dave2013

Same here. Couldn't be without it. Doing a flight right now KBNA-KSEA on Aug 21, 2023 using P3Dv5.4, Active Sky, and Radar Contact. Super realistic. Dave

I don't care how scholars or Wikipedia contributors choose to define the creation hypothesis. My belief is that all this was designed and *created*, by what or whom I do not know. Dave

My goodness, you really do exhibit a lack of self-awareness sometimes. It is, in fact, you who has injected religion into the discussion. You just posted religious definitions. I never mentioned "god" or "deity". I stated "super intelligent omnipotent being(s)", whatever that may be. It could be some sort of incorporeal intelligence that we can't detect, or extraordinarily advanced aliens who made this universe and perhaps others, Dave

Absolutely. I think that it is likely there are thousands or millions of worlds with alien life, including intelligent beings as or more advanced than ourselves. If we're the only ones, it would be an awful waste of space(I don't recall who said that). Dave

Yes, I don't believe that the Creation *hypothesis* is scientific. I corrected myself in labeling Creation as a theory BTW. If my recollection of science classes is correct, I believe that a hypothesis is primarily based on observation, with no repeatedly reproducible results which would make it a theory. My observation tells me that all this had to be designed by some intelligence. The origin of the universe is one of those things that I don't think can be discovered or proven, unless my hypothesis is true and the omnipotent being(s) make themselves known and actually create a star or planet before our very eyes. One runs into problems like, with the Big Bang for instance, where did the matter and energy of the Big Bang come from in the first place? Interesting discussion. Dave

The Creation Theory of the universe is not religious. It posits the existence of an omnipotent being or beings who designed and created the universe. This does not involve religion. Please refrain from creating(no pun intended) issues where there are none. In my opinion, it is inconceivable that the near perfection of the human body, or the beauty and symmetry of a flower, or the amazing design of thousands of other forms of life, are simply the result of random combinations of molecules, no matter how many combinations there have been. It is certainly an interesting academic thought experiment to imagine something like this: after the Big Bang created the universe, over billions of years some elements eventually randomly combined to produce some molecules, and then some of those molecules randomly combined to produce some compounds, and then some of those compounds eventually combined to produce some amino acids, and then some of those amino acids combined to produce proteins, and then some of those proteins randomly combined to produce complex cells, and then some complex cells eventually and somehow came up with a way to reproduce themselves and so, just by chance, DNA and RNA developed, and then some cells eventually reproduced and came together to form plants and bacteria and such, and then some cells eventually just started to reproduce and build very complex organisms like animals and human beings. Whew! And I just barely touched the surface of what would be involved in the development of all those organic substances and extremely complex lifeforms. But if one wants to believe that all this "just happened", then be my guest. I won't debate this any further as I cannot prove my theory, just as no one else can prove theirs. Dave

As much interest as I've always had in Astronomy, I'm just not all that "wowed" by the possible discovery of a tiny organic molecule on another planet. I know that scientists would love to find an organic molecule, or even better a bacteria or amoeba, on Mars, for example, but I just don't get why that would be so darned exciting. Now, finding evidence of intelligent life, even just the ruins of a civilization that flourished thousands of years ago, would be very exciting for me, however, it would not surprise me. It might have something to do with the fact that I believe in Creation, that is, lifeforms were designed and created purposefully by a super intelligent omnipotent creator. I do believe that life evolves over time, but I'll never believe that the extraordinarily complex and amazing lifeforms here on Earth were just the result of molecules randomly combining billions of times over billions of years. Hence, I won't be very surprised if life is found on other planets, as I believe that many different lifeforms were created and seeded throughout the universe. Dave

You could use sBuilderX to make custom landclass for the area. Even ORBX openLC got this one wrong, as it's even greener than the default landclass and still has trees. Dave

I haven't bought it yet, but have watched some Youtube videos of gameplay. First, it was just released this month and is bound to have some bugs. I'm sure a patch will be out to fix many of them. I am not impressed with the overly simplistic orbit, landing, and takeoff phases. The cut screen sequences are boring and inadequate. I would like to be able to establish orbit upon arrival, then actually activate a landing sequence where the ship descends through the atmosphere and lands while I'm in the cockpit. Same with takeoff where one would go through a takeoff phase through the atmosphere to orbit. This could all be automated, but just having these activities simulated would add an extra touch of realism to the game. Otherwise it reminds me of Fallout and Oblivion/Skyrim set in a futuristic world. I'm sure that modders will get hold of this and make more interesting planets and stuff, and maybe even add the landing and takeoff phases like I described. Dave

The article also states: "Over a year, producing 60,000 tons of lithium could devastate the surrounding environment - up to 30 million tons of earth needs to be dug. This is more than the annual amount of dirt dug up to produce all coal output of all but seven or eight US states In May 2016, dead fish were found floating in China's Liqi River, where a toxic chemical leaked from the Ganzizhou Rongda Lithium mine. Cow and yak carcasses were also found floating in the river, likely killed by drinking the contaminated water. Lithium extraction also harms the soil and causes air contamination." ******************** It also takes massive amounts of water, scarce in the desert locations where lithium ore is found, to extract the lithium from the ore. Massive amounts of waste is produced just to extract a small amount of lithium. The batteries also need cobalt, nickel, graphite, copper, manganese, steel, aluminum, and other materials. Many of these materials are not sourced from North America or Europe, but from countries such as China, South Africa, and Congo. Mining production will have to increase immensely in order to produce enough materials to make millions of EV batteries. This doesn't count the huge battery banks that are necessary for intermittent renewable sources of energy such as wind turbines and solar panels. Vast amounts of fossil fuel energy will be required to mine, refine, process, and produce the batteries, not to mention the production of big wind turbines and solar panels. This trend towards EVs and renewable energy seems to be inevitable, so I hope that more of the mining and production can be done in North America, Europe, and Japan, as opposed to other countries that are not so reliable and not so friendly. Recycling can recover much of the original source materials, so this needs to be ramped up on a huge scale. There is no free lunch. Dave

You guys have brought up some interesting ideas. I like the idea of getting rid of the 2D texture/landclass tiles placed on a 3D earth and instead using some technique which takes GIS data and procedurally generates the scenery. However, you would need extremely detailed and accurate geographical data to know where to place, for example, an irregularly shaped grass field, a rectangular crop field, an irregularly shaped wooded area, a paved area, etc. The you'd need to know the location and type of buildings or vegetation to place on top of those areas. I'm not sure that GIS data with that level of detail exists, and certainly not for the entire world. I think this is why MSFS chose to use satellite imagery and then imagery analysis to determine the types of objects to place upon the imagery in the sim. It has drawbacks such as lack of seasonal changes and inaccurate buildings and vegetation, but I think that right now it's the best we can do. Over time, I believe that the data will get better and better as well as cover more parts of the earth, so in the near future I can see a sim that uses entirely artificially generated scenery. Dave

Yep, having that super duper Limited Edition cost him in more ways than one. I had a wheel bearing go bad on a GMC truck about 20 years ago. The mechanic said that he couldn't just replace the bad wheel bearing because they come in a sealed hub unit, so the entire unit had to be replaced - it cost $400. The fact is that automobiles nowadays are somewhat like aircraft. A lot of the parts are made by different manufacturers in different countries, so if something breaks down in a supply chain then availability of replacement parts is impacted as well as the vehicle production itself. When parts are scarce for whatever reason, prices go up. Ford actually displays a warning on their website about high demand and global supply chain constraints, so I guess the pandemic related supply chain issues have still not been completely resolved. We truly live in a global economy, with all of its pros and cons. Dave

I reinstalled ORBX Vector and replaced the stock vector exclude files with your smaller exclude files. This has indeed made a positive difference. Loading times are noticeably faster now. I'm going to keep ORBX Vector installed now, as its data is slightly better than stock data. I will, however, stick with the stock P3Dv5 roads. Thanks a lot for all your work on this. Dave

No, I don't mean the time it takes to initially display the map, but the time it takes to load new map data when you navigate around inside the map. It is slow even without vector, but with vector it takes even longer. Dave

It has been my experience that it does adversely affect performance. The issue is that instead of just replacing the stock vector data, ORBX vector has to add exclude files for all areas to exclude the stock data, and then it adds the new vector data files. All of this extra data has to be loaded by the sim, which takes more time and resources. I also noticed that in-sim map loading takes a lot longer when using ORBX vector. Dave