If the atmosphere were 100% transparent then global warming would be impossible, yes. That's fully correct.
One question: have you ever seen a thing called "cloud"?
About that first quote: mr. Timothy Ball appears to be a controversial figure:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_F._Ball
http://www.desmogblog.com/tim- ... limate-campaign-continues
http://www.kantor.com/blog/200 ... opinion-without-evidence/
Nobody is questioning that there were Ice Ages in the last 400,000 years. The climate change debate concerns the last 200 years. That's 2 pixels on your diagram.
There were interglacials in which the temperature was higher than today. But back then there was no human civilization that could be wiped out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_F._Ball
http://www.desmogblog.com/tim- ... limate-campaign-continues
http://www.kantor.com/blog/200 ... opinion-without-evidence/
Nobody is questioning that there were Ice Ages in the last 400,000 years. The climate change debate concerns the last 200 years. That's 2 pixels on your diagram.
There were interglacials in which the temperature was higher than today. But back then there was no human civilization that could be wiped out.
The radiation reflected by the Earth occupies a different part of the electromagnetic spectrum than the incoming sunlight (more in the infrared and less UV, iirc). The greenhouse gases are less transparent at those wavelengths. They absorb more energy, hence less energy escapes from Earth.
That's all basic physics. Nothing implausible.
No, the precise term is "man-made global warming". The first word is often omitted for brevity.
:google:
Look, how can you state with certainty that it's a LIE if you don't even know the answers to simple questions like these? If you lack knowledge of the most basic facts, then it's impossible to weigh all the arguments in the debate, and form a well-founded opinion. Might as well flip a coin.
Rolls Royce almost blundered with the Silver Mist. You can find that one and many more at http://www.i18nguy.com/translations.html
That's what they said at the start of the last Ice Age...
Actually, the largest airplane ever built was the Hughes Hercules, but it flew only once, and reached a maximum height of only 21m.
Phone companies keep details about your phone calls only for 3 months, and strictly for billing purposes. Government can only access the data if it has a warrant from a judge. They keep it for 3 months in case the customer disputes the bill. After that, the data is wiped.
ISPs never had any reason to register surfing behaviour or e-mail details. Most subscriptions are flat-fee, the rest is based on connection time or the amount of data.
If more details are stored, it's because the government wants to get its hands on the data.
I think it's because it is so hard to see the consequences. Most people only wake up when they see the damage it can do.
The most effective would be to hire a detective agency to search the digital trail of a few important MPs. Find out what they buy in the supermarket, who they mail and call, what's on their tax form, etc. You can find out a lot by purely legal means, and more with some social engineering. Then publish it.
Yes, for as long as I could stand it (5 minutes). It's a piece of utter cr*p. Paranoid propaganda.
It looks an awful lot like a Russian-nationalist conspiracy theory. The "Bush" voice speaks English with an Eastern-european accent, the story speaks with pride about "Russian civilization", the media player controls have cyrillic characters, and the domain:
Nice piece of video editing, but the conspiracy theory could use some more creativity.
If a sim has competitive AI it's generally because the AI cars get an unfair advantage (e.g. more grip), to compensate for imperfect driving skills. In LFS the AI have exactly the same car as you.
As mentioned earlier, you can give yourself a handicap (intake air restriction, extra weight, passengers). The nice thing is that you can increase your handicap as your skills improve.
At PRO level the AI manage fairly good laptimes. But they could be improved: they should follow their line less strictly, and they must not push you off track.
As mentioned earlier, you can give yourself a handicap (intake air restriction, extra weight, passengers). The nice thing is that you can increase your handicap as your skills improve.
At PRO level the AI manage fairly good laptimes. But they could be improved: they should follow their line less strictly, and they must not push you off track.
You're ignoring the fact that a speed limit is a compromise. You must take into account:
- Some drivers have less than perfect eyesight, reflexes, and car control.
- Some cars are in a less than perfect condition (worn tires, etc.)
- Faster driving produces more pollution (exhaust gases and noise).
- Unfavourable weather conditions.
- There are times when there are lots of cars on the road.
- Differences in speed (between cars and lorries or bicyclists) are extra dangerous.
- The limit should apply to a longer stretch of road. Otherwise you'd have to brake and speed up a lot, the cost of placing road signs increases, and drivers get confused about the current speed limit.
The speed limit must be safe in the majority of these cases.
LFS is closed for modding right now. The devs did mention the possibility, but it would happen sometime after S3 final was released. For now, modding is not possible. It's even illegal to post hacks (e.g. the McLaren F1 supercar that someone got in-game) on the forum.
You've just made the huge assumption that all people on the forums are sane...
Woz is right, all tricks that were mentioned are no defense against anyone with half a brain. They can view the HTML source, grab the images from the cache, use OCR, or simply re-type the text that they read. And all these measures do annoy your readers.
The only thing I can think of that might work is putting your text in a PDF, and setting some protections in that file. You can put an "appetizer" -- a summary and the opening paragraphs -- in plaintext on the site. (PDF's can be cracked, though.)
The other thing that you can do is "watermark" your text, so you can spot copies of your work on the web. The simplest way is to be creative with words. Use an unusual word here and there, or even invent some new words. Google to see if that combination is unique on the web. After publication, you can use that combination to check for copies of your work. However, watermarking does not work if search engines are stopped from scanning the copied page. And if you do spot a copy, it's difficult to get them to remove the copy.
The only thing I can think of that might work is putting your text in a PDF, and setting some protections in that file. You can put an "appetizer" -- a summary and the opening paragraphs -- in plaintext on the site. (PDF's can be cracked, though.)
The other thing that you can do is "watermark" your text, so you can spot copies of your work on the web. The simplest way is to be creative with words. Use an unusual word here and there, or even invent some new words. Google to see if that combination is unique on the web. After publication, you can use that combination to check for copies of your work. However, watermarking does not work if search engines are stopped from scanning the copied page. And if you do spot a copy, it's difficult to get them to remove the copy.
LOL. Or there is something that his lady hasn't told him...
Good point.
Not necessarily. If Eric can work with the tools without going insane, then so can modders.
I already mentioned that, under "Compatibility with LFS patches".
Maybe, but we're talking about content here, not about the software.
I wasn't talking about car upgrades, tuning etc. The drivers in a race will still have the same car, but not made by the LFS devs.
What you describe sounds a lot like extending the development team: car and track makers working under strict supervision (directly or indirectly) of Scavier, kickback fees for the modders, ... I'm not saying this isn't a viable way of working, because other sims were made in that way (e.g. GTR). But it goes against Scavier's philosphy.
It is a very important issue. For a car designer who spends many hours tweaking the physics, it's an unpleasant surprise if he has to re-do most of his work because of next month's patch. If it happens often he may decide to abandon his car, making the users of his car unhappy.
If you only looked at the statistics you'd be yelling at the government to work on curing diseases and improving traffic safety, and not worry about murder (including 9/11). But apparently our minds are not that "rational".
Scary. I hope Liberty is the name of a company or movie. "Director Of Liberty" is a contradiction in terms.
Fines have a different legal status than convictions, and you have less guarantees against unjust treatment. If a policeman fines you because he saw you break some traffic rule, and you say you didn't and appeal in court, you'll lose every time, unless you have technical evidence.
Before you know it, your little angel will tell you how old you are. And will get more vocal every year.
Sarah Palin's daughter wasn't...
The Pros and Cons of modding
The intention of this thread is to list all the arguments for and against user-created cars and tracks (a.k.a. modding), in hope that it will save repeating the same arguments every time someone brings up the subject again.
First and foremost, let me stress that modding is not the choice of the developers. When Scawen and Eric started LFS, they decided against modding. The devs have clearly stated that they, and they alone, decide the direction in which LFS will be developed. As such, discussions about modding are fairly academic: the LFS world is not a democracy, even if it has free speech.
Constructive additions are welcome. If you have any corrections, new arguments or counter-arguments, then please post. But this is not a poll. Do not post here just to stress your desire for (or repulsion of) modding.
Pros
Attracting new customers
Some simracers are interested in LFS, but are put off because their favourite type of car or track is missing (NASCAR, WRC, supercars, dirt ovals, the Nordschleife, etc.). Third-party content could generate extra sales in LFS licenses, and growth for the community.
Preventing boredom
Many LFS enthusiasts eventually stop racing, because they get bored of racing the same cars and tracks over and over again. They often move to a different sim, when a fresh supply of content could have made them stick with LFS.
Exploring new possibilities
Talented creators of mods could find new ways to use LFS -- possibilities that Scawen and Eric had never thought of, or had no time for. As an example, consider InSim. It was originally made to enable server admins to control races. Other people then created programs that did track rotation, and online racing became more attractive with no extra effort from Scawen.
Cons
Need to guard quality ("crap mods")
LFS may not have a lot of content, but it is of a high quality. By contrast, rFactor has a lot of mods that are rubbish. If you download a new car, it may take a while to find out that it has a fatal flaw that can not be solved with setup tweaks. To prevent such frustrations in LFS, there would need to be some kind of quality control.
A related issue is consistency. If the car and track that you use were made by different people, with different preferences concerning graphics, the car may look distinctly out of place on that track. LFS has no such problem now, as everything has gone through Eric's hands.
Compatibility with LFS patches
A change in the physics often means that the cars, and possibly the tracks, need to be updated. In some cases the car/track data must be extended, to support a new feature. In other cases a change in the physics calculations may require a re-balancing of car classes.
Anyhow, almost every new LFS patch will take a coordinated effort from the content creators to update their mods. Not updating will mean that the mod can no longer be used.
Versioning
A common complaint from users of rFactor is that when they want to race, it takes a long time to get the correct version of the cars and tracks that are used. If you have an hour of spare time and want to do some pickup racing, you don't want to wait for 15 minutes while the mod is being downloaded and installed.
Licensing
Your dream of racing the latest Ferrari on the Nordschleife may never come true, even if LFS was open to mods and an army of talented modders started working. The reason is that some car manufacturers and track owners jealously guard their property, and threaten modders with lawsuits. The only way out is to pay a hefty license fee, and who would pay for that in advance?
Thinning-out of online racing
Even though LFS has a large user base, most online racing takes place of a handful of car/track combos: FBM/BL, GTR/AS, BF1/KY, etc. If you prefer one of the other cars or tracks, you have difficulty finding people to race with.
This problem will get worse if modding is allowed. The majority will still flock around the popular combos, but the rest of the racers is spread out over an ever-increasing number of combinations. They must choose between racing alone, or choosing a combo that they don't know well enough to be competitive.
Conflict with LFS business model
LFS has three types of license: the free demo, the cheap S1 license, and the full S2. They contain the same software, and (almost) only differ in content. In other words: the LFS business model is built upon paying for content. The extra cars and tracks are the main incentive for demo users to buy LFS, and for S1 users to upgrade to S2.
If you allow third-party content, you must only allow it for S2 users, otherwise it will hurt the devs' income.
Difficult to modify LFS now
If you look at the car and track selection screens, and at the pages in LFS World, you can see that they are geared towards a fixed set of cars / tracks. When you get a lot of extra cars and tracks, these screens must be redesigned. What's more, this could also be true for the internals of LFS. That means that LFS and LFSW may need to be adapted in many places to accommodate the new content. From an engineering viewpoint this is not a wise thing to do, because LFS is nearing the final stages of S2 development. It may introduce all sorts of bugs which take a long time to iron out.
First and foremost, let me stress that modding is not the choice of the developers. When Scawen and Eric started LFS, they decided against modding. The devs have clearly stated that they, and they alone, decide the direction in which LFS will be developed. As such, discussions about modding are fairly academic: the LFS world is not a democracy, even if it has free speech.
Constructive additions are welcome. If you have any corrections, new arguments or counter-arguments, then please post. But this is not a poll. Do not post here just to stress your desire for (or repulsion of) modding.
Pros
Attracting new customers
Some simracers are interested in LFS, but are put off because their favourite type of car or track is missing (NASCAR, WRC, supercars, dirt ovals, the Nordschleife, etc.). Third-party content could generate extra sales in LFS licenses, and growth for the community.
Preventing boredom
Many LFS enthusiasts eventually stop racing, because they get bored of racing the same cars and tracks over and over again. They often move to a different sim, when a fresh supply of content could have made them stick with LFS.
Exploring new possibilities
Talented creators of mods could find new ways to use LFS -- possibilities that Scawen and Eric had never thought of, or had no time for. As an example, consider InSim. It was originally made to enable server admins to control races. Other people then created programs that did track rotation, and online racing became more attractive with no extra effort from Scawen.
Cons
Need to guard quality ("crap mods")
LFS may not have a lot of content, but it is of a high quality. By contrast, rFactor has a lot of mods that are rubbish. If you download a new car, it may take a while to find out that it has a fatal flaw that can not be solved with setup tweaks. To prevent such frustrations in LFS, there would need to be some kind of quality control.
A related issue is consistency. If the car and track that you use were made by different people, with different preferences concerning graphics, the car may look distinctly out of place on that track. LFS has no such problem now, as everything has gone through Eric's hands.
Compatibility with LFS patches
A change in the physics often means that the cars, and possibly the tracks, need to be updated. In some cases the car/track data must be extended, to support a new feature. In other cases a change in the physics calculations may require a re-balancing of car classes.
Anyhow, almost every new LFS patch will take a coordinated effort from the content creators to update their mods. Not updating will mean that the mod can no longer be used.
Versioning
A common complaint from users of rFactor is that when they want to race, it takes a long time to get the correct version of the cars and tracks that are used. If you have an hour of spare time and want to do some pickup racing, you don't want to wait for 15 minutes while the mod is being downloaded and installed.
Licensing
Your dream of racing the latest Ferrari on the Nordschleife may never come true, even if LFS was open to mods and an army of talented modders started working. The reason is that some car manufacturers and track owners jealously guard their property, and threaten modders with lawsuits. The only way out is to pay a hefty license fee, and who would pay for that in advance?
Thinning-out of online racing
Even though LFS has a large user base, most online racing takes place of a handful of car/track combos: FBM/BL, GTR/AS, BF1/KY, etc. If you prefer one of the other cars or tracks, you have difficulty finding people to race with.
This problem will get worse if modding is allowed. The majority will still flock around the popular combos, but the rest of the racers is spread out over an ever-increasing number of combinations. They must choose between racing alone, or choosing a combo that they don't know well enough to be competitive.
Conflict with LFS business model
LFS has three types of license: the free demo, the cheap S1 license, and the full S2. They contain the same software, and (almost) only differ in content. In other words: the LFS business model is built upon paying for content. The extra cars and tracks are the main incentive for demo users to buy LFS, and for S1 users to upgrade to S2.
If you allow third-party content, you must only allow it for S2 users, otherwise it will hurt the devs' income.
Difficult to modify LFS now
If you look at the car and track selection screens, and at the pages in LFS World, you can see that they are geared towards a fixed set of cars / tracks. When you get a lot of extra cars and tracks, these screens must be redesigned. What's more, this could also be true for the internals of LFS. That means that LFS and LFSW may need to be adapted in many places to accommodate the new content. From an engineering viewpoint this is not a wise thing to do, because LFS is nearing the final stages of S2 development. It may introduce all sorts of bugs which take a long time to iron out.
Congratulations. Your first baby is an earthquake that you see coming from months ahead, but still takes you by surprise.
Better get some sleep while you still can. Oh, and be prepared to quit league racing, or any other activity that takes a couple hours of undisturbed concentration.
Better get some sleep while you still can. Oh, and be prepared to quit league racing, or any other activity that takes a couple hours of undisturbed concentration.
You have obviously never heard of the Bonobo.
- According to current aerodynamical theory, bumblebees can't fly.
- 80 Percent of people who drive a car think they are a better-than-average driver.
- One in every 3 Germans thinks John Wayne was a German.
- The 1904 Tour de France was plagued by scandals. 13 Riders were disqualified, including the first 4 finishers (link).
- Aibohphobia is an irrational fear of palindromes.
No, you got many answers, including proofs accepted by generations of mathematicians, but you rejected each and every one of them.
No, the difference is smaller than any positive number, hence it is zero.
FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG