One of the snippets of feedback we got about the site was that there's lots of fabulous conversation happening all over the site, and none of it particularly matches the thread it is on. Therefore, this post is the first in a trial of daily posts - a space to talk about anything at all.
Instead of having a static post, and expecting comments on that subject, this is more of an evolving thing for the day. It may be that there are no comments for today. That's okay, because no one feels like talking all the time, do they? Or it may be that this thread gets hundreds of comments, that's also good.
Some of the things we've been discussing recently, include:
- Who'll be getting the race seat at Toro Rosso? Who deserves it? Who'll actually get it?
- The 2009 wings. Good, bad or ugly? Perhaps all three!
- Cupcakes. Yup. Still.
- Whether Sidepodcast should get a forum.
- Possible new entrants to F1
This list is open to constant change, however. If a topic dominates the comments, perhaps I'll add it to the list. If you guys just wanna say hi, or point out some news you've noticed, this is the place.
if this idea isn't begging for a homepage redesign, i don't know what is?
ooo good idea :D
so, first discussion topic that isn't a post but probably should be...
saving the canadian gp by ripping off visitors:
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/story/2008/11/12/mtl-grandprixhoteltax1112.html
"Montreal's hotel association has agreed to a one per cent tax hike on rooms in an effort to save the city's Formula One Grand Prix automobile race."
wouldn't it just be easier to up the cost of the ticket?
you would have thought so, cause everyone who is going to the gp has to by one (obviously), but not everyone going to the GP will stay in a hotel... i'm sure they have some reason for doing it that way, but it's late and i can't think of one.
i guess they're raising the cost for the whole year.
seems a bit mean on everybody else though.
Depends. The hotels might not pass on the tax hike to consumers, as surely having the Grand Prix is better for them than not having it? They could spread it out over the cost of a year, and get the benefit of a single weekend.
Not sure how much 1% is, mind you, and it might not be the kind of numbers they could burden without passing it on.
yeah, i can see how that would be good to raise costs, but it hardly seems fair to ask non f1 fans to pay the extra. on the plus side at least they are despirately trying to keep the GP :)
Hi
Have tried emailing a couple of times, are we getting through spam filters?
jolly, yep messages received and it's totally my fault.
i am so useless with email it's unreal. sorry, will try and get back to you by tomorrow evening latest.
in short though, the answer is yes :)
Interesting idea. So the normal items should generate comments only on the subject and the new posts are like a daily scribble pad.
Toro Rosso seat:
Who deserves it: Bourdais and Sato
Who'll get it: Buemi and Sato
Isn't it obvious? How I see it is - STR are testing Buemi for all 3 days instead of two. Normally, the driver that has the best chance of a drive or already is the lead driver or a driver with the team gets the longest time in the car to prepare for next season and get plently of mileage and experience behind the wheel. The candidates for the 2nd seat would get less time but the same amount as each other. So in simple terms, what this tells me is Buemi almost certainly has a drive for 2009, it's just between Taku and Seb. Personally, I would go Sato for the seat.
While Bourdais did manage to take the fight to Vettel as best he could this season, I think Tost and Berger want experience a la Honda and go with someone who's been there, done that and got a podium. Think about it - STR wouldn't be giving Buemi more time in the car if it wasn't for a good reason. My bet is that reason is because they're getting him ready to step up to F1 with them.
If that doesn't appeal to Bernie then I've got the man all wrong. ;)
i think so, although i can see it causing confusion at first :)
assuming also, that no-one objects?
:D
still think there's some link between bourdais, todt and that ferrari motor. but time will tell.
I think believe that Buemi will get the seat with Senna getting a test drive seat. It fits Toro Rosso / Red Bull pattern of drivers working through the testing ranks. I would hate for Sato to get that seat since he has had his chance.
The Good: They will improve overtaking...
The Bad: ... but not by that much to warrant the rule change.
and The Ugly: Absolutely horrible from an aesthetic standpoint. I love how the cars look now. Can't they just take away the sidepod wings and reduce the size of the wing and not necessarily the height? With all the good racing this year, why are they messing with the rules so much? I can't imagine how many millions new development for each years' ever changing regulations could cost.
Mmmm... cupcakes. NO! Must... stay... on... diet...
sorry I don't follow?
That's wonderful news :-)
I also tend to be equally useless with emails so we should have some great emails conversations ;-)
as discussed on the podcast the week before last (or the week before that).
put forward the case that le seb's manager is jean todt's son. and that may have been the reason str had the more up-to-date motor than fif1.
no evidence to back that up though, it's all in my head.
Ooh, goody.
Ted's new job?
damn. everyone makes better cupcakes than me.
I thought Todt's son was Massa's manager? Or was that before? Anyhow I'm sure those two are linked in some way.
Don't quit now. You guys could get a head start. F1Cupcakes.com is still available.
Yeah but you have started a whole industry of F1 bakery. You have given the cupcake industry a whole new lease of life.
a busy man i guess.
i suspect anyone visiting that domain may be disappointed to discover pictures of a cake :)
i had no idea.
Hmm cupcake racing, that could be fun. But remember no extra icing! aero bits are banned next season :)
extra icing? i'd have been happy with any icing to be honest :)
Aha! You sir, Me, are wrong. Nicolas DOES NOT manage Bourdais, as proven by his Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Todt
I don't see a mention of Bourdais on there, do you? ;)
But looking on Bourdais' page, I did find out something interesting in the Pre-Champ Car section:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourdais#Pre-Champ_Car
:D
yeah, we covered that a while back:
http://www.sidepodcast.com/2008/02/27/watch-your-back-dc/#comment-54860
you're quoting wikipedia articles as some kind of basis of factual evidence?
http://www.f1technical.net/news/10245
> Nicolas Todt, the manager of Sebastien Bourdais, admitted that the F1 future of the Frenchman is not yet guaranteed
> "In F1, whether it is your first or your tenth year, you always have something to prove and you are always judged on your most recent races. Right now, Sebastien's future in F1 is not yet assured, but I have a good feeling that he can stay at Toro Rosso."
no disrespect matey, but you make this too easy for me :)
I would say something back to that, but there's no point since you'd just prove me wrong again anyway.
:D
:D
awww, now i feel bad!
so you should! now you know how it feels.
is this whole 'becoming a man' thing getting to ya or something?
only you've never taking me seriously before?
http://www.f1sa.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5757&Itemid=219
Who knew that Todt was Bourdais's manager?
ah sorry it's been a rough kinda day. Had an interview with Pizza Hut about a 2nd job, and I didn't get it, AND i've had my mum having a go at me again. Sorry if it feels like I'm letting off steam at you guys. I don't mean to.
Plus I found out I can't go out on my birthday because I need ID to get into this club we were supposed to be going to and I don't have any. So yeah, you could say it's not been the best day I've had.
well... me, and erm, christine.
i swear we talked about this recently? probably in good week / bad week or something.
http://www.sebastien-bourdais.com/biography/f1finally.asp?lng=en
According to Seb's siteit was Todt who got him an F1 seat in the first place.
the last time we reviewed that site, there was nothing there :)
also, it says his next race is in australia.
I love the idea that Taku might get the seat at STR - he is fearsome in a straight line, and some of the most spectacular manuevers on record involve this little man! I don't imagine that Bernie gives out cheques for excitement, but I'm sure Taku'd make enough to cover the costs of sticking the car in the wall as often as he does.
:) This 'post of the day' concept is good - I hope it helps to keep the other posts on point a bit more. Should we try to organise some sort of in-text indicator of a new topic starting/idea genesis to help people keep up/jump in? Perhaps ' :) ' or the such? Silly idea?
:) Is there any chance of a sidepodcast forum? I get all lost searching through each of the threads to find where I'm up to and what topic we are on.
Toro Rosso have two seats: one for a rookie driver and one for an "experienced" driver (IMHO):
Experienced driver:
Bourdais: 60%
Sato: 30%
Barrichello: 10%
Rookie:
Buemi: 60%
B. Senna: 35%
diGrassi: 15%
But, both Bruno Senna and diGrassi are fighting for the same Honda seat and (I don't understand why) both of them prefer Honda, so, as soon as one of them signs with Honda, automatically the other one will get the chances of the other one. I don't believe that Barrichello will dig a year extension to his contract with Honda, so his chances to stay at F1 are (sadly) marginal. At Honda, I would say that Senna has 60% of chances of signing a deal, while diGrassi has 40%.
It will all be clearer one or two weeks after Barcelona tests - if diGrassi manages to impress Honda and manages to run way quicker lap times than Senna, the job is his.
One thing I'm sure: Brazil will have at least 4 drivers next year, maybe 5. And I need to be thankful, because after that, we brazilians have no other younger driver coming for a the next decade - the brazilian junior formulae are dying...
BTW, Felipe Massa is supposed to start a new F-junior league around here. Today, all we have is kart, then F-3 (very weak, not even compared to European F-BMW for example).
Massa is trying to start a new F-Fiat series, to replace the extinguished F-VW (70's - Piquet), F-Ford (80's - Senna), F-Chevrolet (90's - Massa) and F-Renault (2000's - diGrassi). We have no junior formulae smaller than F3 for 2 years already, and this is a shame.
I hope that he can manage to make it work as soon as possible.
Erm, me? :D
It's a great idea, and I'm all for it. But I'm not sure how the Blachfords intend on setting this one up. :)
Formula Fiat... sounds like a good idea. Nice to see Massa giving back to Brazil. :)
Oh, which reminds me, is Massa setting up a kart race again at Florianopolis this year? Last year's was an absolute blast. :D And I'd love to see Massa, Raikkonen, Kubica, Alonso, and Hamilton be on the same grid as a certain M. Schumacher. :) I'm sure that Kubica, Alonso and Raikkonen would probably say yes if Massa invited them, and I know Michael already said he'd come back if there was a race this year. But I wonder if Hamilton would say yes...
In not-so-related news,
Radovan Novak told motorline.cc that although Todt is already closely aligned with the FIA, his appointment as President is not likely, since he doesn't have the support of... Bernie.
But here's the twist: ultimately, Novak believes Mosley will opt to remain in the job for 'another term'.
Eek!
I’d rather Todt take over from Mosley. For all of people’s doubts about Todt’s bias, at least I trust his sanity and his brains MUCH more than Mosley.
Your thoughts?
Well, you can expect to pay 1.5 times to 2x times what the normal rate would be for a hotel room any other week than the week of the Grand Prix. However, if your wants are simple you can still find some good deals if you do some digging. Do not think you can go lower than $60 Canadian a night unless you have friends or family in the area. (I have both) so I think I am safe from the 1% hit.
$60 Cdn per night for one person for a special event is a steal as a normal hotel room for one person in a strictly "touristity" city will set you back $80.00 per night Cdn, easily.
Not unless you are seeking Japanese sponsorship. STR needs to get drivers like Liuzzi or Klien otherwise we are not going to see anything of the team next year. I think they are testing the wrong guys altogether. In particular Sato is a "has been" that was never very good, his moment of glory was at SA were he outshone the Ant.
I am sad that Rubens is likely to be out of a seat next year!
I thought they were going to look ugly but the new Williams in '09 spec looks amazing. Role on Aus.
You been sitting next to Mr Tremayne, Rich?
Oh dear. I entered the job market during the last recession and spent slightly more than a year on the lookout for a 'proper' job, so I know exactly what you've got to put up with...
By all accounts, BCE said at the team principals' meeting in Brazil that with the money the Canadian promoter was putting forward, then if the teams really wanted to have the race then they would have to (in effect) do it for free. Naturally they all refused, so the ball is back in the Canadians' court...
Quite apart from the visiting fans, think how many F1 personnel travel to each race – a one percent hike on rooms will generate a small but significant additional revenue. Mind you, a lot of people are looking at their travel budgets carefully in the present economic circumstances – I think I might be staying in a tent next year.
This. If the racing is awesome, all will be forgiven...
possibly, but you might have to explain that a bit more. not sure i follow?
nope. waay to much admin sadly.
i can't see the benefit? for example, ollie has:
http://blogf1.co.uk/talk/
i registered once, now i've forgotten me login and if i've got something to say i'll leave a comment. no criticism against ollie there, it's just that forums are old hat. the thing with blog comments is i only have to remember my name and what it was that was on my mind.
don't even get me started on admin overhead of trying to moderate forums either :(
ooooh, we have just the thing:
http://www.sidepodcast.com/2008/07/08/cardboard-city/
much consolidation going on in nascar at the moment:
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/72094
"Autosport.com understands that DEI will move into the Ganassi shop in Concord, North Carolina, adding their technical expertise and resources to the newly formed squad."
"They have yet to announce which manufacturer they will race for next season, but it is expected that they will field four Chevrolets with ECR (Earnhardt Chilrdress Racing) engines. As Richard Childress Racing also uses the same powerplants, they are all expected to share data both on and off the track."
force india's deal with mclaren will no doubt send formula 1 down a similar path of consolidation, with more "4 car" teams required in order to compete with them.
Didn't Red Bull and Honda already try this, and BOTH ended up making a complete hash of it? Although to be fair, they're not really established teams the way Ferrari or McLaren are. If we pair the teams up, we'll have something like this:
Ferrari - a post-Mateschitz STR
McLaren - Force India
Renault - Red Bull
Toyota - Williams
BMW
Honda
So that means BMW and Honda won't have dance partners. Too bad there's nothing left of the Super Aguri property...
Literally, a Cup cake!
5 MINUTE CHOCOLATE MUG CAKE
4 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)
a small splash of vanilla extract
1 large coffee mug
Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well. Add the egg and mix thoroughly.
Pour in the milk and oil and mix well. Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla extract, and mix again.
Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts (high).
The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don't be alarmed! Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired.
EAT! (this can serve 2 if you want to feel slightly more virtuous).
And why is this the most dangerous cake recipe in the world? Because now we are all only 5 minutes away from chocolate cake at any time of the day or night!
taken from www.mactalk.com.au
Is there any chance of a sidepodcast forum? I get all lost searching through each of the threads to find where I’m up to and what topic we are on.
nope. waay to much admin sadly. {me quoting Dave in NZL - 3 comments ago}
There's a forum attached to my blog (or, to be more chronologically precise, the blog came out as a result of the forum). I think it is fair to say the blog gets more traffic than the forum these days, though it's hard to tell whether that's because of the move to Web 2.0 or because it has become just about the only anti-Hamilton forum in English on the internet to not permit racist comments...
The admin load is pretty light though - to be honest, emptying my spam bin in my blog takes longer.
force india’s deal with mclaren will no doubt send formula 1 down a similar path of consolidation, with more “4 car” teams required in order to compete with them. {me - 4 comments ago}
Assuming that Force India actually co-operates with McLaren when the inter-team orders come through (and note that not only are intra-team orders against the Sporting Regulations, but that Force India is accustomed to independence from other teams), that sounds very plausible. Which means we'll be down to seven teams by Journeyer's reckoning (and that reckoning looks valid), of which five will have twice as many resources available to them as the other two. It's a major part of the reason why I don't like the idea of customer cars.
It's actually 6 teams, with 4 having twice as much as the other 2. :)
But yeah, it looks like trouble.
An additional note: Williams needs to find a new manufacturer partner - FAST. Otherwise, they'll end up in a lose-lose situation: either end up as Toyota's B-team or go out of business trying to stay independent. Either way, that won't lead them back to championships.
Puppies are off air at the moment, but I highly recommend checking back often.
http://cdn1.ustream.tv/swf/4/viewer.45.swf?cid=317016
P.S. to my additional note: when I say a new manufacturer partner, I mean someone NOT in the sport. That way Williams don't end up playing the B-team. Perhaps Audi/VW/Lambo, or Ford? Both are long shots, though.
Here's an interesting idea: remember the rumor from 2006 about the Koreans? There were rumors that Korean carmaker Hyundai wanted to enter F1 alongside the Korean GP scheduled for 2010. Guess the team that was mentioned as a possible partner? That's right, Virginia: Williams. :)
By the way, the karting competition is building up steam. I've been sent all sorts of serious documents. Updates have been put on the wiki, including a schedule.
I know some of you have worried about the extra expense of the bar. You needn't - the room hire got thrown in free because of the number of karters who are going :)
i don't think i've ever even seen your forum? must pay more attention.
thing is, we had one and it wasn't any fun, then we moved to forumula1.net and no-one visited despite us plugging every week on the show.
we have more interesting and exciting things in the pipeline.
cooool :D
so you're saying that if costs reduce and consolidation happens, then more teams are likely to enter?
interesting. is this the reason max was helping push the mcindia deal through?
The forum my blog is attached to is called Formula1Home.com and I am co-admin of it. I do link back to it occasionally, but it's difficult as it often seems that the forum and I are discussing completely different topics.
This is also why I have blog where it is possible to register, but the benefits are more modest than the "you must log in to post a comment" - mostly registration means small things like it remembers what colour you want the blog and what your chosen username is.
cooool :D {me - 2 comments ago}
Funnily enough, that was my comment when I saw that had happened. It also helps that there's nobody else using the venue at the same time as us.
Glad we're of the same mind though.
if costs reduce, then more teams will definitely try to enter. consolidation, not so much. but yes, max and bernie were pushing mcindia to ensure that we'll have AT LEAST 10 teams, whatever happens, with a decent (if not very high, but certainly much better) shot at getting more teams.
I was pointing out the Hyundai connection because I really want Williams to succeed. and that won't happen with this current setup, and where Williams is in it right now.
your blog has a feed though. by subscribing there's a strong chance i'll remember to visit when you update.
i can't see feed of latest forum topics, which to me means the site may as well not exist (because i'll only remember to visit when someone tells me too).
would the toyota connection not make more sense though?
not while toyota has their own F1 effort. Toyota-Toyota will always take precedence over Williams-Toyota.
Hyundai, on the other hand, will focus all of their effort (and money) to Williams, which means that Williams will have a manufacturer partner again that's fully cooperative (emphasis on cooperative). And that's all they really need to be competitive (see BMW 2000-2003, Renault in the 1990s, Honda in the 1980s).
I'm not sure what benefit a forum would be.
1) Topics list - well, I've tried to put topics in the blog at the top, have updated with recent thoughts, and there's no reason that forum threads won't go off topic either.
2) Keeping up with the conversation - if you're coming with a new idea, post it. If you want to join in what's already going on, you have to read through what's already there, regardless of whether it's a blog or a forum.
What additional functionality does a forum have to offer? You get crazy pictures in the sidebars and annoying signatures that go on for ages. To keep the spam out we have to lock down registration and force people to log in, which is something we are keen to avoid. And if there is an rss feed, it's usually pretty sketchy.
It's a bit hard to follow all the great conversations going on, and in blog form, it ends up kinda messy and unorganized. A forum with threads would fix that. Any off-topic posts can easily get moved in a forum.
But hey, it's your call. I'd prefer a forum, but if it's too much effort, we can stay with the current setup.
in theory, christine's new daily blog should keep things nice and organised.
that's just more work for us. which means less other cool stuff because of the admin overhead.
Technically we can move stuff around on the blog too, but that's not something we're really interested in. I wanna hear what you've all got to say, who are we to tell you where you can talk?
well, technically, you can still read everything we want to say; it's just that it's in separate threads now. But...
...I'm intrigued with this idea. Do share with the class. :D
Journeyer,
I keep up with the comments using the comments RSS feed in Google reader - that way I don't have to trawl through posts I have already read. It's much easier to keep up and you end up reading more comments.
Paste http://www.sidepodcast.com/comments/feed/ into an RSS reader - and you can thank me later :-)
here's a thought on the future of online conversation...
microsoft spent decades trying to explain the principles of file structure organisation to users. mostly it increased the barrier to entry and confused the heck out of people. files were frequently lost in a myriad of locations and still are.
apple have an alternate take on this, which can be best seen if you play your music using itunes. basically all music files get dumped into a massive store and then you use search to find the song you're after. it doesn't matter where the file is, you just need to know the name or artist (or genre etc) to find it.
migrate this concept to comments and you have forums taking the role of microsoft's file structure, while blog comments are more akin to a big unorganised store of information.
the missing piece at the moment is the bit itunes does well, and that's to search the store very quickly and very reliably.
what we really need is a way to dig out any relevant comments posted here in a super-fast way. one that means the original location is irrelevant.
i think wordpress have got their vision of the future completely wrong (threaded comments / paginated comments), which only serves to emphasise the "microsoft way" of deeper and deeper organisation and segregation of information.
we need software that thinks about things in a different manner, we need apple to write a blogging platform :)
here's the twist, though: unlike songs, which can stand alone as individual items, comments form one thread of conversation. search can be applied, but it would only be effective if you search whole threads of conversations, not individual comments.
after all, google, the king of search, also uses threads for their email.
Also, there's no reason that you should only be allowed to talk about a topic in one place at one time. Why not bring up a completely unrelated topic? It just adds to the conversation. Occasionally we say: Oh yea, we talked about that before. But it's not a bad thing, because by the time it resurfaces, there's usually more information and we've come up with some more thoughts on the subject.
tis true.
what i want though, is as i type a comment, for a list of related comments to appear. and the more i type, the more relevant those related comments to be.
so if the subject of bourdais and todt were broached, then it would be super easy to see when and where those two persons were discussed together in the past.
actually you're onto something with that analogy. but i sorta disagree.
my old inbox on my machine has a hundred subfolders and a crazy amount of rules for assigning messages to those folders.
in gmail, i have a big bucket of mail and i just search for whatever i need. not a subfolder or mail rule in sight.
ahhh, that DOES sound like an interesting idea indeed. and then it should also allow you to quote any previous comments that you like, to add to the discussion.
Like predictive search. I like it.
You really are going to fix the internet, aren't you?
true, i have the exact same setup! but even then, each email convo has a thread of its own. it may not be organized into categories, but they're still threads nonetheless.
that would be ace :)
i can't fix this one. there are people (mostly working for google) who can, but i have no idea if there's a business case for doing so.
Ah. In which case, I'll change it to: Google's really going to take over the world, aren't they? :)
and threads will still exist, this blog post contains several threads of conversation much like an email conversation.
the point is, when topics resurface, it's too hard to figure:
a) if they've already been covered
b) if you're repeating or adding more context
c) where the best place to pick up the thread is
search should solve all of that. type what you want, where you want and see if anything contextual appears alongside it.
You are so much a Mac and not a PC :-)
for this to happen, comments have to be indexed as they are posted, for quick searching. our thesis back in college was related to this, where results come up as you type in what you're searching for. and we pulled it off, so it SHOULD BE possible.
the issue there is when comments come in during a race, they come thick and fast, so you almost need some kind of delayed indexing when everything's quiet.
also that doesn't solve the problem of typos or whether some uses a umlaut in kimi's surname or not.
at the moment wordpress doesn't support 'soundalike' and similar searching algorithms. in fact wordpress search is so bad it's almost useless.
Toro Rosso: I'd LOVE to see Sato back in F1. Yes he's a liability but he's also an awesome little fighter. Remember in Canada '07 when he overtook Alonso in his crappy Super Aguri...
The new Aero package: First impressions is that it reminds me of Mansell's unbeatable 92 Williams. Simplified shape, tall and narrow rear wing...Let's just hope they actually work and there's less of that dirty air around...
Sidepodcast Forum?: I think the comments work well enough, but a forum would be good for specific topics. The conversation in the comments usually gets so jumbled up that it's impossible to follow what everyone's saying. So in short? Yeah, get a forum! :)
New drivers: I'd like to see di Grassi in, which I'm pretty sure he will be by 2010.
Another point about the 2009 Rear Wing-gate. Would you have rather had these wings or the frankly insane idea of the Centreline Downwash Generator (CDG) Rear wing?
For those of you who don't know what I mean, it's this: http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2005/10/3764.html
Thankfully everybody thought it was a bad idea and it got shelved :-)
Oh god! Take it away, please!
true, but it would be a bit of a shame, since quoting comments is best applied in real-time convos. but since we've been discussing this search functionality in terms of digging up really old comments, it should be ok.
ha. yeah, can't argue with that.
however it was designed to be used on IRL ovals and wasn't really meant to be used in f1. max just used it to focus attention on the problem.
That was about the craziest idea I ever heard of and the prime example of people trying to solve a very specific problem without thinking outside of the question they were asked. It works perfectly well if obe car is following another on a straight but the first thing most of the people who ever saw it said was that if one car was following another in a corner it would not be directly behind it rather it would be at an angle. THe journalists at the launch asked if it would work with two cars in a corner and I think it was quite clear that the technical geniuses hadn't considered corners.
That was designed for F1. The Indy 'equivalent' was the Handford device designed by Mick Handford who was with the Jaguar F1 tam when the CDW wing was designed.
i thought, that actually no real effort was put into the f1 design and they just made a 3d mockup in order to generate some headlines?
was a long time ago, i can't remember in that much detail, but there was never a real prospect of it actually appearing in f1 was there?
Yes. It was one of Max's great plans till everyone pointed out it was completely stupid. For example imagine what those little wings are going to do to water in a wet race.
if it makes you happy to think that then that's cool.
personally i don't think he's completely stupid, and i suspect you're vastly underestimating the man if you think he promoted such a crazy concept, without having at least six ulterior motives for doing so.
Other than the fact that it's ugly, I bet you one of the main reasons the idea was scrapped was the fact that there was little room on the two rear wings for advertising. Seriously.
wouldn't surprise me in the least.
i mean, technically it didn't actually work either mind you.
You don't even need to remember your name. ;)
I see that Massa has won an award for being the best Brazilian driver, as decided by Brazilian journalists:
http://tinyurl.com/massa-award
Seems like the most freaking obvious award ceremony ever. The real tough decision is who gets silver, Barri or Piquet, and they went for experience over youth :)
I have no problem with catching up with the comments myself. What can be difficult is keeping track when there are more than one discussions going on at different posts. Not sure if this idea helps that or not?
Oh nice idea.
What do you mean I've missed, gotta lot of catching up to do.
I think its most likely Sato will get it, I'm unsure who it'll go down to. I'd love Klien and Liuzzi, I think someone said last night, they seem to work together. Bourdais has been living in the impossible shadow of Vettel and is unfair to compare him to what Vettel has achieved this season. I'd like Klien and Luizzi, but I agree with who you think will get it.
Rubbish. But the rest of the car is fantastic.
Apparantly wikipedia has as many mistakes as Encyclopedia Britannica
If thats the case, why did they have two F1 rookies in 2008?
I'm, like most things, against this. Why have a forum when we just have as much fun in a blog?
As a mod on another forum, moving threads around is fairly easy in itself, but moving posts is an absolute nightmare.
That gets my vote in 'phrase of the year'
I'm unconvinced by Di Grassi, as with most young Brazillian drivers, Senna and co as well. Specially after Piquet's performance as well. I don't think Senna was outstanding in GP2, and to be fair, I dunno which series Di Grassi was in.
Wouldn't it have been best given as 'Most spins in a race'? Piquet would get second easily.
Was that ever in doubt either? :)
Just an idea here, but what about seperate pages for seperate discussions? Sp in the main Daily post, there are sub sections for different topics of the day. That way we lose the confusion and everywhere has its own place. Although, on the downside it would mean more pages cluttering up the place.
OR each F1 team gets its own page where topics related to that team can be discussed. So for example, upcoming test for Bourdais, Buemi and Sato could go into the STR page. There could also be other pages for FIA-related topics and also for general chat and other motorsports.
Not sure about di Grassi, but I am a Bruno fan and I seriously doubt he'll have a Piquet-esque debut. He's got to where he is very quickly and I'm sure he'll learn quickly in F1 too. May be worth putting him in a testing role for next year, though.
I agree with that. I just don't think he's ready yet. Although the likes of Rosberg and Hamilton only had 1 season in GP2, they were champions regardless. He's had two and not particularly been a absolute sensation despite coming 2nd. He said back in late 2006 that he was targeting F1 in 2009. But now that time has come, something just tells me putting him in that Honda just wouldn't be right somehow.
Sidepodcast subtitle? ;)
random subtitles are on the development list for the 2009 site.
i think there's a facebook thread with a load of them on, but it's something that'll probably work better on the wiki these days.
You mean like "Backing Button for the title"? As if that was ever going to happen :P
Hence why it changed to Backing Bourdais for the Title ;)
Not a bad little idea.
we were looking for something to replace "your weekly f1 fix" a while ago and had so many good suggestions that we thought we'd rotate them.
it's been on the list for the best part of a year, but we haven't forgotten :)
I know what you mean. If I were in charge of Honda (getting ideas now...) then I'd keep Rubens for next year and put Bruno in the car in 2010.
Still... ;)
there's a technical limitation there. actually there's several:
1) live commenting thing doesn't work on pages, only posts.
2) eventually the thread would hit a comment limit. we've no idea how long that might take and we're not there yet, but over the course of a season it would eventually break.
next year...
"backing di grassi for the title"?
I actually did mean posts, but pages came to mind for some reason.
You watch, it'll eventally be "Backing Franck for the title. Hang on..."
the problem with that is, posts fall off the homepage after 10 new ones and then no-one will be able to find them.
Vettel wasn't technically a rookie, having already had a race seat for half of 2007.
which reminds me (not sure if it's been mentioned here): lewis is the 1st champion from f3000/gp2 to ever become f1 champion.
the also fall off the lclt after 10 too.
Which is why if you put links to them in the original Daily post, they're all in one place so that should anyone need to find one in the future, they just flick through the Daily archive, pick the relevant dated post and then follow the link.
Ooh, well spotted Journeyer. Hadn't thought about that at all until you just mentioned it :)
So that just proves the feeder system really does produce champions.....eventually ;)
in that case, i'm not sure what you mean?
if you follow a link in live commenting, doesn't it take you back into standard commenting?
Now look who is being mean to Lou....
Well, inexperienced, it was only for 4 races as well.
Nothing ever gets past you, does it? :P
only 4? felt like loads more than that. are ya including the beemer drive?
thing is, i end up doing everything i agree to, so i'm making sure that ideas are at least technically possible before even considering them :)
I forgot all about that. No F2/F3000/GP2 champion ever won the F1 title. I remember when Piquet was catching Lewis for the GP2 title I was half hoping he would win it just so Lewis wouldn't be jinxed. After his first season of F1 I started to believe i th jinx again but finally it has been killed off.
He took the place of Kubica for Indy and then I believe he replaced Speed from Hungary onwards.
that jinx has been alive for... almost 50 years now? it deserved to die off, and it did... eventually.
he had 7 races with STR. +1 from BMW makes it 8 out of 17 races that season for Vettel. it's as good as half the season for me. :)
Hardly experienced though.
true, but experienced enough to not be a rookie. if a driver is in his first full season, but had driven half a season the year before, he's usually not classified as a rookie.
phew. i don't like forums. and tbh i think this is a much better anyway. A forum would mean less use of the live commenting live.. thing. which is not good at all, i love the live commenting thing, it's perfect for everyday use. I have no problem keeping up with comments as i subscribe to the RSS feed and that often helps me look through some of the comments i may have missed.
If two convos are going on at the same time in different posts do what I do, open 2 tabs, and have one thread for each. I often only keep the live commenting live thing open for the most active convo, but i suppose you could have it open for each thread on different tabs.
I like sidepodcast as it is, full of lots of lovely people, in a lovely blog format which i think is the easiest to follow, with free conversation. So if i come in from school and i notice something on a news site or have something i want to say i can put it anywhere (or now on the new daily thread) without having to worry about if it's relevant to the post or whatever. Plus having a forum AND comments would just confuse things, and give Christine & 'me' more work etc. and i don't think it's fair to give them more sidepodcast stuff to do, especially given that it's not even necessary.
You talk about him like his career is over! it's not. He is 28, hardly old is he? Yes he should be challenging for wins/ the championship at this age, but it's hardly his fault is it? And who knows what's going to happen in the future. McLaren could get it horribly wrong and have a dog of a car, and Lewis will be stuck there, and Honda may have an amazing car and be challenging for the Championship (I'm not saying next year by any means but in the future, just in case anyone picks me up on that ;) I'm not that optimistic).
Good plan, but I think the amount of tabs I have open are more than enough right now. :) It's not something that really bothers me, and it's not hard to get round with the comments feed either, but there's probably some quick and simple solution.
I have seen a couple of news items today about people spending hours online playing World of Warcraft. There seem to be a lot of people worried about other people spending many hours online and maybe becoming addicted to it. Makes you wonder how long it will be before the news is full of items about he addictive nature of sidepodcast.
:D
i have no idea how long i spend on here. maybe we should keep track?
i vote we start a wiki page and regularly update it detailing how much time we spend on sidepodcast related endeavours including the updating of the time we spend online detailing the time we...
I'll update the wiki
this can only go well.
Whatever happens, this one was definitely Me's fault. :)
Maybe we shouldn't. It may be scary
:D
Seconded
was totally steven. he dared to wonder.
Have you guys got any special features planned for testing next week?
I'm glad you're net getting too confident in the off season Lou :) I think the worst thing that could happen to McLaren is if they start thinking the 2010 season too early. Is it too early to thrown down predictions for the 2009 season? McLaren to take the drivers championship. There I said it. Feel free to forget this post until November next year when I have a look at it again, and then never mention it...
oh yeah! there is testing next week! :D yay :) forgot how much i look forward to testing in the off season.
I have a different problem: The more I type, the more irrelevant my own comments tend to be.
:D
Objection!
According to you I have had every idea ever on sidepodcast. I must be responsible for generating most of the traffic on the site by now.
erm...
ummmm...
...
I haven't been told if I have had any ideas yet. @D
:D
Does anyone know, will the Force India's be running in testing with Ferrari engines or McLaren?
Great question. I would guess they would run Ferraris until the end of the year. They can't just drop a Merc engine into tis year's car. That would take weeks of work.
That's what I thought, but then I thought that they (Force India) have in effect told Ferrari to get lost so why should Ferrari they give them an engine for testing ;)
Because the cut off date on the contract will be 31st December orsomething similar. If Ferrari don't supply engines they end up in court.
LOL, I guess they better give them the engines then :) .. and throw in a few cup cakes to keep em sweet!
Currently writing up my questions for Sunday on Wordpad. I've got 3 different topics, and I would like to try different question formats. So for one topic, each panelist gets one question each and then the next topic will see everyone answering one question.
Bit hard thinking up topics though when the off season has just started and the F1 news well isn't really overflowing :/
i think if i was in ferrari's position, i might accidentally test them to destruction
I am part of an F1 Newsgroup, attend a few F1 forums regularly too. The appeal of Sidepodcast is that it's not a forum - the bloggyness makes it feel like a community and it is fun reading the comments as they are. So please don't change it too much... it's what makes Sidepodcast unique :-)
And sorry about arriving to the conversation late - I've just come back from seeing "Quantum of Solace" at the movies - definitely Five Pints of Awesome!!!
just to clarify, 3 different topics so far :P
Actually, that raises another question or three.
The change of engine after the first three testing events of the winter .. how useful will any of that data acquired be to Force India? .. or will it be more useful to McLaren, as presumably part of their new contract will allow them to share data within the two teams.
3 topics is probably enough the way us lot go on :)
did you see dan's super research question on the wiki?
I would have thought Mclaren had enough Ferrari data already :-)
Will McLaren want to look at how to drop their engine into the VJM01 whilst the Ferrari engine is still in it :-)
you've just done scott's job for him ;)
yee-ouch :D
I've already got my questions about the Force India-McLaren deal thank you ;)
Is three (four?) topics on one thread answering your questions from earlier?
That's EXACTLY why Christine picked Scott to be Steven's rear gunner, me :P
I just watched Duncan Bannatyne's new program and cupcakes made an appearance
They can do aero tests and test drivers with the Ferrari engines.
Yeah I know... too easy eh?
umm, which question?
I'm actually amazed at how much is still going on, or perhaps after that race I'm just more focused on F1 at this stage. Testing next week? wow. I wonder what DC's role will be next week, and will it seem any different to him?
the old ones are the best :)
Hence why it changed to Backing Bourdais for the Title
But which title - F1 driver glasses wearer of the year perhaps?
:)
Ooh I did see Dan's research question, very good! I'll include that into my list of questions. I have a title for each round as well :D
lol
Mainly the whole conversation around lunch time
but to highlight one
"What additional functionality does a forum have to offer?"
ooh, i'm telling!
More like Ferrari should give Force India some engines that have been on the dynos since testing last season to make sure the the engines are at the end of their lives. Maybe Ferrari should also drain the oil and add some sugar to make sure Force India do not get too much data....
ah yeah :)
i've sort of convinced myself that what we really need is a megablastic search engine and now i'm just trying to figure out if one exists, or if the sidepodcast budget will stretch to buying ted and google.
ooh, i’m telling!
Will I be the first Pod Panel participant to start on negative points then?
Have Toro Rosso announced that they WILL pick who will drive for them next year after this 3 day test?
What about Di Resta.. Force India have already confirmed their drivers for next year, so it looks like McLaren can't foist him there, meantime at least. The STR could be a good intro to F1 for him.
I'm still on -1,000,000 for killing Montagny
Your conversation from lunchtime is something I've been trying to get my head around all year - and I don't have the answer
one thought is conversation tag options - drivers/teams/circuits/fia/ etc
Er, me, if I visited your dwelling, would I happen to see any Monty Python videos in Christine's collection?
Just trying to figure out what I can get away with French F1 drivers, here.....
videos? what be they?
It is going to hurt their case against Nigel Stepney if they deliver engines with white powder in them.
And if you could only afford one?
the ideal solution is for everybody never to leave their machine's ever. then nothing gets missed, lost or causes any confusion.
:)
failing that, we'll just keep learning.
TED!
Or be like I am, and never remember anything. That way it's always new information :)
:D
You'd have Ted over google.
I need a lie down
Christine have you considered a megablastic search engine :-)
course. if you lose google, there's always yahoo.
lose ted and you're left with... james allen.
Can you buy shares in Ted?
If you used a Glock it would have misfired under pressure and nothing would happen......
ooh, i dunno. do you think he'll ever ipo?
Moving pictures processed via electronic means using electrons. Do not care what format they are in.
November 13th, 2008 at 9:28 pmSteven Roy said:
You could say that the sugar is visible proof that the engine, did in fact hit the "sweet spot" of maximium performance.....
:D .
i got close:
http://www.gigablast.com/
:)
rats! in that case, is monty python available in itunes?
OK, my questions are all done! I await Sunday with great excitement ;)
Christine only wanted a megablastic search engine and you had to get one 1024 times more powerful?
With all that extra expense, you could afforded both Ted News and given you employees at Panda Racing a 6% raise.... bugger!
Just Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
*opens eyes looks around* Forum! *falls back asleep.*
Well, I was thinking of making fun of R.G.'s shooting abilities by comparing his results to a famous scence from a different Monty Python movie....
I do not want to say more lest I get hit with a million point deduction too!
I'll give you guys a little clue for my killer question - think end of season ;)
Think! You're asking a bit much there. :P
The only answer that counts is "Franck Montagny would have won with more than half to the seaosn to go if he had Hamilton's car, and would have won the Constructor's for McLaren by Brazil with no partner required."
How many points is that worth, Christine.... :P .
Nothing, since favourable references to Franck, Bourdais and di Grassi are not allowed when I'm hosting, not after that farce of constant obvious favouritism :P . One question will most likely feature Bourdais and di Grassi, but points should not be awarded just because Christine likes them :P
Thanks me - not seen that before. What does it offer that google doesn't?
Christine is in sole charge of points regardless what the host says. Comments like this could make you the lowest scoring guest host ever.
Okay - I am fully 'read up'. I have decided that the forum idea isn't what we need. This is way too much fun to ruin it with another site we have to click through to!
I've thoughts about some simple solutions to the 'topics'/'tags' - and put a picture up on at drop.io.
http://drop.io/download/491ca901/f4df9b599559e95a8c9744af3a9f7ab1ca553f1f/d0ba0b70-f3bc-012a-2186-0012799407ec/b057dd40-93ff-012b-c722-fd8e67427ab4/img_5994_1067x800.jpg
The essence is a post numbering system that we can refer to in-post. The second is a 'topics' post collating the topics we are on that users can copy/paste/add to. I.e:
(Topic,) (#initial post,) (#seminal posts)
A Drivers, #1, #2,6,27
B Wings, #2, #4,18
etc.
- when you add a new topic, copy/paste/add your new topic and put it at the end of your own post. You don't have to add your post to the 'seminal' list unless it is crucial to the topic. This'd keep the new comers/people living in the OPPOSITE TIME ZONES up with the posts. I had the idea that it could 'float' in a frame on the right, but that mightn't be allowed with the software. Are post numbers possible?
Thoughts/comments? Am I totally missing the point?
Blast - caught in moderation... (There was a link to drop.io.)
Have rescued the post, thanks Dave.
And the link has gone native. The correct one is at drop.io/sidepodcast. Sorry.
Here's the link:
http://drop.io/sidepodcast/asset/img-5994-1067x800
Interesting idea, Dave. I know we are working on giving the comments numbers, have to see what the brains of the outfit thinks about the rest :)
Oh Dave that's a nice idea, but a string of numbers isn't a very user friendly thing to remember .. or maybe I'm getting to old to bother trying to remember
You have sadly destoyed the whole premiss of the show then that you could score bonus points for featuring those three drivers in a very promising light.
Still. Lewis Hamilton, as good as he is, still seems to underserving go the high praise he gets from ITV and many other brits. If you prove to me that he can walk on water, or float in air, I will reconsider, but based on his record to date, 1 World Championship, and 9 Wins from two seasons, is a lesser strike rate than JV's of 12 wins, 1 World Championship in his first two seasons. But Where was ITV then?
I'm dying to know what happens at midnight. Do we all decant to thread 2 and this one is closed down?
There'll be a new thread, but this one won't close. If there was some kind of raging debate going on here, we wouldn't just shut it off once the clock strikes midnight.
Otherwise, I imagine people will just naturally switch to the latest thread.
If Christine & me (not me:)) like the amswers & award points accordingly, I think that's sort of OK since it is THEIR SHOW! :)
Anywho - congrats on another gigglefest - finished it off on the way to work this morning... was LOLing in the streets again :)
Wait a second here - Sunday night after the show, you guys agreed with me to not allow references to those 3. Now, what's with the sudden change of mind?
It's like Monty Python sketch. It just stops in the middle of a sentence .....
I don't remember agreeing to anything, and I'm in sole charge of the pinger (until I break it and have to relinquish it to be fixed).
it's got the word "blast" in the title... err, that's it :(
you broke drop.io? :(
me too, and it was the second time i'd heard it.
ahh, i see it now. floating list is v. interesting.