I'm a quarter of a century.

Sorry, you're tripping man, forget about it... When you got better times, you were driving better, and vice versa.

Quote from Bob Smith :

Genetically speaking, there's like 6 sexes or something, just the other 4 are very uncommon. Due to society not being very accomodating to those "others", they are generally (incorrectly) labelled as either male or female, often at the choice of the parents, and said to have a genetic sexual disorder.

No idea why I brought that up.
[/lecture]

Getting a little defensive, are we "Bob?"

Quote :

I'll stick playing flight simulators, not this artificial nonsense.

X-Plane ftw!

Quote :

'rewards' for completing the missions...only little badges and medals and stuff, but gives that added incentive to fly them

That sounds cool though. I haven't flown for at least a month I guess because I'm too goal oriented and it's too much work to try to figure out "something to do" in X-Plane. I'm bored of flying from my hometown to other towns I know. The global scenery just compounds the problem; it's overwhelming! I need some missions - so I can get on and have something tell me, "Ok sir, I need you to fly from Sao Paulo to Chili ASAP! GET IN TEH AIR SIR NOW!" "Roger that over and out!"

Maybe I just need to join some kind of X-Plane community :/

Quote :

That scam the scammer case was funnier though.

Check out http://www.419eater.com/
Site dedicated to scamming teh scammers; some pretty funny reads (if you're bored enough)

I'll drink to that!

I've noticed this behavior in LFS also, but it is actually a Windows key combo. I've used it to switch between Dvorak and standard keyboard layouts since long before I ever got LFS =-/ I think the function that CTRL-SHIFT performs in LFS just needs to be mapped to something else...

Why, god, why?

This isn't a challenge, it's masochism! I was able to get a 1:36 something driving really slow after a few tries, but I just couldn't force myself to work on this much longer. When I went back to working on my XFG, it took me 10 minutes to relearn how to drive normally. UGH. I like the Raceabout, or at least, I DID, but this is just ridiculous lol! illepall


@george: You don't suck; don't base that on this silly setup. Have fun driving the real RAC imo!

Hilarious, thanks

This is probably pretty stupid, but does anyone else hate robnewman? I mean, I'm not all that fast, but for some reason it's REALLY aggravating seeing him at the top of the list with his NINETY-FOUR minutes over the benchmark. He didn't even try to drive fast! Renku is the #1 Nutter in my opinion.

Bleh.

I've needed to get that out for a while lol.

I once aspired to post online PBs for all possible combos, but after doing a few cars worth I ditched it for hotlapping mode for the better stats tracking and ranking support. It's something to do heh.

All my friends are gamers and muscians, so I don't get embarrassed about talking about LFS or whatever other hobbies with them. My girlfriend of 5 years is a computer nerd too so games don't bother her much outside of the fact that "I'm not paying attention" to her. We've got an oldschool NES and about 40 games that we sometimes play together, but she can't get into the "stupid 3d games."

When we first started dating I was a total Everquest geek in a high level raiding guild, so I don't think it can get much worse than that. I ended up quitting EQ to save the relationship lol Games become 10E23 * more than geeky when you change RL plans around raiding Rallos Zek and trying to get new swords with +10 to beastslaying and camping Vex Thall shards and crap Later I eventually got into World of Warcraft and ended up in the same guild that I was in in EQ and was at the end-game level there too before I spontaneously quit. My old lady was ok with WoW as long as I never played it at home... I got caught red-handed a couple times though.

As I'm not in a league or anything and just LFS in my spare time, I don't think it's too geeky, but that opinion would probably change if I found myself saying things like, "I don't know man, I'd love to hang out but I'm signed up for a race ... err... I mean I have plans, sorry!" I guess it wouldn't be that bad though, I mean I already make plans to play games with my friends i.e. "OK dude I'm heading home, I'll look you up in Day of Defeat in about half an hour," but I think it'd be different with a game that no one I know IRL plays. (I can't get anyone to play LFS; maybe because I couldn't bring myself to recommend it without investing in a wheel and stuff.)

But yeah, if I were single and trying to "woo" a pretty young lady, I don't think LFS, CS:S, or DoD:S would come up in conversation unless I already knew it would be "cool." Much better to talk about playing guitar and drums. Gamer/nerdy chicks FTW!

Sounds like all you need now is some kind of power-chair-to-sewer-line-hookup and a mail-slot in your front door for the delivery guy to drop the pizza in. You'll never have to move again!

200% FF FTW!

I have a similar problem when I exit LFS: The screen is mostly black except for some unusual looking scrambly-weird-stuff. The mouse cursor seems normal. My workaround is to hit [Windows key]+[L] to lock the computer and go to the login screen, then I log in and everything is fine.

BUT

My machine does this when exiting several other games. Probably a directX or video driver issue in my case, but I haven't bothered to do anything about it. Easy enough to just [Win]+[L] and put my password in again heh.

So is it tube or solid-state? Each type can suffer from completely different kinds of problems. I don't know, if it were me I'd probably check the cables and pots first if that was happening to me. Sounds fishy that it starts working when you play with the knobs.

Here this book is a great source. Even if there's nothing wrong with your gear it makes interesting reading

I wrote a lengthy post last night but accidentally closed opera right before I posted it, but I'll try to recreate it. Goes a little something like this:

Quote :

DON'T use WMP, it EATS pc resources (WMP11 hit 50% CPU usage playing a 1,000 Kb/s WMA track... that's on my 64 bit 4000 at FX-57 speeds!)

Something must be wrong with your computer then. I use WMP11 with a 14GB music library of several thousand songs on an AMD Sempron 3100+ with 1GB RAM, and I never have an issue with its performance like that.

I did a little experiment: I opened up the three media players I currently have installed and loaded up the same 192kbps CBR 6.5MB WMA song in each. I minimized the players, played the song on one of them (while minimized), and after it played for about 4 minutes I took a screenshot with my task manager, My Music folder properties, and system properties visible.

First I did Media Player Classic. It's based on an old version of Windows Media Player but distributed on a GNU license with a bunch of nifty features. It's widely touted as being easy on resources and having a small memory footprint. While playing the track, MPC fluctuated between using 0% and 2% CPU, and about 6,300K RAM. While MPC was idle and the another player was working, MPC was using 7,812K and 7,832K; weird, even more than when working. illepall

Next I played the file on VLC Media Player, another of those small versatile players that I personally only really use for streaming live TV. VLC mostly fluctuated between 0% and 3% CPU use, and was taking up 7,860K RAM towards the end of the song. While idle, it was using 3,688K and 4,744K at the two sample points. Not bad at all.

Then I ran the horrible bloatware: WMP 11. It's officially still in beta as far as I know, but it's been stable for me for the few weeks I've been using it. While playing the file it hovered around 0-2% CPU use and topped out at 8,436K RAM use. Idling, it took up 3,248K and 4,780K in memory. Not too shabby.

After I had finished everything, I remembered another player I have installed that I don't really use at all. Nero Showtime; came with a bundle that I got for the CD/DVD authoring tools. I didn't bother screenshotting it but it used a similarly tiny amount of CPU and only about 6,000K RAM. Pretty good actually.

So what's the point of all this? Well it seems to me that for playing music in the background while doing other stuff, any of these players use an insignificant amount of resources - "bloatware" or otherwise. While WMP did use a little more RAM while playing a song minimized than the other two tested did, it seems like a very small difference to me. I really don't understand where all the anti-WMP propaganda comes from - at least not for the newest version. The only way I could make it use significant resources were if I played visualizations full-screen (TwistedPixel, a fantastic DirectX powered addon) or scrolled really fast through an enormous media library with album art and everything displayed. Even then though, it only used about 25-35% CPU.

I had tried out past versions of WMP and not been completely happy with them, so for the longest time I've been using Winamp. I ditched Winamp just recently though after playing around with WMP11 for a while. It looks slick, it syncs perfectly with my palmpilot/mp3 player, and it makes managing my media library easy and intuitive. These are things I care about. If you don't, that's fine, enjoy your player of choice; but the trash talking is silly.




Whoa: just noticed jakg you said 1000 kb/s WMA? I read that as 1,000KB before i.e. one MB filesize. You have audio files encoded at 1000kbps? That's crazy :o I thought only video+audio files could get that kind of bitrate. Oh that must be lossless compression I guess?

Ok, I just tried a 33MB 1.08Mbps lossless WMA file and CPU use mostly ranged from about 3% to 8%, but hit 10% two or three times. Memory use topped out at 16,556K. I can only assume this is basically typical of playing files of such high bitrate and filesize, because I don't feel like spending any more time on this

I smoked for about 6 years. Preferred Camels, but rolled my own with Top or Bugler almost as often (so much cheaper, and fun in a way). Even smoked pipe tobacco for a few months here and there (Captain Black ftw). I quit two years, 10 months, and 24 days ago though Pretty much all my friends and everyone I work with smokes, which made it *extremely* difficult to quit, but once I found myself telling enough people "nothx bro I quit" it started to become easier because I wasn't bumming smokes and drags from people. I still smoked a cigar every now and then when I went golfing with my dad, but he passed away a couple months ago (not smoking related, though he was a 30+ year smoker) so I don't see myself doing that anytime soon. It's nice being able to give my friends shit about it. Haven't been able to get anyone else to quit though, as many times as people say they're going to ^.^ I'm pretty sure it's true about the physical addiction only lasting a few days and the rest being all head trips though. After a few days, as long as I disassociated myself from smoking (i.e. don't go outside when everyone else does, and such) it wasn't so bad. It's just when you start to think about it that it gets bad.

EDIT:
Finished reading the thread. Wanted to note that THC is indeed quite effective by ingestion. It's been quite some time since I've used "illegal" drugs, but I can definitely say that the most intense high I've ever experienced from cannabis has been from eating brownies, not from smoking. I know several people who would also attest to the same thing. As for other hallucinogenic drugs, I've done my share and have had experiences both wonderful and fondly remembered as well as scary ones, whereas I know others that have tried mushrooms only once and had horribly frightening, nearly psychotic episodes.

Currently, I drink 2-3 cups of coffee just about every day, more so out of habit than actually consciously thinking something like, "I'm tired I need some coffee to wake up." I often buy a six or twelve pack of expensive beer on paydays, which usually lasts me a week or two of having a beer or two every couple nights after work. I almost always drink whenever I hang out with friends playing music or frisbee golf or whatever. It's tradition. Plus all my friends are alcoholics. Lol not really. It's just one of those things I guess.

Last edited by Dumpy, Tue, 24 Oct 2006 18:43.

That was a great race. Finally finished it this morning before work; I usually have to watch my tapes in several sittings.

Awesome performance by MSC. Starting in 10th, losing a tire in the very beginning and clawing his way from dead last up to 4th? Holy crap! That was inspiring. Definitely not the same as if he had somehow miraculously pulled off the championship for his final season/race, yet still pretty remarkable. Great way to go out IMO. There were a few great passes amongst the "oh damn I better get out of Michael's way" passes

Gratulations to Alonso on the championship. I started to tear up a little myself after it was over and they played some of team radio with Alonso looking like he was trying to wipe his own tears away through his helmet hehe. Man, what a feeling that must be. Will be interesting to see how far his driving takes himself and his new team at Mclaren after they've gone another season without a win?

More gratz to Massa too! What a feeling THAT must be, pulling a dominating win on his home turf. He is definitely proving to be a fantastic driver. I look forward to seeing what happens next year with his new teammate.

I think I'll keep this tape. Ended up taping over Turkey because it was the only tape left in my house that I haven't packed up and stuck in the garage (Moving soon)

EDIT Turkey, not Hungary

That's the weirdest thing I've ever heard of....I'll try it when I get home.

(and drunk)

Mostly pretty easy except the last one took a few minutes.

Yeah, it seems like a quick fix could be just to set an object - like a cone or tire - closer to the tarmac so that you'd get a "hotlap invalid - object" if you cut it. But even with something like that, it'd be an incompatible patch so I'd imagine if it were fixed it would be a bit more sophisticated than that. Hrm.

I can make it miss gear shifts if I specifically try to shift as fast as I can, but I haven't had a single issue with it in normal use. I don't understand how you can actually need to down/upshift so quickly that the double-shift protection ignores it. I can't pretend any knowledge of real-life sequential shift mechanisms and how fast they allow a driver to shift gears, but it does *feel* like a reasonable limitation to me.

This wasn't implemented as a "limitation" however, if I remember correctly. I remember posts a while back about some users' DFP paddles unintentionally triggering two shifts with one pull?

Either way, I haven't personally had any problem with it.

EDIT: Oh, just noticed I hadn't read the last part of this page and it looks like you figured out the issue with the shifts.

Last edited by Dumpy, Tue, 24 Oct 2006 04:27.

I feel like I'm still improving every now and then, though I've only been LingFS for about 5 months. I guess I have about a month to achieve WR pace on at least one combo? I started out mostly hotlapping online, but that got too frustrating because I couldn't pause it when I got a phone call, so now I've been getting into regular ol' hotlapping. I have 46 uploaded atm. Without practicing for too long I can usually get under the benchmark (103% of the WR) with slower cars, but it's much harder for me with the fast cars.

The one combo I've practiced the most is the one that I'm farthest away from the benchmark time with - LX6 @ FE Black Reverse. I'm just over 4 seconds off the benchmark and no matter how often or for how long I work on it, I can't improve my laptime, even though I feel like I'm driving it pretty smoothly and better than before. In my opinion part of the reason for this is the kamikaze way that the WR holders go through (read: over) the chicanes in Fern Bay. I can't help feeling dirty and embarrassed every time I slam through them, but you kinda have to to be competetive. It sucks. I just can't get it right at the insane speeds that some people can. Of course, this particular combo is crazy in itself. I mean... LX6 @ FE4R... I just watched my replay and I know I've done every turn there better than that, but it's so insanely difficult for me to string it all together in one try! I have to alternate doses of LX with doses of XF and UF in order to not go completely bonkers

I really need to work on actual racing though. I always get all uptight and nervous whenever I go online, even though I don't think I've ever really done anything that stupid or destructive. Weird huh? Everyone I've seen ingame and onforum is usually really nice, yet I still have this unjustified fear of fuxking something up and being ostracized and shunned across the entire 1n7RaWe8 or something... Sounds like a personal problem lol. Truth is, most of the time my conservative driving gets me into the top 5 or so by virtue of being one of the few that actually finish ^.^

Hmm.. got the rest of the night off. I should go practice.

Holy crap, nice job!

Wow looks good, this is something you yourself have worked on/used? I'm curious what kind of hardware is in use? Hydraulic? Electric motor? Did you guys write your own software interface too?

Definitely looks like more fun.

You're on the podium about 70% of the time you finish a race, with just over 1600 races completed. Out of 226 drags though, you only win about 30% - in fact, your LX6 drag time is 10 seconds slower than your LX4 drag! You've driven BL1 in all but 5 cars, somehow managing *not to* in the XFG. You like South City, especially in the RB4 and FOX. You've turned laps at every config in Fern Bay in the RB4 too. You don't take the Raceabout out much, probably because it took you exactly an hour to get it around FE Gold Reverse. Your best lap in the fastest car (BF1) at the 3rd shortest track (FE1) is about half an hour. You don't drive the BF1 on the oval, though you have taken a few turns around it in a few cars. Your best time at Kyoto GP Long Reverse in the FZ50 is almost 3 and a half hours, but only about 3 and a half minutes in the RB4. You're clearly not very good with the UFR because it took you about 15 minutes to get through KY National and almost 20 minutes at Westhill. You've posted 45 hotlaps and they're all AS Cadet or FE Club. Mostly you're a couple seconds behind the benchmark, which itself is a couple seconds slower than the WR, except in the RB4 where you've beaten the benchmark by a tenth or less.