicious about how the Kerbals actually fit inside (they're a little too big on EVA). If this is a precursor to moving around inside ships, all the better. I would also love an option for window transparency from the outside. Also interested in how this might impact my own base design. Like, what parts will be made so that crew can pass through them, and in what configurations, because I will absolutely redo my stations if the current ones turn out to not make any sense.

I don't play GTA 5 online, so I am not 100% sure, but I think any mods that use RageHook (which is LSPD:FR and the bulk of it's companion mods) are safe. For RageHook mods to work, the game has to be launched via RageHook, which automatically loads the game into your most recent save and should prevent you from using online mode. If you launch the game normally (through steam), RageHook, and the mods that depend on it, wont load, so you should be fine. Might want to double check on the LSPDFR forums though, or the RageHook site. However, mods that use ScriptHookV, or file modifications to add in custom models, will always be loaded, and will absolutely risk a ban. As I understand it, people who use both LSPF:FR and GTA V online create two installs of the game. One is completely unmodified, for online play, and the other has all the modifications to make LSPD:FR work. As far as complications go, LSPD:FR has an installer, and I think all the mainstream companion mods that work with it have clear install instructions. Many of them contain the proper file structure and can be simply dragged into the main directory.

GTA V (LSPD:FR mod), Skyrim, World of Tanks, and Silent Hunter 4 are probably the big ones. Frankly, games like this (KSP) are more the exception for me than the rule. I am primarily an action and RPG gamer, but I also enjoy designing things and testing them out, which is what brings me back here.

I'm with this statement. Aside from trying to closely match the apparent sizes of the sun and moon from the surface, stars are really big. Vanilla hydrogen burning stars (which Kerbol appears to be) should absolutely be these mind bendingly enormous objects at the center of their solar system. Anyway, I like it. If they set things up to look exactly like they do on Earth, that wouldn't feel right. It's an alien planet, and it should feel like an alien planet.

That's pretty cool, thanks for pointing me to it. Got my imagination going too. It also occurs to me that some of this will also depend on what the current implementation looks like, as pointed out by @Renegrade. So I guess what it more likely comes down to is does Unity 5 just open up load sharing, or is it going to allow us to drop from something like O(n^2) to O(n log n). If all we get is load sharing, then my first post is still wrong and we will be able to build larger ships...but not much larger ships. But if we can introduce efficiencies that drop the entire problem down to a lower complexity, the performance stands to increase rather substantially, though a drop to anything under linear (where the truly massive designs are to be found), seems unlikely.

I would expect it to allow more part in seperate ships that are close to each other, but not so much for single high part count ships. The problem is that multi core physics can only help if your physics problem is one that can be solved in parallel to begin with. Because of how rockets tend to be built, there aren't a lot of branching dependencies that can be easily calculated in that way. You can't solve a calculation in parallel if you need to wait for the previous answer to perform the calculation (serial problem). Think of it like this. Imagine your computer is trying to simulate you, sitting in your wheeled computer chair, as you push it backwards with your feet. It's a serial problem. Your computer cannot calculate the outcome of your feet acting on the floor at the same time as it calculates your impact on the chair you are sitting in, because your impact on the chair is dependant on the outcome of your feet pushing on the floor. It has to solve the problems in order. The only way around that limitation I can think of is to have the game combine parts together at run time, into larger custom parts, which would probably work best if we told the computer how to do it (once your rocket was ready, you would have to highlight parts for the computer to combine into one super part, and then wait for your computer to calculate the parameters of the new part). Not that it wouldn't be a complete nightmare to design even that human assisted system in terms of things like resource management. It would be very cool, but realistically, we probably aren't there yet. And maybe someone who knows more about physics engines than I do will be able to point out some flaws in my reasoning. That would be nice, because frankly I think the performance gains are going to be shockingly small compared to what a lot of people here are expecting.

Does your computer have the extra audio jacks on the back for surround sound output? If it does, can you connect to your surround sound system using those instead, or plug your speakers directly into your computer? For example, my computer has options in the HD Realtek Audio Manager to configure my speaker output for Stereo (2 channel), Quadraphonic (4 channel), 5.1 (6 channel), or 7.1 (8 channel), and configures the rear audio jacks accordingly. Also note that your motherboard may have a specific audio manager that is supposed to be using. I'm running on an ASUS Z-97AR, and it came with an ASUS branded version of the aforementioned program.

Can't say I've ever found racing to be particularly interesting or engaging. I am somewhat fond of e-sports versions though, particularly Empty Box on youtube, whenever he puts up iRacing videos. Basically, I never follow real life racing enough to know the context, so it's more interesting to me to follow someone online, where I get to see one cars story (of a particular race) from start to finish, and listen to someone explain what they are doing and why.

I think the real potential of Steam Machines is, or was, in standardization of computer hardware. Basically, for people who want PC power, but a more console like experience, if there were only 2 or 3 models of Steam Machine, released say, every two years, then it would be possible for developers to create graphical presets that cater specifically to that hardware. With 20 some odd designs, or whatever they are up to now, I don't think the idea works, except to cater to people who are willing to buy very expensive consoles if it means not building their own (which to be fair, is a market segment, though I don't know how big it is). It's a cool idea, but I think they failed to execute it in a way that gives people much of a reason to buy a steam machine instead of a normal PC.

Not something I have ever given much thought. Two major themes strike me as being consistent to my designs. All my rockets have multiple launch engines, whether it be SRB's on small designs, or LFB arrangements on my bigger designs. The number of boosters/auxiliary engines has changed over time, but now it's almost always 6. I've found that six gives me enough space between engines and fuel tanks to do my work, while providing enough thrust to get the job done. The other feature is that I really like what I am going to call engine nacelles on my final stages. Two if possible. This probably started with LV-N engines, since there is no landing gear long enough to land using a single central LV-N engine. I also frankly like the look, it reminds me of the warp nacelles on Federation and Klingon ships. Also, tail fins. All my rockets have tail fins, regardless of need. I've also in the past had lander stages that had fins, though this isn't so viable anymore since it requires the lander to descend nose first into atmospheres. This is doable, but it precludes the addition of certain parts (if I don't want explosions) that I would normally place to be occluded during re-entry on the nose/command pod.

Now I wonder if we have location based insurance in Canada too. If we do, it must not be a big deal, I've never heard of that. Sounds silly. I do remember that prior to turning 25, the last time I looked at owning a car of my own, the liability insurance rivaled the value of the car I was planning to buy (I would have paid more for that insurance in two years than the car was worth when I bought it), so I didn't end up getting one. That's the part no one told me about. You can get a cheap car that's insured for peanuts, if you bother insuring it at all (insuring the car is totally optional). It's the personal liability insurance that's mandatory, and it's going to cost you a fortune if you're young no matter what you drive or many accidents you've never been in. Anyway, congratulations on passing your test, on the first go no less. It's a great feeling, and assuming you enjoy driving, you're in for a lot of fun to come I expect. I've been driving for years, and I still love it every time, except rush hour traffic. Fortunately I've thus far lived in places and taken jobs that have me going against rush hour traffic, so I get to wave at it as I drive by

Very vivid imagination? If so, you're still at least partially asleep, and what you are thinking about will at first be a continuation of the last dream you were having. You would be someone that a dream journal can probably help out a lot, since it will over time extend how far back you can remember. The trick is that as soon as you realize you are awake, you need to start taking notes, starting with the bullet points and then going back and adding more detail if you can (at first, you'll probably forget things so quickly you can't finish the bullet points. That's normal, since thinking about and trying to recall your dreams will wake you up, and you'll lose access to the part of your mind that remembers the dream. As a personal note, I've not bothered starting my own journal up again yet, because I'm on break and enjoying going back to sleep, but I have noticed I can still remember dreams from earlier in the night, at least some of the time. Took me a long time to notice I was doing it, since to my perspective while asleep, there is absolutely no break, the dream just suddenly changes direction. It only hit me this morning that the way it works out timing wise suggests it's two or three different dreams I am remembering as one, and the somewhat abrupt changes are where the REM cycles end and start. The other things I have to love is that, like most people, I wake up very briefly in the night with absolutely no recollection of it, and it's weird to think about. I mean, between two parts of a dream I remember as a continuous event, I almost certainly am waking up very breifly. I know I do it for sure because sometimes I leave evidence. I've turned more than one alarm clock off (totally off, not hit snooze) in my life with absolutely no recall. I've also done things like grab my phone and talked to people (to assure them I was awake and getting up), again, with zero recollection of the event.

In my great tradition of stealing cool images off the internet, this is my current flag, and probably will continue to be for a long time: Full Size (1MB) Awesome Version It's the Peace Flag of the Imperium from Supernova X (SNX), recoloured RBG -> BRG (it's blue instead of red) And why not make it my avatar while I'm at it

I suspect that lucid dreams are more common in the morning, since REM cycles (the part of sleep where you dream) last longer each time they happen, given you more time to realize you are dreaming. And that is the definition of a lucid dream; it's when you realize that you are dreaming, while still asleep. It shouold allow you to change the dream, though I'm not sure I could do the experience of changing a dream justice with words. I've found that when lucid dreaming, the world simply becomes responsive to my thoughts, but there have definitely been dreams where I couldn't make certain changes. I was thinking about dreaming since my last post here, and I think what you describe as thinking about the dream is actually stage 1 sleep, and not REM. You would no longer be a person in a the dream (because you aren't dreaming), but you would otherwise be able to image the scenario, and how it plays out. Stage 1 sleep is "day dreaming", you are thinking to yourself without awareness of external stimuli. In addition to daydreaming, it's also the stage of sleep that immediately follows REM sleep, and it provides a vivid imagination that you just don't have when awake. Also, something I forgot to mention about dream journals. While mine never seemed to help me lucid dream more often, it did give me excellent dream recall when I was still keeping one. It takes time, but after a few days you'll find that you can remember more of your dreams (possibly including dreams earlier in the night). You create better, more detailed, memories. And, if you go back and read the journal at a later date, you'll be able to recall dreams that are otherwise forgotten forever. I've read through mine a few times, and there are still plenty of dreams in there that I can only remember if I read the journal. Basically, we can only recall a memory of an experience if we have a trigger, something that is the same, or similar to, something in the memory that we want to recall. Since our dreaming experiences are often quite different from our experiences in the real world, we never encounter a trigger that allows us to recall the parts of our dreams that did get recorded. A dream journal describes the dream, which acts as the trigger, prompting recall. The real trick is recording dreams in a coherent manner before you've finished waking up, since you start forgetting details very rapidly, and actively thinking and doing things causes you to wake up even faster. I tried voice recordings, but all I ever got was a lot of mumbling, so I did it with pen and paper, which wasn't always legible. Start with short bullet points, then read them back, since they will help you remember other details you've already started to forget. Probably took me 3 days before I could even get through bullet pointing a complete dream

Hehe. Not quite a pancake, but I was reminded of this beauty while browsing through old versions of the game I kept around. Notice how you used to be able to steer through the souposphere with nose fins This picture is from 0.19. I believe this design was still flying in my fleet as late as 0.25)

I don't know if Shadow Play has it or not, but AMD's screen recorder does have an option to constantly record the last 30 seconds (or whatever) of gameplay that if you do something awesome, you can save the highlight. Perhaps we all need to start using it