Shaka

I suspect that it was so they could retain some control over 3rd party development. If you created an add-on that MS disapproved of (for whatever reason), then they would probably be able to get your add-on removed based on the EULA. Just because they wrote it into an EULA doesn't mean they have to exercise their rights under the agreement. Something like that anyway. Also, EULAs often have a caveat attached to them that states something like "parts of this EULA may not be valid in your jurisdiction if they violate the laws of your state" (I'm paraphrasing). This is a reminder that no matter what the EULA says, if part of it violates the law, then that part isn't enforceable anyway. Since there are many countries with many laws (always changing), I wonder if MS has a standard EULA that it distributes with all it's software.

Ethically, yes, they must be told. But when we think about this question, what we are thinking is "Would I want to be told?", and that answer might be no. Maybe they would like a few minutes to reflect on their lives? Perhaps compose a message to pass on to a loved one? I can't think of a good reason to hold back this information and not allow these people to accept their fate with dignity. And what about the families? Do they get to know that their loved ones will be dying tomorrow? If they do know, I suppose you won't let them speak one last time, lest they let the secret out. I imagine that if this had actually happened this way, and that word leaked out (it always does), then there might be hell to pay later. In the first part of the article you linked, it describes a lesson NASA learned from that tragedy - "Never give up. No matter how hopeless.". The main point of the article seems to follow that mantra. Some people don't want to just give up, and will always persevere no matter how hopeless the situation.

I travel a lot. One of the most common annoyances is that people try to take my seat. For personal reasons, I prefer the window seat. It's not the end of the world if I don't get it, but it is where I want to sit. That's why I choose this seat when I reserve my flight. If someone asks politely to switch for some reason, I'll certainly consider it. I've had people claim my seat because they were there "first". I've had people claim my seat by writing my seat number on their boarding pass. I've had people claim my seat by pretending not to understand the diagram above the seat explaining that seat "A" is next to the window. I've had people claim my seat when I've gotten up to use the washroom. I've never let this devolve into a shouting match or anything, but in most cases, I've had to get the FA to intervene. I would say it is fairly rare, but it happens about once every ten flights or so. One of the strangest things that I saw was a man who was adamant that the people on the left side of the plane could not put their stuff in the overhead bins on the right side of the plane. He didn't offer a reason other than he "disagreed with it. This turned into a physical dispute between him and a couple other passengers (mostly just pushing, grabbing an arm, etc.) which the FA had to interrupt. The passenger was warned in very specific terms what would happen if he continued (kicked off plane, arrested, etc.) and he stopped.

And this is what some people in here don't seem to understand - you don't go from zero to CVN overnight - just like you said. The same thing goes for submarines, or probably any military technology. The Chinese are actually somewhat transparent in this matter - they have openly said they are looking for a carrier design to build, and this is a stepping stone to that eventual goal. This might not happen for 20 years. In the meantime, they are going to build up a cadre of trained personnel with which to gain experience and further training. Much of this was spelled out in the original article.

Wired has a brief article with video. The aircraft is unpainted but with some telemetry aiding symbols painted on the surfaces. Interesting to note that it doesn't use catapult - relies on afterburner and the ski jump. There is a wheel-arresting tab that pops up from the deck to hold the aircraft in place while power is applied. I didn't think it would be able to get enough speed, but apparently it works fine. I wonder how much headwind is required at full combat load. http://www.wired.com...rier-first-jet/ I'm sure there are more videos/pictures out there. Edit: bad spelling in the title, I know. I have fat fingers, you see...

At my work, we have an operations room set up as a trainer for the Navy. We use touch screens to simulate the various boxes, switches and controls that the users will encounter. People who have spent time on ships will tend to use the touch screens as intended. Newer people who are undergoing initial training tend to prefer using the mouse which is still attached to the workstations. I'm not sure if it is because they are more familiar with the concept of using a mouse, or what, but it is difficult to retrain them to simply touch the screen with their hands. I offer this purely as an anecdote. I find the resolution of the touchscreens to be lacking. I'm not sure at this moment of the model of monitor we use, but I would say that is my only complaint. We are running the system off of Unix boxes, so it may be the OS which is a factor but it could also be my fat fingers. I've seen people get frustrated with using their fingers on the screen and trying to turn a dial, for example. Because of this, I would be very careful when selecting a monitor based purely on other peoples experiences. Before I bought a touchscreen for use with FS, I would definitely want to try it out in the shop with my own fat fingers to make sure it met my expectations. - Martin

Really? Is it worse than USS Utah's? How about "BB-37"? How about any other ship that was sunk, from any country? I was only speaking on behalf of myself as to where I'd like my ship to be parked, as a matter of convenience for myself. I was not speaking to the final disposition of those permanently entombed within Pearl Harbor, in case it wasn't clear. Also, it is "berthed". I crack myself up...

Having been in the Navy for "awhile", I have a couple thoughts: 1. Whenever my ship goes anywhere, I always pray we don't stay at the local naval base - whatever country we're in. The base is usually in a nowhere location, a good distance from where you want to spend your off time. Whenever we went to San Diego, for example, we always wanted to park on Broadway Pier, since it was just a few blocks from the gaslight district. 2. Pearl Harbor during RIMPAC can be a busy place. There are good places for your ship to park, and there are bad ones. Last time I was there (2008), we had an awesome spot - just across the road from Club Pearl. The time before, we got parked at the "Jetty of Shame". Despite the name, there are even worse places within Pearl Harbor that the Navy can assign you for berthing. Another time we went to Hawaii for an exercise, and skipped Oahu altogether by going to Maui. 3. For those reasons, I suspect that this may be less "snubbing", and more likely "RNZN making a better choice". I feel this despite the sensational news articles that came out over the last few days. I wonder if the Navy gave the RNZN a choice in the matter, and perhaps the nuclear-free aspect played into it, but I believe the decision was as much New Zealand's decision. They knew the berthing arrangements beforehand, and they could have chosen not to come if they felt snubbed. Having said all that, RIMPAC often involves a mini sports tournament that the Kiwis might be missing out on, not to mention the awesome fireworks display the Yanks put on for 4th July (I'm sure they had fireworks downtown too).

You know, we might be getting ahead of ourselves here. As far as I can tell, this would only apply to EU customers, and how that would affect an American company doing business online with that EU customer is unclear to me. Mathijs at Aerosoft already had a post up about second-hand sales that he recently updated: http://forum.aerosof...ar-booth-sales/ I'm not sure if this is completely in keeping with the spirit of the ruling, but I'll leave that for him to figure out. He's basically saying that allowing you to re-sell the software doesn't mean you are entitled to unlimited support, and that you should not expect it. Nothing I've read online about the ruling disagrees with this. The only specific information about support was that the supplier had to permit the 2nd purchaser to download the software. It didn't say anything about unlimited customer support calls, or whatever. It doesn't seem very specific, which is why I wouldn't get too upset over it right now, and adopt a "wait and see" attitude. Some of the commercial vendors here have raised legitimate concerns. All I can tell them is that technology is constantly changing, and sometimes they have to adapt to comply with new laws. The ones that can't adapt, are likely to be out of business.

"Support" can mean many different things to different businesses. From what I was reading, this could be as little as offering a new download when I buy a new computer, or offering one-on-one problem solving telephone support. I don't think the ruling was saying that you had to offer unlimited support, but perhaps some level of "basic" support. But let's say you did offer the same level of support to the second customer as the original customer. How would this be more expensive? Is the second customer costing extra money? Or is he simply using the same level of services that you are no longer providing to the original customer? It seems to me that you will only be offering support to one customer at a time, and therefore not exceeding the expense of the original customer. Or are you referring to something more specific here? Beyond occasionally re-downloading products, and using website forums (which are usually open to everyone anyways), I personally don't have high expectations of "support". Maybe you are talking about the "bigger picture" of software sales, and not the limited scope of FS add-ons? Ahhh.... you beat me to it.

I realize that as Flight Simulation website, most of the logic in this forum is being applied to how this might affect FS add-ons. But try thinking of it in the broader Steam/Valve/etc. environment. One of the stipulations is that if I resell my game I have to remove it from my computer, and this would be hard to enforce. But would it? Already, there are many games which require that I log in and authenticate myself to the internet in some manner. It would be quite easy to verify my license at that time. When the person I sold my game to registers it, it wouldn't run on my computer. Diablo 3 works this way. Say, doesn't Flight require me to log in? How about that... So, maybe that is a possibility for add-on designers - require an internet connection at all times while flying. Always on connections are more common nowadays, unless you use dial up. I could be wrong, but I suspect these users are in the minority, so maybe it won't hurt your business to lose a few of them. Or maybe you could keep the status quo and require me to authenticate my license when I upgrade your software. Several companies already do this. That way, if I sold my copy to someone who registered it, I would be "caught" if I tried to reinstall, and would be forced to buy a new copy if I really wanted it. I just don't think this is as bad for software companies as you may think, especially if you believe the claims of how widespread software piracy is (i.e., organized piracy is the much bigger problem for them, I think). In any case, this seems to affect the EU for now, and I assume that some Euro-person will tell us if this affects an American company who wishes to conduct business online with a citizen of the EU located in Europe. I imagine it might, but I'm not the expert there.

To be clear, my link isn't broken. I was merely reporting the results from Google, since it wasn't clear if the original poster had done so. However, just a few more clicks could have led him to this: http://aussiex.org/forum/index.php?/topic/12151-is-this-plane-still-available/ I'm not sure if this is official or not.

A Google search for "Iris F-16D" gave me the result: http://www.irissimulations.com/product-pro-f16d.php Trust Google!

It's such a personal decision - you want the perfect case... for you. This might not be the same case that's perfect for me. I never did find a case I liked, so I never bothered getting one. Maybe I'm just picky. While I was still looking for one, I would simply ask people I knew if I could handle their phone with the case for a minute to decide whether I liked it or not. I would open and close it, put it to my ear, etc. I would do the same thing in stores - if I saw one I liked, I would ask the staff if they had one already open I could try out. People get this, and will understand what you are doing. Finding a case for my iPad was surprisingly easy, maybe because I don't need to hold it to my face.

Actually, it's "kickstarter". "kickstarted" takes us to a placeholder website. Just saying. I like kickstarter. there's some interesting ideas up there for sure. The format isn't as well suited for software projects, because the idea of funding most projects is to pay for manufacturing and startup costs (I'm not saying this is the only way, though). In the case of software, these may not be as significant, so it can be harder to convince people they need to cough up money to finance development. This isn't to say it won't work - I'm just saying it's harder to get backers if you don't have a working prototype. A key element to successful projects is the creator's ability to convince backers that he actually has the capability to make the thing work. That is why many of the projects have a working example. This also results in backers getting their rewards within a short period of time. These could all be reasons why your project hasn't got any backers yet. But this isn't the case with a software project where all you really have is an idea with little in the way of progress. I'm not sure when you started the project, but I'm assuming it was at least a week ago. In that case, there doesn't seem to be a lot of progress. This does not inspire confidence. I would recommend that you wait until the project is much further along - maybe 50%. You could have the model almost completed, numerous example of liveries, and could be working on finishing the programming, which I assume would require the most technical expertise. This would help convince backers that you actually have the ability to finish the project. It would help to explain at that time what specific costs were involved and where the money would go (need $500 to hire an artist, need $1500 for a programmer, whatever). Also, if you have created FS add-ons in the past, providing examples of those would go a long way. Otherwise, this is quite a leap of faith that you are asking people to take. You have set an ambitious goal for yourself. This is the sort of addon that would appeal to me personally. I wish you luck with your project.

Except he never said what you just quoted. You are merely paraphrasing to make your own point.

He explained himself quite well, actually.

Always post it at Avsim. This is the main FS website. I'm not sure if flightsim.com gets more visitors or not, but my scenery gets 3 times as many downloads at Avsim than it does at the other site. So, this is the place to upload it, for sure.

His "condensed elevator speech" is anything but.

So, the alarm clock (your iPhone) has to be on for the alarm to ring? Isn't this normally the way all alarm clocks work? I mean, if I unplug my regular alarm clock (in my bedroom) from the wall, I wouldn't expect it to ring either.I never turn my iPhone off, since it is also my only phone (goodbye, landline), so I guess that's why this is never an issue for me.

Jason, also feel free to ask questions here in the forum, since that's what they are here for. :Monkey:

Are you aware that most of it was free? I'd like to think that the freeware community helped raise the standard of what the payware community had to offer. Either way, freeware and payware would both compete with Microsoft, and I don't think that's in thier plans at this time.

Are you saying that you think that's a real person?

This is bang on. I originally hoped for something like this, and I admit that the lack of user-created content is my main source of dissatisfaction with Flight.I understand that Microsoft doesn't want an app store filled with "fart apps", or other low quality apps. I think they could get out of the content creation business though, and simply accept a commision on anything they sell through their store. Apple does sell it's own software on the app store, but obviously they can make a lot of money on other people's content too. This will take time though, and Flight needs to mature a bit before I would expect to see an SDK.

I keep seeing comments like this. I don't agree that it is a valid comparison.Yes, some people do pay $30 for a highly detailed airport. But this is an option. In FSX, if I want to fly to New York, I can. If I want to buy (or download from Avsim) optional scenery to add more detail, I can. Flight doesn't give us that choice. I'm not saying that the DLC isn't worth the money, just that the OP had a valid point. Now, I'm sure Microsoft has carefully examined thier business model and determined that DLC is the way to go. I'm not looking at it from thier point of view, I'm looking at it from the consumer. I'm not convinced that multiple DLC packages are good for the consumer. I have to wonder, when Flight gets to the stage where they will offer most of the planet through DLC, what will the entire package cost? I'm sure those add-ons will be awesome, but some people would prefer more variety at a lower cost than a few amazing scenery packages. They might be willing to accept a lower quality scenery package in order to have a larger scenery package. I think that for these people, sticking with FSX might be the solution.