awesome F1 race

The Nurburgring race on Sunday was one of the best I've seen in a long time. Half the cars going out of the track in lap 2, David Coulthard going up 15 places during the race, Lewis Hamilton going out on the gravel twice and still finishing 9th... And the last 10 laps, with Fernando Alonso catching up Felipe Massa in two laps after the pit stop to change to intermediates ad the subsequent fight. Fantastic stuff. The wheel to wheel racing of Alonso and Massa was unbelievable.

I would say that Massa tried to stop Alonso's overtaking a bit too agressively by moving out of his own racing line too late and almost taking both of them out of the track, but I guess I am biased towards the spaniard. His claim that "this is normal" was very lame. Alonso apologized to him during the press conference for accusing him of doing it on purpose but, to be perfectly honest, I don't think an apology was needed. It was too late and the Brazilian should have maintained his racing line. However this did not spoil the race. If anything, it added a sense of "fighting" that has been missing from F1 for a long time.

This is why some of us like motorsports. This is what we like to see. A fight to the very end between extremely skilled drivers. What a pleasure to watch.

Mr. C

small changes

I have added to the sidebar the RSS feeds for the podcasts I subscribe to. All come highly recommended.

Quiet Sunday today, not much to mention apart from the nasty crash that Lewis Hamilton had yesterday in the F1 Grand Prix of Europe (Nurburgring) qualification round. A tire failure at that speed is no joke. Thankfully he seems to be ok and will be racing today. I would expect some impressive overtaking when a driver this good starts from position 10 in the grid...

Mr. C

Miro is the new Democracy...

talking about the old Democracy player, not that original Greek idea that has become an excuse for poor government. But I digress...

Miro (the new name for teh Open Source player Democracy) is a fantastic media player that allows you to watch net TV, get videos from YouTube and more. It is a fantastic player (it will actually play almost anything), and the only video player I use (together with VLC). You can download Miro here.

Download, install, and enjoy...
Mr. C

walls that separate people

It looks like walls are the current fashion. First Israel in order to isolate the Palestinian community and now the US to isolate themselves from Mexico. However you look at this the answer is not in building walls. People will always find ways to jump over, dig under, or break walls. And walls generate resentment towards the side which builds them, that is then seen as an oppressor (with good reason, I must add).

The solution is not to force people to be apart but to tackle the social problems that cause civil unrest in Palestine and people to cross the US-Mexico border illegally. Once you eliminate the actual, social, origin of the problem you will never have to build a wall again. And your own society will be enriched in the process.

Of course it is much easier to build walls and pretend the problems lie only in your neighboring country. Of course it is easier to ignore that we all have a social responsibility. And the solution to this problems is far from simple. But we must try. Otherwise we are no better than wild animals fighting for territory. Worse, in fact, because we do not eve fight for survival but financial gain and cultural isolation. We should be better than that.

Alan Johnston is free

so I am removing the link to his BBC page from the side bar. Great news, a shame it happened in the first place but we live in a sick world.

Mr. C