Well, the thing is, a large number of bombs are not guided at all, the guided ones can still fail and most importantly, you can only guess what's inside the room you're trying to hit in the first place.
If you watch the video in this thread for example, the problem wasn't lack of precision. They weren't targeting Iraqi military vehicles and hit British ones on accident, they hit exactly what they were aiming at. Considering errors like these happen despite orange "ally" markings, it's not too difficult to imagine what the situation with civilian buildings is like. After all, neither military nor civilian ones are marked as such and they aren't going to report their position either.
In my opinion, precision-guided weapons are a two-edged sword. On the battlefield more precision is a good thing of course, but at home it's yet another thing that helps portray war as clean, good old-fashioned patriotic entertainment, which may lead to bad decisions being made.
Try different memory slots. Maybe your old RAM was fine, and the mainboard is just having problems with one or more slots.
Are you sure it's the stick and not the slot on the mainboard that's causing trouble? I'd try to switch slots and restest, just to be safe.
Well, there are two reasons, basically. One is the rear-engine layout. If the back steps out, there's quite a bit of weight in motion, which makes it difficult to catch. The other is the suspension setup. Older 911's used "trailing arms" for the rear wheels and these can induce "snap" oversteer when the driver lifts the throttle or brakes.
Yeah, should be c:\windows\hosts in 9x and ME.
I simply don't understand Ford's strategy in the US, and I'm not sure they even have one.
The Japanese manufacturers are making somewhat boring but very reliable cars, the German brands are touting refinement/luxury and the Koreans are all about value. What's Ford's position? It seems like they're making random bread and butter cars and then selling them with big discounts.
They probably don't have deep enough pockets right now to build a reputation for reliability or establish a luxury image, and realistically they're not going to compete with Korean (and soon Chinese) cars on price, but why wouldn't they make something more exciting? If you look at the 300C or even Ford's own Mustang, there seems to be a market for affordable cars with some pizazz, but instead of running with that idea, they're trying to out-camry Toyota.
The Japanese manufacturers are making somewhat boring but very reliable cars, the German brands are touting refinement/luxury and the Koreans are all about value. What's Ford's position? It seems like they're making random bread and butter cars and then selling them with big discounts.
They probably don't have deep enough pockets right now to build a reputation for reliability or establish a luxury image, and realistically they're not going to compete with Korean (and soon Chinese) cars on price, but why wouldn't they make something more exciting? If you look at the 300C or even Ford's own Mustang, there seems to be a market for affordable cars with some pizazz, but instead of running with that idea, they're trying to out-camry Toyota.
Not to beat the proverbial dead horse, but impeller speed does not stay constant once target boost is reached. The wastegate is designed to maintain a certain pressure ratio and regulates the impeller speed accordingly. In a nutshell, the LFS model is correct and intake air mass does change depending on engine speed.
Boost tapers off at high revs when some part of the intake/exhaust system starts choking or when the wastegate is being forced open by the pressure in the exhaust manifold, not because the impeller speed/intake air mass stays constant.
Boost tapers off at high revs when some part of the intake/exhaust system starts choking or when the wastegate is being forced open by the pressure in the exhaust manifold, not because the impeller speed/intake air mass stays constant.
It does get the message across, though. It's an ad for some kind of coffee energy drink.
Homemade X-Ray machine:
http://fingers-welt.de/galleri ... tro/roentgen/roentgen.htm
Seriously though, don't bother with the projector. The brightness isn't anywhere close to where it needs to be, and even in complete darkness the picture will be a blurry mess.
http://fingers-welt.de/galleri ... tro/roentgen/roentgen.htm
Seriously though, don't bother with the projector. The brightness isn't anywhere close to where it needs to be, and even in complete darkness the picture will be a blurry mess.
To be honest, I'm pretty happy with the broadband situation here.
Currently I'm paying like 20€/mo for 6mbit/640kbit DSL and the quality of service couldn't be better. No outages, always very low pings and you always get the max line speed, peak times or not. No "fair use" policies, no traffic shaping, no blocked ports.
Granted, I could do without the 24h disconnect, but that's a pretty minor annoyance, considering you can just set up your router so the disconnect occurs at like 5am.
Currently I'm paying like 20€/mo for 6mbit/640kbit DSL and the quality of service couldn't be better. No outages, always very low pings and you always get the max line speed, peak times or not. No "fair use" policies, no traffic shaping, no blocked ports.
Granted, I could do without the 24h disconnect, but that's a pretty minor annoyance, considering you can just set up your router so the disconnect occurs at like 5am.
You "waspaphobes" need one of those high-voltage electric fly swatters:
They're like 3€ and work great. As soon as a fly/wasp/bee makes contact with the net, they're stunned and fall to the ground instantly. Just touching them in mid-air does the trick. I figure you could also mod the electronics a bit if stunning the critters isn't enough.
Me, I'm a bit of a germaphobe, I guess...epecially when it comes to food prep or things touching my bed. I mean I know it's irrational but I still have these weird routines to avoid "cross-contamination" of "clean" and "dirty" surfaces. Take a potato, place it on plate 1, peel it, wash potato and hands (cause my fingers touched both the outer shell and the peeled potato), place it on plate 2, rinse and repeat. Of course, I know it's gonna be virtually sterile once it's cooked anyway.
illepall
They're like 3€ and work great. As soon as a fly/wasp/bee makes contact with the net, they're stunned and fall to the ground instantly. Just touching them in mid-air does the trick. I figure you could also mod the electronics a bit if stunning the critters isn't enough.
Me, I'm a bit of a germaphobe, I guess...epecially when it comes to food prep or things touching my bed. I mean I know it's irrational but I still have these weird routines to avoid "cross-contamination" of "clean" and "dirty" surfaces. Take a potato, place it on plate 1, peel it, wash potato and hands (cause my fingers touched both the outer shell and the peeled potato), place it on plate 2, rinse and repeat. Of course, I know it's gonna be virtually sterile once it's cooked anyway.
illepallVirtually ALL modern-ish (like late 80's and newer) fuel-injected engines cut the fuel COMPLETELY on overrun (deceleration/foot off the throttle). In fact, if you happen to have a car with throttle body injection, you can even verify this yourself. Simply pull the intake ducting/air filter, rev it up to like 4k rpm and close the throttle. The injector(s) will not inject any fuel until the engine speed drops below a predefined threshold (somewhere between 1500-2500rpm).
On engines with sequential port injection you can even wait for each cylinder to complete its power cycle and avoid incomplete combustion/a lean mixture.
Engines with batch fire injection will have half of the cylinders running lean for a split second, but if you're running batch fire, you're not terribly concerned about emissions in the first place, and the lean condition lasts WAY too short to damage the cat, exhaust valves or anything else.
In addition to "Deceleration Fuel Cut Off" virtually all ECU's feature "Deceleration Enleanment" to anticipate throttle movements and reduce the fuel amount in advance. This is necessary because the pressure behind the throttle plate basically equalizes with the speed of sound when you close the throttle, but the fuel travels a good bit slower. In essence you have to approximate the throttle position a few ms down the road, or else you end up with excess fuel in the cylinder and a bucking engine.
The only fuel injected engines that don't shut off the fuel during overrun are (forced induction) high performance engines that need excess fuel for the cooling it provides, and ones with very very basic injection systems.
On engines with sequential port injection you can even wait for each cylinder to complete its power cycle and avoid incomplete combustion/a lean mixture.
Engines with batch fire injection will have half of the cylinders running lean for a split second, but if you're running batch fire, you're not terribly concerned about emissions in the first place, and the lean condition lasts WAY too short to damage the cat, exhaust valves or anything else.
In addition to "Deceleration Fuel Cut Off" virtually all ECU's feature "Deceleration Enleanment" to anticipate throttle movements and reduce the fuel amount in advance. This is necessary because the pressure behind the throttle plate basically equalizes with the speed of sound when you close the throttle, but the fuel travels a good bit slower. In essence you have to approximate the throttle position a few ms down the road, or else you end up with excess fuel in the cylinder and a bucking engine.
The only fuel injected engines that don't shut off the fuel during overrun are (forced induction) high performance engines that need excess fuel for the cooling it provides, and ones with very very basic injection systems.
Try using fixed calibration. Quick movements can make the pots spike, and that may throw off the calibration.
It's not elitism, it's just plain asshattery and cluelessness.
Since I happen to enjoy the BLGP/XFG combo, I race on demo servers once in while, and I have yet to see the type of behaviour you describe from any of the really fast guys.
Basically there are two groups of players who will act like this: Mediocre drivers who try make up for their lack of skill with aggressiveness and wreckers who cause these situations on purpose to get other players banned.
Either find a group of good demo racers and race them or spring for a license.
Since I happen to enjoy the BLGP/XFG combo, I race on demo servers once in while, and I have yet to see the type of behaviour you describe from any of the really fast guys.
Basically there are two groups of players who will act like this: Mediocre drivers who try make up for their lack of skill with aggressiveness and wreckers who cause these situations on purpose to get other players banned.
Either find a group of good demo racers and race them or spring for a license.
Last edited by bal00, .
Less brake force is a good idea, but pretty much all fast sets have the brakes set up in a way that lock-ups are virtually impossible. If you're still using the default one, ask a quick racer online for his set or get one from http://setupfield.teaminferno.hu
Instead of changing the final drive, just select a higher gear. It'll have the same effect, but doesn't have the disadvantage of ridiculously wide gear spacing. Most importantly, stay away from the curbs. The FWD cars are very forgiving in that regard, but the RWD ones will punish you.
It may also be a good idea to fiddle with the diff settings (try open diff or minimal locking) and to increase the button rate in the control options. The most important aspect is practice though. The current world record for the BLGP/XRT combo is held by a mouse-driver, for example, so it IS possible to be fast with mouse. Just give it some time.
Of course there's always the option of buying a wheel...
Instead of changing the final drive, just select a higher gear. It'll have the same effect, but doesn't have the disadvantage of ridiculously wide gear spacing. Most importantly, stay away from the curbs. The FWD cars are very forgiving in that regard, but the RWD ones will punish you.
It may also be a good idea to fiddle with the diff settings (try open diff or minimal locking) and to increase the button rate in the control options. The most important aspect is practice though. The current world record for the BLGP/XRT combo is held by a mouse-driver, for example, so it IS possible to be fast with mouse. Just give it some time.
Of course there's always the option of buying a wheel...
True "race" oils are done after like 500 miles or less. They belong in actual race cars, not road cars.
As for the tires, slip doesn't only occur when the wheels are spinning. If you accelerate and brake there's always a certain amount of slip (a few percent). In fact there's even some slip if you're just cruising at 70mph. What I was trying to say: hard braking/accelerating/cornering will affect tread life quite a bit, even if the tires are not squealing. And no, some wheel spin on a wet road is not worth worrying about.
Downshifts are not a problem, unless you just sidestep the clutch.
Oil life sensor is a bit of a misnomer because the computer is just programmed with a certain number of engine revolutions and counts back to zero using various modifiers for things like cold starts, high rpm driving etc. They are fairly accurate, just a bit on the conservative side, because the US is a rather litigious society, so manufacturers go for the lowest common denominator in terms of oil quality, engine condition/tolerances etc.
If you change it at 0% and don't use 1950's oil, you're still on the safe side and haven't caused any additional wear on your engine.
For your oil change intervals, go with the manufacturer recommendation. If there's a shorter "severe duty" interval listed, ignore it.
Use a decent synthetic, but skip "race" or "motorsport" oils. These do have good lubrication properties but are not suited to regular road duty because they're lacking certain additives that are important for oil life, cold start protection etc.
If you wanna learn more about oil, I'd recommend the BITOG forums:
http://theoildrop.server101.com/cgi/ultimatebb.cgi
They also have a very nice collection of Used Oil Analyses from various cars/oils/intervals. For example here's one from a BMW 540i (15k mile oil change interval):
http://theoildrop.server101.co ... bb=get_topic;f=3;t=003662
Short of revving the snot out of it, idling is the worst way to warm up an engine. For once, lubrication is rather poor at idle because the oil pump is barely moving any oil.
Most importantly though, you're extending the time the engine spends running below operating temp. At idle an engine easily needs twice as long until the oil is up to operating temp, and wear is a lot higher during that time.
Additionally you will have problems with oil dilution/contamination. During the cold start phase, engines run extremely rich...in fact the exhaust smells of unburnt gas. They need to inject more because the fuel that condenses on cold engine parts is not available for combustion and runs past the piston rings right into the crankcase(oilpan) instead. Not only does fuel get into the oil, water also condenses on colder parts (as it is a byproduct of regular combustion) and makes its way into the oilpan.
That's a problem for a number of reasons. First, water and gas are extremely poor lubricants, in fact gasoline can wash away the oil film leading to metal-to-metal contact in rather vital spots, and water can wreak havoc inside the bearings (cavitation and corrosion) among other things. In short, oil dilution is extremely harmful.
Second, water and the volatile components of the fuel evaporate extremely slow. The non-volatile components of the fuel don't evaporate at all. It would probably take like 50 miles of driving at operating temp to get rid of the contamination that accumulated while the engine was warming up idling. That means unless the car is used for longer trips on a regular basis, water and fuel will build up inside the oil.
Third, since the pistons take ages to expand inside the bore, the piston rings will seal poorly and lots of blowby gasses will get into the crankcase. That's a problem because in combination with water, the exhaust gasses will form acids and use up the additives inside the oil in very little time.
Let's see then:
Tires:
Check the pressure on a regular basis and rotate them from time to time (if possible), so you get even wear. Other than that, you can only try to avoid slip (string acceleration/braking/cornering).
Suspension:
Not much you can do, except for trying to avoid potholes and curbs. For the most part, if something let's go, it's just normal wear. Don't worry about it.
Engine:
No wide-open-throttle and no high revs until the engine is properly warmed up, and that means oil temperature, not coolant temperature. As a rule of thumb, the oil takes about twice as long to get to operating temp than the coolant. Should be around 6 miles in your climate.
When cold the oil doesn't really work yet, the pistons are basically flopping around in the bore and the uneven heat distribution puts a lot of stress on parts like the head and exhaust manifold. In short, "getting on it" before the engine is at operating temp is bad bad bad. It's also a good idea to let the engine idle a few seconds while you buckle up etc, to ensure it's properly lubricated before it's loaded. Even though this probably doesn't apply to Florida residents, do not let the engine warm up idling.
Once the engine is warmed up, high revs aren't all that bad, really...unless we're talking about an 80's pushrod V8 that starts floating the valves at 4500rpm. As you may know, large parts of the Autobahns here do not have speed limits, which means virtually all cars on the road have seen hours or days of near redline driving at maximum load, often half an hour at a time, and yet the engines last just as long as their US counterparts. In fact this sort of driving is easier on the engine than city traffic with frequent cold starts and idling periods.
Very low revs on the other hand is something most engines don't like at all, especially combined with high loads. The main and connecting rod bearings in an engine rely on something called hydrodynamic lubrication, which means the oil pump just feeds them oil, the pressure to separate both bearings surfaces is produced by the rotation of the bearing itself thanks to a wedge-shaped gap.
However, this means the bearings need a certain minimum engine speed to produce that pressure. For your run of the mill gasoline car engine that speed is around 1500rpm. High loads below that can result in partial metal-to-metal contact inside the bearings. Basically the tiny "peaks" of the surfaces will be touching while the valleys are still being separated by oil. In that case an oil with good EP/AW properties is your last line of defense. Additionally the torque output of the engine is not very uniform at low revs because of the long pauses between each individual power stroke, which in turn puts additional stress on your transmission.
Transmission:
What you want to avoid is driveline shock(wheel hop, clutch chatter, very low revs) and syncro wear. Just don't force the shifter into gear, and give the syncros time to do their job. Exert a reasonable amount of pressure and let it click into place on its own.
Clutch:
Well, that's rather obvious. Don't ride the clutch to keeps temperatures low, use the brake to hold the car on a hill, not throttle/clutch, and don't rest your left foot on the pedal to avoid unnecessary wear on the throwout-bearing.
Maintenance:
3k mile oil changes are a complete waste of money with absolutely no benefits for your engine. Now, I'm not one those "my pickup truck ran 10 years without changing the oil"-types, there IS a well defined point at which oil has to be changed, but it's nowhere near 3k miles. Oil does not degrade in quality in a linear way. All current engine oils contain additives which neutralize acids, disperse and suspend contaminants, wash away deposits etc., and as long as there is active additive left, the oil quality and engine wear stay constant. For most cars and oils that threshold is 10k miles or more. Changing it before that point does not decrease wear.
The 3k mile oil change myth in the US and Canada (it's unheard of in the rest of the world) is merely a relict from the 60's when oils did not contain these additives and the only way to get rid of contamination or acidic components was to replace the oil. Additionally production tolerances and fuel metering were much much worse, so contamination was a much bigger issue.
Now wether you go to the dealership, an independent shop or do your own maintenance pretty much depends on the age of the car and if you're bound by warranty requirements.
Tires:
Check the pressure on a regular basis and rotate them from time to time (if possible), so you get even wear. Other than that, you can only try to avoid slip (string acceleration/braking/cornering).
Suspension:
Not much you can do, except for trying to avoid potholes and curbs. For the most part, if something let's go, it's just normal wear. Don't worry about it.
Engine:
No wide-open-throttle and no high revs until the engine is properly warmed up, and that means oil temperature, not coolant temperature. As a rule of thumb, the oil takes about twice as long to get to operating temp than the coolant. Should be around 6 miles in your climate.
When cold the oil doesn't really work yet, the pistons are basically flopping around in the bore and the uneven heat distribution puts a lot of stress on parts like the head and exhaust manifold. In short, "getting on it" before the engine is at operating temp is bad bad bad. It's also a good idea to let the engine idle a few seconds while you buckle up etc, to ensure it's properly lubricated before it's loaded. Even though this probably doesn't apply to Florida residents, do not let the engine warm up idling.
Once the engine is warmed up, high revs aren't all that bad, really...unless we're talking about an 80's pushrod V8 that starts floating the valves at 4500rpm. As you may know, large parts of the Autobahns here do not have speed limits, which means virtually all cars on the road have seen hours or days of near redline driving at maximum load, often half an hour at a time, and yet the engines last just as long as their US counterparts. In fact this sort of driving is easier on the engine than city traffic with frequent cold starts and idling periods.
Very low revs on the other hand is something most engines don't like at all, especially combined with high loads. The main and connecting rod bearings in an engine rely on something called hydrodynamic lubrication, which means the oil pump just feeds them oil, the pressure to separate both bearings surfaces is produced by the rotation of the bearing itself thanks to a wedge-shaped gap.
However, this means the bearings need a certain minimum engine speed to produce that pressure. For your run of the mill gasoline car engine that speed is around 1500rpm. High loads below that can result in partial metal-to-metal contact inside the bearings. Basically the tiny "peaks" of the surfaces will be touching while the valleys are still being separated by oil. In that case an oil with good EP/AW properties is your last line of defense. Additionally the torque output of the engine is not very uniform at low revs because of the long pauses between each individual power stroke, which in turn puts additional stress on your transmission.
Transmission:
What you want to avoid is driveline shock(wheel hop, clutch chatter, very low revs) and syncro wear. Just don't force the shifter into gear, and give the syncros time to do their job. Exert a reasonable amount of pressure and let it click into place on its own.
Clutch:
Well, that's rather obvious. Don't ride the clutch to keeps temperatures low, use the brake to hold the car on a hill, not throttle/clutch, and don't rest your left foot on the pedal to avoid unnecessary wear on the throwout-bearing.
Maintenance:
3k mile oil changes are a complete waste of money with absolutely no benefits for your engine. Now, I'm not one those "my pickup truck ran 10 years without changing the oil"-types, there IS a well defined point at which oil has to be changed, but it's nowhere near 3k miles. Oil does not degrade in quality in a linear way. All current engine oils contain additives which neutralize acids, disperse and suspend contaminants, wash away deposits etc., and as long as there is active additive left, the oil quality and engine wear stay constant. For most cars and oils that threshold is 10k miles or more. Changing it before that point does not decrease wear.
The 3k mile oil change myth in the US and Canada (it's unheard of in the rest of the world) is merely a relict from the 60's when oils did not contain these additives and the only way to get rid of contamination or acidic components was to replace the oil. Additionally production tolerances and fuel metering were much much worse, so contamination was a much bigger issue.
Now wether you go to the dealership, an independent shop or do your own maintenance pretty much depends on the age of the car and if you're bound by warranty requirements.
Last edited by bal00, .
The size of the community may be a factor, but I think the age distribution is a bigger one. I imagine calling people NOOBS on the internet is not a common pass-time among folks with office jobs and mortgages.
Some very good tips in this thread.
One of my personal favorites: If you're in a slow car on a track with long straights and someone is about to draft and pass you on one of those straights, lift a little at the beginning of the straight. The driver behind you will close up faster than he expected and will be forced to make a quick choice: a) lift himself or b) go for the pass.
At this point most people will go for the pass, because it's difficult to match the speed of the car in front without losing too much ground. This means he's passing you before he could draft you, so the slingshot effect is missing and by the time he's in front of you, you will have made up most of the difference in speed, which puts you in a perfect position to draft and repass him towards the end of the straight.
In short: If you're going to get passed anyway, force your opponent to do it early on so you're the one who gets to take advantage of the draft when the speeds are higher.
One of my personal favorites: If you're in a slow car on a track with long straights and someone is about to draft and pass you on one of those straights, lift a little at the beginning of the straight. The driver behind you will close up faster than he expected and will be forced to make a quick choice: a) lift himself or b) go for the pass.
At this point most people will go for the pass, because it's difficult to match the speed of the car in front without losing too much ground. This means he's passing you before he could draft you, so the slingshot effect is missing and by the time he's in front of you, you will have made up most of the difference in speed, which puts you in a perfect position to draft and repass him towards the end of the straight.
In short: If you're going to get passed anyway, force your opponent to do it early on so you're the one who gets to take advantage of the draft when the speeds are higher.
You may also want to reset the modem. When it's first connected to the DSL line, it negotiates the most noise-free frequency band to use with the DSLAM. If your line suffers from intermittent noise, it could help to make them re-negotiate.
I used one of those: http://www.megapc.com/prod_img/INTERACT_FX.gif for throttle and brake and mouse for steering once. Worked fine without any 3rd party apps.
I think simulating syncros is not needed and would just complicate things for no good reason. Yes, it's not terribly realistic that you can shift into 1st at 30mph instantly, but seriously...it's something 9 out of 10 racers never do anyway because it's only useful on very tight autocross layouts.
And then there's the problem of implementation. In a real car you know that you're in gear and can let go of the clutch because the shifter clicks into place, but how would you convey that in a sim without having a force feedback shifter? Would you have a "shifter is in gear" light on the dash or would you want people to stare at the gear indicator/shifter?
Simulating syncros without being able to simulate shifter behaviour would be worthless and turn downshifts into a crapshoot.
Of course realism is extremely important, but the game is supposed to reward skill, not guesswork, and in the end you would merely be guessing the results of the games syncro algorithm during a shift.
And then there's the problem of implementation. In a real car you know that you're in gear and can let go of the clutch because the shifter clicks into place, but how would you convey that in a sim without having a force feedback shifter? Would you have a "shifter is in gear" light on the dash or would you want people to stare at the gear indicator/shifter?
Simulating syncros without being able to simulate shifter behaviour would be worthless and turn downshifts into a crapshoot.
Of course realism is extremely important, but the game is supposed to reward skill, not guesswork, and in the end you would merely be guessing the results of the games syncro algorithm during a shift.
What's up with British ISP's anyway? It seems like you guys are getting pretty bad deals when it comes to broadband. I mean lots of UK racers seem to have complaints about poor customer service, poor network quality, traffic limits/shaping, "fair use" policies and relatively high prices. Does BT charge a fortune for using their local loop or is there another reason broadband offers are so bad?
FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG