All Posts by Paul

How Mobile Apps have changed the world

Paul

Cell Phone Apps

I remember when we had these bulky cell phones and couldn’t do much with them but make phone calls.   Those were the days, but today we are going to talk about mobile applications and how they helped changed where were and and we are going.   I don’t say that lightly when I say it changed how we get to a place, I literally mean that.   Most people will not stop and ask for directions at a gas station or some dinner when they are traveling in a car to an unknown place or unknown route.  There were times when I felt a little foolish to ask someone for directions to a certain place in town because I didn’t have a map or know the lay out of the town or city that I’m in.   Let’s face it, how many have asked another human being for directions the past 10 years?  I’d wager very few or maybe none.   In the past decade we’ve become dependant on our smart cell phones.  Especially since, we can just say “Hey Google take me to [address]” or ask Siri what’s good  restaurants there  are in the area.   I dare not stop at that because we can do so much with our voice but l won’t talk to much about it.

Android

In the early days when this first 2012 it wasn’t very popular.   I say that because it wasn’t really integrated into the google but it was being used for searches for words and phrases.   You could tap a button and say what you’re looking for.  It slowly got better as it had developers wanting to modify the program to allow it to learn our voice structure.   They even came up with ways to learn our speech patterns and how we say certain words to be able to pick it up and understand what we want.   Let’s face it, 20 years ago when you were watching Deep Space Nine or even Star Trek The Next Generation, and you heard someone say “Computer” on the show.   You really didn’t think they would happen in real life.

Now we never realized, that something from a show becomes reality.   I know several times where asking Google a question got my answers.   I want to share with you some of my favorite questions to ask Google.  You could even lock your cell phone with voice command.

Ok Google!

  • Who’s on first?  What’s on Second?
  • What’s the weather like today?
  • Do I have any important Emails?
  • Do I need an umbrella today?
  • Show me my calendar.
  • Take me to a [Place]
  • Call Someone or say Dial a Number
  • Tell me about Siri
  • Read me a Poem
  • Set Phaser to Kill
  • Sudo make me a sandwich

Productivity

I’d dare say we’re more productive but it has enhanced my life because I can do more and know more stuff at my fingertips just by asking Google or saying what I need to do.    I’ll say that this was something we never really expected several years ago and thus we have went a long way.   I’d like to see what else technology has to offer us in the future.  I’ve always recommend people explore what your smartphone can do now and have fun asking Google or even siri strange questions.  You just might surprised what they say.

How Computers have changed the world

Paul
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020

The History of Flight Simulator

In the early 80’s and 90’s, there was very few people who actually knew this but bases and other places had flight simulators for their pilots to practice.   In the early days we had simulators where you had to schedule to have a chance to work on their pilot skills.   It would be a big bulky room with Hydraulics and even had a preformed landscape that was used.   This wasn’t easy to setup or even to move if you had to.   The building had to have massive room to make the simulator move and feel like you were in the air.  The controls didn’t always worked as they should of and you had to have someone monitoring the simulator outside and hit buttons to make the simulator do things they wanted too.  Pilots only had so much time usually allocated a hour at a time to fly the sim to work on their skills.    It always left the pilot with stress because they would want to do even more than the simulator could do.

The early Simulators:

  • could not fly to far
  • Had massive heat issues.  (The Simulator had to have a cool off period between flights)
  • Be down for days to weeks due to hardware.
  • Need Racks of physical tape backups
  • cost a lot to make and maintain

The Downfall of Simulators

Like most who are reading this, you’re probably asking yourself why would they have those simulator?   In truth, they were required by the FAA and the Military to train new pilots before they could actually fly a real plane or helicopters.   Pilots also were required to fly so many hours in a simulator a week to brush up on their pilot skills, in the early days.   When new models came out, the pilots would come back to the simulator to learn how to fly the new models such as the Boeing 747 aircraft.   Each simulator facility, there was a massive undertaking to update the simulator to the newest model and keep their pilots up to date on the latest techniques to flying.

Fast Forward to today

In today’s era, there are some major upgrades to the simulator.   The building has been reduced to more than half.   The simulator itself can be used longer and acts more like a real boeing 747.   The controls in the simulator work even better because the heating issue was resolved by the way the system has developed.    You really only need a few fast CPU and GPUS, such as a I9-10850k with a Nvidia 2060ti or even better a 2 x 3060ti with SLI.   The Simulator now has few downtimes and less heat and even more realism than the before.   You can feel the aircraft and expect it to do what you want it to do and learn even more about aviation, navigation, and communication in the new simulators.   Pilots can now do simulations at home with very little cost to them compared to what it would of cost in those days.   You can buy a Microsoft Flight Simulator and fly anywhere in the world you want to and keep up your flight skills in 2020.  No more needing to schedule to use that flight simulator when you can do it at home and learn the techniques that are required.

Some Useful Links:

 

 

Some common question about the IATA Travel Pass!

Paul
The Iata Travel Pass

The Travel Pass

We are hearing more and more about IATA Travel pass and airlines adopting it.   I am sure there are so many questions people are asking and or want to ask.  I figured I’d answer the ones that are most common and try to give you some information that I have learned over time about the IATA travel pass.   I am no expert or am I affiliated with IATA in anyway but I am going to share my views and my thoughts on some of the most common questions people seem to have when it comes to the IATA travel pass.

Who’s going to be paying for it?

This seems to be a common question because most people are worried it will cost them to use the app for their flight.  It very well could cost you a little money in the future but for right now, I am sure the aviation industry is flipping the bill to encourage people to travel again and to try to get the public support on this.   So they may not require us to pay anything more than the cost of the ticket.   I seriously doubt it will cost much when it finally gets going around the world.   If by chance airline companies start charging for the use of this.   I can only imagine it being very small amount of money per flight because it will help reduce the load of having to verify peoples papers at the gate.

Who’s eligible for the Travel Pass?

I’m going to take a guess anyone and everyone who is of legal age and or adult.   That doesn’t mean kids won’t be bleto use that because I am sure if you have kids with you and you use the travel pass they will also be on the travel pass also to show to the gate personnel.  The reason I say this is that they want to test it out as broadly as possible so they will not limit who will be able to use this app.   The only condition right now is that you have to be invited into the process but that only means you have to buy a ticket for the flights that they are doing the travel pass on.

How can I know which flights are using the Travel Pass?

For right now, the only way to find out which flights are going to use the travel pass on any given airline is to try to find out through the airlines website and or calling them.   I am sure they will be more than glad to tell you.   I did try to go to a few airline websites that are doing the trials and it can be quite hard to find out which flights are doing the trials of the Travel pass on.  If you really want to know and be on those flights, I suggest calling the airlines that are doing these trials and ask for the flight numbers and booking your flights on those flight numbers.

I am sure even more airlines are going to jump on board in the coming months or weeks and you should see an increase of airline travels for international and even domestic flights.   I am hopeful that most places will open up this summer because they will see the value of this and the economy can begin to heal.

Flying is Safer than most think, an in depth look at flight!

Paul
Boeing 747 - Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020

Aviate, Navigate, and Communicate!

These words you probably never heard before if you were never interested in flying.  These are common to hear in practicing to fly or training to fly.   There are many acronyms you probably never rarely heard about in your lifetime.   Pilots have bunch of acronyms that if you were to listen to while they said it to the ATC(Air Traffic Control), you wouldn’t be able to keep up with it.   Just like Piosee(Problems, informations, Options, Select, Execute, Evaluate).   It can seem daunting if you were needed to figure out what they can say or what they want the pilot to do sometimes.


With the Airbus 330 Transatlantic Flight 236, the problem the pilots didn’t know about was they had a fuel leak.   Having a fuel leak can be hard to evaluate or even execute if there isn’t any major ways of knowing it.   Just like a car, we can have oil or even gas leaks and no one would know about it until someone would be looking for it.   The incident in question has was not even very well known in the early days because flying was almost so brand new that there wasn’t even checklists for some of the things we have checklists for now.   I’ve tried to find the checklists that they might of had in 2001 and I couldn’t find it, especially the Fuel Imbalance Checklist.

I emailed a friend who is an actual pilot and he couldn’t find it either.    So the report from the FAA says that it wasn’t prominent or not located on the FCOM(Flight Crew Operating Manuals).  In which case that was something they changed in the coming years to make it easier to see and remind pilots that it’s not a good idea to hit that switch to balance the plane unless you know there isn’t a fuel leak.

How they handles the Problem and tried to get Information to come up with Options, can be quite different in today’s reality unlike in the early 2000’s because so much has happened from then until now.   We’ve had flights that crashed and even flights that almost didn’t make it.   The Piosee is one of the acronyms that is most used in case of any malfunction or problem in the cockpit.   They have way more reundantacies than they did before even the FBW(Fly By Wire) aircraft have ways to fly the aircraft even when nothing is working.   This is also a good point to make that Peter forgot to mention about the RAT.   Wait they have a RAT on board?  No not an actual RAT but  a RAM Air Turbine which provides barely enough power and hydraulics for a plane to land with no engines or APU’s(Auxiliary Power Supply Unit).

Air travel is a lot safer than it used to be.

Just before I leave you, Let’s talk about flying in today’s society.   I know watching those videos can make people nervous to fly because well let’s face it could happen to you while you are flying.   We’ve seen many times where planes have landed due to emergencies due to bird strikes, to mechanical failures, and even pilot errors.   It’s so important to understand that the FAA requires planes to have  many redundant systems to give the pilot the chance to land the plane as safely as possible.

So the next time you fly, remember you’re in good hands because the pilots love their job and want you to make it to your destination on time and safely.

If you like to try the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 please Visit Amazon for it!

How Advertisers use your information on websites!

Paul

Free Image From PixabayImage By: Gerd Altmann

Advertising

When it comes to advertisements you probably don’t realize just how much data they are getting from you.  It can be as simple as what did you click and who did you go visit online.  We have seen advertisers keep databases of information about what people do and where they go on the web.   They use what we refer to as cookies, and I’m not talking something in a cookie jar but on the web.   They put a little bit of information on your system as you browse the web whether it be which sites you visit to which ads you clicked.   Advertisers are very specific and know what browser you are using to maybe even your age by which websites you are visiting.  Advertisers can even keep track of you by unique identifiers that your web browser broadcasts to sites even when you least expect it.  There isn’t much you can do about it other than preventing these cookies that they use when visiting websites because if you disable them, you probably wouldn’t have good experiences on the websites.   Most websites use cookies to remember who you are for login cookies and if you’d have to login constantly if you disabled cookies all the way.  They make browsing the web just a little better because we skip the repetitive nature of usernames and passwords.

Drive by Clicks

Having said all this about advertising , you’d probably wouldn’t expect them to use that to drive their ads towards a certain group of people.   This is why they collect this data so they can try to know who will want the ads that they are showing.   They don’t want to show ads to people who won’t click their products.  They will gather what they know about you and know which ads you are more likely to click and what ads you will most likely not click for example Facebook.   If we use Facebook as an example they will know way more than you would like them to know about you because they have an intimate relationship with you, after all you have to use their service to talk to friends and family and they know a lot about you from your race, religion, work, school, even marital status.      They can use this to drive traffic your way so they can get even more money from advertisers to show their ads and make money by showing ads in Facebook, you might not realise that.   They call them sponsor ads but they still show them to you in one way or another and thus, you are driving their business even more when you click on one of their ads.

Technology today

We really can’t do much to prevent our privacy from being gathered in today’s technological era due to the fact we use computers at work, school, and even home to buy and sell, or even browse the web.   It’s a real slippery slope when it comes to advertisements and what you would prefer them not to know about you.   We can try to hide our presence on the web but they will always come up with ways to figure out as much information as they to gather that data to be able to show those ads that you will more than likely click on to drive business to websites who want that income.   When it comes to this, we can only see that it is bound to get more invasive because advertisers want you to see their ads because they want to be able to make money off of you and maybe even make you a loyal customer.   We really don’t have any more privacy and their isn’t anything we can do about.