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adsii1970

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Everything posted by adsii1970

  1. I had my every-eight-week eye injection in my right eye—loads of fun with that. But when the alternative is going blind in that eye, one does what has to be done. After that, I drove back home in eye-searing bright sunlight, crashed on the couch, fell asleep, and am now trying to figure out what I want to eat before I head back to the couch.
  2. Tag me in the thread that should have it, and I will fix it for you.
  3. Many significant life changes are in the works -
    and an explanation as to why the thread of the month for October is so late

    As you may have noticed, the thread of the month for this month is exceptionally late. The trend for the delay of the tread of the month for the last few months has not been because of the forum, the lack of nominations, or the actions of the moderation team. They rest solely on me. A few of you who have befriended me on Discord or have my email address have reached out to me, wondering why I have not been on the forum as much. No, I am still here, and often, I am lurking on the forum and even approving newbies' posts. But some things have been happening in my personal life that have been affecting how much time I spend on the forum, including the time I devote to doing things like the TOTM.

    The changes in my profession:

    This will be my last semester teaching graduate classes at the local university. The decision was difficult but was made easy by the actions of the new Graduate Studies chair hired at the beginning of the term. Having taught graduate classes for the past fifteen years (American foreign policy), I have always been politically neutral in assignments, lectures, and discussions. I never teach students what to think but how to analyze issues, treaties, and related facts and develop their own opinions based on the facts. I also challenge the students to defend their analysis based on their chosen points - this is the only way to analyze foreign policy properly while allowing students to develop their skills and respect their political views.

    My political ideology never enters how I grade or present materials. However, on the first of this semester, the new chair of the graduate studies department informed me that I needed to be more proactive in teaching the "correct" way and told me I needed to "teach the students how to think... (I cannot finish her statement because it violates the forum's no-politics guideline 2.2b). This is a line I cannot cross. So, after that meeting, I went home, did some thinking, did more thinking, and knew what I had to do. So, after careful consideration, I typed up my letter of resignation last Wednesday. After teaching at this university for fifteen years as the only professor offering foreign policy courses, this part of my life will end on December 15th, 2023. I will not teach any ideology nor be a part of forcing an ideology upon any student.

    I am still teaching at the community college and will be preparing for the immediate future - the spring and summer 2024 semesters. A few more things need to fall into place before I can retire from the community college. I've taught here since 2009, and I love teaching. The changes in the community college environment have made the job more challenging, mainly when the courses I teach are world civilization (both ancient and modern) and U.S. history (both to 1870 and after 1870). At the community college, I teach with the same educational philosophy I do with my graduate courses - I do not teach anything but the facts, and I teach students how to use the facts and critical thinking skills to analyze the facts and come up with their conclusions based on the facts. I do not teach them what to think; I teach them how to think.

    The problem I am having at the community college is changing student attitudes towards learning. There's been a considerable shift in the past ten years, and I am not sure it is for the better. When I first began teaching at a university, many students had a hunger to learn and were excited to be in classes, even a history class. Now, most of the students in my history class do not desire to be there. About half the course does not attend the lectures. Some do not complete work and will still demand a "B" for attending the classes.

    And some health changes:

    There are some other things I have been facing for a while now, and it's time to share those, too. While many on the moderation team have known it for the past year, I have not shared it with the forum community. Back in 2022, I was diagnosed with the early stages of liver failure and will, at some time, need a liver transplant. At first, they thought I would need the transplant this year and told me that the longer the transplant could be delayed, the better it would be for me in the long run. The human body operates better with original equipment, and I was told that my migraines would probably worsen after a transplant. With that in mind, I asked the medical team the best way to delay the transplant - and I was told to lose weight, change to a primarily Mediterranean and low-carb diet, and get rid of sodas. And that's what I've done.

    It does not mean I am out of the woods yet, but I have lost 25 pounds in 6 months and have delayed the need for a transplant by current estimates by a couple of years. My liver seems to have stabilized some. I do not know if losing weight will help, but I intend to find out. I have also had a change in migraine medications since a few of those used to manage the migraine pain and symptoms were known to cause liver failure. So now, I am in more migraine pain, but at least my liver is no longer in the severe crisis it was in.

    The mental toll of both my health and the work situations:

    When we are young, we feel invincible. As we get older, we realize we are destructible. Life, indeed, is funny. Because of the chronic hemipelagic migraines, I suffer from depression and anxiety—the diagnosis of liver failure and the genuine possibility of a liver transplant added to it. The situations at the community college and the university certainly did not help my mental health. So, not only did I let things slide at home but everywhere, too. This includes my forum activities. For those of you who do not struggle with depression, there are no words I can use to explain the struggle of simply getting the motivation to get out of bed in the morning. There are days I do only the bare minimum that life (and the jobs) requires. Certainly nothing more.

    Moving forward:

    Knowing changes are coming is helping, but I want to apologize for neglecting my duties on the forum, especially the neverending delays in posting the TOTM. At this point, I have added a calendar reminder to Outlook (yes, those do work, and I should have done it sooner :P). I want to continue to do them. But I also realize that for many of you, the TOTM was something you enjoyed. I will respect the desires of the community, too. If the community feels that another member of the moderation team should do the TOTM, I will step aside and let it happen. The choice belongs to you.

     

     

    1. softweir

      softweir

      I know I'm slow to respond to this, but I have been away from most of the forum for a very long time now, which, in light of the time I spent as a moderator, was a big change!

      I can empathise with your anxiety regarding your potential liver transplant: my liver is under stress as the result of 60 years of cystic fibrosis, and 30 years ago the cardiologists were gearing up towards giving me a heart transplant as the result of a serious cardiomyopathy; the word "transplant" settled deep in my guts and never quite went away, even though intensive medication allowed my heart to recover to a degree that has quite surprised everybody! I had dreams that were very disturbing at the time, but seem comical now, thankfully. And, as you might expect, I suffered depression (to the extent I was on meds for it for over a decade) and can easily empathise with yours.

      I wish you well in the changes to your life, and I have to admire you for your courage in standing up to the new administration. I hope you will weather this storm and find positive challenges that enable you to feel productive and fulfilled.

      Best wishes,
      Richard.

  4. The KSP forum moderator's team presents the Threads of the Month October 2023 Edition THE EXTREMELY WELL-OVERDUE AND LATE EDITION I want to apologize to the community for not posting the TOTM sooner. Rather than explain what's happening here, you can read about it here. With October nearly halfway done, it's not too late to start looking around the forum to nominate threads you feel are worthy of being contenders for November's threads of the month! As you can see, we had a lot of good nominees for October. Instructions on using the TOTM images: If your thread has been selected as a TOTM, you can copy the image's link above, go to the area of the forum where you want to place it, and then paste the link. Press the <CONTROL> button when the image appears and right-click on your mouse. A menu will drop down and allow you to edit the picture. You can resize it - the first number can be changed as large or small as you want. Eventually, I will add these images to the thread I've created as a repository. For those out there who like the nerdy parts of the TOTM: To continue what I started in May 2021, I have kept some forum statistics to respond to those claiming the forum was dying, or interest in the Kerbal Space Program was declining. There were 294 new forum accounts (a decrease of 97, or down 24.8% from September). Out of the new forum members who joined last month, there were 10 who transitioned from new accounts to being active and participating in the forum. This conversion means 3.40% of the new users who registered their accounts last month are now contributing members of our community! (This is a decrease from September; 5.62% of the new members became active and contributing members). If you're interested in seeing the new members of our forum, you can click here! Now, without further delay, I present to you the threads of the month for October: A particular highlighted thread for this month: Once in a while, a thread merits special attention because it brings something unique to the forum. This month, we've had such a thread nominated. I am sure when @archenemy_6 began this thread, there was no expectation of what happened next - but within a few short posts, a conversation with NASA scientists working on the OSIRIS-REx project began! And to think, it all started simply enough with the question posed in the OP: It is always fascinating how threads like this develop within our community. We had all kinds of information being given, from how the name was selected to what was planned for the mission. We also learned that some of NASA's brightest minds play the Kerbal Space Program, which should make us all feel better regarding how many hours we spend launching things into orbit. If you're ready for leisurely reading and learning something new, this is an excellent place to start. Fan-fiction, Mission Reports, and Kerbal Space Program-inspired Creative Works: This category features a thread (or threads) that, while not directly Kerbal Space Program related, may be creative, fan-fiction, or other presentation related to the game. This month's nomination is found in the craft exchange of the KSP2 forum, and according to the introduction offered by @Heretic391, a team was involved in the efforts of this beautifully constructed station. Maybe, now that the forum community has noticed this project, we will get additional information about who else was involved with it. As you can see from the thread, the graphics offered by Kerbal Space Program 2 are stunningly beautiful, and this station highlights what is possible at this stage in the game's development. The station is so large it has to be downloaded in several files. There are links to each section in the OP of the thread. If you're looking for a beautiful station (I'm still not sure what the crinkly-looking purple stuff is) or want to see what others are doing in KSP2, visit this thread! Thanks to @Heretic391 for sharing your files! This month, we have a second thread nominated for this category, but since it is a mission report in the original Kerbal Space Program, I do not feel bad having two! I enjoy mission reports because they allow us to see how others envision their Kerbiverse! In this fanfic by @Misguided Kerbal, the challenge was trying something new with objectives and ship designs. He describes this new idea in the thread's OP: Here's the link to this new thread, Starbound, a JNSQ adventure: If you're looking for some mission ideas, maybe some craft inspiration, or to see how another forum member plays the game, why not visit this thread? Forum Member Created Challenges and Missions: This category contains missions and challenges created by you, the members of our gaming community. Many excellent missions and challenges threads are created that expand our fun with the game and press our skills, creativity, and sometimes, luck beyond what we get accustomed to. Let's face it: we all have our go-to design basics and our go-to vehicles we like to use. Sometimes, a good challenge can cause us to think of another way to achieve our goals. No thread was nominated for this category. Game Support/Game Mod of the Month: This category features either help with the game (stock or modded) or mods that add quality-of-life gameplay improvements to the Kerbal Space Program. No thread was nominated for this category. General community threads of the month: This category features a thread that adds to the community and doesn't fit the game support/game mod categories. At first, there was a bit of a debate about where to put this nomination. The longer I thought about it, the more it made sense to put it here! This thread by @Halban serves as another repository for other content creators to put their cinematic creations, much like the Hatbat thread. Before you start saying, "Hey, adsii1970, shouldn't you just merge the two threads into one?" My answer is, "No, we shouldn't!" Anyhow, there are a lot of content creators whose works would be lost in such a merger, and it would be unfair to both Halban and Hatbat and the forum members who have uploaded and shared their content. If you want to watch a lot of great cinematics, this is a great thread to visit! Cinematic-based Fan-fiction, Mission Reports, and Kerbal Space Program-inspired Creative Works: This category features a video or other form of cinematic of a Kerbal mission report using in-game video recorded gameplay. Note: This has changed. Instead of awarding this to a thread, this is a *post of the month* since most new cinematic works are posted in a single thread. We have a lot of great content creators, but because they've been posting their mission reports as videos in a single thread, most of their work goes unnoticed by the general forum audience. Hopefully, this change in the category to a Post of the Month (POTM) will highlight the great work done by these deserving content creators. Other threads containing cinematic posts will also be featured in this category. Yes, folks, that's right. An overhauled image just for the cinematic posts! There are a lot of great content creators who are deserving of this recognition since we were made aware of the thread, Post Your Cinematics Here! (Cinematic Enthusiasts) by @HatBat. Although the thread did receive TOTM previously, it was felt that it wasn't enough for those who have shared your great creations featuring our favorite Kerbalnauts. Instead of being a TOTM, I've changed it into a CPOTM - a Cinematic Post of the Month. This month's CPOTM was in a different thread, started by @Halban, "Cinematic Enthusiasts." For this month's CPOTM, we'd like to recognize the work of @Yukon0009in their cinematic, "Rocketman - A KSP Cinematic," found here: Sometimes, the forum software will get glitchy, and an exact post may be a little hard to find, especially when it is buried in a long thread. In case this happens, here's @Yukon0009's cinematic presentation: If you encounter other cinematics you feel are worthy of being recognized as this category's post of the month, please nominate them! You can use the exact instructions to nominate a post containing a video as you would use to nominate a thread. Honorable mentions: Dreams Thread by @Pthigrivi Sometimes, choosing which threads will be selected as the Thread of the Month for our five categories is challenging. We get many good nominations each month but limit it to one for each type. Threads nominated but not selected as a thread of the month become honorable mentions. The honorable mention for this month is: The honorable mention for this month may not have made the Thread of The Month, but if you think it might be worth another opportunity, please renominate it! Congratulations to all the winners of the Thread of the Month! We want to thank our forum members @AlamoVampire, @Kerbalsaurus, @Socraticat, the moderation team members, and the staff who nominated this month's contenders. Thank you so much for helping us identify noteworthy threads and bringing their awareness to our forum community. We'd appreciate your continued help in the future. Odds and ends: TO NOMINATE A THREAD FOR CONSIDERATION: If you find a thread you feel should be considered for next month's thread of the month, use the "Report a comment" feature (the three dots on the upper right corner of the comment box) to report the thread. Please put in the text field of the port post "Nomination for the thread of the month," and we will do the rest! You can always nominate more than one thread, too. IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT GOES INTO THE DECISION WHEN CONSIDERING THE TOTM: Wonder no more! This helpful guide is to help you understand what we use to help determine what makes a thread a really good thread and one that becomes a thread of the month/cinematic post of the month. It's everything you did or didn't want to know and includes helpful tips. And the last word for this month's post: I'd like to thank a few people who trust me enough to continue supporting and allowing me to contribute to the forum. I want to thank the Lead Moderator, @Vanamonde, for bringing me on as a moderator, a decision I'm sure he has had moments where he often wonders why he did it. I'd also like to thank @PD_Dakota, our community manager, and @Nerdy_Mike, the KSP Franchise Community Lead, for tolerating me and allowing me to continue to serve our Kerbal Space Program forum community through the monthly Threads of the Month post. In case you missed last month's threads of the month, you can click here.
  5. Rogue One was the bridge between the prequels and Episode IV. It did a great job of explaining why Vader was beyond angry, why he knew Leia was a Rebel spy and not on a diplomatic mission, and explained well the phrase “it cost many lives to get us this information” we hear in Episode IV. It tied into that movie in several more places, too, but I’m on mobile… Every SW movie does not have to have a Rebel Alliance happy ending. Long live the Emperor and the First Galactic Empire!
  6. I don't blame George, except he sold LucasFilm to the House of Mouse. Disney is out to suck every last dollar they can out of the franchise, and as they do so, stink it up as much as they can so no one else will want to touch it. VII, VIII, and IX sucked. The last decent SW movie put out was Rogue One.
  7. Blame it on the Pandora mix I listen to when I am grading...
  8. It's just a casing hiding its true identity - And as Dr. Who fans know, these things always work well with people... Always.
  9. Ah, I fight this battle daily - and it's a battle at home and on the job (at both places I work). On the community college campus (for you non-U.S. Americans, that's a two-year college that focuses on A.A. and A.S. degrees), I see reality deniers all the time. There's nothing more sad than to see students grovelling about why they could not have their major semester project completed on time, especially when the course's online calendar and the syllabus contains all the due dates -- and they have access to these date a week before the semester begins. It's annoying, irritating, and sad, really. I have three classes that start with 35 students this term, and I probably have ten (total) who have As in a semester that began on August 21st. At the university, I am teaching one graduate level course in American foreign policy. It's a seminar style course with a topic I usually choose based from a survey I give from previous semesters in the Intro to U.S. Foreign Policy class. Last year, the surveys indicated graduate students wanted a seminar in post-war foreign policy. So, that's the topic of this class. I have four students out of the 18 who, no matter what I do, refuse to participate in any of the discussions, citing their inability to "comprehend the treaties, the lectures, and online class conversations" as reasons why they don't participate. It's frustrating because, as graduate students, they should at least have some ability to read, listen to a Teams meeting, and contribute to a conversation and forum-style discussion (sorta like a message board). Yeah, but no. Then I have my youngest child - one who has just crossed into her teenage years. For her, responsibility is a foreign concept.
  10. I realize I am preaching to the proverbial choir here, so please don't shoot the messenger. One of the biggest problems with software development, particularly forum software design, is they want to design it to satisfy the maximum number of clients while maximizing profit. I am sure there are nice features many clients would like, but if only 10% of customers like feature X, then there's no reason to include it in the core product. And, of course, they develop that feature as a paid-for plug-in, much like other software developers such as Microsoft and NCH Software do for their products. The problem is when you have a corporation that uses the software; ultimately, it is up to them if they want to purchase these QOL1 plug-ins. The moderation team has no control over what plug-ins Take-Two will allow IG or the community managers to get for the forum. And, of course, we've already mentioned a few plug-ins; as a team, we'd like to see added that would make moderation easier and life better for the forum. 1 QOL: Quality of Life for those who do not know this acronym.
  11. XF-108 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_XF-108_Rapier)
  12. It's mainly because of the software changes; Since I have started doing the TOTMs I have made the tags searchable. Eventually, when I am no longer employed by the community college, I plan on going through every TOTM thread and switching all the tags to make them searchable, cataloging all of the TOTMs, and releasing a master list to the forum that is searchable, too. But that's probably a year away.
  13. A pre-coffee typo. When I return to my cave, this shall be corrected!
  14. The KSP forum moderator’s team presents the Threads of the Month September 2023 Edition THE EXTREMELY LATE EDITION For those of us in the central United States, there's an Internet Service Provider (ISP) whom I will not name, whose customer service sucks. For the last two weeks, I have had to deal with signal interruptions, and when I'd call their customer service number, of course, it couldn't be anything on their end. After pressing 1, 2,7,4,7, and 2, I'd finally speak to a person who would insist that it was either my router, my cable modem, or my equipment, but certainly not their line or their service. Well, I saw one of their repair technicians in the neighborhood yesterday and asked him to take a look. After getting the "I'm not really supposed to do this without a work order," speech from him, he finally relented after I told him of fighting with their customer service people for two weeks. He came into my house, checked my equipment setup (ha, no problems there), then took out his device to check the wall connection, and guess what? Yeah, barely any signal was coming into the cable modem. Turns out it was their issue after all. He was there for about six hours yesterday, repairing the damage done by a previous technician. I live in a townhouse with a box on the far end of the building. Somehow, when the fiber optic cables were being replaced for two of the units in our building (there are six townhouses), there were three lines of fiber optic cable that were damaged in the process. Mine is one of them. The damage was to the outer insulative covering and was just enough where condensation was able to work its way into the cable. So, now that you know why this TOTM is so late, let's get on with sharing the most enjoyable part (at least for me) of being a member of the team of moderators - getting to do the thread of the month! Instructions on using the TOTM images: If your thread has been selected as a TOTM, you can copy the image’s link above, go to the area of the forum where you want to place it, and then paste the link. Press the <CONTROL> button when the image appears and right-click on your mouse. A menu will drop down and allow you to edit the picture. You can resize it - the first number can be changed as large or small as you want. Eventually, I will add these images to the thread I’ve created as a repository. For those out there who like the nerdy parts of the TOTM: To continue what I started in May 2021, I have kept some forum statistics to respond to those claiming the forum was dying or interest in Kerbal Space Program was declining. There were 391 new forum accounts (a decrease of 39, or down 9.06% from August). Out of the new forum members who joined last month, there were 22/24 who transitioned from new accounts to being active and participating in the forum. This conversion means 5.62% of the new users who registered their accounts last month are now contributing members of our community! (This is an increase from August; 5.58% of the new members became active and contributing members). If you’re interested in seeing the new members of our forum, you can click here! Now, without further delay, I present to you the threads of the month for September: Fan-fiction, Mission Reports, and Kerbal Space Program-inspired Creative Works: This category features a thread (or threads) that, while not directly Kerbal Space Program related, this work may be creative, fan-fiction, or other presentation related to the game. I enjoy mission reports because we can get an insight into how other players play the game. It’s also fun to see how others choose their favorite crews, design their craft, and their visions for how their Kerbiverse develops. This mission report by @TwoCalories delivers an interesting take on the voyages of our favorite, brave (sometimes), and daring Kerbalnauts as they dare to enter the final frontier and explore the great unknown! This fan-fic is based on the U.S. and U.S.S.R’s space race and is described on the OP as: If you’re looking for a fun and exciting read, here’s the link: If you are looking for inspiration for a fan-fiction thread, why not try this one? Forum Member Created Challenges and Missions: This category contains missions and challenges created by you, the members of our gaming community. Many excellent missions and challenges threads are created that expand our fun with the game and press our skills, creativity, and sometimes, luck beyond what we get accustomed to. Let’s face it: we all have our go-to design basics and our go-to vehicles we like to use. Sometimes, a good challenge can cause us to think of another way to achieve our goals. No thread was nominated for this category. Game Support/Game Mod of the Month: This category features either help with the game (stock or modded) or mods that add quality-of-life game play improvements to Kerbal Space Program. No thread was nominated for this category. General community threads of the month: This category features a thread that adds to the community and doesn’t fit the game support/game mod categories. No thread was nominated for this category. Cinematic-based Fan-fiction, Mission Reports, and Kerbal Space Program-inspired Creative Works: This category features a video or other form of cinematic of a Kerbal mission report using in-game video recorded gameplay. Note: This has changed. Instead of awarding this to a thread, this is a *post of the month* since most new cinematic works are posted in a single thread. We have a lot of great content creators, but because they’ve been posting their mission reports as videos in a single thread, most of their work goes unnoticed by the general forum audience. Hopefully, this change in the category to a Post of the Month (POTM) will highlight the great work done by these deserving content creators. Other threads containing cinematic posts will also be featured in this category. Yes, folks, that’s right. An overhauled image just for the cinematic posts! There are a lot of great content creators who are deserving of this recognition since we were made aware of the thread, Post Your Cinematics Here! (Cinematic Enthusiasts) by @HatBat. Although the thread did receive TOTM previously, it was felt that it wasn’t enough for those who have shared your great creations featuring our favorite Kerbalnauts. Instead of being a TOTM, I’ve changed it into a CPOTM - a Cinematic Post of the Month. For this month’s CPOTM, we’d like to recognize the work of @kurgut in their cinematic, “Kerbal Subnautic Program,” found here: Sometimes, the forum software will get glitchy, and an exact post may be a little hard to find, especially when it is buried in a long thread. In case this happens, here’s @kurgut's cinematic presentation: If you encounter other cinematics you feel are worthy of being recognized as this category’s post of the month; please nominate them! You can use the exact instructions to nominate a post containing a video as you would use to nominate a thread. Honorable mentions: All the nominations were used for this month. There are no honorable mentions. Sometimes, choosing which threads will be selected as the Thread of the Month for our five categories is challenging. We get many good nominations each month but limit it to one for each type. Threads nominated but not selected as a thread of the month become honorable mentions. The honorable mention for this month is: The honorable mention for this month may not have made the Thread of The Month, but if you think it might be worth another opportunity, please renominate it! Congratulations to all the winners of the Thread of the Month! We want to thank our forum members, @AlamoVampire, @dsplaisted, @EchoLima, @Kerbalsaurus, @ShadowDev, and the members of the moderation team and staff who nominate this month’s contenders. Thank you so much for helping us identify noteworthy threads and bringing their awareness to our forum community. We’d appreciate your continued help in the future. Odds and ends: TO NOMINATE A THREAD FOR CONSIDERATION: If you find a thread you feel should be considered for next month’s thread of the month, use the “Report a comment” feature (the three dots on the upper right corner of the comment box) to report the thread. Please put in the text field of the port post “Nomination for the thread of the month,” and we will do the rest! You can always nominate more than one thread, too. IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT GOES INTO THE DECISION WHEN CONSIDERING THE TOTM: Wonder no more! This helpful guide is to help you understand what we use to help determine what makes a thread a really good thread and one that becomes a thread of the month/cinematic post of the month. It’s everything you did or didn’t want to know and includes helpful tips. And the last word for this month’s post: I’d like to thank a few people who trust me enough to continue supporting and allowing me to contribute to the forum. I want to thank the Lead Moderator, @Vanamonde, for bringing me on as a moderator, a decision I’m sure he has had moments where he often wonders why he did it. I’d also like to thank @PD_Dakota, our community manager, and @Nerdy_Mike, the KSP Franchise Community Lead, for tolerating me and allowing me to continue to serve our Kerbal Space Program forum community through the monthly Threads of the Month post. In case you missed last month’s threads of the month, you can click here.
  15. 2. Making your children safe from UFO abductions! Click here for tips from the FBI's top agents!
  16. This is a true statement; if there's a required safety briefing it's because someone got hurt doing something the wrong way. Or some procedure has changed to prevent future injuries. I don't care which military branch of what nation you've served with, once you leave the service, your body ages in ways the average body (the person who did not join the service - the civilian) does not. There are days that just waking up, getting out of bed, and going to the kitchen is quite the experience in pain and determination.
  17. Nah, you were a moderator when I replied. I was like, "oh, crap, another moderator dinging me for a forum violation... Did I do 2.2b again?"
  18. While I was working on stuff for next week's classes that start, I took a break and read some of the things in my email. Saw an interesting article headline: Mars helicopter Ingenuity spies Perseverance rover during 54th Red Planet flight (photo, video) I was amazed to watch this video of the helicopter on Mars flying over the Perseverance rover. Anyway, the direct links to the video segments are: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/previews/SyJqZ2PH https://cdn.jwplayer.com/previews/JEInmQeJ The link is to an article on Space.com. Unfortunately, the forum software does not like it. But here's the link to the article. https://www.space.com/mars-helicopter-ingenuity-perseverance-photo-54th-flight
  19. The KSP forum moderator's team presents the Threads of the Month August 2023 Edition What happened to July? Ah, it seemed that just a few days ago, we were getting the month started - July, that is! Now, August is already upon us! It means the beginning of another academic year for many of our younger players (and maybe some of you not-so-younger players). For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, it means summer is coming to a close - with the hottest month before us first. For those of you in the Southern Hemisphere, you'll continue trudging through winter's cold. Oddly enough, Those in the Northern Hemisphere who hate summer heat would love some winter weather. And I am sure some of you in the Southern Hemisphere who hate winter would love some of the heat of summer! An update about the KSP 2 Mods and Thread of the Month Nominations from July 2023: Last month, our community manager, @Dakota, and I discussed the KSP2 mod situation a lot; you can read about it in the comments of the July 2023 TOTM. Several of you reached out and expressed your concerns that we were ignoring the modder community's contributions. Well, we were not - and I promised to evaluate the nominations for July once I could upgrade my gaming laptop. Wow. That was an experience - what should have taken ten days for the things I ordered (64 GB of RAM and an external HDD) to arrive ended up having to be reshipped by Crucial. The folks at the USPS mishandled the original order - somewhere between Cleveland, Ohio, and where I live in Kentucky, it disappeared en route. Long story short, I had to wait nine more days and contact Crucial, who reshipped my entire order by UPS expedited delivery. Since only a week remained in July, I decided to wait and post the results in August. Instructions on using the TOTM images: If your thread has been selected as a TOTM, you can copy the image's link above, go to the area of the forum you want to place it, then paste the link. Press the <CONTROL> button when the image appears and right-click on your mouse. A menu will drop down and allow you to edit the picture. You can resize it - the first number can be changed as large or small as you want. Eventually, I will add these images to the thread I've created as a repository. For those out there who like the nerdy parts of the TOTM: To continue what I started in May 2021, I have kept some forum statistics to respond to those claiming the forum was dying. There were 430 new forum accounts (a decrease of 30, or down 6.52% from July). Out of the new forum members that joined last month, there were 24 who transitioned from new accounts to being active and participating in the forum. This conversion means 5.58% of the new users who registered their accounts last month are now contributing members of our community! (This is an increase from July; 4.34% of the new members became active and contributing members). If you’re interested in seeing the new members of our forum, you can click here! Now, without further delay, I present to you the threads of the month for August: Fan-fiction, Mission Reports, and Kerbal Space Program-inspired Creative Works: This category features a thread (or threads) that, while not directly Kerbal Space Program related, this work may be creative, fan-fiction, or other presentation related to the game. Another fan-fic? You've got to be nuts, right? I enjoy member-generated fan-fic and have for quite some time. For me and many of you in our forum community, seeing the world others create for our favorite cartoon-like spacefaring aliens is fascinating. Sure, they can be nearly fearless, wreckless, and sometimes overly silly in their mannerisms. We all have our go-to Kermen, and many of us will revert our game and lose progress in some planned mission rather than see them disappear from a lousy game mishap. And in this fan fic by @Kerbalsaurus, we not only see some great imagination at work, Kerbalnauts living at the edge of sanity and space, but some unique craft designed to meet the challenges we have come to know in this game we love. So, if you want a good laugh or are looking for some inspiration for a fan-fic thread, why not try this one? Forum Member Created Challenges and Missions: This category contains missions and challenges created by you, the members of our gaming community. Many excellent missions and challenges threads are created that expand our fun with the game and press our skills, creativity, and sometimes, luck beyond what we get accustomed to. Let’s face it, we all have our go-to design basics and our go-to vehicles we like to use. Sometimes, a good challenge can cause us to think of another way to achieve our goals. No thread was nominated for this category. Game Support/Game Mod of the Month: This category features either help with the game (stock or modded) or mods that add quality-of-life gameplay improvements to Kerbal Space Program. Verified for the current version of KSP2 (August 4, 2023 - version v0.1.3.1): One of the most frustrating things is plotting a course for your brave Kerbalnauts to brave the final frontier. It's easy to allow frustration to overcome you as you drag the maneuver node, grab the little orientation "handles" (or, as my twelve-year-old daughter calls them, the travel direction thingies), and gently tweak them -- to bump the mouse a little too much! This mod, by @schlosrat, offers an easy solution to the problem with the mod. Set your preferences, and with the click of a mouse, the "onboard" systems do the rest. The mod is described by @schlosrat as follows: Some dependency mods are listed in the OP, and a video demonstrates the capabilities of this mod. Please read the instructions carefully and install all the required dependencies before installing this mod and launching your game. So, if you want a new approach to setting maneuver nodes, why not try this mod? General community threads of the month: This category features a thread that adds to the community and doesn’t fit the game support/game mod categories. There are times when older threads are nominated for TOTM that when nominated, we think, why hasn't that thread received TOTM before now? In this thread, by @Ultimate Steve, the simple question is asked, "What funny/interesting thing happened in your life today?" Although this thread was started in January 2017, it is still going strong; we all like to share our stories of the funny or strange, random things that happen to us. @Ultimate Steve introduces the idea for the thread: And over the years, we've shared -- and continue to share what's happened! If you've never visited this thread and need either a good laugh or you have a story to share, why not give this thread a try? Cinematic-based Fan-fiction, Mission Reports, and Kerbal Space Program-inspired Creative Works: This category features a video or other form of cinematic of a Kerbal mission report using in-game video recorded gameplay. Note: This has changed. Instead of awarding this to a thread, this is a *post of the month* since most new cinematic works are posted in a single thread. We have a lot of great content creators, but because they've been posting their mission reports as videos in a single thread, most of their work goes unnoticed by the general forum audience. Hopefully, this change in the category to a Post of the Month (POTM) will highlight the great work done by these deserving content creators. Other threads containing cinematic posts will also be featured in this category. Yes, folks, that's right. An overhauled image just for the cinematic posts! There are a lot of great content creators who are deserving of this recognition since we were made aware of the thread, Post Your Cinematics Here! (Cinematic Enthusiasts) by @HatBat. Although the thread did receive TOTM previously, it was felt that it wasn't enough for those who have shared your great creations featuring our favorite Kerbalnauts. Instead of being a TOTM, I've changed it into a CPOTM - a Cinematic Post of the Month. For this month's CPOTM, we'd like to recognize the work of @kurgut in their cinematic, "Apollo 11 Anniversary Tribute - The Full Mission flown in First-person view (IVA) - KSP RSS/RO," found here: Sometimes the forum software will get glitchy, and an exact post may be a little hard to find, especially when it is buried in a long thread. In case this happens, here's @kurgut's cinematic presentation: If you encounter other cinematics you feel are worthy of being recognized as this category's post of the month, please nominate them! You can use the exact instructions to nominate a post containing a video as you would use to nominate a thread. Honorable mentions: Humanized KSP Planets by @CiaaiK Ksp tv series by @paranoid android MICRO ENGINEER (KSP2 Mod) by @Falki The Sky is Not the Limit: A Modded KSP1 Career Playthrough by @TwoCalories. Sometimes it's challenging to choose which threads will be selected as the Thread of the Month for our five categories. We get many good nominations each month but limit it to one for each type. Threads nominated but not selected as a thread of the month become honorable mentions. The honorable mention for this month is: The honorable mention for this month may not have made the Thread of The Month, but if you think it might be worth another opportunity, please renominate it! Congratulations to all the winners of the Thread of the Month! We want to thank our forum members, @AlamoVampire, @dsplaisted, @EchoLima, @Kerbalsaurus, @ShadowDev, and the members of the moderation team and staff who nominate this month's contenders. Thank you so much for helping us identify noteworthy threads and bringing their awareness to our forum community. We'd appreciate your continued help in the future. Ineligible nominations: [1.3.0] Community Database of Module Manager Patches for Stock KSP by @Alshain: This thread is already a recipient of TOTM (November 2017) Odds and ends: TO NOMINATE A THREAD FOR CONSIDERATION: If you find a thread you feel should be considered for next month's thread of the month, use the "Report a comment" feature (the three dots on the upper right corner of the comment box) to report the thread. Please put in the text field of the port post "Nomination for the thread of the month," and we will do the rest! You can always nominate more than one thread, too. IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT GOES INTO THE DECISION WHEN CONSIDERING THE TOTM: Wonder no more! This helpful guide is to help you understand what we use to help determine what makes a thread a really good thread and one that becomes a thread of the month/cinematic post of the month. It's everything you did or didn't want to know and includes helpful tips. And the last word for this month's post: I'd like to thank a few people who trust me enough to continue supporting and allowing me to contribute to the forum. I want to thank the Lead Moderator, @Vanamonde, for bringing me on as a moderator, a decision I'm sure he has had moments where he often wonders why he did it. I'd also like to thank @PD_Dakota, our community manager, and @Nerdy_Mike, the KSP Franchise Community Lead, for tolerating me and allowing me to continue to serve our Kerbal Space Program forum community through the monthly Threads of the Month post. In case you missed last month's threads of the month, you can click here.
  20. Remember, Voyager I and II are operating beyond their planned lifespans. The fact we are getting anything from them at all is remarkable. And to think, if NASA could be called about extending the manufacturer's warranty...
  21. Mistakes happen. It could have been something as simple as a line of code to be sent at some time. That one line of code had not been wholly proofed and debugged yet was placed in the upload by mistake by some miscommunication.
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