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Marijn

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Today, as part of the Dutch national program to salvage aircraft wrecks of WWII which started last year, the salvage of a Messerschmitt Bf 109 has started. It's the third excavation of a wreck which most likely has remains of the pilot still present. Not only British and American aircraft wrecks are salvaged, also German ones. About 30-50 of such wrecks are still scattered around the country.

Decades after the end of the war, relatives finally receive information about the place where their loved ones died and bring closure to the heavy war history in their families.

In 1944 there were fierce air battles between the Allies and Germans above the eastern border of the Netherlands. On January 30, the German Messerschmitt of the type BF 109 G6 crashed close to the little village Hoonhorst. Investigations indicate that this must be one of the two Messerschmitts that took off from Volkel in the afternoon on a mission to prevend American bombers from reaching the German border. It is not known to date who exactly was the pilot who piloted the warplane. It's either Greorg Graf zu Ortenburg or pilot Otto Tillack. Both are still reported missing after all these years.

Some eye witnesses of the crash are still alive. What they have always suspected, has since yesterday been confirmed. Salvage specialists have found remains of the pilot. Now it is certain: the German pilot was unable to escape to safety and was indeed killed in his singleseat fighter.

During the salvage work that started on Monday, the salvage companies found quite a few remnants of the plane in a 5 meter deep hole, such as parts of an engine block, two propeller blades and kilos of twisted steel. They are surprised. “I did not expect the tail wheel to be there. That is virtually intact, "said Major Bart Aalberts, who is a salvage officer for the Royal Netherlands Air Force. "You can even see the inner tube."

A lot of ammunition was also found, such as a considerable number of small grenades. Two machine guns and a cannon were also taken out of the ground. Even the handgun that the pilot had in his pocket has been found. "The material is hardly affected by corrosion" said a specialist from the Explosives Ordnance Disposal Service (EOD). As a result, all data and even the eagle, the symbol of the Nazis, can still be recognized in the steel. The EOD will detonate the explosive material on the spot in a controlled manner on Friday.

The search for the identity of the pilot has now started. The registration number of the aircraft is required for this. Examination of the bone remains may also lead to more information. It will be weeks if not months before the identity of the pilot - after consultation with the German authorities and next of kin - is released. The remains will most likely be reburied at the German military cemetery Ysselsteyn in Limburg.

 

jedidia

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Freefall bringing it to the point yet again:
fc03511.png


I love this guy's writing...
 

jedidia

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Huh, it looks like Microsoft fixed a bug that had the keyboard layout reset to default after entering a wrong password. I wonder how bored they must be for something like that not being irrecoverably burried under megatons of backlog. Probably just a side effect of something else they fixed...
 

Linguofreak

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Huh, it looks like Microsoft fixed a bug that had the keyboard layout reset to default after entering a wrong password. I wonder how bored they must be for something like that not being irrecoverably burried under megatons of backlog. Probably just a side effect of something else they fixed...

I imagine you had a few people that were submitting a lot of bugs about how their password was only being accepted intermittently.

Although actually I wonder: was it really a bug? What layout do you want to use in that situation? What if the user has forgotten which layout they were using?
 

jedidia

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Although actually I wonder: was it really a bug? What layout do you want to use in that situation? What if the user has forgotten which layout they were using?

It looks like they actually fixed something different. My regional settings are all UK, while my keyboard layout is Swiss. But windows always booted with the regional default layout, so before entering my password, I had to switch the layout. If I got it wrong, the layout would be back to UK again. It now looks like the default keyboard layout is loaded immiediately, no matter the regional setting (I just didn't notice it the first time around, only that it stayed on swiss german after I accidentally entered my linux password). That might have gotten a little higher on the priority list...
 

Artlav

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Given that a large fraction of their customer base got keyboards that look like this, and that switching layout determines which letters are active, i would expect them to have quite a pile of bug reports.
129UZdn.png
 

Matias Saibene

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I'm not sure I'm posting this question here, but I didn't want to disturb the G42-200 development thread.

Can fuel consumption be disabled on the G42-200 completely? Or is it a compilation/programming thing?
I mean disable APU fuel, oxygen, RCS fuel, and main engine fuel. I know this is a silly question, but I like to fly on minimal fuel and fuel consumption turned off (low weight + infinite fuel = incredible speed and range).

Thanks in advance, and thank you Moach and Abdullah Radwan for developing the G42-200, it is a beautiful spaceplane.
 

Linguofreak

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Given that a large fraction of their customer base got keyboards that look like this, and that switching layout determines which letters are active, i would expect them to have quite a pile of bug reports.
129UZdn.png

It's very likely that an even larger fraction of their userbase has keyboards only marked for one layout, but uses multiple layouts.

Switching between German and English yaps zou with some verz, verz sneakz gotchas
 

Marijn

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German pilot crash site Hoonhorst (Dalfsen, NL) identified

Thanks to a recognition plate, the identity of the fallen German pilot has been revealed. It is the 20-year-old Unteroffizier Otto Tillack. His Messerschmitt Bf 109 G6 fighter plane was salvaged last week.

Tillack took off from Volkel air base on January 30 1944 with his Messerschmitt with code 'Schwarze 10'. The aircraft disappeared during fierce dogfights with Allied aircraft in the vicinity of Zwolle. He was reported missing in action.

The aircraft crashed around 1:30 pm in a meadow near Dalfsen. Due to the high speed, the aircraft bore deep into the ground. Only part of the tail was still sticking out. This part was removed by German troops shortly after the crash.

Dorus, the oldest resident of Hoonhorst, aged 100 now but 24 back then, saw it crash. His eyesight isn't very good anymore but his memory is still clear. While holding a piece of the propellor blade, he tells the story: 'It was a cloudy and rainy day. I was at the back of the house because there were many American planes overhead. You did hear the planes. Then I did hear the guns firing. Then a shrieking howl. Suddenly it appeared out of the clouds. But not very steep. It did somewhat glide. But it didn't look like control inputs were given. I think the pilot was dead already'.

Tracing next of kin

The German authorities have been informed. When the investigations have been completed, the remains will be brought to the German military cemetery Ysselsteyn in Limburg. This is done in collaboration with the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräber Fürsorge. To this end, an attempt is made to trace Tillack's relatives.

Otto Tillack:
National program salvage aircraft wrecks

There are about 30 to 50 aircraft wrecks from WOII in the Dutch soil, likely with human remains still on board. The National Aircraft Wreck Salvage Program was launched in 2019. The purpose of this program is to give a grave to missing pilots and to give their relatives certainty about their fate. Some allied aircraft with human remains have already been recovered. Tillack's aircraft is the 1st German plane addressed by the program.
 
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Fabri91

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So, while upgrading from my trusty system I decided to go the SFF route, since it turns out that PCs don't need to be giant monoliths straight out of 2001, with the goal of keeping as many parts from my previous build as possible, so that I can continue to claim to have been using the same PC for 15 years, much like Gimli’s axe or the ship belonging to some guy named Theseus.


In the end I wanted to keep the following components:
  • Corsair HX620 ATX PSU
  • Optical drive for the odd Blu-Ray rip
  • 2.5-ish slot ASUS RTX 2060 Super
  • Noctua NH-U12P SE2 120mm tower cooler
  • Storage devices

In the end, the only case I really liked that fit the bill was Silverstone’s recently announced SUGO 14: especially the requirement for a 5.25" drive bay really slimmed down the available selection.


The final build comprises these components (in bold new additions specifically for this build):
  • Case: Silversone SUGO 14
  • CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X
  • GPU: ASUS RTX 2060 Super Dual OC
  • MB: ASUS Strix B550-I Gaming
  • RAM: 32GB (2x 16GB) 3600MHz Corsair
  • Cooler: Noctua NH-U12P SE2
  • Fans: 2x Noctua NF-A12-15 low-profile PWM fans
  • Boot SSD: Samsung 850 Evo M.2 SATA
  • SSD: Crucial MX500 500GB SATA
  • SSD: Samsung 840 Evo 250GB SATA
  • HDD: WD Green 3TB SATA
  • ODD: LG Blu-Ray reader-writer
DSC_0246_resized.jpg
DSC_0239_resized.jpg

Old and new:
DSC_0244_resized.jpg



Regarding the low-profile fans, the one in the rear (exhaust) was needed only due to Noctua’s metal clips extending slightly further out compared to the cooler width, which by itself fit juuuust right (1-1.5mm space) with a standard-width 25mm rear fan, while the side-intake fan is required to with any tower cooler.


Additionally, while the case’s manual mentions a low height limit for the cooler if a 3.5" drive is to be installed in the rear-most position, a “proper” tower cooler can fit, if it’s rotated 90°, as can be seen here:
IMG_20201111_215240060.jpg
 

Fabri91

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I got lucky and snagged one on the 6th (one day after launch) at a a German retailer for close-enough to list price.

There doesn't seem to be stock anywhere right now.
 

Artlav

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Nice.

I do like the idea of having a compact PC, and built one several years ago.
Initially i just wanted something i could put into a backpack since i was moving around between places often, but then stayed around for the neatness of it.

Core i7-8700K, 32Gb of RAM, GTX 1070 Ti, 512Gb 960 EVO SSD, Noctua HN-L9i

I got a better case for it since then (A4-SFX v3), but the guts haven't changed and so far i'm yet to get into a game it would struggle with.

0.jpg

a.jpg
 

Linguofreak

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But monoliths from 2001 have soooooo much space inside (it's full of stars!) that working inside them is pure joy. The only thing I regret with mine is going for a case with a black interior, which turned out to have more of an influence on how easy it was to see what I was doing than I expected.

EDIT: I very nearly named my machine "monolith", but decided to go for
a Tolkien theme and chose "orthanc" instead (big black tower). A few years later, I ran across someone on the web that had the same case and did go for monolith. My two retrogaming machines are "methuselah" (old) and "cirdan" (ancient). Two emulated PDP-11s on my PiDP-11 are "sirion" and "anduin". My GPS timeserver is "cuckooclock".
 
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Artlav

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Hm, i wonder why some people name their systems while other people number them.
 

Urwumpe

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Hm, i wonder why some people name their systems while other people number them.

Maybe because the number of sensible names is smaller than the number of possible natural numbers?
 

Linguofreak

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Hm, i wonder why some people name their systems while other people number them.
For small numbers of machines, names are easier to remember. For large numbers, it's hard to think up a unique name for every system.
 
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