It was Aliens. They were out there raking the sand making it all smooth.

https://apple.slashdot.org/sto...

Some of the old timers are really amazing to engage with. A friend of mine who recently started running a Traveller campaign emailed its creator with a question about a rule detail, and got a very friendly, informative answer. They've since corresponded on other aspects of the game. I had a similar experience with one of the producers of a fantastic stage satire of Star Trek that I saw back in the 90s (which unfortunately was shut down by Paramount's lawyers). I think the important thing is just to be respectful of their time and privacy, and not to come off as a drooling fanboy lol.

The 80s saw the dawn of BBSes, the precursors of the Internet. I wrote my own in the late 80s in Turbo Pascal - Tomb of the Unknown Modem - which I ran for several years in Portland, OR. It had about 200 registered users and 20 or 30 regulars. I only knew a couple of them personally. It was divided into 10 sub-boards, which included a joke board, play-by-post D&D and Robotech campaigns, and an adults-only "hot tub". It also had a choose-your-own-adventure style game I wrote called "Toddler Terror". I put in a separate phone line for it so it could stay up 24/7 on its 1200-baud modem. It all ran on a 2MHz portable PC made by Televideo, with no hard drive, just dual 360k floppies! Good times.

There's no sense blaming people for being dumb enough to vote for politicians who hide the truth from them. I think it's more important to fix our problems. But if you really want the ultimate scapegoat it's individuals who manipulate public perception for their own personal gain. That group ranges from uber-powerful media moguls to people who create misleading memes for reddit points.

A lot of people did the right things, just not powerful enough people. Activists have been raising hell about CO2 and other emissions since at least the 1960s, long before Antarctic research revealed the hole in the ozone layer in 1985. Offset credits for lead started in the 70s, and were expanded to CO2 starting in 1988. Mark Trexler, one of the drivers behind carbon offsets, said they were largely a philanthropic effort at that time, to get that ball rolling until public policy caught up with reality - which still hasn't happened. "No one then thought that we would be doing offsets 35 years later.” Ideas for public good often get shouted down by money interests as "communism".

I'm sick of saying this same thing on reddit and getting douchevoted by people who tell me I don't understand how AI works. Nice to get some validation from AI scientists who clearly do know how AI works.

In a random conversation this morning a Home Depot employee told me he and his friend have figured out a way to do VR without a headset, which they're working on turning into a business. I didn't ask how they were doing it because I knew he wouldn't be able to reveal it, but I'm very tantalized. Looking forward to this new development and hoping it's real. Just so I can point back to this comment if it comes true, the guy's name happens to be the same as a well-known agro company.

When you feed it a giant cesspool of invalidated data (The internet) you should not expect a single response to be accurate. none of these AI's are fed a carefully curated data set.

But companies are expecting to replace all their programmers with AI.... What could possibly go wrong?

I seriously considered going twin, but there are lots of disadvantages. Money is a huge one (cost, fuel, maintenance, insurance). But it's really not clear if twins (especially light twins) are actually any safer.

1) If you lose an engine on takeoff, there is a certain risk that you auger in, especially in a light twin, especially if you are not super current. Landing straight ahead in a field might actually have more survivability (depending on the surroundings for your airport).
2) The most common reason that engines quit is fuel (bad fuel, out of fuel) and the twin doesn't help with that.
3) If you do lose both engines, now you have a heavier aircraft and a higher approach speed. The energy of a crash is mass * velocity^2. A lighter and slower aircraft will do better.

I'm a former skydiver and a current pilot, so I'm not afraid of risk. I certainly do my best to manage it. All life is risk vs reward. You can die sitting at home. You can die in a car. When I found myself not jumping enough, I retired from skydiving. Over the years the fun went down and the risk went up (due to me doing it less often).

Honestly looking at the video posted below, I can't figure out what happened. It seems hard to get into that extreme of an attitude at such a low altitude. I'm a 500-hr private pilot.

Impact caused it to deploy: https://aviation-safety.net/wi...

It's not a Boeing.