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  2. M'Kyuun
    I'm having a tough time determining if they're black or a gunmetal color, but it looks gunmetal along with the scope/fusion cannon, both of which should be unquestionably black. I hope there's a 3P add-on kit featuring a transforming scope that folds so as to present a corresponding grey upper turret surface, perhaps with hatch cover detail, and the back halves of the scope rotate and swing around to fill out and give a better shape to the back of the turret. As is, it just doesn't look very good, certainly not up to the standard we've come to expect.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    We are many decades, if not centuries, from having to worry about something like that. When people think about the term AI, what they're thinking about is more often than not is what's called Artificial General Intelligence. A computer that can think and reason like a human being. That technology is purely science fiction for a bunch of reasons. Mainly hardware and software limitations on the computer's side. The low end estimate of exactly how much computational power is trapped in the average human's noggin is about 1 exaflop. That's 1 times 10 to the 18th power floating point operations per second. And that's done on about 20 watts of power. Exaflop-scale supercomputers became a thing for the first time in 2022, but they're about a square kilometer in size, made up of around 5,000 separate high-end processors joined by hundreds of kilometers of cabling and coolant piping, draw over 30 million watts of power to operate (nuclear power station level energy demands), and still have all the limits of a machine processing linear operations in binary. They're not capable of fuzzy logic, abstract reasoning, or any of the other insane stuff that your squishy human brain does on a minute-by-minute basis. This is the kind of thing that might become possible when we have quantum supercomputers... but we're still trying to figure out how to reliably store single qbits. The AI technology that the news is fussing over is massively oversold. LLMs like Google's Gemini, Apple's Apple Intelligence, OpenAI's ChatGPT, xAI's Grok, etc. are nothing more than extremely inefficient upscalings of the same kind of text autocomplete in your phone's onscreen keyboard app. They possess no reasoning capability. All they're capable of doing is probability-based pattern-matching. Instead of just guessing the next word you might type based on probabilities from sample text, they're taking keywords and stringing together vast strings of text based purely on the probability of those words appearing in that order based on the gargantuan amount of raw text they've been fed from books and websites and so on. Which is why they "hallucinate". They have no capacity to actually understand the material you're exchanging with them. It's almost an "infinite monkeys" situation, with an extremely powerful server essentially guessing wildly based purely on next word probability until it comes up with a plausible sounding string of words that it vomits up. The art-based ones are no different. They break sample data down into mathematical models and then string those models together based on keywords from your prompt. Because their function is purely probability analysis-based, they can be "poisoned" with junk data that messes up those probability tables and makes them draw or talk even more nonsense than they normally do. Those "AI" pop stars are, variously, just people in mo-cap suits with autotune steering rigged 3D models like a Vtuber or a combination of existing text, speech synthesis, and video synthesis AI software that's just running preprogrammed and vetted prompts to avoid the system spazzing out. Will there be "AI"-powered drone weapons in the near future? Absolutely. Not weapons that can think for themselves, but weapons that use image recognition software to identify people or military vehicles connected to basic fire control systems. Something broadly analogous to the QF-2200 Ghost from Macross Zero, essentially. Something like the Ghost X-9, Sharon Apple, the Siren Delta System, Skynet, Commander Data, etc. is a sci-fi pipe dream with even the foreseeable future's technology.
  4. David Hingtgen
    Now copying what I grabbed to my main backup drive... I think the report of "99.95% recovered" was true. It seems to be all there. Even stuff from the last day I used it So then why does Windows act like that drive is the plague? Ubuntu reported a single bad sector. That shouldn't make the drive utterly unusable.
  5. Chronocidal
    Huh.. yeah, that shin color is an odd choice, especially when his hips are already a better color of plastic.
  6. M'Kyuun
    I have to commend Takara, as this their most convincing effort thus far at producing a G1 Megs bot that turns into a relatively believable modern tank. However, the turret is a bit of a letdown, as it does nothing to disguise the fact that it's a giant pistol scope pinched between two arms, and that's a shame given how well the lower half turned out. Honestly, I'd have happily paid the commander price for the additional engineering to make that turret look more believable. Additionally, the pistol barrel sticking out of the scope isn't winning any credibility points either and it just looks tacky. It feels like 90% of their effort was spent on getting the body and legs to form a convincing tank base, and then they just kinda gave up when it came to the turret, recycling the same old technique used before with zero regard for pesky realism. The dark grey color of the legs is a bit of an odd choice, as well as the color of his waist skirts. Seems like Mark or Evan would be all over that to correct them, but I have a feeling what we're seeing is pretty close to final. I like the chunky proportions of Megs; overall, they really nailed the G1 aesthetic and that was likely the priority over all. To that end, I'd say they succeeded. Unless Hasbro let this slip accidentally on purpose, this is quite a coup, as I'm sure internal anticipation was high to reveal this on a fanstream. Genie's outta the bottle now, though.
  7. mikeszekely
    Aside from his fusion cannon and back cannon, he comes with the laser sword from the movie and a pistol that looks like his cartoon alt mode rather than the pistol he murdered Prime with. Both can be stored on his back in bot mode. Not sure where the official storage in tank mode is, but I'm sure it's there somewhere.
  8. mikeszekely
    Oh, found these on reddit. EDIT: Technically Studio Series Widowmaker has also leaked, and she looks pretty decent for a Bayformer (she actually uses a lot of the car parts in her body, and the orange McLaren 12c alt mode is swish), but I don't think most of you care about Bayverse stuff.
  9. mikeszekely
    Should be a Leader-class; dunno how much they go for in Japan, but in the States Prime (a Commander-class) cost as much as a Leader and a Voyager together. Back is clean, by the way. You do have some treads visible in his calves and heels, but nothing I can't live with. I might have to find a good gunmetal paint to repaint his shins, though. Transformation looks pretty interesting. The entirety of the treads fold inside his lower legs, and the hinges and stuff that make his arms into the turret wrap around inside his back.
  10. tekering
    It's a very clever solution, and I'm heartily in agreement. I just hope he doesn't cost as much as SS'86 Prime did. šŸ¤•
  11. tekering
    Has online fandom become so toxic that objectively acknowledging the existence of a trend must be interpreted as subjective criticism of said trend? šŸ¤Ø That's not "reasonable," it's simply "reactionary." šŸ˜’ Thankfully, you seem to be the only pessimist to have jumped to such a conclusion. No, or I would've used an inherently negative term, like "clichĆ©." If "trope," "motif," or "trend" have negative connotations, it's new to me... but as someone who has resided in Japan for the entirely of the 21st century -- and increasingly avoids the social media landscape -- I freely admit my use of language may be a little out of date. ā˜ŗļø I apologize for any confusion, and encourage everyone to keep an open mind.
  12. pengbuzz
    Thanks Vic; while I have no pending orders with WiseGuys, a few other members here do. I was just relating similar issues, but I do try to give sellers the benefit of the doubt (running a business is not for the faint of heart!). Good to see that you folks are trying to make good on the issues pending.
  13. Today
  14. mikeszekely
    Assuming this is real (and I have no reason to believe it's not), bot mode is looking pretty dang good. Fusion cannon's a little off (but DNA is making one for like $6). Color on his legs is a little off, too, but maybe it's just the photo. Tank mode is... well, sans turret, it's pretty decent. The turret looks less like an actual tank, though, and very much like arms folded up around a fusion cannon with his back cannon sticking out of the barrel. And you know what? That's good enough for me. I just want a robot that looks screen accurate; no super obvious treads, no big honkin' backpack. I don't really care how crappy the tank mode has to be to make that happen.
  15. Mog
    Yeah, just finished watching it on +. Not horrible, and actually enjoyed it. Actually did a good job of making an interesting, compelling villain. Definitely helps if youā€™ve watched Falcon and the Winter Soldier. . . just so you know the mains. But again, a solid outing.
  16. David Hingtgen
    I tried to mount it, but nothing happened. Gave it a while, but neither errors nor blinking---just, nothing. So far "testdisk" seems to work well. It can directly read folders and files from the img. And copy them to other locations. Doesn't seem able to sort by date, so I'm just having to scroll and manually pick them.
  17. Goodman Models
    Interesting theory!
  18. Big s
    Iā€™m definitely checking this one out. I love Del Toro movies.
  19. Big s
    Thatā€™s only thirty something, so Iā€™ll give you a runner up price of a šŸ‘
  20. Old_Nash_II
    It deserved to go to the cinema. And I hope it is as Mary Shelley described it in the book.
  21. mikeszekely
    Can't you right-click the img file and select "mount"? That should open it in file explorer as if it were a drive, then you should be able to copy files from it to another actual drive.
  22. WiseGuyVic
    For a newbie, you'd rock at some of the local shows here in the upper East Coast! Indeed I am! I left some new comments on the GTC Legacy Thread. I have updates I'll be divulging and I'm trying to do more community outreach. Thanks for choosing us!
  23. Papa Rat
    You totally should! Thanks so much. Iā€™m new to model building and figure these older, affordable kits will be the best route to bust my chops and learn. Nothing to it but to do it. šŸ˜Š *Just noticed your handle. Are you one of the WiseGuyHobbies, guys? I only bring it up since I bought that Super and many other kits from WGH off of EBAY. Always a good resource for these old kits.
  24. WiseGuyVic started following Whats Lying on your Workbench MK IV
  25. WiseGuyVic
    @Papa Rat You did such an incredible job on that kit! I've been apprehensive about giving one of those Arii Gerwalk kits a try but I think I might now!
  26. WiseGuyVic
    These were definitely my fault and most of my mistakes are easily avoidable but I still make them. I aim to ensure no stones are left unturned and that evidently comes with some hurdles. In order to reach me please email me at: wiseguyshobbiesllcsm@outlook.com That is the email I check constantly for business and I will try to be on here more often in order to answer questions. I'm debating starting a discord server to easily answer questions with more ease.
  27. WiseGuyVic
    I do too! I will explain: We have had some growing pains and some decisions were made when the website was created that didn't benefit us. I was only a regular staff member when this happened and since then I was promoted to Store Manager. I aim for efficiency and streamlining our processes and thus, the eBay has been updated and inventoried. The website needs to be updated and we've also started offering free shipping on select items as of the last two weeks.
  28. David Hingtgen
    So---I have yet to find anyone agreeing with what to do with the actual .img file ddrescue creates. I do not want to clone the whole thing and put it on another drive, which is what most places seem to assume will be done. I want to "go in and grab certain files", assuming they're there. I have seen so many different programs/methods recommended. Anyone ever actually "grabbed the files out of a ddrescue-created img"? PS----this is purely a storage drive. It was never bootable. The fact that Windows "cares so much" about this drive, and refuses to boot if it's plugged in, and freezes if you glance at it, is what's so weird to me.
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