Another week begins and we are faced with yet another Monday morning. Let's hope there will be plenty of F1 news flowing today, so we can take our minds off the Monday blues. Here's what we've been talking about over the weekend:
- The Character Cup has come to an end, with a much closer battle than we could have ever predicted. In the end, Alonso saw off Vettel by just one solitary vote that came at the very last minute. It's been a great couple of weeks, and now we're thinking about the future of the polls series.
- With the Daytona 500 taking place late last night, we've been debating the various merits and complaints of NASCAR. Some say it's a boring way to spend a couple of hours, whilst others believe it makes a nice change to Formula 1. I've never seen a NASCAR race, so can't really comment, but I'm easily swayed, so share your thoughts.
- We've got more testing coming up this week - what will the weather hold for our teams, and will any valuable running be done? The Ferrari boys seem confident despite a lack of mileage, but what about those that escaped to the desert to avoid adverse conditions?
That'll keep us going for now, unless there is anything you want to share with us. Don't feel constrained by what I've listed above, tell us what's on your mind. I'll see you in the comments.
Does anyone know any good anti-spam solutions for TheBlogMod?
Is there any more news on the Honda-team? When will they test and when will they announce an engine supplier? Does anyone know what we are waiting for on that front?
Also, if all the rumours regarding USF1 are correct does this make the FIA/F1 selection commitee look more useless than ever before? ProDrive beat a number of other prospective bids to lay claim to the next gridslot, only to turn all weak and impotent at the last hurdle. I wonder how the selection made their decision to back a failed bid.
Or would this 'credit crunch' have play havok with all bids and potential teams at that time? Is it only through the newly announced cost cuts that anyone could realistically enter the sport? I feel that ProDrive must have mis-represented themselves and that another bid may have made it to the grid in 08 in their place.
umm, i've no idea what that is. i only know of one spam solution - http://akismet.com/ it's not exactly a fan of youtube or wikipedia links though.
Rumours are Honda will continue to fund the team first four races, along with Bruno Senna's Brazilian sponsors. Mercedes engines.
Are we sure that Bruno Senna will be driving?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motorsport/formulaone/honda/4634489/Bruno-Senna-has-not-joined-Honda.html
Nope.
if everything goes well their first 'test' will probably be FP1 in Melbourne. There have been rumours floating round these last few days. The latest f1minute has alot of the info in it. There is also a rumour saying honda have about 10 days to get the funds together to pay merc for a season's worth of engines. Jenson seems optimistic about announcing some good news in a few weeks in his video blog too.
Prodrive said all along they wanted to come in as a customer car team. Other teams wanted to come in as constructors but Max made the decision to go for Prodrive. Despite repeated requests from various people Max refused to explain the selection process. So he chose a customer car operation without making sure that he had put the rule in place to allow customer cars.
Unlike Max David Richards has a great reputation for honesty.
rumour has it that he will be bringing a few big sponsors with him, so it's possible, and probably better for the team if he does. However nothing has been confirmed, it's all speculation.
There will be a management buyout and Senna will be driving. My guess is it will be announced within ten days.
last.fm charts have christine at #3 in her own chart:
http://www.last.fm/group/sidepodcast
it's a fix! dirty scarab is 4th in the 'unique' section... must try harder.
yay Coldplay are top :D
hang on is that dirty scarab as in the commenter?
that's dirty scarab - commenter, official header image designer and now... remixer, yes :)
:o i had no idea. awesome! :D
totally!
:D
when searching for the header posts just a second ago i noticed something that i haven't seen before, when you search for a post via the categories on the left of the home page at the bottom of the posts there are little pictures or the writer of the post. how cool :)
I was just about to say that! How long have they been there?
So, I'm confused. What's the difference between twitter and identi.ca and why do lots of you have both?
lou you are all kinds of amazing, i just need to tell you that!
dom, you are amazing too :)
i blame 'me' :P
That's not how it works any more! ;)
haha :D why? are they really new then? i like them alot btw. :)
very quick story about the author images. christine has been badgering me to do it for months, i've been trying to put it off until the redesign.
what's up there is just a trial (hence not on homepage), we think the pictures are a little too dominating and christine has suggested changing to b/w.
feel free to throw your thoughts into the ring though.
First there was twitter and it became more popular than it could handle so it crashed a lot. People switched to indentica then celebrities found twitter so it became a lot more popular than ever so some people moved back.
haha well i would blame steven, but the reason i have two is actually 'me's fault as he introduced me to identi.ca ;)
we decided earlier just to leave them there and say nothing, we knew it would only be a matter of time before you spotted them... and it was.
actually i'd forgotten we'd done it, what with all the nascar... advertisements.
& I don't tweet.
haha :D
identi.ca is absolutely my fault.
however in my defence, we started using it before sidepodrealtime came about, and now the doohickey+daily post, have kind of taken over for general chat.
we don't really know what we're doing with microblogging any more, hence the mass of confusion over platforms. our plan as of this morning is to focus mostly on doohickey.
i can tell you everytime i slag off mediatemple on sidepodcast they ignore me, but when i do the same on twitter, they have to respond. so it does have it's uses, but it doesn't refresh without pressing F5 ;)
best thing to do gavin, is choose the solution that works best for you and ignore anything we say ever.
...you should probably do that for most things in life actually.
i like them. it's nice to be able to see clearly who has written which post. I see no harm in making them black and white, but i don't find them distracting or anything as they are.
i do in this category:
http://www.sidepodcast.com/category/f1-digest/
detracts too much from the podcast image maybe.
Keep 'em until the redesign, and then reconsider if they don't look as good.
I just wanted an opinion and to be on the one most of you guys are on I guess...
I tend to take all my life advice from Sidepodcast ;-)
yeah i see what you mean. in that situation they are a little distracting, maybe cause they are also around the same size as the podcast image? in that instance yeah it probably would look better faded or in black and white.
we'll keep playing, but cheers. also, we may need to rethink steven's avatar:
http://www.sidepodcast.com/category/blog/
:)
:D
:D
Because they're both right-aligned. And yes, because both are in colour. Maybe b/w until rollover when they become colour (for the author image). Also maybe left-align the author image.
Or, maybe use symbols rather than photos. Male symbol (circle with cross) vs. female symbol (circle with down pointing arrow?). Just a thought, but I ultimately think photos are better, just not quite there yet.
I cannot tell you how confused I was when I read Steven's post recently in my feed reader and it said it was by "me". It took me until half way through before I remembered what was discussed the night previous and realised it was Steven who wrote it. So maybe a dummy account for guest posters with a general image would be good as well.
:D
I'm assuming it's already been discussed... :)
good plan. when left-aligned, the tags wrap in an annoying way though.
that could work well too.
we have that. the problem was user error, doh! should be assigned correctly if you refreshed recently though.
:D
I tell you Mr C, you sir, are a genius. I think still there is improvement for sure, will suggest something when my brain is fully active.
i should also point out that the girls request for this functionality has been on the list for a while, and she was mighty peeved when i started faffing around with panda smilies, thus the solution was hastily uploaded. mostly to save my own bum :)
Maybe make the image taller (so instead of 100x100 or whatever) it becomes 100x125 but you include the name of the author in the avatar, like what you did with the Identi.ca "SPCUpdate" avatars, only add it to the bottom of the image rather in the image. Make sense? This would make the image taller and fix the wrapping issue with the tags. Only thing is, fitting "Christine" in (no offense, my dear). May "Mr C" and "Mrs C'?
Possibly you could add a border and then reduce the size of the images?
ollie-diagram?
*Maybe...*
could also work.
Grrr! :D Gimme a mo... :)
Good night all... :-)
you forgot the trailing "grr". sorry, they help though :)
night buddy.
night Gavin :)
Night Gavin.
nite gavin
Grr, just realigning, this one had to be done landscape... Grrr. :P
There's no need to Tremayne! :P
Sometimes, there is! :)
http://drop.io/sidepodcast/asset/spc-avatar-mock-ollie-jpg
Comment with link in moderation. Give it a minute then refresh. Sorry folks, I only linked to drop.io...
we're moderation our own drop.io links now?
ahh, ok. totally get it now. will give it a try probs tomorrow. thank you.
and re: that sarcastic comment... i'm trying not to touch this theme :)
Me. Sarcastic? Never. Hahaha. :D Understandable though. When it works, it works. I could pre-update BF1 with some of the 6.5 stuff, but honestly, I daren't! I'd only totally fudge it. :D
Okay, am off to bed now, night all x
G'night Lou.
night lou :)
Ciao lou
Only problem is, what happens when tags go over two lines? Which is why I suggested the CSS fix (honest, guv :) ).
in some cases, they cross three :(
*rolls up sleeves*
:)
That's the spirit! :)
btw. should have some shocking stats to show you tomorrow. i've been rewriting the polling code to bypass wordpress entirely (just use the mysql db).
have managed to half the page execution time for a "get recent comments" request. mostly that's by pulling out all the code that says:
- if hosted on windows do x else y
- if using legacy mysql call x else y
it's a sound piece of software, but is trying to appeal to way too many people at the expense of perf, proc usage and db executions.
I've read up on many, many of WP's issues. Just never been overly confident in fixing them myself. But that is a huge problem of WP - pleasing too many people.
I look forward to your stats. It should kick the week off with a rather depressing, but ultimately honest and shocking start!
Since I have zilch idea what you are all on about, I'm off. Have fun talking about them x's and y's and db executions.
hehe. night rg.
I kinda get what they're saying, though.
I see Mr C's point. Too much unnecessary code for WP to go through. Kinda gets bloated.
and that translates to more expensive if you're paying by processor usage.
the worst thing is it asks the same "am i on windows or linux" question for every request. it always gets the same answer but it keeps on asking :)
Well, I for one have been to a Nascar race, and there is definitely something to be said for being able to see the entire race from absolutely every seat. Other than that, it gets pretty old watching 30 or so cars chase each other around a circle at 200mph. IMHO, not near as intersting of a race as F1 (where you accelerate and brake, and turn both left and right)!
very good point bnmelvin.
i think it probably wasn't the best of races to try and follow / comment on :)
Well, it SHOULD'VE been. Daytona is the jewel in their crown. While there are other good oval races in the calendar (Indy and Lowe's), this is the most famous race on their calendar.
true. but maybe we shouldn't judge the series on a single race.
i missed last year's i think, but in '07 the race was immense. the winner crossed the line on fire and upside down (or something like that) and montya's car burst into flames the second the race finished.
having said that, i'm not intending to follow the series throughout the rest of the season :)
I do not know if you guys use Akismet only or also some other antispam. But Akismet does act weird sometimes. I have in my settings allowed 2 links in a comment but still almost all the comments that have even 1 link end up in moderation queue ...
exactly the same here wolf. last week akismet moderated steven who was linking to other sidepodcast pages :(
See, I always liked the Indy race better (well before the idiots ruined the track.) Better history and just the sight of looking down the front straight is awesome. I saw a minor race many years ago and seeing the cars rocket down that straight while the engines echo in the stands (which are almost on top of the track) was amazing.
As for today's race; I was watching the race at buddy of mine' house who is a giant NASCAR fan and his buddies. Needless to say the arguments got a little ugly when I started nitpicking NASCAR. They basically threw me out after I started questioning the manhood's of the drivers for wussing out because of a little rain.
However there are some things I wish F1 would pick up.
- The fact that the cars can touch each other without shattering.
- 11,000,000,000 cameras. Opps, I mean High Def cameras. How the #@%& doesn't F1 have High Def yet. Come on...
- Drivers actually feeling emotions and getting angry at each other. Rivalries are a good thing. Personalities are a good thing. Who is the last F1 driver with personality, Montoya?
- The sheer amount of cars on the track.
- The sponsor friendliness. Many may not like it, but there is not doubt to the future solvency of the NASCAR. They have literally thousands of sponsors who have invested in the sport since they believe it is great value. When have we been able to say that about F1?
How many more weeks till Melbourne? I am getting itchy.
Morning all,
A late one last night, eh?
Here's something non-F1 and not very new news, but nonetheless amusing, to get Monday (sort of) started:-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7884121.stm
Damn' Wikipedophiles...
Silly, silly. A storm in a teacup, I say. No one in their right mind would use Wikipedia as a primary source.
We had a young lady doing work experience a year or so ago who was thoroughly outraged that her Uni lecturers frowned upon her practice of citing Wikipedia as a source!
Economic crisis claims ING; pulling out of F1 at the end of 2010.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/73310
... at least Renault will be able to do something about their livery (if they do not pull out too)
I don't think anyone is at Barecelona this week??? Just Ferrari, Toyota & BMW at Bahrain.
Was it cancelled then?
Actually, looks like it was Renault's private test and we know they've cancelled it. I must have got a bit carried away thinking it was everyone.
The whole point of Wikipedia citing its sources is so you can cite them not the article. It really annoys me. (Obviously you are supposed to read those articles too).
The most unsurprising announcement this year.
I've just opened up an ING Direct savings account as well :-D
Apparently the Bahrain test isn't being extended and it's over.
http://formula-1.updatesport.com/news/article/1234534654/formula_one/F1headlines/No-weekend-extension-for-test/view.html
Oh, and I wonder what implications ING's announcement will have on the sponsored circuits such as Hungary and Belgium?
I thought they were booked for this week as well. But, turns out I am not to be trusted when it comes to this kind of thing.
According to this story, a reporter from the Telegraph says Bruno Senna and Petrobras have not signed a deal to join Honda.
http://formula-1.updatesport.com/news/article/1234774990/formula_one/F1headlines/Hostile-bid-confuses-Honda-cause/view.html
Also, the organisers of the Melbourne GP have had to change its marketing slogan "Melbourne fires up" in light of the recent bushfires in Australia.
http://formula-1.updatesport.com/news/article/1234775249/formula_one/F1headlines/Bushfires-force-Aus-GP-motto-change/view.html
And McLaren have explained they are using the 2008 rear wing on their MP4-24 in testing purely as a "reference point".
http://formula-1.updatesport.com/news/article/1234775137/formula_one/F1testing/McLaren-explains-use-of-2008-wing/view.html
Scott! Shame on you for linking to GMM regurgitations...
Here's the Telegraph link:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motorsport/formulaone/honda/4634489/Bruno-Senna-has-not-joined-Honda.html
I think they are at Bahrain this week. Last weeks sand affected test wasn't extended into the weekend, but this weeks test goes ahead as planned.
Meh, at least it's news. Bit of a slow news day at the moment so I thought I'd throw up a few I found. :P
Throw up, being the operative word.
Here's an interesting quote from that Telegraph story about the proposed third-party buyer for Honda:
"A source within Honda described the company as "reputable, able to bring long-term financial stability, with a brand image known throughout the world. Formula One would do well to have them on board.""
They were sponsoring the race rather than the circuit, so the money will have ended up in FOM's coffers; if no other title sponsor comes forward then you could reasonably expect FOM to look to make up for the shortfall by upping the sanctioning fee (or scheduling a race somewhere else with government coin).
Here is the Pedro story from the source (translated):
http://tinyurl.com/pedalointerview
Perhaps there is a silver lining to today's announcement. If Renault continue, their livery will probably look less garish and who knows, perhaps Hungary might get the chop?
I'm confident that Spa will remain on the calendar thanks to an increase in waffle prices which will subsidise any shortfall.
blimey, it's 1/2 term and i'm up before 10:30. anyway, re the honda story (seems like a suitable place to pick up the discussion) about Bruno and Petrobras not having signed a deal. It's not going to be public knowledge whether they have or have not been signed until Honda announce their plans, it's all speculation. It's been rumoured since about July/August of last year that Petrobras have been interested in being a main sponsor for the team for 09, but that means nothing. Plus it's only been speculation that they haven't signed anyway. Look at it this way, the only things we actually know for sure about the team is that Honda aren't going to have much to do with it, and Mclaren/ Mercedes have offered the team an engine deal. We don't actually know any other details for sure. Personally, i'm gonna choose to believe a source like autosport over the telegraph ;)
At the end of the day, every F1 fan in the world loves Spa. They'd be crazy to take it off the calendar.
Lots of F1 fans liked Canada too and that didn't stop Bernie :(
Like megalomaniac Ecclestone gives a bobbins what we think! :-)
I loved Suzuka.
I haven't met the Torygraph's new fellow yet. They have been getting rid of their experienced staff and freelancers like there's no tomorrow. A former editor -on his death bed - denounced the present owners as "a stinking mob".
I thought we all agreed the Telegraph was a reputable source?
Have GMM put their rates up?
More so than GMM. But until there are announcements, all Honda stories are questionable, really, aren't they?
it's back this year though isn't it? although bernie's website seems a little confused - http://moourl.com/rp40z
the title says Fuji, but everything else is Suzuka. lol
Yeah I guess. There is so much secrecy with the BrackleyF1 saga it's just not funny.
yep. that's why i say the only real things we know for sure about the team, is that they need a buyer, and Merc have offered them a deal. pretty much everything else is just speculation.
:D
Yeah I know, but knowing the alternative whilst watching the '07 Japanese GP got me very angry.
yeah, that wasn't the best GP to get up early for was it... luckily the '08 GP was much better :D
haha. As long as it's the right circuit, I don't care what Bernie calls it.
I'm hearing lots of tales about romantic evenings out for dinner and gifts of flowers and chocolates.
Not sure how to break it to them that I was happy with half a Milkybar and a hard-fought for takeaway.
two-thirds.
We just had a nice dinner at home and went to the movies. I reckon you don't have to go all out every year, just have fun and spend time together...
and as previously discussed, this works really well until the cited source already cited wikipedia.
one day when we're bored we should see just how wrong we can make it. my guess is very wrong, very quickly.
Was listening to a Radio 1 podcast last night, and they were interviewing Jason Mraz. They did a quick-fire round of which rumours were true or not. He blasted a few of them because a year or so ago, he asked his fans to wreck his wikipedia page with nonsense.
Some of them stuck so long, that he's still being asked about it now.
Of course, the one about owning an avacado farm was true, so you never can tell.
Hurrah! Hopefully they'll get rid of the Creme Egg livery then.
mraz owns an avocado farm?
rock 'n roll!
i once created my own wikipedia page to convince a gullable friend of mine that i was a racing driver before she knew me. I raced in f3, formula renault, formula bmw and karts. I even wrote about how i rolled my car in an F3 race in monza, found a picture of an F3 car rolling at monza and i was sorted.
It got taken down after a while but it did it's job. It does show you though how easy it is to change it, and how completely unreliable it is.
I seem to remember a while back a quote from the Education Secutary saying that students should spend more time researching on reliable sites like wikipedia. This was very soon after the owner of wikipedia saying "Don't trust it at all, its completely unreliable!!!"
USF1 News - they want to test the woman!
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/73312
Most things do get fixed quite quickly / eventually.
You shouldn't rely on any single source anyway. Even Britannica has mistakes.
Most of our teachers at school don't allow us to use wikipedia because of that, to be fair, there is specific websites based on what you are looking for better use than a brief summary on the wiki.
I love Croft.
Oh you mean F1 wise, well obviously Spa, Suzuka, Silverstone, Montreal and of course the Nurburgring.
Yay! More original livery designs, or at least the liveries of 02-06.
What did I tell you? Instant publicity bomb!
My favourite circuits to race on in GP3 are: Imola, Silverstone, A1-Ring, Hockenheim, Spa and Monza.
Mmm publicity! :)
I was replying to this. Am stupid!
"She's great. She gets a lot of press,"
And drives slowly.
It's a good press story, but i can't see her actually racing for them. She's good, but not amazing..
She may be good, but she's weak on the road courses.
That made me chuckle. Isn't she supposed to be participating in A1GP? Or has she done so yet?
Its a couple of days old and I don'tthink we've discussed this
http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns21184.html
Things must really be bad at Hockenheim then.
I'll just summarize what someone said on another forum, she ain't great on street tracks , so she would struggle massively in a f1 car
as previously discussed though. she has a weight advantage over most current f1 drivers.
thats good, but she still needs to be able to drive lol
I thought that was Marco Andretti.
She refuses to do it because AGR won't pay her.
Both were, weren't they?
As long as she gets plenty of testing miles, she might be OK.
I like Danica, but she's such a drama queen sometimes. Although it is quite good to watch when she goes to pick a fight :D
Typical woman. Always wanting money.
*hides*
Hmm.
booo :(
Non-F1 - Just read the first line of the WRC story about the result of Rally Norway:
"Sebastien Loeb has resisted huge pressure from Mikko Hirvonen to win the Rally Norway - and deal a significant blow to Ford's title hopes."
Erm, it's 2 rounds in. How can their title hopes be so bad already? :S
Bit strange really. Citroen are on 32pts, Ford 22pts. Though snow is Ford territory and they were expected to win it.
It's like asking, "Is she quick?" And he answers it like that!
Right then... :P
BTW, so THE woman is different from THAT woman then? :P
Because Ford normally win the winter rallies (while Seb dominates most of the rest) and after last year, he won 11 out of 15 rallies ( a record) and became only the third non-scandinavian to win Rally Finland.
The title was over before it started because Seb is just so much better than his competition. Add to that there's only two manufacturers in it and you have a very boring and pointless championship. That's why I'm boycottting it in favour of the IRC instead :-)
I was just thinking that.
Technically, she's just woman.
You obviously like pain and suffering, don't you?
That's why. If Ford can't beat Citroen on the snow rallies, how can they beat them on the tarmac & gravel rallies?
Kinda like 2004. When Schumi won Australia, most people said, "We expected that. Malaysia will be warmer, so it will be different." Then Schumi won easily in Malaysia two weeks later, and people said, "Oh no, if Ferrari could win the hot races, what chance do we have?" True enough, Ferrari won practically everything in sight that year.
I thought THAT woman was Shirtsinger :P
Spot on.
Woman is the driver who is so called due to BBC headlines.
THAT woman is the singer so called because... well, we don't like to give her anymore mentions than she already gets.
Wiki says different. :D
Exactly my point. ;)
Danica is in the wiki?
I mean Shirtsinger!
But since I get what you mean now... never mind. ;)
But Norway is probably the only snow rally this year? So even if Ford won it, it would be like a drop in the ocean with Loeb likely to win the rest?
It is confusing. I suppose on some levels it's a good thing there aren't that many girls in F1, otherwise we'd run out of ways of calling them woman :)
I guess the press are implying that Loeb must be dominating if he can win a 'Ford' Rally?
I wish there were more women in F1.
Motorsport fans in a spin over stamps
Of course. It's gonna take someone a lot stronger than Danica to make it happen though.
I'm hearing good things about Natacha Gachnang, I believe cousin of Buemi and will drive in Formula 2 this year, and finished third in her debut year in the Spanish Formula 3.
Not heard of her. Will investigate.
True, but it deals a psychological blow. If Ford cannot beat Citroen on a track where they normally would, what chance do they have on the other rallies?
http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/
for anyone who wants to a) get fat or b) get put off their dinner...
Much younger than Danica as well, so more time to improve to get into f1
Just thinking about ING withdrawing in 2010 - I think this will accelerate Renault's withdrawal from the sport unless they have a really good year.
Agreed. And this will make Alonso antsy, too.
But if Renault DO withdraw, will the team formerly known as Toleman and Benetton stay alive, albeit under a new owner?
Not quite as pretty as Danica, but so long as she's fast, that won't matter. Not to mention the fact that she's being sponsored by DVMB, who's also a sponsor of MSC. Anyone know who her manager is?
No, but I do know if Buemi can get a good word in for her at Red Bull, who I believe are watching her [citation needed]
They can't be. She's not called Sebastien/an :)
umm, i’ve no idea what that is. i only know of one spam solution - http://akismet.com/ it’s not exactly a fan of youtube or wikipedia links though. {Comment #3
Thank you :D ! All I need now is to find an implementation of it that works with TheBlogMod (it looks like there's a version that would work on the forum, but I'm not sure if its protection spreads to the blog because the blog is itself a plug-in).
And my comment thanking me for his suggesting is in the mod queue. Ungrateful technology...
hehe :D
First there was twitter and it became more popular than it could handle so it crashed a lot. People switched to indentica then celebrities found twitter so it became a lot more popular than ever so some people moved back. {Comment #26}
Does Twitter still crash a lot?
once last week, but generally it's been much, much better.
Red Bull are cutting back on the Red Bull Junior Team programme at the moment. Whereas before they had a few dozen on their books, they've now got nine, three of which are in F2 this season as well.
Not that I'm doubting they're looking at Buemi's cousin, but without the family connection, would we even have a Scooby Doo who she was? Probably not.
Here’s something non-F1 and not very new news, but nonetheless amusing, to get Monday (sort of) started:- {Comment #86}
Silly politicians...
ORF has fired Heinz Prüller. Booo!
Not that you know or care who he is :)
No one in their right mind would use Wikipedia as a primary source. {Comment #87}
If you knew how many first-year university students were doing it in my course (bearing in mind it was an information management course, supposedly attracting those minds most knowledgeable about such things as authority), you'd be amazed. In short, there are a lot of teenagers using it as a primary source. At compulsory school level, a lot of teachers are grateful if their students research at all. At sixth form, the teachers had enough trouble explaining to students that copy-and-pasting stuff was not research without worrying about where the stuff came from. That's why such bad habits as using Wikipedia as a primary source come from.
Still, Wikipedia has been tested to be nearly as accurate as the Encyclopaedia Britannica, as long as the subject is not the current topic of an edit war or similar.
Flavio's confident Renault will be OK despite losing ING sponsorship for next season
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/73313
Economic crisis claims ING; pulling out of F1 at the end of 2010. {Comment #89
That could be a disaster for Renault and Alonso. Flavio Briatore will be really annoyed that he won't be able to finish his career in style (unless a replacement sponsor appears).
Also, the organisers of the Melbourne GP have had to change its marketing slogan “Melbourne fires up” in light of the recent bushfires in Australia. {
Oh dear. I can see why that slogan would have gone down like a lead balloon...
autosport finally on twitter.
http://twitter.com/autosportnews
sorta. not sure if it's official and it's just a stream of post links.
I’m confident that Spa will remain on the calendar thanks to an increase in waffle prices which will subsidise any shortfall. {Comment #111
That didn't save Belgium in 2006 :( Probably because the money from the waffles on the circuit goes to FOM rather than the circuit. All the race organisers get is the ticket money.
sidepodspace update:
I haven’t met the Torygraph’s new fellow yet. They have been getting rid of their experienced staff and freelancers like there’s no tomorrow. {Comment #117
I would have thought that such a move would be unwise in the current climate. They'll need all the experience they can get to hold market share, surely?
i love those pictures!!
Is that the safety suit for KERS?
who cares!! IT LOOKS AMAAZING :D
Typical woman. Always wanting money.
*hides* {Comment #156}
Not all women always want money!
from the planetf1 forums... kimi:
carrying #4 :)
it can be whatever you want it to be :)
honestly, i have no idea.
Left-left-left-left....
I wish there were more women in F1. {Comment #175}
I would be pleased if more women came into F1. Though I don't think I'll be there as a driver after my performance in Birmingham! Maybe as a paralegal for a team or something...
anyone fancy guessing what's going on with the section prior to the sidepod on the bmw:
http://drop.io/sidepodcast/asset/bmw-wing-mirrors-jpg
practising his celebratory donuts a bit early methinks.
Zoe's Birthday today. After Valentine's Day and today, I'm broke.
We watched Top Gear! How far behind are we? They talked about the 50th Birthday of Touring Cars in the UK
But think of the weight advantage and KERS
She declined because the team wouldn't pay her
Didn't they miss a race in 2006 because they were upgrading the track?
Surely every team can manage to come in under the minimum weight and then it's all about ballast placement. How big an advantage can that be?
THe title was decided before the season started. The only way Loeb was going to lose it was if he did serious damage to himself. Max has killed the WRC.
We haven't even had series 11 in Denmark (they keep playing the one with Hamilton in it...) so I've had to resort to 'other means' to see them.
I think I have an echo in here today... ;-)
They rubbished the Tesla (sp?) as well saying it didn't perform well (range) under normal conditions. Because 'normal conditions' is a racetrack of course...
Where are you hearing stuff? I have never seen her name before and I am sure I would remember a name like that
MWM have discussed her being in F2, but only really made fun of her name...
Gareth Jones on Speed raved about that car and the endless torque and acceleration.
Funny... Richard Porter from that show is a script writer for TG :-)
I do get bored sometimes y'know, searching Formula 2, saw the name, googled it and found info.
You get Austrian TV in Finland?
:D
No :)
I grew up very close to the Austrian border. I grew up with Heinz Prüller's F1. It's just sad to see that end.
Huh that went a bit wrong.
It can be the difference between having a good handling car and having a dog. Bear in mind that for reasons of insanity the rear tyres are massively under-specced so any weight that can be moved forward is very valuable.
Max was bleating on about something to do with the front track being too wide as well, which screwed up the weight balance. Care to comment?
First time I have heard that. I wonder who told Max.
But isn't every team substantially below the minimum weight and the amount of ballast between Danica and say, Webber, wouldn't make a big difference because they already have enough over the front/back wheels?
Looks like they are trying to straighten out the airflow from the wheel and probably trying to generate some downforce from the sidepod undercut.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/73208
Quote:
Q. Are you afraid that over the course of the season engineers will find that it will be better to run without KERS as it helps with the weight distribution and saves the rear tyres? Will that not make F1 look ridiculous?
MM: Up to a point, but if that does happen then it will be because of another mistake we made – which was when we made the rear wheels narrower we didn't narrow the front wheel enough correspondingly. It meant that in order to maximise the rubber on the road they have the front wheels as wide as the regulations allow, and that means they have got to get the weight distribution in proportion. That is extremely difficult with the engine in the back – which is why the ballast goes to the front.
What really needs to happen is we need to make the front wheels narrower or the rear wheels wider, and then that weight distribution problem would disappear. It is really about weight distribution – but that is another mistake in the regulations.
I'm guessing it's a secondary cooling system, but it's too small for it to be a 2nd sidepod (like what Jordan did in 1996). Maybe it's cooling for KERS?
I think most teams before were running with about 60kg of balast which is about 10% of the car's weight. KERS and the gubbins that goes with it weighs 30-40kg so there is a big difference between having 60kg to tune a car's handling and 20kg. Especially as the tyres necessitate a nose heavy layout.
20kg is the amount of 'success ballast' in a Touring Car. If it makes a difference in one of those, imagine how bad it would be in a much lighter and more sensitive F1 car?
BATracer just screwed me over in my Champ Car V2 game. Racing at Phoenix, got hit on lap 10 and damaged my car which made me lap slower, then got taken out for good on lap 38 OUT OF 200 LAPS. Not happy. I pitted for my first stop early because of a safety car but I was scheduled to stop on lap 40. So in essence I didn't even make my first scheduled pit marker. AND I got taken out on the restart of the caution I pitted on! WTF?!
It's to let out flatulence gases.
I managed to get another podium in a BTCC race, with 7 laps to go their was a crash and the safety car came out, with me in 4th. It came in with 2 laps to go and on the last lap I nicked 3rd.
Really did nick it at the death
Please don't say that - School is not compulsory, education is. They are not the same thing.
well said.
don't tell lou though, she's already looking for any excuse to buy a mac :)
ahh, well klein is in the driving seat :D
Well, right now the whole Brazilian press is in jubilee explaining that Bruno will race alongside Jenson in 2009. He has a three years deal with the team. He already gave an interview to the Italian Autosprint this Sunday speaking as F1 driver…
He will be driving the car at the next Barcelona tests in march 9.
Whaaaaaaaat??????
It's an outrage. He's old school. Surely it can't be 'fired' so much as 'let go to make way for someone cheaper'. One ought to be precise about these things (just to clarify; neither of the above applied in my case).
The Barclay bros (and their apparatchiks) care only for the bottom line. The Toryrag is something of a joke now – see Private Eyes, passim.
Surely, then, what we need is some form of recovery system to utilise the combustibility of all that methane? Baked beans and lentil and bacon soup would become de rigueur at lunch in the motorhomes.
Hook up a windmill system that charges up a KERS system!
Incidentally, and apropos of nothing else, while Googling the Heinz Pruller story I dug up the following hilarity:-
http://austriantimes.at/index.php?id=11168
You probably found this already. http://austriantimes.at/index.php?id=11072
Sorry.
I think Stuart means the people who made the announcement Kathi and not you.
Quite. Can anyone help Lance find his bike?
http://twitter.com/lancearmstrong/status/1212580498
Sounds like they sacked Murray Walker to give the job to James Allen. That would be a bad idea. I can't believe I have never heard of Heinz Prüller.
He's an utter institution in the media centre. He was matey with Jochen Rindt!
There's nothing wrong with James Allen! Murray bless him couldn't tell a McLaren from a Big Mac
RED CARD!
He can because he never drove a big mac.
So he was matey with Jochen Rindt who had close links with Bernie and he still got dumped.
None of us lot could do a better job then James Allen, I seriously don't get why he's hated so much!
He's not a commentator for the F1 fans, he's for the casual fans, the ones that don't udnerstand about the white stripe.
That's exactly the problem. And you hassled Murray Walker too. Most upsetting!
are you related?
Brundle is able to talk to fans and non-fans alike as did Murray. James Allen's writing is a revelation but he is not good when he has to do live commentary. He is much better when he has time to prepare and polish his work.
What you mean I hassled Murray?!! All I said was he basically couldn't tell the cars apart!! That's why we loved him when he 'USED' to commentate back in the 90's!!
Bottom line is James Allen did a good job for ITV, I doubt very much any of us could've done a better job
Thing is, we're not saying WE could have done a better job. But there are a lot of people who could have.
I could
http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns21186.html
Last minute bidder for Honda.
It's implied that you think James Allen was better than Murray Walker from your post.
And...
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/73318
Petrobras rules out sponsoring Honda
It's all falling down again....
Anything to do with the price of oil slumping to $36 a barrel, rather than heading north from $150 as was expected last year? It's also caused a slump in hybrid car sales in the US (SUV sales, curiously, are recovering).
Or they want to be involved with the management buyout and this is there way of lettig the new bidder know they won't be sponsoring them.
I find it hard to believe that they would not be better off being associated with the Senna name.
It's not implied, it's what you decided!! I tried to add on more comments but it wouldn't let me :-( (i left it too late)
I like them both just as much, I grew up with Murray commentating and hated it when he stopped but I grew to like and respect James Allen. Can't have the same commentators for ever! Murray was great but he wasn't perfect, people forget that.
I get annoyed when the bloke (JA) takes so much personal stick for doing a good job. It's not like he's a celeb or anything but the amount of abuse directed at him over the years is borderline hysterical at times. Just his face on the screen is enough to get some of the F1 community furiously hammering away on their keyboards in disgust. I feel it's grief for the sake of giving grief
your uncle?
:)
What if he actually was related?
The inside word is that Petrobras are suffering because their projects rely on a much higher price for a barrel of oil than it costs to extract. So, not really that surprising...
i would offer you my sincerest condolences ;)
seriously though, even if you were james allen himself i'd tell you exactly the same thing - "you're not cut out to be a commentator and you pretty much ruined my enjoyment of f1 with every word you spoke. however, please keep up the writing, you're ace at that part."
if i met him, that's what i'd tell him.
RCC does give a fair point, Allen isn't that bad a commentator, he was just unfortunate to replace Murray Walker and be along side Martin Brundle, two very good commentators. Fair enough, he can go a bit beserk when one of the Brits win, say, Button in 2006. As you can tell from his blog, he knows his stuff, just maybe it didn't transport to commentry very well.
i disagree. he could've followed gandhi and still managed to do a terrible job.
Which means he is not a good commentator. If it did transport to commentary he would be a good commentator.
Noted. Just be careful how you use your words.
Murray's imperfections were part of his character, James Allen's are just annoying. He concentrated too much on the British drivers as well.
After the fantastic Murray Walker, any commentator was going to get a lot of grief. I think the problem here is that there are so many great commentators around that it was a bit weird that ITV stuck with one that wasn't up to the job.
The man's got a lot of heart and I love his blog, but he ain't a commentator.
What was it though that annoyed you? The voice? The Owl like eyebrows?
No we're not related lol
I'd have paddock passes if we were :-)
exactly what everyone else is saying here. he wasn't cut out for the job. he never excelled at any part of it.
A lot of companies – not just in F1 – are looking to spend less or to find the exit entirely. Not that they doubt the value of sponsorship; they want the coverage but just don't have the cash any more.
What annoyed me most is that I could think of many commentators who are in Motorsport that would have jumped at the chance and done a far better job.
The guy was never able to put over his knowledge of the sport. I was shocked when I was introduced to his writing that it was so good.
He didn't have the naked enthusiasm of Murray or the ability to explain things like Brundle. He commentated like a rabbit caught in the headlights.
The over hyped British driver/Hamilton show thing was OTT but is that his fault of ITV's?
He's held in really high regards by a lot of the teams though and on first name basis with many top team players. You don't get invited for lunch with Ferrari etc for writing rubbish articles and talking out your backside...
He's proabably the best bloke for being a pitlane reporter and maybe ITV should've used some else as a main commentator..but who? Legard sends me personally to sleep and Crofty was taken by the Beeb.
On 606, someone by the name of oldBoy posted this
That went horribly wrong. Mr C, I'm thinking, how about a 'preview post' button so you can check how its gonna looks like before you post it in lclt?
That's fair to say, I never knew how in depth he could go until I bought his books
Again, great writer, crap commentator. Your argument is that if he is a great writer then he is a great commentator. It's not true.
I'm not arguing anything, I'm just confused as to why people seem to loath him so much, it's never made rational sense. Yeah people are annoying but the level of grief levelled at the guy it OTT. ITV didn't care if you or me found him annoying, they knew we'd watch the race anyway (albeit with the sound down maybe??). He was there to explain to the fairweather fans. Someone like Crofty who is excellent would possibly be to technical and dare I say knowledgeable about the sport for the once a year fan.
are you sitting next to me or what??
:D
I take it I've scuppered your plans to introduce it quietly then
the planned date is thursday!
meanie.
;)
I'm going to go before I accidently work out something else and you perhaps may kill me...
Sorry, I meant argument as 'putting your point across' rather than 'having a row'
How many 'once-a-year' fans are there out there? In my experience, people either love or hate F1, watch every race or none at all. Surely there's a better way to compromise to accomodate those who only tune in for their home GP?
hehe. nah, it's alright. a bit spooky though.
x1 dohickey update this evening, but mostly cosmetic and reliability updates. comment previews should be available later this week, although not in lclt at first, just doohickey.
if all goes well, lclt will be updated first week of march.
Well i was once on of those who tuned in if I felt like it, I remember watching USA GP of 2001 but no other races. Similar with 02, I watched about 5, the highlights of about 1. Fair enough I was about 8 at the time, but I only started watching every race full time in 2006.
It is.
Yay!
That sounds very similar to how I got into F1. And do you think James Allen was helpful or a hindrance to your following of F1?
Really? My office is a prime example, you'd be forgiven for thinking the girls on my team set the FIA sporting regs going by how much 'knowledge' they claim to have even though they've probably watched 10mins in their life between them. Believe me Hamilton has well and truly attracted the once a year fans............
A girl on my team can't stand F1 and knows I rate Hamilton (lets not have a seperate arguement, yes I actually like others drivers too!) and even though she refuses to watch a race she'd be in on a Monday morning hammering it out of Lewis if he failed to win. Don't know quite where i'm going with that but you get the jist..........
Is she Spanish?
My wife and Father-in-law also hate Hamilton and take every opportunity possible to have a go at him. We have actually had arguments over Lewis Hamilton! Stupid, I know...
No she's English bless her
Kinda brings us on to the wider picture of why many people dislike F1. She just throws a dig in just because she fails to see the point of driving round in circles
I tell her I don't see the point in reading Heat magazine and reading about which celebrity lost 3ibs on a diet.
I say that because my Spanish colleague swears at me every time he passes by my desk because I hung up a picture of Hamilton. I never knew Spanish was such a colourful language!
Bravo sir, Bravo!
oooh, and we're back. someone at mediatemple messed up a little. hopefully all is well now.
Mediatemple comes crashing down
crashing down
crashing down
Mediatemple comes crashing down
Oh sweet god
Indifferent really, I only really remember Murray and Martin
Have you described to her that she is talking about NASCAR?
bless 'em. f1minute (hosted with slicehost) now has better uptime than sidepodcast. plans to move are afoot :)
Is that the new SidePodRap?
I am not recording that, not, not, not recording that. ;)
just watched twitscoop explode with people having issues:
http://www.twitscoop.com/
handy little service that.
Twitscoop? Is that a punishment for those who do not clean up after their dogs?
hehe. i think it might be punishment for people with too much time on their hands.
Autosport have caught wind of the Honda/Petrobras story
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/73318
first day of 1/2 term and i choose to spend it in school doing textiles. there must be something wrong with me.
ahh.... i'm sure Brawn knows what he is doing... :s
I definitely have an echo in here today!
If his hands are not tied by Darth Fry...
It facinates me that these people have so little grap of anything outside their own field.
Petrobras had a contract with Honda. Honda are withdrawing therefore Petrobras's contract is void. Petrobras cannot be compelled to sponsor anyone who buys the team.
Jenson Button has a contract to drive for Honda. Honda have withdrawn therefore there is no reason why any buyer has to give him a drive.
grasp not grap
Is that us lot? lol
I'm glad I work, i'd loose my life to F1 forums..........
erm.... I shall remain optimistic...
i...must....remain.....optimistic....
:)
Nick Fry aint hardcore enough to be Darth Vader.....
He's more C3PO
I think whoever buys it will give him the contract but I am fed up reading articles where people blindly assume that whoever buys will carry on as if there was no change of ownership. Whoever takes over will get Button for very little money as he had just signed a new deal with Honda for $24million over the next three seasons and Honda will have to honour that.
I am not sure I follow here... you are saying that all contracts are null and void because the team is being sold? I don't know if that's entirely correct because the team is still running. If the team was bankrupt then you would be correct but Honda have kept the team going and would try and keep all personnel/sponsors for as long as possible.
Petrobras are feeling the pinch of the oil price being too low. Instead of using their position to renegotiate a better deal, they decided to leave the sport. As for Jenson, well, who better to keep in the team? The only replacements are ex-F1 drivers or young rookies, and as the team is still going then he should expect his contract to be honoured unless the new buyers sack him. They probably won't as it may entail a severance package which would be worth millions in his case.
depends who buys it though doesn't it? if it's a management takeover then surely things will remain similar to the way they have before?
Petrobras signed a contract to sponsor Honda and to be associated with that company. They must have a clause that covers this situation or they could for example end up having to give money to a team owned by a competitor or something like Ethanol in the IRL. THey have to control their brand.
So maybe that means they have knowledge that the consortium to buy BrackleyF1 has some sort of rival as a sponsor/contributor?
It's very soothing watching words appear and grow or shrink and disappear on twitscoop. There is also the reassuring constant presence of MT.
Or they don't like the management or the new guys don't want Senna etc
On my previous comment I came across a story saying Senna had not signed a contract to drive for the new team as if it was news. How could he possibly have signed anything that committed him to a team that doesn't exist yet?
It would be very difficult for either party to commit to a contract when a new owner is expected to take over. They could dictate terms and void any prior agreements made... So it's really just denying a rumour rather than being a story in itself.
Unless the team would've existed BECAUSE of him and the money he brought? It still IS possible.
:D
am sure gavin has already post this but:
"The IndyCar Series has made a tongue-in-cheek offer to Formula One drivers who are unhappy about high superlicence fees to join its championship - because its mandatory paperwork only costs $1000 (USD)."
hehehehehe :D
http://www.autosport.com/news/grapevine.php/id/73311
This is a live comment... From my office. I am off for a beer :)
mmmm, beer.
Rosberg has said that Williams are unlikely to use KERS within the first six races of the season according to German mag 'Blick'
:D
Nothing to worry about: they're not alone.
But if Williams, a team who bought a company just for KERS, won't run it, what chance do the others have?
jeeeeeeezus. they're the one's who'll likely benefit most.
Sidepodspace update:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/02/progress_on_nasas_constellatio.html
The Big Picture is fascinating today :)
I'll be surprised if anyone runs it at the start of the season.
I am going to run it :)
damn, that must be some good beer.
I was just going to post one of those. NASA will hold a press conference on Friday to update the world on the delay in launching the space shuttle. For planning purposes only the launch will be not before 27th February
Story here for German reading folk.
:) sadly I haven't left the office yet as I need some electricity. For some reason by iPhone is running low on batteries! ;)
Perhaps I was using it to run my own KERS and I didn't notice!
Pic number 5 is a UFO. No question about it!
Wow... I missed that story!
Indycar could do with taking a couple of the more useless of the F1 drivers...
The aliens must only be 6 inches high.
I love it when non-technical think they know what something is called. This is part of the caption to number 6 and someone clearly thinks they are using old technology.
"100-foot fiberglass mast atop supporting a wire centenary system."
Of course they are! That's why nobody has spotted them!
james allen throws richard branson's name into the honda-ring:
http://allenonf1.wordpress.com/2009/02/16/the-honda-goosechase/
I liked this quote:
F1 could do with someone swimming against the tide and showing F1 in a positive light.
Who knows, it seems a strange fit with Virgin, but stranger things have happened.
Seems logical.
Mr Allen is ill-informed as far as Branson's interest in the sport goes. Some years ago Bernie threatened to take all the races out of Europe because of EU tobacco laws. Branson put out a press release saying if that happened he would set up a rival championship using the tracks that Bernie was about to ditch.
The guy loves his motor racing and it tells you everything that is wrong with F1 that someone like him has not invested before either as a team owner or sponsor.
I wonder if Max has seen that first big picture. NASA use a 0.34% wind tunnel?
To be fair, who hasn't been linked with the Honda role. If I'm not careful, I might wake up tomorrow to see me on autosport linked with buying out Honda.
haha :)
The rate that rumours are coing out you may be testing for them tomorrow.
RG has been quoted as saying "If they don't let me buy it I'LL KILL SOMEONE!"
(GMM)
:D :D hehe
Franck has been moved to a safe house.
My house?
Is that really safe?
Evening everyone btw. :D
I can guarantee I wouldn't kill him.
Heya Flbister
She gives a good point.
I am now buying wool at John Lewis on Oxford Street. Pictures on drop.io shortly.
if you walk into a bar by yourself, but you have doohickey with you, are you drinking alone, or not?
You're never alone with a doohickey.
That's true!
I'm buying foodhall items now!
so we see:
http://drop.io/sidepodcast/asset/photo-7
:)
it's like we're there with you :)
http://drop.io/sidepodcast/asset/photo-6
BEER!
http://drop.io/sidepodcast/asset/photo-8
(i feel like the laziest stalker in the world)
Woohoo reverse stalking is born! ;)
i'd forgotten that i don't need to open a new tab anymore. lol.
You never need to open a new tab until you have paid the last one :)
:D
haha XD
Good point! :) shouts "barkeep!" :)
There is one more pic :)
http://drop.io/sidepodcast/asset/photo-9
hullo!
Gosh I do look rather hullo there don't I.
It's incredibly hard to tell I'm outside in that photo!
is it warm enough to be outside?
twas 14 degrees at home today :) it was lovely.
i should go outside more often :)
I'm going to say no. It really isn't. I was sort of explaining my coat and scarf. I'm not a smoker. But the pub is rammo!
I see the doohickey updates. :)
if anyone fancies trying a hard refresh (ctrl+f5, or clear your cache) on the realtime page:
http://www.sidepodcast.com/realtime/
the first of this weeks updates are now live.
i didn't get to finish my sentence!!
Oops.
It looks, erm, ugly
functional.
Wow. Tell us how you really feel.
Good thing is it's more obvious for new people how to post comments.
You'll get used to it.
Remember when we thought the '09 cars were the most hideous thing ever?
Oh right, you didn't think that... ;)
:D
I could swear I posted something and nothing has appeared, its not in the mod queue.
:D
...as i was saying. mostly minor tweaks:
- it should now be obvious that you can reply to comments as well as read them.
- the data sent to / from the server is significantly reduced, meaning it'll be faster over gprs and 3g.
- the initial page load should be a bit more responsive.
- preview and upload buttons are disabled until later this week
- as requested by steven, none drop.io links popup in a new window.
- as requested by andy, the drop.io preview now has a close button.
- there's a "connected" status message at the top of the page to let you know if you're connections died or the server is down.
thanks to christine for doing an mini series this week and to alex for testing on the iphone for us. more updates are forthcoming thurs / fri. yell if you have any issues :)
Double post?
It doesn't work!!!
Strange things are happening on my doohickey!!
haha i just rebooted my laptop and double took at the page when i tried to click reply in the old place :D
i'll look into it. it's been stable all day, but mediatemple are having some issues (when aren't they?). homepage isn't responding either at the moment.
Will we get notified of new posts? I did request that didn't I, I think, I hope ;)
i still think they are hideous. well compared to the '08 cars they are anyway.
not as yet, it is on the list though.
Oh okay, cheers sir.
also - smilies are now bigger, although they are being troublesome and not always displaying correctly.
Yeah noticed that ;)
:D
:evil:
Interesting change. I have a feeling I am going to click on the thread name link since that is roughly where the reply link was. I think I like it.
:mrgreen:
I only did that once and it appeared twice.
Same thing that I was getting.
hmm, i only saw it once. gimmie a minute, much going on at once.
i really like the new layout btw. much much better than the old one. it all seems to fit a bit better :) it's much easier to use on the ipod touch too :D
yeah, sorry for the confusion. it makes life easier on small devices like the g1 and iphone being on the left.
If it helps, I have not seen any double posting.
I like the preview, but there's something not quite right with the boxes round the text.
Should we start a facebook group to "bring back the old Doohickey"?
i've not had any problems either.
boxes around the text?
:D
Only if you want him to cry.
I don't think its that bad, just need some time to climitise up to it.
quick doohickey test (just you just can't have enough alex!):
http://drop.io/sidepodcast/asset/photo-9
http://drop.io/sidepodcast/asset/doohickey-png
Now you have. ;)
That works just fine for me, me.
The Facebook group thing was a joke BTW.
don't worry, i'm not that sensitive :)
forgot to add. the moderation queue no longer tries to get in on the "discussion stats" action either.
Strange. I clicked post and the same post popped up twice within a fraction of a second. Maybe just my browser.
]
and lower case names should be order correctly.
i think it might be mediatemple actually, but i may be able catch it. there seem to be a bunch of requests queued up their end.
when you refresh it sorts itself out again. am looking into it though.
Besides, the Facebook group to bring back the Old Facebook was really successful wasn't it? :)
Goodily, good good.
Btw, something none doohickey, whatever happend to the Diaries?
Weekly was perhaps an overestimate on my part. Plenty more to come though.
Okay, nice to know theres a few more in the bag still.
I notice the time also goes down to seconds.
wasn't intentional :)
you'll probably find that comments you post don't have seconds, as that bit of code is next on the list.
Ah. Mainly cos I'm bored
If there's a code need fixin'
and its quite hard
Who you gonna call?
Side-pod-cast
wow, it's gone pretty quiet.... everyone okay?
Anyone noticed this?
http://www.donington-park.co.uk/files/pdf/master_plan.pdf
From the BBC Sport site
I think so. Just downloaded the 01 mod for GPM2 and giving it a whirl
That is strange, first time it happend for me.
Video here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7886964.stm
just a quick test. may have sorted the duplicate issue.
http://uk.cars.yahoo.com/16022009/36/top-gear-fake-ferrari-scandal-0.html
Top Gear Live Ferrari's could be Toyota MR2s. OOPS
Are you sure?
Are you sure?
:D:D
Death by exhaustion?
I'm guessing that me would be sent to a far-off location to watch some "testing" ;)
How's about this for a Mac Mini Mod?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/3263376709/in/set-72157613485047505/
hehe :)
I always thought that you couldn't have @ in a url
never really though about it. i guess they're fine :)
The first Apple I used had two of those drives.
Thats really quite cool. Seen DVD Drive sized PC's before though - but firring it in an old floppy drive is cool.
Can you imagine anyone in a conversation saying they are a Virgin F1 Driver?
Help. I'm getting a pop up box saying
'The Page at sidepodcast says:
/2009/02/16/daily:-16th-february-2009'
My guess is they'll say anything if the pay is good enough.
i keep getting it too. have put a screen shot of it in drop.io for you 'me'
Thanks, saves me from doing it ;)
I have a pop up that keeps popping up on my doohickey. I dropioed a pic.
At least everyone is having it and not just me
got it. refresh and doohickey world shalt return to normal.
:D thanks
So what was it then?
I refreshed just before you said that as a trial and it worked.
debug code. i removed it about 15mins ago, but i shoulda asked you all to refresh. sorry.
it was basically alerting you to what's written in the "topic" box at the bottom of the page.
back to the subject of microblogging. bit of a facebook controversy kicking off here:
http://tinyurl.com/asvsrg
via: http://identi.ca/notice/2332256
Is this the "All your content are belong to us" thing?
One thing I have spotted with the doohickey over that last couple of days but I assume it has always done it. If I post a comment and then switch to another tab I get a notice on the tab that a new comment has been posted. When I switch back to the doohickey the last comment is mine. I assume this means it only 'notices' new comments on refreshing.
exactly that
yup. basically your flicking tabs before the page has had chance to finish loading your comment. not sure there's much i can do about that, but i shall look into it :)
I don't see it as a problem. It just confused me the first time.
I made a game out of it, can you switch tabs before the comment appears.
I just flicked to twhirl and could see the open doohickey with a new comment that was mine.
Someone else tried it a year or two ago - Can't remember who *memory - first thing to go at age 30...*
They got bitchslapped. :D
Several sites have done this in the past. You used not to be able to leave Facebook at all - The Register dubbed it the "Hotel California" of sites.
Hmm, just updated my Facebook status to "Andy doesn't like the new Facebook Terms of Service". Had 3 comments already!
It has to be said, and I feel bad that I haven't said it already, but that element of the the doohickster is awesome and I couldn't live with doohickey without it. :)
What are they forcing upon us now?
If anyone is interested..
A Classic Team Lotus restored Ex Nigel Mansell Lotus 91 is up for sale. Complete with a Ford DFV.
Price is P.O.A though. Damn...
As the old saying goes - If you have to ask 'how much?'... :D
If you don't ask you will never know.
s'ok, I got it now, do not like it either and status now reflects thus
I can take an educated guess though. Around £200k
It would be cheaper to buy Honda and you would get half a dozen cars.
Question....the UK Ascar's can't run in the wet, can NASCAR?
I thought we established that they can't?
Ah ok, sorry havent been around today. I thought as much but wasnt sure.
We were watching the Daytona 500 yesterday which paused a few times due to rain and was stopped about 50 laps early because the rain came on and decided to stay.
:D
fb responds:
http://mashable.com/2009/02/16/facebook-tos-response/
Hmm. Plausible, but I'm not convinced. Ah well, time for bed.
Doohickey redesign is growing on me...
Except the Lotus 91 was a decent car. ;)
good to hear.
i'm thinking the "reply" button detracts a little from the content of the comment, and am considering making it fade when you hover your mouse over it. not sure yet though.
being on the left-hand side makes more sense once you get used to it.
With slightly better running costs :)
anyone fancy being a counter-hand at the melbourne gp?
"Working mostly on the weekends, you need to work well in a team environment and apply basic food handling skills to cater at large events for high volumes of people. Must have experience in face to face customer relations"
http://www.hippo.com.au/JobSearch/JobDetails.aspx?id=17902
If only I didn't already have a job :-)
;)
Are we still doing the whole 'how long has the doohickey been up for you' thing?
I'm going to refresh to see the changes, but it's been running since noon (SPC time) on Thursday the 12th. Does it count if I've put the laptop to sleep several times over that period?
I would do it, but my computer crashes too often. ;)
doohickey... more reliable than vista (and dom's machine).
hehe. can do, although we're expecting to enable the "preview" and "upload image" buttons later this week.
i think that makes it even better :)
You all know about Brad and Marc from iSlayer right?
http://www.islayer.com
They make iStat for Mac and iPhone. Very useful.
Not F1 related, but only certain people are around at this hour anyway :-)
:D
we both have it for the mac, but didn't know it was available for the iphone/touch (see what i did there?).
The SPC Community policing program is doing it's job then :P
yes :(
So far I have resisted buying it for the iPhone. I'll just end up looking at it every 5 mins instead of working.
maybe I should email Akismet and ask them to add iTouch as a non-removeable blocker?
grr!
grr! No! grr! perhaps?
even better. let me find a black shirt...
polo neck? Levis? New Balance runners?
:D
we never did see that product demo from andy, did we?
We'd need to green screen it and use Christine's back drop instead.
We all love doing it in our spare time - now is the chance to do it FOR REAL!
SINGAPORE, 16 February 2009 - Answer TODAY’s call to come up with unique names for turns 1, 7 and 10 of Formula 1's historic night race in the heart of the Lion City!
Readers are invited to send in their suggestions from now until February 28 to win attractive prizes. Three lucky winners will each receive a three-day 2009 FORMULA 1™ SingTel Singapore Grand Prix for the grandstand closest to the turn they’ve named, as well as a pit lane tour. The best overall contributor will also get a two-night stay in a five-star trackside hotel.
All you have to do is to send in your suggestions and a brief explanation of no more than 50 words for turns 1, 7 or 10 to [email protected] .
Names must have a strong local flavour and be no longer than three words - that includes the words “Turn” or “Corner”- and cannot incorporate commercial names
More info: http://www.todayonline.com/pdf_open.asp?id=0502SPC039
Just sent my entry. ;) To maximise the 50-word limit, I chose to send an entry for only 1 of the 3 turns... for now, anyway. :D
If you push it over the finishing line and then faint theatrically you may get a discount...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsBEKw7-ln4
Haha! ;) I've always loved that vid, though. Another of Mansell's gutsy moments.
Quick question for the doohickey: I've noticed that the posts' timestamps have a slight difference. If someone else posted it, the seconds is included, whereas if I posted it, it isn't. Is that on purpose?
I think perhaps not, but he mentioned it yesterday so is aware of it. Good spot, though.
I do get bored sometimes y’know, searching Formula 2, saw the name, googled it and found info. {Comment #226
Niki Lauda was extolling her virtues back in 2004 in the middle of a rant about how he thought F1 could be more interesting if Michael Schumacher wasn't the primary focus of the media (or something like that; if you've read one Lauda denouncement on the state of F1, you've read them all). Since she was in the midfield of Formula BMW back then, everyone assumed it was simply because she was a woman who, according to grandprix.com, "has physical attributes we will gloss over here". It also got the spelling of her name wrong, calling her "Natasha Something-Unpronounceable", but there can't be that many Swiss women with a first name that sounds like Natasha in motorsport...
I too assumed I'd never hear Natasha's name again, but apparently I was wrong. A good thing to be wrong about.
First time I have heard that. I wonder who told Max. {Comment #233
Perhaps this is another sign of Professor Theissen's (yes Mario is entitled to use that as well as Dr by dint of his qualifications, but most people go for Dr) education of Max on technical matters. Remember the comment earlier this week about Max knowing a little bit less than Flavio Briatore? Perhaps he decided to do something about it instead of just moaning.
Must.Resist.Shiny.iPhone.
I don't have one either, yet.
what a brilliant idea. thanks journeyer :)
You're welcome! If you win, you better do a live show from Singapore! :D
I was saying that I haven't bought iStat for my iPhone yet.
How can you not have an iPhone???
Steve gave me mine, but if he hadn't I would have bought one on launch day.
hehe :)
Please don’t say that - School is not compulsory, education is. They are not the same thing. {Comment #243}
That's why I said "school" and not "education". From what I've heard, the average home-schooler tends to be better at doing the basics of research than the average school student because the better a home-schooler can research, the easier in some ways it is to prepare suitable classroom materials (if it's the type of home-schooling that requires such preparation - there is a method called "unschooling" that doesn't). Also, the amount of independent study a lot of home-schoolers frequently do means that they often pick up such things as "Wikipedia is not the holy grail of research" on their own without any outside explanation being necessary.
Also, the expectations of the parents of homeschooled children varies a lot more than those of teachers (in that the expectations tend to be tailored towards the students rather than a preset curriculum). This gives scope to expect more than basic research skills at an early age, if the child is capable of such skills.
As such, I did not think it fair to tar the expectations of homeschooling parents with the same brush as those of teachers. I think there is reason why schoolteachers don't have high research expectations of their students, but that's a discussion for another comment (and probably for another day). Education may be compulsory, but the education received varies wildly according to setting and circumstances.
My comment was by no means intended to cause offence. Sorry if it did.
The Barclay bros (and their apparatchiks) care only for the bottom line. {Comment #247}
A crisis requires steady hands on board, which is usually associated with experience rather than cheapness. With the sort of short-term thinking the Barclay brothers are exhibiting, the bottom line will be hit. So I still think they should have had more sense than to sack the people most likely to be able to keep the bank stable through the crisis.
None of us lot could do a better job then James Allen, I seriously don’t get why he’s hated so much! {Comment #260}
Because the British have certain (high) expectations of their commentators and James Allen didn't meet them. The main problems were that he was really biased, miscalled stuff a lot (yes, Murray did as well, but he had the skill of getting it wrong and almost right in the same breath - a rare feat) and repeated himself a lot (OK, the job requires a certain amount of repetition, but saying "Lewis is doing a great job this race" once a lap is quite sufficient, however true it might be!). He wasn't helped by Martin Brundle commentating alongside him because that simply augmented the feeling that James was the wrong man for the job. If Jonathan Legard doesn't meet those expectations, expect him to get pasted as well.
I feel somewhat sorry for ITV because James did a good job in the pit lane commentary (Ted Kravitz was better, but not by much, which says a lot about James). It must have looked really logical to think that he could transfer his skill in the pit lane to the commentary box. Maybe he just needs a little time between having the initial thought and saying it, in order to convey the thought well.
Granted we would struggle to do as good a job as James, but most of us can think of a variety of other people who could make a decent fist of the job, and we're used to the job being done well, which is why we tend to be a bit... ...picky.
Force India - unknown. {Comment #212}
Most of Force India's money comes from the UB Group, owned by Vijay Mallya. It's had some losses in the airline, which according to Wikipedia have led to some serious problems (check from 13 December 2008 onwards), but I've not heard of any problems in the rest of the business (which ranges from alcoholic beverages you have probably heard of to pharmaceuticals you probably haven't). In fact, the alcohol side is thriving because exports are still going up. One of the UB Group's child companies, White & Mackay, has just announced a new £2m sponsorship deal in darts, so it must be pretty confident of its future. In balance, the UB Group's finances probably haven't altered a huge amount due to its diversification.
This is just as well - if the UB Group was in serious trouble, Mallya would probably have no choice but to quit Force India and the team would have virtually no money to keep things afloat until a replacement came along.
My comment adding information about Force India's likely backer status has ended up in moderation, probably because of the sheer number of links involved.
One more point to add; since the beverages are gaining at the expense of the airline, it may well be that Force India's colour scheme is re-jigged a little.
Honda have withdrawn therefore there is no reason why any buyer has to give him a drive. {Comment #318}
Depends. If Button's contract made it to the CRB before the buyer got involved (and if they haven't yet, it will be too late now), then the CRB will insist that the contract is honoured. Otherwise, all bets are off.
Everything else is up in the air though.
forgot to add. the moderation queue no longer tries to get in on the “discussion stats” action either. {Comment #426}
I thought that was hilarious when the mod queue thought that it was making a real comment. Still, it's better being put in its proper place of modding comments.
Hi!….
I was searching on internet for Character Cup and I found your post …..it is really interesting…keep it up….look forward to read more from you..
Hi Avanindra, welcome and thanks :)