I like that the ACO still has some (maybe vague.... but at least some...) interest in encouraging something other than single formula racing. There's a balance to made between puritanical fairness, and allowing deviation from the norm, encouraging engineering variety, that means that the sport doesn't simply stew in its own bathwater.
Whether the ACO has that balance I haven't recently been watching close enough to know, but I really don't see the point of anything done in the name of equality, that simply means "tried and tested" wins ... again.
Really if LFS is not doing it, then best to let it lie... Though you might try designing some autoX courses; they're the only reason I still have LFS on my computer at the moment.
And rather than blaming users indescriminately (this community, that community... big ****ing yawn...), why not get on the case of admins on servers who allow such pointless spamming in the first place?
Quite impressed by the way you have taken this thread by the scruff of the neck and would like to ask you something (rather than see you bogged down in linguistic pedanticism... Why these threads always go that way is beyond me...)
What has always interested me most about the 'battles' is the degree of strategy involved (and the limited time in which drivers have to make snap decisions about that strategy). Do you have any links to articles in which drivers describe their strategy, or just general guides to that particular element of the competition?
Gradients and reflections are a shitty, cynical way of saying, "Hey, I'm a warm and cuddly brand, that's going to take your money in the nicest possible way. We're all about YOU. All about transparency". When in actual fact, they're the usual shit dressed up in the fashionable argot of Web 2.0.
BTW... Same goes for pastel shades.... And drop shadows...
Tristan, you dig a big hole for yourself by just trying to be a "plain speaker" (word to the wise, anyone who claims to be a plainspeaker is most likely not worth listening to...)
To speak of all Italians in such a manner is to indulge an ignorant national stereotype. It may sound funny in conversation, with the mates that will indulge your pecadillos, but here in a public place it just makes you look thick.
Not only the partisan resistance, but many working-class Italians, risked their lives (organising strikes and sabotage), and lost their lives fighting the fascists in WW2.
That's a very good idea and should be added to the improvement wishlist (if it isn't already). It's actually one of the first questions I asked before coughing up for S2... but I was told that I was "asking too much", that LFS was "in development", blah blah blah...
The obsession with 'purity' round these parts is a strange thing. As far as simulation goes, all the devs need to do is concentrate on making a close, virtual analogy of the real-life forces that work on a vehicle. Then they need to provide the programming tools that enable a competition environment to be officiated.
If you also require them to have a vision of the kind of racing that is allowed within LFS, then you are asking the devs to become some kind of sanctioning body like the FIA. Frankly, I think that's a lame arsed and infantile thing for the user base to be doing.
Get on with using the tools provided to officiate over the kind of racing you want, and stop whining like the rich kid who doesn't like the scary lads from the council estate being in the same playground.
Ha ha... I edited that out 'cos it sounded a bit fluffy... But I think it goes a bit further back than FnF, since the car has always been an icon of social as well as spatial mobility.
The first FnF film was quite interesting though, in that, while most of the protagonist cars were Japanese imports, the 'hero' car was all American muscle. There's a whole thesis in that...
Your tastes, my tastes, his, hers, whoever's, are only worth one post. Actually, I have to define that a bit better... Individual tastes are not as interesting as how they become mass tastes, how they become historical.
Last edited by nihil, .
Reason : Was talking crap...
To me that's really the coolest and most logical integration yet of the infinity sign. Needs a bit of work on the font generally to make it a design, but whatever... nice one.
In the history of morals and manners that relate to motor racing, I'm sure there will be a section dedicated to quotes on the 'idiocy' and irresponsible nature inherent to drivers of the horseless carriage.
It was the bling of its day (indeed early cars are referred to as 'brass era' cars). I'm not making a direct comparison here, merely stating that your dislike seems to be more about modern manners than a contemporary sport. why not just say so, instead of attempting back it up with technical verbiage about tyre conservation.
Because the political and social influences on history now are very different to those at the end of the nineteenth century... But I don't see how it is possible to argue that circuit racing does not have its roots in the 'streets'; both in a metaphorical sense (that it evolved from popular, public drives and impetuses) and physically (there simply were no circuits for the first car race to take place on).
The history of motor racing, particularly the class bias, is whole lot more complex and interesting than that. The technological aspect of racing tied it closely to working class enthusiasms, as much as to aristocratic and mercantile capital. And there were no circuits until street racing (esp. the death toll on the Paris to Madrid) proved both popular and dangerous.
The traditional marxist approach to history (ie. that economics is the primary driving force) is flawed, in that money and power are nothing without cultural support.
There are lots of interesting things yet to be written on the subject of motor racing history. That the sport did not originate on the streets is not one of them.
This is a good point. I haven't been online for a while, but still enjoy LFS from time to time in single player (sprint courses that I might get around to posting at some time...), so I don't think its the simulation or the cars that would cause any decline (if indeed there is a decline, can't be arsed to check the stats)
I don't have the time to dedicate to a league, but if I was to look for a pick-up race CTRA would be the first stop. My experience of other servers in the past was "oh look, same combination as last time."
The weirdest combos could often prove to be hugely entertaining: UF1 at Westhill? Slow car, fast course? Going to be tedious... Actually no, I had amazingly close and satisfying racing on that combo.
But sadly, most servers don't do weird... And they don't do it because most users don't do weird either. The RAC might as well not exist, and configurations longer than a minute and a bit are as rare as rocking horse shit.
Yeah, that'll have to do I guess. I work round the corner from Evans (London bicycle shop)... In the paper this morning they were bragging about selling the £7000 carbon fibre Ferrari race bike. Might see if they have one in the showroom at lunchtime & post pix.