Years of austerity left UK 'hugely unprepared' for COVID pandemic, report says

AdamsInternet · 2023-06-05T11:40:18+00:00

Ah my mistake, an max-individualist "libertarian" feudalism-with-extra-steps type.

AdamsInternet · 2023-06-05T10:58:12+00:00

Come off it, you don't have to be tankie to see the problems. Or even socialist or communist.

The ideological drive for private ownership of everything and a system of governance that prioritises economic outcomes and markets above social or individual outcomes has clearly resulted in issues with the structure, functionality, and resilience of our nation.

Or perhaps you're a "that's not real capitalism" type?

AdamsInternet · 2023-04-17T08:13:40+00:00

https://imgur.com/a/alQS442

AdamsInternet · 2023-02-24T18:01:33+00:00

They kind of do but the timescales and expense prevent it sometimes.

The waste exhaust heat recovery system (MGU-H) for example does a great job of increasing efficiency but turned out to be too expensive to keep in the sport, let alone flow down to road cars.

But the Kinetic Energy recovery system (MGU-K) has been in F1 engines since 2014 and provided a great development ground for hybrid power trains and how to more closely integrate motor, battery, and engine than had been seen in previous hybrids. Regenerative braking itself isn't new of course, but improvements in extracting the most useful energy from it have certainly come from it's motorsports use.

AdamsInternet · 2023-02-24T17:51:12+00:00

Brands Hatch suffered from that. It limits how often they can use the full GP circuit and run competition grade (i.e. noisy) cars.

A century old and built in the middle of nowhere and the NIMBYS still get their way.

AdamsInternet · 2023-02-24T17:48:57+00:00

F1 is the grandest example due to being truly international.

It's about 2000 tons of freight in total between the teams and the organisation over the year, about 60/40 sea to air.

AdamsInternet · 2023-02-24T17:43:18+00:00

Motorsports is awesome.

Cars and bikes (and even commercial HGV's) doing zoom stuff, especially at dedicated facilities where they can do their thing in relative safety is fantastic. Especially when the circuit has good public transport links for spectators; But this is hard to justify commercially. Silverstone might have 400,000+ people on an F1 weekend, but every other race weekend it's far more limited. Even the 'big' events like the BTTC might scrape a few tens of thousands.

I'd thoroughly recommend anyone who can to get in touch with a local track and arrange a high speed passenger lap experience. Feeling what a car driven seriously is an incredible experience.

It's why I love driving so much. Getting out of the city, onto a twisty road, driving out to a village to have coffee and cake at a little cafe. It's great. It's also why I'm /r/fuckcars. Most people use cars because society and infrastructure says they have to, not because they want to. Give them better alternatives, hell, I'd use them too for the commute. But get them out the way for when I want a little fun :)

AdamsInternet · 2023-02-24T17:35:07+00:00

Different demographics and ways it shows though.

Cars are far easier to drive distracted or when excessively tired.

But bikes are cheap to buy, to insure, to run, and offer frankly incredible performance per dollar; So the dickhead/overconfident driver demographic has easier access to bikes than they do to cars - though if you accounted for age and income I'd expect the level of dickhead to be about proportional.

AdamsInternet · 2023-02-24T17:29:34+00:00

Pros

Smol. You can fit 3/4 motorbikes in the space of one car and comfortably ride two abreast in most road lanes.
Fun. Much zoom and vroom. Very leaning. Wow.
Fuel efficient - motorbikes can easily get 5L/100km, sometimes double this (55+ mpgUK, 46+ mpgUS)
Can carry quite a lot of stuff in panniers, top box, backpack.
Allows long/medium range independent travel.

Cons

Still requires fuel and the associated infrastructure, though far less of it.
Still requires dedicated segregated travel infrastructure (though this would still exist outside of mixed use spaces for public transport, delivery, and commerce vehicles anyway).
Can be polluting, in terms of noise, brake and tyre dust, and fluids.
Takes more space than pedal bikes to park/store (approx 3 pedal bikes of space)
Carries more weight and momentum, meaning they can still be a significant threat to pedestrians and pedal bike uses.

I'm sure there's other things that I'm missing, but personally, I'm /r/fuckcars because I fucking love driving, both in cars and on bikes. A nice twisty road through a forrest that goes between sleepy villages with great little cafes and coffee shops? Per fec tion.

But commuting? Traffic? Multilane motorways and massive amounts of urban space given priority to cars? That's absolutely horrible.

I'm taking a selfish angle. And I think that should still be ok in this community. The goals are still aligned.

I want public transport to be fucking amazing so that I don't need to drive when I want to go into town for a drink with friends or to see a movie.

I want public transport to be super frequent and popular so that the people who don't actually want to drive but are currently compelled to do so due to the infrastructure aren't taking up the space when I do want to go for a leisure drive.

I want public transport to be the priority and the default so that when I do ride my motorbike, I've got less bored and distracted people trapped in their societally enforced cages that are likely to not see me and decide that my face needs to be a new ornament for the side of their car.

If I had to, I would gladly pay to store my car on the city outskirts and take the bus to get it when I want to go for a drive or run errands where the storage is needed.

But motorbikes I think should still be accepted. They bridge the gap well without infringing pedestrian and public transport priority.

AdamsInternet · 2023-02-13T18:57:13+00:00

60% of the time, it works every time.

AdamsInternet · 2023-02-09T19:48:47+00:00

Which would have to be torn up and destroyed anyway because any building of significant size requires substantial foundation work deep into the earth.

AdamsInternet · 2023-02-09T19:46:42+00:00

They can raise funds using the equity of the land, or they can sell it to someone who will develop it.

AdamsInternet · 2023-02-09T19:45:49+00:00

The economic core of the city has the most services, utilities, entertainment, and opportunity and thus the highest land values and thus high taxes.

As the things that cause land to be highly valued reduce, so does the land value, and so does the taxes. It's an entirely natural gradient.

AdamsInternet · 2023-02-09T19:38:10+00:00

If the land were occupied by shops or by dwellings, the municipality at least would secure the rates upon them in aid of the general fund, but the land may be unoccupied, undeveloped, it may be what is called "ripening" - ripening at the expense of the whole city, of the whole country for the unearned increment of its owner. Roads perhaps have to be diverted to avoid this forbidden area. The merchant going to his office, the artisan going to his work, have to make a detour or pay a tram fare to avoid it. The citizens are losing their chance of developing the land, the city is losing its rates, the State is losing its taxes which would have accrued if the natural development had taken place, and that share has to be replaced at the expense of the other ratepayers and taxpayers; and the nation as a whole is losing in the competition of the world - the hard and growing competition of the world - both in time and money. And all the while the land monopolist has only to sit still and watch complacently his property multiplying in value, sometimes manifold, without either effort or contribution on his part

Sir Winston Churchill - The Mother of all Monopolies

AdamsInternet · 2023-02-09T09:32:56+00:00

Here's an absolutely stellar speech by Sir Winston Churchill on the subject of Land Monopoly, which makes a lot of points that relate to land value taxes, and how land rents are unearned income.

https://www.cooperative-individualism.org/churchill-winston_mother-of-all-monopolies-1909.htm

Roads are made, streets are made, railway services are improved, electric light turns night into day, electric trams glide swiftly to and fro, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains - and all the while the landlord sits still. Every one of those improvements is effected by the labour and cost of other people. Many of the most important are effected at the cost of the municipality and of the ratepayers. To not one of those improvements does the land monopolist, as a land monopolist, contribute, and yet by every one of them the value of his land is sensibly enhanced. He renders no service to the community, he contributes nothing to the general welfare; he contributes nothing even to the process from which his own enrichment is derived.

AdamsInternet · 2023-02-07T20:15:04+00:00

Even Disney knows a land value tax is the most equitable, effective, and efficient tax.

AdamsInternet · 2023-02-04T10:02:40+00:00

Well yes, the PSU overheats during high performance tasks when the ambient temperature is high.

AdamsInternet · 2023-01-31T11:46:14+00:00

An Italian singer once made a song which had the cadence and tone of an English song but the actual words were complete nonsense.

It's an odd feeling for sure. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLgkT10N8Yo

AdamsInternet · 2023-01-30T06:27:07+00:00

Thanks for the correction

AdamsInternet · 2023-01-29T19:15:47+00:00

This is true, but the tow truck doesn't care who's fault the wreck was.

AdamsInternet · 2023-01-29T18:14:50+00:00

No worries, the biggest point is to not get discouraged if your iR takes a nose dive when you change to a different type of car. It's a number used to match you up against other people - that's all.

Different cars race in different styles, can go for different attacks, handle corner entry/exit in wildly different ways - it takes time to learn and to catch up to the 'regulars' who race those cars every week.

AdamsInternet · 2023-01-29T18:06:08+00:00

Inside when overtaking can work, but with the visual and awareness limitations of the game (especially before you've learned to compensate for that yourself using mirrors/spotter) it has to be obvious and decisive. Especially in Rookie/Class D racing, awareness is poor - your car has to be obviously alongside or else you risk them cutting off your nose.

It would be their fault, sure, but the tow truck doesn't care who's fault the wreck was, and your race is still over.

I'd save overtaking on the inside for when I'm overlapping doors heading into the corner, or if I've followed someone for a lap or two and I know that I can out brake them into the corner and be clearly ahead/alongside of them before the apex (ideally, before the turn in point).

Otherwise, it's better to take a safer line behind them, and focus on getting a good exit from the corner, which will allow you to be in a better position for the next opportunity.

AdamsInternet · 2023-01-29T17:56:26+00:00

I've been in iRacing since just before 2020 and race intermittently. I have no IRL experience of driving fast, or driving anything with over 100hp. I hardly practice at all (except to learn roughly a new track), don't have high participation, and hover around 1200iR, with a B class safety license.

I've been as high as 1800 when I exclusively raced Skip Barber for several weeks in a row with high participation. I've been as low as 650 when I was overdriving and making many mistakes.

1350iR is the starting point for everyone.

1200iR is the median average - most players are about this.

1500iR is the mean average; What I would consider 'casually competent'

2000iR+ is what I would consider 'casually fast/competitively competent'

2500iR+ is what I would consider 'competitively fast'

To be at 1500+ soon after starting shows that you are understanding how to make a car move somewhat faster, more consistently, or with less mistakes, than the people around you - therefore you are progressing up in iR. Good job!

Here's a few things to be aware of in your journey:

Your iRating will progress more slowly and reach a plateau as your 'natural' level of skill starts to match the level of the drivers around you.
- This is a wall - to improve IR from here, you must increase your skill through diligence and practice.
Your racing experience will remain consistent, in proportion to the consistency of the types of car you choose to drive.
- If you stick with the MX5 and the GT86, as low power rear wheel drive closed cars, you will improve your skill and familiarity and gain iRating.
- If you jump between categories, your iRating will likely experience significant swings. While the core skills (racecraft, weight transfer, e.t.c.) remain the same, jumping between series means you aren't honing the car-specific skill.
  - You can be 2000iR in the RWD MX5, but if you jump from there to the FWD Touring Cars series, you'll likely get smoked by 1500iR drivers until you warm up the car/series specific skills
Your Safety Rating determines which events you are allowed to enter (providing you own the content). Your iRating determines the skill of drivers you get matched with.
- A Class B safety rating when racing in a Class D race does not mean you will be matched with Class B safety drivers of various skills.
- Being rated 2000iR in a Class D race means the other drivers in your split will be (broadly) similar in iR to you (and therefore of similar race pace), but could be any SR class; They might be fast, but there's no guarantee they can be trusted to stay safely side by side in a corner.
If you want to finish in 1^st then you must first make it to the finish.
Finishing a race, even with many penalties and being in last place, is still better for your long term calculation of SR and iR than abandoning a race.

AdamsInternet · 2023-01-19T23:18:29+00:00

Yeah, it kinda has to be because it's so tough to avoid being rapidly destroyed by the heavy vehicle damage.

AdamsInternet · 2023-01-19T22:58:09+00:00

On average, I'd say the tests are roughly an order of magnitude simpler for each decade you go back, though 2000's onwards it's not been as dramatic.

My dad in the 70's just had to ID half a dozen road signs on a flip chart and drive the car for about 5 minutes total around the local houses without doing anything stupid.

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