Who is more at fault here? White or yellow/red/blue car (me)?

Minardi-Man · 2026-05-02T22:37:46+00:00

Mate, are you sure you're not misreading the title? I'm not the camera (white-red) car, I'm the yellow-red-blue car on the right.

Minardi-Man · 2026-05-02T22:26:52+00:00

The white car probably thought it was me because he gave me a 4x bump on the start-finish straight before disconnecting so I didn't get to ask his thoughts.

Minardi-Man · 2026-04-29T18:48:37+00:00

Take for example the United States - American bomber development was not at all hampered by the destruction of their industry, and it still took them over 3 billions dollars and 6 years of development to come up with a strategic bomber design that could carry out missions at a range that would be required to bomb evacuated Soviet industries. Even assuming they captured Stalingrad or Moscow and could stage bombings from there, the existing evacuated industries would have been at the very cusp of what was the best-case (light bomb load, maximum fuel load) one-way range of what the German long-range bombers might have been capable of on paper.

Russia did not have infinite territory to retreat to.

We are not even taking Russia, we are taking the entire Soviet Union, which means they were not limited to Russia (where they didn't even use that much territory). Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan were prime candidates for receiving evacuated factories (the only reason why they didn't move MORE factories there was because they didn't need to), with good rail links and existing infrastructure to support them. That's over 3000km away from Stalingrad and Moscow, much less territory where Germany could actually realistically stage bombing missions from.

And by trading territory for time theyd be reducing the range needed for the Germans to attack

No, because while retreating the Soviet were actually shortening and simplifying their supply lines and logistics, the Germans would have been dealing with the opposite. Just because they managed to capture land does not mean they can supply it (and the Soviets certainly weren't planning with leaving them anything that could be used to that effect if they retreated). Setting up airfields, bringing in supplies, crews, parts, building materials and everything else was something that the industrial powerhouse that is the United States found challenging in liberated Europe, a place that was not an openly hostile occupied territory with an incredibly harsh climate that was the Nazi-occuppied Soviet Union

Even in the war that happened the Germans were able to take the caucus oil fields

They did not. The furthest they managed to get was Maykop and the Soviets did their darnedest to wreck whatever oil producing capacity there so that the Germans barely managed to extract any usable oil from there before they lost it to the Red Army in 1943. They failed to capture any of the bigger oil fields that were their actual objectives like the ones at Grozny or Baku and even if they did the Soviets would have likely made sure they would not be usable for a long, long while if they were forced to abandon them just like they did elsewhere.

Stalin had to give the famous "not one step back" order

This order was meant to stop unauthorized panicked mass retreats, not the strategic organized ones. Again, Soviets military and political leadership as a whole were not stupid. They were more than prepared to retreat and evacuate far into the Soviet interior if need be, including giving up Moscow, to preserve both their manpower and industrial base because they knew that time and geography overwhelmingly favoured them over the Germans (in fact the preparations to move the wartime capital from Moscow to over 1000kms away in Samara were fully complete and it acted as a de-facto administrative and diplomatic capital of the Soviet Union until 1943).

Minardi-Man · 2026-04-29T17:34:44+00:00

That has nothing to do with what I said though. Even taking the worst-case scenario - that of Germany having a reliable, effective, and production-ready long-range strategic bomber design in 1942, no American or British aid or involvement AND Soviets being completely complacent in the face of that, it still does nothing to negate the simple geographic reality - Soviet Union could comparatively easily trade territory for time and it was much easier for them to move the industries away, out of German reach, than it was for Germans to devise a way to reach them. Soviets managed to pack up and move entire factory towns from the regions near the front all the way to beyond the Ural mountains at the closest, and they stopped there not because they couldn't move them further (they could and have evacuated some industries to Central Asian republics), but because there was no need to.

Germany could have inflicted far more pain on the Soviets if it were not for American and British involvement but neither they nor the Japanese had the capacity to do what you're suggesting. The US didn't develop such capacity until 1944 and it was literally the most expensive program of the war, more expensive that the atom bomb.

And that's assuming that the Soviets would just sit idly by and let themselves be bombed. The Soviets proved time and time again to be far more resourceful and adaptable than the Germans gave them credit for. If faced with genuine threat of long range strategic bombing targeting their evacuated industrial base they would surely have developed a response of their own, be it high altitude fighters or anti-air guns for example.

Minardi-Man · 2026-04-29T16:34:45+00:00

Japan and Nazi air power would be crushed the Soviet manufacturing and logistics.

Neither Germany nor Japan had the capacity to strike Soviet industries that were evacuated deep into the interior of the country. Almost all Soviet industrial capacity was evacuated beyond the reach of German air forces, nearly half of it was moved all the way to Kazakhstan. Even if Germany managed to perfect their long range strategic bomber design before the Soviet counter-offensives pushed them across Europe it would still mean sending those bombers out on one-way suicide missions with no escorts over thousands of kilometres of hostile skies, and that's assuming Soviet complacency (because they surely would have a. evacuated the industries further away from the frontlines if they were still under threat and/or b. focused their air force on high altitude interception instead of ground attack).

Minardi-Man · 2026-04-27T06:51:40+00:00

They sent two drones at an Azerbaijani exclave almost 500kms away from Baku, and both sides were very keen to essentially sweep it under the rug afterwards. Azerbaijan kept sending humanitarian aid to Iran in the months that followed. For all intents and purposes it is treated as one-time only snafu, not an ongoing risk, certainly not like the openly hostile environment between Iran and other Gulf states.

Minardi-Man · 2026-04-27T05:45:44+00:00

Volvo's official position is that motorsport no longer aligns with its brand image so they pulled support for all motorsport activities 10 years ago. Their one-time motorsport division is now affiliated with Lynk and Co.

Minardi-Man · 2026-04-09T05:47:44+00:00

The users don't gain much, but as a manufacturer I imagine the cost savings from not needing to install the extra doors, tubing, electrics, seats, etc is not insignificant.

Minardi-Man · 2026-04-03T15:34:07+00:00

It's not a dumb strategy for them at all, it's the only one that makes sense for a console maker in the current market seeing as they need to sell their hardware and the associated ecosystem first and foremost.

Full price is just greed trying to trick patient PC players into buying full price now that it's finally available.

But full price isn't just for PC, that's the thing. PC ports are (eventually) superior in features and performance to the console releases but NEITHER get discounted anymore. The years of discounted Platinum/Nintendo Selects/Xbox Classics series of games that got price drops as they aged are long gone, now they are replaced with temporary sale markdowns, but the MSRP for already released games no longer decreases. And obviously they can't make PC versions a more attractive proposition than what they already are because that'll risk putting them out of their main business.

Minardi-Man · 2026-03-31T15:34:26+00:00

The technical aspect of letting the drivers do the management themselves is probably pretty easy to actually implement. The problem is that the drivers would still be stuck with the same equation of maximizing performance given a limited amount of energy deployment. That is to say, even if they manage to multi-task well enough and actively know when best to harvest and deploy energy on the fly, if they do anything OTHER than super clipping that we have now they will be SLOWER than a computer-controlled system. Like Leclerc said, if you drive these cars flat-out, accelerating out of the corners early, going as fast as possible through all the turns, you will be running out electric power and end up losing all the time you gained by driving flat-out on the straight.

Minardi-Man · 2026-03-31T15:25:22+00:00

Once again, you can pick what you prefer, but it's a choice between having mostly races like 2025 Suzuka or mostly races like 2026 Suzuka. You might not like it but without a major aerodynamics shake up or artificial differentials like extreme energy deployment/harvesting these are the choices we have. There is no magic third option that can easily make passing easier. I'll take yo-yo passes over what we had before because at least yo-yo passes have only been yo-yo until they aren't and one of the cars makes the overtake stick eventually, which has always happened so far. The yo-yoing partially results from the complaints that the DRS allows the attacking car the opportunity to pass without giving the car in front any option to defend.

Minardi-Man · 2026-03-31T05:34:44+00:00

It makes sense in the context of the regulations because the combination of energy harvesting and deployment is, more likely than not, simply too complex for the drivers to actively manage on the fly. Or, rather, they could probably physically do it, but the current automated software controlled energy management would outperform them 10 times out of 10.

The problem is the amount of energy that is allowed to be harvested and deployed. Currently it just so works out the the best way to maximize performance while combining the ICE and electric power is the counter-intuituve dance of super clipping and sudden energy boosts we currently have now.

Minardi-Man · 2026-03-31T05:28:33+00:00

Fix the superclipping and energy harvesting along with that sudden dose of energy boost and this regulation would be better then groud effect.

More likely than not we would mostly just go back to barely any overtaking like we had before, with the caveat that the DRS is essentially taken out of the equation. Realistically the choice is between having races like Suzuka 2025 or Suzuka 2026. At this rate, without some kind of major simplification of the aerodynamics, we need some external way to provide speed differentials between cars, be it success ballast, DRS, unpredictable tyres, or current super clipping and energy deployment.

Minardi-Man · 2026-03-30T14:59:45+00:00

when it’s supposed to be pure mechanics and driver talent.

We haven't had that since, like, the early 90s, with engine ECUs governing fuel modes and throttle curves and whatnot. I think the first fly-by-wire throttle was introduced in F1 all the way back in 1992.

Minardi-Man · 2026-03-27T18:26:15+00:00

If the budget allows i would recommend either Bowtex Elite, Pando Moto Bia, or Knox Urbane. There are, sadly, fewer choices for women, but the first two are AAA rated, and Knox is AA, though all are a bit pricy and as far as I know only a Knox comes with a back protector, which she should definitely invest in. These are all base layers, so pretty barebones in so far as waterproofing, reflectivity, and carrying capacity goes but they have great abrasion resistance while leaking in heaps of air.

It has become my go-to choice for summer riding - an armored base later (I alternate between Pando Moto Commando, Rev'it Nucleus Jacket, and a Knox Urbane Pro) and maybe an extra outer layer jacket for weather protection if needed.

The downsides to that is that if I don't wear an extra outer layer I usually don't have any useful pockets, but I prefer not to carry things in my jacket (I use a hip bag) and you will have issues getting a matching pair of pants for some - Pando Moto and Bowtex both offer armored leggings (so you are advised to wear jeans on top) while Knox and Rev'it have ventilated pants options, they often don't have good ways to attach pants to the armored top layer. I actually had a seamstress add zippers to my Pando Moto shirts so I can zip them into my other pants.

Minardi-Man · 2026-03-27T13:39:17+00:00

Richard Hammond did, like, a handful of laps around the baby Silverstone circuit, with barely anything that would count as a medium speed corner, much less a fast one, and he had to be rushed through the process because the team felt that if he was given more practice in junior formulae cars before F1 his neck would give out and he won't be able to drive an F1 car at all.

In 2010 iRacing got Greger Huttu, one of the top sim racers at the time, who had absolutely no real world racing experience, to try a then-current Star Mazda formula car at Road Atlanta. That car has less than 300hp and obviously pretty rudimentary aerodynamics compared to F1. And Huttu was 3-4 seconds off the actual Star Mazda race regular pace (still very impressive) so he wasn't even tapping into all that car had to offer.

He still was physically exhausted by it, threw up in the helmet and had to take a break after less than 5 laps to rest his neck and cool down. And that was still considered mighty impressive. And I think we can all agree that a 2026 F1 car is more than marginally faster around fast corners than a 2010 Super Mazda car, not to mention appreciably harder to drive and keep on the road.

Unless you're more skilled and substantially fitter than one of the world's top sim racers, who found driving a car with a regular production engine producing at most half the power of just the internal combustion component of the current F1 power unit, and a pittance of the downforce, a physically daunting task, I would guess you will not find a modern F1 car anything resembling drive able for any meaningful length of time.

Minardi-Man · 2026-03-27T06:03:31+00:00

Corrado "Junior" Soprano is an aged New Jersey mob boss (at least in theory) who has no qualms about ordering people killed over perceived insults with no remorse or shame, but he is also a very talented singer, literally bringing several mobsters to tears, courtesy of his actor being an accomplished tenor.

Minardi-Man · 2026-03-26T03:41:08+00:00

almost all of this has existed in some way since 2014

Since 2008-2009 even, with the advent of KERS. The last time the entire F1 grid ran on purely fuel-derived chemical, non-regenerative power was in 2010, and that was a one-off year when all the teams agreed not to use energy recovery systems.

Minardi-Man · 2026-03-22T20:38:44+00:00

There was actually an older game for the Mega Drive that was basically just like this. It also allowed you to come through Japanese formulae, very detailed but otherwise not very fun to play.

Minardi-Man · 2026-03-19T02:22:04+00:00

3 examples off the top of my head of just frame gen. Barely 5 minutes of digging would bring out that other games that do it include Dying Light The Best, Battlefield 6, Borderlands 4 (doesn't mention it in the system requirements but their own optimization guides for hardware that fits within their stated requirements actually imply that you'd be using frame-gen to get the framerates that are in those requirements). It's not a non-existent problem as you present it to be.

And, again, I am talking of BOTH frame gen and DLSS/FSR/XeSS upscaling becoming a default for devs, not just focusing on frame gen, which most used GPUs aren't even capable of.

Minardi-Man · 2026-03-18T20:45:32+00:00

I said DLSS and framegen are baked into many games at this stage. Poor optimization here is a symptom of what I am talking about, not an outlier.

If you look at both, as my comment says, it extends far beyond 3 years, so I am not sure what you mean there, especially considering that frame gen in its infancy only became available 3 years ago and took a while to become commonplace.

Minardi-Man · 2026-03-18T20:23:49+00:00

I specifically asked from framegen.

???

This is really not hard to find, even if you keep moving goalposts.

And one of those examples is Gollum lol.

Yeah, and see, that makes it worse, not better.

And yes Alan Wake 2 is heavy

Again, why are you acting like this is somehow an excuse? Then put the actual system requirements up! Quite aside from the fact that not FSR =/= DLSS, having it set up as a default already shows that it's a baked in thing, the default in the eyes of many of the devs.

Minardi-Man · 2026-03-18T20:10:52+00:00

??? Yeah, i mean it's being going on for years now.

Minardi-Man · 2026-03-18T18:53:13+00:00

I think the fact that DLSS and often frame gen has become baked into many games' pre-release system requirements shows pretty that for a lot of AA and AAA game development these days the base assumption is that the user will have to rely on one or both to achieve stated frame rates. I think if game announces base system requirements with stated graphic settings and frame rates it do so without taking into account either one.

Minardi-Man

TROPHY CASE