Tongass Fjords for FSX released

Bill Womack nicely summarizes the new Tongass release on his blog.  Drop by and take a look.  It’s spectactular!

Soundings guest appearance with Nomad

Soundings will appear at a concert by Nomad, the world music duo with guitarist Michael Waters (from Victoria, BC) and Kinobe (from Uganda) who is a wizard on many African instruments including kora, adungu, and kalimba.

Soundings will be singing with Nomad on four pieces, including the well-known song “Kothbiro”, composed by Kenyan singer Ayub Ogada. Also we will be performing a new setting of  “God Bless the Rain” by Soundings director Denis Donnelly, a unique rendering of a Rumi-like mystical poem by poet Gregory Orr, and a brand new version of the popular past Soundings number “Jabula Jesu”.  In all these we will be collaborating with Nomad, who will be backing us up and alternating leads with us.  It’ll be fun!

Samples of Nomad’s music can be found here.

Saturday, June 27, 8:00 pm at Gordon Head United Church, 4201 Tyndall. Tickets $15 at Lyle’s Place in Victoria, BC, and at the door (if not sold out).

New speakers

As I note in my audio/video system update I’ve been using the landlady’s speakers for some time.  Once I knew what my new condo would be like (small), I was ready to buy speakers.  I decided on an oddball stereo pair, not very common, but they sounded the best of everything I listened to under $2,000, except for the very low end, which is missing (Response: 55Hz – 50kHz).  I bought a pair of JVC SX-WD5’s.  The clarity is stunning, and using the old Technic’s as rears works fine.  When I move, I’ll look for some inexpensive rears.

I don’t plan on getting a centre speaker or subwoofer or “presence” speakers.  So my 7.1 receiver will be driving 4.0.  Even for surround sound movies, it sounds great.  I’m just missing that deep rumble that probably wouldn’t go down well in a condo …

Upcoming Soundings concerts

The theme for the Soundings concerts this season is “Songs of Earth and Spirit”.  F rom the website, “Beginning with music from Renaissance Europe, we move through songs from Austrailia, the Appalachians, Cuba, and Ireland, and on into contemporary songs, includings works by Soundings members Brian Grady and John Hilditch.” 

In other words the usual eclectic mish-mash.  If you’re in Victoria, BC, we’re singing May 29th and 30th.  We’re also dropping in on Nomad to sing a few later in June.  Details at www.soundingsmusic.com.

A new home

So after my adventure looking for a condo, I finally bought one.  It was a tale straight out of one of those TV reality shows, with multiple bids at the last minute, calls back and forth, changing documents, scanning and emailing.

This week was full of the dance of paperwork: inspection, appraisal, financing.  Even though my financing was pre-approved there was still a shenanigan as the lender wanted a lot of documentation. 

And oddly enough I paid almost to the dollar what the assessment came in at.  This after paying $21k over list, and having to pay my realtor a few as the seller was using a low-cost realtor and I had to pay the difference.  The selling realtor was quite clever: listing below market value to attract multiple bids.  In fact my bid was accepted just 53 hours after the property came on the market.

So I’m looking forward to moving in at the end of June.

FTX and Vancouver+ for FSX

Many of you are probably familiar with the brilliant renditions of Australian scenery by ORBX, the FTX series.  With the continued help of Holger Sandmann, they are now working on North America, bit by bit, starting with the Pacific NorthWest.  Entitled FTX NA Blue, here’s the coverage area and some screenshots of Vancouver Island.  Note all of Vancouver Island will be covered, but the Northeast corner coveragee of Vancouver+ will not.

I’ll be working with the FTX team and FSAddon to adapt Vancouver+ for FTX so that existing Vancouver+ users can enjoy the new improved landscape FTX will provide, and FTX  NA Blue owners who don’t have Vancouver+ will have the opportunity of having the features of Vancouver+ in an addon product at a reasonable price.

Jonathan’s Progress on CYVR

Jonathan Gabbert’s been making good progress on his CYVR.  See his blog for screenshots.

Hope for a Phoenix

With the ACES team mostly or completely axed in the MS contraction, MS states that the FS product will continue, along with virtually every other product which has experienced losses from their teams.

At this point, like most of the flight simulation community, my thoughts are with the folks who have lost their jobs and their families.  May their transition be quick and rewarding to new, exciting positions.

Meantime, it’ll be interesting to see how the product line will be continued … it’s fanbase is so large I imagine something will resurrect in time, with MS or someone else.

CYVR For FS9 and FSX

Jonathan Gabbert is creating a new freeware CYVR for both FS9 and FSX.  We’ll work with him to ensure compatibility with Vancouver+.  You can follow progress on his blog.  Congrats Jonathan on the great work so far …

Deals on Ron’s birthday

December 23rd, Ron’s offering 50% off on his fight simulation aircraft products.  Details here.

Guessing

 OK, with the latest Victoria real estate report out at the Victoria Real Estate Board, I’ll make some guesses as to what will happen next with home prices here.  And thanks to Tony Joe for a straightforward report this month.  (Note that Tony’s reports aren’t archived, so beyond January 1, 2009, you won’t see November’s report anymore.)

Guess #1 – the very low sales/listings ratio, now at 6% (down from a peaks of 46% in March 2005, and nearly 28% in May 2007), will drop a bit in December due to seasonal lethargy, but will not go much lower, if at all, in the new year.  Here’s how it has behaved over the last couple of years.

Guess #2 – Home prices will continue to fall, but the actual amount won’t be clear.  Although the average sale of single family homes fell by 7% and condos fell 15%, this could be skewed by groups of sales at higher or lower value.  Victoria doesn’t compare the price of equivalent properties month to month.  Witness townhomes, where the average rose 15% from October to November, but apparently that was skewed by 2 high value properties amongst a small number of sales.  Here’s the trend (thousands of dollars) in the six month moving average on condo prices in Victoria.  Without the smoothing, the drop from March to November is close to 22%.  Percentage change is relative to March.

	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov
Average Price	339	328	324	320	306	303	295	293	284
Change in price	0.0%	-3.2%	-4.4%	-5.6%	-9.7%	-10.6%	-13.0%	-13.6%	-16.2%

Guess#3 – the economy itself will take a couple of years to transform, and will not stabilize for that time, although it may appear to for short periods.  When it does stabilize, the “rules” may be different and/or more variable than they we thought they were now.

Update: per the comment below, Roger points out that he posts statistics on his photoshare site.

Plasticity

Norman Doidge in The Brain That Changes Itself has amazing stories of how the brain can adapt to challenges, refuting the “hard-wired” theory of brain functioning and explaining how with dedicated training habitual ways of thinking can be reprogrammed.  Providing scientific justification for the theories of creation through thought and the power of positve thinking, the author cites sources showing how this occurs physiologically.  As an example in one study, one group did body strengthening exercises.  The second group went through visualizations of doing the exercises, without actually moving.  Strength increase with exercise: 30%.  With visualization: 23%.  This theory also encourages caregivers of stroke and other brain damage victims to provide intense rehab, which can result in dramatic recoveries as the brain grows new pathways.  He asserts that the brain challenged at any age will not only remain more alert, it will grow more interconnections.

iTunes update

I’ve posted here, here, here and here about trials with iTunes and Apple.  And I note recently that:

• there are no longer significant delays accessing the iTunes store.
• Apple now provides a help link with every purchase in the confirmation (”Report a Problem”).  I don’t know how useful it is, but it’s got to be a step ahead of the the vacuum that was iTunes support in the past.

Catching up with Audio/Video

In the 1960s I was fascinated with technology, and when colour TV came to Canada (years after the US!), the next big breakthrough was to be high-definiiton TV, and I recall it being discussed in the press.  That may have been the NHK system demo’ed in 1969 described in this article.  But for technical reasons the technology stagnated and did not become widely available until this century.

I also remember listening to my first FM broadcast in the 60’s on a portable radio, and was capitivated by the richness, relative to AM.  And I recall clearly when my brother bought his first cheapo stereo system and we listened to the soundtrack from 2001, A Space Odyssey.  I was amazed at the depth of the sound.

In the 70s I often helped friends purchase high-quality stereo systems, and knew a fair amount about the technology.

Despite this I never purchased a good-quality system for myself.  So recently I decided it was time to investigate audio and video technology and get myself a decent system.  I quickly discovered that audiophile systems were well out of my price range, as was the latest in HDTV.  But with minor compromises, the cost could be brought down dramatically.  So here’s what I purchased:

• Panasonic 42″ 1080p TH42PZ800 plasma HDTV
• Pace TDC-775D PVR (only choice with local cable company)
• Panasonic BD50 BluRay player (now superseded by the BD55)
• Yamaha RXV-1800 receiver (good price as the RXV-1900 is now available)
• Grado SR-2 headphones
• Panasonic DMR-EZ48V DVD recorder (for transcribing old VHS and Hi-8 video tapes)

And here’s my impressions:

• The richness and clarity of the TV are amazing.
• The colour depth of the TV is very poor, looks like 16 bit colour, resulting in very visible banding on graduated colour areas, whether from BD, computer or cable.  I went back to the store and looked at many plasma and LCD TVs, indeed this is a chronic problem with plasma, which I didn’t find noted anywhere in reviews.  How odd.  Of course, the newest, very expensive TVs (like $9k) don’t have this problem.  LCD TVs perform much better than plasma on colour depth.
• The compression needed for cable HDTV results in massive pixellation on movement, it’s tolerable, but I think they (at least the local cable company) has gone overboard on compression.
• Flight Simulator X looks fantastic on a 42″ plasma, and performance is quite good.
• There is no hiss at all from the receiver.  Zero.  Amazing.  Overall the receiver specs are better than the best studio equipment of the 70s.
• The Blu-Ray player takes forever to start up!  But movies look great.
• The headphones are amazing.
• Amazingly, neither of the DVD players can read .jpg images over 1Mb in size, something that aged DVD players can do.  A big hole in Panasonic’s capability.  I have to drive slide shows from the computer.
• I once tested the Shaw digital audio channels because the sounded so crappy, and found they rolled off around 8kHz.  However either my system sucked or they’ve changed the quality, because now they sound great.  Definitely wide-response, although there still is some distortion on very low frequencies at times.  That may be the fault of the audio stream providers, who knows.

Now astute readers will have noted something missing: speakers.  Those I’m going to take my time with and save my nickels, as they are the most critical part of the system.  Meanwhile, the place I’m renting has some old Technics speakers that sound ok: they are missing the low end, but capture the tinkly highs adequately.  And clarity is good.

So I’ve caught up a bit, and am satisfied with what I have.

Homehunting continues

So I’ve been hunting in earnest for about a month, and I’ve looked at perhaps 25 properties.  Mostly condos, but a few townhouses and one duplex.  I found three or four places I really liked, but all had some sort of showstopper.  Prices are dropping slowly on condos over the past 6-8 months, not so slowly on townhouses.  What is changing dramatically is the number of properties sold.  Filtering out the market-speak of the Victoria Real Estate Board and looking at the hard data, the ratio of properties sold to properties listed is falling dramatically: from 27.9% in May 2007, 21.4% in October 2007, 19.9% in April 2008, to 6.8% in October 2007.  So the pressure on sellers must be intense, and I’d expect to see prices start to drop more.  Sales of very expensive properties (over $1m) are even slower, only 7 selling out of 176 on the market in October, or 4%.

It’s a bit tough to judge by the stats month to month, as different types of properties are sold each month (condos for example can vary dramatically in quality and price), so I track a 6-month moving average to give better guidance.  The most expensive 2-bedroom condo now available is asking $1,250,000, while the least expensive is $149,000.  If a few of the 39 condos priced at over $1m sell, the numbers can be quite biased.  With the smoothing of the 6-month average applied, the average condo in the City of Victoria has dropped from $339k in March to $293k in October, a drop of 13.6%.  Prices in other areas of Greater Victoria have behaved differently, but I didn’t track them.

In Vancouver, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver has a much more factual summary without the mushy verbage of the VREB (they say “drop” not “soften”), and they use benchmark properties to measure true price variations.  I can’t find where they provide the excellent detail that Victoria does though. 

Overall I’m eager to get out of my tiny (540 sq ft, 50m2) rental apartment, but I do like the short walk to work and it’s an odd time to invest in real estate.  Predictions vary of course on what will happen in Victoria.  It must be tough on the agents right now though, with reputedly 1,366 of them in the area, there were only 316 sales in October. 

All stats quoted here are publicly avaiable.  As a buyer, my realtor gives me access to more detail on property listings in my scope of interest, and I can see how much people are selling for vs. asking price, and what properties are selling or not.  I can’t comment on those stats.

Back for a visit

…clearly I’ve been busy… not much flightsim stuff of late.  A lot has happened in the past few months: I took a position with the BC Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance as Manager, Emergency Management.  It’s a challenging and fun place to work.  I’ve also moved to the James Bay area of Victoria, and my commute is a walk by CYWH every day.  It’s a temporary rental while I peruse the market for something more permanent.  I like being adjacent to Beacon Hill Park, and the geese use the open area in front of my place for a flyway every morning and night on their way to and from the park.

So as I balance my life I hope to get more time for flightsim stuff, I’m not doing a whole lot now.

Beware the jabberwocky!

Well, at least beware the “Domain Registry of Canada”.  This official sounding name is a “registered business style” of Registration Services Inc.  They send what look like real invoices to domain name holders asking for payment.  If one is careful and reads the text, it becomes clear that they are trying to get you to change your domain host.  But looked at quickly:

• they look like an official invoice
• the name Domain Registry of Canada sounds like a government organization (I showed my adult son who’d never seen one, and he asked, “Why is the government sending you these?)
• they have the domain information on them (which is public) so it looks like they know about your account
• they state a reply-requested date 4 months in advance of renewal.  Most domain hosts give 3 months notice.  This deceives in two ways: implying a reply is urgent, and ensuring this notice is received before legitimate ones

So if you get one, unless you already have registered a domain with them, let your local consumer protection agency know.  If you have registered with them in the past, re-register with another host: you’ll save a bundle, the rates are outrageous!  $40 per year for a single registration!  I phoned Domain Registry of Canada last year and requested they stop sending me these, but they’ve ignored my request, so this time I’ve filed a complaint with the Business Practices and Consumer Protection Authority of British Columbia.  Ah, that feels better!

Update: the Consumer Protection folks said that since the document says, “This is not a bill,” in bold, consumers are not being deceived.  They put the onus back on individuals to take responsibility to read what they get in the mail fully before sending money to anyone.

GPU (video card) considerations

Phil Taylor provides a detailed analysis of GPU specs and implications.

Two years of blogging

I started blogging January 8, 2006.  At that time blogging had been around for years, and I felt quite late on the bandwagon.  WordPress had over 250,000 blogs alone.  I was unclear when I started what I wanted to get out of it, but I enjoy writing and sharing and it seemed a good way to do that.  In time this blog became mostly about Microsoft Flight Simulator development, but other topics sneak in from time to time.

Now WordPress has over 2.1 million blogs, and I range between 10,000-20,000 views a month.  Modest by the standards of the big blogs, but encouraging to think that many of those visitors are finding something useful.

So, if you’re thinking about blogging, any time is a good time to start.  I do recommend against worrying about posting just to keep people reading.  I post when I feel moved to, which may leave gaps at times, but I think that’s harmless.  It should feel like fun, not an obligation.

Virtual cockpit rain fix for FS9 addon aircraft

Backwards compatibility of FS9 addons in FSX has been an issue.  One problem that bugged many was that virtual cockpit windows in some FS9 addon aircraft may become opaque when it rains.  Two solutions are offered:

Solution 1: Microsoft outlines a procedure to utilize FS9 textures in FSX

Solution 2: Flight1 provides a free tool to implement their own replacement textures.