Oh god. Me, well I'm 30 (at last count, but that might have been a few years ago now.) Killed more cars than I care to mention. Although that period o my life seems to have come to a thankful end.

Done some kart time but nothing serious. Always had a keen interest in motorsport, and in regards to simming, since physics have leapt forwards and the k/b is no longer a viable control option, it's always been LFS. The only sim I know of that I can so easily set up the cars for a mouse. Maybe a wheel is due next pay day. Haven't decided yet so if any of you have an old wheel they don't want any more . . . . .

Yes . . Findick. thats what I said It's all one big happy Scandy-thingy-naval isn't it? (Says he, tongue firmly in cheek).

Would test but as a mouse user its seems a bit pointless . . . I don't drive any of these cars typically so I think I might lay my uber-competitiveness to one side for this weekend and just enjoy the jaunt. .


I have also noticed that there are a few of us Oxford peeps knocking around. I can drive but would like to drink, wasn't planning on staying overly long afterwards (But you never know, depends on how I get with the drinking.) and am more than happy to contribute to petrol/drivers perks along the way. But like I said, can and will drive if needed. So you oxford/A34 corridor lot shout out so we can get organized.

And if that Norwedish LFSNoob can make it all the way from the north pole or where ever then it puts some of us to shame dunnit . . .

Quote from Hyperactive :

Found this though :
http://video.google.co.uk/vide ... ocid=-7153152098207965240

Hahahahahaaaa. I think that is reason enough to have every american kids tongue surgically removed untill they can prove that can hold a sensible conversation.

Coulnd't get past the cops and robbers vids opening credits.

Some tracks just naturally are more prone to use one side of the car than the other . . Blackwood bing one of them. It's a clockwise track (Normally) with some very heavy load right handers, that one at the end of the straight for example. Not alot you can do. You could run slightly less pressures on the right wheels but go to far and the car will be unbalanced. Adjust camber (I do this, no reason why both wheels should be cambered identically if it benefits you in corner to change them.) but again if you adjust to far you will loose left hander benefits.

It is just one of those things. You can make some minor adjustmenets but you will find tracks that anhilate one tyre more than the others.

Reading the last couple of posts has made me revisit my views on why I think the basic premise behind LFS in not using real cars is so good. With things like Rfactor and GTR the cars are real, you can't help but compare them to the real thing. And untill you have a perfect physics simulation you will never get a true representation of these cars. There is only so much kicks you can get from 'driving' a Lambo around Nordshcliefe before you realise that you will never know how the car really drives unless your rich enough to go out and buy one. And if that was the case you probable wouldn't be trying to drive it Rfactor becuase it would piss you offf to much.


No. LFS's arguable best attribute is that it does not use real cars (Other than them ones). And in doing that means that the guys can concentrate on getting the physics right first and foremost for the basic vehicle platforms. The fact that all of LFS's cars are not nessesarily easy to drive and have quirks and foibles is what makes it all the more real.

Don't forget that LFS is NOT A FINISHED PRODUCT. Most, if not all of the issues you raised are know about and will be sorted at some point in the near future. Rfactor (As far as I know) is a finished product.

LFS has a long way to go and I think that if you read through some of the bug reports, improvement sudgestions and post that Lord Scawen has posted on the subject you will find that most things are/will be addressed.

As for Rfactor. Never played it, wouldn't know.

The very basis of god is that he cannot be proven. To prove god exists would mean to suspend believe, you suspend believe you have no god, just a greater but real being such as ourselves. Which is why I never push myself to qualify gods existence to anyone including myself. If there is a god and he is a benevlolent one then he see's me for all my faults and my good bits. So long as I stay true to myself and act out my life to how I see best then I can't see how I can do any more than that. Some might say that to have that faith and to use it and follow certain teachings (take your pick) that you can better your life and others with it. unfortunatly a lot of these teachings are given by man to man. Therefore a lot is misconstrued and alot of misguided pronciples arise. I prefer to pick and choice from the multitude for if there is a god then he will be present in all things.

There also needs to be evil. If you don't have evil how can you know good? It's a fundemental force in nature, the Ying and the Yang, the opposite and equal, black and white and every shade in between. You need the bad in this world to maintain the balance. Everyone assumes that we possible would default to the good. I don't believe that, I believe that fundementally we are capable of some very heinous acts. Every one of us. It's as we grow and recognise things around us that we look to the good in this world. The bad people are the norm. The good are the abnormal. The abnormal are what make us humans humans and not base animals.

Go good people. Ra Ra Ra.

Quote from Shotglass :

actually its a well known fact that bad news are indeed the fastets traveling entity in the universe

I think the dark is right up there too . . . you know, whereever light goes it always finds the dark has got there first . . .

Quote from al heeley :

My problem is that religious beliefs lack any logic and evidence to suggest the true existance of an all-powetrful deity. By their very nature they are a belief.

I think a lot of religion, the hole light at the end of the tunnel, omnipotent diety that controls all and sundry is a rather crude way if explaining the unexplainable. If I was back in the heathen days looking a way to quantify conciousness or epileptic fits or the sun and the moon I am going to personify them. Give them an identity. By doing that it means I can effect them, I can become their friends and feel that I can in some way control my surroundings. I think it's very difficult for us, the selfish ape, to actually acknowledge that we have far less control over our surroundings than we like to think. This universe of ours has been around for Billions of years, we are nothing, absolutly nothing in comparision. A mere speck on a speck on a speck of cosmic importance. And yet we have done so much. The dinosaurs where arounf for millions of years, we barely make it out of the thousands and yet we have done more to effect our planet than anything before us. But who is to say that this isn't meant to be. That in some way this is all preordained. I can't remember where I've seen it or heard it but there is a theory that we are just a evolutionary stepping stone on the way to our next incarnatation. Now wouldn't that fit nicely, albeit on a slightly longer timeframe, into an asecnsion into heaven idea. Our minds out evolve our bodies and ascend to higher planes.

It amazes me that the further you look into science the more complex and completely mindblowing it gets. I can't help a bit of me think that all this we see around us just cannot be by accident. There is far to much complication. But then in saying that maybe this is nature. This is exactly how it should be. And in that case are their the infinite number of universes out there either in time or in parrallel that subscribe to a different set of cosmic constants where humans didnt' quite cut the mustard and it's tortoises that managed to thrive in a stronger gravity . . . But then if you had a stronger gravity this planet wouldn't be what it is with us . . See, everything interacts, everything means something to something else. Something, somewhere holds everything together. How can this not be designed?

Isn't that a fundemental of Budism? Maybe I should go and see the Lhama . . . See if he's got any answers . . .

Eat's, Shoot's and Leave's

Quote from (SaM) :

Yesterday, I've watched an incredibly interesting documentary about quantum physics.

Here's a couple for ya:
I am the universe, you are the universe, the whole universe is one.
I am everywhere, but my decision or thought to be here makes it seem I am here.
You never really touch objects.

That's a sniff of Quantum Physics.

I think Neils Bohr famously said that if you understand Quatum Physics then you have failed to understand Quatum Physics . . .

Did you know that if an Atom was the size of a Football stadium then the Electrons would be circling the carpark (Although again, circuling is very basic teminolgy and completly fails to accuratly describe what Electrons actually do as they orbit a Nucleus. Not that anyone actually understands what an electron does with it's time, if it even has any, they just guess.) and the Nucleus would be the size of a Pea in the centre circle. Thats an incredable amount of space. That we are all made up out of. We are all just space. We are more empty space than we are matter. And then that whole entanglement thing. Which goes some way to prove that information and not light is the fastest thing in the known universe. And you can't even hold the speed of light as a constant anymore. They can actually bring light to a stand still inside some sort of super cooled BEC thing (BEC is a Bose-Einstien condensate and is said to be one of the many forms that matter can take next to solid, liquid, gas, plasma and all sorts of others. BEC's only occur at super cooled temperatures, fractions of degrees from absolute zero, which is pretty damn cold.) And super cooling is another fascitating thing. Did you know that a BEC will actually physically try to excape it's container to try and return to a 'normal' state. Quite literally lifting lids. Amazing stuff. And the more I try and understand any of this and how this amazing universe fits together with us in it the less I think I want to know.

It's like . . .way cool.

Quote from Aquilifer :

Actually that comparing of the signatures is an interesting idea... didn't think about it. There is just one thing... stars are not unchanging. It's signature changes with it's age, but for human lifetime they can be considered often constant. Of course you would need to update the chart everytime there is a supernova explosion or some other radical changes (like neutron star or black hole mutilates a normal star). Even in very early or late in their life cycle there can be rather fast (but in a way normal) changes.

Then there are these variable stars (Mira type and Cepheid variables). How that periodic size and temperature changes affect should be saved too.

I do not know how accurately you could tell two stars different by looking their spectra (if they are very similar). So are they as good as human finger prints or iris? Not at least in the way that they are not constant, but together with coordinate information you should have enough data for human lifetime... I think.

As a classification example: Sun is now G2V. In future it could become K2IV and M1III (temperatures pulled from a hat, but something like that) and in the end (after it died) e.g. DO1 (kind of a white dwarf).

This would only work in local space where you have these stars mapped out and indidually classified in the ~Auto pilots database. But if you still stuck Billions of light years away from source then it could match up those stars it see's with anything. Looking at it, it may have the right star (for example: if you overshot and where now looking at it from direct opposites) but it still couldn't give you an accurate position without knowing how and where it came from and got too. There would be countless billions white dwarfs, pulsars, Binary's, Supergiants out there that an auto pilot would take it's information from so it could give many positive matches if put into a strange local. But say you travelled from here to Alpha making notes as you went you could easily increase your database of local knowledge by simple triangulation. Something we can only do in an interstellar situation at the moment by waiting every 180 days to take a second set of readings.

To make an instellar auto pilot work effectivily looking a the stars would be only a small fraction of the information needed. Vastly more important would be the 'I know where I've been' thing I said earlier. It's how they found the america's donchaknow

Let me rub my figurative hands together in an existential way . . . I love this shit . . .

There is eveidence to sudgest that the subconcious brain actually operates a good half a second in front of the concious brain. Basically 'feeding' the concious you with only the important bits that the subconcious has already digested, prioritised and given back to your concious brain to react to. Which in itself is thought provoking as to who is in control. Is your subconcious another 'you' or some kind of benevolent force that operates for you not by you. Also this could mean that the world around you that you see, hear and cope with might actually be happening half a second earlier than you realise. Bizarre concept. Got that from the New Scientist.

The thing with Schumey and the lights are probable more preemptive than actually 'seeing the future'. He is a proffessional racing driver and in such a position having been in countless number of race starts he would have more than a adequate 'feel' for the lights changing. Sometimes he's early, sometimes late and sometimes spot on. Maybe in later years he became uncannyly spot on but I bet in his carting days he was just as hit and miss as any of us would be.

I do feel that people can become very empathic to certain stimuli if exposed for longf enough or feel strongly for such a thing. Whether that means you can actually altar the course you are set is a different matter. We've all had that feeling of inevitability when the brakes start squealing and time streches out so you can really enjoy the feeling of you pissing you pants. But how many of us have been able to use that to our advantage and do the right thing. And how much of that right thing is just luck and how could you test such a thing?

Personally I can't excape the feeling that people who profess to have precognition or physic abilities are just pandering to popular belief and sensationalism. Those that have true 'skills' in those areas wouldn't think anything of it particularily. They just make bloody good doctors or, case in point, racing drivers. I think we all have a certain amount of empathy to what goes on around us, I don't see how we can't. There are alot of mysterys out there but not in the way that popular television and the ilk declare it to be.

I have never seen a ghost, but I've had a chill run up and down my spine in the height of summer. Could that just be a bad nerve connection or did I really just cross a spirit threshold? I'm going for the former.

I don't believe in seeing the future but I have on more than one occasion either predicted an accident or had a 'feeling' that one was immenent. On a few times I have felt that I have altered my course of actions, maybe slowing down, taking a different route, stopping and talking to someone rather than blundering on. Did I advert danger or just bumble along like I normally would. Was it a concious desicion to do so?

Hmmm. Deep.

Do they do science North of Cambridge? Sometimes I even wonder if they do sceince in Cambridge and all we do in Oxford is ooo and ahhh at the pretty foriegn students.

If you know where you've been, you know where your going.

If I let you travel to Alpha centuri under your own speed with you taking note as we went then you would know where you are and how to get back.

If I just picked you up, covered your eyes and your ears and instantaniously transported you there then you wouldn't have a clue where you where. Nothing would look the same and you would have no reference points to work from. You wouldn't even be able to tell me which Star was Sol.

No . . .Lord. For you are the realist of the realists. The only reality that I would ever need. The only reality any of us ever need. Fo noone could be real'er than you. Lord.

Quote from Blackout :

Haha, I think I know who you mean, a good one

Yea. Bit obvious that . . . .

You could argue that the only reality is your own reality because nobody else can experiance like you can, experiance being the operative word. But you could also argue that because most people agree on the colour blue then reality is something that effects us all whether you like it or not. You could argue that we go through this life on a preordained route from the moment we're shoved screaming into the world to the moment we pass screaming out of it or you could say that all we do is bounce from one chance encounter to another and that we are the masters of our own ship.

I think rather than question reality (For me, this is it. Take it or leave it I will make it what I can) ,question, rather; perception. What you percieve to be humour, another percieves as insult. What you percieve as a tragic waste of life in the form of starvation another percieves as population control. What you percieve to be reality is actually the product of a deranged imagination, take your pick as to whoms.

Life really, really does not make alot of sense. It shouldn't be here, and yet it is. How can we, just animals, reason and imagine; Kill and be Killed; Cruel and yet so kind; laugh, cry, shout and scream. How can we, mere specks of dust on a cosmic chess board, even think ourselves as a noble, important, race. How can billions of atoms combine in just such a way to make a strand of DNA and how does that DNA know how to make that particular protein and how can that particular protein manage to give just the right amount of Hydolase too that particular cell component and how did that cell know how to form a backbone that supports a bipedal skeleton in just such a way that it enabled a large and very complex brain to form that just so happened to allow an extremely complex processor of an infinite amount of information to work without burning too much energy that it detriments the very organism it inhabits.

Life in short is wierd and complicated and I find it's best not to try and second guess it. Somebody, somewhere must know what they are doing and they must have the brain the size of a planet and are quite probable critically depressed.

I'm quite happy to trust thingymebob from that place whatsit. He does this for a living, then generally qualifies most people to know what they are talking about. I have never ever used GPL and neither have I driven the track so it will all be new to me . . . .

Quote from Bawbag :

Been reading this thread since all this hand bag swinging started and the only thing I find revolting is that you judge a whole community because of an argument you had with a very minute portion of the LFS community.

On the note of your articles, i'm glad we wont be seeing any from you, as I said above you have judged a whole community on the basis of a few people you don't like. So (Unless your only being this way about LFS in general) you must judge games in the same way too huh? For example, oh I don't like the intro to rFactor, this game is sh*t.

And briefly to lower myself to you Bob, you can stick your perfection up your ASS as it's got more chance of survival in there than in your magazine.

Can you hear that Bawbag? Can you? That is the sound of everyone slapping their foreheads with their hands and saying 'D'OH!'

Ever so helpful.

To matey with the Mag thing going on. Well done. At least you ain't lost the plot. Keep it up. You just never know.

So is anyone going to make a mag then?

Now that everyone has picked up their toys again.

Is it me, or is it hot in here?

I leave you guys alone for a few days and World war III kicks off. I am amazed at the rudeness of some members of this community and complete lack of sensibilities when addressing an obvioously touchy subject. Or should that be 'arguable' . . .

I've said it before both here and on other subjects, but who are we to throw the first stones? I for one, as aforementioned, have absolutly no moral standpoint here as do not many others here. I think the ASS guys have defended themselves admirable and whilst I may not support their mag in any way I thought thier replys have been patient and comprehensive. I only wish I could say the same for some of 'our' retorts. As far as moral victories go ASS:1 - LFS community:0.

The only way that we can justify ourselves here is by starting up a rival mag that we can say in all honesty that we write unbiased, factual, truthful reviews and articles that offer unrivalled entertainment and valuie for money (I.E. Free. Just as ASS is. Free. We ain't paid for it. We have no financial recourse. Again. No moral highground.) If we can do that then we are allowed to throw arrows from our lofty battlements.

I can pretty much garantee . . . that ain't ever going to happen.

Running a mag, albeit a small niche market rag, requires a huge amount of dedication, cost and time. Someone, somewhere needs to give over their life to start something like this and even more to keep the damn thing going. Anyone? Who threw the biggest stone? Shouldn't he be the first to step up?

Someone mentioned Top Gear as a 'Magazine' to see contibuters telling it how it is. Well, Top Gear is an incredable powerful programme. It's presenters are incredable biased (Which is what makes it so entertaining) but that is metered out by the fact you have three simutaneous arguements allowing you, the viewer, to decern the good points and the bad points. But I would never use it as a basis for buying a new car. It's entertainment first and I don't care what people say the only person who can make me buy a particular car is me.

Obvioulsy people have some very strong feelings against ASS. But, it's their mag and they can run it how ever the hell they want to. Nothing gives me or anyone the right to talk to them like we just have.

I've suddenly come over all Pythonesque.

ALthough I do feel slighlty agrieved at seemingly being tarred with the same spatula as one who is a provender of tinned Luncheon Meat.

Although I did like that 'Spamette' insert. Takes off all the hard edges and conjures up images of Oeur'derves (I know, I know. But you get the idea.) being dished out by slightly sweaty chip shop owners.

One too many beers I think.

*Edit* I wondered why it made very little sense. But I did the best I could. Bad AL.

Yea. But in the whole spam spectrum this isn't really up there with major spamming spam spam. This is more a gentle spamette with humourous overtones.

But it's now getting a bit spammy having lost the plot slightly.

It's the full moon isn't it, made you a bit grumpy. Have a hot chocolate. Chill you out a bit.