F1 Rejects - the best of the worst

There's a number of Formula 1 websites that I read, but a warm favourite is F1 Rejects. This is a site where they have a special interest in the least successful drivers in Formula 1 history. It's a true affection though and they don't mock the drivers, as they say themselves:

"...we know that even the worst driver on our site has bucketloads more skill than we could ever hope to have, and represent the best of the best in the international motor racing scene.
Let us take this opportunity to state that this site is about F1's least successful drivers - not those whom we consider to be its least talented. There is a BIG difference."

I've got a real soft spot for several drivers who have never troubled a podium, such as Takuma Sato and Eppie Wietzes so it's great that F1 Rejects caters to the fans of the bottom runs and provide profiles, articles and insights into these unsung heroes of F1.

As well as a lively forum, the guys who run the site do a semi-regular podcast which is a terrific antidote to all the very serious coverage out there.

The main site is here:
http://www.f1rejects.com/

The forum is here:
http://www.f1rejects.com/forum/index.php

The podcast link is here:
http://www.f1rejects.com/podcasts/

Alnwick Olympic Flame Day 2

Day two of the Olympic flame in Alnwick and it was early in the morning and raining quite hard. But the older generation were more than happy (well, one of them was) to carry the torch.

PC Awesome and the Alnwick Olympic Torch

The Olympic Torch visited Alnwick yesterday and passed directly outside my house. There were a lot of vehicles, cyclists, PR people oh and some guy carrying the torch itself. I didn't think much of any of them to be honest, but there was one guy who I simply loved and that's PC Awesome, the world's best motorcycle cop.

The Moscow Metro is really beautiful

The London Underground isn't so pretty - genuine sign I found at Bank station

You may have heard about how pretty the Moscow Metro system is, you may have seen a couple of photographs, but I finally managed to find a decent set that really shows what it's like.

DayZ - How to fix a helicopter, the easy way

If you've been playing DayZ for while now, you're probably keen to get your hands on a helicopter. It seems like a pretty daunting task as there's a huge number of parts you need. You need several panes of windscreen glass, scrap metal, a rotor assembly and about thirty(!) jerry cans of fuel. So when you find a helicopter, how on earth can you get all that stuff to the chopper before some toolboy pops up and shoots you in the head?

It was like that when I got here. Honest.

The first problem you have is actually finding a helicopter. It seems that some servers don't spawn vehicles, no matter what, due to some kind of bug. But if you can get on a server where vehicles do spawn, you can possibly find them in some of the locations listed on the wiki. Vehicles don't necessarily spawn at all those locations all the time, but you've maybe got a better chance of finding them there than just wandering around hoping to bump into one.

http://dayzwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Vehicles_and_Aircraft

There are two helicopter types that can be found and only one of them is fixable. Check the rotor blades. The grey helicopter in the picture above has bent rotors and can never be fixed. You need the green kind with intact rotor blades.




I found this video, made by a Cockney* zombie that explains the easy way of fixing a helicopter. You can actually fix a chopper with only a few parts that can all fit in a single backpack. This method won't restore a helicopter to full showroom condition, but it will get it patched up enough for you to fly it out of there to a safer location where you can then take your time completing it.

* Zombie only sounds Cockney if you're from America or have a serious head injury

My Day Z Story

Today's post was written by Lex, a long-time online game partner of mine and a jolly good chum too. And let me tell you, you do not want to be in his gunsights...

I hear gunshots.  I think to myself “fuck”.  I’m in a terrible place and am horribly exposed.  The shots come closer and closer and then I see him, a lone gunman being chased by a horde of zombies.  All he can do is fire wildly into them hoping to take as many of them down as he can.  As I’m looking at him through my sniper rifles’ scope I can see that he’s bleeding massively.  This brave Survivor sees me and turns to run for his life.  I pull the trigger.

Who are you?

You're British, your web browser is Chrome and you own a mobile phone running Android.

Sauber cut an F1 car in half to give a cutaway cross-section view

The Sauber F1 team have spent the last two years cutting an F1 car in half. It's quite amazing to see a cross-section of the whole car although they do skip over the engine and gearbox. They also get Sergio Perez in to show just how the driver sits inside it.