I'm looking forward to Oz TG. More TG from anywhere is a good thing.

They could also try and use it as a bit of a tourist ad for Australia too.

Yeah it seems highly unlikely both drives have gone so I'd lean towards the mobo or cabling. Can you run one without the other, or do you have other equipment you can test with e.g. try the HDD drives in another PC?

And stupid as it may sound, the first thing I'd check is for dust and dirt. I've spent days trying to solve a weird hardware issue, only to succeed by taking everything out, giving it a good blast with compressed air and putting it back together again.

U4IK ST8, you don't seem to understand that it is completely impossible for the US government to have carried out 9/11, and are completely unwilling to look at the facts or answer questions presented to you. So there's absolutely no point discussing it with you. You're being belittled because you're clinging to the absurd and until you open your eyes, it'll continue.

Quote from U4IK ST8 :

Getting into Washington airspace is no easy task. Transponders on or not, they'd be picked up on radar at NORAD and intercepted. So that must have been a complex task by itself. If of course it was the terrorists and not a "friendly" aircraft.

Clearly that's based on nothing but Hollywood fantasy so I can only assume you've watched too many films. Or more worryingly, you've watched them and think it's how things actually happen. The US Government doesn't have computers on which they can say, "enhance", and the system redraws a blurry photograph so they can read a number plate. They have Photoshop, just like everyone else.

Similarly, the US Government don't employ a team of people at each government site that sit and watch a radar 24 hours a day, just in case, one day, there's some sort of air attack on the white house during peace time.

Every department - regardless of how cool and secretive they may seem - have what's called "a budget", and they simply can't afford to spend it on such folly.

Honestly, for your own sake, go and get a job in any government department and you'll soon see how it all works (or doesn't) and all your conspiracy theories will suddenly look quite silly

Quote from Boris Lozac :

Which part? Well, the part where they suposedly trained to be pilots, how they knew all the informations that the US military was doing excersises on that day and that 90 % of fighter jets were deployed for these excercises..

I doubt that was planned. The country was in shock. The US government didn't have a clue what was going on that morning so even if the whole US air force had been sitting in New York, it wouldn't have made any difference. I'm not sure exactly what circumstances are required which allows the air force can shoot down a civilian aircraft, but I'm pretty confident it'd need more evidence than what was available at that time. I bloody hope so anyway

Quote from Boris Lozac :

They obviously (if they did it in the first place) need to plan this for a year or two, minimum... all i'm saying that all their previous work was desperate suicide bombing attacks, nothing even close to this,

And what had they achieved with that? Nothing. Nobody cares until it's on your doorstep. You can't deny it's had a massive impact on the world. I thought America's global dominance would continue throughout most of my lifetime but nowadays I'm not so sure.

Quote from Boris Lozac :

you're telling me that that maneuver that was required to hit the Pentagon in that angle was conducted by a terrorist doing "flying for dummies" course?

No, it was by a man who had been trained to fly a plane. If you have the money, you you can sign up tomorrow and start your own flying lessons in exactly the same way they did. There's nothing complex about it.

---

If you want to talk about complex, then consider exactly what the conspiracy theorists are claiming. You question how these fanatics can make a leap from blowing up themselves on the street, to crashing a plane, and yet you haven't made the same comparison in the other direction? How can the US have possibly done this themselves. What would it take to pull off such a phenomenally complicated act as setting up the events of September 11 2001?

Just consider this: how many people would need to be involved in such a stunt? Remove these depending on what extent you believe the theories

1. To bring down a building, you need a demolition team and in this case, not just any demolition team. This one uses equipment that nobody in the explosives industry uses, so possibly the most advanced demolition team in the world. To set up the buildings on the scale we're talking here, that's a big team.

2. Now the buildings were brought down using technology that isn't used in the demolition industry. So this is effectively new stuff, highly advanced and seemingly massively more effective and accurate than anything used in demolition, requiring no visible wiring, fuses, detonators etc. So there's a team of people somewhere that has created, developed, and tested this technology.

3. And considering this is not established technology in this field, how do you develop something that can so perfectly bring down two sky scrapers? If this plan was to work, you couldn't possibly use the WTC towers for the first attempt so you'd need to test it on something else. How? Build a test skyscraper at Area 51? If so, that's a huge team of architects and builders, not to mention the equipment required (cranes, diggers etc.) would need to be hired or bought.

4. The news agencies were apparently in on it, so that's camera men, journalists, editors, directors, sound men, researchers, runners etc.

5. There's a propoganda team. An extremely well connected team of people that can spread the "truth" via all the relevant mediums. Admittedly, all Government's already have these

6. Investigators. The investigators involved in searching and analysing the wreckage were in on it. I don't know how many there were but it must be dozens.

7. Various experts in their fields. There is no shortage of material on the net that completely and utterly debunks the evidence that the conspiracy theories rely on. There are hundreds of people in this category and they must all be in on it.

8. 'Special effects' teams. The Pentagon certainly had a big hole in it's side, and there are pictures of the plane wreckage, so these must have been made by a special effects team somewhere. And some don't even believe planes hit the towers ( :rolleyes: ), so I guess that's a team from Hollywood as well.

And so on.

This is hundreds - possibly thousands - of people who are apparently on the inside. Importantly, not all of them could possibly work for or in Government and therefore would have little incentive to withhold such a massive, massive outrage.

Now remember, this is a Government we're talking about. One of the most beaurocratic, difficult and incompetent organisations on the earth.

And not one of them - not a single one has come forward and said it was an inside job. I'm sorry but people are not that reliable. I think Jimmy Bob - the man who repaired the puncture on the truck full of explosives that was parked outside the Pentagon that day - would have his book out by now.

Quote from Boris Lozac :

You honestly believe that these terrorists all of a sudden have knowledge and informations to carry such a complex attack? All their previous attacks were desperate suicide attacks, not ONE similliar to this..

Which part of it was complex?

Don't know the composers involved but:
Team 17 (The Project X soundtrack rocked)
Psygnosis (Lemmings soundtrack )

These days I usually switch the music off in games. It just ruins the atmosphere for me.

Quote from Becky Rose :

Funny, I could swear the lad had over 10 pole positions already.

Hey now, stop that. This is not the place to be using facts!

Last edited by durbster, Wed 17 Sep 2008, 10:55.

Quote from wheel4hummer :

I was just saying that I think it is plausible that the WTC 7 was brought down on purpose. What would be there reasons? I have no idea. No-one will ever really know.

Do you know how complicated it is to demolish a building? It takes days of preparation, hundreds of metres of fuse wire, explosives carefully positioned. It's not just a case of chucking in a bomb and setting it off, it takes weeks of planning.

And considering nobody here is qualified to talk about the physics of building collapses, this might be worth a read:
http://www.jnani.org/mrking/wr ... king911.htm#_Toc144445987

Last edited by durbster, Tue 16 Sep 2008, 8:06.

Quote from SamH :

Yup. But the most interesting, and most concealed/suppressed question for me is WHY they did it. While there's all this utter guff about conspiracies on the day, nobody is asking the question that really needs an answer.

I'm pretty sure that if you go and ask any of the countries in the middle east, they'd give you a solid answer. There are lots of reasons to hate the west if you aren't seeing the benefits of its consumerist society.

And here's a couple of building collapse simulations that might interest those who think it's impossible for a damaged building to fall as the WTC towers did:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... rxAug&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PSt2AOfejc

The sad thing about all this is that people are making very good money from these conspiracy theories.

I find it difficult to understand why people think a Government is competent enough to carry out such a monumentally complicated task. Anyone who's worked in or for Government knows how utterly useless they are.

Blimey. I was at Stowe and saw the accident, but it was too far away to see what had actually happened. We didn't even realise it was the Peugeot until a few laps later we realised one was missing!

Very entertaining race though, even if I did have to get on Autosport to find out what had happened

Kev

Quote from Shotglass :

i never said he did it to pass kimi (stop reading things into what i write when it suits you) but from the onboard its very clear that he decides to steer onto the runoff while he still has plenty room and time to stay on the road

OK then, I apologise for misunderstanding you.

Quote from Shotglass :

...nah that was a very concious decision on his part... which makes the whole incident even more questionable and worthy of a steward inquiry

Good grief, this is even more absurd than I realised. I didn't realise anyone was suggesting that he chose to cut the chicane in order to pass Kimi. Despite the fact that he had just knocked a 5 second lead down to nothing, and had a massively stronger car?

Quote from Shotglass :

because people like to complain and their infaillible hero got a penalty...

You do realise that those who blindly defend a driver to the end are no worse than those who blindly attack them, don't you?

I'm no Lewis fan. I was laughing my head off when he got overtaken by Kimi at the start, after his arrogant comments in the interview just a few moments before. I think he's a big mouthed little sod, but I also think he is brilliant for the sport because he's always exciting to watch.

I am, first and foremost, a motorsport fan, and I don't want results being decided in meetings by people who haven't competitively turned a wheel in their life.

Patrick Symonds has summed it up quite nicely:

Quote from Patrick Symonds :

"It raises lots of interesting questions, and I am not talking about 'Are the FIA on the side of Ferrari?' We have to believe that they are impartial, the sport would not exist if we didn't believe that.

"But I think it does call into question (the sport's) philosophy, because everyone is saying we need more overtaking in Formula One, we need more excitement, and we need more personalities.

"And yet it seems to me that everything that actually happens seems to be against that.

"Here we had a great race with people really challenging each other and for why? If it's taken away, then why take that risk?"

Given the money, I would love to.

Unless you make it to F1, it's just a massive black hole to pour money down. It must be one of the most expensive hobbies around, and I don't think I would sacrifice the quality of the rest of my life for it.

Being in England, there is a huge number of motorsport opportunities so I can get my fix in various ways, and that's a happy compromise for me. If I wasn't saving for a house I might even buy a cheap car just for trackdays. The MX-5 is great fun to sling round a circuit but knowing that you have to drive it home does put a bit of a leash on the experience.

Quote from Jakg :

Don't you love it when morons comment on things they don't understand.

Unfortunately it's the reason why democracy fails...

And the reason Internet forums thrive!

Quote from tristancliffe :

...Had he not cut the chicane he would not have been close enough to attempt a pass into La Source.

Have you even seen the onboard footage? The only reason Lewis was there at all was because Kimi braked far earlier for the chicane. It wasn't a planned move, it was an opportunist one, and if he hadn't gone for it he would have gone straight into the back of Kimi.

Kimi's car was useless, he had no confidence in it and he was going to lose the position regardless. That's why he also braked very early for La Source. Lewis could have nailed him there regardless.

Anyway, add Eddie Irvine to the list of people opposed to the decision, and man, does he go for the FIA with his teeth bared - good on him
http://www.virginmedia.com/spo ... t/eddie-irvine-latest.php

Quote from Mustafur :

Batemans bay?

or bega probably.

They're about three days drive away

Most of the little towns along the GOR are nice and they're all set up for holidaymakers so you'll find somewhere to stay in each one no bother. Lorne, Apollo Bay and Warambool are all lovely places that stand out, particularly Lorne.

Quote from JamesF1 :

...Stewards settle 'disagreements' (for want of a better term) between participants...

Indeed. And who was the disagreement between here? Nobody protested.

Quote from JamesF1 :

Okay then, Lewis cut the corner, gained an advantage, and was penalised. Sorted. Simple physics will give you that fact. Stop moaning.

He was ahead of Kimi as they exited the chicane, then he was behind Kimi when they reached the braking zone. That's called gaining an advantage is it?

Quote from JamesF1 :

I fail to see how so.

It is bad for F1 because every sport should be decided on the field of play by its participants, not in a meeting room by unaccountable stewards of dubious impartiality.

Quote from JamesF1 :

You do like saying "regardless of what people think"-esque comments, don't you?

I do. They're commonly referred as "facts".

Quote from Linsen :

While I don't think that Kimi had to give Hamilton room, comparing the Kimi/Hamilton incident with the Heikki/Webber incident is ridiculous.

The Kimi/Sutil incident was completely different, but what about Bourdais hitting Trulli at T1?

David Coulthard has done what Heikki did to Webber in almost every race this season, but has gone unpunished, whereas poor Heikki got stung almost instantly.

Quote from JamesF1 :

You're missing the entire point. If Hamilton had been forced to make the corner (which he needed to to prevent cutting the track), then he would have had to brake, turn, slot in behind Kimi, and negotiate the corner. By this point, Kimi would have been, maybe, 10 car lengths down the straight, and at a distinct speed advantage. Hamilton cut the track, prevented himself from losing this speed (which was gained momentum over what he would have suffered to stay on-track) and used it to keep in contention and pass Kimi into T1.

There's no way of knowing how far behind Lewis would have been had he not cut the chicane, and you cannot punish drivers on hypothetical evidence alone. You can only judge on what did happen, not what might have happened.

Kimi might have turned around, driven into the pitlane and run over Ron Dennis for all we know, but you can't punish him for it because it didn't happen.

Anyway, regardless of what people think, this decision is very, very bad for F1. The decision to change a championship result should only be made in circumstances where the rules have been clearly broken - let's say beyond reasonable doubt - and no matter how anybody feels about it, that's certainly not the case here.

Actually, if you can build stuff then it might be a bit like this excellent Flash game:

Fantastic Contraption

I was away for a couple of years and came back to try LFS. I can't say I found it any harder than it used to be but it is certainly better.