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  2. Seto Kaiba
    That doesn't tally with the facts at all, though. The "tuning out the core audience" nonsense is pure BS from a handful of loudmouth incel culture warriors on Twitter. 😆 Cracker Barrel tried to rebrand and modernize its trade dress to appeal to a younger and wider consumer demographic because revenues were in freefall. Why? Because their #1 repeat customer demographic is people over 65 and nearly half of all customers are over 55. Folks on fixed incomes are feeling the economic downturn most strongly of all, and having large parts of your primary customer base checking out to join the choir invisible is bad for business long-term. They underestimated how much of their brand identity is tied up in that kitschy trade dress rather than their admittedly pretty mediocre menu. 😆 It's quite a bit different. This wasn't driven by slipping sales or the target demographic literally f***ing dying off, for example. 😆 Stellantis is a multinational, not a European company. The development flagship is still in Michigan, as it has been since before Fiat got involved. As Fiat-Chrysler, some European development activities were actually moved to the US because the engineering expertise was concentrated there. (That's why the museum on the HQ grounds closed, it ended up converted into office space for the newly US-based Alfa Romeo and Maserati staff.) Pushing a performance EV to the muscle car crowd was risky, they knew that going in. That's why we had things like that "Fratzonic sound" system added. I've explained the other reasons behind it in previous posts. Ultimately, yeah... kind of a forlorn hope. Like I said, we were peddling new technology to a pack of borderline Luddites. That was never going to end well. 😆 That's not at all correct I'm afraid. A technical standard is nothing more or less than a rather wordy document that tells you in precise and exacting detail how to do the thing. The goal is to ensure that everyone who is working on a specific technology has a shared understanding of how it's supposed to work so that it will function with things built by other people. In theory, a standard ought to drive prices down by making development easier (since you're not reinventing the wheel) but in practice not s'much because a huge amount of effort goes into staying on top of all those applicable government, industry, and internal standards. (And I say this as someone who sits on four SAE J-standard committees currently.) Your belief that that '69 Caprice and '69 Charger share no standard beyond "runs on gas" is entertainingly wrong. Practically every aspect of those cars construction is governed by manufacturer-specific corporate standards, industry standards, and/or government standards. Those cars were built after FMVSS was put into place, so they absolutely comply with the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards of the era they were built in. Everything from the pitch of the screw threads to the thickness of the sheet metal to voltage tolerances of the spark plugs and battery to the thickness and material of brake hoses to the presence of seat belts is dictated by multiple standards documents at multiple levels. There are whole layers of corporate bureaucracy at the OEMs devoted to developing, maintaining, updating, and ensuring compliance with all these standards in every aspect of development and manufacturing. The stories I could tell you... and probably put you to sleep with because they're boring AF...😆 I don't disagree that these early generations of EVs will not have a century-long lifespan in the hands of collectors. That's because the technology behind these early generations of EVs is evolving so fast and everyone is pivoting as fast as they can to new features, use-cases, and standards that a part may only be in production for a few years before it ends up being redesigned, upgraded, and repackaged for a new generation of vehicles with more powerful motors, new transmission concepts, and new energy storage tech. Once EV tech matures and the pace of development is less frantic, we'll see machines with substantially longer lifespans.
  3. Mog
    Poor Vader’s true and oldest enemy: SAND!!!!!1!!1!1!1!!!
  4. mikeszekely
    Metroid and Hyrule Warriors are pretty much it for me and the Switch 2 this year. And maybe next year... Also, $40 each for Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2 (or $70 for both)?! Is there a developer that thinks less of their fans than Nintendo?
  5. tekering
    Geez, you guys seem to have more free time than I do! Remarkable progress, especially from @Papa Rat. I'm glad to see the Alien "Space Jockey" got some well-deserved attention in between all your vintage Valkyrie kits. Oh man, Mos Eisley is kicking my ass, guys. 🤕 I went ahead and printed the rest of the Dowager Queen derelict, more-or-less as it appeared in 1977: It's almost as big as the whole cantina! 😲 As you can see, it still needs a ton of work before it's ready for paint, weathering... and a whole lot of sand, of course. 😅 I also need several of those iconic moisture vaporators... ...and even though Hasbro gave us one back in 2007, it was typically inaccurate (and pathetically small). 🙄 No matter. I can just print my own to scale, using this free online model I found. 😋 Looks perfect, right? Well, you get what you pay for. 😣 Seriously, in my 16 months of 3D-printing, I've never encountered such a poorly-designed model. The damn thing's got no substance whatsoever. Some parts aren't even attached, just floating in virtual space... and to make matters worse, the rash of heavy rains this week have caused me additional problems. Let's zoom in and do a forensic examination of this disaster: At the top, you can see where supports should have printed, had there been less humidity and more consistent temperatures. That's materials failure. I had to substantially increase the exposure time for each layer. Here, you can see a bizarre gap in the support structure, caused by a persistent glitch in the proprietary slicing program. That's software failure. I had to switch to a less-efficient file format to avoid further issues like this. Finally, this section is where supports collapsed, lacking a surface to adhere to. That's a structural failure in the model itself. I had to spend hours reinforcing the interior structure, and many more hours placing hundreds and hundreds of supports manually to ensure a successful print. 😒 Well, after days of manual restructuring, technical adjustments, and a heavy dose of trial-and-error, I finally got one assembled. I went pretty heavy on the weathering, as the Mos Eisley vaporators look poorly-maintained. I might've gone too far. 🤨
  6. lochness
    Beautiful work!
  7. RavenHawk
    That's extremely helpful. Thank you!
  8. mark-1s
    That looks so much better. I don’t understand why they couldn’t just do that to begin with.
  9. Today
  10. General Rasp
    Below are some current examples of shipping from HLJ to Michigan with the tariffs. Currently HLJ is only offering DHL to the states which isn't the cheapest shipping option. But with the shipping and tariffs it is doubling the price of the figures. Given the states of things, I am not surprised BBTS is $140 while the Japanese shops are $75. HLJ is extending the private warehouse policy so I am going to wait until the tariffs are removed or reduced. Hope that helps.
  11. RavenHawk
    I have a soft spot for sidecars and designs that remind me of Aramaki's work on Bubblegum Crisis, so Grizzly has clicked with me.
  12. lochness
    I'm super excited about the TV Rau! Ordered right away. Hopefully, Hasegawa actually does new molds for all the differences between the movie and TV suits, i.e. new legs, new head, new antenna and lots of new panel lines on the arms and backpack. Ideally, a TV version of Millia's suit is included as well. Please, please, please. Fingers crossed.
  13. azrael
  14. RavenHawk
    Looking for the hivemind's opinions on sourcing the Toyrise Legioss. I generally order from BBTS (I've mentioned this before, but they gave me some amazing customer service way back in prehistoric times, with an issue with a Yamato Proto-Garland, and have earned my business since), and they've been eating most of the tariff costs on pre-tariff orders, which is amazing, but... some newer price differences would be nice to avoid. However, I haven't ordered from AmiAmi or HLJ in a long time (early Sentinels and Zillion Tri-Charger), so I don't have a sense of current shipping rates to the USA or tariffs, which they don't/can't easily calculate in (BBTS assumes a tariff rate). It looks like the prices are currently: 1) AmiAmi: https://www.amiami.com/eng/detail/?gcode=FIGURE-191150&srsltid=AfmBOorhdLzs5kKsjT01hziCEVBHjUD_cGToTOaXbv6xIeHzHDpChm2- : - - 10560 yen currently comes out to around $72... but then need shipping and tariffs. 2) HLJ: https://www.hlj.com/toyr-se-afc-01x-omega-legioss-omega-tkt08592 (our MW friend's link https://www.hlj.com/?utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=scorchedearthtoys😞 - - 11400 yen currently couse out to around $77... plus, again, shipping and tariffs. 3) BBTS: https://www.bigbadtoystore.com/Product/VariationDetails/333868 : - - $141.49 is hard to take; it's around double of the others, pre-shipping and tariffs; BBTS pile of loot ends up making shipping darn near free, but that's a lot of tariff action going on (though, in fairness, I DO trust BBTS to reduce their price if tariffs end up lower... IF). Does anyone have recent experience to suggest what final, landed costs to the USA would be, or have alternatives? Thanks everyone. I'm actually really excited for the Another Genesis line and, like I've often complained, having some genuinely PLAYABLE MOSPEADA toys (not just collectibles for display).
  15. Mog
    Maybe the other female Ride Armor with the swords. But the other two male designs were a bit much. If they rearranged the weapons layout on the GBP-1S looking one, it would be better.
  16. RavenHawk
    I'm actually pretty bummed about that. While I did have some gripes, the Genesis Breaker stuff really grew on me over time, and I was hoping for getting all of the other designs from the story/art.
  17. Tking22
    I'm in, I loved the Mario movie, and Galaxy was easily one of the best Mario games ever made. Nintendo is cooking today, Galaxy movie announced along with Galaxy 2 on Switch 2? That's awesome, I'll buy a Switch 2 for that.
  18. TangledThorns
    Oh, that was fast. My children are getting older but will see if this interests them or not.
  19. Old_Nash_II
    First teaser of Mario Galaxy
  20. Big s
    It was a very small minority of people, but those people had a loud voice. It’s sorta like that M&M’s thing a while back that most people didn’t care about, only less people know about the existence of Cracker Barrel.
  21. Stampeed Valkyrie
    first statement about quiet cars.. in your soccer mom wagons and daily econobox cars, they were always quiet. Not including the aftermarket fart can exhausts. As for sport and muscle cars.. lol maybe I spend more time around sport and muscle cars.. that and I do not live in CA. As for Cracker Barrel.. the CEO decided to tune out the core audience. The "Most People" argument does not hold water, Most people were knocking the company for being bone headed. I don't see how this is any different with Stellantis and Dodge.. European company tuning out its core customer, pushing EVs to a muscle car crowd.. fail. With the fall back being the Hurricane engine, which is also European in an American Muscle car brand.. double fail. And as for industry standards.. yes and no. A standard in theory should aid in pricing as well as build and repair issues. However.. even with standards these cars will still NOT last. in my example the only shared standard that the 69 Caprice, and 69 Charger have are they run on gasoline.. and yet they are still here. Its also worth noting that both of the cars I mention come from a time period where the general consumer believed a vehicle should be disposed of at 100k miles. Modern vehicles have come a long way on beating the 100k mile expiration date.. well some manufacturers have.. others not so much. But its to be expected considering average new car costs keep going higher and higher.
  22. sh9000
    I love this Devastator.
  23. Big s
    Tennis had been doing the majority of Macross art for boxes for a number of recent years. Not sure about the reasoning here, but he also did artwork for many other franchises as well. Maybe he just needed a bit of a rest after being the only major name in the game. I do love the Mercy Rabbit stuff lately and kinda nice to see other great artists pop up. I think there’s a certain bit of story in the Mercy Rabbit stuff that’s kinda exciting on the boxes. I kinda missed old school battle scenes and a lot of the newer box art has had little exciting things going on while still showing off the main attraction up front. Anyway, hope it’s not a bad reason that we don’t get as much Tenjin and just the well deserved resting thing going on
  24. Big s
    I like the red, it makes it go faster, even when it’s just on a stand.
  25. Graham
    Just wondering if anybody knows why Tenjin is no longer doing the box art for Hasegawa Macross kits? Did Tenjin get too expensive, so that Hasegawa went with other artists? Or Hasegawa just decided to switch it up and try someone different? Or Tenjin finally got bored with doing Macross box art? Or Tenjin is just too busy these days with other projects? Anybody know?
  26. grogall
    It's sad that Bandai has shifted the DX VF-1 line to the back burner, but with this reveal it's still a sign that the line is not dead yet, and we can still hope that my previous list can still be finished someday.... But seeing how brisk the Hi-Metal-R Votom line is done by Bandai this line is not really a priority anymore! Sad since a lot of effort was put in at the beginning! But at least we can strike another from the list. 🤗, almost
  27. Chronocidal
    Yeah, this is basically all I want at this point, though I'd be perfectly happy if they did a dual TV/DYRL release for the CF. I really can't be forced to care what ship name is printed on the tails (and I still think it looks lousy on the side of the thighs anyhow), which is why one of my Roys is converted to a DYRL now (swapped the control panel from a spare Kakizaki, and repainted a spare DYRL Hikaru from a VT-1 in yellow). If Bandai really wanted to cover the bases, they could just include multiple swappable tails, but I'm not going to get hung up on the individual marking differences. I think the only other ones I might get suckered into are if they make M&Ms, but that's only from my OCD, as I've collected every other M&M pair produced since I started collecting.
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