#90s european cars

[aaron04jpg]

Elms guide for Logan Sargeant fans

Starting with what is the European Le Mans Series (ELMS):

It’s a European series of endurance races reserved for cars such as "Le Mans Prototypes" and "Le Mans Grand Touring". The ELMS presents three different categories: LMP2, LMP2 Pro/Am, LMP3 and LMGT3.

CATEGORIES

* There are 4 categories

* All 4 categories run at the same time on track

* The cars that are performing in those classes are all different in terms of weight, size, engine

Lmp2- Race Number Background Color: BLUE (what Logan is driving !!)

* The category below the top LMH class of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) "Le Mans Prototype 2" (LMP2) is a key part of the “Endurance" family

* Each driver line up must have at least 1 silver or bronze driver, two platinum drivers can not be entered in the same line up

* it allows teams and drivers to progress to the highest level gradually.

* 1st and 2nd LMP2 competitors will be invited to the 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Lmp2 pro/am- Race Number Background Color: CYAN

* In 2021, the LMP2 grid included a separate trophy and title for competitors whose cars included a bronze driver in their line-up. This was known as LMP2 Pro/Am.

* In a change for the 2023 season, the LMP2 Pro/Am category will be run as a separate class

* a lineup of 2 or 3 drivers must include at least 1 bronze driver

* The cars will be the same as run in the LMP2 category.

* 1st LMP2 Pro/Am competitor will be invited to 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans.

LMP3- Race Number Background Color: PURPLE

* LMP3 was designed as a training ground for endurance racing, an arena in which drivers, team members, engineers, and mechanics can hone their skills and prepare for the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the FIA World Endurance Championship.

* lineup must include 1 silver and 1 bronze or 2 bronze

* from what I understand, it is a feeder series similar to f2/f3

Lmgt3- Race Number Background Color: ORANGE

* Le Mans Grand Touring Car, is a set of regulations maintained by the ACO and the FIA for Grand Tourer race cars designed for use in the ACO/FIA motor racing series. *LMGT3 cars are based on production road car models that are built and sold at the time of homologation.

* Cars eligible for the LMGT3 class must be built by a partner manufacturer recognized by the ACO/FIA

* a lineup of 2 or 3 drivers must have 1 silver and 1 bronze or 2 bronze and no more than 1 gold or platinum driver

TYRES

* LMP2, LMP2 Pro/Am, and LMGT3 competitors run with Goodyear tyres. LMP3 competitors run with Michelin tyres.

* LMP2, LMP2 Pro/Am, and LMP3 competitors have one dry and one wet tyre specifications. There are two dry and one wet tyre specifications for the LMGT3 category.

* Unlike Formula 1, any equipment for warming the tyres or keeping them to temperature is forbidden.

RACE WEEKENDS

WEEKEND SETUP

* Free Practice: two Free Practice sessions of 90 minutes.

* Bronze Test: one session of 30 minutes exclusively for FIA-ranked Bronze drivers.

* Qualifying: one qualifying session of 15 minutes per category, which defines the grid order.

* In LMP2 Pro/Am and LMGT3, only Bronze drivers can qualify for the car, whereas in LMP2 and LMP3, it's up to the competitor.

* Race – which lasts 4 hours.

RACES

* Each driver must drive at least 40 minutes during the race. (One stint)

* The winner is the car that covered the greatest distance in their category.

RACE NEUTRALISATION

* If the race needs to be neutralized or stopped for safety reasons, multiple procedures can be decided by the Race Director:

FULL COURSE YELLOW

* Intended for short neutralisations, mainly for interventions lasting equal to or less than one lap.

* Cars must slow down to 80kph.

* The pit lane entry is closed when there is a Full Course Yellow (FCY)

* No overtaking

VIRTUAL SAFETY CAR

* Intended to secure interventions and used for an approximate duration of two laps before deployment of the Safety Car (SC).

* Cars must slow down to 80kph.

* Access to the pit lane will remain open for the duration of the VSC.

* No overtaking

SAFETY CAR

* Intended for long neutralizations.

* All cars must follow the Safety Car and adapt their speed.

* The pit lane entry is closed for three laps when a Safety Car (SC) is announced.

* Overtaking is permitted under defined circumstances.

RED FLAG

* All the cars must head back to the pitlane or stop on track according to the conditions.

PODIUMS

* Each category has its own podium for the three first competitors.

STANDINGS

* Cars and drivers have their own classification in each category.

* One point is awarded for the pole position in each category.

* Points are awarded to the following scale:

1. 25 point

2. 18 points

3. 15 points

4. 12 points

5. 10 points

6. 8 points

7. 6 points

8. 4 points

9. 2 points

10. 1 point

AUTOMATIC INVITATIONS TO THE 2025 24 HOURS OF LE MANS

Okay, like I said before- the teams in these series get invited to WEC Le Mans.

* LMP2: 1st and 2nd placed competitors in the overall classifications will receive LMP2 invitations.

* LMP2 Pro/Am: 1st placed competitor in the overall classifications will receive a LMP2 invitation.

* LMP3: 1st placed competitor in the overall classifications will receive a LMP2 invitation.

* LMGT3: 1st placed competitor in the overall classifications will receive a LMGT3 invitation

TEAMS/DRIVERS

* 44 cars are to race during the 2025 season of the European Le Mans Series

* Line-ups are composed of two to three drivers per car.

* 14 LMP2s, 7 entries in the LMP2 Pro/Am class, 10 LMP3s and 13 LMGT3s.

* to take part in the European Le Mans Series, you must be a categorized driver (based on the FIA Drivers’ categorization.)

* the categorization can be adjusted following the pace of the driver during the current season and his/ her results in the series he/she is taking part in.

* The drivers can be rated in 4 classes: Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. 


PLATINUM DRIVERS (just some basics)

* has held a Super Licence (for Formula One)

* has won the Le Mans 24 Hours in a professional category (LMP1 / LMGTE Pro)

* has been a Factory Driver, paid by a car manufacturer, with results to match

* has finished in the top 3 in the general classification of an F3 international series or major international single-seater championship

GOLD DRIVERS

* has finished in the top 3 in the general classification of a secondary international single-seater series

* has won the general classification of a regional or national single-seater series

* has competed in the FIA F2, GP2, GP3, FIA F3 or Super Formula series since 2012 and has finished on the podium on three or more occasions in one calendar season.

* is a driver whose average lap time has been consistently as fast or faster over the majority of the season than the average lap time of Gold drivers competing in the same event of the season

SILVER DRIVER

* driver aged under 30 and not satisfying the criteria of categories Platinum and Gold

* driver who has finished in 1st place in the general classification of regional or major national championships or international series, or has won a major endurance race

* driver who has won a non-professional drivers' series or a regional, national or international single-make lower category series organized by a Manufacturer

* has competed competitively in high-level international karting competitions

BRONZE DRIVER

* Any driver who was over 30 years old when his/her first license was issued, and who has little or no single-seater experience.

* Any driver over 30, previously categorized as Silver, but with no significant results (titles, pole positions or race wins) and whose performance has been shown to be that of a Bronze driver in a monitored series.

* Any driver under 30 years old with a license issued for the first time during the same year as their first categorization and who has not competed in high-level international karting competitions.

WHERE IS LOGAN

now that we have that info dump, let’s find out where Logan fits in

Logan is going to be racing the number 18 (Ls2 SAR18)

He is racing with IDEC Sport Racing LMP2

His teammates (all three will be racing under #18)

Jamie Chadwick - 3x W Series Champion, Formula E test driver, Formula 1 Williams development driver, Indy NXT race winner

Mathys Jaubert - I don’t a lot but he is 19, finished in the top 3 of Porsche championships

Please feel free to correct me or add things in reblogs/replies :) I am very new so I will be learning with everyone 🙌

[dear-ao3]

hey wait im also new to f1 but i saw the other ask and i was curious abt what you meant when you said no one will ever do it like nico rosberg?? also retiring after your first championship win is insane lmao what a power move

nico rosberg is just. he’s insane. he’s cunty. he’s wonderful. he possesses sass and audacity unlike any other. we unfortunately do not have time to get into his whole story (my lunch break is only so long) but here’s some highlights:

-technically he’s a nepo baby. his dad, keke rosberg, won the world championship in 1982 and they remain one of the Few father son duos to both win a world championship (don’t ask me who the others are idk but i know they exist)

-he and lewis hamilton met when they were kids in the late 90s sometime and were gokarting teammates at some point in i think the early 2000s? (not fact checking i don’t have the time rn) and they were Besties. they’ve talked about this before, mostly in older interviews, but the gist is that both of them were outcasts from the other karting kid in opposite ways (nico was the son of a champion and rich and lewis was from nothing and pretty much the only poc most of the time) and that drew them together and they were Menaces according to legend. everything was a competition and they trashed hotel rooms and ate pizza and ice cream and kellogg frosties and went to greece and dreamed of being in f1 together

-nico signed with williams in 2006. his teammate was mark webber. and nico had long flowing blonde hair (this is important). he crashed at one race and mark webber said “britney’s in the wall” cementing the nickname britney, like britney spears. jenson button (another driver) said later on that they called nico britney because he was “very pretty” (do with that what you will)

-he was just. insane. cunty. constantly looked like a european bond villain. wore god awful shoes. whole bit. once he stayed in his car when it got craned off the track cause he didn’t want his hair to get wet. which is insane cause he’s wearing a helmet it would have gotten equally as not wet had he gotten out.

-anyway, lewis made it to f1 in 2007 and they had their first podium together i think that year (?) and it’s cute and fun and oh boy you’re not ready for what these two have coming

-lewis won the championship in 2008 (but he almost won in 2007, his rookie year) at mclaren.

-nico went to mercedes when they recentered the grid in 2010. his teammate was michael schumacher, who was fresh out of retirement. (yes the michael schumacher, 7x world champion). michael fucked with nico endlessly according to legend, including making him piss in a bucket pre race because he would hog the bathroom until the last possible second. nico still out preformed him most of the time, and the car was mid as hell.

-michael retired part 2 at the end of 2012. and who replaced him but lewis hamilton

-so the two of them were teammates again. the cards were absolute Stacked against them. because yes they were besties yes they’d known eachother forever but the first person you’re judged against is your teammate. and you’re trying to beat your teammate. and lewis already had a championship. nico wanted a championship.

-2013 was relatively chill. the car was kinda mid. they did well but not fantastic and did some fuck ass pr (highly reccomend looking those videos up)

-2014 they had a car that could win. and they started fighting eachother for wins. they played all kinds of mind games against eachother and withheld stats and nico ran illegal engine modes (supposedly) and lewis said they were no longer friends after nico supposedly wrecked his monaco qualifying one year but they claimed they still supported eachother and were friends off track. lewis won in 2014 and in 2015. but nico was right behind him and he wanted to win a championship, he didn’t want to be a number 2 driver

-so in 2016 nico did some insane shit. he stopped sleeping with his wife so that he could get better sleep or something, he did weird things to cut weight, he basically did everything and then some to win. and then he did. he won the championship and then at the prize giving ceremony announced he was retiring. he didn’t tell lewis this.

more after i get off work :)

[niuniente]

I stumbled upon a BBC recording from 1970, where two women in their 90's were interviewed about their teenage years. These women had been born in 1880's so they were in their teens in 1890's-1900's.

One woman recalled how her brother had seen this weird machine on a shop window, and women working with these machines. It was a typewriter and the place was hiring women to learn how to type with it. She also was bicycling a lot in her teens, and told a story how she once accidentally drove into a policeman. She and her friends were summoned to a court and fined 5 shillings each for this preposterous activity. The magistrate has been most horrified and disgusted that these young women hadn't been horse riding but bicycling when this collision happened!

It was amazing to hear. These women has gone such a huge jump in development of society and technologies from 1880 to 1970! I can't remember where I heard it but when we look back at time, humanity globally has advanced between 1900-2000 as much as in the previous 5000 years.

These ladies had seen the dawn of electricity; the very first electric cars and horse-pulled handsome cabs turning into busses, taxes and cars; Titanic; two world wars; suffragette movement fighting for women's rights and women getting these rights; the Wright brother's first plane and it leading to commercial flights and eventually to the moon landing; rise and falls of nations in Europe and changes on European map; the changes in workplaces and work place regulations; the development of radio; the whole history of TV; the fast changing clothing styles by each decade; the invention of plastic. They were born just 4 years after a telephone was patented in 1876.

I'm a pre-internet era child. Pre-mobile phone era child. I can recall when news told how this thing called internet is now open and how we predict it to become important. I can tell how huge difference mobile phones, emails, internet, video services, art programs etc. have done to the world. I'm every day grateful for the internet and technology because it was brought me to all I dreamed of and wanted as a child. Endless amounts of movies, comic, pictures, information, connections to everywhere in the world, exploration. Niche books and stuff I could never even see in my whole life without internet! In a need of a certain character reference? Just google it! Want to see that particular scene from a movie or a game? Go to internet, it's there!

And yet, I can never experience the same gigantic jumps as these 1890's teenagers did.

[chocsra]

✧ more personal chuuya hcs !!

✧ appearence hcs:

has a small small face

long, naturally curled, luscious eyelashes

soft and silky ass hair

very smooth, soft looking ivory skin

repping mestiso community, described as beautiful and unique

he actually glows in like any good lighting, golden hour does him best

his beauty is like majestic but gets called pretty a lot

bones did him soo wrong, he has toned sleeper build guys trust

naturally low-lided, sleepy eyes

he has really pretty brown eyes

has russet hair, NOT a ginger, he's more of a reddish brunette

slim, large hands that are really attractive

SNATCHED waist

he has a few pretty freckles

old money aesthetic

90s hot.

my personal hc is that his appearence comes from some sort of european descent, be it french or spanish blood that made his features so unique

looks so unreal that he looks otherworldly or like a doll; alien beauty

his skin reminds you of porcelain; this man's skin is mad flawless

ties his hair up at home into either a manbun or ponytail

has an 8+ step skincare routine..

has a super raspy voice in the morning/night

always takes his gloves off in the cuntiest manner - either biting the fingertips off one by one or that one manga panel where he bites the wrist part

whines when he stretches and it always catches u off guard

✧ crack/general hcs:

dances like hyunjin from skz (knows how to and practices his moonwalk)

bro is a WHEEZER when he genuinely laughs, he also feels the need to say ur not funny to keep ur ego in check when he is in fact laughing his ass off

when yall are laughing ur ass off (drunk or not) just know yall will be collasping on the floor feeling the six pack coming in

rip chuuya - you would've loved making electric guitar thirst traps on tiktok

he LOVES rollarcoasters or anything with a kick to it tbh (fast car or motorcycle rides) bc he loves gravity dzuh, but yknow what he CANT take??

them seats in the movie theatre where they move according to the movie, he gets way too invested in movies and the seats moving like crazy fries his brain (IM SORRY IF U DONT KNOW WHAT IM TALKING AB, THEYRE CALLED DBOX)

he ofc has a weakness for dogs but if he ever tries to feed a stray cat and it runs away or hisses he gets a little sassy and hisses back

sleeps like a dying victorian child. you walked onto him sleeping once and contemplated on calling a priest

one of those people who have copies of the same clothing item, or they're like barely any different. you see his hat rack and he gets offended bc "all his hats are completely different"

he scoffs a lot

starts chasing you if you ever MENTION the times when he was 15 (has made cringy youtube diss tracks with dazai, lost the login, now that videos up forever..)

if you're short like him and tell a story complaining about how ppl call u short, he gets personally offended FOR you

likes reading books but they vary from sophisticated novels to books like "HOW TO STAND ON BUSINESS?!?!"

his spice tolerance is wild, even if he can't actually take it he still will to prove a point

since his voice is pretty guttural whenever he has a voice crack while speaking you both pause and look at each other in silence before you laugh and he just goes "shut up.. shut up.. 😒"

he likes to mock ppl (lovingly) w higher voices like higuchi (especially when shes talking ab aku) bc it's older brother vibes and their reactions are always priceless

✧ chocsra™

[criterionimports]

Give it up for the Sport C190 Super! A fun-to-drive (and to-crash) 90s European sports car from Burnout Revenge. Comes with seven body recolors and two wheel recolors.

Download it here.

[tis-i-german-potato]

Why do you drive stick shift?

Tumblr I come to you with a new poll.

A couple of weeks ago I heard an American youtuber say "Germans prefer to drive stick, because they have more control over the car and it gives them a better driving experience"

And I think that's bullshit for 90% of people.

I drive stick because automatic cars are fucking expensive. Like????

So germans and other europeans(TM) (I want to know if there's a difference to other European countries that aren't as known for their cars/roads)

[tyrantisterror]

How are monsters classified in Offbeat Melodies?

Short Answer: Very, very, VERY loosely, especially compared to my other stuff.

Long answer: Ok. so, if Midgaheim is inspired by European mythologies, and ATOM is inspired by atomic age myths about paleontology and radiation (i.e. dinosaurs were big lumbering reptiles, radiation makes animals become giant monsters, etc.), then OM is inspired by, like, 1990's era Cryptozoology, UFOlogy, and Paranormal "Science." It's fantasy by way of Unsolved Mysteries and Leonard Nimoy's In Search Of (ok that predates the 90's but whatever it's the right vibe).

So the main approach to monsters is more or less "would this make a good urban legend?"

There's also a good bit of Lovecraftian Cosmic Horror baked into it too - including the Goblin Universe hypothesis in Melody's world building kinda made for the perfect opportunity for me to scratch that cosmic horror itch, and since my main setting really doesn't work with that stuff, it felt natural to include it in the cosmology here. Melody is very much a place for me to play with the toys that otherwise wouldn't fit in my main setting.

With all that said, I have two different loose taxonomies for the monsters in OM. The first is by Archetype, and the second is by Nature.

By archetype, they are:

Cryptids: Your nessies, your big foots, your chupacabras, etc. Creatures that seem like they could fit within our understanding of life on Earth.

Aliens: Visitors from beyond the stars who came here using incredibly advanced technology.

Ghosts/Undead: The souls/bodies of people or creatures that have technically died yet somehow persist.

Eldritch Abominations: Beings from another reality whose very presence is beginning to change what the "normal" reality is, often to the detriment of the people and creatures who live here. Colonizers from another universe, basically.

Wacky Nonsense: Silly and bizarre monsters who tend to be pretty light-hearted in concept even if they still prove to be a threat. The most prominent example would be the Gattlesnakes, a group of giant pit vipers from another universe who wear mech suits that can convert into muscle cars, and carry gatling guns that can convert into slurpee machines. Their small, tight-knit gang of inter-universal outlaws include Fancy Dan, Rhonda Rugged, Calamity Janet, Monosyllabic Chuck, and their leader, Cobra Gunner, a massive cobra whose mech suit is more akin to a flying battleship and can transform into a giant base. They're basically like if the villains of an obscure 1980's toyline escaped their home universe and tried to hide out in ours.

By nature, they are:

Mutated Natives: creatures from the "normal" universe that have been mutated/altered by contact with beings, substances, or even just the very essence of other universes. The most prominent of these would be Duchess Scissorjaw, a hippo-sized snapping turtle that was captured in Melody's Lake Alto and is living in a zoo display at Melody's Wax Museum. While the players and audience of Offbeat Melody know that it's not normal for snapping turtles to get that large, the discovery of Duchess Scissorjaw was rationalized by humanity within the story as "Well, I guess snapping turtles can get a lot bigger than we thought," since that is the simpler explanation than the reality, which is that she's a mutant who absorbed some of the essence of the Sea of Monsters. Almost all of the undead creatures in Melody count as this, but the other categories actually tend to be...

Interuniversal Visitors: i.e. the VAST majority of Melody's bestiary. Almost all of the main monsters in Offbeat Melody, from its Nessie and Big Foot analogues (the Altopogo and Southpaw Sam) to its alien visitors (the Kaleidoscope Men, the Grays, Ivora Sykes the Melody Mothman) to the Wacky Nonsense and Eldritch Abominations, are visitors from other universes. This category could be split into creatures that have "gone native" - the Altopogo and Southpaw Sam may come from alternate universes, but they traveled to Melody to help preserve the very fabric of the "normal" universe, and are important guardians of it as a result - tourists who are just here to visit, and conquerors who want to reshape our reality and/or its inhabitants into something more to their liking.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

President Trump’s repudiation of renewable-energy technologies stands to make the United States an outlier in the world.

Many of its large-economy peers are choosing a different path. Even as coal, oil and gas still power the global economy, and more fossil fuels are burned year after year, the movement globally is toward heavy investment in solar, wind and batteries, the prices of which have fallen sharply in recent years.

The European Union has aggressively moved away from coal. Its use of natural gas is declining, and last year solar alone made up 11 percent of power generation across the 27-country bloc, inching above coal, according to a new analysis by Ember, a research group.

Britain closed its last coal-burning power plant last year, and its government has said it would issue no new drilling licenses in the North Sea. Norway, a petrostate that has enriched itself with oil exports, offers such attractive incentives for clean transport that 90 percent of new cars sold in 2024 were electric.

Even Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, has set a goal to generate half of its electricity from renewable energy by 2030.

China is in a league of its own. It burns more coal than any country by far, making it the world’s biggest emitter of planet-heating greenhouse gases. But at the same time, it is home to nearly two-thirds of all the world’s utility-scale solar and wind projects under construction. China’s dominance of the manufacturing of inexpensive solar panels has driven down the price of solar energy globally. And its companies are setting up electric vehicle factories as far afield as Thailand and Brazil.

Worldwide, investors poured nearly twice as much money into renewable energy in 2024 as they did into fossil fuels, according to the International Energy Agency. “The world is undergoing an energy transition that is unstoppable,” Simon Stiell, the head of the United Nations’ climate agency, said Tuesday at the World Economic Forum gathering in Davos, Switzerland.

Mr. Trump’s energy-related executive orders, many issued on his first day in office, seek to make it easier for companies to produce oil and gas, and empower the government to stop clean-energy projects that have already been approved. (Coal use has sharply declined in the United States, mainly because of the availability of cheap fracked gas.)

[odinsblog]

[re: this this post and this post]

Let’s keep it 💯: Joe Biden did a terrible fucking job of managing post-COVID healthcare. And before I anger all of the but-he-was-better-than-the-alternative liberals, yeah, sure, he is better than Trump, but that is a laughably low bar. Aim higher, demand fucking better from our elected leaders.

So a while back I agreed that today I would take someone to get their latest COVID shot, but I got a frantic phone call from them saying that they don’t have the money to pay for their shot and they are uninsured and don’t qualify for Obamacare. And I was like, “No dude, you can get your shot for free at CVS or Walgreens or someplace like that,” and just to reassure them, I called CVS (with them on the phone), and unfortunately we learned that CVS is now charging $166 per vaccination shot.

After a little digging, I did find some places that offer free vacations, but they have long ass lines and limited hours of availability that don’t match up with my friend’s work schedule … so I’m gonna bite the bullet and just pay for their shot myself.

I am so mf mad rn.

This is what happens when you elect conservative ass “Democrats” who side with big pharmaceutical companies like Gilead and value cAPitALism over people’s health.

Vaccines should be fucking free. All vaccines. Every fucking one of them. And I mean free to anyone who wants them. Periodt.

And just because I know how annoyingly asinine sycophantic liberals can get if you aren’t constantly and profusely praising whoever the democratic president is, lemme remind you that not only did Biden declare, “The pandemic is over - Back to normal, back to work!” while walking around without a mask at an international car show, but in capitulating to conservatives, Biden also made an unprecedented change to America’s immigration policy by forcing asylum seekers to wait in other countries until we get around to processing their paperwork, and Biden also deported a shit ton of non-European asylum seekers (especially Haitians; see also: Title 42).

And Biden proudly and repeatedly announcing that he is a “proud Zionist” as he allowed funded Israel’s genocide against Palestinians was probably not too helpful for Harris defeating Trump. And now that I think about it, waiting so damn long to step aside for Kamala to run wasn’t very helpful either—she had about 100 days to run a campaign against Trump (and I’m not saying her campaign was perfect, but Biden’s waiting so damn long absolutely hobbled her).

And speaking of waiting too long, Biden constantly waiting to arm Ukraine wasn’t thee most helpful thing either—like damn, what’s the difference between arming them with long range weapons now (when you have only 2 months left in your term), versus arming Ukrainians 2 fucking years ago when it would have made a bigger difference, and would have saved more Ukrainians?? If it’s safe to arm them now, then it was probably safe to arm them at the beginning of Putin’s colonialist war of aggression.

I’m sorry, yes, I voted for him (and Kamala), but Joe Biden was a shitty ass president. I do not want another Republican-lite, cop loving “Democrat” who values chasing conservative white voters more than trying to listen to and at least pretend to placate the Democratic base.

At the end of the day, Joe Biden will have helped move the Democratic Party further right, just as Bill Clinton did in the 90s.

Oh, and remember when Biden promised to waive copyright patents so that other countries could make their own COVID vaccines? He never did that, did he?? But many of y’all insisted on giving him credit just for saying that he would. But he didn’t.

If Biden had any damn nads, and if he wasn’t sO addicted to following all the rules that Republicans have and will continue breaking, he would go buck wild in his last two months and forgive all student debt, pardon people, and just do whatever good he can while he still has the power to do so.

Anyway, I said what tf I said.

If you don’t like it, you know where the block button is.

[mariacallous]

Researchers found a vulnerability in a Kia web portal that allowed them to track millions of cars, unlock doors, honk horns, and even start engines in seconds, just by reading the car's license plate. The findings are the latest in a string of web bugs that have impacted dozen of carmakers. Meanwhile, a handful of Tesla Cybertrucks have been outfitted for war and are literally being-battle tested by Chechen forces fighting in Ukraine as part of Russia’s ongoing invasion.

As Israel escalates its attacks on Lebanon, civilians on both sides of the conflict have been receiving ominous text messages—and authorities in each country are accusing the other of psychological warfare. The US government has increasingly condemned Russia-backed media outlets like RT for working closely with Russian intelligence—and many digital platforms have removed or banned their content. But they’re still influential and trusted alternative sources of information in many parts of the world.

And there's more. Each week, we round up the privacy and security news we didn’t cover in depth ourselves. Click the headlines to read the full stories. And stay safe out there.

New Digital Identity Guidelines Strike Back at Dreadful Password Policies

A new draft of the US National Institute of Standards and Technology's “Digital Identity Guidelines” finally takes steps to eliminate reviled password management practices that have been shown to do more harm than good. The recommendations, which will be mandatory for US federal government entities and serve as guidelines for everyone else, ban the practice of requiring users to periodically change their account passwords, often every 90 days.

The policy of regularly changing passwords evolved out of a desire to ensure that people weren't choosing easily guessable or reused passwords; but in practice, it causes people to choose simple or formulaic passwords so they will be easier to keep track of. The new recommendations also ban “composition rules,” like requiring a certain number or mix of capital letters, numbers, and punctuation marks in each password. NIST writes in the draft that the goal of the Digital Identity Guidelines is to provide “foundational risk management processes and requirements that enable the implementation of secure, private, equitable, and accessible identity systems.”

DOJ Indicts Alleged Iranian Hackers Over Trump Campaign Breach

The US Department of Justice unsealed charges on Friday against three Iranian men who allegedly compromised Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and leaked stolen data to media outlets. Microsoft and Google warned last month that an Iranian state-sponsored hacking group known as APT42 had targeted both the Joe Biden and Donald Trump presidential campaigns, and successfully breached the Trump campaign. The DOJ claims the hackers compromised a dozen people as part of its operation, including a journalist, a human rights advocate, and several former US officials. More broadly, the US government has said in recent weeks that Iran is attempting to interfere in the 2024 election.

“The defendants’ own words made clear that they were attempting to undermine former President Trump’s campaign in advance of the 2024 U.S. presidential election,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a press conference on Friday. "We know that Iran is continuing with its brazen efforts to stoke discord, erode confidence in the US electoral process, and advance its malign activities.”

Irish Regulator Fines Meta More Than $100 Million Over 2019 Password Lapse

The Irish Data Protection Commission fined Meta €91 million, or roughly $101 million, on Friday for a password storage lapse in 2019 that violated the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation. Following a report by Krebs on Security, the company acknowledged in March 2019 that a bug in its password management systems had caused hundreds of millions of Facebook, Facebook Lite, and Instagram passwords to be stored without protection in plaintext in an internal platform. Ireland's privacy watchdog launched its investigation into the incident in April 2019.

“It is widely accepted that user passwords should not be stored in plaintext, considering the risks of abuse that arise from persons accessing such data," Irish DPC deputy commissioner Graham Doyle said in a statement. “It must be borne in mind that the passwords, the subject of consideration in this case, are particularly sensitive, as they would enable access to users’ social media accounts.”

The Tor Project and the Tails Privacy Operating System Are Merging

The digital anonymity nonprofit the Tor Project is merging with privacy- and anonymity-focused Linux-based operating system Tails. Pavel Zoneff, the Tor Project’s communications director, wrote in a blog post on Thursday that the move will facilitate collaboration and reduce costs, while expanding both groups' reach. “Tor and Tails provide essential tools to help people around the world stay safe online,” he wrote. “By joining forces, these two privacy advocates will pool their resources to focus on what matters most: ensuring that activists, journalists, other at-risk and everyday users will have access to improved digital security tools.”

[shutinlear53]

Mercedes cars that make me laugh (Warning: controversial and subjective)

A 160: It looks like a clay Toyota Yaris that was dropped on the floor and had its front end squished. I'd make a Smart City-Coupé joke but that thing was also manufactured by Mercedes

C-klasse Sport Coupe (203): There was one of these bad boys parking close to my university throughout the entirety of my bachelor program and for the longest time I thought it was a badge engineered Citroen Xsara of the uncool, non-rally kind

W210: In terms of exterior design, the 90s were the decade of growing pains for European and American car manufacturers, akin to what the transition from 2D to 3D in gaming felt like at the time. Unlike Sonic, the companies recovered and got their taste back by the time Y2K rolled around, but in the meantime the world was graced by gems that should've remained hidden such as the F50 and the 4th gen Camaro

SLK 350: Mixing the SL55 and the SLR McLaren is a thought experiment best left to rich kid ricing companies such as Mansory, but Mercedes took it upon themselves to create this unholy abomination because German doctors have no taste, apparently

SLS AMG: A major disappointment in styling after the SLR McLaren, this is the car equivalent of getting asked out by your crush only for her to bring along her single-for-a-reason friend who is ready to mingle and doesn't take no for an answer

W126: the elegance of a Volvo 240 for quadruple the price, it's practically a stack of 3 bricks with 4 wheels and a star on the hood

[boxboxblog]

An Overview: Feeder Series

Hello, this post is a response to an ask about feeder series. It will be pretty basic of an overview because there are about a billion feeder series, but if there is any particular series someone wants me to go more intensely in depth on, let me know. Enjoy!

So, as stated in my earlier post about the path to F1 drivers work their way up through feeder series before garnering enough attention to make it into F1. Feeder series are just lower level racing series that are similar to F1, but often gentler. They are also grouped under about three categories.

Formula 4

This category was officially created in 2014 by the FIA in order to create a standard first step for drivers to take into single-seaters. There are regional and national F4 series, and it is not just one series the way F1 is. For example there is the Italian F4 Championship, The F4 British Championship, etc. F1 Academy is also under the F4 category. This category is marked by a much slower car, much less complicated electrical working, and slightly different car structure. Most drivers start out in the more local F4 series, and then move onto the bigger name ones as their careers progress. The F4 category has pretty much stayed the same since it began, but like with F1, new regulations are added every year.

(A modern F4 car. You can see how much more simple and wide it is than an F1 car)

Alumni:

Charles Leclerc

Max Verstappen

Pierre Gasly

Formula 3

The concept of F3 has existed for a very long time. It was created as a national pathway into F1 around the 1950s, but has changed tremendously as the years have gone on. The biggest changes surrounded how the cars are structured and the number of series within F3. For example engine sizes increased between the 1960s and the 1980s, and more national series started getting added to the category during this time as well. It exploded in number in the 90s and 2000s, and now envelops both regional and national series.

As previously stated, there are many different series inside of the modern F3 category, just like in F4, with the FIA Formula 3 Championship being the major one (created in 2019). Interestingly, the FIA F3 Championship series was created after the merging of European Formula 3 Championship and GP3, which had been the two biggest feeder series for years. They merged due to the need for more streamlined paths into F1. Also, the FIA wanted more consistency in racing weekends and better cost control. This merging saw the creation of modern F3 as we know it. The FIA F3 Championship nowadays is a one-make series, which means that equipment is equal between teams.

(A 2025 F3 car, still simple but getting more sleek and technical)

Alumni:

Mick Schumacher

Liam Lawson

Lando Norris

Formula 2

F2 was introduced in the early 50s as the category below F1 (often as a cheaper option). It was called F2 back then, then switched to Formula 3000 until the 80s, then GP2, then F2 again. These switches were mostly due to different organizational or structural changes over the years. For example, they went from F2 to F3000 because they switched engine types and altered everything organizationally to make it a little more cost effective. Another example of reasons why a name changed is that GP2 became F2 in 2017 because they wanted to make Formula 1 and it's feeder series a more connected and recognizable brand.cLike F3 and F4, there are multiple series in the F2 category (one for most major motorsport countries) but the biggest one is the FIA Formula 2 Championship, which is also a one-make series.

(Getting even closer to an F1 car, F2 cars are by far the most similar but not quite as fast or complicated as F1)

Alumni:

George Russell

Lance Stroll

Oscar Piastri

Now, to finish up, you must know that F2,F3, and F4 run parallel weekends to F1, with small differences. They each have select weekends where they run at the same circuit but different times to F1. This is in the hopes of getting more attention on the lower series because people will be there to watch the F1 weekend. Not every weekend is parallel to F1, of course, just the ones that are convenient or doable. For example, F4 series end their season earlier than F1 so they aren't there the latter half of the year. Also, the Italian F3 Series will never run races anywhere but in Italy, so they join F1 when they race in Monza and Emilia Romagna.

(A modern F1 car to compare. Much more visibly complicated and often smaller as well. Built for much faster speed.)

Alright, that is a basic overview on feeder series. I hope I answered all of your questions.

Cheers,

-B

[rachelraygifs]

Thinking about the way xenophobia, jingoism, and racism combined in the american car market from the 90s to their bailout during 2008 is so funny. American car companies (and their weird die-hards) were all like: 'We make real cars for real men that really drive and are masculine unlike those queer asians and europeans' and then proceed to roll out some of the worst performing vehicles you've ever seen

[epsodic]

🏎️܆ ͟͟͞͞  =    —     𐀔 ( 𖠵 )  ‎ ،  ‎ so let’s ride! is the first full album by arm candy that was managed by multiple companies. in a cross event between ideal music, mystic story, and plus plus ent, it immediately made waves as an innovative approach to the ever-evolving musical landscape. although the concept strays from what the group usually does, kpop’s boyfriends never disappoint in any release.

→ delivered to @ratedstar for ficswap!

① inspired by 90s hip-hop culture, racer aesthetics, living life in the fast lane, and choosing a good time over a long time.

originally supposed to be a mini album, so let’s ride! spiralled into an amalgamation of reviving scrapped music and bringing as many music producers into one room as possible. what should have been four tracks max decidedly became twelve tracks in total, all spanning above three minutes. various outcries from fans of the companies’ other groups demanding this treatment went unheard, as per usual.

every song played its part in bringing together the whole, but there’s no doubt that various tracks stood out from the rest.

01 : AS THE RUSH COMES is an ambient introduction to the otherwise fast-paced synth-pop album. with airy vocals describing the descent into a fantasy, one could interpret it as the listener beginning to dive deeper and deeper into the rest of the track list. three minutes and forty-two seconds long.

02 / .5 : AUTOBAHN is one of two title tracks. the texturized instrumental is the pillar of the song when the enticing tokyo drift-reminiscent visuals simply aren’t enough. the song solidified itself as a staple in arm candy’s discography immediately, demonstrating their duality. three minutes and eighteen seconds long.

03. / .5 : TALK SAXY is the second title track of two. left behind is the racer concept as arm candy go full 2000s boy band multiplied by infinity. they return to their roots, even going so far as downscaling the quality and filming the choreography in an upsized cheese grater. the saxophone which is heard all throughout the song adds that perfect addictiveness to an already catchy track. three minutes and eleven seconds long.

04 : GO BIG OR GO HOME is a future-house song which blew up on social media after various edits of the members. it gradually gained the attention of european countries, specifically the united kingdom. what was once a throwaway track developed into a certified club special. three minutes and twenty-two seconds.

05 : SUPER CAR may be the most jarring out of the entire album, written by jeyeol of dachi. it is heavily influenced by edm and electronica in which the members brag about their achievements and appearances. three minutes and thirty-five seconds long.

 ◌◍*⃝̥  ⇢͟  ERA AESTHETIC : 

[dwellordream]

“Everywhere Europeans looked, the indigenous people they happened upon had their own ideas of how men and women should behave. Chief among them were notions about the kind of work men and women should each perform. These differences were deeply unsettling to the colonists.

…English migrants in the 17th century were not trying to re-imagine what it meant to be male or female. Instead, these first European settlers hoped their culture and their working lives could be easily transplanted. Immigrant women and men would each perform their customary duties; husband and wives would find their roles and their relationships appreciably unaltered.

…Almost every woman who left England for Virginia or Maryland in the early 17th century would have expected to work--and work hard--from the moment she reached her destination. Between 80 and 90 percent of the English folk who emigrated to that region, and virtually all of the women, came as indentured servants. …At first, these young women toiled for men who were their masters. After their debts had been satisfied, they might work alongside their husbands on small plantations. In either case, their labors would be shaped by the broader goal of the regions’ economy: extracting from the soil the maximum possible volume of tobacco, the intoxicating leaf Londoners were craving.

…Conditions in the Chesapeake were mean--even by the standards of those who, like most indentured servants, came from the lower rungs of English society. The average planter was likely to inhabit an unpainted wooden dwelling no larger than 25 by 18 feet--about the size of a modern two-car garage. …The indentured servant’s clothing and meals were likely to be as rude as her dwelling place. Her skirts and aprons would have been fashioned of a blend of the coarsest linen and wool. And her diet, as one traveler to the region reported, consisted mainly of a ‘somewhat indigestible soup’ of ground corn. Not surprisingly, serving girls eking out this kind of meager existence often succumbed to the Chesapeake’s many endemic diseases. Malaria, pellagra, dysentery, and deadly ‘agues and fevers’ killed off many during the crucial first six months of ‘seasoning,’ as getting used to the climate was called.

…On the positive side, it meant that virtually every female migrant would eventually find a husband--should she live long enough to attain her freedom. (Indentured servants, male and female, were forbidden to marry.) But it also meant that English notions of the proper sexual division of labor simply could not apply. In a colony where land was abundant and labor was scarce, a certain degree of flexibility regarding one’s day to day tasks was an absolute necessity.

…For men and women alike, the workday stretched from sunrise to sunset, with time off during the heat of the day in the warmer months. In the winter--the beginning of the tobacco production cycle--an Englishwoman would have spent those hours helping her master or her husband plant crops and enrich the seedbeds. By late April, she might have been called upon to transplant the tiny seedlings to the main fields--a delicate task that demanded the intensive effort of the whole plantation labor force over a period of several months. In June, July, and August, her deft hands would hoe and weed the tiny hills surrounding each plant and keep the plants free from worms. September brought the arduous labor of cutting and curing the mature leaves; this was typically men’s work.

…At first, few women could be found among the enslaved labor force of the southern colonies. Most 17th-century planters thought that strong male hands made better investments. Until the 1660s, two African men were imported for every African woman. But as white settlers began to turn the servitude of blacks into chattel slavery--a lifelong, even hereditary state--the logic of enslaving more women became clear. Enslaved men could labor only so many hours in the course of a day. But, as the masters saw it, enslaved women were always working, even when they were feeding their families or delivering babies.

…Slave women deemed incapable of field labor--the very young, the infirm, and the very old--might be put to work in household service. In the first half of the 18th century, these indoor workers accounted for a distinct minority of female slaves, well under 20 percent. And being assigned to the plantation household was not necessarily desirable. …Slave women who worked in their mistresses’ homes were always on call. Their duties ranged from hard, physical labor like doing laundry and toting water, to such routine drudgery as emptying chamber posts and making beds.”

Jane Kamensky, “To Toil the Livelong Day: Working Lives” in The Colonial Mosaic: American Women, 1600-1760

[nonpracticingintellectual]

Formula 1 2026 Engine Regulation Changes - TEXT BLOCK

I wrote up this explanation of each of the engine regulation changes for my WIFE and it's good enough I wanted to share it here.

Formula 1 2026 Engine Regulation Changes:

1: **New fuel must be 100% carbon free fuel, part of the FIA's plan for "net zero carbon" F1 racing by 2030.** ARAMCO is leading the research into the new carbon-neutral fuel. The goal is to be able to reuse municipal waste, food waste, or even gas pulled from the atmosphere to fuel cars. As of now it's being tested only in Formula racing, but the goal is to slowly release this fuel for road use as well across the world. Right now the F1 cars run on E10 (90% gasoline, 10% renewable ethanol). F1 and the FIA are the best people to lead this project because they know that full electric cars are not attainable for most people in the world and so replacing fuel with a carbon-neutral fuel (carbon is pulled from the environment to make the fuel, and the same amount is emitted by the engine. This essentially maintains the carbon equilibrium.) Formula 2 and Formula 3 are already running on a fuel mix comprised with 55% of this new biofuel. F1 is really driving sustainable practices. They are the first motorsport to use FSC (Forest Sustainability Council) certified tires, McLaren is releasing their new carbon fiber recycling (first industrial scale use), all of F1's DHL delivery trucks for European races run on 100% biofuel as of last year, all 10 teams have received the FIA's 3-star environmental accreditation.

2: **Increased electric power in the cars** - as of right now its 75% engine/25% electric power. The goal is 50%/50% by increasing the MGU-K unit from 120 kW to a 350 kW generator - this is what Verstappen is worried about as there isn’t an equivalent increase in battery size meaning the current ~30 second max boost from the electric motors will be reduced to ~10 seconds with the larger motor and same battery size. Drivers will have to downshift during straights to charge the battery more often, hopefully leading to closer racing as people won’t be able to just fly off using the electric motors.

3: **No more MGU-H** (this will help people like Stake or other small teams) - this was primarily driven by the fact that we have 2 new engine producers in 2026: Audi and Honda are joining the field and will need time to develop engines to catch up with teams like Ferrari and Red Bull. The issue is the MGU-H almost completely solved turbo lag (if you notice in your car, the turbo doesnt spool up until a certain RPM, the MGU-H spools the turbo from the time of acceleration, allowing for all waste exhaust to be used for charging the battery instead of wasting some spooling the turbo). This may lead to the return of Schumacher level throttle control to keep the turbo spooled during cornering. It’s going to be a learning curve for the racers who have only ever raced with an anti-lag system like the MGU-H.

4: **Reduced fuel allowance** - cars burn through around 100 kg of fuel per race, in 2026 this will be limited to 70 kg. The new engines ARE more efficient so it should equal out to the same power for less fuel.

The FIA is also pushing teams towards focusing less on raw engine power and more on aerodynamics and drag reduction to improve engine efficiency. Essentially, this is a test bed for the future of all high end racing by developing incredibly efficient powerful engines with a smaller form factor and better