F1 on SPEED!: Australia 2011

The cars have been delivered.

The crew are busy setting up the track.

That can mean only one thing... Formula 1 is back!  And if F1 is back, that too can only mean one thing... F1Update! is back!  Welcome to the first installment of F1 on SPEED! for the 2011 season.  I'm your host and resident fanatic, Wonderduck, and it'll be my pleasure to guide you through this 18-possibly-19-race year with the usual amount of humor, aplomb and maybe even a pinch of knowledge along the way. 

As you know if you've been reading the off-season reports here at The Pond, the first race of the year was supposed to have been held at Bahrain two weekends ago.  The Bahrainian people had something to say about that (and a few other things too), and the race was postponed and probably canceled.  That means that Australia, long the traditional first race of the year and only recently displaced by oil money, really will be the first race of the season, and there's no better place for it in my opinion. 

Let's take a look at the trackmap for the Albert Park Grand Prix Circuit, Melbourne:

Running around a man-made lake in the center of Albert Park, the course is made up primarily by public roads.  Technically this makes it a street circuit, but it doesn't much have the feel of one.  It's best to think of Melbourne as a purpose-built course that just happens to have street cars drive on it every day. 

It's generally considered a fast track, but the shortage of traditional straightaways does make it something of a challenge to pass on.  The drivers generally like the course, often saying that it's neither challenging or boring to drive.  Except when it rains; then it becomes something of a nightmare.  The painted lines on the asphalt that designate lanes during the rest of the year (and earned the circuit the nickname "God's Slotcar Track") become quite slippery in the wet, a hazard not experienced anywhere else save Monte Carlo. 

Combined with the rather close armco barriers, it becomes quite easy to break your car with a moment's lapse in concentration.  Last season the circuit was pretty much smooth, though some ripples were beginning to form in some braking zones.  No surprise really, as the last resurfacing was nearly 15 years ago. 

As with everything else at this place, the asphalt is neither particularly abrasive or easy on tires.  Pirelli is probably very happy with this being the first race of the year; it'll give them a great baseline to work from for the rest of the season. 

All in all, it's great to have F1 back.  As usual, the good folks at SPEED will be bringing us their usual sterling coverage... with some bonuses!

Coverage begins online at SPEEDtv.com on Thursday evening from 830pm to 10pm, with a streaming feed of 1st Practice.  Practice 2 will be broadcast live on SPEED early Friday morning, from 1230am to 210am.  That'll be the first time the Legendary Announce Team will be providing commentary, by the way... all streaming events are strictly ambient sound.  3rd Practice will be streaming from 10pm to 11pm on Friday.

The all-important Qualifying session is plausibly live early Saturday morning, from 1am to 230am.  It'll be interesting to see if HRT, the only team not to have turned any off-season testing laps, will be caught by the "new" 107% rule, and the only place to see it will be on SPEED.

Finally, the first race of the 2011 season, the Grand Prix of Australia, will be televised LIVE early Sunday morning, from 1230am to 3am.  For those of you whose circadian rhythms don't work that way, there will be a replay on Monday, from 12noon to 230pm as well.

Of course, the first F1Update! of the year will go up sometime Sunday!  We'll see you then, we'll see you here!

UPDATE: Of course, all times are Pond Central.  If you're in Oregon, subtract two hours.  Denver, subtract an hour.  If you're in New York, move.  If you're in London, watch the BBC.

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Rio Rainbow Gate! ep11

Say what you want about Rio Rainbow Gate! (and you'd best believe I will), say that it's nothing more than weak fanservicey crepe, say there's no characterization and a lame plot, say the artwork is poor to meh... you can say all those things, and I'd agree with you.  However, RRG! earned a place in anime history this week.  Following the horrible earthquake and tsunami of March 11th, most shows currently airing were either postponed until a future date or were broadcast with half the screen covered by governmental messages and warnings, as one would expect with a disaster of such wide-ranging scope and size.  But RRG! was one of the very few series to run at its normal time this week, with a screen clear of notifications.  Either the Japanese Authorities thought that what the nation of Japan really needed after such tragedy, such misery, was a brain-dead anime about young busty gamblers in stupid situations... or RRG! only airs on a small UHF station in a tiny fishing village in the far southwest of Kyushu.  Either way, it actually occurred and that's got to count for something in the grand scheme of things, right?  So it's got that going for it.  Which is nice.  It's probably the only way that RRG! is going to be remembered.  Except by me.  By me, this putrid mess will be remembered as a great source of elemental pain and mental anguish.  It tortures me.  Even with the worst natural disaster Japan has suffered since the 1920s, it still aired on time, which meant that I had to suffer through watching it as if nothing had changed.  Can't even give me a week off can you, RRG!?  No, you're too much the sadist for that.  "Production Staff, we've got one person out there reviewing us.  One.  Well, we'll make that one person feel such agony that it'll be worth it for us."  Bastards.  Have you no pity, RRG!?  Have you no shame?  No?  Fine.  But let the results be upon your head.

We open Episode 11 some amount of time after the ending of Episode 10.  The casino is quietly buzzing with happy people losing money, as casinos are wont to do.  Then interlopers are seen in the lobby.

As the theme song to The Magnificent Seven begins to play in the background, Elmer Bernstein begins to spin in his grave Our Heroes, determined looks upon their faces, gaze upon what will soon become their hunting grounds.  Their goal?  Nothing less than to win enough to break Casino Island and buy it back from evil Cartia's clutches.

Men want them.  Women want to be them.  They are...

...The Usual Suspects.  I guess they decided that the bunnygirl outfits weren't classy enough.  It's almost like the Production Staff read my complaints about the idiocy of Our Heroines wearing their old uniforms even though they were no longer employed by a casino.

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RRG! Loves Me

I knew it would happen.  I could simply feel that it was going to happen.  I knew it was only a matter of time.  Lord knows I deserve it for watching this show.  And the Production Staff rewarded me for my devotion and forbearance.

-Rio Rainbow Gate, ep11

Oh heck yes.

This episode falls into the "Epically STUPID!" category, so it might take longer than normal to create the writeup.  But there was a duck, so it's a fair trade.

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Last F1 News 'n' Notes For The 2011 Preseason

As we head into the last weekend before the F1 Circus gets going in earnest, let us take a final look at the preseason goings-on, shall we?

First up, good news coming from the doctors of Robert Kubica!  They're saying that he'll be up and around on crutches within a few weeks.  While the worst damage the Pole suffered was to his right hand and arm, his right leg and foot were also badly injured in his rally car crash some weeks ago.  Eric Bouiller, team principal for Renault, told reporters today that "(Kubica) is ahead of schedule on all the forecasts, whether to do with rehabilitation or recovery.  He is proving to be an example to the hospital.  He is extremely motivated, he has the morale, even if it's not rosy every day overall he is maintaining exceptional spirits."  Still no word on if he'll ever be able to drive a F1 car again, but that's of little consequence in the grand scheme of things; picking up a fork looked like it may very well have been beyond him after the crash.  Obviously we here at F1Update! wish him the best of luck.

Next, anybody who's watched a Formula 1 race will be able to testify to the difficulty of figuring out just exactly what tires any particular car was running at any given time during a race.  The softer tire had a green stripe on the sidewall, the harder tire had nothing, and the only way to tell the difference between the intermediate and wet weather tires was the tread pattern... difficult to spot when a car is moving at 140mph.  Pirelli, the new tire manufacturer for F1, has figured out a way to get rid of that problem, and unveiled it today.


Color-coding!  Brilliant!  The color/tire combinations are as follows: 

The tires are proving to be somewhere between one and two seconds slower than last year's Bridgestones.  They're also much less sturdy.  We won't be seeing someone going almost the entire race on a single set of tires, like Seb Vettel did at Monza last year.  In fact, Pirelli is thinking three stops for tires per race.  This isn't a bug, it's a feature, a feature the FIA asked for.  Forget about KERS or the movable rear wing, tires are going to be the biggest technical change this year.

Finally, Sauber's Gandalf Kobayashi spoke to the press today about the terrible earthquake and tsunami that his his homeland of Japan a week ago. "Of course I was very worried about my country and so went to Japan after the Barcelona test. I must say the situation is really, really bad," said Gandalf, whose family lives in Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture.  "I am worried the whole country could disappear – it is just too awful. Since the earthquake and the tsunami news is getting worse every day, there is nothing positive to look forward to at the moment."  Continuing on, Kobayashi said "I feel I have to do something, I want to help – but in fact there is nothing I can do by myself. I think at least for the time being what I can do is to be focused and fully concentrate on the season’s opening race in Melbourne. Originally I was looking forward to this with great joy. Now what I really want to do is my very best to achieve a good result, which perhaps can at least give the people in Japan a little bit of hope and positive news."

HRT will race in Australia with the flag of Japan on their cars in tribute.  Meanwhile, Swiss team Sauber will have the following banner on their cars:

The translation reads "May our prayers reach the people in Japan."  A nice gesture.

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St Patrick's Day 2011

After last year's debacle, I'm afraid I had to make a tough decision: no alcohol at this year's St Patrick's Day shoot.  Of course, the leprechaun duckies never showed up to the casting call.

However, thanks to The Librarian they weren't needed on set this year.  Corned beef and cabbage was enjoyed by all who attended, much to the duckies' delight (and the duckrechaun's disgust) and a good time was had by all.  And no duckies passed out, even better.

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Midway Tragedy

Roughly halfway between the west coast of America and Japan, there lays a small atoll consisting of two significant islands and a handful of smaller ones, mostly surrounded by a low-lying reef.  Called "Midway" for obvious reasons, it was first a location for guano mining.  Later, Pan Am used the atoll as a stopover point for their "China Clipper" service.  As World War II approached, the US military recognized it as having an important location for the defense of the west coast.  Barracks, runways, gun emplacements, a seaplane base, and even a submarine base appeared, seemingly overnight.

Of course, we remember Midway as the namesake location of one of the most important battles of any sort in history.  One aspect of Midway atoll that seemingly every history of the Battle remarks upon are the ubiquitous avian residents, the Laysan Albatross.

Better known as the Gooney Bird for their goofy, clumsy appearance on land, nearly a million of these birds live on Midway today, and there's no reason to think any fewer were there during WWII.  Gooneys are known to have extremely long lives, with the oldest known to be over 60 years old, and possibly older.  It's quite possible that some Gooneys alive today were present on Midway during the battle.

Lost among the tragic news reports coming out of Japan in the wake of the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and huge tsunami that followed it, were bulletins from Midway atoll.  Sand Island, the largest of the islands that make up Midway, was 20% covered by water from the tsunami's five foot tall waves, while Eastern Island had been 60% covered.  Spit Islet, the largest of the minor land masses that make up the atoll, was completely inundated.  As a result of this, over a thousand adult Gooney birds were killed, and many thousands of flightless chicks were drowned as well.  "We may see just a slight decline in breeding birds next year, next year and the year after that," said Barry Stieglitz, project leader for the Hawaiian and Pacific Islands National Wildlife Refuges. "There will be a gap in the breeding population when these birds that would have grown up this year, would have matured and started breeding for the first time."

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Genesis Of An Aircraft Carrier

In 1905, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) showed the world that is was at least the equal of any Western navy by its complete domination at the Battle of Tsushima.  In this climax to the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese battle fleet, commanded by Admiral Togo, annihilated the Russian Second Pacific Squadron at the cost of three small torpedo boats.

By 1906 though, the Japanese fleet was made obsolete by the appearance of HMS Dreadnought in the British Royal Navy.  Realizing that evolving technology had laid their fleet to waste (and terrified by that fact), the IJN made plans for a new and improved fleet of ships.  Called the "Eight-Eight Fleet", it was to be based around eight new Dreadnought-style battleships and eight cruisers.  Designed to be capable of going toe-to-toe with the US Navy, even at this early date thought to be Japan's most likely foe, this battleline was considered the only way the nation of Japan could be made safe.  Though the country had been practically bankrupted by its war with the Russians, the first batch of ships was approved in 1911.

Events on the other side of the world again worked against the IJN's plans.  While Japan had sided with the Allies in World War I, for all intents and purposes she had little to do with the European theater of war.  Instead, she had little spats with far-flung German possessions in the Pacific.  Meanwhile, the war in the Atlantic led to massive improvements in naval technologies for the combatants there.  Suddenly, the IJN again found themselves with seemingly obsolescent ships while their rivals had honed their fleets against the whetstone of war.

The decision was made to scrap the first Eight-Eight fleet plans and start a second.  This second fleet was to be built around a nucleus of the newest vessels of the first, two completed battleships of the Nagato-class, two Tosa-class battleships that were in the process of being built, and four Amagi-class battlecruisers that were in various stages of construction.  They were to be joined by four battleships of an unnamed class that was to carry 18" guns, and four "fast battleships" to accompany the battlecruisers.

The Amagi-class was to tip the scales at over 41000 tons, be capable of 30kts, and carry ten 16" guns on a hull some 826 feet long.  As with all battlecruisers, the Amagis were not particularly well-armored; they were designed to be able to outgun anything they could outrun (cruisers of all sizes and destroyers), and outrun anything that outgunned them (battleships, mostly).  While in retrospect it's clear that the battlecruiser concept was deeply flawed, the thinking of the time was that speed, not armor plating, would be a battlecruiser's best defense. 

The Amagi's heavier teammate on the battleline, the Tosa-class battleship, was paradoxically smaller than the battlecruiser in most ways.  Coming in at just under 40000 tons and 760 feet long, they were to cruise at just over 26 knots.  Armed with ten 16" rifles of the same type carried by the battlecruisers, their secondary battery of twenty 5" guns compared favorably to that carried by the Amagi.  As with most battleships, the Tosa's armor was to be its strong point.  In short, the Tosas were to slug it out with opponents while the Amagis danced in and out of the battle.

In 1922, the IJN's plans again had to be scrapped when Japan became a signatory to the Washington Naval Treaty.  This attempt to curtail the growing naval arms race ongoing between Britain, America, Japan, France and Italy placed an upper limit on the size of any ship built of 35000 tons.  All work on the four battlecruisers and two battleships came to a halt, in preparation for scrapping.  With the stroke of a pen, both the Amagi-class and the Tosa-class, like the British N3 and G3 designs, had been invalidated. 

Or almost so.  The Treaty placed an upper limit on the size of aircraft carriers of 27000 tons.  However, a provision of the treaty, insisted upon by both the Americans and the Japanese, allowed for the conversion of two ships of a maximum weight of 33000 tons each to aircraft carriers.  The US Navy selected two Lexington-class battlecruisers for conversion. The IJN chose two of their Amagis, the namesake of the class and the Akagi, to be subjects for their conversions.  The remaining battlecruisers were broken up and scrapped.

And then nature stepped in.

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ARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!

I just lost three hours of work that I had put into a post, all because I pressed a button in error. 

I'm somewhat put out by this.

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Rio Rainbow Gate! ep10

We open Episode 10 of Rio Rainbow Gate! pretty much where we finished Episode 09, inside some Gate Holder's roll ruler... essentially their magical power.  Casino Island is deserted except for Rio and Dana, The Owner's magician, with no clue what's going on and no way to get out.  And then the Laser Weasels come.

Instead of lasering up and turning Rio into a flaming pile of ash, the Laser Weasel begins running away.  What sort of Laser Weasel runs away?  He's a disgrace to the race is what he is... he's even wearing a frickin' bow tie!  Who would have ever thought there'd be such a thing as a Laser Weasel Nerd?  I'm so disappointed.  Rio and Dana follow the Laser Weasel, and he leads them right to the Casino.

And in the casino?  The Owner, tied up, and some dork in a New Orleans-style Mardi Gras costume... who calls "him"self Joker.  I put "him" in quotes because while everybody is calling Joker "him", "his" voice is so obviously female that I'm wondering about the intelligence level of everybody involved in this scene.  Joker harangues Our Heroine and challenges her to a game of blackjack.  They both end up with the same score: a push.

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Rio Rainbow Gate! ep10 will be delayed

With everything that's going on in Japan following the 8.9 magnitude earthquake, I just don't find myself much in the mood to be clever about a lousy anime.  Maybe Sunday.

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F1 Pr0n: HRT F111

Last season, HRT missed being the worst team on the grid by virtue of finishing 14th three times to Virgin Racing's two.  Despite this unlikely fact, the F1Update! team universally considers them to have been the worst.  This psychological block is probably caused by two things.  First, they did a grand total amount of zero pre-season testing last year.  Their 2010 car didn't turn a single lap until the practice sessions of the opening race of the year, and that was only one car for 20 laps.  Hard to make an impression when that's the limit of your experience, y'know?  The second reason was that their car, the HRT HRT, which they later retconned to F110, was the flat-out ugliest beast out there.  Mud-brown and orange, it just hurt to look at the thing.

Well, no longer.  This year, they're going to get their car on-track for one day's worth of preseason testing (UPDATE: see below).  And this year, the car looks oh-so-fine.

When HRT released renderings of the F111, I asked for a good nose-on shot.  Now that we've gotten one, I have no idea exactly why I wanted it.  It's definitely the steepest nose-droop out there.  The brake ducts are large enough to swallow a track marshal, just like last year.  Sidepod intakes are basically the same as everybody else, more or less.  One thing of note is that the nose incorporates the FIA-mandated camera mounts (the black horizontal structures to either side of the Spanish flag) into the actual design, where everybody else just mounts them to the side.  They're supposed to be aerodynamically neutral, but I can't help but think that doing this is to the F111's advantage.  The front wing is much more complex than I expected to see from the team.

From the side, the most striking thing about the car is the livery.  I said it earlier and I'll say it again: this is how a race car should look.  The eye-catching graphics appeal to the eight-year-old in me, I admit it.  The sponsorship begging is a bit of a turn-off, but hey, they need the money and they've got the space, why not?  Other than the low, droopy nose and the paintjob though, the rest of the car looks pretty average.  It looks like a F1 car, and that's not a bad thing at all.

Team boss Colin Kolles claims that the car will be "significantly faster" than last year's charger.  They've got the same powertrain that the Williams team is using, and we know how that worked last year; in theory they could be a surprise.  My guess?  They might get a point or two for the entire year, if they last that long.  Let's hope they do.

UPDATE:  Late news from Spain is that HRT will not be participating in Saturday's testing session.  They have important parts of their car held up in customs, and nothing they've been able to do have managed to get Spanish officials to release them.  That can't be a good thing.  Even one day of testing would have been a boon beyond measure for the team.

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McLaren MP4-26: Srs Bidnez

Sleek.  Graceful.  Streamlined.  Sculpted, molded, polished.  All of these words and more can be used to describe that most high-tech of all racing vehicles, the Formula 1 car.  Able to slice through the air at 200mph or more, stop on a dime, or pull 5-G turns, all while its eight-cylinder engine is turning at at a mind-numbing 18000rpm.  Tolerances are so tight that fluids have to be pre-heated to a viscosity very similar to that of water before a F1 engine can be run.  The car as a whole is made of nigh-futuristic carbon fiber, aluminum, dozens of composites, beryllium, titanium, and many other, more esoteric, materials.  Something as small as a front wingtip being slightly out of position (due to an accident, for example) can slow a F1 car dramatically, ruin its aerodynamics, compromise the grip levels in a turn, and cause brake failure and engine overheating.  As much sculpture as machine, every inch of a F1 car is painstakingly designed to be just so.

And then McLaren rolled their 2011 challenger, the MP4-26, onto the track during the pre-season testing session at Barcelona yesterday.

D'awwwwwwwwww, isn't that cute?  The car is obviously going through puberty... it got its first pimple!

Aerodynamics?  Who needs 'em! 

While it looks like the bracing wires on a Sopwith Camel, in actuality it's a testing rig designed to measure the stresses on the front wing.  At least, that's what they claim.  We here at F1Update! think that McLaren's Chief Aerodynamicist Doug McKiernan is taking his styling cues from something in nature:

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Yet Even Still More F1 News 'n' Notes

We're now two days into the final preseason test at Barcalounger, Spain, and we've got some information coming out. 

First off, HRT has finally named the driver for the second seat.  Ladies and Gentlemen, Vitantonio Liuzzi completes the field for the 2011 season, teaming up with Narain Kittylitter.  Of course last season he drove for Force India so this is certainly a step down for Liuzzi, but then again, he's still driving in F1.  That's gotta count for something, right?

Next, we're going to stick with HRT as they've announced that they'll be debuting their new chassis on Friday.  Prior to this, they've been running last year's car to get tire data on the new Pirellis.  You may remember that they were the last team to bring out their car for the 2010 season as well.  Last year's hold-up was financial, and it's likely that money is the problem this time around as well.  I'm beginning to wonder if they'll even finish the season at this rate... but then, I said the same thing last year.

Good news from Japan, as Suzuka was confirmed for the 2012 season, ending speculation as to whether it would be dropped from the calendar after the track's current deal expired this year.  While the Great Suzuka Boat Races would be missed, I think the track would be missed even more if it was gone.  It's probably my third-favorite course on the calendar, behind Spa-Francopants and Silverstone, and Japan has a rich history in F1.  I'm glad it's sticking around, is what I'm saying.

Of course, one can't really judge anything from pre-season testing, but evidence is building that Red Bull is still the fastest car out there, followed by Ferrari.  After that, things get muddled, but one thing that's becoming clear is that both Mercedes and McLaren are in serious trouble, at least as the first race of the year goes.  Mercedes has been trending almost a second per lap slower than the leaders, while McLaren has had problems with both pace and reliability.  After today's test session ended, Lewis Hamilton was interviewed by reporters. "Do I believe I have a car to win the world championship at the moment? I don't. No," said Hamilton.  "But that doesn't mean it won't become a world championship-winning car."  Where everybody else were turning in 100-lap runs, McLaren had two major malfunctions that limited Hamilton to just over 50 laps today.  Teammate Jenson Button was equally pessimistic.  "I will be surprised if we can match the Red Bull or Ferrari when we get to Melbourne, that’s a big ask considering the mileage we’ve had compared to them and the pace from the last test. It’s going to be tricky but never say never." 

Finally, in an e-mail to Ph.Duck regarding the upcoming Grand Prix of India, I mentioned that I'd seen a line drawing of the circuit's layout.  It looked pretty decent, but I had no idea if there were to be any elevation change involved.  Ph.Duck, who is going to India for two weeks on Friday, then went searching the interwebs for more information on the new JayPee circuit.  What he found was much, much better than a simple map.

Sure it's a promotional piece, and therefore open to speculation as to just how much of it is truth and how much fiction, but it at least seems promising.  Gotta love the elephants.

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Rock / Robot (ducks) Rock / Rock / Robot (ducks) Rock

The great reveal of the secret from a few days ago.  When I saw these, I knew they had to join The Flock.  Some things are too good not to own.  Even better, I hear tell that they're going to be appearing over at Quacked Panes sometime in the near future, too!

Oh, the title of this post?

And yes, that is my dead video card glowing ominously in the background...

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Rio Rainbow Gate! ep09

I'll admit to a general reluctance to recap this episode of Rio Rainbow Gate!.  Let's face it, there's pretty much no way to describe the series as good, and after last week I feared what the production team would bring us.  Our heroine defeated by the forces of evil, her Gates gone, and only two remaining that aren't in the clutches of Cartia?  What idiot would bring themselves anywhere within range of Rio?  Even this production staff couldn't come up with a way to pull that one off.  So what could RRG! bring us this week that would be exciting?  Go ahead, try and figure something out, I'll wait. 

...

Yeah, exactly.  Which explains my reluctance to watch this episode.  It appears even the production staff had problems with it as well, as RRG! ep09 had some technical difficulties that delayed it a day.  Still, I've come this far, I can't exactly quit now.  Y'all can thank me later.

It is a week after the events of last episode.  Rio lost her not-so-epic battle against her turncoat half-sister Rina, losing her Gates in the process.  It also appears that one of the stipulations from an earlier Gate battle were still in effect, so The Owner has lost his Casino Island to the grasping claws of the evil Cartia.  She let him keep Sky Resort, but he's lost his mooring rights to the Island.  No mooring, no resupply, no guests, no business, no money.  Well, at least he managed to set the thing down in the ocean, where it floats quite nicely.  Evil Cartia has also fired everybody who used to work for The Owner.  Oddly, nobody blames Rio for this turn of events, but The Owner.  To be fair, it was pretty stupid to agree to such stakes.  But then, this IS RRG!.  You've gotta expect such things.  When the Usual Suspects confronts him, he's strangely silent.  Another of those remarkable coincidences sends the clumsy Anya sprawling, and...

...his head comes off?  Seems he's been getting so much crepe from the Usual Suspects that he made Linda take his place.  But where is he?  And, if the Usual Suspects have lost their jobs, why are they still wearing their casino outfits?  Couldn't they afford off-duty clothing?  Heck, we know Ella and Illa have regular clothes, we saw them wearing such things back in ep01...

...I guess the production team had a budget to work with back then.  Well, RRG! is hardly the first show to blow their wardrobe budget on ep01, then have to struggle on for the rest of the run with nobody changing outfits.  It's only been recently that we've seen characters actually wearing different clothing every day, after all.  But I digress... where in the world is The Owner?
 
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The Littlest Aircraft Carriers

In the 100 years that navies have taken airplanes to sea, there have been some truly creative methods employed to get an organic aircraft capability onto ships.  Barges towed behind destroyers.  Launching platforms on the turrets of battleships.  Explosive catapults on the bows of merchant ships.  Submarines with floatplanes.  Merchantmen with a rudimentary flight deck laid over their cargo areas.  The list could go on forever, but none of them were really a success.

During the Allied invasion of Sicily, there was a need for artillery spotting airplanes.  The usual plane used, the L-4 Grasshopper (better known in civilian use as the famous Piper Cub), didn't have the range to actually fly to Sicily from Allied bases, and aircraft carriers decks were too valuable to ferry them there.  Having them transported in a knocked-down state was possible, but it was time-consuming to have to put them back together.  Knowing all this, a US Army pilot named Captain Brenton Devol, suggested a solution: put a flight deck on a LST.  And lo, was the tiniest aircraft carrier created.

LST-386 was fitted with a flight deck made of timber and pierced metal runway mats.  It measured 216 feet long by 12 feet wide, and it took just over 36 hours to build.  It could carry four Grasshoppers, plus its normal load of cargo and troops in her tank deck. 

The conversion was so successful that five or six other LSTs were fitted with their own flight decks.  As time went on, the design was refined to allow nine Grasshoppers to be carried.  Four of them, shown above, were carried on minuscule ramps, while the other five were on a platform just ahead of the bridge.  The LST would go as fast as she could into the wind, usually winding up with a 20kt breeze to aid the L-4s into the air.  The lightweight plane would fairly skip into the sky with that amount of help.  Accidents were not unheard of, but all in all the LSTCV was a successful and useful design.

However, these LST conversions could not be considered true aircraft carriers.  There was no provision for recovering the L-4s after launch; the planes would have to land behind friendly lines after takeoff.  Considering the short-field capabilities of the Piper Cub, one could imagine a scenario where the LST would steam backwards while a white-knuckled pilot tried to land on the narrow pitching deck.  It could work, but it seems unlikely.

But out in the Pacific theatre, something different was invented... something that was allowed a LST to become a true aircraft carrier.  This something was called the Brodie Device.

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GAH!!!

The alarm went off at its usual time this morning, and after dragging myself out of bed and doing the usual things one does after one wakes up, I pressed the power button on my computer (Chiyo-chan).  Settling into my computer chair, I watched "I'm booting up" stuff go by on the monitor... until the Windows splash screen popped up, and I saw this:

Well, crap.  That's a dead graphics card, sure as god made little green martians.  Obviously, I was going to have to remove that dying card (nearly five years old)... but while I installed the card in the first place, I've never removed a graphics card.  I didn't know what I was going to have to do... just yank it out and plug the monitor into the onboard graphics adapter?  Remove the drivers?  Boil water and tear bedsheets? 

Once I got to the Duck U Bookstore, a quick googlesearch turned up diddly.  The question may as well have never been asked before.  So I shot an e-mail to friend GreyDuck, a computer guy of some repute, asking for help (or as I put it, "HALP!!!"), and he responded with flying colors.  A phone call from The Boss's husband also steered me in the right direction... just pull the card out and cross your fingers.

One broken PCIx16 retention clip later, the card was out and I was running on glorious onboard graphics... and I discovered something I had forgotten.  Namely, onboard graphics are crepe on a stick, particularly when mated to a LCD monitor that doesn't run at one of the available resolutions.  I can only just barely run a anime mkv (12 frames a second, maybe?)... which means I need to get a new GPU as soon as I can.

But at least Chiyo-chan works again.  That's the main thing.  So thanks, GreyDuck and Boss's Husband!  Much appreciated, both of you!

UPDATE:  There's this thing that you can do with a computer called "restart."  Perhaps you've heard of it?  It shuts down the computer then gets it running again... including such things like your graphics card drivers that allow you to set the resolution to something that doesn't make your eyes bleed.  It also installs D3DX9, which allows you to actually watch things larger than 1mb in size.  Useful thing, that.  It also means that, unless I suddenly have this burning need to play Fallout 3, I can live without a GPU until I actually have a modicum of funds.  Pity I didn't think about this whole restart thing sooner, my eyes might not have fallen out.

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Even Still More F1 News 'n' Notes

We're heading into the fourth and final pre-season test session this weekend... and then the tension starts as we bite our nails (ducks have nails?) waiting for the first race of the year.  Until then though, there's a little bit of news floating around the 'net.

First up, Timo Glockenspiel probably won't be participating in this test session as he's currently in hospital.  The Virgin driver suffered a sudden attack of appendicitis and had that vestigial organ removed in a Swiss hospital yesterday.  He should be released on Wednesday, but to speed his recovery along, he'll likely be sitting out the four-day session.  Jerome D'Ambrosio will be doing all the laps for the team in Timo's absence.  Get well soon, Timo!

Next, it's sounding more and more like the Grand Prix of Bahrain just won't die this year.  Birdy Ecclestone has found a date for the race, and it won't conflict with any of the existing races... sounds great, right?  Well, not so much: it's during the F1 Circus' summer break, in August.  In Bahrain.  A hot country, in the hot season, on a hot surface.  IN THE FRICKIN' DESERT!  Never mind the cars overheating, I'm frightened that the drivers will die in the cockpit.  It's not like there's air conditioning in these cars...

On the news of that bombshell, work has begun in Austin, TX on the new USGP track there.  Earth has been moved for the past couple of weeks, according to the Austin Statesman newspaper/website, and is going on roughly 12 hours a day, six days a week.  More importantly, the promoters have been told to expect a June 2012 race date.  Pretty much what I expected; it only makes sense to have the US race either just before or just after the Canadian GP.  Yes, the teams want to be in the USA, but not enough to make two trips to North America in a season...

Finally, Jackie Stewart has never been one to keep his mouth shut when he thinks there's a problem, and a couple of days ago he said what a lot of us F1 fans have been yowling about for years.  "My belief is that the major reason for the lack of overtaking in modern grand prix racing is down to the modern tracks, nearly all of which have been designed by the same man, the German architect Hermann Tilke," said Stewart.  "Racetracks have changed since my day and thank God for that. Back then a driver who raced for five years had a two in three chance of being killed.  But we have now gone too far the other way. Circuits should not permit liberties to be abused without a penalty that can be instantly recognised by spectators or TV viewers. Safety is one thing; abuse of privilege is another.  Unless circuits are modified, spectators and television viewers might have to live with a lack of overtaking for some time."  Perhaps surprisingly, the chief pilot of Red Bull Airways, Mark Webber, agreed with Stewart.  He then went on to damn with faint praise by saying that Tilke's best track was the Sepang International Raceway in Malaysia... which is kind of like being the smallest miniature giant space hamster. 

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(Cue Ominous Music)

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Rio Rainbow Gate! ep08

I so very much want to inflict grievous bodily harm on the production staff of Rio Rainbow Gate! right now.  As I said at the end of Ep07's recap, "...I have this sinking feeling that Rina is going to have a heel turn in Ep08..."  Now, I am many things, but one that I am not is a plot prognosticator.  Usually when I take a guess about how a show is going to go, I'm about as far off as chalk and cheese.  Because of that, trying to figure out plotlines ahead of time is usually an exercise in futility, one that I avoid doing whenever possible.  Yet this stupid brainless pile of drek called RRG! has gotten me so involved that I not only made predictions, but I put them in print to boot.  It's one thing to get hooked on something good; having it happen watching a series that has all the depth of a playing card is just embarrassing.  So, grievous bodily harm it is!  There's quite a wide range of injuries one can inflict with just a playing card, you know.  Anything from a simple papercut, preferably with an application of lemon juice afterwards,  to ocular exenteration, preferably with an application of lemon juice afterward... the sky's the limit. 

And speaking of the sky:

We pick up right where we left off in Episode 07, with Rina bolted down to a roulette table and Rio about to go into her third Gate Battle of the day.  This one will be against evil Cartia's "King Strong Arm".  And what, might I ask, will be the game to be played this time?  I mean, considering some of the matches we've had in the past, I expect it to be something like a wrestling match between Rio and a remote-controlled bear in a swimming pool full of tapioca pudding and deadly holographic space cuttlefish.

Or a coin flip followed by a guess of which which hand the coin is in.  The stipulations are simple: King will flip it, grab it between his hands, then separate them.  At that point, Rio will make her choice.  Of course, it wouldn't be RRG! without there being something stupid involved, and that's certainly the case here.  Y'see, King Strong Arm isn't called King Strong Arm for nothing; he's got a strong arm.  In fact, he's so strong that he can crush a coin to powder in his clenched fist, which he does.  Voila, no coin (which looks like a euro, for you budding numismaticists out there) and no chance for Rio to win!

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