Hurin

Confirms that was really the MIB each time we saw him? Not at all. the MIB masquerading with Claire does not necessarily mean that he also did so earlier with Jack. There are other possibilities. Especially in a show like this. We know that he could have done it. We know that he claims to have done it. But being a liar, and the boldness of the assertion (reasserted only moments later by Claire. . . yes, writers, we get it!). . . methinks they doth protest too much. But either way, him appearing with Claire prior doesn't confirm anything one way or the other regarding Jack's prior experience. Edit: Spoiler tag.

MIB/Locke saying that he was masquerading as , and lying about it does not preclude him from masquerading as later with Claire. Also, I'd point out that it's generally hazardous to say that we know anything "definitely" merely because a character asserts it. Especially when that character is apparently the villain and has been demonstrated to have lied in the past. If you saw Locke say: "yes that was me" and didn't immediately wonder if he was actually telling the truth and categorize the information given as dubious, you probably shouldn't be allowed to watch TV anymore.

Jesus. . .

In a discussion about a TV show featuring demi-gods, time travel/alternate realities, reincarnation/reanimation, teleportation, ghosts, and portable islands, it's probably a bit odd to get hung up on how realistic it is that a boat didn't disintegrate when it hit a statue or came to rest in the center of said island.

Touche! Er, I mean. . . how dare you sir!?! Though, we actually got quite a bit of traffic. But the "founding principle" of Macross Nexus was that it would be open source so that the average user (forum members) could go to the main site and update each toy/character/mecha profile themselves. What we learned, however, is that 99.9% of your average users are too lazy to actually submit any content. And the other .1% are generally too stupid to get it done despite their enthusiasm for doing so.* And then, having lost interest in doing all the updating ourselves (and in Macross, actually), we just decided to put a bullet in it. Which I think was the right thing to do. Some Japanese cyber-squatter actually owns that domain now. But, I think my original point stands: The main site remains stuck in 1997. To me, the problem isn't with the forums and their organization, the problem is that the site is unlikely to ever be substantially upgraded besides the occasional content dump (which are appreciated) on top of an archaic and creaky infrastructure. That, however, isn't to say that there aren't work-arounds, such as the OP's suggestions, that can help mitigate those issues. But nevertheless, the actual root of the problem remains the main site. Best, H *Before anyone gets all butt-hurt. . . that's just a tongue-in-cheek way of saying that if the interface for submitting content isn't 100% "child's play" easy, nothing will get submitted. If anything, that was the biggest lesson learned. When choosing between features and simplicity of submission. Go for the latter. Because all the features in the world won't mean crap without content.

It sounds like what you're asking for is some type of series of pages on the web. "Web pages," if you will. And that those pages would each contain information in an organized form. . . organized under one address or site on the web. Or, "website." And then we could name this "website" something like "Macross World". . . and each time a toy would come out, that website would put up a profile or "web page" about it and possibly even include images and/or reviews of that toy. And then, there could even be forums attached to the site where people could discuss what's on the main site. That, my friend, would be an awesome Macross resource so long as it was regularly updated and maintained.

I just hope that this injustice has been addressed satisfactorily and that some day, though perhaps in the distant future, healing can begin.

Just had the outage myself from ~noon to 12:45 pacific. It seems to be almost certainly server-side. And judging by the behavior, it probably has something to do with php or mysql. I'm making that guess because the problem actually started small and then continued to ramp up until the entire IPB forum was inaccessible (just timed out, wheel spinning). At first, I could visit the forums index (and refresh it), and could even click the forum sections (but not the forums themselves), and user profiles also worked. However, I could not visit a particular forum or click on a topic (via the last post link to the right of each forum). I also could not open the PM system. Gradually, all functionality was lost. Wild guessing: Perhaps certain tables in the database have gotten too large and are therefore gradually bringing certain parts of mysql (or php) to its knees until the whole thing goes kaput? Maybe allocating more memory to php might help? Dunno. . . but something is definitely afoot. Hope that report helps. B Edit: Down again at 1:30pm. I also meant to mention that apache remains up and working throughout these outages as the main site (non-forum, so no php or mysql) remains available.

It's interesting that DH's original failed traceroute (a few posts back) showed a failed traceroute as well. Which would indicate that it's a network provider. And it appeared that the failed hop was within the savvis network a few hops upstream from MW. But this latest report doesn't show any connectivity issues while apparently the site was down from DH's perspective. Which would tend to indicate a problem on the server itself. So, at this point, we're getting contradictory indications. Which, sorta just means we need more data (traceroutes). DH, can you confirm that those first two traceroutes in your latest post were taken while MW was fully down from your perspective. And, what was the experience on your end when you tried to access it? Timing out? Error message? Just browser icon turning but no result?

No need for several good ones. What might be best, though, is a saved good one taken whenever, then a bad one, then once it starts working, grab another good one. Ideally, the route should remain the same in each one. However, when experiencing trouble, the route should be broken at some point along the line if it's a issue with one of the "hops" along a user's route to the MW server.

It's also called a command prompt or "dos prompt". . . or the "command line." The easiest way to get to it is by: 1. On your keyboard, press "windows key" and "R" key at the same time. 2. Type "cmd" in the run dialog box that pops up. 3. Click OK. You're now looking at the windows command prompt. But that's only one of many ways to get to it. It's also buried in the start menu somewhere (usually under accessories). (type "exit" to close the command prompt and its window)

My money is on a few people having routing issues to the MW server. Announcing "I've had an outage" and noting the time, while providing some information, eventually stops being helpful when the problem persists after basic actions (like a server restart) have been taken. In the hopes of figuring out if its a routing/connectivity issue (rather than a server side issue). . . While things are working, please take a moment to do the following from a Windows command prompt: tracert macrossworld.com > c:\mw-good.txt The file on the root of your c: drive named "mw-good.txt" should now have a record of the route you were taking when things were working. Save this for later. The next time you have an outage, run the following from a Windows command prompt: tracert macrossworld.com > c:\mw-bad.txt Then, post the contents of both the "good" and "bad" file here (take out the first few lines of each unless you want everyone to know where you live and/or your home IP address!). By comparing the two files, we can hopefully determine if overall connectivity to the MW server has been lost, and if so, at what point. And from there, we can determine if there's a realistic hope of Shawn actually being able to do anything about it or if possibly the hosting provider needs to get on the horn to their upstream network providers to report intermittent outages. Best, H P.S. If you are not an admin on your computer, you may get an error when trying to write to the root of your c: drive. If that's the case, remove the "c:\" and just give a filename. . . it should then be written to your user directory. P.P.S. Here's an example of a successful traceroute (tracert) Tracing route to macrossworld.com [74.86.23.244] over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms -------bleh------------ 2 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms -------bleh------------ 3 187 ms 1 ms 1 ms -------bleh------------ 4 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms -------bleh------------ 5 3 ms 3 ms 2 ms -------bleh------------ 6 3 ms 3 ms 4 ms -------bleh------------ 7 3 ms 3 ms 3 ms -------bleh------------ 8 3 ms 3 ms 3 ms -------bleh------------ 9 3 ms 3 ms 3 ms te-4-1-0.rar3.la-ca.us.xo.net [207.88.12.153] 10 36 ms 36 ms 36 ms 207.88.12.45.ptr.us.xo.net [207.88.12.45] 11 36 ms 36 ms 36 ms 207.88.14.34.ptr.us.xo.net [207.88.14.34] 12 36 ms 36 ms 36 ms 207.88.185.74.ptr.us.xo.net [207.88.185.74] 13 36 ms 36 ms 36 ms border3.tge4-1-bbnet2.ext1.dal.pnap.net [216.52.191.83] 14 36 ms 36 ms 36 ms te2-1.cer03.dal01.dallas-datacenter.com [216.52.189.30] 15 38 ms 39 ms 39 ms po3.dar01.dal01.dallas-datacenter.com [66.228.118.209] 16 39 ms 39 ms 39 ms po1.fcr02.dal01.dallas-datacenter.com [66.228.118.178] 17 39 ms 39 ms 40 ms macrossworld.com [74.86.23.244] Trace complete.

There's Macross other than SDFM/DYRL?

You give him far too much credit. He doesn't have a problem with people quoting his pics. He used to complain loudly (and even compulsively report posts) where anyone quoted anyone's pics. Finally, the staff had to remind him that he doesn't make the rules here. Nor should he try to enforce those that he conjures up himself. As for his particular beef here? He pretty clearly started playing games with YLM when he removed the images from the upload service and replaced them with something snarky (at YLM's expense) so YLM's quoted images would display something other than what YLM originally quoted . And now that YLM (tongue planted firmly in cheek) has outsmarted him and uploaded his own copies of what he originally quoted (and A7 originally posted). . . we get this thread. It's just too bad that A7 can't just laugh about it. . . since it's not like YLM has done anything but poke a little fun at someone's (somewhat bizarre) pet peeve.

Yes indeed. The truth can be harsh.

Typical. I'm guessing that YLM has to be thrilled that his largely harmless goofing around has caused A7 to once again flip the f' out over something so utterly trivial as a few quoted images. Quoted images don't harm anyone and never have (they are cached and don't use bandwidth). Sure, it can be a bit annoying to scroll past them. But A7 brought this all on himself when he decided to create his own little rule against them and then played wannabe-mod in trying to enforce his own made-up rule. So here we are years later and the dude still hasn't learned to just take it easy and laugh about it.

Dear lord that's priceless. Lighten up dude. It's the internet.

That's fine. The usual suspects are here. I respect their opinion just about as much as I respect haterist's. Meanwhile, I know that those whose opinions I do respect at least loathe me slightly less than they loathe haterist and his shenanigans. This is the part where everyone who has ever had a run-in with me comes in and defends Mr. Victim. Or, those who haven't been around long enough to witness his behavior themselves just assumes that he's a good guy. . . why wouldn't you? He plays the victim so well. Ironically, while haterist says that he stopped coming here because of posts from "haters" (he brings it on himself, btw), I stopped coming here because there are actually so many f*cking idiots here who buy into his poo and act just like him. Oh, wait, did I say f*cking idiots? I'm sorry, I meant to say f*cking morons. Wait, am I not allowed to say that? Oh, then can I just say that people who might stick up for haterist are f*cking morons and then whenever you guys take offense I'll just say I don't mean you? That seems to have always worked for haterist and none of you seem to think there's anything wrong with that. He has never even been suspended. Even (especially) while I was admin. So what's the problem? I just think anyone who can't see through what haterist (DnD) does is an "a-hole" or a "moron". . . but don't worry, because I don't mean you. Hey! That's a neat trick! I like it! Here's the link you requested, Jenius. Though, I think your interpretation is flawed. Especially because the person saying the Macross toy should have knees originally wanted was kung-fu "dynamic" poses from those knees. And those "knees", situated in the crotch as they are and with such limited range of motion, aren't exactly what he was thinking of. . . considering he asked "how does it walk?" Clearly, while there is a joint near the crotch that isn't at the top of the leg that one could argue is a "knee" and thereby argue that I was wrong to say that the Macross has "no knees". . . that's not the type of knee the guy was saying should be on the toy and he was only saying such things because he hadn't even ever seen the anime and expected the Macross to do flying ninja kicks, turn its head, and otherwise move like a Valkryie. But I see you've been waiting a while to bring that up. Bravo. Good times. H

Is this the part where we pretend that's not a good thing? Don't forget EXO! To which charity did you donate the proceeds of those sales? Since, now that you have decided that toys are too expensive and coincidentally (and conveniently!) decided at the very same time that buying toys is immoral/selfish, I have to assume that you didn't keep the money from your toy collection for yourself. That would be "selfish" (your word). I'm forced to assume that these responsibilities include feeding the starving people in Kenya you mentioned previously and that the proceeds of your toy sales have gone directly to them. Because I know you wouldn't have brought up such a thing just to appear generous and big-spirited among this board's membership when in reality you're just not buying toys anymore because you've begun to find them too expensive. That wouldn't be like you at all! But I do have to wonder why you didn't feel this way when you were spending $500 on three smaller toys instead of one large one. If you can direct me to one post where I lay out a dividing line in our community, firmly place myself on one side of it, and then subtly or not-so-subtly suggest that those on the other side are "a-holes," morally deficient, or worse, I'll happily grant you this point. But, I don't think you'll be able to do so. Yet, time and time again, that is what you've done. And despite claims of "growing as a person," you continue to do so to this day. You introduce an arbitrary dividing line, directly or indirectly call those on the other side "a-holes" or somehow less than you, invite praise upon yourself. . . and then when those you've placed on the other side (or those who would stick up for them) ask you (even politely) to explain yourself or even just moderate your tone, you act as though it's their fault for interpreting your words in the only reasonable, logical fashion. Care for some examples? I know this is your favorite part. It's mine too! Thanks for once again giving me the opportunity to remind you and some of our newer members about these things! Here we go. . . Remember way back when you decided anyone not recommending the valk dealer in your signature were a-holes for recommending someone else? You accused them of "disgusting" behavior just because they recommended other established and reputable sellers (who were also well-regarded members here)? Remember when you repeatedly labeled as "a-holes" anyone who mentions how much they're willing to pay for a toy? Remember when you called all cops "a-holes" even as one of our long-standing members who was a police officer was trying to help a fellow member? Remember when you just recently called ebay sellers a-holes even though you know darn well many of us sell our stuff on ebay to get good market-driven prices for our belongings? Remember how we gave you a pass on that in a "benefit of the doubt" sorta way only to have you come back and attack ebay buyers as well only a few posts later? And, I should point out that the above is only a partial list. So now here we are today. . . you've decided you can't buy toys anymore. Rather than just say that, you need to couch it all in some grand moral awakening on your part where spending so much money on yourself would be bad and selfish when there are people starving in Kenya. Did it not occur to you how that must necessarily be interpreted by those who still choose to buy these toys for themselves? As usual, it either didn't occur to you, or it did but you perversely enjoy setting these situations up so that you can play the victim when someone notices that you've once again done your thing. And the worst part is that recently all the new folks fall for your schtick. Not once. Not one single time have you ever said: "Yeah, that was a bit ill-worded on my part. I apologize to those I inadvertently insulted." Instead, you attack those who merely point out the plain meaning of your words. And even as those you bizarrely smear express dismay that you've put them in your arbitrarily defined group of "a-holes" or villains, you act as though you can't imagine why they would think you were talking about them. It got old years ago. Yet you still do it. So forgive me if I'm not buying into your "personal growth." You're still the same old guy, doing the same old thing. That is, when you're not engaging in your other favorite activity: Making up stories entirely to try to impress strangers on the internet with your bravery and sexual prowess. When you're not trying to gain adoring fans by making up stories of fighting fifty bottle-and-skateboard wielding hooligans all alone or standing up to the Man (police) who threaten to beat you with skateboards in front of fifty adoring witnesses (all of which amazingly happened on the same day!). . . you are making sure we're all aware of your (very) improbable sexual conquests. Gee, I wonder why you took that picture down! Dude, there will always be people like you on the "tubes." And therefore there will unfortunately always be people like me who end up acting like tools themselves while documenting your tool-ish ways. So, unfortunately, nobody is a winner here. But anyways, I'm sure someone on Staff will come by momentarily to rescue you yet again (by way of rescuing this thread). H

Give who the benefit of the doubt? People who have been known to spend thousands on toys in the past while constantly complaining about their price? But, now that there's finally some toys outside of their price range they're suddenly Mother Teresa and only thinking about starving children? I swear, if you new guys were only aware of the personalities you were dealing with here. . .

Don't thank me! I'm not the one doing it! Edit: Either your sense of irony is more acute than mine and you're playing along, or the point of my post went entirely over your head.

I've notified the NYC branch of the UN's International Food Fund to be expecting a multi-thousand dollar donation courtesy of a certain someone's soon-to-be-sold Macross collection. I'm sure he won't let us down. People need help out there! Everyone should also probably stop selfishly wasting hundreds of hours per year on this discussion forum when we could be volunteering at a local homeless shelter or otherwise doing charitable work with that time. I've personally stopped buying Macross toys. I can't justify the expense myself since my priorities have changed. I only wish my priorities had changed so selflessly as others here who are kind enough to share their epiphany and new-found moral clarity. But, we can all at least sleep better knowing that the "valk money" from one of our more long-standing member's collection will soon be on the way to the needy where it will begin spreading hope and prosperity across the globe.

Thanks for the kind words. Sorry that this thread has gotten so hijacked. I have to ask though: In what format are people finding these subtitles now? The only way I ever disseminated them is via the two links in my signature where people can graft them onto their own DVDs (with no loss in video or audio quality). I never did get around to making a version of them for the remastered Region 2 DYRL re-release. But it sounds like someone did this and put my name on them? I actually never put any mention of myself or MW on the ones I created. Actually, the only thing that ever came close to a credits listing on mine was the "100% Pure Macross - Accept No Substitutes" banner that I had play just before the main menu. So if there is a DVD out there floating around with the subtitles I worked up and credited to me. . . that's news to me. I had heard brief asides about something being out there, but never looked into it. And I haven't been nor will I be "driven off" by this or any other thread in particular. I just got older. I changed. MW changed. I didn't feel like being on staff anymore, and I just didn't find it as enjoyable to spend so much time here. Ya know. . . seven years is a long time.

Well, as I've always been up front about, I actually didn't "translate" anything exactly. I depended upon the translation that Ali Sama posted so long ago (that I think he himself found and did not translate himself either). . . another one I found online somewhere. . . and the (horrible) fx DVD subtitles. Actually, all three were pretty terrible. When the subs weren't utter nonsense, they were stilted and jarring to the english-speaker's ear. So even the part's that (barely) made sense still tended to interrupt the viewer's "suspension of disbelief" and make them regularly aware that they were reading (poorly) translated dialog. In other words, watching DYRL and trying to actually appreciate the story felt like work and it was hard to "get into" the story on its merits. But with those three sources in-hand, I went through the script/subs line-by-line (all three versions) with the goal of consolidating them into something reasonably accurate, and then rewording that "unified script" so that the average english-speaker could watch DYRL and just "get it" without constantly having to figure out what all these bizarre subtitles were trying to say. By the end of it, I really did feel like I had essentially reworded just about every major line of dialog. But I would never claim to have translated anything since I never laid eyes on a single word of Japanese. I wanted the experience to be as good as watching your average French movie subtitled for American audiences. To that end, I think the project was a success as back when it was originally completed there were several posts from folks stating that they (and perhaps more importantly, their GFs and spouses) could finally sit down and just simply enjoy (and understand) the story as it unfolded with no need to decipher cryptic subtitles. So anyways. . . guess I'll wander off now. . .

By that standard, I'm pretty sure the entire project is a mistranslation since a literal translation wasn't my goal. My goal was to take what the apparent meaning of the words was (based on a couple fan translations and the fx subs) and rework that into idiomatic, natural-sounding english. But let's take a look at what you seem to think the line should be: "Just a normal...love song." Now, take a look at the subs as they appear. . . Just an ordinary song that was popular... ...in an alien city tens of thousands of years ago. Of course it was...a love song. Now, I don't know how you would have "translated" all the intervening language (about thousands of years and alien cities). . . but the meaning that you have said should be conveyed is conveyed. All the words you seem to think are so critical are there. I'm less concerned with "grammar and linguistics" than I am about the needs of the scene, the story, and the mood for an english-speaking audience. And so while you might be able to come up with a word-for-word literal translation that makes you happy, my goal was not to please those who understand Japanese language or culture. . . but to make the scenes, stories, and mood of the movie come across smoothly to the average english-speaking Macross fan. And to that end, those three lines appear to serve their purpose. In a nutshell, you could almost certainly prove without a doubt via some pedantic, technical translation that the words "of course" are not there in the original Japanese and are technically not necessary. But if those additional english words with no Japanese corollary help to convey the message and/or mood of a scene to non-Japanese people, then. . . well, I don't really care. Each time I reworded any of the lines I felt sounded stilted or just plain bizarre, I asked myself several questions regarding the changes I made: "Does the scene sound natural?" "Does the scene 'work?'" "Is the apparent tone and mood of the scene respected?" "Is the content of the scene respected?" "Have I changed anything arbitrarily?" To me, those are all more important questions than: Does x mean "ordinary" or "regular" or "normal?" Though you say that you haven't seen the subtitles in years, I have to assume that you took that (unwarranted) meaning from them when you originally saw them. . . so I'm a bit perplexed how you so misjudged the tone of those lines and somehow got a "eureka-like" exclamation from Misa rather than a melancholy statement on her part. . . and I'm a bit unclear as to whether you still consider it to be "COMPLETELY screwed up" or if you can now at least concede that while it may not be as technically accurate as you would like, it doesn't really mangle the story. Your initial appraisal made it sound like the meaning of the final scene had been horribly distorted by the subtitles. And though you now say that you remembered the subtitles incorrectly, you don't quite retract that appraisal. Yet I would contend that if you feel the meaning of the movie's final scene is ruined by such a minor difference in word order, choice, or grammar, then there's not much to discuss. To my mind, communication was established in a fashion that native engligh speakers would find readily accessible. That was my goal. A few words out of order or my failure to use the subjunctive, to my mind, doesn't constitute "COMPLETELY screwed up." At that time I was spending a few hundred man-hours on this project. . . reading the scripts, jotting down the fx subs, rewording, researching, retiming, rewatching, nudging each subtitle, recompiling, reburning, rewatching, taking more notes, nuding the subtitles around, rewording a line that bothers me, etc. . . I posted several threads to these forums asking people's opinion on a few sticky areas and discussing "literal translation" vs "cultural accessibility." At that time, everyone seemed pretty happy with the idea that we'd have some natural-sounding english subtitles even if this or that word might not be perfectly, literally translated. Finally. . . you didn't "drive me from MW". . . but the years of this very sort of stuff sure gets old after a while. The "internet forum culture" where self-styled experts feel it's just fine to crap all over someone's (very) hard work. . . often disingenuously or from a false premise (to misquote something, fundamentally misunderstand it, and then crap on it based on a faulty quotation/understanding of it), all within the "virtual earshot" of the person who worked hard on it in the first place? That's something that only happens on the internet. And I got tired of that sort of stuff a while back. In short, I'm too old for this sh*t. I can't really help you if you still think that such a minor difference in wording ruins that final scene. This is the first time anyone has ever had a problem with it. And I think that should probably serve as an indicator that you're hung up on pedantic technicalities of linguistic nuance rather than asking yourself: "Did the scene work?" H