YS FLIGHT SIMULATOR Ver. 20130805 (for Windows, Mac, and Linux)

YS FLIGHT SIMULATOR and Scenery Editor Fall 2014 Test Version

I gave up making official YSFLIGHT 2014 version.  I'll try to go over pre-release test early next year to make it official soon.  By the way, I am reading bug reports.  Thank you very much.  I'll get back to you as soon as I can.  Sorry about the late reply. 

I have flown to Ohio State University airport (KOSU) for shopping for new year's celebration.  Japanese people celebrate first three days of the new year.  My wife and I went to a Japanese grocery called Tensuke market near KOSU for preparation.  This place used to have a used-book store where I could by Japanese books, but they changed it to a gift shop.  Also the price was cheaper before until a competitor went out of business.  Yet it is about twice to three times bigger than the Japanese grocery store in Pittsburgh.  It was so nice to fly above the cloud layer.  Well, I was not supposed to see it this time though.  The weather was way too much lower than forecasted.

You can find more story in here.

I was setting up a file server on the first day of the winter break.  I have been running HP a1410y, a 10-year old very cheap business desktop.  First I bought it with 1GB RAM.  I maxed it to 2GB.  Then supplied external power for cooling fan and replaced the power unit to add more disk drives.  But, finally, its capacitors started bursting.  I tried to replace capacitors, but the solder used for this motherboard didn't melt with my soldering iron.  I took whatever re-usable parts and gave up the surgery.

Rest in peace, my old file server.  You served me and my wife very well.

But, I need a new server for daily back up and storing photos and videos.  I ordered a cheap one from Dell.  I removed the optical drive as soon as it arrived, and added cooling fans.  I think I voided the warranty in an hour or so.  I don't remember disk crash for the past a few years.  I guess added cooling fans definitely are contributing to the long life of my hard drives.  I even cool my portable hard drives with a cooling fan took from a desktop PC that was to be thrown away.  So I did set up the new server, and making a big noise (with added cooling fans) in our dining kitchen.

I was supposed to be playing Dragon Quest 5 for iOS during the winter break.  But, due to some issues, I could not receive Japanese Yen-based iTunes card until January 2nd.  Instead, I finally installed a real-time role-playing game called "Xanadu Next" that I bought several years ago and kept unopened it in my bookshelf.

It was a very nice sequel of a very old role-playing game called Xanadu and Xanadu Scenario 2 developed by Nippon Falcom.  I played both titles over and over again when I was in a junior-high school.  It is such a nice game.  Falcom apparently didn't release it outside Japan.  I think they should do so.  There seems to be an unofficial English patch, but I didn't find any official English version.

As a modern 3D game, the visual effects were impressive.  Burning flames and water splashes drawn by particles.  I want to add something similar in YSFLIGHT, but this additive particle ends up making dense area too bright.  If I want to avoid that, I need to sort particles based on the depth, which substantially limits the particle count.  I want to switch smoke rendering of YSFLIGHT to particles, but due to the concern of the particle-count, I haven't been able to do so.

Also the shadow.  I have learned that there are two techniques for drawing shadows, shadow-mapping method and shadow-volume method.  Both are good for this kind of small-field.  But, none is good for a flight simulator in which you can see miles away.  Even the maximum size texture won't be good enough to cover wide range like 10 or 20 miles.  Also the depth resolution that a typical 3D-drawing hardware is too little.  The latter method, the shadow-volume method, also suffer from lack of depth resolution.  Also the extraction of the shadow-volume is costly, unless all the models are closed manifold.

It took me four days to kill the last enemy.  It was a dramatic, a little bittersweet, ending.  I think the game balance and length were both good.  After the first round, my treasure-box discovery ratio was only 76%.  Now I am searching for the rest.

I wish you a Happy New Year!

Two years has passed since I started riding an exercise bike 1 hour per day.  (Can a 40-year old man reduce 25lb and get six-packs?)

I started riding an exercise bike 1 hour per day December 20, 2012. 

When I started, I weighed 170lb, and my body-fat ratio was 25%.  After two years, I weigh 154lb, and my body-fat ratio came down to 20.5%.  I couldn't reach my goal of 143lb, but I still keep riding.

I was never told by my primary care physician that I am obese or fat at all.  I was a bit heavier than Japanese standard.  Here in the U.S., 170lb for my height was at the dead center of the healthy standard.

I, however, have a good reason to stay healthy.  I plan to fly a Cessna, visiting air shows, win in bowling leagues, write programs for my hobby and my job, and taking pictures of birds until I am 100-years old.  Since I am sitting on my desk almost all day everyday, I need to boost up my exercise outside my office.

(Read more)

Mixing C++11 files and Objective-C files in the same CMake project.

I was able to make CMake build environment for most of my projects (for hobby and real-work).  In doing this, only one problem (so far) that I could not find a direct solution with Google was the way to mix C++ source files that uses C++11 features and Objective-C source files.

Objective-C is an inferior copy of the C language.  It threw away the beauty of simplicity and failed to add object-oriented programming concept.  Due to the fragile language foundation, it required ad-hoc language-specification changes, which made older code unusable at least twice in the language history.  Objective-C is a bad programming language.  It is the best if you don't have to use it.

However, Mac OSX programs unfortunately require Objective-C.  Luckily an independent  function in Objective-C can be called from C program, and vise-versa.  C++ can call such functions by using extern "C".  Therefore, you can write a practically functional program by minimizing Objective-C part, and let C++ do the job.

(Solution is in here)

Circle tangential line, A* path finder, and AVL tree

It is Thanksgiving break!  My teaching duty for this semester is almost over.  All I have to do is grading final presentations and last exam.  I am able to relax and work on my hobby projects including YSFLIGHT, Scenery Editor, and Polygon Crest. 

I thought I start with fixing bunch of reported bugs (Thank you for the bug reports!), but before that I felt it's a shame that computer-controlled airplanes wander into the range of anti-air batteries and shut down.  It's a good idea to write a simple path-planning program so that computer-controlled airplanes can avoid obstacles and anti-air batteries.

(Read more)

Regaining Confidence in Cross-Wind Landings

For various reasons, I have been able to fly only half the amount of the past years.  I need to fly more often in November and December.

One of the problems is that I have a meeting almost every day.  I intentionally made Tuesday empty this semester so that I can take one day off easily.  But, I end up with putting all irregular meetings on Tuesday.  And, the weekend is windy, rainy, or both.  (I planned to take a day off this Tuesday to go flying, only to end up getting another meeting and had to ditch the plan.)

But, today, I was able to go for cross-wind landing practice.  Since I could not fly as often as I wanted, I tended to pick the best weather day with clear sky and not-too-strong wind.  I was thinking my cross-wind landing technique should be rusty.  And, it was a nice breezy day for cross-wind landing practice.  I was initially scheduled to fly 10am to noon, but the wind was too nice.  I re-scheduled to 4pm slot by which time the wind was supposed to get weaker.  (Read more)

500 flying hours!

I have been able to fly only half the flying hours as my regular years this year for the various reasons.  It was taking longer than I anticipated to get to my 500th flying hours.

But finally, I hit the milestone!  I am not working on any new certificate now, and it does not have any significance immediately.  But, it is certainly a big milestone.  I continue to fly safely.

(Read more.)

Sorry for not updating YSFLIGHT test version for a while.  My free time was stolen by Dragon Quest 3 for iOS since the end of September.  Dragon Quest series was once called Dragon Warrior outside Japan due to brand-name issue, but I believe Square ENIX has resolved the issue and it is officially called Dragon Quest everywhere.  The Japanese version of Dragon Quest 3 for iOS was released end of September, and it took about two weeks for me to complete the original story as well as the additional story after the first ending.  It was very entertaining.  I enjoyed it.  I had a PC at home, but didn't have a game console.  So, I didn't have a chance to play Dragon Quest series until Square ENIX ported Dragon Quest series to the iOS devices.  But, I'm playing the series in a strange order.  I have so far finished Dragon Quest 1->8->4->2->3.  I don't know which of 5, 6, or 7 comes next.

Anyway, I am back to YSFLIGHT development.

By the way, I flew from Beaver to Latrobe today.  It was just a little bit hazy, but the sky was clear.  It was very nice to see tree leaves changing color from the air.

Trees changing color near Latrobe

Pittsburgh downtown today.

I wrote earlier that it may be difficult to add support for OSX 10.6 of YSFLIGHT.  After that, I separated my code that is using C++11 thread library, and was able to build YSFLIGHT with the option that is supposed to add support for OSX 10.6.  So, theoretically it should run on OSX 10.6.  I couldn't confirm though.  I hope it really does work on OSX 10.6. 

09/09/2014

YSFLIGHT 2014 fall test version is ready for download.  Click here to jump to the download page.

I was hoping to add some more features, but I guess I spent too much time for Dragon Quest 4 and 8 for iOS, on top of writing Polygon Crest.

YSFLIGHT Work in Progress

I was thinking to release minor-debug version early this year.  And, the time flies!  It's already end of August.  The new fall semester means my teaching duty starts again!  I have 79 students so far.  It's going to be a fun!

I spent quite good amount of time for developing Polygon Crest and less time for YSFLIGHT.  But I don't want to miss a release of the 2014 version of YSFLIGHT.  I'm working on it.  I'm trying hard to get it ready before the end of the year.

(Read more)

Saving $900 by standing upside down 10 minutes per day - Passing kidney stones that hadn't moved for 19 monhts

I had been grounded for about a week due to kidney stones.  In fact, I had one stone from my right and left kidney each and was taken to ER three times.  The first time was when I was in California to visit Chino air show.  I experienced an excruciating pain in my right abdomen.  But, the doctor could not find a stone anywhere.  The doctor only suspected a kidney stone, but since no stone was found, the cause of the pain was unknown.

About a year later, I had a similar pain from my left abdomen, and I passed a pretty big stone.  But, my primary care physician said that the stone was out and it's done.  So, I thought it's done.  He didn't send me to a urologist, and he didn't order or recommend any further tests.  But, I started kidney-stone prevention diet then.  I loved spinach, but I've been avoiding since then.  I used to drink black coffee, but now I add milk.

A stone was out, and I started a prevention diet, so I was supposed to be stone free.  But, another pain struck me in my right abdomen in December of the next year.  My guess is it was from the same stone that hauled me to ER in California.  The doctor who saw me in ER took a CT scan, and confirmed a stone in my right kidney.

Since a stone was confirmed, I was sent to a urologist.  (I wish my previous PCP had done that in the first occasion.)  Expert advice was logically made sense.  I added one glass of orange juice and one piece of cheese per day to my diet.

(Read more)

Polygon Editor "Polygon Crest" is ready for download!

This program is a polygon editor. Maybe more commonly called a polygon modeler. You can call whichever comfortable for you. The main purpose is to build aircraft and ground visual models for YS FLIGHT SIMULATOR, but you can use it for making general polygonal models. If you make a correct solid model, you can export the data for 3D printing, for example. I wanted to make it easy to create aircraft models, so this program can quickly make a popular airfoils, and extrude along the wing leading and trailing edges. It also has basic boolean operations and rounding functions as well.

(Read more & download links)

2014/06/28-29 Dayton Air Show

I have visited Dayton Air Show end of June.  This year, Blue Angels is back!  But, the military participation was much fewer than before.  I saw Marine Corps AV-8B harrier II, but no flights from Air Force and Navy.  I wish the air shows will be back to the pre-2013 level.

The weather forecast was horrible.  Thunderstorms were forecasted for both Saturday and Sunday.  As forecasted, light rain was falling early Saturday.  But, it was not hard enough to cancel the flying demonstration.  In such condition, I don't aim my camera.  I just enjoy watching airplanes flying.

(Read more)

Cross-Compiling 32-bit OpenGL program in 64-bit Ubuntu

Until now, I was compiling 32-bit binary on 32-bit Ubuntu, and 64-bit binary on 64-bit Ubuntu.  I launch a different virtual machine in VirtualBox for each case.  But, it's not very efficient.  It is the same operating system.  I have been wanting to build and package both 32-bit and 64-bit version binary from one script.

There are options -m32 and -m64 of gcc, which force the compiler to spit out 32-bit and 64-bit binary respectively.  However, if I tried gcc -m32 in 64-bit Ubuntu, I was getting an error complaining predef.h not found.  Today, somehow that problem came back to my mind.  I searched for the solution and learned that what I needed was multilib libraries.

Further search indicated that not all libraries are as convenient as multilib, but I can do  sudo apt-get install lib???:i386 to get 32-bit version libraries in most cases.  That made me hopeful.  I thought it should be easy to set up cross-compiling so that I can compile both 32-bit and 64-bit binaries in 64-bit Ubuntu.

Then I hit a brick wall.  After installing multilib, gcc told me that libGL and libGLU cannot be found.  Not a big deal.  I should be able to apt-get install libgl1-mesa-dev:i386 and libglu1-mesa-dev:i386 to install 32-bit version of libGL and libGLU, right?  Unfortunately it turned out not so easy.  apt-get gave me an error and could not install 32-bit libGL and libGLU.  Search implied that it is one of the known bugs of Ubuntu (or Debian).

(Read more) 

YSFLIGHT Work in Progress

I'm experimenting with post-stall maneuvers and more realistic propeller simulation. (Read more)

I'm glad I purchased Apple Care.  How My iPad mini was broken and replaced and restored.

What I learned from this incident was that the Apple employees can use a magic for cloning an iPad or iPhone, not just the data backed up in iCloud.  You won't have to lose any data at all, as long as your old iPhone/iPad is minimally usable and is able to connect to the wireless network.

About 10 days ago, Dragon Quest II for iOS was released in Japanese App store.  I downloaded and was playing.  But, this time, the enemy used the most horrifying magic against my avatar called Cessna, and his company Beech and Cirrus, which crashed my iPad mini so that I could not continue the quest.

(Read more)

PNG Decoder

Support 4-bit Index Color.

Latrobe Air Show 2014

Latrobe Air Show is back!  The show was scheduled but cancelled last year due to military budget cut that subsequently cancelled all Blue Angels and Thunderbirds demonstrations.  Latrobe Air Show just gave up because it didn't project sufficient number of spectators without military participation.  They concluded that it wouldn't be worth for the cost of organizing an air show .

But, this year, the show has returned.

(Read more)

Japan Tour of an Airplane Fan 2014

My wife has finished her Ph.D degree last month.  We were in a month-long celebration and were visiting Japan for the last two weeks.

In the morning after the arrival.  We woke up very early, around 4:30am, due to the jet lag in the next morning.  We took advantage and left the hotel early heading to Haneda airport.  My wife was going to fly to her home town of Fukuoka, and I was going to fly to Aomori.  We were traveling separately for the first half of the trip.  My airplane was scheduled to depart in the afternoon, and I could spend several hours for taking pictures from the observation deck.  My main target was All Nippon Airways' Boeing 787 in a special commemorative painting scheme.  All Nippon Airways was the launch customer of Boeing 787, and they put large "787" on the fuselage of the first several 787s they received.  According to what I heard, this special painting will be erased as the airplane go into a regular maintenance.  So, I wanted to take good pictures before the painting is gone.

(Read more)

The best alternative solution for making constant inheritance (or read-only inheritance or you call whatever you want) in C++ that I came up with so far.

In this page, I am posting the best solution toward constant inheritance in C++ that I came up with so far.  I believe many people are trying but failing to make a const inheritance in C++.  I think some call it read-only inheritance.  You can call it whatever you want.  I'm calling it const inheritance.  I spent good amount of time searching for a solution, but I couldn't find a good solution.

What I want to do is this:

class YsShell
{
public:
    // Something useful
};

class YsShellExt : private YsShell
{
public:
    operator const YsShell &() const;
};

YsShellExt is privately derived from YsShell.  So, I want to mostly prohibit access to YsShell through YsShellExt.  But, I want to open constant access to YsShell by the conversion operator.

However, C++ specification apparently doesn't allow you to do it. (Read full text)

PNG Encoder and Decoder in C++

Bug fix based on the user's feedback.  I was not populating sliding-window while decoding an uncompressed block.  Thank you for the report!

It adds a PNG decoding capability to the program just by adding yspng.cpp and yspng.h to the project.  Since I wrote from the scratch only looking at the PNG & LZ77 specification, there is absolutely no GPL trap.  It does NOT require "XX library of YY version and UU library of VV version" kind of, therefore you are fre from the maintenance nightmare.  I have been using this decoder for years, and apparently is used over the world, therefore the code has been well trained and stable by now.  This PNG decoder was at the top of Google result for "C++ PNG decoder" until recently, but as I checked now, it was shown at the 2nd place :-P

[Download from here] 

I think I can release it soon.  So far I am able to make fuselage, main wing, horizontal stabilizer, vertical stabilizer and connect them by boolean operations.  The goal is to be able to edit .DNM file directly and be able to assign motion in this editor.

Spring has come!  Finally! .... and gone.

It was a nice warm day with clear sky.  For the first time of this year, I walked to CMU.  I was not expecting to have a good photo-opportunity on the first day, but a friendly Mockingbird came very close to me.  Also a Blue Jay landed on a nearby branch and stayed for a few seconds.  I was able to capture that moment.

(Read more)

Abort Take Off!

Finally the spring has come.  The weather is getting much more stable than the past a few weeks.  I took the owner of the nearby bowling alley and her grandson for a sight-seeing flight today.

The plan was to take off Beaver County Airport, one touch & go at Allegheny County, and then fly back to Beaver.  It's my typical sight-seeing flight course.

.... At Allegheny County, nothing special while I was on downwind, base, and final.  I landed, flaps up, carb heat off, max power.  Nothing unusual.  The airplane accelerated just as normal.  45MPH, 55MPH, 65MPH, rotation!  I was flying Cessna 172M, and the airspeed indicator was in miles per hour, instead of knots.

I was expecting the airplane to leave the growns almost by itself.  All I needed was supposed to be a touch of back pressure.  But, this time, the airplane didn't want to leave the ground.  The airplane was acelerating good.  Engine is normal.  I had a quick glance at the flaps.  Yes, they are retracted.  Airspeed indicator was telling I was accelerating.  Engine sounded normal.  Flaps are up.  And the airplane doesn't want to leave the ground?  I added some back pressure, and the airplane reluctantly left the ground, but didn't go up beyond a few feet!  Something is terribly wrong!

(Read more)

Video from the aborted take off.

Using HP LaserJet 1012 printer from Windows 8

I succeeded.  Yes, you CAN use HP LaserJet 1012 from Windows 8.1, although HP says it is not supported.

By the way, HP is stubbornly saying HP LaserJet 1012 is not supported to work with Windows 8 and 8.1.  So, if you want to try the steps below, do it on your own risks.

Here's how I did.  By the way, I tried the method that works on Windows 7 before trying the following steps.  I tried to install it as HP LaserJet 3055.  It didn't work, but it might have changes some settings that may be required for the following steps.  If the following steps doesn't work, you may want to manually install HP LaserJet 3055 PCL 6 driver, then delete it, and try the following steps.

(Read more)

Re-gaining IFR Confidence

I was able to fly earlier this month after 1.5 months of no flying, and I re-gained confidence in landing.  But, I still was wondering: am I really shoot instrument approachess?

My last practice approach was during my multi-engine check ride.  That was last October.  Well, it was more like a real approach than a practice.  If I had missed, I would have failed the check ride.

(Read more)

Staying on the ground in a nice flyable weather.

It is a very nice flying weather today.  Where is the early-morning snow?  The forecast has been unprecedentedly super extraordinary inaccurate for the past several months.  Forecasters cannot even predict what's going to happen in several hours.  All of the forecast sites were predicting snow when I checked last night.  Now I am looking at the sky regretting that I shouldn't have cancelled the flight, but it's too late.

I don't think the weather forecast was this inaccruate 12 months ago.  Does it mean the weather pattern is changing and the current weather-simulation model cannot be applied any longer?

Toothache

I was suffering from toothache for a while.  My top left back tooth was sensitive to hot and cold, and it hurt even when I was eating a soft bread.  However, the gum around the tooth was normal.  It didn't swell at all.  And, it hurt only when I was eating or drinking something.  No pain at all otherwise.  It started hurting only a few days after my last dental check up.  I thought it is not likely for a tooth infection to progress that rapidly and thought it to be just a sensitivity issue.  But, it progressed and I had to avoid biting even soft food with the hurting tooth.  I was almost making an appointment with my dentist, when the toothache magically completely disappeared two days ago.

I have experienced something similar before.  That time was worse.  My tooth hurt even when I brushed that particular tooth.  My dentist suggested it might havebeen a crack in my tooth, and referred me to a specialist.  I made an appointment with the specialist.  For the next several days, I was thinking that my tooth will need to be extracted.  I felt like I were a fish on a cooking board just waiting to be cooked.  However, the pain suddenly disappeared like a magic.  I consulted with the specialist anyway and explained that the pain disappeared.  He checked my tooth and said there's nothing wrong with my tooth.

This time was not as bad as last time, but it was very similar.

I heard that toothache can come from some psychological reasons.  Only reason I can imagine is lack of airplanes.  I didn't see a single jet aerobatic team last year.  I could fly a Cessna only once so far this year due to crazy winter weather.  Maybe my toothache is gone because the weather looked to be getting stable, and I could see good hope that I can fly again.

I had to cancel a flight for tomorrow though.  I was supposed to fly an instrument practice from 8am to 10am.  Early morning snow in the forecast.  I hope my toothache doesn't come back.

By the way, I have some more screenshot of the new polygon editor to share.  I can make contours around the fuselage and connect them by triangles.  Also boolean operation is done.  I can make wing and fuselage separately and then connect them.  I'm thinking to make it open when I am able to make Cessna 172 and Pitts S-2B.

Contours of the fuselage.  I also made polygons for a door and a side window.
(It will come with English and Japanese localization)

Selected contours and connecting them.

Also added polygons for the empenage.

Figure Skating from an airplane-fan's point of view

I was watching Olympic figure skating competition on TV.  Figure skating didn't interest me before.  I really started watching figure skating after I got married.  My wife likes to watch figure skating.  I ended up watching with her.

Since NBC only broadcasts recorded, I know the result when I watch the performance.  I don't have to feel anxiety on when a skater falls.  Maybe it's good for cardiovascular health.

I was really looking forward to watching Pluschenko's performance.  It was unfortunate that he had to withdraw from the individual competition.  His landing is like an aircraft-carrier landing.  His leg absorbs the energy like F-18's landing gear does.  It's impressive.  But, I can imagine it was tough for his body.  Maybe it was about time for him to give way to the next generation skaters.  And, he didn't leave empty handed.  He had gold in the team competition.  I think it was a very nice ending for him.

While I was watching skaters spinning in the air, it suddenly came to my mind:

They take off and spin.

It's an aerobatic!  To be able to fly and spin is a common dream for everyone!  Yes, it has something in common with Thunderbirds and Blue Angels!

I was watching ice dancing yesterday and today.  I really didn't like this kind of scoring based on artistic impression.  It's so subjective and cannot be fair.  But, it suddenly came to my mind:

They are skating in a formation.

Two skaters are supposed to maintain certain distance, and maneuver synchronously.  Twizzle is nothing but Bonton Roll.  It's a competition over the beauty of formation flight!  It's understandable.

I'm pretty sure I'll recall figure skating competition while I am watching aerobatic flights in air shows this year.

I guess I am suffering from a withdrawal symptom after missing Thunderbirds, Blue Angels, and Blue Impulse for a whole year last year. 

First flight of 2014 (Finally!)

Due to snow storm after snow storm, I hadn't been able to fly for 1.5 month.

After 1.5 month of no-flying, I started wondering like "am I really able to fly an airplane?"

(Read more)

Web-site forwarding is working again. It took almost a month.  It was a frustrating wait.

As of 1/26/2014, due to the glitch of register.com, the following aliases are still pointing posts from year 2013.

wwwe.ysflight.com
wwwj.ysflight.com
logbook.e.ysflight.com
logbook.j.ysflight.com

I have e-mailed tech support and had no response.  I called them, and they assigned a ticket for the request to fix it but did nothing for three days.  I am very unhappy with their support.  Register.com doesn't care individual customers after all.

If you are linking to one of the above URLs, please change them to the following URL until register.com fixes it.

wwwe.ysflight.com -> http://ysflight.in.coocan.jp/main/e2014.html
wwwj.ysflight.com -> http://ysflight.in.coocan.jp/main/j2014.html
logbook.e.ysflight.com  -> http://ysflight.in.coocan.jp/aviation/logbook/e2014.html
logbook.j.ysflight.com  -> http://ysflight.in.coocan.jp/aviation/logbook/j2014.html

From what I heard from the tech support, Register.com failed to migrate their URL-forwarding server.  Any changes to the aliases need to be done by phone.  Sounds ridiculous, but that's what they told me.  If they have thousands of customers, they will be overwhelmed.  It is impossible to do it over the phone.  Their online-maintenance page only updates my settings stored in my local folder, but the settings won't be reflected to the actual server.  It is a paid service, and I am urging them to fix the issue.

Received my plastic airman certificate with multi-engine rating!

After passing my multi-engine check ride, I have been waiting for my plastic (permanent) airman certificate.  I have finally received it after waiting for two months.  Below pictures are scanned images of my new airman certificate.

Finished both two endings of Dragon Quest 8 for iPad

Finally I finished my 21-day journey in the world of Dragon Quest 8 for iPad.  I am feeling like as if I finished reading a long novel.  Something similar feeling that I had when I finished reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Many times I almost clicked on how-to-win information.  But, I stopped short of doing it.  I almost solved by myself.  I couldn't stop watching some play movies on YouTube, and I ended up with getting some hints from there.  Other than that, I didn't see any cheating sheets.  Now I can see cheating-sheet without feeling guilty.  I'll go to how-to-win web sites to find what I missed.

This app was 2800 JPY (about 28 U.S. Dollars), and I enjoyed way more than the price I paid.  I'm wondering if Square-Enix was able to recover development cost for this program.  Although the original Dragon Quest 8 was released for Play Station 2 and made millions of sales, the development cost should have been huge, too.

I believe Dragon Quest 8 for iOS has not been released outside Japan yet.  But I see no reason Square-Enix is going to keep it inside Japan.  It probably should be available outside Japan soon.

Happy New Year!

I wish you all best of luck!

The university is pretty much empty.  I see only few students.  I was one of them when I was working on my Ph.D.  I had a big plan for this winter break, study more about C++ 11, reply to the E-Mails that are long overdue, reading a book about development of quantum physics, releasing minor bug-fix version of YSFLIGHT.  The plan was shuttered into pieces by "Dragon Quest 8" for iOS.

When Square-Enix released Dragon Quest 1 for iOS, I spent two days to finish it on my iPad mini.  I was expecting to finish Dragon Quest 8 in three to four days, which turned out to be a too-short an estimate.  (I believe Square-Enix will release non-Japanese versions when they make it more stable.  It crashes occasionally.)

The first day: Wow!  It's cool!

The second day:  What a big saga it is!

The fifth day:  Isn't it too huge a saga?

I stated it on December 23rd, and still I am a little short of defeating dark load.  I'm stuck with budget shortage.  I want to go for the last battle with the best known equipment, and I need to earn about 60K golds to buy all of them.  So, I'm wondering what level my characters are going to reach when I am able to buy all known best equipments.

But, the last multiple-character role-playing game that I played is, I believe, Wizardry.  I spent countless of nights training my party.  But, in the end, I couldn't beat the last enemy Werdna without cheating.  I took disk dump and modified experience points and gave the strongest possible equipment.  But, I think energy-drain attack was too much to bear.  Wizardry was too difficult for me to finish without cheating.

On the other hand, Dragon Quest 8 was originally developed for a consumer game console I believe Play Station 2.  The game balance is very well tuned.  I am now trying to finish it without looking at how-to-win information.  Well, if I knew it was going to be this long, I would have looked at it.  I was expecting to have a stronger axe, and spending all skill points of Yangus for axe-skill.  Also, I spent almost all skill points of the main character for boomerang, and I had so much tough time in boss-battles.

It's so tempting to google for how-to-win information, but so far I have been holding myself off of those information.  I am now at the last floating castle, and found the route to get to the circular town.  I believe I am one step before the last boss battle.  My plan is to get all of the best known equipment before the last boss battle.  In fact, my party is strong enough to walk around in the floating castle with little danger.  It may be strong enough already.  Maybe I try once tomorrow.

[Posts from year 2013]

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