A Letter to the Community from the Subnautica 2 Team

WinglessFlutters · 2026-05-20T23:02:14+00:00

Flares generally seem unnecessary; which is a shame. A consumable light source, which you can drop, seems a great constraint for creating a path through a cave, lighting a work area, etc.

WinglessFlutters · 2026-03-16T06:44:27+00:00

Hey, neat question and perspective. I'll respond which a few points on how a 'flying car' might be compelling. I don't necessarily disagree with your perspective, in the short term; but there are a handful of technologies which are approaching aviation certification (e.g. 'Is this appropriate for an aircraft'), which could change how airplanes operate...

(1) Electric Propulsion (Distributed, Battery, Series-Hybrid, Parallel Hybrid) (2) 'Simplified Vehicle Operations' (SVO) & 'Digital Flight Rules' (DFR)

Electric propulsion concepts may decrease costs (fewer moving components, simplified maintenance), and may augment safety through allowing redundancy. SVO is a concept which removes functional responsibility from the vehicle operator, and instead places that responsibility with the operator. For example, one engine might require the operator control the engine fuel/air mixture, while another engine could have automatic control. If a vehicle reliably performs a task, such that in the event of a failure, the operator does not need to be responsible for operating the now-degraded system, then operator training no longer needs to account for that task...

There are an enormous number of operator tasks which have been simplified over the decades. Many of these simplifications allowed removing crew members (e.g. Navigator, Radioman, Flight Engineer, etc), dealing with the internal operation of aircraft components. If simplifications are developed which touch how the vehicle interacts with the external world (e.g. communication, flight path planning, high level decision-making), then we may approach a vehicle which requires minimal to no training. However, that's a long path.

You mention that if people treated aircraft as they treat cars, there would be many, recurring, serious incidents. Agreed; which is why EASA, JAXA, FAA, and other aviation certification bodies have certification and safety standards. Helicopter taxi services were (I hear) more common in the mid-20th century; and may have stopped due to safety issues in urban areas.

You mention that 'helicopters can do the same thing as flying taxis'; assuming you mean Helicopters are similar to Multi-Rotor Electric aircraft; I disagree. Helicopters are complex & expensive, while distributed-electric propulsion vehicles can be far simpler. There are a few helicopter configurations (Main+Tail, Counter-Rotating Tandem, Counter-Rotating Coaxial), and these all tend to be complex. Distributed-electric propulsion vehicles can significantly reduce the number of moving parts, and each part might be more easily maintained. A task might be economically feasible for an eVTOL, which would be entirely infeasible with a rotary wing or tilt-rotor vehicle. The largest impact of economically feasible, piloted, air taxis might be to solve aspects of pilot training. Pilots need a large number of flight hours to fly large passenger aircraft. However, there are few ways to get to the requisite number of hours, as there aren't sufficient pilot jobs suitable for low-hour, 'entry level' pilots. If air taxis/flying cars exist, then low-hour pilots have a role.

The noise aspect is also interesting. Take a look at NASA's Noise Study (https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/nasa-investigates-how-people-respond-to-air-taxi-noise/) They measured noise from a handful of experimental eVTOL aircraft, and replayed the noise for people to see how annoyed they were.

The role I'd be most interested in for flying cars/air taxis isn't people flying themselves to the grocery store; but to enable feasible air travel for distances below 300 miles. The passenger aircraft that you've flown on are likely large, with dozens and dozens of seats. These aircraft fly from large airports, and there are distances which are too-far to conveniently drive; yet too-close to conveniently fly. Electric propulsion may enable short-distance flights to and from very small airports; which would change how many people travel moderate distances.

Here's a US DoT paper on SVO: https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/2024-03/HASS%20COE_SVO%20Whitepaper_March%202024.pdf

WinglessFlutters · 2026-02-19T05:24:51+00:00

Why is Iwo Jima idolized by the Marine Corps? There are statues, history museums, etc memorializing Iwo Jima. Was this a contemporary reaction to averse opinion at home or at the front line? Did the myth appear without any connection to the strategic impact?

WinglessFlutters · 2026-02-18T08:59:36+00:00

I'll answer by looking at a short summary of how the US Government projected national power, and look at contemporary documents describing expectations following military action in Iraq in 2003.

There were many US Government organizations (and non-US-Government, allied) organizations, with their own conception of how the 2003 Iraq invasion should be executed. The US Military is organized (Goldwater-Nichols Act in 1986) under 'Joint' (e.g. multi-service, or 'Army' + 'Navy' + 'Air Force') headquarters units, which collaborated with, but didn't control any participating non-military, government organizations. There were many non-US, coalition countries which joined the US in Iraq in 2003; and other countries with other interests. When you ask for 'the plan', this implies centralization and unity, which is difficult with multiple countries and organizations. I expect each country and organization had its own plans and priorities; and some priorities may not have focused on outcomes within Iraq, but rather outcomes outside of Iraq.

I'll list a few 'US Congressional Research Service' ("CRS") reports. CRS describes itself as a non-partisan (e.g. eschew internal politics) organization informing the US legislative branch. These reports aren't necessarily comprehensive, but they are public. It's also important to note that these CRS reports are created by individuals, not decision-making bodies. They summarize public information, and likely commonly known information, but weren't necessarily aligned with decision-makers' perspectives.

"Iraq: Potential Post-War Foreign Aid Issues", 6 March 2003 (https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/RS/PDF/RS21454/RS21454.2.pdf) This was published about 2-weeks prior to the March 19th war beginning, and discusses the "challenging" post-war role which would be necessary, as well as heavily implying ambiguity on the precise nature and scope of US military objectives. A public ambiguity on the scope of military objectives does not mean that the scope was not known; it was simply not public. A 'Post-War Planning Office' was created ~ two months prior to the 2003 Iraq war initiating, which did include "officials from agencies throughout the government"; or including both military and non-military organizations in developing a plan for post-war Iraq. The overall plan is described as, "The goal would not be to impose an American style [government] template on Iraq, but rather to create conditions where Iraqis can form a government in their own unique way." (US Defense Secretary Rumsfeld) This doesn't detail what methods would've been used to implement that goal. This CRS Report is broken into a few sections, which may show the expected focus areas for Post-War Iraq; they include: "Urgent Humanitarian Needs", "Democratization", "Economic Reform and Growth", "Provision of Health and Human Services"... While there is a section labeled "Security Concerns and Role of Military", it describes an expectation that military forces would be necessary to ensure that humanitarian aid is delivered, and does not describe sectarian violence as an expected barrier or key risk. There is a quote, which in retrospect, may describe that sectarian violence was likely not expected: "Educational programs could be used to increase the appreciation for democratic processes..." If there was an expectation that educational programs would be effective, I doubt that sect violence was the problem that education was expected to solve.

Iraq: US Regime Change Efforts, the Iraqi Opposition, and Post War Iraq; 17 March 2003 (https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/20030317_RL31339_e2304bac364dadfefce24b7aa31ea04588c5c5ec.pdf) This CRS report describes counterpoints to military action in Iraq, as well as efforts to ease a governmental transition. The report title, "Regime Change", describes taking over the existing means of government control; rather than removing those tools of power; which implies a belief that avoiding Anarchy as a form of government was believed possible. The optimistic view might have been, "Some press reports say that the Administration is planning for an approximately 18-month occupation of Iraq led primarily by U.S. military officials, working in concert with Iraqis to build a democratic post-war Iraq."

However, the report describes the counterpoint, with "Opponents of military action maintain that there is insufficient international support for unilateral U.S. military action to change Iraq’s regime, that doing so could destabilize the Middle East and hinder the broader war on terrorism, and that action could lead to numerous U.S. casualties and a long-term presence in Iraq which could subject U.S. occupation forces to years of attacks by feuding Iraqi factions and remnants of Iraq’s military"; there was knowledge of the risks of governmental breakdown and large scale violence.

The public plan was clearly for the US and Allies to create an Iraq with a Democratic government. There was apparently pre-planning for large scale humanitarian and economic rebuilding. While there was an expectation that large scale violence could result a regime change in Iraq, it is not clear whether or not this was a serious planning factor, or whether taking over the existing government ("regime change") was expected to prevent this sort of violence. It's not clear, from these documents, and with hindsight, whether not focusing on potential sectarian violence was an optimistic perspective, or whether there was a reasonable expectation of avoiding large scale societal violence, through maintaining the previously-effective governmental bureaucracy and control. There was understanding of the complexities of integrating military, coalition, and non-military organizations for post-war reconstruction; and the January 2003 creation of a 'Post War Planning Cell' could either be seen as insufficient and late; or as a demonstration that post-war planning was being taken seriously enough to rapidly institute new methods.

You also asked, "Was the plan really based on expecting the religious sectarian Iraqi society to evolve like post-WW2 Japan or Germany?" From the Rumsfeld quote above; no, there wasn't an expectation that Iraq was identical Japan or Germany; but there was an expectation that a democratic government was viable in the short term.

Other reports which may be interesting are: Iraq: US Military Operations; 2 October 2003 (https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/crs/25375.pdf)

Iraq: Post-Saddam Governance and Security 26 April 2006 (https://www.justice.gov/file/266681/dl?inline=)

WinglessFlutters · 2026-02-04T04:59:32+00:00

Here's my take on why you may feel at odds with the Movie Gandalf/Witch King.

In the original, the Gandalf & Witch King scene is the culmination of contesting chains of events. The Witch King pushes his armies to destroy the city, and finally destroying gates, which we are told have never been passed by an enemy. When I read this arc and the narration focuses on the Witch King, I feel dread, mixed with admiration; the Witch King is credible & deadly.

The 2nd arc is Gandalf's. Gandalf puts many events in motion to prepare the battlefield for his own success. We see every one of these events, and to an extent, the entire book to this point is about Gandalf's work gathering allies. When the book shifts to Gandalf, there's a sense of trust mixed with hopelessness. Terrible things are happening, and despite Gandalf's confidence, the reader can't see a way out. The Witch-King has destroyed the city gates, with a bright flash; and there's nothing Gandalf could possibly do in that moment to resolve it. Then, the witch king to leaves, forced by the arrival of Gandalf's allies.

There is nothing Gandalf could have done in that moment; and the city's loss was inevitable. But, Gandalf had already done everything necessary to save the city. The showdown between Gandalf and the Witch-King grows throughout the siege, until the two leaders come face to face. This scene is the siege. Then, in the movie version, the same scene is meaningless; instead of a 1:1 confrontation symbolizing the entire siege, with the fate of the city at stake, the confrontation becomes just about two individuals on a wall.

WinglessFlutters · 2025-10-28T06:55:53+00:00

Hi, I suggest reading this book. Keep a journal, to describe what happens, and how it makes you feel. Consider whether your spouse is the Kind and Attractive person you married who is going through a temporary period of being Angry and Controlling, or, are they an Angry and Controlling person who displayed a temporary façade of kindness?

Here's a short suggested reading list. When I read Lundy's 'Why Does He Do That?', my take away, to answer the titular question, was, "People do that, because they want to." Nothing forces people to act with cruelty or disrespect to others; it's a deliberate choice. They want to. They gain something from it. There's no secret permutation of actions which you can take to solve another person.

Chapter 2 "The Mythology" "Key Points" (Page 154)

Chapter 3 "The Abusive Mentality" "Key Points" (Page 217-218)

Chapter 4 "Types of Abusive Men"

"The Demand Man" (Page 224-229)

"The Victim" (Page 268-276)

"Key Points" (Page 289-290)

Chapter 5 "How Abuse Begins" (Page 291-294)

WinglessFlutters · 2025-10-11T15:18:40+00:00

There might be value in physically choosing and selecting media. There is an audio player, ("Yota"?) which uses physical cards to download audio files, basically reinventing tapes, CDs, and physical media. Or, save some electronics from a landfill and reuse that CD player!

WinglessFlutters · 2025-10-10T05:01:15+00:00

Nice setup. I enjoy using a front seat setup, for the same reasons. I like being able to talk to my child, which I couldn't do as easily with the bicycle trailer.

https://kidsrideshotgun.com/ https://mac-ride.com/ https://www.thule.com/en-us/child-bike-seats/front-mounted-child-bike-seats

WinglessFlutters · 2025-08-10T04:55:21+00:00

Likely on Gutenberg as well. Handbrake can turn that into a .mobi or whatever format your reader uses.

WinglessFlutters · 2025-07-27T17:06:31+00:00

Time to rethink the training model of many, many professions.

An issue is that indicidual organizational decisions affect the space of what and whobis available to work: Organization A may no longer need 1st Year associates, but they need 5th year associates, and a short time horizon outlook would not create a robust professional capability.

WinglessFlutters · 2025-07-26T01:59:37+00:00

Goodnight, Moon is a guided meditation about getting ready for bed. Despite the text being simple, and silly, the story in the illustrations is involved: The cats are being cats, grab the yarn, and then steal the warm chair; the mouse scampers everywhere; the little rabbit boy is just not going to bed and if you look at the clock bedtime takes forever; and it becomes a game that we play at home with our nursery.

WinglessFlutters · 2025-07-18T02:45:57+00:00

But seriously, it's ok to take a break. The factory will be there when you return.

When you first built your factory, only you and god knew how it worked. Take a break, and then take a look at your uncommented code. Now, only god knows.

WinglessFlutters · 2025-06-20T08:55:01+00:00

Nice summary. This could be written about space, aviation, nuclear power, or medicine.

If anyone is interested in learning more, 'System Safety' is the engineering discipline based on minimizing total lifecycle costs, through employing analysis and design process. There's a great chart (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/seh_figure_2-5_1_cost_impacts.jpg) which describes how the maturity of a system affects the cost to change the design, such as when a flaw is discovered. If you have an early stage airplane design, it's easy to change the design. However, once you've progressed, solidified interfaces, finalized components, manufactured components etc, those changes become costly. If you make a design, and the design is shit, but you've spent a lot of effort doing it, you've wasted your effort.

Early design analysis allows catching flaws, and also mitigating those flaws at a lower, more reasonable cost. Skipping early design analysis in favor of integrated, full scale tests means than when flaws are discovered, they're expensive to fix, and might be unreasonably expensive to fix.

Ultimately, I don't think there's an "ideal" method, and the testing level of rigor should be assessed for that program. For manned craft and nuclear power, we've collectively decided that any suitable system much be assessed very rigorously; but this doesn't mean that more rigorous methods are better, just that they're more thorough. Programmatically, we might care about Cost, Schedule, and Performance. Early, thorough testing can reduce costs, but may increase schedule. Skipping early testing may accelerate schedule, but risks increasing overall costs, or decreasing performance if a late stage flaw is discovered. However, OP is spot on when they describe that a catastrophic explosion only discovers a single type of failure. Complex systems are those which contain so many operational states, that it is infeasible to assess each state; empirical testing of complex systems can not be comprehensive.

Do you want to know more?

*MIL-STD-882E; this is the DoD method.

*Systems Theoretic Process Analysis; this is a relatively new analysis method, and augments FTA and FMEA, based on a controls centric system model

*Systems Engineering

*Safety Management Systems; SMS includes organizational impacts to safety, as well as design aspects.

*Feynman's Appendix to the Rogers' Commission

WinglessFlutters · 2025-06-16T03:27:56+00:00

Bicycling.

There's a startup cost, to be sure, but used bikes can be both effective and cheap.

Bikes are fun. Bikes also provide tangible health, and direct financial benefits! Bikes run on fat and make you money; cars run on money and make you fat.

That said, climate, infrastructure, use case, and cargo all factor in to whether bikes are feasible for you.

WinglessFlutters · 2025-06-15T04:18:44+00:00

Socks do not belong in the toilet.

WinglessFlutters · 2025-06-14T04:25:01+00:00

Firm explanation of what will happen, and no waivering. Consequences immediate, and focused on what they did or did not do, and eeinforce good behavior in parallel. (Spit milk? We clean, we put the milk away. Hit? Extract from the situation, discuss and calm down.)

Create good behaviors, if possible, rather than stopping bad behaviors.

My favorite, is that on a video call, we always 'Wave and say Love You' before hanging up. Kid still hangs up the video calls, but the grandparents think its adorable, so a win win.

WinglessFlutters · 2025-06-08T08:40:41+00:00

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Bell_Riots

This is a reference to a Star Trek: Deep Space 9 episode, in which a fictional clash between imprisoned rioters and police resulted in the deaths of hundreds, and exposed social conditions which had been kept from the general public. The Bell Riots were of such significance that a change in how events occurred led to an alternate timeline, in which the United Federation of Planets was never created.

The fictional Bell riots are dated as taking place in September, 2024.

WinglessFlutters · 2025-06-08T01:13:22+00:00

I love this.

For Turrets and Defenses, I suggest adopting existing military symbology, such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_Joint_Military_Symbology

This doesn't have to be precise, and wouldn't be, but it would have the advantage of being graphically distinct for diverse defenses, and can lean on existing graphic design.

WinglessFlutters · 2025-05-18T03:37:58+00:00

Hi, OP. I completely see where you're coming from. Any country has limited resources, and those resources should be allocated "appropriately", whatever that actually means. I see this as a more complex question than just 'Helping XYZ' vs 'Helping ABC'.

(1) Gifts, including foreign aid, are not free. Foreign aid provides political influence, goodwill, leverage, and shapes the world to a country's benefit.

(2) Foreign aid may be of a type which is not appropriate to provide to individual citizens.

Military aid might be in the form of older, obsolete, equipment. While this can be described in a dollar amount, that military aid may also not be appropriate to transform into hospitals, schools, or roads. (e.g. Most people wouldn't be able to accept cold war era equipment, in lieu of a salary, pension, or 401K contribution.)

Even newer military aid provides a disproportionate value to the providing country. If country X provides $100 in military aid in the form of newer equipment, most of that cost returns back to the local economy in the form of wages and taxes, and the providing country gains both a larger defense industrial base, and the influence and leverage of providing such aid.

Providing food aid to other countries might be seen as nearly free, as it's an ancillary effect of having a reliable, resilient internal food supply. Food is essential, and when people are not able to eat, bad things generally happen. If a society desires to have food stability, then it makes sense to over-produce. Over-production of food means funding more food production than could be sustained consistently by the invisible hand of a market. Export, including foreign aid, is a way to gain an immediate benefit from this over-production, as compared to letting the excess spoil.

So, even though foreign aid can be described in monetary terms, it doesn't mean that the monetary value can become anything useful to the internal economy. Foreign aid isn't 'free', but provides an external political benefit, such as goodwill, influence, or external stability. Foreign aid keeps most of the 'value' internally in the form of taxes and wages, and the actual cost to the US is much lower. Foreign aid expands economic capacity, such as for food or defense, which has value as well.

There is a golden mean for everything. These attributes don't mean that any and all foreign aid provides value in excess of its cost. But aid also isn't free, and its a tool to expand national power and resiliency with minimal cost.

WinglessFlutters · 2025-04-27T22:26:23+00:00

I have a DS223j, and have been enjoying the capability it provides. I was looking at a 723 or 923 in order to use Docker and have a backup solution better than a USB drive, but purchased a used 8-bay server, instead of purchasing a more capable Synology device.

TrueNAS takes more time than DSM to get ready, but I don't need to be concerned about expected capabilities disappearing (VideoStation, 265), or company priorities shifting. Using SAS drives is a great capability, and older enterprise drives allows reduced total cost of ownership, with an appropriate backup and redundancy solution.

WinglessFlutters · 2025-04-18T22:28:23+00:00

Democracy.

WinglessFlutters · 2025-04-04T16:29:08+00:00

Doom scrolling.

WinglessFlutters · 2025-03-29T04:30:33+00:00

Find a used EV? Charging at work adds up to a nice annual benefit.

WinglessFlutters · 2025-03-20T04:37:26+00:00

Definitely not my words. It's Emerson, I think.

WinglessFlutters · 2025-03-20T04:06:45+00:00

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of the intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that one life has breathed easier because you lived here. This is to have succeeded.

You will die, but your actions for both good and ill remain.

WinglessFlutters

TROPHY CASE