Discussion on:

'TR Community Newsletter' axed.

"Dear Readers: All good things must come to an end, and so it is with TechRepublic's Community Central. This is the final edition of the newsletter."

Another unifying feature discontinued. No more birthday notices or swap giveaways. (Happy B'day to Mae and Ansu, by the way.) This place has really changed in the last three years. The sense of community has been lost; it's just another web site.

doesn't it I miss a lot of the joking interactions with folks...and the barbing with others

.. I could pass out pick axes, and we could stick them all in Palmie :-D

-Tammy

The shovel has always been the tool of choice for Palmie abuse.

Now that makes for an interesting new abuse tool

you just need to bop him upside the head with an air wrench
or jack from Nascar Sprint Cup Series, hehe!
How'd you like that Daytona 500 Palmie?

If it was my call, I'd knock the banking down at Daytona and Talladega so the drivers can go back to actually racing, not running a 200mph parade.

because I would like to see that as well. This years Daytona
500 seemed sort of just there...maybe it's the new cars, and
drivers/crews not being as accustomed to them, but it sure
seemed like there was not much passing going on. When
the most exciting "racing" is getting off of pit lane during a
yellow, something is just missing.

Racing means turning left and right I always saw Oval racing as Speedway which is a low end cheap motor sport that contributes nothing to the development of the breed.

When there was some New Developments the PTB stamped on them very quickly like the Gas Turbine Cars which all flamed out during a race and then had the rules changed to make then uncompetitive.

Somehow choosing which plastic to use in a Window in no way improves the End Product which is what we all drive. If the current Nascar Rules where in place when they started we would still be hand cranking engines to start them and wondering what brakes where today.

Col

But as a spectator, one thing to be said for ovals is that I can see the entire track from one spot.

I'm not a gearhead, so the technology level never mattered much to me. The goal of manufacturers participating in NASCAR was never to improve the consumer product anyway. It was to showcase their existing vehicles. True, the cars they field on the track nowadays have little in common with what's on the showroom floor; at least the body styles are closer this year, and they finally abandoned carbs for injection. But for some reason the old 'Win on Sunday, sell on Monday' still holds true.

And believe that it represents the make of car when in actual fact there is very little of that brand involved.

Here the Bathurst 1000 for local Tin Tops Holden GM and Ford use a basic shape of the car for each brand and the engine but everything else is Special some being for safety like Fuel Cells which do not leak in a crash and others like Gearboxes which are Race Specials and where never fitted to any Road Car they where built for racing and the ability to easily change gear ratios quickly for different tracks or car setups.

The Old Ford Diff is still popular or at least was the last time I looked but that was a while ago now as I don't really follow that type of racing other than occasionally looking at some sort of failure and writing a report to prevent that happening again. Things like Fuel Rails for Injector Systems which leak come to mind but there is very little else that even comes close to what is supplied as Production Vehicles. Most do not even start with anything but a Body Shell and build their race cars from that after reworking the basic shell to suit their needs. Things like welding every metal joint get done which simply isn't in any Production Vehicle and all Engine, Transmission and Suspension Mount Points are changed to suit what is being used by that team.

However what really put me off Oval Racing was the crowds who attend as they seem to me to be more interested in the crashes than Motor Racing as to them there is no Motor Racing without big nasty looking crashes. Hence they want to see all of the track so that they miss none of the crashes and make sure that they get a better view of them when they occur.

Of course like the recent one where so many cars came together and mounted the walls a lot will complain that they got injured by bits of car entering the spectator areas. Ideally this should not happen but honestly it's what the majority of spectators want to see.

Col

Shovels just won't do the trick no more
And thanks for the B-day greet!

Another nail in the coffin.

But I have sort of abandoned this place now. Time to look for someplace new.

Any suggestions?

Anywhere that is what TR used to be?

And don't bother with the My Face, Linked-out and Space Book type garbage that's as pointless as Teats on a Bull.

Col

start our own channel on IRC, setup a gopher server so we could
have a place to share documentation, resurrect Archie and Veronica
(not the comics) and just use Lynx for the occasional foray to the
outside interwebs. Or maybe go all retro and setup a BBS, have to
find a modem bank somewhere unless we used telnet...hmmm,
maybe Fidonet?

http://www.undernet.org/
Haven't used that one in some 6 or 7 years...used to have a
channel there and on DalNet that I accessed using my old IBM
PS2 Model 5500SX with a 2400 baud modem, DOS 6.22....
hmmm...might have to see what Undernet offers.

Don't you dare mention Mae and Ansu in the same breath. The former is deserving of all due respect and admiration, while the latter is what's contributed to the demise of this site (at least the Water Cooler).

You mentioned the last "three years"? Between those two, who's been gone and who's been here? DUH!!!! End of story.

Put the PC crap aside, and call it as it really is.

Max,

You are the problem in the Water Cooler.

Sorry if that offends, though you obviously don't care if you offend others, but I'm calling it the way I see it.

to tell others what they may or may not say.
And blaming others for their own failures, too

Right or left-wing. Statist nuts, too, for that matter. Let's not leave out religious nuts.

Now I am hungry.