Next year seems that will be a decisive one for Formula 1, as Honda announced its retirement from this sport (lack of money and results is the main problem here) and new rules about engines that now should last a few races have made things difficult for teams and pilots, that now feel this sport is not about competition anymore, but just a way to spend/earn a few bucks.

I do feel the same too, as 2009 seems to be the first year with tho teams, McLaren and Ferrari, lining up 3 cars (now every team has 2 cars) because sponsorship and television rights contracts were signed for 20 cars on the starting grid, not 18. For me that’s pure nonsense: how can the constructors title be called fair if some teams have 50% more chances to gain t, thanks to one additional car? Will they multiply the points gained by other teams by 1.5? I don’t think so.

Too bad that Formula 1 was a sport for the brave and now seems more like chess. What do you think? Where F1 will go in the next few years?

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And I’m not talking about chineze dual-sim replicas, but products build by big brands like Nokia, ASUS, Antec, Sony, Nikon and such. What happened with the build quality? Well, I’ve got a theory on that, of course: the more the price race speeds up the less quality components are used, to keep price down. I’m not saying they’re using components with shorter lifespan that the one of the product, but when you build something made of 100 bit and pieces of low value eventually one will fail, breaking your beloved gadget.

Everybody is praising that consumers are the one who have to gain from the price war, but I’m pretty sure consumers don’t like to RMA their products and be deprived of them a few weeks every year. I’m getting this sense after my second phone broke this year. First my beloved ASUS P525 begun to shut itself down when a SIM card was inserted then my “like new” Nokia E51 begun to have problems with its ear piece, which can’t get the volume high enough to make a call possible in noisy places.

It seems that everyone puts a high price on functions and not quality, knowing that they’ll eventually exchange the product for a new model sometime soon. I agree with that, but I don’t like being forced to buy a new gadget because the last one broke.

What about you, do you think that cutting corners (in manufacturing process) is only for F1 drivers or you do think that I’m talking nonsense?

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