Hmmm, you only had 1800kcal/day food rationing on average? You messed up your preparation/logistics planning in that case. You can easily cook up 3800kcal/day rations yourself(plenty of nuts, plenty of fat, dried fruit, dried meat etc. Skip grains etc, by mass you do not get the same amount of energy out of them, and makes you more thirsty than dried meat and dried fruit does), something I do when I go out for 2-3 week hikes, incl ski hikes along Kungsleden in winter(and contrary to expecations, you actually do carry a lot of fluids with you in winter if at all possible, because eating snow/drinking icecold water is a good way to weaken yourself)

As for the general point: Yes, long hikes can easily lead to starvation, even when you have proper planning. Military units doing long range/duration recon/patrol can lose lots of weight despite chomping down massive amounts of energy. Some friends of mine did 3-week jungle patrols about. They consumed at LEAST 4.8k kcals per day, yet lost between 9 and 15kg of body mass, depending on person. On my ski hikes, I can come back after two weeks and having lost 7kg

To add a bit to this:

Sweden alone is slightly larger than California, and less than a third of the population of California. Or, to compare with the US east coast: Take all of New England, and New York(the state), and Pennsylvania, then add roughly 4k km2 from another state, and you have Sweden. You have a large portion of people in some major metropolitan areas... And then there's a lot of people spread just about everywhere.

But Sweden has done a heavy investment into municipal and some nationwide infrastructure that companies can rent into to provide service, to the point that you can get fiber connections in places where no US ISP would even think about it.

Such as this place: http://goo.gl/maps/XYkNZ
In that little village almost as far north as you can go in Sweden, with a population of around 300, you can get 100Mb/s symmetrical at a fairly decent price, even by Swedish standards.

Eh, I'd say you need an absolute minimum 5Mbit/s downstream per family member, to accomodate for multiple streams, game downloads etc etc.

" Of course, someone always objects, "So you think AT&T should be forced by the government to run a 10mbps connection to the top of a mountain, just because some idiot chooses to live in a shack on top of a mountain?!" No, of course not. There are places without running water, without electricity, and I expect that there will be places without Internet."

Look up a small swedish village named Karesuando, right up on our northern border with Sweden. Roughly 300 people live there. It's part of the Kiruna Municipality, and the municipal network goes all the way up there. 100Mbit down/100Mbit/s up connections are available. In this case, it's because the politicians in the municipality decided that it was important to get good internet connectivity out in these rural areas too. It has worked out quite well, it's slowed down general depopulation, and in some specific towns etc they are seeing a population influx instead, from people who want to live out in the peace and quiet yet don't want to cut down their connection with the rest of the world too much.

A hot lithium-polymer battery of that size and capacity is more dangerous than petrol, yes. Petrol is easy to extinguish, the hose or the jugs don't tend to become shrapnel. While in the car, the battery is protected in an enclosure to prevent puncture. The fire drills with the Formula E cars has been incredibly extensive, including focusing on getting the driver the hell away from any fire.

Seriously, extinguishing Lithium-polymer batteries is a pain in the ass to extinguish, the firefighters are not looking forward to any great increase in LiPo EV's on the roads.

"It was because they felt F1 wasn't relevant to their business and wasn't green enough. Okay, I'll agree to that but motor racing isn't about green, it never should be about green and being eco-friendly. It's racing FFS! If you come in it looking for butterflies and rainbows you're in the wrong sport."

What would green or not green have to do with it being racing or not. Racing is the act of competing with others over time/distance/velocity. If someone chooses to take their formula towards less fuel use, it's still racing. Sure, it's not the racing of your childhood. But, to be frank, I don't want those times to come back either.

"Agreed, they've done a great job but so have other teams but the rules like homologation for power units means that technology freezes for six years"

Wrong. So wrong. Power Units are only frozen over the season. You can make changes in-between seasons. Also, contrary to popular belief, some constraints actually bring more creativity. As the old saying goes: "An F1 engineer reads the specs twice: Once to see what it says, once to see what it doesn't say"

As we've seen from previous unlimited series, innovation actually was reduced, because it devolved into "Biggest engine, biggest turbo, some duct tape, and a contract clause that makes the driver unable to back out"

"Let me guess, you're one of those guys that think music is better if its louder ...

Loud doesn't impress me. The sound of a turbo blow off value in something like a Toyota Supra as it cycles through the lower gears in just a couple seconds is for more sexy than any top fuel dragster, and thats just out of the factory."

You didn't read my entire post in context then. It was a reaction to Virtucon complaining that the cars did not squeal as high-revved and quite as loud this year and claiming that the noise was an important part of F1. My point was that if noise is an important part, there are better avenues. I also did point out that WEC, with the LMP1-H's, is my favourite series right now.

"The larger engines are not 'dead ends'. They are too big for the sanctions put in place on F1 to keep the costs and more importantly, the speeds down. If you can make a V6 as fast as a restricted V8, then you've just saved some weight when means faster acceleration. It doesn't mean the V8 is maxed out, its just restricted so theres no point in trying to go any faster with them. With a V6 doing the same, you can almost certainly carry less fuel and less engine weight as well as lower rotating mass. All of these things add up to faster lap times due to better acceleration and braking."

Renault and Ferrari engineers have stated that the V10's and V8's were dead-end. To do any new engineering approaches fit for the racing they do, they would have had to entirely redesign them from scratch. A large part of the problem is material sciences and engineering. The cars themselves are actually slightly heavier this year, and still have insane torque from the V6's.

One of the reason they have been trying to reduce speeds is because of the greater risks of fatal crashes that comes at higher speeds, especially on the older tracks.

The stats for Hungaroring are correct, attendance was up. There were, however, fewer tickets booked in advance, many waited for last-minute tickets.

And, your mention about the cost is the real rub, and why almost all motorsports face struggles. It's too expensive to attend. Le Mans and the WEC seems to have managed to turn it around. The ticket for Le Mans 24h main event is quite a bit cheaper than the equivalent type of ticket for any F1 event. Indycar is also struggling(At one race recently, NBC proudly stated that they had a new record of 25 000 viewers... ouch...). NASCAR are struggling, hence all their clownery, allowing nudging, implicitly encouraging fistfights(not as blatant as the scripted fights in the NHL though). And that's an area where I think Formula E is going in the right direction: Quiet cars, able to race in city centers, and with cheap tickets.

In fact, if you've been watching for as long as you've claimed, maybe it's not the racing, maybe it's just that you've grown jaded?

FIA mandates a lot of things for the LMP cars too.... Turbo-charged cars can't have the same volume as normally aspirated engines. Different displacements for petrol and diesel. Only piston engines allowed. Different fuel flow rates and maximum fuel loads allowed based on what engine and fuel you use, and your MJ rating for the hybrid system. There are also restrictor plates to limit to around 700BHP for the IC engine.

So, MORE regulations than in F1. Yet those manufacturers, unlike Ferarri in F1, make some crazy cars that even in endurance tuning pull some crazy speeds and corners(As mentioned, more downforce than F1 cars. I think they also have more downforce than IndyCars)

Both forms of drag racing. The Top Fuel cars just roar.

To offer a counterpoint to your lopsided highlighting, the last 10 years have also seen some tracks modified, meaning that old V10 records can't be beaten anymore either. Also, the drivers are NOT conservative, given the cars, given how much more actual racing action there is.

VJ Mallya being the leader of a mid-tier team that lives on advertising exposure more than any technical skill. And Ferrari who are constantly whining when they are not in their lead. In the last 20 years, they've threatened to pull out *Checks stats* 14 times. There's been too much focus on engines. Not enough focus on engines. Too much focus on aerodynamics. Not enough focus on aerodynamics. Whatever area they happen to be weak at. Of course the crybaby Montezemolo will say that it's bad when his team is an utter clusterfuck, despite having Alonso. Every single interviewed DRIVER has said that this years cars are more difficult to drive, and requires more skill.

One of the reasons why F1 and other racing leagues are putting clamps on innovation is because they are already at the limits of what they can safely drive without completely redesigning every single track more than they already have.

Also, teams have ALWAYS teetered on the brink. Minardi were such a hit, weren't they? *crickets... hoot of a lonely owl....*

Other races reported increased spectator figures compared to previous years. Hungaroring and Spa for example.

As for the Mulsane straight, from what I hear, most drivers like it, because it became more challenging, and thus required more of the drivers.

I was at the Mercedes grandstand at turn 8, and seated close to the edge so I had some view of Parabolica too.

As for your complaining about spark blocks etc, that's on the same level as wanting more noise just for the sake of noise.

The plan is that one day, they will have allowed that, when a battery swap in a race car during a race is not a close equivalent to juggling a live bomb.

Basically, they want a few years to get some safety into a race-capable quick-swap system to reduce the risk of bad accidents in pit lane.

"If anyone can figure out how to up the performance without sacrificing too much efficiency, it's F1. I'm excited to see them getting into this."

Eh, look into WEC. Those LMP1-H cars are insane. Pretty decent power, better downforce than F1's, while still tuned for endurance races

The interesting thing is that the current 3 LMP1-H teams all have different hybrid approaches: Toyota with a normally aspirated petrol V8 and a supercapacitor storage system for the hybrid boost. Porsche with a Turbocharged V4 and a Lithium-Ion Polymer battery. Audi runs with a Turbocharged diesel V6 and a flywheel energy storage system. They have all kinds of restrictions on fuel flow, fuel amount etc, which in many ways just makes it more interesting, due to the suspense. Even with the more durable V6's, F1 cars would break down long before LMP1-H cars would, in equal circumstances. Forget about the V10 and V8 F1's, they were just flaky....

Wait, seriously...

Are you saying that a year with MORE overtakes, FEWER processions etc, and due to the reduced downforce are actually more difficult to drive than previous years cars, is boring, because they sound different?

Because, let me tell you, I was at Hockenheim, and those cars are still damn loud when you're there in person. Loud enough that I used my Peltors.

Meh, if you went to Formula 1 or Nascar or Indycar for the sound you were doing it wrong anyway.

For sound, you go to Top Fuel drag races, or, even louder, air shows(The 16 Spitfire low-altitude flyby at Duxford in 2010 for example... Made any F1, Nascar or Indycar race seem tame, no matter what engines you wanted to compare with)

As for the rest, the V6's are just so much more impressive than the V8's and V10's, which several engineers from F1 have said were pretty much dead-ends upgrade wise. What makes this year's cars fractionally slower seen over entire laps is the reduced aero downforce. The top speeds on many straights have actually been higher with this year's cars. If the cars of this year would be allowed to run with the aerodynamics of last year, many records would have been smashed.

And even then, my favourite series is WEC, and I'll also be following Formula E closely.