Quote from Vladimir_nose :

the only thing I never understood is why everyone in Ukraine loves so much paint in the colors of the national flag, at least it seems strange to me and from the point of view of design - not the best combination of colors (we are talking about signs, cars, etc., the percentage of this is really large), which, for example, I would not say about Russia, here you can see the colors of the flag only on car numbers, or during holidays.

It's about patriotism and national pride which, when there is a perceived threat to a nation's borders, can morph into defensive nationalism.

I actually really like the Ukrainian flag. As an agricultural land, it makes sense to me to depict a golden corn/wheat field under a bright blue sky. I have no idea if this even is the purpose of the design and I may have just assumed it but that's what I see when I see the flag.

Quote from Scawen :

Although I don't want to get involved in an off topic conversation, I would simply like to paste a link in JK Rowling's defence. It's a piece written by her addressing these attacks and I really hope you have read it. She's not even anti-trans but is simply trying to address legitimate concerns about biological women (and trans people too).
https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/

Thanks for posting this. I considered doing but I didn't want to appear to derail the conversation. It's important, though.

Here's a detailed analysis of JK Rowling's position on the trans debate, her open letter and the resulting backlash. It's by an IRL trans-female friend of mine, known on Youtube as Rose of Dawn. My friend's conclusion: "JK Rowling did nothing wrong."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixCFuFvNgLw

Quote from gu3st :

dangerous hateful

You make it absolutely impossible to take you seriously.

Quote from Scawen :

I've just learned about this Z symbol that has sprung up in the last few days and is being used apparently by brainwashed Russians.

It looks quite ominous to me. There is no Z in the Cyrillic alphabet so it seems like a symbol rather than a letter.

https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1500495309595725831

I noted this early on in the Russian invasion. I think the purpose is to distinguish Russian from Ukrainian military, since both forces use the same Russian equipment painted in the same military (olive?) green. Fog of war, etc. Inevitably, it's become something symbolic of support for the Putin narrative in Russia.

Quote from bishtop :

Free speech should never be an excuse for any type of hate speech, otherwise it allows things like racism ect

You think you end racism by silencing it?

I apologise for accusing you of virtue signalling, Scawen. I was out of order.

Quote from Scawen :

I think you are very wrong.

You're entitled to believe that. Obviously I disagree.

Quote from Scawen :

I didn't want to discuss other wars but I will point out I am one of the two million or so people who marched in London to oppose the Iraq war before it started. We were ignored by Bush and Blair. It's very simple. There is a system of international law and you don't simply invade other countries in cold blood. Even if you don't like the leader, for good reasons.

I marched against intervention in Iraq too. BOTH times, in fact, as well as the Falklands (yes, I'm that old). I was raised by Quakers so my pacifism training is likely unrivalled. I spent many of the weekends of my youth in Trafalgar Square losing my voice outside South Africa House too. That isn't my point. It isn't THE point.

Quote from Scawen :

I really can't understand what is wrong in your brain if you cannot understand that to say "ukraine is nazi bitches" is ABSOLUTELY WRONG and ESPECIALLY in this situation when they are having all hell bombed out of them?

The problem appears to be that you immediately assume there is something wrong in my brain. I can believe both that this user is absolutely wrong AND that the solution isn't necessarily the immediate eradication of this user from this international platform.

Quote from Scawen :

To accuse me of virtue signalling. Mate, you have lost the plot.

Can you really not see the difference between what this idiot said online, and what verde posted earlier in the thread? One deserves instant removal from online use, and the other can have his post left there.

Of course I see the difference. But if you remove the idiot from online, how will HE see the difference?

How did that user come to this crazy belief? Read on (Reuters, 4 years ago). https://www.reuters.com/articl ... -commentary-idUSKBN1GV2TY

The situation is always more complicated than you realise, and it always needs to be carefully unpicked. And for some people it takes some time and effort, because their indoctrination is deep and their access to alternative viewpoints is limited. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

But if you ban them you've done nothing but limited their access to alternative viewpoints even further.

It's your choice to make. The online environment for LFS is now entirely within your control. Do what you believe is right, and if I disagree then that's for me to deal with separately.

Quote from Scawen :

That is sad to see the image you posted. If there is some proof, such as a MPR, we could ban the user from going online.

I understand the desire to virtue signal support for Ukraine and in opposition to Russia, but this would set a precedent and take us to a place from which there is no return. Which side do you choose on Tibet, or on Uighur muslims, Trudeau/freedom convoy truckers or Trump supporters? Which opinions or beliefs are acceptable vs unacceptable on LFS that might result in an online ban from "The online racing simulator"?

Opposing the subjugation of the Ukrainian people is laudable, but to signal it by the active censorship of dissent? This is what Putin does, and is supposed to be what sets us apart from him.

I implore you to give more thought before going this direction.

Quote from Aleksandr_124rus :

What should the Russians do to change the regime?

I don't have any good ideas.

The Russian people are victims of Putin, just as the German people were the first victims of Hitler. I fear the new worldwide economic isolation of Russia will create a new, giant North Korea at the heart of the European continent.

Putin is determined to make his mark on world history at any cost. But it will be, first and foremost, at the expense of the Russian people, as well as those within Putin's reach - Belarusians, Ukrainians, Moldovans, Latvians, Lithuanians and potentially beyond.

I think a lot of us, myself included, have a "normalcy bias". We are in denial of the inevitability of what is to come, because unconsciously we sense that it will be bad and cannot see any way to avoid it. The fact is that there are no obvious avenues forwards that lead directly to peace, except through unfamiliar and inconceivably hard times. :-(

All I can suggest is to keep safe, Aleksandr. Use VPNs and delete your browsing history. Know that we all know you are in an impossible situation. Putin is not Russia, he is a cancer. We are friends of the Russian people.

Quote from gu3st :

He'd have American soldiers invading Ukraine alongside his Russian allies.

Case in point.

Quote from klbbadd2002 :

Your infatuation with Trump is pretty entertaining. Although he has the speech skills of a 5 year old, his economy was strong and stable. He would have helped deter any of this from happening had he been in a second term. I would recommend to sway around the brain washed media you are watching and find some solid information to base opinions from.

Dude there's no point. In order to make progress in any conversation about Trump, you have to overcome the information deficit of your opposition. It's an insurmountable challenge when they don't know the first thing about Hunter's laptop, or even that Ashley exists, let alone the damning content of her diary.

Last edited by SamH, Tue 1 Mar 2022, 06:40.

Quote from S14 DRIFT :

I pray one day CTRA or a similar league comes back lol

CTRA is definitely not coming back but there is nothing to prevent something similar being created in the future.

Quote from Gunn :

The main reason I don't race online much any more is due to the fact that there are often no racers online in my country and ping times to any server further away than NZ are too high to enjoy close racing. Asian ping times are even too high. If there is no server planned for Australia then I'm afraid my online racing in LFS has come to an end (again). It's disappointing because I have been waiting for LFS to rise from its own ashes and re-energize the online community.

Mods can be interesting but won't really improve the game for me, so the mod news is neither here nor there, but the end of the dedicated server is not something I can be happy about personally, especially if it means I have to connect to an Asian server to race my fellow Aussies or our buddies in the land of the long white cloud.

It's been a pretty lonely 'single-player' experience in LFS for the last five years or so - I don't think this update addresses that issue for me. I'm crossing my fingers that the physics and graphics updates come sooner rather than later and that this sim comes back to life.

Perhaps an Oz LFS server could happen in the future. I certainly hope so. They're not expensive to have like they used to be, they're faster and better connected than ever, too. It's not a given that some of the "Asian" servers Scawen is describing could NOT be located in Oz as a matter of course, and this would be entirely in keeping with the philosophy of reliable distributed computing.

I fully sympathise with your dilemma. But this future of LFS-hosted servers is secondary to the objective fact that the LFS of locally hosted servers is dead anyway. If Scavier didn't make this move, further development of LFS using local servers is wholly implausible, already killed by piracy. Scawen is tacitly acknowledging that LFS as it's done now is dead.

I think we just need to hope that those in the far corners aren't left behind with the new LFS that's coming. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for ya.

Quote from Scawen :

I can't really get into any discussions at the moment but we are working very hard and hope to say more within the next few weeks.

Good enough for me!

Good to see South City Video are still going! Londoners do love their VHS, I guess!

Great looking updates. I'm looking forward to it!

Geez! I remember vale disappearing into the distance ahead of me a few times.

Not a huge CTRA racer but put in a few hundred laps, definitely favoured the open wheelers over the tin-tops and doesn't appear to have been a fan of Bump and Jump.

Same here! Been away about 12 years or so. I was clearing my closet a couple months ago and discovered a Driving Force GT wheel LOL

I'm no better at sim racing than I was when I last unplugged it, sadly, and at the moment there's very little in the way of actual pickup racing going on. Maybe more of us will show up now, after 10+ years, and we can get something going? Fingers crossed!

Watching on Twitch

I live in the UK. It rains a lot. They are not pickups here, they are small, mobile swimming pools.

Just configure Safeguard to not block gaming sites. Or turn off Safeguard and use Google DNS instead.

I enjoyed it. A lot. Yeah, it's a partial reboot but there are good reasons for that. I definitely feel invested in the main protagonists, which is necessary for Ep 8 onwards.


After the prequels I was feeling pretty low. Ep 2 was the first time I've ever fallen asleep in the cinema. I managed to make it through Ep 3, but only just.

It was nice to see someone else get in the chair and breathe some fire on the story, and the departure from greenscreen sets definitely highlighted how much and how devastating an effect the "working" environment can be on an actor's performance. Pretty sure that Ep 1-3 were about filling Lucas's bank account. At no point had I got the impression that he was at all passionate about telling the story in those films.

Lucas did the right thing by selling to Disney, and he's very rich as a result. Having watched the whole interview, he seems fairly pragmatic about what's happening and he's okay with it. Like he said, it's a lot like divorce (or any break-up). It's necessary to make a clean break. Separation is not necessarily always acrimonious. I don't think it is in this case either. All the allusions to a bitter/angry Lucas are just click-bait. There's nothing to see there.

Thanks guys!

Dave, I strongly recommend a pair of goggles and some masks. Had a bit of a bad experience with grade 0000 wire wool. Windy night, got a load of the stuff in my eyes and I suspect in my lungs, too! Took the best part of a week for it to work its way out of my eyes

Thought I'd stop by and check out some LFSers' awesome photos! Not disappointed!

Because of the miserably dreary weather we've been having - haven't seen direct sunlight since early December, here! - I've started getting into a bit of light painting. It's great fun!

Quick note, guys.. pre-registration for the Renault Clio Cup is a different registration from V1 Championship registration so if you pre-register, your Clio login won't work on the V1 Championship login page.

Once the Renault Clio Cup site is complete (it's in development at the moment), your pre-registration login details will work on that site.

Sorry for any confusion.. we wanted people to be able to securely register their interest this weekend (BTCC at Rockingham) but our SSL for the Clio Cup site didn't arrive in time, so we moved the registration process to the main V1 Championship site.

Quote from PMD9409 :

You have betrayed us Sam, this is why we vote Bob for Moderator of the year each year.

Heck, I vote for him every year, and I make sure Franky does too!