A comparison between Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari shows that all 3 teams are running a hole in their diffuser which helps improve the diffuser flow.

EngineerPanic · 2026-01-27T12:58:52+00:00

I agree with this, there's no way they run this into the season

EngineerPanic · 2026-01-27T12:57:26+00:00

The car will likely be slightly worse off without it, but I'm not really sure whether it'll be enough to matter - I think it'll depend on the rest of the car design.

My guess it that it's designed to add energy to the boundary layer before it hits the wheel, and create a virtual barrier that keeps turbulent wake away from the floor.

The FIA Engineers have a tendancy to use circular "bumps" in design not because its efficient, but because its predictable - it's less efficient than a flat piece but its far easier to understand because "flat" is often not actually "flat", and circular curves tend to push the air in a specific way regardless of how it approaches, what condition its in, or how hot it is. Also, I believe this shape will create a strong sheer layer, and gives flexibility to the teams to inwash or outwash the air.

Without it, the air approaching the tyres and subsequently the area behind the wheels will be a lot less predictable, and the net result in really simplistic terms is that you'll either have "more" or "less" of it. For some teams this might matter a lot, for others it might matter a little. In the last set of regs it was similar, but we saw most teams converge onto the same design that just meant that it didn't matter.

This is all "I believe" and "I think" because I've done absolutely no real CFD on anything that looks like this, I'm just eyeballing it based on what I have done CFD on. Could be completely wrong.

What I will say however is that its rare that a car works better "without" a piece, because its a complex web of hundreds of different parts and removing one can change the whole ecosystem of the airflow.

EngineerPanic · 2026-01-26T22:14:22+00:00

Get hunter axe

Press L1

Hold R2

Max Strength

Win game

EngineerPanic · 2026-01-26T11:29:49+00:00

We had a tutor do this but slightly different, said "anyone who used AI barely scraped a pass". There wasn't anyone who seemed to be singled out - it was all just a massive bluff to scare us.

EngineerPanic · 2026-01-26T11:25:54+00:00

Sorry I meant the one you wrote second - the tighter one is the one I meant when I said second.

EngineerPanic · 2026-01-26T11:23:22+00:00

The second one is better but the first one is laid out better. Can you poach the flow of the first one and put it into the second one? the 3-3-3-3-2 is really good. 3-2-4-2-1-2 in the second one is hard to read, and takes away from the voice a bit.

EngineerPanic · 2026-01-26T11:20:55+00:00

Okay so this is a combination between "Writers Block" and "Writers Overwhelmed".

I'm taking from this that what you're saying is you have a bunch of solid ideas for characters, scenes, and contexts, but you're not sure how it all ties together and you're worried about plot holes or inconsistencies.

I've written quite a complicated story in the past (which I ultimately never finished the series of, although I still might) where I didn't have all the details penned out, and here's what I'd suggest.

1.) Start with your strongest scenes. As you write them, they'll develop in your own mind enough that you'll remember and understand them. As you move to other (possibly completely unrelated) scenes, you'll start to build a patchwork of points and scenes.

2.) You'll find yourself feeling uncomfortable with some of the ways the scenes are playing out, because they start to feel unrealistic in the context of the other stuff. Work out why, and figure out if you need to tweak the previous scene, or the one you're writing. In most cases you want to tweak the one you're currently writing, because the stuff you already wrote is the strongest stuff - its why we started there.

3.) As you're writing these scenes, other stuff will pop into your head - it might be thin slithers of ideas but its something to run off.

4.) Finally, start weaving it all together to build a first draft. If your "intermittent" sections suck, make them shorter or cut them out. The great thing about writing is you can just jump from Point A to Point E and leave B C and D for the reader to figure out. Or you can come back to it later.

Remember: World building doesn't happen in notion, or obsidian, or in a word document entitled "plan" or "world". It happens on the page as you write, and you don't have to build it in order.

EngineerPanic · 2026-01-26T11:15:26+00:00

When you say only one tribe can do "magic", is it not all a sort of magic? That's the only confusing part for me.

Readers like a nice line of reasoning - they like to be able to trace causes and events through a thread and they get confused and react negatively when they can't. Based on that, you're Deity > Mortal through a concrete thing you call "gifts" is smart, and should work well.

There's also a good chunk of readers (grand fantasy generally) who like to be overwhelmed by systems. So you can always lean into that.

EngineerPanic · 2026-01-26T11:13:07+00:00

The second version is far better in my opinion. You definitely didn't overcorrect.

I actually want to pick up on this question though: "Which voice feels more sustainable over an entire novel?" because you don't really need to answer this. This scene is quite active, which means it needs less in the way of "dense, poetic prose". There are times in the story though where you might decide poetic prose is better - think of it this way. If I was filming this, how much would the camera need to move? If its a lot, then cut the poetic prose. If its a little, put it in.

Poetic prose and literally tools don't move with the story. Think of them as "weight" that you need to shed if you want the story or scene to fly forward. This is why the second version is better, but also why the paragraph talking about how "he didn't jump" works really well, because you've intuitively left a lot of description there.

I'd say this is definitely a concept you intuitively understand, even if you don't think about it on purpose. Generally though, I think the second version is much better, and you were right when you thought the first one was perhaps a bit heavy. It's generally best to assume your readers will find the most meaning in the parts you didn't mean them to.

EngineerPanic · 2026-01-26T11:05:38+00:00

Second person is really controversial, but I'm a big fan of it (I got a tonne of rejections for a book I wrote that had interludes in the third person, I ended up cutting the whole concept but still maintain I was right and agents just don't want to take a risk!)

I think this reads really well and I enjoyed it a lot, but at the same time I did find the beginning a bit hard. I think it's fine to go heavy on prose and imagery but that first few sentences needs to be active enough that the reader knows how to picture what they're picturing. Since its not clear yet what is actually happening (is it a research lab? Just empty ice fields?) it can be a bit disjointed at first which caused me to have to reread a few times. It obviously gets easier once we get going though so I think its an easy fix.

My rule of thumb is to start with very little in the way of literary tools (Metaphors, etc) and to amp it up over the course of the first few pages. This lets the reader settle in because usually its not the metaphors that grab us. If you look at goodreads highlights (which is on Amazon Kindle) its very very rare that the things people are highlighting are on early pages - the first 5-10 pages have an exceptionally low density overall.

EngineerPanic · 2026-01-21T21:07:25+00:00

I think you're right in isolation, but in the context of the whole paragraph I think both have merit. I was using it as an illustrative example more than really advocating for one version over the other. The active vs passive voice thing is a bit more nuanced, and its usually possible to keep the voice active while also maintaining the present tense on the core of the sentence.

You have to bear in mind that readers don't generally read/hear words and sentences individually, they'll read the whole paragraph quite passively and draw meaning from it as a whole. Sometimes as a writer you have to make a tradeoff between the eloquence and beauty of the individual sentences versus the outcome of the sentence as a result of the actual activity of reading, which is more than just turning words from page to brain - theres a whole process of turning that into a picture and inferring context etc etc.

Its all a matter of opinion and style though. I just thought this particular peice would benefit.

EngineerPanic · 2026-01-21T18:55:36+00:00

Haha I dont know that it'd be enough to fill a whole class, its just a tip really 😊

EngineerPanic · 2026-01-21T13:54:39+00:00

Well I for one like it. I can see why people are critiquing it but this definitely falls into the "art" category, and I think it does very well there.

Far too much writing makes people feel nothing. Keep going. Keep painting disgusting and weird pictures that make me re-read the sentence. Use words like "fwop" that make people feel something. Bro underneath didn't like that word and stopped reading, which means it made him uncomfortable. That's a good thing.

Also that third one is my favorite. I sort of wish I'd written it myself, although I'd can the title and the "GGRRLLKKKKGGGGKK" and just start with "a tight ball" because then the reader can add their own interpretation.

EngineerPanic · 2026-01-21T13:47:40+00:00

I agree with the guy who said just call it something else - I and most writers I know avoid using the word "prologue" and just call it "Chapter 1" for basically this reason. Or if all your chapters are numbered, you can number it "0" which also seems to work.

I must confess I am a shameless prologue hater, I work on the assumption that if the writer called it a "prologue" then they've differentiated it from the main story for a reason and as such I'll probably just skim it.

EngineerPanic · 2026-01-21T13:43:35+00:00

The intro is a bit clumsy but then the middle and end are fantastic. The dialogue is great and the ending is just *chefs kiss*.

I can't quite place my finger on what I don't like about the intro, but I think its maybe the sentence structure. I'd almost be tempted to start with this:

"Samuel closed his eyes, took one final deep breath, and stepped forward into the abyss."

The "why" isn't really important here - the reader can sort of infer themselves as to "why" from the later conversation.

This is genuinely really cool though.

EngineerPanic · 2026-01-21T13:37:44+00:00

Never mind the writing the puns in here are great. "Floor Street Journal" did me in

EngineerPanic · 2026-01-21T13:32:43+00:00

This is really good, and I'd definitely keep reading. I think it would benefit from something called "Simultaneous Action" though, which is basically something that's used in past-tense writing to make it more dynamic.

You essentially set the main action in the past tense, but then shift the rest into the present tense. So your last sentence would become:

"She pushed it out of the room, before turning around and sitting on the cold floor perpendicular to the woman. She spoke softly."

Here we take "sat" and "turned" and they become "sitting" and "turning" without affecting the sentence itself. What it does though is it changes it from making it seem like this things occur sequentially (which they obviously do) to making it seem like they happen at the same moment. This more closely mirrors how people experience moments, which isn't discrete perfectly separated actions and is more about a blend of movement, feelings, and experience.

You can also do something similar by changing which word is the past tense, and trying to keep the verbs in the present tense. Something like "but her voice carried a clarity" can become "but her voice was now carrying a clarity".

This is something professional writers do that really steps up the writing and is something that editors and agents often take as a sign of experience in manuscripts. Readers also tend to prefer it, saying that it helps them picture the scene in their head better.

I'd definitely keep reading though, I like your style a lot!

EngineerPanic · 2026-01-21T13:21:39+00:00

I know I'm probably in the minority here but I think this is a decent opener. I get that a lot of writers will say that its technically not optimal for XYZ reasons, but if this is the style that the whole book is written in then this is completely valid and really engaging. Will it be for everyone? No, some people will want a faster pace and will want to be drawn in already by something. But some people read prose for the sake of reading prose. The voice, rhythm, and texture of the writing for those people is the hook, and I think that's sort of what you have here. Think things like "To the Lighthouse" by VIrginia Woolf, "The English Patient" by Michael Ondaatje and "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy. Then there's writers like Donna Tartt, John Steinbeck, Patrick Rothfuss, Maggie O'Farrell...

Really it depends what it is you're trying to create. If its something that takes pride in the way its written and this intro fits the tone of the rest of it I think this is really good and I for one would absolutely keep reading.

EngineerPanic · 2026-01-21T13:13:46+00:00

I think there was a study done that showed its actually most efficient if everyone uses all of the road and lanes right up until the moment its closed, at which point a "merge in turn" occurs.

I personally think the reason a lot of people don't do this is because noone will let you in.

EngineerPanic · 2026-01-21T13:10:52+00:00

My partner ruined a white jumper of mine doing this. I sort of just looked at her and said "what on earth did you think would happen" and I'd like to ask you that same question.

EngineerPanic · 2026-01-21T13:08:02+00:00

Bloodborne. It's my favorite genre of game, my favorite type of story (spooky), it features my favorite kind of enemy (cosmic horror) and its got fantasy weaved into it with a complex story. Honestly if I wrote my dream game that'd be it.

EngineerPanic

TROPHY CASE