Tom Allensworth

 

FYI - I was trying to download from the library today with no success after several attempts.  Could this be related in some way?

No, totally different servers. What was the response from the system?

Just don't give the Apache and Linux gurus the root password! 

That ain't going to happen. Been there, done that. Remember?

Thanks everyone. Next blog post is going to be a bit less controversial. It'll be a freeware roundup. Basically stuff I've found this month to play with.

If I may be so bold as to suggest that you also put a plug in for uploading freeware to the AVSIM X-Plane library too... LOL.

Wow! Heck of a first post Jess! Congratulations and welcome to the world of blogging. I am sure there are going to be many readers who benefit from your Xplane insight. Thanks for the great post.

Tom congratulations on retiring from Northrop Grumman! (Is that true?)

That's true (that I did both retire and that I retired from NG...)

I retired for medical reasons 10 years ago and spend 12+ hours a day on the computer. The secret to staying healthy is to avoid stress and don't put a mini-fridge in your computer room.

Minifridge is definitely out, but like you, I suspect I am going to be spending a lot of time behind the computer (and that has held true for the last three weeks or so of retirement). I feel I have to get disciplined about getting up and doing something physical... minifridge or otherwise.

ps I retired at 71, now 73, not 100% fit, but still take my boat out - and ration my time at the computer much as my sim-addiction will let me.

Ian, thank you for your thoughts. I am not in tip top health - you know, rode hard and put away wet, as they say.

You and I share the same thought at least in regard to "bush lawyers". We'll see how that turns out...

Excuse me, Tom, for contradicting you and please don't hold it against me, for I feel great friendship towards you. The entire ACES team has not been disbanded, and many, many of the same people who worked on FS X are developing Flight.The designers are the same, the visual modellers, the flight model devs, the terrain guys, they are all the same people and have not gone anywhere. And, even if there are many new people on the Flight team, this was always true of ACES as well.Mike (tdragger) who was lead project manager for FSX, left before the team was fired, so did Jason Waskey, the lead artist, and even Steve Lacey (RIP) long before the demise of ACES. And who can forget Niniane Wang going to Google from ACES (I can just imagine Eric Schmidt chortling from glee every time a Microsoft developer jumps ship and goes to Google!)So, the fact that there have been changes in the team is not particularly important. And it is wise to consider that companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Google only hire the very best - they have to be brilliant just to be able to drop their resumés through the mail slot, much less get hired. All those working there on Flight are the very best in the industry, it is not correct to think otherwise.Best regards.Lus

Luis, thank you for that. When we were at Redmond in December, I remember distinctly being told that the size of the team is around 40 folk and that only one carried over from the ACES team. I will take your word for it. But that certainly puts a lot of confusion into this.

There seems to be a lot of speculation, about what Microsoft may or may not do, and why they may be doing certain things. It's all very well to want the revenue stream that it is assumed that addon developers have enjoyed, but the real question is, will Microsoft be able to afford the Man hours, at Microsoft's Engineering overheads, to develop anything close to what so many addon developers have produced, many times, while getting a ROI that is below minimum wage.

What makes you assume that add-on's are going to be produced in the states and at the MS campus at U.S. labor rates?