Snoopy

One of the kids at my school decided, on a field trip to I can't remember where, possibly some bird sanctuary or something, that it would be fun to bite one of those. The look on his face was quite simply priceless, as was the way his cheeks bulged to look like a squirrel with all the nuts at the point when it detonated. How we laughed and laughed style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":roflmao:" border="0" alt="roflmao.gif" />

What, are the police going to PM him? Do you know his address? If not, how do you intend to gain that information? Edit: Anyway, slander is a civil issue, so the police won't give two hoots.

How are you going to prove a) who his userid belongs to, and that he was responsible for posting and didn't just leave his machine unattended?

Quick reminder that submissions for the 2007 calendar close at the end of this month!

Sony's position is legally dubious, and they have an obvious motivation to prevent mod chips (they vastly reduce secondary income from sales of games). VW do nothing but gain from remap companies. People know that they can get their 225bhp 1.8T up to 275bhp, and that increases sales of their cars compared to competitors. Any failures can be blamed on the tuning companies, so VW don't get the rap. Failures will generate VW more revenue in blown turbos and other maintenance. And so on. VW would gain virtually nothing and potentially gather a lot of bad press if they pressed a case like that.

It would be obvious to the original tuning company (who would just do the same to a car modified by their competitor and check if they're the same) and they could sue for fraud?

You all protest too much really. Just let it go! I drive a Vauxhall, for christ sake! That has at least as much stigma as driving a diesel these days, but you don't see me jumping on every 'Vauxhalls are crap' bandwagon and complaining about how everybody's really stupid and it's so boring to keep hearing this again and again! It's my choice to drive a Vauxhall, it's your choice to drive a diesel. By defending it you're only making people think there's something to defend, which has exactly the opposite effect to what you want. Accept that some people aren't going to like it, accept that it's their right not to like it, accept that you like it, and move on!

It's not something you get, that's like trying to explain thought by saying there's chemicals going around in your brain. Yes, it's only a sound, but it speaks to that part of your brain that isn't fettered by the banalities of everyday life, and that's something that happens pretty rarely in our ordered society. Wow, how long have you been saving that one up? Bet it felt good to let it out style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":lol:" border="0" alt="laugh.gif" /> If you want to justify your decision because of money, that's fine, but it makes somewhat a mockery of your 'diesel is good' cause, because you've basically admitted that you want a petrol car but don't want to spend the money to run it. Which is your choice, of course, but preaching to those of us who do on how we're wasting money because diesel is better is then somewhat offensive.

Your power delivery isn't though! I'm sure there isn't a 1.4 that gives 100.4bhp at the wheels, but there's a 1.6 that gives 160bhp at the fly, so we can probably safely extrapolate that it's far from impossible style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

I don't like diesels for three reasons - the rev limit, the noise, and the turbo. I don't understand enough about engines to know why the rev limit needs to be so low, but apparently it does. Modern diesels don't sound like tractors - great. But they don't sound like anything. While better than sounding like a tractor, that's still not good enough. Finally, they need large turbos to match/exceed NA petrol performance for similar-sized engines, which does nothing for the power delivery characteristics. I have no problems with other people buying diesels, and if I was looking for a second car to drive to work on crappy days like today, then to be honest I'd probably end up with a diesel (no, actually, that's a lie, I'd end up with something dumb like a Corvette and wonder why I spent all my time at the pump, but the sensible bit of me would know I should have bought a diesel), but they are still not engines suitable for performance cars in my book. A performance car is about more than going fast, it's about how you get there. Sorry style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

More people have been injured working under cars supported by axle stands than by boxes of paper. style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" /> As you say, each to their own - I'd much rather trust a box full of paper than an axle stand personally. Any structural weakness/manufacturing defect in an axle stand wouldn't be apparent until it collapsed. There is no structural weakness in a box of paper - a small amount of compression occurs as the weight of the car is rested on it, and from then on, it simply cannot collapse, because there's nowhere for it to go. Ramps would make it much easier though. style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin.gif" />

I'm guessing you don't know much about running a business? Taking one of your employees away from the stuff he normally does for 'a few days' is only free if you don't realise there are a whole bunch of things he'd normally do that he can no longer do. Yes, undoubtably it costs a company less than 400 quid to make a remap, if you assume that they have all the equipment beforehand and that they have people working for them who normally sit around doing nothing! However, in the real world, they need to buy a rolling road (any idea how much they cost? 6 figures for a top-of-the-range one). They need to either license the tuning software from a third party (such as Superchips) or spend a huge amount of R&D time developing it themselves, otherwise these fancy new maps won't be any good because you can't install them on cars - funnily enough it's not just a case of going to RS and knocking up a cable. You need to pay a decent technician who has experience with this kind of thing, and they don't come cheap. Obviously you have to factor your price into the cost of running your business, which needs to take in a thousand pounds a day just to stay the right side of the rent on the place, taxes, salary expenses, and so on, let alone make any profit! Oh, and a little thing called liability insurance, so that you don't get sued out of business the first time some muppet complains you made his engine go pop. Yes, it costs them less than 400 quid to put a remap on a car. It costs Paramount less than 17.99 to put a movie onto a DVD. It costs Microsoft less than 80 quid to press a copy of Windows. Of course it does - that's how businesses work! They absorb the up-front costs and make them back over a long period of time. Finally, so what if they're making a packet of money on every remap? This is what businesses are supposed to do - make money! As shocking as it is, giving things away at cost price does not make for happy bank balances or shareholders.

My advice would be, buy axle stands or ramps. You're unlikely to do it without raising the car up, and putting your head under a car supported only by a jack is best avoided unless you're going for a Darwin award. It's at most an hour-long job even if the thing's rusted in solid, you should be able to find a local garage that will fit it for 30 quid tops. Leave it to the professionals if you don't have the proper tools, it'll be cheaper in the long run. Or find someone who has axle stands or ramps, and be nice to them. Or find some other way of safely supporting the car - a (full!) box of paper reams works wonders on the VX, but it has a nice wide chassis to rest on, and I'm not sure if the same would work on the Lupo.

That's the same argument used by people reckoning the drug companies are ripping people off for AIDS medication that costs $1000 per month, the argument being that it only costs the companies 5 cents to manufacture the tablets. Which is true, of course. Except it's only the second tablet that costs 5 cents, the first one cost 400 million dollars.

If it's only whistling when you plug the RCAs in, then the noise is coming from the RCAs. Check to make sure that you've not run the cable near any other major wiring, check to make sure that they're plugged all the way in at the headunit end, and check the headunit ground (although you'd almost certainly get whistling on the components as well if that was dodgy).

You missed the bit where I pointed out the Lupo handbook is wrong style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" /> A quick search of the forum will immediately show that any serious engine problems are highlighted by the check engine light being lit, and not merely emissions faults, as the handbook implies. A similar search will also show that the EPC light only comes on when there's a problem with the pedals, which 95% of the time is caused by the brake switch. The manual is unfortunately wrong. It would be interesting to see if manuals in other languages have made the same mistake. Of course, for the average punter it doesn't really matter, as whichever light comes on they take it to the dealer, and the dealer doesn't care what light came on, they plug it into their 1551/1552/5051 and read the fault code, which doesn't distinguish between faults that cause the EPC light to illuminate and the check engine/EML light to illuminate. However, for people with cars out of warranty who are going to look for a cheap fix, it is quite useful to know that problems that cause the EPC light to come on are relatively limited, and usually cheap to fix, whereas problems that cause the EML light to come on are much wider-ranging and absolutely need the fault code to be read, unless there's something blatently obvious wrong.

At least get it checked - at 82k I'd probably have it changed just for piece of mind.

Dunno, but they were both launched later in the UK and the conversion process is relatively simple, so I doubt there'd be much difference. Japan was significantly different because of the market (i.e. they had to compete against Nintendo). Incidentally, you may (or may not) be interested to know that the launch price of the Sega Megadrive in 1990 was 190 quid, which with inflation is equivalent to 289 quid in 2005 money. Typical games were priced in the region of 39.99, which is equivalent to 61 quid now, and Virtua Racing 2 launched at a cost of 90 quid, or 125 quid in today's money. Combine that with the Internet constantly driving prices down today, and it's almost certainly cheaper to own an XBox 360 than it was to own a Megadrive - and I seem to remember the Megadrive being pretty popular style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />

For the US: XBox Launch Titles: 4x4 Evolution 2 AirForce Delta Storm Cel Damage Dark Summit Dead or Alive 3 Fusion Frenzy Halo Mad Dash Racing Madden NFL 2002 NASCAR Heat 2002 NASCAR Thunder 2002 NFL Fever 2002 Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee Project Gotham Racing Shrek TransWorld Surf Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2x Test Drive Off-Road Wide Open For the XBox 360: Amped 3 (2K Sports) Call of Duty 2 (Activision Inc.) Condemned: Criminal Origins (SEGA Corp.) FIFA Soccer 06 Road to 2006 FIFA World Cup (Electronic Arts Inc.) GUN (Activision) Kameo: Elements of Power (Microsoft Game Studios and Rare Ltd.) Madden NFL 06 (Electronic Arts) NBA 2K6 (2K Sports) NBA LIVE 06 (Electronic Arts) Need for Speed Most Wanted (Electronic Arts) NHL 2K6 (2K Sports) Perfect Dark Zero (Microsoft Game Studios and Rare Ltd.) Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie (Ubisoft) Project Gotham Racing 3 (Microsoft Game Studios and Bizarre Creations Ltd.) Quake 4 (id Software and Activision) Ridge Racer 6 (Namco Ltd.) Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 06 (Electronic Arts) Tony Hawk's American Wasteland (Activision) Exactly the same number...

Microsoft lose $126 for every XBox 360 sold.

Probably not, autoland crosswind limits are 25kts I think. After that you have to remember how to fly it yourself.

That's the engine check light (although the manual for the GTI at least makes the same mistake, I think). The EPC light is indeed electronic pedal control.

Crosswind landing tests? Boeing 707 Barrel Roll?

Yeah, autoland systems didn't work there! Hence resulting in a few pilots getting things very seriously wrong, like this guy who doesn't manage to get the plane down until a third of the (already short) runway has gone, and when he does get it down smacks an engine into the tarmac! border="0" class="linked-image" /> border="0" alt="" /> I suspect he was looking for an alternative way to get home! style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin.gif" />

Ahh, they land themselves these days! style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin.gif" /> (No professional pilots on here, are there? style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />) You can also do clever things with wake turbulence once you've landed: clicky. This is a good example of a Kai Tak landing - alas, no more style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad.gif" />: clicky