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veryhrm
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CA
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Disposable Electronics?
from veryhrm
wrote 2 years 4 weeks ago
The best solution to Apple's tendency to focus on making thing "shiny" and hipster friendly is to "just say no" to the hype and not buy Apple products. Instead of an iPhone, buy yourself any of the nice HTC produced Android phones on the market that have replaceable batteries. and cost less. and work as well or better. on whatever carrier you want.
Instead of an iPad... well Android tablets are just finally out in the past month or two from pretty much every manufacturer out there. Want something smaller ? Get a B&N Nook color for $250.
Paradoxically though... it's actually easier to have Apple products repaired compared to other brands because of their standardization. i.e. there have been only something like 4 different iPhone models ever and each was built in HUGE numbers so there are enough of them to support a repair community. With say... HTC phones.. there are 3 or 4 similar, but different models on the market at the same time and 6 months later 3 of the 4 have been replaced w/ new models. The turnover is so fast that people barely can keep track of these things let alone go through the trouble of repairing them. So actually... except for the battery, the non-Apple actually end up being the more disposable ones.
Goodbye Flight Simulator, Hello Microsoft Flight
from veryhrm
wrote 2 years 4 weeks ago
With all respect, where the heck did this article come from ?!
Microsoft Killed FS over two years ago! The news broke in January 2009, to be precise. Just do a google search for "Flight Simulator cancelled" if you think i'm off.
And in fact Microsoft DID abandon the "lucrative" simulator market ... because um... it wasn't lucrative. Also what's the source that it has "its best minds" working on this ? From what i can find on the web about MS Flight is that it's going to be a casual gaming thing with broad appeal, not an actual sim.
Also, to those who are worried about computer horsepower... it should be noted that buying a new desktop right now is just ridiculously cheap (compared to anything having to do with GA... which is most decidedly not cheap). You can get a 4 core i7 sandy bridge with 16gb of ram for $700 and it'll be about 4 times faster than anything you might have bought even 2 years ago.
While you're at it... skip windows and run linux and skip MS Flight and run Xplane and you can use your old computer to run the weather subsystems or additional control panels or traffic or anything else.
Bug the Wind
from veryhrm
wrote 1 year 40 weeks ago
@wapilot You're right in the details, but there's no need to be a jerk about it. Everyone, oh sorry almost everyone, who is a pilot or has received pilot training or has read a POH knows that slope, surface, surrounding terrain and density altitude should be taken into account to determine what direction to take off in. sheesh.
I like this tip for using the heading bug. Hadn't heard it before (in my whopping 20 hours in an airplane over 10 years :-) )
Going Direct: “Cheating” on the Writtens
from veryhrm
wrote 1 year 49 weeks ago
Grumpy late night comment:
While i didn't take the "new" tests everything i've read about them and all my experience w/ test prep books, DVD and software suggest that the FAA's interpretation is right on.
Yes, some of the questions are dumb memorization but if the test doesn't test the right stuff the answer is to change what you test not this current sham where the only way people pass is if all the questions are known beforehand.
On an unrelated note it is highly questionable that "it’s in our best interest to promote aviation in every way possible". There are already so many pilots around that for all but a small minority it's only ever going to be a very expensive hobby or a low wage job.
FAA Knowledge Test Failures Skyrocket
from veryhrm
wrote 2 years 14 weeks ago
(Note: i'm only a stalled student and the FAA has NOT yet messed w/ me and/or ruined my life so i haven't yet internalized the negative feelings industry people generally seem to have about dealings with the FAA. (though just from reading over the years it certainly seems they need to be feared) )
That said, i'll comment anyway... because this is the web.
a) I generally second Arsenio's comments. Some of the FAR and or definition of terms questions are hard/annoying, but the ones about reading a chart or calculating fuel etc ? Come on... a pilot had BETTER be able to do those... and you only need a 70% to pass anyway!
b) That "failure rates have quadrupled" line w/o the context of what the values are made me curious. if it went from 20% failure to 80% failure that's something... if it's from 1% to 4%... less interesting.
But check it out, the FAA actually publishes some statistics: http://www.faa.gov/data_research/aviation_data_statistics/test_statistics/media/2009/annual/2009_Airmen%20Knowledge%20Tests.pdf (2009 seems to be the latest available on the site)
in 2009 ... for FE of all kinds... the pass rate was 100.00% so a failure rate as a multiple there is mathematically undefined. and only about 70 people even took these tests.
For FOI (fundementals of instruction) 5000 people took it w/ a pass rate of 98.49%... 4x increase there would mean a pass rate of 94%... not GREAT, but doesn't seem like something to write home about.
ATP had a pass rate of 92% for 4000 people. 4x failure rate there would take it down to 68%... that would be pretty bad.
Overall that gives a pre-change failure rate of 400 out of 9000 people or 4.4% and a new failure rate of 17.7% if it's 4x . Clearly though given the very different failure rates of the different groups mentioned, further breakdown should have been provided in the report (and the letter).
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