Well, not all of it. I'll explain the energy management stuff.
Since 2014, F1 cars have been powered by both a turbocharged V6 engine (the ICE) and an energy recovery system (ERS). The ERS essentially includes the MGU-K, which you can picture as an electric motor, and the battery. (The MGU-H was scrapped in the new regs, and this post is long enough, so forget it.)
There are two main regulations changes concerning the ERS.
The first is that prior to 2026, the MGU-K produced about 14% of the total maximum power output (once again, that’s the MGU-K + ICE combined). Now, it produces 47% of the total maximum.
Hopefully, you know that the #1 aerodynamic principle for F1 is downforce. Roughly speaking, generating more downforce comes at the cost of more drag, which is basically the devil’s force. To overcome drag, we use energy from the MGU-K, aka the electric motor.
However, in the new regulations, the MGU-K depletes much sooner at full power. Since it makes up more of the total power output, the car has significantly less energy from the engine to work off of once the MGU-K goes kaput.
In one sentence, more drag = less energy = car fucked.
Active aero solves this. By changing the set up of the front and rear wings, the cars reduce drag so that less energy is sapped from the MGU-K on the straights. For example, Ferrari’s macarena rear wing flips upside down to generate lift, the opposite of drag, like an airplane.
The second big change is the increase to the energy recovery limit, which describes the maximum energy a car can generate over one lap. This is NOT equivalent to the battery capacity, which was and will continue to be about 4 MJ.
If that is confusing, imagine you’re washing cars using a bucket that can hold 4 liters of water. As you’re cleaning, you’re obviously using up some of the water and refilling the bucket with more. In total, you might use 8 liters of water for one car. But at no point does the bucket overflow and hold more than 4 liters.
The recovery limit (the total water you use) used to be the same as the battery capacity (how much your bucket can hold). It has now increased to 8.5 MJ normally and 9 MJ in overtake mode. Notably, in energy starved tracks, the FIA has the option to reduce the recovery limit. I bring this up because the limit has been cut to 8 MJ for Suzuka this weekend.
Next up is a very long talk about the battery. If you don't understand anything, the takeaway is: the increased recovery limit means that your strategy is now centered on how much energy you have in your battery, which changes if you're cornering, on a straight, overtaking, etc. It's more lap by lap, as opposed to looking at a full stint for tires.
Let's look at how the battery is recharged. This works differently based on whether the car is braking (i.e. cornering) or accelerating (i.e. on a straight).
In the first case, the MGU-K works in reverse, converting kinetic energy from the car’s drive into electrical energy to charge the battery. (Once again, the MGU-K is just a motor!) Losing kinetic energy = the car slows down. It’s similar to regenerative braking in a normal EV/hybrid road car. I’m going to attempt a handwavy physics explanation as to how this works, but skip the small text below if you’re not interested.
Remember how I said the MGU-K is basically an electric motor. That’s… kind of a lie. It’s a motor when deploying energy and a generator when, err, generating energy.
Here’s where we get into electromagnetism. If you have an electric current moving through a magnetic field, that induces movement.
That might mean nothing to you, so let’s say you have a magnet. Picture the magnetic field as some imaginary wind pushing from the north to south pole. You’re gonna put a wire in this field and see how the wind affects it using your RIGHT HAND.
The direction of your palm is the orientation of your magnet — think of your wrist as the north pole and the tip of your fingers as the south pole. Stick your thumb straight up, like you’re going to dap someone up. Your thumb is the wire. Now curl your palm. Whichever direction you just curled it in is the direction that the wire will jump. I’m deadass. The wire will move.
I don’t want this to become a physics lecture, so just trust me on this: If your wire is a loop and you keep changing the direction of the current halfway, your wire will rotate on an axis. Congrats! You just made a motor. That is converting electrical energy into kinetic energy.
Recharging the battery is all of this in reverse. The wheel rotates your loop of wire. Your magnetic field is the same as before. USE YOUR LEFT HAND. Stick your palm out in the direction of the magnetic field, and curl your palm in the direction the wheels are moving. I don’t have a diagram for this, so refer to this timestamp in the Chain Bear video that explains all this much better than me. Your thumb points in the direction of current flow.
If you did not understand anything, that’s totally okay! All you need to know is that the current flows in opposite directions when the MGU-K acts as a motor versus generator. This means that the system wants to rotate in two different directions at the same time. (Lenz’s Law, for anyone that actually knows physics.) The resistance against the direction of the wheels’ rotation is what generates electrical energy, recharging the battery.
In my opinion, it’s a lot to incorporate into strategy, and I think that can be very interesting. However, I sympathize with Max’s vocal frustrations (as well as the other drivers), because all of this has little to do with driver skill.
Holy fuck. I’m tired. Let’s stop talking about braking.
Thankfully, on the straights, there is no regenerative braking. Instead, we have something equally bullshit: superclipping.
Approximately 800 words ago, I told you that F1 cars contain both an engine and the MGU-K. Superclipping is when a driver runs out of or saves energy from the MGU-K before reaching the end of a straight, so power is diverted from the engine to recharge the battery. This is why the speed drops even while the driver is still at full throttle — the engine is now multitasking.
Like most people, I think superclipping has absolutely fucked up qualifying. Fully pushing, which is the point of qualifying, no longer translates to maximum performance in the car. In fact, at certain tracks, you are rewarded for not pushing. Moreover, as we saw in Suzuka, the best times may not even come from the drivers’ last quali laps. For me, this is a massive blow to the tension that builds up over the course of a session, and for drivers, it’s straight up disheartening.
The FIA is definitely aware of this problem, and they have taken some measures against it. The energy recovery limit is lower at energy starved tracks (see Melbourne versus China) and also lower during qualifying than the race. Do I think that’s enough? No — Suzuka qualifying was still shit, so it’s worth keeping an eye out for how that aspect of the regulations evolves.
By the way, “energy starved” and “energy rich” refer to how many opportunities there are to recharge the battery. Tracks with more/heavier braking zones are more energy rich.
I’m just realizing how much I’ve written, so I’m going to wrap this up positively with overtake mode. Using the same conditions as DRS, overtake mode provides the chasing driver with an extra 0.5 MJ of energy to use on the following lap. This increases how fast the driver can go at full power before superclipping kicks in.
The key difference from DRS is that overtaking now relies on power and not aero, since in the new regs, both cars will already have enabled straight mode. Along with the narrower shape of the cars, this allows for closer wheel-to-wheel racing, like between the Ferraris in China. Needless to say, I was beyond thrilled about that.
As a Verstappie, I’m miffed that these new regs particularly punish Max’s driving style (and those with similar styles, like Charles kinda). It’s obviously not an indicator of his skills. But as a “casual” watcher, I don’t really mind that the overtakes are “artificial,” i.e. due to how the ERS works. It’s more so that the drivers’ opinions are being disregarded.
I think these regs have potential. There’s a lot of room to grow in terms of valuing driver input — both their capabilities and their enjoyment. Energy management is completely counterintuitive to how they’ve always driven. But if you don’t change the formula in Formula 1, the sport will never surprise you. And I quite enjoy being surprised, so I will be sticking around.
A lot of this is rephrased Chain Bear, so highly recommend his two most recent videos if you want an actually competent teacher!
Discription: Ellipsus is a principled alternative to Google Docs—built for writers, by writers.
For: Beginner and intermediate
It has easy interface to navigate and offers variety of convenient tools for writers.
Cost: Free but includes premium plan for some features.
Type: Website.
02. Scrivener
Description: Scrivener is a word-processing program and outliner designed for writers. Scrivener provides a management system for documents, notes and metadata. This allows the user to organize notes, concepts, research, and whole documents for easy access and reference.
For: Intermediate and expert
It is designed primarily for intermediate to expert users who are working on long-form, complex writing projects such as novels, screenplays, or academic theses. While beginners can learn to use it, the software has a notoriously steep learning curve due to its extensive, high-powered feature set.
Cost: Paid with a free trial.
Type: App.
03. Campfire Writing
Description: Campfire is a reading and writing platform for genre fiction. Discover books & bonus content, write novels, and self-publish with royalties.
For: Beginner and intermediate
It is accessible to beginners but is specifically tailored for intermediate, who require heavy worldbuilding, organization, and planning tools etc.
Cost: Free but includes premium plan for some features.
Type: Website and app.
04. Reedsy Studio
Description: Reedsy Studio is a free online app for authors to plan, draft, edit, and format their book, creating professional ePub and print-ready files easily.
For: Beginner and intermediate
It is primarily designed for beginners and intermediate authors, particularly those self-publishing for the first time who need a free, all-in-one, and user-friendly platform.
Cost: Free but includes premium plan for some features.
Type: Website.
05. Atticus
Description: Create professional print books and eBooks easily with the all-in-one book writing software.
For: Beginner and intermediate
It is designed to be accessible to a variety of users, but it is primarily tailored for intermediate to advanced (professional) indie authors, though beginners can use it due to its intuitive interface.
Cost: Paid.
Type: Website and app.
06. Novlr
Description: Novlr is writer-owned creative writing platform. Join a community with writers and their goals at the heart of everything we do.
For: Beginner and intermediate
It is designed for beginners to intermediate writer. It is often recommended as a more user-friendly alternative to complex software like Scrivener, making it ideal for those who are intimidated by steep learning curves.
Cost: Free but includes premium plan for some features.
Type: Website.
07. JotterPad
Description: JotterPad is a text editor app for Android, developed by Two App Studio. It is proprietary software that uses the freemium pricing strategy.
For: Anyone
It is designed for beginners, intermediate, and expert writers alike, making it a versatile tool for anyone focused on creative writing, screenwriting, or plain-text drafting. Its primary appeal lies in its minimalistic, distraction-free interface, which is useful for beginners.
Cost: Free but includes premium plan for some features.
Type: Website and app.
08. FocusWriter
Description: It's a simple distraction-free word processor. It provides customizable themes, font, colors, and background image to add ambiance. It also features on-the-fly updating statistics, daily goals, multiple open documents, spell-checking, and much more.
For: Beginner.
Suitable for writers who like simple and distraction-free word processor.
Cost: Free.
Type: App.
09. yWriter
Description: yWriter is a word processor which breaks your novel into chapters and scenes, helping you keep track of your work while leaving your mind free to create.
For: Intermediate and expert
It is designed for intermediate to advanced writers, particularly those who are plotting-heavy, structure-focused novelists or screenwriters. While it is free and has a straightforward interface, its focus on organizing scenes, tracking character data, and data-heavy analytics makes it most useful for writers tackling complex, long-form projects.
Cost: Free but includes premium plan for some features.
Type: App.
10. Grammarly
Description: Grammarly is an American English-language writing assistant software tool. It started as a tool to review the spelling, grammar, and tone of a piece of writing.
For: Anyone
It is designed for a broad range of users, offering utility for beginners, intermediate, and expert writers, though it serves different purposes for each level. It is primarily targeted at anyone who writes using a computer for work or pleasure, including students, professionals, bloggers, and non-native English speakers.
Cost: Free but includes premium plan for some features.
Type: Website and app.
11. Obsidian
Description: Obsidian is a proprietary personal knowledge base and note-taking application that operates on markdown files.
For: Intermediate.
It best for intermediate to expert users—especially those who want a powerful system for organizing and connecting ideas, but beginners can use it too if they’re willing to learn.
Cost: Free but includes premium plan for some features.
Type: App.
12. AutoCrit
Description: AutoCrit is an online manuscript editing tool that gives fiction and non-fiction writers the power to quickly and effectively self-edit their work anytime.
For: Intermediate and expert
It is best for intermediate and expert writers during the editing phase. It’s an analysis tool, not a beginner writing one.
Cost: Free but includes premium plan for some features.
I'm a professional writer (with AuDHD I should be clear) who has written nearly 6 million published words across extremely heavy, dense, worlds that often span for literal years in the story and irl as well, and I love FocusWriter. I don't know if beginner here means "beginner author" or "beginner at Word Processors" since it wasn't defined. If it's the former, it works great for anyone, but if you want a bunch of extra stuff like Scrivener (my beloathed - don't come at me, scrivenheads, just live your best lives 50 menus and 500 folders deep in your single file), it's best to work in tandem with another word processor. It's best for authors who are likely to get bogged down in details like worldbuilding, or 'let me just research that for a sec' and wants to break that pattern or anyone easily distracted.
If you're a beginner at Word Processors, FocusWriter can actually be pretty challenging despite looking clean - that's actually its downfall and I've had newbie writers really struggle with it for this reason. You have to mouse over to see the actual top and bottom bars, any menu (you can toggle this off, but it's not immediately obvious how), and a lot of things aren't immediately intuitive if you've never encountered something like this before.
You also have to be very comfortable alt-tabbing into any other tab or part of your computer and using computer shortcuts. It's also primarily made - for this reason - for desktop and not phone or tablet. It's not immediately easy to find the tracker/s, or see the output, and you need to be very used to exactly customising what you want from a WP, which you don't have to do in quite the same way with some of these others.
I'm going to add another rec as well: Vellum. Atticus actually came out as a version of Vellum that could be used by anyone without a Mac, lol, but Vellum, a Mac-only product was considered the world leader for easy of formatting books of any kind (ebook / paperback / hardback) and it's in the Intermediate to Advanced category except that it really is the easiest program even if you're formatting intense fantasy novels.
Atticus is its competitor, and I feel like mentioning one without mentioning the other misses why Atticus exists, which is primarily for book publishing / book formatting (it actually glitches out a lot as a Word Processor because it was never intended to be one, and I wouldn't trust it with raw writing/docs if I were you, just in case). Vellum is not immediately accessible to anyone not on a Mac, but if you are dedicated to the Mac system, Vellum is the way to go. I know easily over 10 pro authors now who bought Macs just to use Vellum, that's how reputable it is. The rest were already Mac people or hire Mac in a Cloud services. I'm an Atticus boy myself since their earliest access.
maybe orpheus always looks back because his very effort to reverse death means that he can't look forward. if he could look forward, he could accept eurydice's death, grieve, and keep moving in life. his refusal to accept her death is looking back. his going down to the underworld, asking hades and persephone for her life, trying to lead her out... it's all 'looking back'. he does nothing for the entire story except look back. orpheus! looks! back! it's his entire thing! the story ends the same way it begins: orpheus looked back.
Sometimes, in fandom, we just want to write id-tastic fic that rolls around in tropes that might be viewed as problematic. But we don’t want to address the problematic side of things in this particular fanwork; we just want to roll around and wallow.
It is considered courteous to give readers a heads-up via use of AO3 tags. I propose a tag that signals that a given fanwork is for rolling around, not giving a measured evaluation of anything. The MCU has carved out a space for this sort of fic with the “HYDRA Trash Party” tag, for which I commend them. Trash Party is a bit too specific to cover all of the ground I’m thinking of here, though; I propose “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.”
For those of you not familiar with Arrested Development, Michael Bluth finds a paper bag in the freezer labeled “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.” He opens the bag, finds a dead dove, and reacts as follows:
[gif of a white man saying “I don’t know what I expected” in a deadpan manner]
The “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat” tag would essentially be a “what it says on the tin” metatag, indicating “you see the tropes and concepts tagged here? they are going to appear in this fic. exactly as said. there will not necessarily be any subversion, authorial commentary condemning problematic aspects, or meditation on potential harm. this fic contains dead dove. if you proceed, you should expect to encounter it.”
(more at KnowYourMeme: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-dont-know-what-i-expected)
I wish depression were an emergency. I wish someone could take one look at how sick I am and go “oh my god, we need to get you to a hospital!” and then when we get there I get rushed into surgery and the surgeons say “it’s a good thing you brought her here when you did, this is a seriously advanced case” and then they put me under and spend the next ten hours pulling metres of long, sticky black strands of gunk out of my body, throwing it immediately into an incinerator so that it can’t infect anyone else. And then they could stitch me back up and I could rest a few days, and when I leave the hospital everyone can see how much better I am and they congratulate me saying “well done, you’ve been so brave, I’m so glad you’re ok. I love you.”
"But I didn’t and still don’t like making a cult of women’s knowledge, preening ourselves on knowing things men don’t know, women’s deep irrational wisdom, women’s instinctive knowledge of Nature, and so on. All that all too often merely reinforces the masculinist idea of women as primitive and inferior – women’s knowledge as elementary, primitive, always down below at the dark roots, while men get to cultivate and own the flowers and crops that come up into the light. But why should women keep talking baby talk while men get to grow up? Why should women feel blindly while men get to think?" -- Ursula K. Leguin
I'm seeing a lot of discussion about whether the press conference was privately hosted by RB and therefore they were valid in kicking out Giles, but was it actually a privately hosted event or just part of the general media activities? If you know more I'd love to know, cos I can't find a solid answer 😅 (not that I think it changes anything tbh, but I want all the facts!)
It's not a press conference at all tbf which I think is part of what's confusing. It's a Thursday media session.
lemme explain the deeply arcane and mad structure of an F1 media weekend. So firstly, media day is now back to Thursday. They sort of tried to move it to Friday, in theory to condense the weekend but it didn't really work and everyone ended up at the track on Thursdays anyway so: that's media day again.
as part of being an F1 team and/or driver there is an obligation to provide some minimum amount of media availability over a weekend. there are some circumstances where teams argue their way out of bits of it - like McLaren excusing their drivers from written media sessions before Abu Dhabi last year - but as a rule there's an expectation that drivers will do:
one 10-15 minute written media session on Thursday
TV pen interviews on Thursday
FIA press conference if called up for it
TV pen interviews following whatever the final session is on Friday
a shorter (maybe 5 mins, sometimes even less, sometimes more) standing written media session
IF sprint race then top 3 must do post-sprint FIA media duties ('podium' interview)
TV pen after qualifying
short, standing written media session post-qualifying
TV spots during race build-up (on the grid, etc)
Top 3 must do FIA media duties (podium interview, press conference)
TV pen post-race
Short written media session post-race, these are often VERY short
This is actually a hell of a lot of media commitment during a weekend where they, y'know, also need to drive their race cars. And that's leaving aside any individual interviews that drivers may have been booked in for - maybe a one-to-one profile interview for a feature or a specific TV spot like eg: Martin Brundle talks through the 'championship mentality' with Lando Norris as a 10 minute feature in race build-up.
So it is a lot. Especially when you then add on fan stage and sponsor duties. If you think most football or hockey players would not be expecting to be interviewed at all over the course of a game, unless they're the captain or have done something exceptional, then yes that looks like a pretty major burden for F1 drivers and why they sometimes look really fucking fed up with media.
Anyway, that aside, the way a written media session works is you get told ahead of time when the driver will be available, by the team PRs and then you go there and find them. On the Thursday that's in hospitality and it's when you get photos of a driver surrounded by 70 phones and recorders and a whole crowd of people crushed around them the other side of the table.
There's no particular order to who gets to ask questions, although occasionally a PR will guide it if there's a lull and sometimes it's pre-agreed who will get the first question. It's all a bit of a willy-waving show of dominance about who does what and who has to 'waste' their question asking the obvious (since you all get the whole session's audio to use) and whatever. But it's meant to be for efficiency, so the driver does 10-15 minutes and then everyone's got some quotes.
If you've got media accreditation (so not VIP or sponsor-backed or something, you must have an FIA media lanyard) then you can get in. The FIA in fact will get a bit lairy if you're not let in or don't get a good enough seat or whatever, assuming you're some old white geezer who's more than a bit entitled.
Sometimes drivers do refuse to have journalists in these sessions. It's usually on the grounds of having recently written something personally offensive about them or having been particularly invasive. It's not usually about a question about the sport asked four months ago.
Anyway I hope that has cleared that up, so: it is a session hosted by Red Bull at their hospitality but which they are expected to do by FOM and which anyone with media accreditation has access to.
More of a question for visibility. I honestly believe we need to name and shame certain people in the paddock carrying a “media pass”. Meanwhile, just in case if name and shame is too high risk, could you name a couple of people that are trustworthy both from the perspectives of journalism and just, being a decent human?
(Choose not to use anon since I don’t want to be perceived as one carrying ill will. Again we need name and shame.)
(Also attaching my precious neutered coward ginger man as a thank you gift to Hazel)
omg do not Wash him. what a nice boy.
name and shame is too long a post to write in the 15 minutes before I need to get back downstairs to the bar. so the more positive version it is.
err yes so this is totally off the top of my head but there are actually a fair number of decent journalists out there even in the paddock cohort. Luke Smith is a good man who, even when he was extremely early on in his career, risked it completely to stand up to the bad ones.
I will to my last breath say Dre Harrison deserves a much better position in motorsport and the whole thing should be desperately grateful to have him. he's office-based currently but I hope he'll get back out to paddocks soon.
Giles Richards himself is a genuinely good bloke. he and I had a probably-the-only-time-this-has-ever-happened-in-motorsport encounter where we were having an intense argument about whether it was the feminist thing to do to go to Saudi Arabia because otherwise I was colluding with people not wanting me to or whether this was colluding with the Saudi state anyway.
Ben Hunt is a good guy. I don't think he currently has a paddock job and I'm not sure what he's doing rn. James Elson is definitely a good man and excellent journalist but he was just suddenly let go from Motor Sport and I'm not sure what he's doing right now.
Benjamin Vinel is brilliant and a longstanding friend of mine. I really respect the thoughtful, measured approach.
none of the women I knew who worked in the paddock still are. I'm not convinced there's any women in print media doing anything close to the whole season.
I worked with Keith Collantine at racefans for a very long time and he's another genuinely good person who tries to do good as much as you can when running a motorsport publication.
I DO think tumblr's dev team has been instructed to constantly implement new features and that's why they keep tweaking the UI in goofy ways. I imagine this is an upper management thing, so even if we say "well don't change anything and just maintain the status quo" they'll continue to make other changes anyway.
I will admit I REALLY like the recent improvements they've added to tumblr's search (you can exclude terms now!! you can search multiple tags!! and time frames!!) so it's not like they're incapable of adding useful features. it might be mutually beneficial for us as users if we were more vocal about things we want and don't want. Some features I'd like to see added:
spoilerable text
spoilerable images
the return of hover text!! remember when we had that?
ability to embed videos in reblogs
ANIMATED GIF ICONS!!!!!!!!!!!!
the ability to turn off other people's animated gif icons
the ability to filter original posts on a user's ENTIRE blog, not just a tag/search
more html support, like what if we could build tables
adding reactions to replies! I'm glad we can like them more but it'd be nice if we could take this further
embeddable tiktoks?? I don't even use tiktok but I remember trying to embed one in like 2020 and I'm surprised we still can't! even vines were able to be embedded
being able to search in your DMs. not being able to do this is why I tend to redirect mutuals to discord
MUTING USERS POSTS/COMMENTS WITHOUT BLOCKING THEM! just cause I don't want to see someone's posts doesn't mean I don't want us to never interact ever
a mutual-only dashboard feed
a feed for the blogs you're subscribed to
get rid of tumblr tv lmao I've literally never used it
"mark as read" button for communities without opening them
please dear god no AI shit unless it's a way for me to filter/block it easier
several of these I've submitted support tickets for under "feedback", and if there's anything you feel strongly about I suggest you do too!
Modern research shows the public work together selflessly in an emergency, motivated by a strong impulse to help
“The notion that people panic and run screaming for the exits is a Hollywood fiction,” said Prof Stephen Reicher, an expert in group behaviour at the University of St Andrews.
“Characteristically, people stay and help each other,” he said. “We found this during the 7/7 attacks on the underground and the 1999 attack on the Admiral Duncan pub in London, where people looked after each other even though they feared other bombs.
“In our own research on the Leytonstone tube attack in 2015, there was an amazing level of spontaneous coordination by bystanders: some directed others away from danger. Some distracted the attacker. Some confronted the attacker. Each was able to act because of the others. Heroism was a feature of the group, not just the individual,” he added.
Prof Clifford Stott, a specialist in the psychology of crowds and group identity at Keele University, agreed. Modern research, he said, showed “bystander apathy” was a myth. Instead, strangers often work together in emergency situations with highly sophisticated unity.”
Bystander apathy is a myth invented by the New York Times to cover up that the police were called by several residents of the building, but the cops refused to act. The cops then told the Times that 38 people just watched her die (a seemingly arbitrary number and a physical impossibility based on where the attacks occurred), and the Times ran with it. In fact, Kitty was alive when the cops got there, and was being held and comforted by one of her friends who lived in the building because one of the people who saw her get attacked from across the street called her friend to go get her. Because people care.
You have just been attacked. How likely is it that someone will come to your help? If you remember the infamous case of Kitty Genovese in 19
I will always re-blog this. The story of Kitty Genovese’s murder has gone down in history as a story about everyone watching it happen and doing nothing and none of the story is true.
trying to figure out if a memory of mine actually happened or if its a hallucination a dream i had or a lie i told a bunch of times and forgot was a lie
dededos
prguitarman
kianamaiart
izzy806
tangentwithtanner
