04
May
May
04
May
May
Pilot’s Crib Sheet
Every takeoff is optional. Every landing is
mandatory.
If you push the stick forward, the houses get
bigger. If you pull the stick back, they get smaller. That is, unless you keep
pulling the stick back – then they get bigger again.
Flying isn’t dangerous. Crashing is what’s
dangerous.
It’s always better to be down here wishing you
were up there, than up there wishing you were down here.
The only time you have too much fuel is when
you’re on fire.
The propeller is just a big fan in front of the
plane used to keep the pilot cool. When it stops, you can actually watch the pilot
start sweating.
When in doubt, hold on to your altitude. No
one has ever collided with the sky.
A “good” landing is one from which you
can walk away. A “great” landing is one after which they can use the plane
again.
Learn from the mistakes of others. You won’t
live long enough to make all of them yourself.
You know you’ve landed with the wheels up if it
takes full power to taxi to the ramp.
The probability of survival is inversely
proportional to the angle of arrival. Large angle of arrival, small probability of
survival – and vice versa.
Never let an airplane take you somewhere your
brain didn’t get to five minutes earlier.
Stay out of clouds. The silver lining
everyone keeps talking about might be another airplane going in the opposite direction.
Reliable sources also report that mountains have
been known to hide out in clouds.
Always try to keep the number of landings you make
equal to the number of takeoffs you’ve made.
There are three simple rules for making a smooth
landing. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
You start with a bag full of luck and an empty bag
of experience. The trick is to fill the bag of experience before you empty the bag
of luck.
Helicopters can’t fly; they’re just so ugly the
earth repels them.
If all you can see out of the windscreen is ground
that’s going round and round and all you can hear is commotion coming from the passenger
compartment, things are not at all as they should be.
In the ongoing battle between objects made of
aluminum going hundreds of miles per hour and the ground going zero miles per hour, the
ground has yet to lose.
Good judgment comes from experience.
Unfortunately, experience usually come from bad judgment.
It’s always a good idea to keep the pointy end
going forward as much as possible.
Keep looking around. There’s always
something you’ve missed.
Remember, gravity is not just a good idea.
It’s the law. And it’s not subject to repeal.
The three most useless things to a pilot are
altitude above you, runway behind you, and a tenth of a second ago
There are old pilots and there are bold pilots.
There are, however, no old, bold pilots.
04
May
May
Vista’s 11 Pillars of Failure
From poor marketing to missing components, here are my reasons why Vista will forever fail.
While the public’s attention seems to be swinging toward Windows 7 (the next iteration of the OS)—a topic I’ll address in the weeks ahead—the fact of the matter is that Vista remains. And it seems that the OS now has two distinct groups of users. One group happily uses Vista, with few concerns or complaints. In fact, many of them are baffled by all the grumbling. The other group is the fist-shaking Vista bashers who condemn each and every flaw the OS exhibits.
The latter group is by far the most vocal and easily drowns out the former group. Its complaints stem from the anti-Microsoft backlash, which reflects dissatisfaction with the company’s history, business practices, tactics, and bogus announcements. Much of the disgruntlement, however, can be attributed Vista itself—and the poor marketing job done by Microsoft.
I mention the bogus announcements above because, at some point, you do get a little tired of Microsoft making exaggerated promises and then never coming close to delivering the goods. In the case of Vista, it has to do with the three “pillars” that were announced early on. The OS really delivered on only one of the pillars, and that pillar was nothing but Windows dressing: Aero, the resource hog and performance sapper.
With the “pillars” in mind, I decided to take a look at the 11 reasons why Vista remains on shaky ground:
1) Market confusion. From the beginning, everyone moaned about the fact that there were simply too many versions of the OS for sale. Who needs all the variations? It’s stupid—plain and simple. What you want is the one best version, not a slew of namby-pamby ones. This happened because the folks at Microsoft know only how to merchandise and, seemingly, not how to market.
2) Code size. I’ve got two words for you: TOO BIG. Enough said.
3) Missing components. Yes, WinFS, the promised file system and a core pillar of Vista, isn’t there. The promises regarding the development of this file system go back to 1991. And Microsoft cannot make it a reality? Why?
4) Laptop battery-life drain. This was supposed to be fixed with special code and hybrid hard disks (HHD). Still, users have to resort to expensive silicon drives.
5) HHD fiasco. I’m still irked about being told by the HD industry that the benefits of the new generation of hard drives will “make people flock to Vista.” That was over two years ago, and suddenly there’s silence about the whole thing. One of these days, someone will tell me what really happened. My guess: It never worked correctly, and no one could make it work.
04
May
May
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