Thanks for replies. I agree with most of you, guys.

Quote from gezmoor :

Given that the only negative you've stated is boredom and not much of a career path, I voted money.

Well, in my case the career was a problem too: the company is likely to shrink this year, because their service is overpriced, and it's labour cost is always overestimated. When I quit, they had just 1 project, that was a total diseaster. Even if they cope with this somehow and get some orders, I could hardly get a promotion. I would be promoted to a department director, but the one we had was a moron: a nerdy guy with poor communication skills, poor professional knowledge and a habit to speak like business consulting language. He was like living in a parallel reality. I guess the boss needed the company just to work as it worked and a controllable department director who would be pleased with the situation. For some months I used to think it was miscomunication, bad luck and this guy's flattery that took him to this position, but now I see he was the best choice.

Looks like if there's deception somewhere in a business, it needs more deception elsewhere: client's deception or self-deception makes the need to deceive the employees. (Well, in most talks with the boss we had him telling us that he valued us, some good wishes and things of common sense.)

Quote :

In an ideal world, I'd rather have job satisfaction. But given the reality of the world I'd rather gain my "life satisfaction" outside my job and just use work as a means to an end. Even so, I wouldn't put up with a sh*t job for money, I have my limits.

Totally agree.

I wonder what would others choose or think in such a situation.

You are paid quite well, and the salary is "white" (100% legal, which is good for pension savings). Your current job became terribly boring. Basically, you don't learn new things, don't evolve in the direction you wanted. Your team leader and the boss don't hear what you say. Things are done in a strange manner, to say the least... Projects (it's an IT company) are ending, and new aren't coming for 3-4 months. No deadlines, and you find yourself wasting 3/4 of office time, and the rest 1/4 you try to do anything. (This doesn't feel that bad actually: I learned some other programming stuff and read on furniture hardware, to make on my own )

Another option: you're invited into another company, that is short of developers, where you might get more different things to do, and learn. But the salary is 1/4 lower and black (no contract: you may be fired or go away by yourself instantly).









Actually, I've already decided for the second. I'm not 50+ to stay in the same place for years. Nor I don't want to be wasting my life, even if it gives more money.

I used to work in a retail chain, where there's low salary and a lot of pressure, and I must say that work was much more satisfying than this one that I quit last week. I had to fight for my proposals, but when they were accepted, it felt good, and it was a big pleasure to complete them. Then I switched to this work, because they offered a lot more salary. I worked hard for 3-4 months among 10, and the rest of it was mostly a timewaste: everything is decided for you, just do this and that when you have time. So we mostly were surfing on the internet, reading jokes, ski, bikes or hardware prices... I coulnd't help notice this.

As it revealed afterwards, the company was parasiting on rich and big clients, just like some consulting agencies do (most projects were intentionally overrated in terms of man-hours). That's why we, software developers, had good salary but bad working climate and few things to do.

It was hard to decide, because that 1/4 of the salary will be hard to regain, and I got used to being paid much. But I guess, evolving and spending my life in hard working values much more in the long term.

Maggot, your initial statement is more viable than the second. Something that was invented in sports can get a further development in everyday use, but something developed for racing can't be used in everyday life.

Racing car is to a great extend a throwaway thing, hence it's not reliable. Some of the equipment deals with only racing bottlenecks, like valves pushed by pnewmatics instead of springs. Manufacturing costs are quite high. Range of operating conditions is quite limited. Also think how many engineers work in racing, and how many work in automobile industry across the world.

I like racing, but it's a quite useless thing.

Outdoor karting in winter. I wonder if they do the same in Sweden and Finland.

See how karts are modified, it's similar to LX6 drag setup.
part1 (winter tyres without studs). Mostly they race knocking the rear wheel against the snow piles. At 2:30 the guy #34 breaks through and wins the race this way.
part2 (with studs) Whellies and a lot of drift. Schumacher + Tsuchiya. One guy gets penalized just for bumping the front kart and squabbles with the referee at 1:57.

Last edited by detail, Tue, 25 Nov 2008 21:22.

drift with 1 hp: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytVlC22yeEY

jasperadmin

Quote from Maelstrom :

Funny how many people makes the systematic:

God = Religion = Monotheist Religions ( Jews, Christian, muslims)

But that's true. These three are religions. Pagan beliefs, that usually have >1 gods, aren't. Religion's main distinctive features are that it tells you what's the development "trend" of the world (like gods kingdom on earth -> judgment day) and gives you some goals. In pagan beliefs you live as you want using the powers of whatever god/spirit you like.

Whether global warming is real or not, I don't mind if I will be able to swim or go cycling 1 month/year more ...and if the open-air ice-skating and skiing will still be possible through the winter ('cause I don't want a wet winter at all).

flymike91 curious information, thanks for finding this!

Sorry for posting without looking into the linked content, I can't watch video from my workplace, but X-Plane is considered LFS of flight sims. Or to be fair, LFS is X-Plane of car sims.

Quote from Elevant :

I think here?
http://www.lfs.net/?page=shop

Yes, it's a shop I mean more precisely, where the particular word is used.

This also applies to your language, because you have many cases of nouns. An item title is written in nominative case, but "You have chosen to buy a ..." implies accusative case in Russian. I want to know what string is attached to "to buy a" and make sure that it isn't used in the places where it should be in nominative case.

If someone has already made a translation, I'd be very thankful to hear if there were any problems with cases (Chech, Polish).

Last edited by detail, Mon, 13 Oct 2008 09:52.

Thanks! Hm... I could have googled it myself actually. What do you mean by "predominantly XC"? Those who don't jump/freeride, just ride by unpaved roads?

Cool :-D

I've read in an automotive journal a review of Daewoo or Daihatsu mini bus, the size just like this one. In winter they put a 100kg piece of lead in the rearmost part, to reduce the oversteer. Otherwise the rear axle unloaded and tried to pass the front axle on a wet/snowy/icy road.

Here is my bike. Merida Matts TFS 500. A perfect bike! Works like a Swiss watch, and I've bought it (used for 2 months, 1300 km) just for ~290 euros.

V-brakes don't look fancy, but in exchange you get XT rear derailleur, Deore hubs, front derailleur and shifters.

Top speed: 63.2 km/h :-D

Last edited by detail, Sat, 11 Oct 2008 20:57.

Quote from devils_advocate :

Cannondale Lefty - someone stole the other fork leg

Is this for real? Hmmm. I'd say photoshop, but I've seen one-sided forks on urban bikes, so would like to know if this is true.

Hello,
I need some help with the website translation.

I need to know where the words
WORD_or_____ or
WORD_licence license
WORD_upgrade upgrade
WORD_voucher voucher
WORD_item___ Item
WORD_price__ Price

are used. It´s quite a problem,because, for example, with WORD_upgrade I can´t even guess if it is used as a verb or a noun.

I just turn signatures and avatars off, to prevent any confusion.

I think, the crisis hits the smallest teams. Not because they're ineffective or having bad debts, but just because small private sponsors will first and foremost cut F1 expenditures, since they're the least effective. Big corporations can afford a loss of "just" few hundred dollars to maintain their public image. It's an ineffective choice, but doing ineffective things this is what big corporations are all about.

I watched F1 since 1992 till 2003, then, triggered by LFS lost any interest. Looking back I think it was never interesting. The only thing that made it make sense was associating with one or another guy in the peloton.

Yes, the racing value of his tracks is low. I didn't mean that facilities are so important. I mean FOA and teams want circuits convenient first of all for team trucks, press, spectators, etc. For that, as I understand, they hired an architect and then started enforcing his service to all the new projects. Those who don't agree, won't get a GP. Zhuhai was built by somebody else, and despite there was some agreement, it didn't get a GP (not sure if the story was exactly like this).

BTW, in a normal world if someone made a championship, there'd be a lot of tracks to chose the most interesting. But when it's F1, it works differently: Tilke gets a task to make yet another great-great circuit, and... This reminded me this piece of Paul Graham:

Quote :

Imagine, for example, what would happen if the government decided to commission someone to write an official Great American Novel. First there'd be a huge ideological squabble over who to choose. Most of the best writers would be excluded for having offended one side or the other. Of the remainder, the smart ones would refuse such a job, leaving only a few with the wrong sort of ambition. The committee would choose one at the height of his career—that is, someone whose best work was behind him—and hand over the project with copious free advice about how the book should show in positive terms the strength and diversity of the American people, etc, etc.

The unfortunate writer would then sit down to work with a huge weight of expectation on his shoulders. Not wanting to blow such a public commission, he'd play it safe. This book had better command respect, and the way to ensure that would be to make it a tragedy. Audiences have to be enticed to laugh, but if you kill people they feel obliged to take you seriously. As everyone knows, America plus tragedy equals the Civil War, so that's what it would have to be about. Better stick to the standard cartoon version that the Civil War was about slavery; people would be confused otherwise; plus you can show a lot of strength and diversity. When finally completed twelve years later, the book would be a 900-page pastiche of existing popular novels—roughly Gone with the Wind plus Roots. But its bulk and celebrity would make it a bestseller for a few months, until blown out of the water by a talk-show host's autobiography. The book would be made into a movie and thereupon forgotten, except by the more waspish sort of reviewers, among whom it would be a byword for bogusness like Milli Vanilli or Battlefield Earth.

(sourse: The Power of the Marginal)

Last edited by detail, Fri, 3 Oct 2008 21:58.

Hehe.

Becky, I'm opposed to F1 in Russia, because I know it will be payed from my wallet directly (from state budget by Vova Pu's decree, like in case of Olympics) or indirectly (from Gazprom's cash; I own some shares). If I were to decide, I'd build a couple of bridges and highways around my city - this is what's really necessary, we're suffocating in traffic jams.

As for Tilke, I think the problem is that F1 is like a big enterprise now and is powerful enough to force new track owners to hire him.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but all the new tracks since 1999 are his work. Earlier and even now out of F1, tracks are built locally, and the constructors chose whoever they wanted to design the tracks and could build whatever configuration they wanted. Now F1 as an organization wants convenient tracks (which is also pits, parkings, stands, press centres - a lot of things), for which they can't use Goodwood, Zandvoort or Bathrust - they're too narrow or a parking is too small for Dennis' mobile business centre. So, when an organization that wants to have their home GP (Petronas, China, Arab sheikhs, Gazprom) comes up to Bernie, they have to agree to hire Tilke.

WTCC, BTCC, F3 and maybe european RX championship. A bit 250cc/125cc motogp, maybe superbike. Some how IRC, but there isn´t much action to watch.

Endurance racing (LMS, ALMS) is nice for a background noise.

All the other racing is too sterile and/or boring (F1 and most of other open-wheel racing, DTM, oval racing, drag, etc.).

Western Africa with it's rebels and gangs is a too dangerous place. I think, even if some are ready to sacrifice their health to win, a race isn´t worth sacrificing one´s life.

Though I´m not as charmed with rally raids as I used to be. Though it is possible to crash or get lost, much depends on the readiness to damage own´s health or even suicide, and team backing (i.e. the number of mechanics and spare parts).

Initially the idea came to Thierry Sabine after he got lost in the desert. I think, instead of an ultra-long marathon with very long stages they´d better make a long auto-orienteering in the desert, with GPS used only as a black-box or in case of emergency (and to draw cars' paths for TV coverage). That would have been more drivers and navigators competition than of cars and mechanics.

I hope the construction will never begin!

I used to play LFS on Panasonic Toughbook Y2. 1.5Ghz, 512MB, don't remember the video card.
It was able to do 40 fps with minimal settings and own car hidden. 1-2 other cars caused fps to drop by 5-10 fps. With full grid in front of me, fps were below 10.

Quote from xaotik :

1977 to 1993 contains several eras actually. Is resurrection or zombiefication allowed or just the surviving ones?

Unfortunately, it's impossible, Patrese can't become a zombie like modern F1 drivers.