Having recovered from the sight of the Ferrari, we're now eagerly anticipating the Toyota launch. They're rolling out the TF109 tomorrow in spectacular online fashion. Apparently. Anyway, here's what's going on in and around the comments.
- With the Toyota launch site looking suspiciously Batman-like, we're pondering what direction they're going to go with the launch. Apparently there'll be a blockbuster style movie trailer to enjoy tomorrow. Will Jarno be the leading man?
- Webber has declared that his broken leg will be no excuse for bad performance in Australia. Apparently, he drove a road car for the first time last week, so his recovery must be going pretty well. His biggest concern is that he'll have lost some aerobic fitness, so look for him going for a jog as soon as he can.
- Somehow, the subject of Webber turned into the subject of films, and Alex shared a link to test how much of a film buff you are. I scored abysmally, much to the shame of Flibster who scored over 90%. If you've got a few minutes, take the test, tick the boxes, and share your score in the comments.
Let us know what you're up to today, and if you plan to watch Toyota's movie trailer as soon as it's released, or if you can wait. Keep us up to date with any news developments and I'll see you in the comments.
No real F1 news this morning, apart from Franz Tost saying the new rules will be tough on the small teams.
Glad SPC is not subscribing to the fiction that the F60 is anything but a munter.
The Bridgestone e-reporter competition thingy is running again this year.
Might be of interest for all wannabe journos out there in blogland? Need to be between 18-30 and in full-time education. Doesn't matter what courses you are doing.
axis have the schumi interview we were discussing yesterday:
http://axisofoversteer.blogspot.com/2009/01/schumacher-my-heart-stopped-then.html
now i know i stopped listening to things schumi said years ago, but i didn't follow a word of it :D
:D
:)
Perhaps I have a bit of free time on the weekend
There are more videos from the interview on youtube, just search for: Kerner Schumacher
I was thinking about something last night. When Mika Hakkinen won his first race at Jerez in 1997, the rules changed in 1998 and he won the championship. Now Robert Kubica, who to me is the only one out of the 3 new winners right now capable of winning a championship (with the exception of Vettel, but we don't know what the new Red Bull will be like) with the car he has, won his first race last season and the rules have changed. Sooo....
;) :D
My guess - fragile.
You could also argue that the new car in 1998 was a Newey design, so Vettel may be the one to benefit from the rule changes rather than Kubica...
I'd be surprised mind you, BMW are much more likely to be near the front given past performance.
i like it!
That's true. I only said BMW and Kubica because it was kind of the same situation. BMW were the 3rd best team, like McLaren in 1997, Kubica won his first race like Hakkinen that year, and now the rules have changed like 1998. :P
For the Windows 7 Beta users there is now a patch on the MS Support site which apparently fixes it.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961367
Once again - first comment of the day in moderation. :D
I agree with you, just thought I'd put a different spin on it!
I dare say Newey is perhaps running out of innovative ideas, but wouldn't rule out him coming up with a car with true race and championship winning potential the year after DC retires - that would sum up his luck! :)
ace, cheers. have it running on a VM now. just not on the eeepc yet.
I scored an abysmal 36.8% on the movie thing. My excuse is that I don't watch old movies...
Predictions: The Toyota launch will probably be the cheesiest thing we'll see all season.
I've translated the Schumi interview.
Me - Question for you on iTunes podcast artwork - I've just had someone who is publishing a podcast ask me how to get it to show in iTunes, everything else works just fine. Any ideas?
Afternoon everyone, hope you're all ok. I thought toyota's big launch was today but then I realised it was the 14th... ah well.
I have my theory test tomorrow so I'm bricking it a bit, hopefully things will go well.
best of luck buddy :)
nothing comes to mind. do you have an rss feed i can look at?
kathi, that is brilliant, thank you!
have pinged a link over to axis too.
Not really brilliant no, I've decided German and English are not compatible :)
hehe. looked good to me. interesting interview too.
oh my lord, they've updated "paint".
Mine is 30%, same excuse :p (and many of those movies are impossible to find down here...)
Toyota: after firing Ralf they probably have enough money to pay for a Hollywood-like trailer. Jarno for the Oscars! :-)
The very same foundations of the world are collapsing... The end is coming...
No! What have they done??
:D
...and wordpad!
added an office-like toolbar, default shapes and brushes.
adobe won't be shaking in their boots, but at least it defaults to .png format rather than .bmp.
Is nothing sacred?
apparently "testing" has become "data gathering" for 2009:
"Much of the running in the next few weeks will be to gather data which can then be used for the simulations that will replace circuit testing."
more: http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns21101.html
expect lots of laps and the focus being on reliability then. whoever bins it first is gonna be in a heap of trouble.
should we open a book?
yeah. windows 7 just crashed whilst installing "live essentials".
you can rest easy.
I wonder how long it'll be before the FIA bans those pricey simulators?
http://www.itv-f1.com/News_Article.aspx?id=44924
Pedalo suggesting that nose changes will take much longer. With the number of changes we're expecting, will they ever finish a race distance?
And that's even more pressure on Ferrari mechanics! Not gonna go down well.
Cobblers.
They won't run single cables from the control to the nose. They'll run to the join, then have a pin and plate style connector *like you get on the boot litd of many cars to control the eye level brake light* and then a cable from that to the actuator.
If anyone has hydraulic lines running down from the hydraulic pump to the nose cone then they deserve all the problems they will invariably get.
they're trying. problem is, computing can be distributed. so monitoring is tricky.
we at sidepodcast could, if we so desired, boot up thousands of linux machines. from a standing start it would take about fifteen minutes. the servers can be shut down just as quickly and are located all over the globe.
clearly that's more webservers than we'll ever need, and would cost us more money than we'll ever earn. but to an f1 team the cost is peanuts. and it can be controlled from somebody's bedroom if necessary.
how the heck are the fia ever going to control that?
sorry, just re-read that. for some reason the first time, i thought you meant the cfd machines.
banning hexapods the size of a basketball court is much easier. expect a letter from max any minute :)
They could do a maximum processor count
Or a maximum Gflops
It's not going to be easy to police.
only if they can find the machines though. it would would work if the teams were all open, transparent and honest...
are you implying that they are all crooked? ;)
You are very suspicious. All of them are in for the love to the sport, why they would be dishonest? ;-)
I'd never thought about that, but you're right: after the 'virtual-machines' boom policing about 'computer use' is almost impossible... The only thing the FIA can do is to control the use of big supercomputers (thus controlling the most expensive 'real' simulations, but not the small ones...)
me? never.
i'm not sure they could afford to even if they wanted too. i mentioned this the other day but it keeps coming back...
http://www.sidepodcast.com/2007/10/25/part-of-the-answer/
let's suppose that or similar happens, the fia can't control all of our PS3's too.
Hydraulics to move a little flap? Why would anyone even think of such a thing?
http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns21099.html
Bourdais won't be driving for Penske this year. This article I guess also explains why DC refused to say Lewis was better than Jenson at ASI.
Evnin' all
Technically still afternoon, I hate these early finishes
Oooh
Damn
Sweet god, sweet, sweet god.
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
I know, I saw that and was quite disappointed :(
Good luck, i thought id wait until i get my full uni timetable to book mine.
42.8% is my score. Id thought it would have been higher, so I guess i just watch loads of rubbish films!
Hmm, I wonder what the Toyota livery is gonna be like... :P
Just incase anyone doubts the power of Paint:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vUWqRhReaZk
sidepodspace update
The shuttle Discovery is being rolled out to the launch pad on NASA TV now. It is not exactly thrilling viewing as the 3.4 mile journey takes about 6 hours. This is due to the weight of the shuttle stack and the fact that it is transported vertically. It looks very Thunderbirds albeit in very slow motion.
If you know what your doing, you can make good stuff.
Most of Thunderbirds was in slow motion, wasn't it? :)
Not as slow as these crawlers are.
Isn't that Stop Motion.
No wait, that was Wallace and Gromit. My mistake
Carry on, I have no idea what I'm talking about here
If you have artistic ability you can produce the most incredible work with the worst tools available
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=UyCe3RNT7pw
I think it's going to be something new, so maybe...red and white?
damn!
Gosh. Just had a look.
That's almost as exciting as watching those Pandas chewing.
Hey guys! Just came back from a couple of days at the beach. Twas better than I thought it would be!
Nah, maybe... white and red? :P
There should be a competition by Autosport or F1 Racing themselves that allows anyone say from the ages of 18-30 to be able to submit work which they've done in the past. I'd probably submit some of my RLB work. That always gets me into the creative mood. :P
how bad could it have been?
:)
Tsunami
I'm risking black and red
jaws?
Not exactly, but yeah, the weather was a bit iffy at times. But on the whole, it was great! :)
Not that likely either. :P
Maybe we should put that to Stuart and see what he thinks.
Um, does Stuart still work with F1 Racing? I think I remember him saying he's moved somewhere else?
Of course, I simply forgot.
Luke took me out of the race :( Well done Steven with 3rd place
If anyone really cares, BATracer has been done.
Useless game.
I'm sorry :(
If it makes you feel any betetr, the game ruiend my last 3rd of the race with the silly lack of pitstop options it gives us :P
Grrrr...
:D
Maybe white and scarlet if we're lucky?
They could go artistic....
Rose and Hint of Almond... ;)
Is it just me that's thinking all this is happening at just the right time for Toyota?
Who says you can't cheaply design an F1 car? :P
Don't listen to them BATracer, they're just bitter with disappointment :P
That was unexpected...
All I have to say about this news story is - WTF?
http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_news_item.php?fes_art_id=36827
Another one?
What's happened to Pitpass?!?
Although thinking about it - why couldn't we be one of the sponsors! I'm sure if we all contributed something, we could get Sidepodcast onto an actual F1 sidepod :D
The website of the team in question
http://vmkracing.com/
I have to admit while it is an utterly bizarre idea, it is a good concept nonetheless. :P
i may not be youtube's biggest fan, but i predict that the stripping of music from music videos might just be the dumbest decision of 2009:
http://pl.youtube.com/watch?v=OfKTmZK6uto
nope, your computer isn't broken, it's meant to sound that way. mraz has never sounded better!
we've already been on an actual f1 sidepod, and it didn't cost us that much:
http://www.sidepodcast.com/2007/05/29/we-do-a-lot-of-work-for-charity/
:)
He is still contributing to the mag and was interviewing people on their stand at the ASI show
Quaified 22 and finished 3rd. Of course Andy Trig qualified 21 and finished 2nd.
That's really really annoying because when it's blocked it disapears from the list stopping you from accidentally selecting it and meaning you can still find another video with the track. But this way it really stops people from finding music on the site.
Of course that's probably what the copywrite holders want.
it is. methinks youtube bent over a little too far with this one.
especially as we've proved the fingerprinting software is fundamentally flawed anyhow.
I have two things to report:
1) The safari cut-out doo-dah™ does indeed work for F1 Minute in the Mac Dashboard (now tested and wikitionaried)
2) My film addict score was 54.4% (seems I need to catch up on my classic b&W and Japanese cinema)
I think their writers have been on the source a little bit too much recently. The last few articles have been a bit, well, strange really.
I'm happy with BATRacer too, 4th is a season best for us :)
Scott, I have a question.
Our ideal set up for Monaco is three points beyond the capabilities of the car. Now WHAT on earth does that mean? :-P
As it's Monaco, muchos downforce is a prerequisite. Even if you set it to 100, it's 3 away from the optimum setting.
http://zerodownforce.blogspot.com/2009/01/my-tribute-to-nelson-piquet-sr.html
:)
Just for the wings then?
That's managable I guess :)
I think it probably means overall, but I'll have to look into it further.
Or is that No source, too much sauce :D
is push to pass, already dead in the water?
"Teams have studied the best ways to use this power and although drivers may be able to get a boost when they want to overtake, it seems that it will be more efficient to use the power all around the lap and thus create a situation in which the cars exit the corners faster and thus carry the extra speed down the long straights."
so, that's another overtaking opportunity out of the window. we're not even going to know when or if kers is in use are we?
more: http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns21103.html
Lets just pretend my error was intentional :-D
yipeee, and thanks you.
On the push to pass thing. I have to say I'm not sure I was totally convinced about something so artificial. However I do think that it's annoying that we are going to miss this info:
"as lewis catches up to the back of Massa he's going to be relying on that faster kers power that the mclarens have"
Of course if Honda didn't make it but mclaren got their kers then James would be able to say there was Honda DNA kersing through their veins.
As I'm sure you'll do just fine ( :angel: )
you want to help Lou, right? :-P
Now, where's my groan, slaps own forehead icon :)
Is Ferrari bad mouthing Kers cos they can't get it to work effectively? When has cost ever bothered them before?
He'd be talking to himself though. ;)
Bet he commentates to his cat whilst watching at home this year - just to keep his mad skillz fresh!
I didn't want to bad mouth one of the new guys before they had started.
I am live commenting from the pub while waiting for my brother to arrive. Real time doo hicky working a treat on the iphone even with quoting :)
Hmmmm, pub
That's brilliant!
BBC F1 coverage update-me-do...
Announcement about the coverage will be unveiled next month, including how the red-button and extra features will work.
The Chain will be making a come-back in some form or another.
christine just spotted this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motorsport/formulaone/4240655/Michael-Schumacher-speaks-of-near-death-experience-at-Silverstone.html
i cannot believe the telegraph ran that as a story...
remix?
By none other than Sakon Yamamoto!*
*(blatant lie)
If Massa is saying that the '09 F60 is more difficult to drive, does that make it Five Spins of Awesome! ? :)
No. It is utterly pointless and as green as a Ferrari
:)
Obviously!
Haven't you heard? Yuji Ide is remixing it?! Along with authentic sound effects from his many off track excursions?!
They haven't spent more than a couple of hours trying to sort out a baseline setup yet. It would be a miracle if it wasn't hard to drive just now.
Does Schumacher have a book to sell or something?
Possibly this? Hope they leave out the annoying beeping bit at the beginning.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ETu8J5RPHa8
Oh sweet jeebus, I hope not
Alternatively leave out the bit between the very start and the very end :D
Please lord no...
I don't understand (if the chain is the intro music) why they wouldn't use the original?
I know, I would prefer the original over that.
Maybe that could be that their planning to use it in a 'coming up' segment at the start of the show, rather than the intro music?
Is there a link to this information at all?
Amongst others, they have had a 'Push-to-pass' button in A1GP since the start. I remember the commentators mentioning how smart it was that drivers were using it to defend their positions as well as for overtaking.
Expect KERS to be used the same way - it will be used as a performance booster rather than a 'push-to-pass' feature ;-)
I wish that BBC got the FA Cup rights back, cos we won't see Mr Ryder on our tellybox.
Unless he hosts the rugby highlights, then I think I'll just scream
Best intro thingy on youtube my a mile
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Dtms1IppbPg&feature=related
If I were the BBC and saw that, I would find out who he was for real, pay him a decent sum of money and use it. It is THAT good.
Evening :D
On a scale of 0-10, how excited are we about Toyota's launch?
... I'd give it a 4!
Seems like a great one indeed!
Btw, Scott, I'm a bit reluctant to go testing without knowing what the consequences of this "three points beyond capabilties" are. If you don't have the time to figure it out, maybe I can do it myself if you have a link or something along those lines?
Cheers!
Scott,
Practise runs done. Only 4 runs for Monaco and I screwed up one of them.
That is probably the most excited anyone has ever been about a Toyota
I think it means you need more rear wing than the car has. Pretty stupid comment really. It might as well tell you that if you had 200 more bhp you would be faster.
Looks like the graphic they had up was the wrong size :)
Cool stuff, will do mine now :)
I would??? :-P
Pete's at the bar buying some beers!
For me, less of a number - more of a 'meh'
Though I'd love to see a train logo on Trulli's
Steven, runs are done :)
We'll have none of that here please :D
:D that'd be cool
No matter how hard they try, Toyota will never be exciting.
Or a sneaky "choo chooo" on somewhere like the rear wing
Maybe if they changed the colour and did something radical I might like it .. kinda sick of red and white cars
Just found this on YouTube:
Kimi Raikkonen drives an F430 Scuderia on a Finnish Car Programme
It's got English subtitles, and it's actually very good. Kimi comes across a lot more friendly in Finnish than in English, and he had a lot of fun driving the host around Fiorano in the F430 :-)
One thing though, could you see Lewis Hamilton doing this? I know he was on Top Gear, but it's a bit different to this... ;-)
I've just found this Windows 7 cartoon:
http://drop.io/sidepodcast/asset/windows-7-png
:)
I think Martin Brundle said something about how Kimi behaves away from the cameras - "you can't shut him up."
Compare with Mika Hakkinen on Top Gear - another supposedly terse Finn who talked a lot more to James May than I think he said in all his post-F1 race conferences put together :)
:D
only if they can find the machines though. it would would work if the teams were all open, transparent and honest… {me - 115 comments ago}
How long before one of the teams loans a theme park their simulator on condition that they use it when the theme park is not open to tourists?
Um, does Stuart still work with F1 Racing? I think I remember him saying he’s moved somewhere else? {Journeyer - 85 comments ago}
He does, but he also writes for other Haymarket Magazines. You could say he's expanded his portfolio.
What’s happened to Pitpass?!? {Dom - 72 comments ago}
I have no idea. I was puzzled enough when they made such a massive fuss over one little calender...
so, that’s another overtaking opportunity out of the window. we’re not even going to know when or if kers is in use are we? {me - 61 comments ago}
I had a bad feeling this would happen when they capped the performance of KERS.
Toyota's Launch?
Ummm. When is it?
12 hours 40 minutes and 1 second, oh wait 39 minutes and 59, 58...
1pm GMT
not excited at all then.
:D
11am no?
That's what it said, I'm sure.
If anyone can work out maths, 12 hrs 28 is 11 am GMT.
ie, in the middle of my maths exam ;(
I think it is more the informal setting rather than the Finnish. In the Finnish classes here at the university they use him as an example how not to speak Finnish :)
(Heikki isn't much better)
I like the part where he is swearing at that annoying Ferrari person.
ditto.
I'd rather watch James Allen talk about DNA than do that
Even better - has a link to the Brazilian gridwalk interview in 2006. :D
In the Finnish classes here at the university they use him as an example how not to speak Finnish {Kathi - 3 comments ago}
Oh dear! The amusing thing is that I have a Finnish friend who reckons I'm really good at speaking Finnish names. This is despite the fact that my teachers have been Murray Walker, Martin Brundle and James Allen, none of whom speak any significant Finnish apart from F1 driver names...
At least you had the good sense not to listen to Tony Jardine. Although to be fair it was his Italian pronunciation that used to drive me nuts. Gee Ann Carlo. Arrrrggghhh!!!
Which reminds me: During the multilateral part of the post-race/qualy press conferences Peter Windsor? usually thanks the drivers in their own language (or at least Massa and Alonso) but not Kimi. Weird.
At least you had the good sense not to listen to Tony Jardine. {Steven Roy - 3 comments ago}
It didn't help that the first time I heard him talk about some of the drivers, I thought he was talking about entirely different people. Then the video replay came on to indicate that he was talking about the same driver as the commentators had been. At that point I concluded that he might not be the best guide out there to pronunciation...
The 2008 Weblog Awards results are in by the looks of things.
In the 'Best Online Community' category we came 8th out 10 with 393 votes (3.4%) and in 'Best Podcast' ended up 7th with 330 votes (2.2%)
During the multilateral part of the post-race/qualy press conferences Peter Windsor? usually thanks the drivers in their own language (or at least Massa and Alonso) but not Kimi. {Kathi - 2 comments ago}
Maybe he's worried about getting the case wrong (Finnish has 16 cases, and that was after the government trimmed out a few...) or something equally trivial.
There are really only two cases for thank you. :)
He was a school teacher at one time and is still nicknamed Teach. A lot of kids got a lucky break when he switched to motor racing
Some consolation then :)
Yeah, but I don't know if that kind of schemes can replace a supercomputer in terms of raw speed. Probably you can get the same calculation done at a much smaller price, but it will take much longer. Protein folding or ET search can deal with that, but not a team that needs that simulation for next week-end.
There are really only two cases for thank you. {Kathi - 4 comments ago}
The question is, does Peter know this? Or is he too scared to use one and have a 50/50 chance of possibly causing offence to a Very Important Personage?
Yeah, but I don’t know if that kind of schemes can replace a supercomputer in terms of raw speed. {guille2306 - 2 comments ago}
True, but the faster the internet gets and the better computers become, the less of an issue it will be. Someone has figured out how to make a small supercomputer using five graphics cards, which I'm sure could easily be "accidentally" given out to employees as a "perk of the job" because it is not much larger than a standard PC. While teams will always benefit from in-house supercomputers for emergency computations, long-term ones could be outsourced relatively easily.
that is a very good point.
i wouldn't be surprised if we see the end of in house super computing for teams within the next three years.
microsoft recently managed to save a fortune in air conditioning, by ripping the roof off of their data centre. they let the rain cool the machines (probably located in dublin then). how many teams will be prepaired to rip the roof from their factories?
it'll cheaper to outsource all of that power to microsoft and max won't have a clue what they're running or when.
microsoft recently managed to save a fortune in air conditioning, by ripping the roof off of their data centre. they let the rain cool the machines (probably located in dublin then). {me - previous comment}
Well, that's a refreshing take on solving technological problems...
Very true. At the end it wouldn't be that bad, it's cheaper so the FIA should be happy...