Quote from DTrott :

So, in new zealand, wood burners are used for heating?

It is the norm to run some form of solid fuel yes. There has been a move to block them being fitted in new housing stock and if you replace a burner it has to be an approved type now. If you are sat on 2Ha of land you can fit whatever you want though.

The thing you have to understand is population density in NZ, this is why solid fuel is popular. Think of the UK land mass with 56 MILLION less people.... Welcome to NZ

I have just pulled out a coal range and open fire and replaced with 2 burners. I live well out of town. I could have fitted heat pumps, gas heating or something else but solid fuel is just better.

1) Wood in a good burner is far far cheaper than other forms of heating to run.
2) You still get heat in a power cut, and we get them from time to time
3) You get your hot water for free.
4) You can cook on them, we even have oven top for the kitchen burner.

The other thing to think of is that in the UK most of your power is Coal, gas or nuke so your coal powered electric heating is probably more dirty than my clean, modern cheap to run wood burners. Even most of the UK gas comes from eastern block countries so you have all those costs involved.

Quote from shiny_red_cobra :

Interesting. Whenever I make a fire in my fireplace I sort of make a little container made of small sticks, and light a piece of newspaper inside it. The only down side is that it is hard for air to get to the newspaper, so it starts burning kinda slow, but it gets going after a while. And yea, you need dry wood, if it's wet it'll take forever to get going (if it gets going at all). I think I tried your way before, but the newspaper would eventually burn out and the sticks would not light at all. That's when I put the newspaper under the sticks and they finally burned.

Yep, I used to do that. But then you have to keep tending the fire. Adding wood etc.

It has transformed using the fires since converting to top down starting and burn cycles with big loads.

You might burn more but so what. With 2 fires running long hours I think we will burn through 15-20 m3 this winter. We are currently running at 3 m3 per month with one fire running 24/7

Last edited by Woz, Mon 8 Jun 2009, 01:35.

Quote from sil3ntwar :

Sorry i need video evidence since im too lazy to try it

Had a bastard of a time trying to start it last night and just gave up.

I know exactly how you feel. I am willing to bet its wet wood that caused your probs.

I learnt recently that green and wet are as bad as each other. I had 6m of mixed pines + gum and it was all wet after 3 days of solid rain Had to buy 3m of kiln dryed to durn while the rest drys.

You have to ignore the wooden as acting, Gov information vid syndrome

http://www.ec.gc.ca/cleanair-a ... video-WS8011CD70-1_En.htm

Top down is all we use now. Its great not having to buy fire lighters any more.

I am new-ish to wood burners, in my previous UK life I never lived with solid fuel heating.

Well I have just learnt the most counter intuitive way to light a fire in a wood burner that has changed fire lighting forever.... The top down fire.

To start your wood burner place a good charge of the normal size pieces you would burn in the fire box. Make sure all pieces face the same way. Build 2 layers as though you were stacking the wood. Load north/south for heat and east/west for duration.

Put a thin covering of kindling on TOP of the big pieces.

Now get 4 sheets of newspaper paper. Roll each sheet into a loose tube from corner to corner so you get 1-2cm dia tube. Tie each tube in a loose knot and place them on the kindling.

Light the paper, put on max, close the door and job done.

You have a quick startup fire that starts first time every time and that does not need touching for hours. It will also not fall in on itself and go out.



NOTE: DRY wood is needed.

As others have said, just install on thumb drive and when in your work PC unlock. That is your copy just for that PC.

Now you dont have issues of others using.

For others that question games at work. In the dev office at work we normally play UrbanTerror, Q3 or similar at lunch. (The machines cant handle more otherwise Left4Dead would be game of choice)

If you have a G25 set wheel turn comp to 1 and the wheel to 720deg. Not your in game and real steering will be right for all cars. LFS will add Soft (FF) end stops in the correct places for each car.

Urban terror is a great game. It is our works lunch time game as the work PCs dont have good GFX cards. Based on the Q3 engine.

My list of low demans fun FPS would be:

QuakeLive
UrbanTerror
Warsow (Quake3 crossed with Jet Set Radio)

One of the real scarey moments for me was when a pack of Pig Dogs set on one of my dogs while my wife and I were walking down a river bed.

The person "walking" these monsters was the wife/girlfriend of the owner and had no control over them. They all set about one of my dogs.

They say never get involved in a dog fight but these monsters were in full take down mode so I just reacted. I had to wade in or watch my dog die.

Kicked one off then picked up another and chucked it away. Then picked up a few KG of rock ready for skull smashing before they got the message and backed down. Even when they realised I meant to kill them they still circled before I backed them down.

My dog had the fur ripped away from a few areas and a couple of puncture wounds but that was it, we got lucky.

First time in my life I have had to react to fight/flight where I might have had to kill something. Not nice.

Quote from DragonCommando :

I think other driving achivements could also be encorporated into the system, not just race ones.

-Win a race after a spin
-Recover from a spin without dropping a position
-J-turn back into a race *in a safe manner* <= I have done this before

I could probably write a whole page of these.

We should create a list of these and see where it goes.

Yes, this is the sort of thing that keeps people in a race after they "off".

Quote from boosterfire :

I think not a lot of people would start racing 50 laps just for the opportunity that have a 'check' by that particular achievement. I know I wouldn't.

Another thing to note is that some of these achievements wouldn't always be as difficult, depending on different things. For example, winning a qualification with 20 league racers on the track will be hard and you'd be happy to have completed that, but winning a qualification on an almost empty server at 3AM would also complete the achievement (unless the number of racers on track is precised in the achievement).

I'm all in favors of finding ways to get people to differ their game, but simply telling them that they can complete an objective for the whole point of completing an objective won't get them to do it. Didn't the LX comp have rewards for the winners?

I really get the feeling you have just not played a game with such a system

While the difficult ones like 50lap races wont make everyone rush out and run 50lap races they will occur because of achievements.

I would have thought the same as you until QuakeLive, now I get the point of them

Quote from boosterfire :

So, it's only there to remind you that you have achieved such thing? It just looks like statistics to me, not achievements. The whole point of having achievements would be to get some kind of reward for achieving them. Without that, it's just a handy statistic function that tells you that you've completed that number of race, or driven that distance.

More subtle than that. Some achievements might be

• Win a 10 lap race where you start at the back of the grid.
  
• Complete a 50lap race.
  
• Win a 50lap race.
  
• Qualify 1st for a race.
  

As you can see, not really stats based more goal based. They just get recorded in your profile when each is completed.

So the example achievements for 50lap races mean people will setup and race big races etc. The one for qualify encourages people to have qualify sessions etc.

Bit the the LX comp a while back that made people drive the LX more around the time. So achievements can also be used by devs to change community use of an app to stop things like the same old track and car combo running dau in day out on servers.

Quote from boosterfire :

And what exactly would you get for those achievements? The power to smug your way around bragging about the achievements you've completed? Oh, this is very useful indeed.

They just get logged against your account. I don't care about bragging rights, you got it all wrong Makes you want to play more so you can see how many of them you can get.

Once you play games that have similar you might understand

I have been playing a fair bit of QuakeLive recently and I like the awards system it has. I believe there are other games that have similar such a Left4Dead etc.

The basics are that there are a range of award you can win by playing, in an LFS context they might be things like.

• Win a race.
  
• Win 5 races back to back.
  
• Win a race starting at the back of the grid.
  
• Complete 100 races
  
• Complete 1000 races.
  
• Complete a race on every track.
  
• Complete a race in each car.
  
• 1000km driven
  
• 10000km driven
  
• 100000km driven
  
• Get a WR
  

The QuakeLive list is growing over time so there are always more to get.

Just something to add to LFS world that adds some fun without changing LFS from a sim but giving people a reason to complete races.

no to iLFS. Just release S3 and that will bring in more cash for the devs.

S3 will bring more cars and tracks and should finally open LFS to modding.

If you have HL2 try the insurgency mod. VERY brutal learning curve but worth it. Its a big download though

For an FPS that will skill match you try QuakeLive. This is Quake3 tweaked and released as a free game online. Works well, I have been playing a fair bit of it recently. Does not show its age that much as they have made it look a bit nicer. Still has all the spark that made Q3 such a good FPS.

Quote from DHRammstein :

IMHO it feels exactly like a car that's very light, mid engine, very short wheel base and bald tires....

And no rear arb


Once you get the "feel" for the car it is great fun. Push it too hard though and it will try and kill you

Quote from der butz :

If this does what I hope it does it'll be brilliant!
Now make this a bit more playful and graphical please... I want to rip a post-it off the block, write something on it, stick it to the monitor and it should transform into a background Item on my desktop :-)

greetz

der butz

Let me know what you think once you have had a play

The first public release of my notes app is available if anyone is interested in a different take on a notes storage system for Win32 systems.

Notes are associated with tags and can be given a priority. You can navigate around your notes via a tag cloud, search or just list them all etc.

Its free under GPL3. You can see some screen grabs and info here and the download can be found here. Feature requests can be made here.

You will need XP, Vista to run along with .NET2.0. Any general feedback is welcome.

I used to say no to modding. That said I have not touched LFS in a while now because after so many years I want new tracks. I am not that fussed about new cars but tracks are what would bring LFS back to life for me.

I see lots of new people say stuff like "There is enough content blah blah blah".

Come back after you have played LFS as long as some of us here (I have been around LFS 5.5 years) and lets see where you stand

Quote from NightShift :

Not among rich people who want money for nothing and chicks for free, indeed

Rotf

Quote from Becky Rose :

The 90% is pretty much a guess looking at how they arrived at it, but that figure does not suprise me. However most of those pirated copies are not lost sales. For a company arguing against DRM they're sure giving the conglomerates all the justification they need to carry on implementing it, frustratingly.

The figures are not that bad imho, depends on how you look at them.

90% piracy is 10% conversion rate. In my mind and from experience selling software in the past that is a GREAT attach rate.

I have come round to thinking of piracy as free advertising now. Not a popular theory though

If you use direct mail for example you get 1% conversion is you are lucky on a good campaign, anything above 1% is a HUGH sucess. (Figures from Institute of Direct Marketing)

Email is far far worse and online advert blocking is becoming more common as firefox gains more ground so online adds are getting worse as time goes on. Just look at the word of mouth that has got World Of Goo sales in this thread.

There are people that just do not buy stuff. Just the way it is and no DRM will change that. Pirates do tell others though which might buy so it is just free advertising on a product that costs you $0 to distribute to the pirates. This way you gain indirectly from the pirates.

10% is double the conversion rate that Radiohead and NIN reported on their recent dabbles in online distribution both which made them good coin.

As you point out, not every download or pirated copy is a lost sale

Some people need to lighten up. The world is a sad enough place.

No, it is NOT racist or hate speach or anything like that. If it had been I would not have posted it. I can't believe that people complain yet did not pick up on my signature that some might argue was just as offensive.

NOTHING is offensive! Only YOU can take offense at something! (Think on this, it will save you MUCH hurt in life )

It might not be PC but then the current world view of PC is borked anyway.

I guess I have lived in a part of the world (NZ/Aussie) too long that has decided PC is bulls**t so this sort of joke is ok.

The Aussie tourism advert "Where the bloody hell are you" had to be changed to be shown in the UK for instance. While here in NZ this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pujIctl0ifE was a very popular advert. (WARNING: Might offend someone somewhere, see earlier comment on offense )

People should watch the very early christmas south park episode with the non-offensive xmas at the school to see where PC takes you when you push it too hard.

Last edited by Woz, Sat 28 Feb 2009, 20:28.

Quote from Crashgate3 :

Quake Live.

Can you make your own private servers on that yet?

I have been impressed with QuakeLive so far. Just home RA3 gets ported

The Aussie/Kiwi area is V quiet at the mo. I have not played in a while now because of this.

I hope the new car, when released, will make things pick up for a while.

I used to play CTRA a bit before that died. As long as your connection is stable you can play with high ping.

Quake3, Not sure if quake live supports lan?

If you dont have Q3 you can get Open Arena for free

Old game but pure class