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iRacing World Champion Gets a Shot At the Real Thing
jamie sent in a link to the story of iRacing World Champion Greger Huttu, who caught the attention of the Top Gear guys and got a chance to drive a real Star Mazda racer. iRacing is a realistic driving simulator that recreates the exact physics of race cars and tracks from around the world, and nobody is better than Greger. Top Gear wanted to see how the virtual champion would do with the real thing. Even though he was eventually unable to put up with the physical demands, Greger drove really well.
The exact physics? Unlikely.
From what I hear, these simulations break down as your racecar approaches the speed of light. And they didn't even get the Higgs Field right.
They seriously expected me to click through a 12 page slideshow to read a two page article?
Did some racing at the local level where I live and can attest to the physical demands needed to race well. I had to do a lot of running and weight lifting to build up my endurance and strength to race well. There are time I came off the race track after a 45 minute race so spent that my arms and upper body would have exhaustion tremors, unable to even operate the release to get out of the seat.
WTF wants to WATCH something like this?
It seems this was a stunning success. The guy had never driven a car anything remotely like an actual race car, he had never flown on a plane or even ridden a roller coaster. Yet he was able to hop into a high performance racecar for the very first time, and have lap times within 3 seconds of the best and handle 100 MPH turns within 10% of experienced drivers' speed. Yeah, he was totally physically out of shape for anything remotely like racing, the temp was over 110 F inside the car, and he threw up. But he didn't wreck after 15 laps. So I'd call this a total success, and does prove, at least to some extent, that experience gained playing games can directly translate to real-world performance, assuming the game simulation is realistic enough.
Better known as 318230.
Yeah, but he's Finnish. That means he was taught to drive properly in real life, even if he never went racing.
Knowing how to properly control a car plus knowing the track inside out means he had a pretty good start point, as proven by the actuality.
> I threw up after looking at that nerd. He has the whitest skin I've ever seen
Racist.
He definitely wasn't just given a car and told "have at it". If you RTFA, you'd see that he was put through a slower initial lap to ensure the car (and i presume he) was okay, and that he worked up to 100mph turns over the 15 laps. He was at a place that does 3-day courses in how to drive race cars, so he had professionals there to make sure everything was okay.
Now, I want to see what happens when a flight sim buff gets in the cockpit of a real fighter jet.
Will they take off and do acrobatics easily?
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Is it just me, or does this dude resemble Emperor Palpatine in glasses?
Now, I want to see what happens when a flight sim buff gets in the cockpit of a real fighter jet.
Will they take off and do acrobatics easily?
I'm a licensed pilot and a flight sim buff. Some time ago, I had a chance to fly a T-34 Mentor (military trainer, that prior to an AD was legal for aerobatics). I flew the heck out of one in the sim, and then tried it in the real plane to test exactly this theory and to hopefully be more comfortable in some of the really unusual attitudes that aerobatic flying can produce.
Granted, a T-34 isn't a fighter jet, but it's as close as anybody with a realistic budget can get.
I was able to perform nearly all of the maneuvers that I'd practiced in the sim and other then a headache afterwords was also quite pleased with the outcome. Pleased enough that I flew it subsequently.
To answer your question directly, I wouldn't suggest someone with only sim experience trying to fly without proper training. I also wouldn't advocate trying aerobatics without a proper aircraft, some solid previous real world training in recoveries and a parachute. All of that being said, YES, sim experience definitely translates to the real world up to the point that you have the balls to test it.
You don't have to tell me! Because of GTA I can kill hookers almost like a professional!
But where's the money? I've tried it a few times, but there's never any money on the ground afterwards. I mean what's the point.
You're thinking small. Why miniaturize the laser, when we could instead enlarge the sharks? -John Searle
Well to start with the physics of racing are a bit simply because they involve large objects with relatively predictable parameters, in addition, most gaming "physics" is designed to be impressive. People like seeing heads explode and bodies fly 20 feet backward, reality would seem boring.
A: He trained in a simulator more extensively than probably anyone else around, so he has the theory.
B: He drives a normal car, so he has the physical side of things.
C: He did these 15 laps at a training facility, with training, under professional supervision anyway. They thought he was good to go. They're not going to risk a million-dollar vehicle on a lark.
A potato cannon isn't going to maim anyone other than the operator, unless you point the damned thing at someone. Then it is basically a thrown rock. An electric vehicle doesn't need to be 1 tonne. The electric vehicle I built weighs about 50 pounds, has an 8 mile range, and isn't any more dangerous on a road than a cyclist.
And EVERYONE should understand mains electricity. The worst you're likely to do is short out your own building, as those things are pretty well insulated from eachother. You could also set fire to something, but you're standing right there, hopefully with an extinguisher handy. Also, you could theoretically bridge across your heart, though with 110 in the US that's not all that common, or you could leave underprotected wiring and rot out your wall plates. But electrical rot generally comes from not knowing about your electrical system, rather than doing your own work. And ignorance of electricity is going to cause you far more problems down the road. A relative refuses to allow me to fix one of her lamps, as she's afraid that the electricity mains boogyman is going to eat me. Yet she has put off getting a professional electrician in for so long that the roof support beam it is built into is basically hollow.
I was a bit shocked the first time I realized that the local archery club allowed anyone to come in off the street and just fire bows at a wall without professional training. But what are you going to do, backfire? The same thing is true of the local gun range. They have rules around safe handling that anyone can understand, but you don't need to be certified to just go in and try things out.
Do you *need* safety training to use, say, a light electric RC plane? No, though you'll probably accidentally destroy 1/2 dozen of the things while learning. And you'll be responsible for anything destroyed in the process.
It just seems like there is a pervasive professionalization of private life these days. "Don't do X! Let a professional handle it!" There are some areas where this is valuable advice. But not all, and probably not most. If you're going to be a full, rounded human being, you've got to be one of the people who leads in the creation of new things. That means understanding how things work, and that means not allowing irrational fears to overtake learning.
The ______ Agenda
A large part of military training is teaching people to overcome their natural revulsion towards causing another person harm. It's hard- studies showed that the majority of soldiers in WW2 never fired their weapons at the enemy. The percentage has gone up since then, but whether that's due to better training methods, volunteer troops or different sorts of battles is (to my knowledge) unknown.
You see the same thing with drive-by gang shootings- you get these incidents where 30-40 rounds are fired and only a couple of them hit- they're just randomly spraying the area rather than actually looking down the sights directly at their target.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"