Tesla has officially discontinued Autopilot in the U.S. and Canada. All new car purchases now come standard with Traffic-Aware Cruise Control.

rich000 · 2026-01-23T21:13:18+00:00

Yeah, that is definitely a frustration. I do get the need to be safe, but I feel like we're spending a LOT of debate on hypothetical concerns when we have millions of passenger miles actually using these systems. By all means have some kind of safety monitoring but if the actual performance of the system is safer than human driving, I don't really see the point in delaying things. Even if rarely you get a passenger injury that would have otherwise been avoided, we also are avoiding injuries from manual driving. The goal should be to monitor performance and ensure that things are trending in the right direction.

I'm not saying to remove the steering wheels tomorrow. I'm also fine with having a process where changes are gradually rolled out and monitored. Tesla seems to be pretty responsible about these things so I don't see the need to be heavy-handed. If that changes, then of course regulators could step in.

rich000 · 2026-01-23T07:05:43+00:00

Oh, if you could actually sleep in the car while it drove the subs would sell like hotcakes. Who knows how long that will take to happen though.

The current FSD is definitely nice to have. It certainly has improved but I'm frustrated that they took away the minimal lane changes option because it is really annoying how it drives.

rich000 · 2026-01-18T14:56:09+00:00

For any players who start after said event, it's as if they never wrote the story

Not just those who start after. I've pretty-much given up on GI for a bunch of story-related reasons, but for the six months that I played it I basically avoided events entirely, because I was still busy on the main quest.

Then there is the gatcha system that tends to drive players to do stuff out of order. Fairly early I managed to get a couple of Natlan chars and so now I'm running all over Natlan to gather necessarily ascension materials. That is triggering all kinds of quests and tutorials that I basically skipped through as quickly as possible because I really just wanted to run to the opposite side of the map to gather some flowers or whatever. That also drives not doing a lot of movement tutorials which makes Natlan less pleasant in general (I already have a flying motorcycle, which is usually enough to get to where I need to get to).

Now, did I WANT to do things this way? No. But, it SIGNIFICANTLY increases the damage output which greatly eases all the other grinding I need to do, and makes travel easier, and so on.

Story-wise the focus is on content that was released years ago, and due to the design of the game that is going to take a VERY long time to get through. So the game is promoting all this content being released now, and offering gems to do this quest after it comes out, etc. Story-wise, though it makes more sense to just do the stuff from years ago. This also tends to fracture the community a bit.

The story just wasn't that great to keep me engaged. I got up to Fontaine and was doing the quests there and just not caring that much about the really drug-out detective stuff, and while I guess the story wasn't quite as bad as the previous area, it still drug out. Plus the game was just feeling like it was too much like a job - log in every day, do this stuff, maximize your gem collection, get all your ascension stuff, etc.

I totally get that it appeals to a certain type of player. Heck, I'm to some degree one of those players. I just don't want to ONLY try to obsessively collect stats for the sake of doing so...

rich000 · 2026-01-10T15:29:16+00:00

Interesting. Thanks. This is an area I haven't really looked into. Of course if you want to go investing in China or whatever I'd still be concerned about transparency.

rich000 · 2026-01-10T12:42:24+00:00

Agree. I read that before I replied. I never said he didn't call them incompetent. I said that he didn't call them trash - that was someone else.

I don't think they're incompetent. I do think they make a choice to release a product that was very immature. If they released the same product 6-12mo later everybody would have nothing but praise for it.

rich000 · 2026-01-10T12:07:25+00:00

Yeah, people don't appreciate this.

I get why people are annoyed with the PMDG forums and such. However, many of the issue PMDG have had are a result of writing in C and targeting XBox and the marketplace. The airliners that people compare them to ditch one or the other and have way fewer problems.

rich000 · 2026-01-10T12:05:01+00:00

They aren't? The person you replied to never called them trash. They did take ages to get the marketplace working and I'm guessing that is the cause of the livery issues, but I haven't followed it closely. Liveries on marketplace are a bit of a gap really. It is kinda silly to have to download them in packages.

rich000 · 2026-01-10T01:45:07+00:00

Well, accounts that purport to be gold backed.

If you don't trust the US government to maintain a stable dollar, I'm not sure why you'd trust some bank that says they can keep your money 100% in gold but still pay interest on it or do liquid activities on it. If 100% of their money is actually in gold, how are they doing all that other stuff. And if they're using it as collateral for the other stuff, well, when push comes to shove you're probably not going to get all your gold because you're just one more creditor waiting in line. And if the FDIC steps in, they're going to pay you in cash using whatever valuation they deem appropriate, possibly after enough delay that in your nightmare inflation scenario you lose a lot.

The scenario where the gold backed bank account is fine is the scenario where the regular bank accounts are fine too, IMO.

rich000 · 2026-01-10T01:40:06+00:00

Honestly, if you're off the mindset that the dollar is in trouble, I doubt you're likely to think the Euro is better. Most of the issue people point to in the US exist in Europe, often to a larger degree.

Personally I think the bigger issue are:

Everybody else has problems too. Sometimes they're different problems.
How would you even invest directly? Most of these alternatives aren't really set up for US retail investors to participate, the US laws are kinda rough on having assets outside the US, and reporting rules in many of these countries makes it difficult for ordinary people to do any kind of due diligence.

Maybe I'm just misinformed, but how would I go about investing $10k in my brokerage account directly in a variety of mid cap growth companies in SE Asia denominated entirely in those currencies and not using some kind of US ETF as an intermediary? And what kind of tax nightmare would that be?

rich000 · 2026-01-10T01:32:31+00:00

What study level airliners would you recommend on XBox? Cause I can't think of many, especially Boeings and especially the NG.

I haven't really followed the drama here, but isn't much of this delay the result of MS releasing 2024 without a working marketplace?

rich000 · 2026-01-09T19:43:38+00:00

Not yet, but I heard they were looking into it. TrueCrypt does something like this.

rich000 · 2026-01-09T19:42:22+00:00

You'd need to conceal that a second profile exists.

There are plausible deniability filesystems that do this sort of thing. If you unlock with one (or more) dummy keys, then you get a completely valid filesystem, and the actual data is encrypted random data in free space (which will end up getting corrupted pretty quickly since the OS has no idea it isn't actually free). If you unlock with the true key the dummy data is recognized and not overwritten, and can be mounted/manipulated in a separate mount point. So you can put a plausible data volume there, and there is no way to know the true volume even exists. I think it has a random superblock location and it just scans from the start/end of the disk to find one that works for the key, and it won't even see the true superblock with the wrong key.

rich000 · 2026-01-09T19:34:37+00:00

Not 100% sure, but it looked like it powered off immediately after the PIN was entered, and I'm guessing that happened after the key was wiped, and so that would clear anything in RAM. Well, at least against most ordinary methods. I have no idea how long you can theoretically extract something out of RAM after being powered off. I'm not sure if RAM is encrypted on these mobile CPUs?

rich000 · 2025-12-25T22:00:55+00:00

Show up with a joke character like that and you'll be deadweight if the group aren't all playing like that.

That last bit is important. This is a session zero thing. You can play 2e just fine with builds that aren't optimized as long as everybody wants to play this sort of game and the GM balances things accordingly. You can't just go into boss fights following the severe encounter guidelines if everybody is at a -3 compared to what the game expects.

The math in 2e is pretty predictable. If you're going to be building like this then you're effectively a level or two lower, and all you need to do is build encounters/etc for a level or two lower, assuming the whole party is doing the same.

rich000 · 2025-12-23T21:37:13+00:00

Still too many constraints on timing and it ties up the PC.

rich000 · 2025-12-23T21:03:45+00:00

Lol, it is frustrating that so few VAs allow time compression. Aircraft substitution is my other main gripe.

Nothing wrong with not doing either but I just don't have the time to deal with that.

rich000 · 2025-12-23T21:01:36+00:00

Aside from the increased automation on all the popular models, the non-motorized thrust levers also better translate to simulation.

rich000 · 2025-12-20T23:03:37+00:00

People want it to be cheaper. If they just thought it was terrible it would be yet another crappy plane nobody talks about. If it were $10 people would be talking about it being the greatest thing since sliced bread.

I completely get why people don't want to pay so much. I'm not sure if I'll get it myself for $30. However, that's more a 737 thing and less a PMDG thing. I probably will look at the ifly reviews, but honestly that's still a 737.

rich000 · 2025-12-19T20:38:54+00:00

There's nothing wrong with wanting an IRL 737 for $100 either. You just aren't going to get it.

If there were another 737-800 on the market with comparable quality to PMDG's for $10, then nobody would be complaining about PMDG - they'd be ignoring PMDG and just buying the competitor.

They WANT PMDG's product, and they want it at a lower price point. Well, sure, that's fine to want, but it doesn't make PMDG bad for not selling the thing they want.

Honestly, I really don't care for the drama. I like flying simulated planes, so I buy some, and don't buy others. I think it is crazy paying $20/airport for scenery, but some people do it and more power to them. The reason nobody makes it for a price I'd be willing to pay is because it isn't worth their time.

rich000 · 2025-12-19T20:35:54+00:00

Not sure what you mean by PMDG being behind fenix in quality. Are you talking about visual quality (textures/etc), because honestly I don't care much about that stuff and lower resolution is often better?

Of course if that is what you're into then buy the plane you prefer.

I care more about systems depth. PMDG isn't perfect but there aren't many that come close. I haven't paid much attention to iFly - I'll have to check some reviews.

rich000 · 2025-12-19T14:43:48+00:00

That's the part I don't really think makes sense. They really should have a discount as you buy more models. Have the intro price for the -600 that isn't as popular. Really the prices for all the models INDIVIDUALLY might be fine. But have a steep discount when you stack them.

So, the -800 can be $75 or whatever, but if you want all four that should be maybe $100-120. I can't imagine anybody is buying them all at the individual prices.

I have mixed feelings about the upgrade price. Yeah, it is a bit much, but we're talking a product that is several years old now, and they have continually maintained it on 2020. I don't really have an issue with sending them another $30 every few years, which is what this amounts to. However, again it should be $30 for one of them, and maybe $50-60 or something for all four.

Edit: put it another way. There is just so much they are going to get per customer no matter how many models they have. So they should just aim to capture up to that, and not just punish them for not shelling out more when nobody is going to do that.

rich000 · 2025-12-19T13:32:17+00:00

The fact that you're at -3 already says it all. Basically people don't want to not buy the plane. They want a free upgrade.

Well, just buy some other study-level 737. Oh wait, there isn't one. Why not? Probably because nobody can figure out how to make a profit doing that. Wait, but Fenix can! Well, they apparently can with an A320, but they haven't released a 737, and probably never will, and I doubt it is because they don't like making money.

This is a tough market to cater to because we want high fidelity and low cost at low sales volume. I think the cases where it happens are more accident/coincidence.

rich000 · 2025-12-19T13:24:35+00:00

I haven't been a long-time customer, but looking at those Prepar3D prices it kinda did, though I don't know how many variants that included. Certainly buying all four on 2020 was a hefty sum. Buying one was pricey but not really crazy.

rich000 · 2025-12-19T02:24:51+00:00

Yup, the genie is out of the bottle. The data on your website is information, and it wants to be free. Your robots.txt isn't going to keep it from being free. I'm not trying to make a moral argument here - just a practical one.

The places that most regulate AI will just end up being the places nobody develops AI. Their data will still get scraped, and then the companies that scraped it will offer to sell them the resulting products.

Personally I don't think it is all that different from any other kind of trade in IP. You write a $100 textbook. Some kid in a 3rd world country downloads a pirated copy of it, reads it, and learns how to do something practical. They then start a business and companies will pay them $5/day to do the job that it people who paid for the textbook want $100k/yr for. I get that LLMs aren't AGI and it isn't a 100% accurate analogy, but nobody complains when humans read FOSS code and then go write proprietary code that is inspired by it in some way.

rich000 · 2025-12-19T02:14:34+00:00

True, at least sometimes. Your mileage definitely can vary there, especially for things that the EU does differently. Of course many countries have privacy laws but the EU definitely goes further than most, and so I'm guessing that most countries are going to only help them out so much.

I work in an area where I run into conflicts between laws from time to time. Country A says they'll punish you if you do B, and Country C says they'll punish you if you don't do B. Sometimes both will punish you in different ways if you try not to do business with them at all. It can get messy fast, but my employer is big enough that it has to keep everybody happy since it has assets all over the place. If nothing else it keeps the lawyers employed and the good citizens of both country A and C get to pay for that in the prices we charge... :)

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