p1t1o

Cats and dogs are so totally different, I have a hard time comparing them. Its like watching two people arguing, one person insists that the first season of Game of Thrones was the best and its gone downhill since, the other person thinks that Pink Floyd's music is way better. Then theres me just sitting here thinking "Well I identify more with cats....but PUPPIES! But also KITTENS!"

Theres a few factors in play here. The most important is red-shift and blue-shift. The next most important thing is that space itself is expanding, its more than just things getting "further" away from each other. As all of space is expanding, it follows that the further away something is, the faster it is moving away from us, and due to the fact that space itself is expanding, the furthest reaches can recede from us faster than light, this is what we call the edge of "the observable universe" as those parts whose light can never reach us are by definition not observable. Back to red and blue shift. When light from a receding object reaches us, it does not arrive "slower" (see: relativity), light always arrives at c, but its frequency can shift. The energy of EM radiation (light) is dependent on its frequency. When light from a receding object arrives, it arrives at c, but its energy will be lessened by a proportional amount to the difference in velocity between origin and destination. Thus, its frequency is lowered, moving it towards the red end of the spectrum (even if its nowhere near the visible portion of the spectrum, red-shift denotes a lowering of frequency, blue shift an increase). Yes, this does actually make some blue objects appear red. It is very common for very distant objects to have their light red-shifted into non-visible parts of the spectrum (hence radio-telescopes are used to observe distant parts of the universe. Radio is the very-low energy part of the EM spectrum), this is one of the reasons why the night sky isnt a blaze of starlight from all directions. Light from beyond the edge of the observable universe, where objects are receding from us faster than c, never reaches us. This seems to go against the idea that "light always arrives at c" but it might help to think of this light as being infinitely redshifted to invisibility. Conversely, object approaching us quickly have their light blue-shifted. This is how we can tell that distant galaxies are rotating, because one side will be blue shifted and the other red shifted (or both red-shifted but to different degrees). How can we tell if incoming light is blue or red shifted? Isnt it just light? Yes, however light from hot things (stars and such) have close-to "black-body" spectra, in that the frequency of light emitted is very predictable and tells you what the material is that is glowing. Different elements show different patterns, appearing as spectral "lines" (a specific set of frequencies). When the pattern is red or blue shifted, the pattern can be seen to be in the "wrong" part of the spectrum, thus we can tell how blue or red shifted it is.

And we are the weird, mutated, hairless beasts that survived.

@kerbiloid There's a simpler solution for manned launches:

omg this is too perfect... ...whilst checking the facts about the rat experiment featured in "The Abyss", I also read this little gem: (from the imdb "trivia" page on "The Abyss") During filming Ed Harris demanded cabbage as a snack/meal as he was on a strict diet. This however became almost unbearable for him and indeed the rest of the crew as he was constantly farting and giving himself and the other crew members the dry boak. In one underwater scene where Harris was in his diver suit, he farted and the smell was so intoxicating that he actually vomited inside the suit. The scene was obviously cut and it took hours for Harris to resurface, clean the suit, submerge and re-shoot the scene. James Cameron was reportedly furious with Harris for this and took action by placing air fresheners in all the actors and crew members suits to help ensure that there was no repeat of the incident. Harris also got pink eye during filming and had to wear contact lenses for a week.

Like anything else, practice, practice, practice. No easy way out of it. Do questions over and over again. Repeat the ones you got wrong. Repeat the ones you got right. Write out the equations again and again and again.

We called the police at first but were told it was an issue for the local council, and we had to call them several times too. But yeah, some areas just dont get the same attention as others, seems its like that whichever country you are in.

I dont know how it works where you are, but it might be worth bringing this to someones attention, especially if it is a noise issue late at night as well. Our council put a temporary CCTV unit in a place that was prone to fly-tipping, after we reported it regularly occurring. It might not actually do anything except deter them and have them chose somewhere else, but I doubt these boyracers are that keen on appearing on camera. Or maybe they are, criminals are that stupid these days, it seems. Besides that, your local authority never heard of speedbumps?

Ok so the space shuttle was really fragile...but Columbia was only hit by a piece of foam at low velocity. Nobody is going to be putting drones in the path of rockets. Putting a drone in the way is exactly how we shoot down rockets. *** Something should be done with telescopic lenses though. How about filming the launch from space, with extreme zoom?

Dont rule out malware or other software based bloat, can cause all of the symptoms you describe. In my experience, if a mobo has a hardware fault, it wont boot at all.

Is there a Nobel prize for food?! (But we already have vegan mosquitos: greenfly. What you want is a mosquito that bites another mosquito, latches on, binds, reacts and falls to the ground as a skittle or an m&m)

Yup, in theory. If floating in a fluid, the changes in pressure under G loads exactly balance out the forces on the fluids in the body, in essence giving you a "perfect" g-suit, allowing one to withstand high g-loads without experiencing any ill effects. In reality however, the human body is not a uniform density, and contains air spaces which are compressible. This is a problem as g-forces would act to compress these spaces as the acceleration rises. The answer is to fill the lungs with fluid, oxygenated so that breathing still works. If this is done properly then it could be used to protect humans from much higher g-forces (current limit is 9gs with a conventional g-suit. There are some advanced suit designs including forces breathing which can keep you awake up to 12-13gs) although naturally there are some drawbacks involved with having to plumb yourself into a tank and fill your lungs with fluid. There have been some positive results with liquid breathing, but we're not quite there yet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_breathing There would still be an upper limit on g-forces, as pressure will rise proportional to G load and funny things happen to things in solution as pressure changes. Similar limits would be imposed to those experienced when diving. In fact, fluid breathing I think was first conceived for very deep dives. ***edit*** @NSEP Extra-FunFact!: Remember that movie "The Abyss"? Fluid breathing for deep dives is featured, and there is a scene where they submerge a rat in the breathing fluid, the rat "drowns" and then successfully breathes the fluid and is revived afterwards. This scene was supervised by the scientists who pioneered the technique and it was shot using real breathing fluid and the rat was actually submerged in it, and survived breathing it.

Its easy to re-phrase a question to make one option the only logical answer by making the *only* other option worse, anyone can do that. Would you rather see your daughter murdered or both your wife and daughter murdered, which is the "right" choice? If you restrain the question so severely yes, you can force people to say awful things. In reality, its not like there is *always* another option, it would be silly to assume such an absolute. I imagine there have been times in the world, over the years, where people have had to make such decisions, but people are generally highly motivated to look very hard for other options so luckily, it doesnt come up very often. But if you have to force an answer, sure, genociding a million is not as bad as genociding ten million, in such simple terms.

How...how do you get jam...under your toenail?

My version of this - it seems like it could be a common trope? - is that the observable universe might be an elementary particle in some larger, uber-universe. Our universe might be taking part in a chemical reaction right now. Maybe we are being emmited as part of an alpha-particle along with several other complete universes making up the other parts.

You are most welcome! Anyone else have any intrusively odd thoughts lately?

So I recently realised that there is no such thing as bird milk and that birds dont have nipples. I am objectively aware that this is not necessarily surprising, especially if you know even the smallest amount about birds, but for some reason the realisation came upon me suddenly and its a weird concept to hold in my head. You've probably never thought about "bird milk" before, but is that because you are consciously aware that it cant exist, or merely because you've never thought about it until now?

Many people quote the raw gravitational potential energy of a space elevator cable, and compare it to nuclear weapons, but [if it did fall all the way to the ground] the energy would be released over a period of many minutes and over a very large area, rather than in a handful of microseconds in a volume the size of a football.

If its working from axes, it probably depends on the game rather than the keyboard, an analogue axis is a standard thing. Take the Thrustmaster HOTAS joysticks for example, [depending on the product] some of them have rotary knobs which can be used as analogue axes and could be mapped onto various things using in-game options, so you could if you want, use the joystick axes for head movement and the thumb and finger wheels for pitch and roll. Not that that would be any use, unless youre some kind of sociopath, but its just an example. I presume its the same here. Im making a lot of presumptions about the keyboard.

The website states "An entire new input dimension that doesn’t require any native game support." You may have to set up keys as "axes" though, like how you might assign joystick axes to movement in an FPS. Not sure how it works or what complexities it introduces (Do you have to "activate" things when wanting to play a game? How does it work with normal typing?) but its a neat idea.

I thought coffee was good for you now, why quit? http://time.com/5033881/health-benefits-of-drinking-coffee/

No, not just to the mechanical, but to the "present IRL". IRL some of these aircraft do not have automatic coordination between aileron and rudder, ergo, its not an appropriate feature in my opinion. I think I understand what you are getting at - features designed to combat the inherent weaknesses of simulating flight on a home computer, but for some, these features would defeat the object. Yes, good chat, Have fun in your Pony!

Ah, I see. Well I'd say that that isnt really compatible with my idea of what "simulation-type-games" are for. You are right, there are things which make IRL flying a lot easier, such as situational awareness, "seat of the pants" you mention that are very hard to replicate in-sim, but this is a weakness inherent to ANY flight simulator or indeed any game at all that can be mapped to real life. Here's the thing - some aircraft require flying, so you have to manually coordinate control inputs. If it did it for you, you may as well put laser guns on your MiG. But as talked about in posts above, there are easier and difficult aircraft in DCS. The mirage 2000C for example, has an advanced fly-by-wire control system and will automatically coordinate ALL control surfaces, limit your ability to depart controlled flight and account for various flight conditions like AoA, wind, speed etc. I describe it as a "point-and-shoot" aircraft. The difference between this and non-FBW aircraft is stark. I suppose something like what you are looking for is represented by the AI radio system, so wingmen calling out contact, an AWACS you can ask for vectors etc. Its not perfect by any means, but its something. I might even say that the radio system is the weakest part of DCS. Its not exactly what you are looking for, but sortof relevant - there are some two-seater aircraft on the books for future DCS modules and there are apparently attempts to make a useful AI "backseater".

I long for the day where we can, at home, get true "seat of the pants feedback"! Though I find it hard to criticise DCS, it achieves what it sets out to do to a very high standard, I do miss dynamic campaigns. Here's to F22 ADF and EF2000, may we see your ilk once more in this life.

In my opinion, the Mirage 2000C is the easiest. Not least because the real article has advanced fly-by-wire avionics which help to make the plane very easy to fly, almost a point and shoot thing. Thats not to say it doesnt have its intricacies, but you wont find yourself departing from controlled flight or fighting the aircraft very often and you will be able to get it off the ground without too much manual-staring. However it is an (almost) pure AA craft in-game (the simulated model has limited AG capability, dumb bombs and rockets) so the variety of missions is set by that, and being good at AA I would say is a more advanced activity, so it might not be the best plane for a beginner. The best aircraft for the beginnercould be the A10C, because it is also quite forgiving to fly and has lots of fun weapons and sensors to try out. The free Su-25T I would say is significantly more difficult than the A10C even though they have very similar missions and capabilities, the A10C flies a little less "heavily", and has much more modern avionics and sensors. More modern aircraft ARE more easy to fly and fight, and the A10C is one of the youngest aircraft available. The A-10C module would be my recommendation for a first one. The hardest aircraft to fly are, well its the helicopters, but the hardest fixed-wings are the older aircraft like the MiG-21 or the Viggen, but on the other hand, they are the most rewarding too. *** Some people dont understand, how much fun it is to get in one of these simmed aircraft and merely turn it on. *** Whilst this can easily be true, its not necessarily down to inaccuracy in the flight model or the sim engine, but the fact that you are flying a sim and not actually climbing into an aircraft. As far as I am aware, all of the DCS modules are tested by pilots with experience flying the simulated aircraft and DCS themselves have very high standard for the data that is used to generate the flight models. So whilst "these planes are easier to fly IRL than they are in the game", that might be true of ANY simulation, its hard to use it as a criticism of DCS. *** This is what comes from its simulation character, it is not really in the same genre as "game" flight sims, its a whole new kettle of fish. New because the information just wasnt available in years past, to make simulations this complete. It doe lack a dynamic campaign or scripted missions (which admittedly, I would certainly enjoy) but yes, the onus is biased towards realism than "fun" so you need to create your own missions of you just want to join a big furball or plink some tanks. Though its worth noting that there are several purpose-built campaigns available which string together several missions, but you still may be required to do some of the mission design/planning. Theres also a fairly lively community with plenty of missions, skins, mods etc available. **** If you're looking for something resembling "X-WIng vs. TIE fighter", this is not the game you are looking for.