Sunday, 1 November 2009

Dalby Mountain Bike Red Route Crash

This is the exact same MTB crash I had at Dalby red route this year. Lucky for me I got clear of the bike and only suffered a bruised shin (and ego). This rider suffered cracked ribs and a broken radius. NASTY! I hope it healed up OK!

Saturday, 25 July 2009

Massa accident at Budapest F1 Qualifying 2009.

Right now Felipe Massa is counting his lucky stars. He is lucky to be alive after being hit in the head at over 100MPH with a piece of suspension which had detached from the Brawn GP car of Rubens Barrichello.

The aftermath of the accident was immediately reminiscent of the fatal accident of young racer Henry Surtees in Formula two just last week, whereby the driver was instantly killed after being hit on the head by a detached wheel from a fellow racers F2 car. Massa's car left the track in a straight line, seemingly under very mild braking and certainly no steering. When the cameras took onto the scene it was clear that Massa wasn't moving and hadn't left the vehicle. It wasn't for some time after that commentators confirmed that Massa was conscious and being moved to the helipad for a helicopter ambulance ride to the nearest hospital.

Subsequent replays show a cylindrical object hitting Massa in the face and apparently knocking him out or semi-conscious before ploughing into the tyre wall at some considerable pace.

It's doubtful he will be ready for the race tomorrow, but this depends very much in the doctors verdict on the severity of his concussion.

Friday, 24 July 2009

Blogger WTF?

I tried to make two posts a couple of months ago, the Blogger FTP problem reared it's head so I gave up.

They've just randomly appeared this morning, dated in May.

I hate Blogger sometimes. I think I might give Wordpress a go!

Friday, 1 May 2009

Blogger FTP problems

AGAIN! Jesus.

The coolest YouTube video....EVER!

Thursday, 2 April 2009

Lewis and McLaren penalised - Trulli re-instated!

In a shock report today, it appears that after a further review from the race stewards, new evidence indicates that the testemonies from Lewis and McLaren don't ring true!

It seems that after listinging to the team radio broadcasts that the stewards have decided to throw the book at Lewis and McLaren F1 for unsporting conduct :

"The Stewards having considered the new elements presented to them from the 2009 Australian Formula One Grand Prix, consider that driver No 1 Lewis Hamilton and the competitor Vodafone McLaren Mercedes acted in a manner prejudicial to the conduct of the event by providing evidence deliberately misleading to the Stewards at the hearing on Sunday 29th March 2009, a breach of Article 151c of the International Sporting Code.

"Under Article 158 of the International Sporting Code the driver No 1 Lewis Hamilton and the competitor Vodafone McLaren Mercedes are excluded from the race classification for the 2009 Australian Grand Prix and the classification is amended accordingly."


It also transpires that Trulli was correct to retake his position given the behavior of Lewis's car. This except from Planet F1 explains some more :

As reported by Planet F1 this week, Trulli's mistake meant Lewis was within his rights to overtake.

Instead, believing that Lewis overtook Trulli illegally under either a yellow flag or behind the Safety Car, the Toyota team seemingly believe that it was Hamilton who was in the wrong.

Having ordered Trulli to stay in position, the Italian informed the team that he had retaken the McLaren.

Trulli, then utterly baffled by Hamilton, said in the transmission he even slowed down to let Hamilton back past but he didn't!

Toyota pitwall: "You slowed to let him pass again but he did not pass again. Ok, this is clear"

Trull: "Yes, very clear it [was] like that."


Futher to disqualifying McLaren, the stewards have now re-instated Trulli's position.

I partly feel that justice has been served, but I'm also disapointed in how quickly the usual suspects have resorted to burocracy and questionable conduct in order to secure points.

Clearly the yellow flag rule requires some attention, and for me it can be simplfied to one simple rule :

"The position a car has when entering the yellow flag is to be the same as it's position when leaving the yellow flag, unless the car is unable to continue the race".

This means cars can fall off the track and shuffle around while trying to keep their tyres warm, taking and retaking as they please, but when they are told "car in at the next lap" then should reform in the correct positions before continuing the race.

Pretty simple really.

Wednesday, 1 April 2009

Google forget to press the shift key

The observant among you may have noticed the small cockups in the latest GMail update. Usually these go unnoticed unless there is a major change to the layout, but on this occasion it's a bit more noticable.

One of the most clicked areas in GMail is the Inbox, yet somehow the lastest incarnation of GMail has been published with a lowercase letter I, whereas the other items in the list are correctly capitalised.

A small thing I know, but incredibly annoying nontheless.

A quick search for related posts on this subject eventually led to this release from Google.

Hey guys,

We've seen a number of reports from users who say that the
capitalization of various parts of their Inbox have switched to lower
case. We are working on getting this fixed as soon as possible and
apologise for the inconvenience. I'll keep you all updated!

Thanks,
Nadine

Google Mail Guide Green


Yes, well, don't let it happen again!