Flightgear and Joysticks

I've always liked Flight simulators, the great thing about them being that you can fly an great variety of aircraft you would never be allowed to fly in real life and you can, virtually, explore the world.

To my knowledge, until about a year or two ago, all flight simulators were exclusively for Windows. That is until I found two other options: the first was X-Plane, which, like Microsoft Flight Simulator you have to pay for. I downloaded the demo but it was just too slow and required an advanced graphics card which my Macbook doesn't have. However, after a bit more searching on the web, I found in my opinion the best flight sim out there: Flightgear. What is so special about Flightgear is that it's totally open source which means only one thing: it's also totally free. In addition, you can download additional planes for no extra cost and although there are some bugs, it remains great.

Since I discovered it, I've been using on and off, but recently I realised that if I was going to start doing it properly, I was going to need a good joystick. After all, fumbling around with numerous key combinations and trying desperately to remember them all was not my idea of fun. So, from experience I greatly suggest buying a joystick if you want to get serious with flight sims. It's the only way round.

After researching possible options, I settled for the Logitech Extreme 3D Pro (pictured). It was the only one that clearly was Mac compatible (all joysticks are in a sense but on some, not all buttons work. On the Extreme 3D Pro everything was fully functional), and it also looked sturdy compared to some of it's counterparts.

I got it through the Logitech website and it arrived in a nice box with UPS. My first impressions are that it is very good. Flightgear automatically detects what type of joystick it is and gives you the controls but the problem is that they are not valid. I had to figure out myself what controlled what, but it was OK.

I soon got familiar with the controls and even managed to land Concorde (video) which I was proud of (Concorde is a pretty hard plane to fly in Flightgear). You can also check out the vid for gameplay.

I highly recommend Flightgear and the Extreme 3D Pro. You can find both at the links below:

Flightgear-http://www.flightgear.org/

Joystick-http://www.logitech.com/en-us/gaming/joysticks/devices/291

UFC: Better than Boxing?

Boxing nowadays, let's face it, is totally boring. Although I wasn't alive I've seen The Rumble in the Jungle and the classics between Hagler, Hearns, Duran and Leonard. I watched the fight between Haye and Valuev for the WBA heavyweight title: almost no punches were landed, and it was, honestly, extremely boring.

I had never watched UFC a week ago and it was only when I saw an article about James Toney, a former boxer switching over that I decided to check it out. Of course he was a flop, but he remains the only person I have ever heard of in the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Since then I have watched a few fights and found them to be much more entertaining and action packed than today's boxing encounters. I think also deep down the main reason I like it is because it's pretty close to a real life WWE: people actually get hurt, which is why, I think it is growing in popularity.

But again, I do not know much about UFC, as I only just discovered it however I hope it will match my need for the occasional entertaining fight.

First Post!

For the first time ever, I'm doing a blog which is really on everything. I will of course be focusing on my passions (you can find them out on my About Me page), but this is basically a general blog where I will upload various photos, videos and stuff like that. As for how regularly I will update it, I will be posting every day. Probably 1 post a day, but sometimes if I have nothing to say I won't post anything. Sometimes though I might even post more than one thing a day. This blog will really get going from start of September onwards, as I am currently finishing my first book. So that's it! Check in daily for new updates and, if you want to find out more about my interests or anything else you can do so by clicking on the About Me link.