I don't mind them... But I miss my Gran Turismo... Waiting for GT5 to be released before jumping back into the console market.

Racedriver GRID... limited replays, makes the lemans 24h (24min gametime... unless you really want 1:1 timing) quite tricky with only 3 replays

Its not a bad racing game... but remember, try before you buy.

There is another sort of 'rude'... the people who say they have 'never had an accident'... but they did sit 20 mph below the limit, almost run someone off the road every time they change lanes (and not notice it).

There are so many road rules because most people can't actually drive a car properley... Lowest Common Denominator and all that.

*sigh: if EARLY cars this, its news to me. To the person who claims this: evidence. There are cars that share brake/clutch fluid. Its possible that brake fluid was used for power steering (though unlikley).

No, Brake fluid is NOTHING like power steering fluid. If EARLY cars

power steering fluid and automatic transmission fluid are the same stuff (more or less), and brake fluid and clutch fluid are the same things (more or less), but the fluids are not the same at all.

What do you base your assumption on? That all hydraulic fluids are the same? I geuss that you should just go put some brake fluid in your transmission, or in your power steering - eventually your car will just stop.

But thats better than not being able to stop when you vapour lock your brakes.

I'm glad you don't fix my car. Or my computer.

I wasn't suggesting piping it... Though you do have a much more complete argument for why NOT to.

As for corn ethanol - Is there any country other than the USA that wants to use corn? Its a terrible Idea. Sugar cane... much better, and the world could do without so much sugar anyway. I kind of expected you would trot out the 'corn ethanol'. I think its a terrible idea, but there are alternatives.

Hmm... for the mixing fuel and ethanol, I know that you are 'not supposed to'. Aside from ethanol blends being properly mixed, I suspect that they would contain some sort of emulsifier to prevent separation. Just pumping in X and Y amounts - no surprise it never went forwards.

As for the lack of 'higher compression' ethanol running engines... well, they are not hard to manufacture, there simply is no demand for them. And these 'flex fuel' cars... have to be able to run on the worst grade fuel they have.
Which would be why these 'high compressions' don't readily exist. Higher compression does tend to increase efficiency. Though diseasel (I love that one - thanks) does run substantially higher.

Its driveability. Diesel does give more torque, but the torque tends to drop off at higher revs... Something that modern diesels are starting to overcome, but they are not quite there yet. And if you want to keep it to bio fuels (I'd like to), bio diesel has a lot further to go before it can compare to bio ethanol. You may as well run your diesel on vegetable oil*. Still works, plenty of torque, but no power.
Functional, but not fun.

Yes, I know diesel is the more efficient fuel when it come to the extraction of energy from the fuel. But you are wrong about saying that the compression doesn't matter for diesels. Adiabatic compression is what sets off the fuel, right? Hmm... Its been a while since I went through the theory of engines at this detail, so correct me if I'm wrong.

Gasoline was considered too flammable for engine, till development managed to make it work. I think because kerosene was too expensive. We can get _any_ fuel to work.

In the end, renewable of fossil. Bio diesel will be needed, for things like trucks. But given the choice, I'd take the ethanol. I care about my cars too much. If they aren't fun to drive, why bother.

I think I've lost the thread here. In the end, I would happily rebuild my engine every 5 years for the privilege of using ethanol.

Back in Aus, I put 10% ethanol fuel into my car. As a japanese import skyline, its designed for a higher octane fuel that we have back home (which I understand is still higher than in the UK). It stops pinging quite remarkably.
I'd love to convert that car to pure ethanol (or even e85), if it were available. Of course, if it was bio ethanol, I'd kinda like to show the finger to our government about their emissions regulations and the epa... but thats getting political.

Here in the UK, I haven't actually seen any ethanol blended petrol for sale. I'll have to take more notice.

And to the poster a few up (who probably won't be back) more to the upper midwest US? Aside from there being no jobs there, and visa issues, isn't that sorta redneck territory? Oops, sorry. ;)

*I've heard you can distil diesel from vegetable oil from fish & chips shops. I thought about looking into it... but apparently the car ends up smelling like fish & ship oil. I've heard it can be done with coconut oil too, but I don't live in the solomons.

Apologise? All in good tase, good sir.

Again with the corrosive. 'more' corrosive... yes, but the only tests I have read abour were flawed. Empirical evidence required. Manufacturers tend to be on the conservitave side.

True, shipment size could be an issue. I'd say 'lay pipes', but that... could easily be worse.

For a straight fuel, ANY bio-fuel (well, truly renewable... and almost. I'm not in for producer gas.) over limited fossil fuels is good news.
But I don't see why Ethanol is not any good as a straight fuel.

As to the 'racing performance', you could question how much of it was fuel and how much of it was their direct cylinder injection technology. They still have issues with engine weight.

For economy, well... its not hard to be more economical than a 'hybrid'... but yes, diesel certainly can outperform many fuels in this regard.

As for 'better technology', better is more than a numbers game - and even that is opinion. You are entitled to yours... And just because we disagree doesn't mean you are wrong.

Now: real fuel for the fire:
Petrol (Gasoline, if you are so inclined) was initially used because it was a cheap wasts product.
If you want power, try a wankel. At the expense of fuel economy, they are the most fantastic race engines possible. I'd back a modern Mazda 787B on ethanol over the Audi R10... and either way, what a race.
Since I happen to have an early 90's turbo sports car, I may have a vested interest in supporting bio ethanol more than bio diseasal (I don't care about your spelling... but it is funny). But car or not, Until bio diesel is as good as ethanol in an streetable piston engine, I'll still vote ethanol.
That said, if ethanol was widely available enough (or e85), I'd put my money where my mouth is. More power, no pinging... but you have to remap the ecu (and... change the fuel pump & hoses).

There goes my karma...

More corrosive: 'highly' is a highly unspecific word... compared to what? Under what conditions? Go find me a study that _isn't_ flawed. And even if it is, a little stainless steel if a good way forwards.

Doesn't like water: Hmm... guess what. Neither does petrol. Petrol does like soap flakes though. Put some in your car and see*

Lower Energy Density: Of all of this, this one is truly sad. What are the implication of this?
When was the last time you drove from a full tank to an empty tank? Without seeing a service station that you could fill up at if you needed?

Ethanol has superior knock resistance. This means that the compression ratio can be increased comapred to a petrol engine... with the associated driveability/performance benefits associated.
Ethanol has a higher oxygen content. Yes, this lowers the energy density. It also allows more power to be produced from less air intake - which is the limiting factor for power
I'm all for a fuel that will still allow fun cars to exist.
And if you do need the economy, you can get the same baseline performance with a smaller capacity engine... with better torque characteristics.

I hardly think that a diesasel (you started this one) will have the same thrills as an ethnol car of the same basic engine capacity and setup. Same cornering, less power.

Now... I'd take bio diesel over any limited resource fossil fuel... but bio ethanol has performance considerations that are simply too good to ignore. Like I said, I actually *like* my cars. Kinda like some of you like your gadgets.
Hmm... perhaps not that much.

*
Don't - I'm sure you know why. Oh, and 'Petrol' is what you call 'Gasoline'

Ethanol is NOT terrible for your car... From many perspectives, its better. All you need is a non-plastic based fuel system and there are no problems. Something to do with design. Running Ethanol on a car not designed for it, not the best.

It *is* only the fuel system that is the problem. Other than that, there is no 'extra wear and tear' on the engine. The tests that are cited as evidence are rather flawed. By the same logic, we should NOT use unleaded petrol due to issues with excessive valve seat wear.

And if you actually *enjoy* driving (I guess I'm in the minority here), ethanol has superior performance characteristics to petrol. Those who chose to disagre have rarely considered the whole picture.

I wish that ethanol - or even e85 - was readily available as a fuel. Sadly, its not.

Default settings seem to be something that few people get right...

They should more or less be failsafe, and there should always be a 'reset defaults' option (for when you **** if up)

if stuff doesn't 'just work', it needs better defaults (or a better autoconfig)

a 'default password' should be criminal. Nothing should work till its changed... though that does tend to remove 'password' from your list of passwords.

For those who prefer something a little... faster than an MMO

Actually... you ADDED a dot.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Ellipsis&l=1

Fine...
The jMonkeyEngine uses ODE (Open Dynamics Engine) as its rigid body physics implementation.
Whenever a new level is loaded, the old one allows all its threads to run off, and is left to rot till the garbage collector gets round to it.

The problem with this is that the memory from the physics engine is never freed, because finalize is never actually called by default.

I thought about going through it properley, but who wants to spend all day going through someone elses code with a debugger to home to spend all evening going through someone elses code with a debugger... and all for a proof of concept game.