People should be accountable. If their PC is infected with a worm or virus which results in a large bandwidth bill, the customer is responsible to pay it. Afterall, the ISP has a bandwidth bill to pay too, and they certainly don't get a "service credit" just because your Windoze box has W32@Klez.
In addition, Making the people responsible for their personal worm/virus traffic would make folks would be more proactive about virus prevention and more cautious of which sites they visit. This IMHO is a Good Thing.
Another potential positive would be that people might start wondering "Why does my friend/relative who runs Linux never complain about viruses?" and "Gee with all these viruses that only affect microsoft products, maybe I should look elsewhere for my software needs."
At least in my state, you are responsible for your car's emissions. If your car is polluting above the state limit, regardless of the reason, it is your responsibility to fix it. They don't care what the reason is for your excessive emissions, whether it was rust, hungry chipmunks, incompetant redneck mechanics, or just a poorly built ford suv. And they have a system of mandatory repairs and/or fines in place to enforce this. This is a Good Thing.
With $80M down the toilet, it's too late for hope. What they need is a winning lottery ticket.
Besides the fact that I agree with less than 5% of what they write, anyone with half an economic clue will agree that it's time for them to throw in the towel.
Actually, you are incorrect. The world is composed of two things -- FACT and FICTION. If you don't know the FACT, you could very well be believing FICTION. It is completely illogical to believe you know the answers to things that yield incomplete information -- especially religion -- and therefore make a "choice". It is illogical to choose. For the record, if we had complete information about the realm of religion, there would only be ONE CORRECT RELIGION. That means that EVERY OTHER RELIGION IS WRONG. So quite frankly, your view -- which millions of other people share -- is on shaky ground from the very start, and borders on insane.
Sorry pal, wrong again. The world is not filled with "fact or fiction". For instance, I know that a flame is hot. I do not need to put my hand into it to learn of this first hand. I can learn through the teachings of others that this is so.
Actually, I just laid out a rational, logical argument that argues why religious belief is irrational and illogical. Go figure!
Wrong again bud. You laid out your personal opinion which happens to be not based on anything at all.
Perhaps I realize that I *don't* know the answer, and have realized that it is irresponsible, irrational, immoral, and illogical to blindly believe something based on very, very incomplete information.
You are mistaken, again. There is a big difference between faith and "blindly believing". In addition, religon is not based solely on faith. It's also based on historical documents and real historical people. Do documents and people not fall within the realm of fact?
How you interact with other people is based on your belief system. If your belief system is unsound, your interactions with other people -- even if they result in the correct action -- are still being done for the wrong reason. Doing the right thing for the wrong reason is bad. Doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons is even worse. Therefore, acting irrationally on other people is unfair to them.
This is an incorrect assumption. The way I interact with others may be influenced by my religous beliefs, but is certainly not because of them. You do not have a firm graps on the principles of cause and effect.
It is obvious I have put more thought into this than you ever have.
It is obvious that you have a deep rooted blind faith in atheism, therefore you are the one acting irrationally. My religous beliefs stem from facts while yours stem from "blind faith".
It was brought up to illustrate the presence of religon. No one is telling you what to believe or not believe. What you are being told is to respect the beliefs of others, and respect the presence of said beliefs.
It's kind of like a questionable magazine. If you don't like it don't subscribe!. It's quite simple. but you are in the wrong if you prevent others from subscribing, or if you say that people are "wrong" for doing so.
An older dual proc board I used to have was the Abit BP6. Dual celerons were cool! Anyhow, it was a large board in a small case, and while installing a very long CDROM drive, The back of the drive popped 3 or 4 capicators off the mobo (they were mounted on the front edge of the board for whatever reason). It worked fine and I used it for another two years without incident!
Another one is a 386DX25 I used to have. It had 8 megs of ram - but this was before 30 pin SIMMS came out... It was 8 megs of individual socketed ram chips on the mobo. Anyhow, It was attached to a monster AT power supply and was sitting on a table (no case). One day, the power supply went with sparks and smoke, as did some of the capicators on the mobo. I put a new PS on, and the board booted just fine! Amazing!
IBM and HP/Compaq make rack mounted servers that have a service processor that allow you to access the system at the BIOS level remotely.
HP/UX boxes also have a service processor that has a built in web server. You can power on/off your machines remotely over the web from your web-enabled cell phone. And it's all vendor supported stuff that's been around for years, not some silly hack. Having used both the HP and the Compaq solutions, I can tell you that they both work very well.
If you must stick with a tinker-toy x86 box, have a look at www.realweasel.com for a nice text mode remote service processor that's pretty inexpensive.
Freedom of religion is absolutely ridiculous. Millions of people with hundreds of (sometimes drastically) different belief systems cannot co-exist peacefully for any length of time. Different beliefs, esp. those as deeply-rooted (read: irrational) as religious beliefs invariably get forced upon others, etc. etc.
Your statement is contradictory. If people of a given nation have Freedom of Religon, (as we do in the US) then they are not subjected to other beliefs being forced upon them. That is the nature of "Freedom of Religon". Secondly, there is no reason why people of different religons cannot peacfully coexist. Have a look at the US. That is one of the premises on which the nation was founded. There are members of various Christian sects, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Mormons, and Atheists all peacefully coexisting. The only interruption to this religous peace is intollerant extremists (e.g. the KKK), and intollerant (read: evil) religons like some of the Islamic sects.
Any religion that professes to know the truth is automatically wrong. The only correct religion with the knowledge we have is "agnostic". To follow anything else is irrational, illogical, and quite frankly unfair to everybody you interact with.
This statement is in quite bad taste, and is just plain incorrect. Whatever religon you believe in is the correct one for you. If you choose not to believe in any religon, that is also your choice. But to say that anyone who has religous beliefs is irrational and illogical is just plain ignorant. Perhaps it is you who is simply uneducated in religons of the world, hence your abstination from beliefs.
Not sure where you pulled "quite frankly unfair to everybody you interact with" but it is this ignorance and buffoonery that causes religous tension. I suggest you spend some time in the religous section of a library simply for the puspose of educating yourself in a subject which you are obviously misinformed.
Food for thought: Assuming you are in the US, the money in your pocket right now says "In God we Trust".
I'm not even sure why I even responded to your obvious flamebait.
To take this even further, supposing one WANTS to give up his/her freedom of speech for something which that person thinks is more valuable, would people like you let them?
I certainly would let them. That is their choice to make. However in Iraq, Iran, SA, do you honestly believe that (in recent times) the citizens have been offered this choice?
I would be the happiest to see American Culture as a whole being adopted throughout the world
Speaking as an American, I do not want this to occur. Nations should maintain their own cultures. There is no one "best" culture in the world. What I would like to see is democracy, capitalism, and various personal freedoms (speech, religon, etc) effected to all the nations. These are ideals that people of all cultures deserve, and should have.
This "waffle iron" design which lacks pins is old news to the DEC/Compaq/HP Alpha processor team. They have been using this packaging for almost a year now in production systems.
Talk of a lack of freedom to speak, to assemble together peacefully , to practice ones own religion and Burkhas (Veils) for women -I would agree. Then again thats their culture, that is the way they have evolved.
No - That's the way their manipulative rulers have caused it to evolve.
One cannot judge a culture qualitatively or through comparisons. More often than not , cultures are there in the first place because they serve the needs of the society in that area - the needs differ from place to place.
True, however do you not believe that humans everywhere should have certain fundamental rights? Such as the freedom of speech, the freedom to assemble peacefully, or the freedom to elect their own leaders? I think they should.
and you wonder why Islamic fundamentalists say the same of Americans.
Actually, they say the same of Americans because they are highly intolerant of other cultures and religons.
I would know, I've been to Saudi Arabia and seen this intolerance first hand. Ever been to a shopping mall in SA? They typically have a government kiosk in the center which speaks of the US, Capitalism, and Christians in a most poisonous manner. Quite ironic considering their malls are populated with American brand stores (e.g. The Gap, Nike, etc.)
Pioneer 10, and other satellites of that era, worked far beyond what they were intended, and did a darn good job (and then some) at what they did. Pioneer 10, you did good. May you rest in peace. A job well done.
Now it's confirmed... They really "don't build 'em like they used to."
At least they aren't sending out subscription CD's (a la AOL) by the millions.
If you figure the average response to a bulk mailing is less than one percent, that's a whole lot of CD's that AOL is filling our landfills with.
I think there should be a law about the type of junk mail (physical) that can be sent. I 'spose I could just write "return to sender" on it and drop it in a mailbox.
95% of enjoying a sport is understanding the game well enough to see the nine things that must happen in order for your team to prevail in the next 15 seconds.
Agreed.
That said, Soccer is effing boring.
To each, their own. I find baseball and american football about as amusing as watching grass grow. I encourage you to learn a bit about soccer strategy and go watch a game. You'll soon be able to pick out "the nine things" and you'll see that it's much more involved than a bunch of folks kicking a ball around.
American Football is 22 guys getting in a fight 100 times a game. There's absolutely nothing boring about that.
While soccer is definitely has less physical contact than football, there are frequent contact situations. Often they are bloody, remember the players wear no pads or helmet. What's boring about american football is how slow the game progresses. 9 seconds of action followed by two old fat guys who talk about it for 3 minutes. I prefer my action continous - not 9 seconds at a time. (Probably why I also find drag racing to be so uninteresting)
You're mistaking watching for driving. Without the wrecks in the first 199.9 laps, crossing the line at the end is the only thing to see, and that takes a millisecond these days.
True, my analogy was flawed. Crossing the line is definitely not the only thing to see. There's a tremendous amount of strategy in the race itself. Too bad nascar tracks are such a boring oval that it doesn't provide much in the way of spectator excitement. Try watching a race that's held on a long track with many twists and hair-pin turns, with cars that have many hundreds of horsepower. That's a good show! Have a look at GT Class Lemans racing, Rally, and Touring Cup. Then you'll easily pickup the "nine things in 15 seconds" that the drivers must do when they are on a Real race track instead of a boring oval.
The higher accident rate in NASCAR as compared with other kinds of racing is due to two things. 1. They race in large packs because of the rules limiting the differences between the vehicles and because of the simple course design. 2. The vehicles are domed, which means they generate lift over their roofs.
1. The skill of the driver should differentiate them. Why then in the first IROC race in the '70's (which used all Porsche 911's) did they not stay in a pack and wreck each other? Is a Porsche 911 not domed in the roof? It generated sufficient downforce (even without a rear wing) to take it to nascar race speeds. Even if the Nascar cars have poor downforce, the drivers should be able to handle their cars and race them without running into other cars. Why the hell do they bump into each other so much? Seems kind of silly to me.
Ever seen what happens when one loses the suction from its airdams? They fly farther than the Wright Brothers' first powered flight, by a ton. And then start rolling and throwing major components everywhere.
Yes, Formula 1 cars do the same thing. But I'm not a big fan of F1. The difference with nascar is that all the fans cheer as soon as a wreck occurs! In all other racing types, the crowd goes dead quiet until the driver signals he's OK. Then everyone cheers. Nascar fans are there for the wrecks. Real race fans watch for the competition.
Techies don't enjoy the races in the same way that the generic NASCAR fan does. Techies pay attention to the aerodynamics and resource management.
Agreed. Why then would a techie watch cars that don't have very good aerodynamics? (you said so yourself)
Again. Soccer is boring. There's no way around that. The game is played virtually the same by preadolescents and professionals. Opportunities for excitement come hours apart
Is american football, baseball, or golf played any different by people of different age? No, the rules are the same. Thats a given. Watch some World Cup soccer instead of the elementary school practice and you'll see plenty of excitement. Perhaps that's why Soccer is the favorite sport of more humans on the globe than any other sport.
911's used primitive air-cooling until a few years ago
Hardly primitive. 911's had the most efficient air cooling system of any air-cooled engine. They provided an incredible volume of air with extreme reliability. I prefer this elegant simplicity (which is why I drive a '97 911 among other things). Why mess with radiators, hoses, water pumps and coolant if you don't have to?
They only recently switched to watercooling on their street cars, although all their race cars had been using it since the '70's. Also FYI, all Porsche 911 and race cars that use water, only watercool the cylinder heads. No water flows around the cylinders which is why the 911 still doesnt use/need a head gasket.
As an example of the effectiveness of their air cooling, the Porsche 917/12 race car (of 1970?) was a 5 liter air-cooled flat 12 with twin turbos. It produced over 1200 horsepower and had a top speed around 250 mph. It also featured legendary reliability and won many races.
OHV has better low-end torque, is more compact, and is more reliable due to the lower speeds and lack of a convoluted timing chain/belt system.
Actually this incorrect. The better low-end torque that you refer to is due to the increased valve lift that OHV can provide vs. a "traditional" OHC engine. A modern OHC engine can produce just as much lift, as well as have variable timing, and even variable lift! Have a look at the Porsche Variocam and the BMW Vanos systems.
More compact, again relative to a "traditional" OHC engine. Have a look at the V8 engine used in the new Audi S4. It about 2/3 the size of a traditional V8 - it fits into the space a standard V6. Also the Volkswagen W8 engine used in the current Passat is extremely compact using four banks of 2 cylinders. It is also smaller than most V6's!
More reliable is a very shaky argument. Less moving parts certainly increases reliability, however that isn't the only factor. The Porsche 911 engine is one of the most reliable engines in the world, requiring little to no maintenance and being able to log hundreds of thousands of miles. As another real life example, I have a 1985 Audi 4000 quattro. It has a five cylinder OHC engine. My car has 239k miles on it, and it runs like new. Doesn't burn or leak a single drop of oil (and I use 0W-30). My girlfriend drives the same car but she has an '84. It has 168k miles. Same level of reliability, and tight as a drum.
We've been there and done that OHC thing.
Americans make the least expensive V8 engines on the planet (by a wide margin), but they are certainly not the most reliable or most powerful. For that my friend, you need go to Europe and grab yourself a BMW M3, Audi S4, etc. etc.
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People should be accountable. If their PC is infected with a worm or virus which results in a large bandwidth bill, the customer is responsible to pay it. Afterall, the ISP has a bandwidth bill to pay too, and they certainly don't get a "service credit" just because your Windoze box has W32@Klez.
In addition, Making the people responsible for their personal worm/virus traffic would make folks would be more proactive about virus prevention and more cautious of which sites they visit. This IMHO is a Good Thing.
Another potential positive would be that people might start wondering "Why does my friend/relative who runs Linux never complain about viruses?" and "Gee with all these viruses that only affect microsoft products, maybe I should look elsewhere for my software needs."
At least in my state, you are responsible for your car's emissions. If your car is polluting above the state limit, regardless of the reason, it is your responsibility to fix it. They don't care what the reason is for your excessive emissions, whether it was rust, hungry chipmunks, incompetant redneck mechanics, or just a poorly built ford suv. And they have a system of mandatory repairs and/or fines in place to enforce this. This is a Good Thing.
So thats why I haven't received any email today!
I really hope they make it.
With $80M down the toilet, it's too late for hope. What they need is a winning lottery ticket.
Besides the fact that I agree with less than 5% of what they write, anyone with half an economic clue will agree that it's time for them to throw in the towel.
Just my 2 cents.
Actually, you are incorrect. The world is composed of two things -- FACT and FICTION. If you don't know the FACT, you could very well be believing FICTION. It is completely illogical to believe you know the answers to things that yield incomplete information -- especially religion -- and therefore make a "choice". It is illogical to choose. For the record, if we had complete information about the realm of religion, there would only be ONE CORRECT RELIGION. That means that EVERY OTHER RELIGION IS WRONG. So quite frankly, your view -- which millions of other people share -- is on shaky ground from the very start, and borders on insane.
Sorry pal, wrong again. The world is not filled with "fact or fiction". For instance, I know that a flame is hot. I do not need to put my hand into it to learn of this first hand. I can learn through the teachings of others that this is so.
Actually, I just laid out a rational, logical argument that argues why religious belief is irrational and illogical. Go figure!
Wrong again bud. You laid out your personal opinion which happens to be not based on anything at all.
Perhaps I realize that I *don't* know the answer, and have realized that it is irresponsible, irrational, immoral, and illogical to blindly believe something based on very, very incomplete information.
You are mistaken, again. There is a big difference between faith and "blindly believing". In addition, religon is not based solely on faith. It's also based on historical documents and real historical people. Do documents and people not fall within the realm of fact?
How you interact with other people is based on your belief system. If your belief system is unsound, your interactions with other people -- even if they result in the correct action -- are still being done for the wrong reason. Doing the right thing for the wrong reason is bad. Doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons is even worse. Therefore, acting irrationally on other people is unfair to them.
This is an incorrect assumption. The way I interact with others may be influenced by my religous beliefs, but is certainly not because of them. You do not have a firm graps on the principles of cause and effect.
It is obvious I have put more thought into this than you ever have.
It is obvious that you have a deep rooted blind faith in atheism, therefore you are the one acting irrationally. My religous beliefs stem from facts while yours stem from "blind faith".
Now who's on shaky ground?
I don't understand why you brought that up.
It was brought up to illustrate the presence of religon. No one is telling you what to believe or not believe. What you are being told is to respect the beliefs of others, and respect the presence of said beliefs.
It's kind of like a questionable magazine. If you don't like it don't subscribe!. It's quite simple. but you are in the wrong if you prevent others from subscribing, or if you say that people are "wrong" for doing so.
An older dual proc board I used to have was the Abit BP6. Dual celerons were cool! Anyhow, it was a large board in a small case, and while installing a very long CDROM drive, The back of the drive popped 3 or 4 capicators off the mobo (they were mounted on the front edge of the board for whatever reason). It worked fine and I used it for another two years without incident!
Another one is a 386DX25 I used to have. It had 8 megs of ram - but this was before 30 pin SIMMS came out... It was 8 megs of individual socketed ram chips on the mobo. Anyhow, It was attached to a monster AT power supply and was sitting on a table (no case). One day, the power supply went with sparks and smoke, as did some of the capicators on the mobo. I put a new PS on, and the board booted just fine! Amazing!
IBM and HP/Compaq make rack mounted servers that have a service processor that allow you to access the system at the BIOS level remotely.
HP/UX boxes also have a service processor that has a built in web server. You can power on/off your machines remotely over the web from your web-enabled cell phone. And it's all vendor supported stuff that's been around for years, not some silly hack. Having used both the HP and the Compaq solutions, I can tell you that they both work very well.
If you must stick with a tinker-toy x86 box, have a look at www.realweasel.com for a nice text mode remote service processor that's pretty inexpensive.
Freedom of religion is absolutely ridiculous. Millions of people with hundreds of (sometimes drastically) different belief systems cannot co-exist peacefully for any length of time. Different beliefs, esp. those as deeply-rooted (read: irrational) as religious beliefs invariably get forced upon others, etc. etc.
Your statement is contradictory. If people of a given nation have Freedom of Religon, (as we do in the US) then they are not subjected to other beliefs being forced upon them. That is the nature of "Freedom of Religon". Secondly, there is no reason why people of different religons cannot peacfully coexist. Have a look at the US. That is one of the premises on which the nation was founded. There are members of various Christian sects, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Mormons, and Atheists all peacefully coexisting. The only interruption to this religous peace is intollerant extremists (e.g. the KKK), and intollerant (read: evil) religons like some of the Islamic sects.
Any religion that professes to know the truth is automatically wrong. The only correct religion with the knowledge we have is "agnostic". To follow anything else is irrational, illogical, and quite frankly unfair to everybody you interact with.
This statement is in quite bad taste, and is just plain incorrect. Whatever religon you believe in is the correct one for you. If you choose not to believe in any religon, that is also your choice. But to say that anyone who has religous beliefs is irrational and illogical is just plain ignorant. Perhaps it is you who is simply uneducated in religons of the world, hence your abstination from beliefs.
Not sure where you pulled "quite frankly unfair to everybody you interact with" but it is this ignorance and buffoonery that causes religous tension. I suggest you spend some time in the religous section of a library simply for the puspose of educating yourself in a subject which you are obviously misinformed.
Food for thought: Assuming you are in the US, the money in your pocket right now says "In God we Trust".
I'm not even sure why I even responded to your obvious flamebait.
To take this even further, supposing one WANTS to give up his/her freedom of speech for something which that person thinks is more valuable, would people like you let them?
I certainly would let them. That is their choice to make. However in Iraq, Iran, SA, do you honestly believe that (in recent times) the citizens have been offered this choice?
I would be the happiest to see American Culture as a whole being adopted throughout the world
Speaking as an American, I do not want this to occur. Nations should maintain their own cultures. There is no one "best" culture in the world. What I would like to see is democracy, capitalism, and various personal freedoms (speech, religon, etc) effected to all the nations. These are ideals that people of all cultures deserve, and should have.
This "waffle iron" design which lacks pins is old news to the DEC/Compaq/HP Alpha processor team. They have been using this packaging for almost a year now in production systems.
Talk of a lack of freedom to speak, to assemble together peacefully , to practice ones own religion and Burkhas (Veils) for women -I would agree. Then again thats their culture, that is the way they have evolved.
No - That's the way their manipulative rulers have caused it to evolve.
One cannot judge a culture qualitatively or through comparisons. More often than not , cultures are there in the first place because they serve the needs of the society in that area - the needs differ from place to place.
True, however do you not believe that humans everywhere should have certain fundamental rights? Such as the freedom of speech, the freedom to assemble peacefully, or the freedom to elect their own leaders? I think they should.
and you wonder why Islamic fundamentalists say the same of Americans.
Actually, they say the same of Americans because they are highly intolerant of other cultures and religons.
I would know, I've been to Saudi Arabia and seen this intolerance first hand. Ever been to a shopping mall in SA? They typically have a government kiosk in the center which speaks of the US, Capitalism, and Christians in a most poisonous manner. Quite ironic considering their malls are populated with American brand stores (e.g. The Gap, Nike, etc.)
I was thinking more along the lines of "case mods" to battery operated sexual devices. No more scratchy protruding LED's! Yay!
The prior art here goes back to the BBS Days (Yeah! for SysOps!).
One could argue that it goes back as far as the old serial teletype terminals.
I doubt seriously that this would stand up in any courtroom.
Pioneer 10, and other satellites of that era, worked far beyond what they were intended, and did a darn good job (and then some) at what they did. Pioneer 10, you did good. May you rest in peace. A job well done.
Now it's confirmed... They really "don't build 'em like they used to."
"The check's in the mail"
-Bill
At least they aren't sending out subscription CD's (a la AOL) by the millions.
If you figure the average response to a bulk mailing is less than one percent, that's a whole lot of CD's that AOL is filling our landfills with.
I think there should be a law about the type of junk mail (physical) that can be sent. I 'spose I could just write "return to sender" on it and drop it in a mailbox.
As someone said: (I don't remember whom)
If the brain were simple enough for man to understand, man would be too simple to understand it.
Either that or take all of our junk faxes and fax them to him!
You can use a stick to beat a spammer.. however, you can't do it in small claims court, and you must be a fast runner...
;-)
No need to be a fast runner if it's a big enough stick
The hundreds of thousands (millions?) of dollars that public schools pay to license MS software could be put to better use. Linux can enable this.
Then there are the benefits of training tomorrow's tech workers in an open software environment...
95% of enjoying a sport is understanding the game well enough to see the nine things that must happen in order for your team to prevail in the next 15 seconds.
Agreed.
That said, Soccer is effing boring.
To each, their own. I find baseball and american football about as amusing as watching grass grow. I encourage you to learn a bit about soccer strategy and go watch a game. You'll soon be able to pick out "the nine things" and you'll see that it's much more involved than a bunch of folks kicking a ball around.
American Football is 22 guys getting in a fight 100 times a game. There's absolutely nothing boring about that.
While soccer is definitely has less physical contact than football, there are frequent contact situations. Often they are bloody, remember the players wear no pads or helmet. What's boring about american football is how slow the game progresses. 9 seconds of action followed by two old fat guys who talk about it for 3 minutes. I prefer my action continous - not 9 seconds at a time. (Probably why I also find drag racing to be so uninteresting)
You're mistaking watching for driving. Without the wrecks in the first 199.9 laps, crossing the line at the end is the only thing to see, and that takes a millisecond these days.
True, my analogy was flawed. Crossing the line is definitely not the only thing to see. There's a tremendous amount of strategy in the race itself. Too bad nascar tracks are such a boring oval that it doesn't provide much in the way of spectator excitement. Try watching a race that's held on a long track with many twists and hair-pin turns, with cars that have many hundreds of horsepower. That's a good show! Have a look at GT Class Lemans racing, Rally, and Touring Cup. Then you'll easily pickup the "nine things in 15 seconds" that the drivers must do when they are on a Real race track instead of a boring oval.
The higher accident rate in NASCAR as compared with other kinds of racing is due to two things. 1. They race in large packs because of the rules limiting the differences between the vehicles and because of the simple course design. 2. The vehicles are domed, which means they generate lift over their roofs.
1. The skill of the driver should differentiate them. Why then in the first IROC race in the '70's (which used all Porsche 911's) did they not stay in a pack and wreck each other? Is a Porsche 911 not domed in the roof? It generated sufficient downforce (even without a rear wing) to take it to nascar race speeds. Even if the Nascar cars have poor downforce, the drivers should be able to handle their cars and race them without running into other cars. Why the hell do they bump into each other so much? Seems kind of silly to me.
Ever seen what happens when one loses the suction from its airdams? They fly farther than the Wright Brothers' first powered flight, by a ton. And then start rolling and throwing major components everywhere.
Yes, Formula 1 cars do the same thing. But I'm not a big fan of F1. The difference with nascar is that all the fans cheer as soon as a wreck occurs! In all other racing types, the crowd goes dead quiet until the driver signals he's OK. Then everyone cheers. Nascar fans are there for the wrecks. Real race fans watch for the competition.
Techies don't enjoy the races in the same way that the generic NASCAR fan does. Techies pay attention to the aerodynamics and resource management.
Agreed. Why then would a techie watch cars that don't have very good aerodynamics? (you said so yourself)
Again. Soccer is boring. There's no way around that. The game is played virtually the same by preadolescents and professionals. Opportunities for excitement come hours apart
Is american football, baseball, or golf played any different by people of different age? No, the rules are the same. Thats a given. Watch some World Cup soccer instead of the elementary school practice and you'll see plenty of excitement. Perhaps that's why Soccer is the favorite sport of more humans on the globe than any other sport.
911's used primitive air-cooling until a few years ago
Hardly primitive. 911's had the most efficient air cooling system of any air-cooled engine. They provided an incredible volume of air with extreme reliability. I prefer this elegant simplicity (which is why I drive a '97 911 among other things). Why mess with radiators, hoses, water pumps and coolant if you don't have to?
They only recently switched to watercooling on their street cars, although all their race cars had been using it since the '70's. Also FYI, all Porsche 911 and race cars that use water, only watercool the cylinder heads. No water flows around the cylinders which is why the 911 still doesnt use/need a head gasket.
As an example of the effectiveness of their air cooling, the Porsche 917/12 race car (of 1970?) was a 5 liter air-cooled flat 12 with twin turbos. It produced over 1200 horsepower and had a top speed around 250 mph. It also featured legendary reliability and won many races.
OHV has better low-end torque, is more compact, and is more reliable due to the lower speeds and lack of a convoluted timing chain/belt system.
Actually this incorrect. The better low-end torque that you refer to is due to the increased valve lift that OHV can provide vs. a "traditional" OHC engine. A modern OHC engine can produce just as much lift, as well as have variable timing, and even variable lift! Have a look at the Porsche Variocam and the BMW Vanos systems.
More compact, again relative to a "traditional" OHC engine. Have a look at the V8 engine used in the new Audi S4. It about 2/3 the size of a traditional V8 - it fits into the space a standard V6. Also the Volkswagen W8 engine used in the current Passat is extremely compact using four banks of 2 cylinders. It is also smaller than most V6's!
More reliable is a very shaky argument. Less moving parts certainly increases reliability, however that isn't the only factor. The Porsche 911 engine is one of the most reliable engines in the world, requiring little to no maintenance and being able to log hundreds of thousands of miles. As another real life example, I have a 1985 Audi 4000 quattro. It has a five cylinder OHC engine. My car has 239k miles on it, and it runs like new. Doesn't burn or leak a single drop of oil (and I use 0W-30). My girlfriend drives the same car but she has an '84. It has 168k miles. Same level of reliability, and tight as a drum.
We've been there and done that OHC thing.
Americans make the least expensive V8 engines on the planet (by a wide margin), but they are certainly not the most reliable or most powerful. For that my friend, you need go to Europe and grab yourself a BMW M3, Audi S4, etc. etc.