Quote from danowat :

U-turns ARE hard, period, some people can breeze them, but many people do struggle.

The biggest tips I can give are, use LOTS of rear brake to keep the bike stable, and keep your head up, don't look down at the front wheel.

I would say a big majority of fails are down to the u-turn.

If you think the CG is bad, I did my CBT and first day of DAS on an SR125!!!!, the CB550 I did the rest of my DAS on was a MUCH easier bike to ride.

Biggest mistake people make on U-Turns is if they feel the bike falling in they panic and hit the brake/pull in the clutch. When what you should be doing is giving it a bit more gas to pick the bike up again. Kind of counter intuitive but it's what works.

Agree with using the rear brake to stabilise the bike too. In fact you shouldn't touch the front at all doing a U-Turn. It's all about back brake and clutch control. Oh and balance too of course !

PS - Just concentrate on observation and trying to predict other road users actions and you'll be fine.

Good Luck.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

I'm not racist but them dirty muslims can **** off back home?

Putting words in to his mouth rather aren't you?

I don't agree with a lot of what andy has said but I have to say that being worried about the fact that there are sections of the muslim community in this country that would like to see sharia law invoked and that the UK should be turned in to an undemocratic Islamic Theocracy is perfectly reasonable to my mind.

You can argue that it will never happen but then I'm sure there are plenty of people that said the same about Hitler prior to 1933.

On a personal level I feel that this country has to some extent become a victim of it's own liberal ideology, (and I'm a liberal !). Multiculturalism aside there comes a point when a country has to decide what kind of society it wants to be and take steps to preserve that. There is no argument that certain elements of the muslim community would like to overthrow the current state and change our society beyond recognition, and it seems that our political parties seem unwilling to openly discuss the issue, let alone challenge these beliefs unless they are taken to the point where violent acts are committed or supported.

There is little to no rational, intellectual open debate in the public eye on the issues of racial, religious and cultural tensions in this country and that is to a large extent due to the automatic response to people willing to critisise the behaviour/beliefs of other cultures and religions being labelled as racist.

The only issue with being liberal is that other people aren't. These other people will only seek to take advantage of our liberal acceptance of all that is different to change our society to their benefit. Potentially ultimately to something as unliberal as can be imagined.

Islam is offended by our liberal ways, and as liberals we tread carefully so as not to offend it's followers. Well to put it bluntly, I am offended by Islam. I'm offended with the way it subjugates women. I'm offended by it's inhumane system of Law. I'm offended by it's indoctrination of children in to the God myth. Could I as a politian ever get up and express those legitimate issues in public without fear of retribution? I don't believe so. Well so much for our liberal ideals.

Quote from amp88 :

My lower legs appeared on TV about 10 years ago.

Hey was one of those legs on the titles of "The Bill" yours then??

Quote from Gener_AL (UK) :

Imagine if scawen was updating the physics every other month breaking peoples sets, racing styles, hotlaps/lfsworld.
Then you would get "oh the tyre wear in ax17 was better then aa1b "
"The blanacing is broke again in X group of cars"
"fuel consuption has gone up for my UF1 !!!"

That to me would be more upheaval. And im sure this has already been pointed out.

Very good point. I for one would much rather physics updates are restricted to significant change releases only. For me a simple change to tyre wear or clutch heating for example are too small to justify causing such an impact to the current users. Also, subtle changes tend to be appreciated less and so a steady trickle of such changes don't really register in the community consciousness and don't do much to appease those looking for quicker development.

Personally when a physics change comes out I expect to have to completely relearn how to drive the cars because there has been a significant change to the handling characteristics.

NB - note that when I say physics changes I mean changes to anything that might change the way a car behaves on the track. That would include things like changes to grip levels on curbing/in gravel traps; wind/weather effects; collision handling etc not just intrinsic car handling properties.

Similar thing to changes to existing track layouts, IMO they shouldn't really be done for the sake of it just to prevent "stagnation". They are also a double edged sword for the devs because they tend to split the community, with some liking the changes and some not.

As far as content updates go, I would suggest that to "appease" the masses it would probably be best for the devs to release them as and when they are ready rather than holding them back to major releases.
Having said that there still should be some logic applied to the releases, such as only releasing interiors changes when the interiors for all cars in a particular group have been completed etc


On a slightly different note, one thing about LFS that I've never been too keen on is the use of multiple layouts per circuit. I know it's a simple way of getting a lot of "different" circuits on to a single screen, but I find it really confusing when trying to learn layouts as so many of them have similar names. I often find myself taking a wrong turn as I have difficulty remembering which way the national layout goes vs the historic one for example. I'd much rather we had more circuits, and limited the layout variations to maybe two per circuit, (eg National/Club and GP/International). That would be a lot less confusing IMO. But then I'm an old git with a rapidly failing short term memory problem !

Err the closest I can get is that I'm (very) loosely related to the Truman beer brewing family

Not a big fan of American Muscle cars in general, but the new variations are just terrible in general.

The orginal Mustang was much nicer IMO. Especially in the flesh. I've seen both at a classic car show once and the new one just looked like a big blocky plastic box. It's much larger than the orginal and doesn't have any of it's lines.

http://www.remarkablecars.com/ ... /shelby-mustang-030-1.jpg

Quote from Becky Rose :

I have found some statistics, but they fall a long way short of andybarsblade's claim.

London, as Britains most ethnically diverse region, has about 40% population who dont identify as White British.

In the London boro's there are 5,103,203 white British people, this is not specifically schools this is total population. The largest minority is Indian (a former colonial state and one with whome we retain close links too much like Canada and Astralia - so you could consider them "friendly non-nationals") 436,993. The next largest minority is Black Africans at 378,933 - mostly from commonwealth nations, followed by Black Caribbean at 343,567. Figures from the National Statistics offices.

By religion it's even less of a "worry" for the xenophobes with 4.1m Christian and 1.1m non-religious persons, and 0.6m who preffered not to say, with the rest spread thingly amongst the other religions.

Whereas in London 71.1% of the population is white British/Irish, outside of London the figure is 90.9% (with 1.27% Irish and 2.66% other).

Although 12% of London's population is Asian, the figure is just 4.57% nationaly. Likewise the 10.9% black population of London is just 2.3% nationally.

We're so under siege aren't we!

EDIT: I would like to state for the record that whilst I am mocking the 'under siege' stance and continued spouting of BNP and fascist xenophobic rhetoric, I am not under any circumstances implying that if the figures where higher that I would be in any way bothered. We're people, we're lower and middle class, let those who seek to keep their stranglehold on power worry about what flag you are born under.

To be fair, it's not so much an issue of overall population but population distribution. There is quite clearly a ghetto mentality amongst a majority of the immigrant populations, (both white and non-white). To a large extent it's understandable if only from the point of view of finding "support" from a same language speaker in a foreign country, the brits do it in spain after all. However it does have a tendency to divide communities, especially when there are issues of lack of integration due to cultural or religious differences. Especially when those differences are non negotiable on the part of the immigrant populations, and they make little or no effort to integrate with the "natives", (again like the brits in spain), often putting their kids in to the same local schools resulting in self imposed segregation. When these populations just happen to be of non-european non-white origin it just highlights the lack of integration even more clearly.

On a personal note. As a Londoner I can assure you that I have personally seen school playgrounds with hardly any white faces in some areas, so it's clear where the concept of "being flooded" originates. It may be a non representative sample of the overall population but on an individual experience basis, (which from which most people form their opinions), it is all to easy to see why people feel that way in some areas of London. Anyone that doesn't agree with/believe what I'm saying need only take a trip down to the Aldgate East area of London for example.

http://www.answers.com/topic/newham
http://www.nationmaster.com/en ... -Borough-of-Tower-Hamlets

Last edited by gezmoor, Mon 24 Nov 2008, 20:48.

Quote from ColeusRattus :

I wonder how long it takes until people realise that nations, and even races, are purely fictional (much like money) without any meaning outside of a narrow, self imposed context...

Good point. Modern anthropology doesn't even support the concept of race, except for the singular HUMAN Race. Race is a human socio-political construct and has no basis in genetic or biological science.

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

You seem to have ignored the torrent of racial abuse that man hurled at the family for months on end. If it was the other way round the attack would have been racially motivated and done on purpose, the man was racist scum and felt the consequences of making someone elses life unbearable. You can't compare an act of anger and despiration to a sadistic racially motivated murder just because both cases didn't get much time on the news.

Words fail me at this part of your post. No one deserves to die for their views, no matter how abhorent they may be.

There is never, ever, under any circumstances any justification in any way to physically attack let alone murder someone because of verbal provocation. I have to say I'm with andy on this point, (only). The guy should have been done for murder pure and simple and his two sons done for manslaughter. They should all be put in prison for a very long time in my book. There are legal avenues to deal with this kind of situation. Taking the law in to your own hands is not acceptable under any circumstances and should be dealt with severely.

You talk about comparisons, well words are words. Physical violence is physical violence and it's on another level completely. The two are in no way comparable. Murder is murder no matter what the motivation and should IMO be dealt with just as severely in every case.

This is somewhere were I think our law is going down the pan. I hear more and more cases of clear murder being reduced to manslaughter because of "provocation". There is no leway in the letter of the law, in this regard and it's clear to me the law is not being justly applied. There are only two tests for murder and they are intent and premeditation, and the law takes the view that it's imposible to have premeditation without intent. No matter how provoked you are, if you consciously pick up, (premeditation), any form of weapon and kill someone with it, you have murdered them. It can only be manslaughter if you kill in "the heat of the moment" and without the intention to kill.

Quote from bbman :

The devs have never approached a car maker to include (one of) their cars in LfS... Among others, Intel - also a global corporation - saw the potential of running their competition with LfS...

Well that's a little different. Intel are involved in PCs. LFS is a PC game. They can be said to be in connected, (if not the same), industries. VW are a car manufacturer. No connection with the Gaming industry at all, (under normal circumstances).

Quote :

VW needed someone to include their new car into a game/sim to run a competition to win/promote their new car on a three-day event and on relatively short notice, is it so hard to believe they went out to approach developers to do that?

Actually, that does make sense. Specifically the bit about the short notice. It wouldn't surprise me if they went to EA Games or who ever and asked for a car to be knocked up and were told "sorry doesn't fit in with our project life cycle and we're not willing/can't asign resources to do it, (in that time scale). Go talk to xxx". Eventually VW probably finaly heard of LFS and in desperation at wanting any sim at the launch, (as now the decision had been made up high you can believe it was going to happen no matter what!), finally approached them. At which point the LFS devs jumped at the chance.

Quote :

Why were still not driving that thing in LfS might be your product placement sensitive global corp at work...

Very likely a condition of the development. Probably there are conditions that haven't been met yet or even contractual issues that haven't been ironed out and so it hasn't been released to the game. Even possible there is some dispute, (payment?), that may never be resolved and so it may never make it in to the game !

Quote from SamH :

Can't argue much with that, gezmoor. A few points, however.. definitively, the BNP's vision of Britain is not a democracy. The effective result of their policies would leave Britain as an apartheid state during the process of repatriation, which is fundamentally contrary to both international law and also British law. The impetus against the BNP is not against the BNP political party but against stupidity, ignorance, false rhetoric (clearly still alive and kicking) and the dismantling of the system of democracy that we have fought to achieve for the last 400 years.

[edit] Dropped S14's post.

Agree 100%. That is the true danger and irony of parties such as these.

Quote from SamH :

The best thing that ever happened to the KKK was that it was *allowed* to publicly demonstrate and attempt to communicate its manifesto, and that in turn led to their hate speech being a) known, and b) publicly and thoroughly discredited. That in turn effectively led to the demise of the movement. These extremist movements depend entirely on rumour and misinformation.. break the back of the lie, the lie dies and the misplaced hate with it.

Well said.

Which is exactly why holding beliefs should never be criminalised. Criminalising beliefs and/or organisations and political parties only drives people underground, where they can gain influence and membership in the margins in secret. It also allows them to play the victim card against state oppression etc and that will always find support amongst people and can be used as a lever in to more extreme views.

The best place for these parties/belief systems is out in the open where informed debate can take place and people can see them for what they are, (which is just plain wrong), and so support ulitmately disapears.

Quote from S14 DRIFT :

Mr


That's a ****ing insult to this country.
Edit : got rid of names

I strongly suggest you delete this post. Even with the names and part of the post code removed, there is still probably enough information for an individual to be identified by a local person from that area. This forum is a public place remember and should anyone be victimised in one of those streets they could have a fair chance at taking both yourself and the owners of this board to court over it.

Even if they wouldn't have a case I would still delete it just to be safe.

Quote from The Moose :

ROFL. Some of the comments from members on a few blog sites are most amusing. They are getting their panties in a right twist. Good.
If your going to be a racist piece of scum then at least have the balls to stand up and admit it instead of shouting your hateful propaganda from behind some wall of anonymity.

This is one data leak i wholeheartedly agree with

Much as I agree with your sentiment I don't agree with the leak being a good thing.

Specifically because:

a) It's a legal political party. In this country we have freedom of political association and despite what peoples views may be on the parties ideology, there should always be one law for all in that if members of other parties are allowed to keep their political views private then so should this parties members.

b) Are all BNP party members racist? I would suggest that they aren't. Why? well because the BNP has quite radically altered it's public image over the last couple of decades and especially with the recent issues of the terrorist bombings and huge increases in immigration in to this country, (no I'm not implying the two things are linked), there is a genuine and sincerely felt belief amongst a lot of people in this country that our borders are too open. In fact until very recently it was a fact that it was far easier to gain entry to this country than any other european state, let alone other western states such as the USA or Australia. For this reason there are probably a considerable amount of people on that list that just genuinely don't know about the BNPs violent past, (they're too young), and just see the party as offering a political solution to what they see as a political problem.

To anyone that says, "you've got to be stupid to not know what the BNP really stand for" I'll say two things:

1). Probably 90% of this countries population don't truely understand the political ideology of even the main parties let alone the fringe parties such as the BNP.

2) I've said it before and I'll say it again. There's no law against being stupid and it's not the individuals fault if they are ignorant. Especially if they are ignorant of their ignorance. It's the job of those that aren't ignorant to teach them the errors of their beliefs.

Lastly, and I wan't to make it clear that this last point is a point of law, not my personal opinion, (which may or may not agree with it :razz.

We live in a Democracy. Being racist is not illegal. If the majority of the population should choose to hold Xenophobic/Racist views that is their perogative and should they decide to vote a Xenophobic/Racist political party in to government that is also their perogatives. That is the meaning of Democracy !!!

We should never make the mistake of equating being Racist/Xenophobic with agreeing with being violent against other races/foreigners. There is a world of difference between the two. In much the same way as we should never equate being muslim with agreeing with blowing up innocent people.
Before anyone says the two things are different, they are not. They are exactly the same issue of extremity of belief.

Weird tyre squeeling sound.. Don't like that at all.

Other than that I guess the only way to know is to drive it. Can't say anything stands out particularly in a visual sense.

I don't believe too much emphasis should be put on winning. For example IMO a driver that finishes 2nd or 3rd in every race is a better driver than the guy that wins 4 times and places 5th every other race. So IMO there needs to be a way in which consistantly high performing drivers have a chance of winning the WDC.

Quote from Zen321 :

How do you know they were paid really well?
It is an assumption : a big brand of car makers goes to see a small team of the best simulation, asking for their car to be in the game.

Well that's one way it could have happened. The other being the complete opposite of course. ie The devs realised they needed a "current" car in the game to attract new users and so they went to VW to beg them to allow them to use the car. A bit of a pitch later about how it would bring them kudos etc and a bit of payment from LFS to VW and the devs get the go ahead.

I think the second scenario is far more likely, with maybe the bit about money being paid not happening if the devs managed a really good sales pitch for LFS.

The reason I believe it was that way round?

a) I think it's highly unlikely that any top exec in VW would have ever heard of LFS, (it's a million to 1 shot that someone that high up in a global company is going to be spending their time on line playing a driving sim).

b) Even in the highly unlikely event that anyone in VW had even heard of LFS there isn't a chance in hell they would be interested in going out of their way to approach them to put their car in the game. What do they gain? there simply is absolutely zero marketing to be gained from it.

c) In the extremely unlikely event that someone in VW had thought it was a good idea to have one of their cars in LFS, hell would have to freeze over before they would pay the devs for such a "privilege". Much more likely in that exceptionally unlikely scenario is that the devs jumped at the chance and were falling over themselves to do it for free.

Remember, it would take a relatively senior person in VW to make a decision to allow a car of theirs to be licenced to end up in a game. We're talking a global corp here, not some niche car manufacturer looking for any avenue they can to promote their "garden shed" product. Global corps are extremely sensitive to product placement and positioning. A mistake in this respect can cost millions.

Quote from tristancliffe :

... on the same track at the same time. .

I have actually been on the same track, at the same time as the great John Reynolds and I can testify to his amazing speed and talent.....

He was on his race prepped superbike and I was only on a lowly road legal 600 sports bike but hey

Can it be used to simulate a motorcycle? more or less i mean.

Go with the MotoGP points IMO. Allows for more emphasis on winning and placing high but also gives an incentive to gain the extra place most of the way down the grid. With points/medals only awarded to the top 3-5 placers all the rest wouldn't bother racing each other

MotoGP Points

1st: 25 points
2nd: 20 points
3rd: 16 points
4th: 13 points
5th: 11 points
6th: 10 points
7th: 9 points
8th: 8 points
9th: 7 points
10th: 6 points
11th: 5 points
12th: 4 points
13th: 3 points
14th: 2 points
15th: 1 point

Interestingly 2008 WDC would have ended up like this with the MotoGP scoring (change compared to actual placing):

Hamilton: 268 (+0)
Massa : 258 (+0)
Kubica : 217 (+1)
Kimmi : 216 (-1)
Heidfeld : 197 (+1)
Alonso : 188 (-1)
Heikki : 171 (+0)
Trulli : 124 (+1)
Vettel : 118 (-1)

No change in the overall winner but some interesting swaps further down the list.

Quote from amp88 :

The biggest difference in terms of looks would probably be closed wheels (the rules require open wheels at the moment but all teams would almost certainly go for an aerodynamic covering of some sort). Where possible the wings would be computer controlled to provide maximum downforce in corners and minimum drag on straights. For engines they'd have to be going for forced induction and possibly rotary (?) for the highest possible power to weight ratio. Number of tyres is more difficult...that would probably depend on how much grip they could get from the tyres and what the ultimate performance of the car was. Transmission would probably be CVT, possibly powering all of the wheels. Braking systems with multiple discs per wheel for maximum stopping power. The truly limiting factor would be keeping the driver alive/conscious/alert for the full race distance.

Agree with all that plus almost certainly some form of active suspension and use of ground effect.

Quote from S14 DRIFT :

Give Hamilton a Ferrari and I'm sure he'd have won the championship just as well. Obviously, the McLaren has helped him no end, but, no matter what anyone says, you still need the skills to drive the car. .

Well obviously you still need skill to drive the car. But let me remind you Lewis won the WDC by 1 point. The driver he beat was only in his 3rd season in a car that gave him the oportunity to do so, (and arguably he was never going to be let win in the first of those as he was Schumachers team mate ). So personally I don't see a huge difference between them.

The point being who else on the grid could win a WDC in their first or second season in a car that is actually competitive? I think you'll find there are a few drivers out there that could equal or better Lewis's acheivement.

Also, it can hardly be fairly claimed that he is an F1 rookie when he has the equivilent of around 3 seasons worth of mileage in an F1 car as a test driver behind him.

People keep glossing over the point that he went straight in to a competitive car and some how seem to think this makes him spectacularly talented. It doesn't, it makes him spectacularly lucky. IF he hadn't had such luck and had been picked up by one of the lower teams for his first season and then after maybe 2 or 3 seasons moved up to a competitive car and took a couple of seasons in it to get his WDC would we be having this conversation? Would he be being compared with Senna? No, on both counts. So lets drop the "Lewis is an F1 god" bit and compare him with what his peers could have acheived given the same opportunity as him, and then we'd see that he isn't all that spectacular at all. Certainly one of the better drivers sure, but an F1 God he's not. Not yet anyway.

A comparison:

Lewis WDC in his second season in a competive car.
Villenueve WDC in his second season in a competitive car.
Alonso WDC in his third season in a competitive car.
Schumacher WDC in his third season in a competitive car (arguably the first season the benneton was actually competitive).
Senna WDC in his first season in a competitive car.
Hill WDC in his third season in a competitive car.
Lauda WDC in his second season in a competitive car.

I use the term competitive in a loose way as clearly some of their cars were more competitive than others.

Quote from ATHome :

The more I see that picture the more it grows on me. Kind of looks like a Scorpion.

Nice, I've always liked Brundles style.

Quote from 510N3D :

If people dont read or understand whats been said by the devs themselve about this matter then so be it.

Well, reading and understanding things that people say is completely different to agreeing with what they say. The devs can say what they like, they can run their development as they see fit, that's their perogative. But other people don't have to agree with any of it, that's their perogative too. If the devs don't want to take on board "advice" given freely on a forum, (some of it by people that probably have a lot more commercial experience than they do), then that's their perogative as well. It's not my business and none of it matters a jot to me, I'm just expressing an opinion as an opinion was asked for.

Like you, I'll continue to play LFS until either

a) I get bored or something else takes my intention instead

or

b) It dies a death and I can't find any online servers to play it any more.