David Hingtgen

Just buy a PS3---it upconverts all normal DVD's quite nicely, it seems.

::googles:: Dude, Sylar's going to be Spock. That's actually really good casting IMHO. Also, Nimoy's going to be Spock.

The problem is, they seem to have gone with the ski-ramp design, with the "potential" to incorporate catapults in the future built in to the design. They are planning for the future, and since the carriers will out-live the F-35, there might not BE any V/STOL planes in the future to use, and they'll have to fit catapults to have any airwing at all. It'd be a lot easier to just include catapults from the start. Or heck, just one. Use F-35's if you've got them, but keep 1 catapult around for the E-2, or Rafale, or something. Also, catapults would allow the F-35C, which is probably going to have a much easier design process than the F-35B, and will be a better plane in the end.

Hasegawa honestly seems to make most of their money from repacking old kits with new decals, then doubling the price. That won't work as well for battroids, as most "special schemes" are intended for (and only look attractive in) fighter mode. Look at the VF-1: Any tailfin markings are invisible in battroid mode. Nowadays, Hasegawa has many kits that aren't consistently available, even if they had been for years on end---said kit will only be released once or twice a year, in limited quantities, as a limited edition kit with special decals. And it'll cost 2 or 3 times what the "basic" version of the kit did. But if you really need a few more F-18 kits for the raw plastic only, that's the only way to get them. It's how they've been for military planes for years now, and they probably want to do the same with Macross.

The old Yamato 1/72 could do high-speed mode, and had movable thrust vector paddles--I'd expect the new and improved one to as well.

1 new theme, and 1 new set of gamer pics are up today. (#4 for each) Can't really tell what's in the new theme. New gamer pics are A-10 and Rafale. It's pretty clear they're releasing gamer pics in pairs of random planes. I'll eventually purchase whatever gamer pic sets have the F-14B/D, and YF-23.

With the latest backwards compatability update, the 360 can now play every Xbox game I want it to, so I have utterly no use for my Xbox now. I'm thinking--there's often system trade-in specials, especially when new ones come out, or any other time system sales will go up. (I got double normal value for my old PS2 when the PStwo came out--cost me only 50 bucks to "upgrade") Anyone know/think there'll be an XBox trade-in bonus when Halo 3 comes out, since they'll be expecting a lot of new 360 owners just for that? But if it's only if the trade-in is to be applied to a new 360, that's pointless for me.

Any truth to the rumors of Blu-Ray already winning the format war? The $179 HD drive deal is tempting, but kind of a waste if in 18 months Blu-Ray is way ahead of HD-DVD and support falls away. It's more expensive, but I'd probably rather buy a PS3. (I'll probably end up with a PS3 before an HD TV, as the HD TV I want still doesn't exist--it will, just probably not in the next 9 months) 26-32in with adaptive LED backlighting. That's what I want. (Should we also expand the thread to include HD TV's?)

Seacons as a TF club exclusive? Might be cheaper to go buy a C9 G1 set. (Better colors, too--and now that there's FINALLY reproduction stickers available, it's pretty easy to have a very nice-looking G1 Piranacon---note the lack of the H)

When I first heard about this, my first thought was "I bet it's something REALLY common, that only an utter moron would fail to recognize"--and I was right. Latest version of the story: ""Gameboy Sparks Main Terminal Evacuation, Long Beach CA Airport The main terminal at the Long Beach, CA Airport has been evacuated and at least 100 people were forced to wait outside until officials determined if the threat was legitimate. All outbound flights have been put on hold due to the threat, which was a suspicious package, revealed to be a gameboy. Apparently someone with a suitcase was going through security at 9:30 AM when officials realized there was something of concern inside the suitcase, but have now discovered it was only a video game. Agency spokeswoman Jennifer Peppin said: "It certainly was nothing but it certainly looked like something. It had all the wires and components that you would see in an explosive device." Sure am glad the TSA is looking out for us, if they can't tell a Gameboy from a bomb. I sure hope no one sends a PSP through, they'd really freak out over some that high-tech and "unusual"--since apparently even a GB isn't common enough to be identified by your average security guard.

Oooh, Wing Zero? I'll download the demo just for that. But I doubt I'll buy the game--I've tried several Dynasty etc demos, never really got into it. I like hack and slash, but the Dynasty series is such PURE hack and slash I get bored and my fingers hurt.

The entire underside and sides of the fuselage are gone. The "shutters" are not part of the limbless mode nor intended to smooth out the area---they are the vanes for deflecting the engine thrust in GERWALK mode and are always present. They are merely exposed by the loss of the belly. The YF-21 has an intake/nacelle configuration very similar to the YF-23, with the intake trunking angling upwards as you go in, thus the loss of the belly doesn't interrupt airflow to the engines, as the intake trunking stays near the top of the fuselage. (With the shutters forming the underside of the intake trunking---more properly I think they'd be called louvers, but they act as vanes/deflectors)

Re: restoring movies. Interesting---is there a minimum quality to start with for a movie to be restored to a HD-flawless image? PS---for me, the thing that bugs me the most about "quick transfers" are usually basic framing issues. Even with widescreen everything, there's still often some issues. I hate to use it as an example, but Star Trek: Generations is probably the worst offender of this I can think of. Very early in the movie, there's a shot showing the Enterprise (just its hull number), revealing "NCC-1701-B" ---with the B on the right side of the screen. And it's a big thing, revealing that "B" showing that it's the new Enterprise *B*. But the most recent release---you can't see the B at all. The "reveal" only shows "NCC-1701-" Yay. The whole scene is wasted. It's like the whole movie suffers from severe overscan. You're missing out on a good chunk of the edge of the image. You'd think they'd know how to go from 35mm to 1.85 by now...

Don't forget the Wii safety video:

Replayed the demo a few more times, seeing what there is to see. 1. Couldn't find Kfirs again. Did I just imagine them? I did find some new stuff--C-17's. 2. The demo is set to "super duper easy". 1 Sidewinder will take down anything, even a B-52. About 3 bullets is enough as well. I just let the plane sit and have enemies attack---they fired 10 missiles. I only tried to dodge 2, while 7 others just flat-out missed from point-blank 6-o-clock, only 1 managed to hit me and did 20% damage. 3. Flaming battle damage! The missile that did manage to hit me caused smoke and fire to pour out from a hole in the wing. After a while the fire died down, then eventually the smoke went away. Visual damage has no effect on flying (at least in the demo). Tried getting hit several times, only ever saw the same damage effect, sometimes mirrored on the other wing. Enemy super weapon only did 10% damage, though I presume it'll be instant death in the real game. I got up to 91%, plane still flew fine. (Again, could be different in the real game--but AC has never had damage affect your plane before) Demo plane is an F-16C, big-mouth GE powered. That narrows it down to a late Block 30, or Block 40 or 50. Need to try to see the landing gear to tell. (They're easy to tell apart in normal configuration, or from the HUD---but stripped down for air-to-air, and with a "game HUD"---it's very difficult) It had LAU-129 rails on the wingtips, which only block 40 and 50 came with, but many block 30's were retrofitted--even ANG squadrons got them pretty quickly.

Also, studios don't want to release every "most wanted" movie at once. They'll need to string you along for a few years, steadily depriving you of cash. (Plus, nobody could afford to re-buy every movie in Blu-Ray all at once) Personally, there are very few movies I would actually re-buy on Blu-Ray that I have on DVD. I actually plan to buy only "must have" DVD's until I have a next-gen player (likely a PS3) then just buy the Blu-Ray version of all the movies I skipped buying the DVD of. Also, a lot of movies just aren't worth seeing in HD anyways--if it's a B-movie from 1970, S-VHS is probably higher than the masters can deliver. You really can't re-master a gorgeous 1080p image from old technicolor. It has to be a fairly recent, big-budget movie to have the image quality to start with. There's plenty of DVD's which are only marginally better than the VHS, if at all. Sure, 300 will look awesome in 1080, but a lot of films even as recent as the mid-90's just won't be worth re-mastering to try to eek out 1% more detail. Just keep them as DVD, it's as good as they're going to get. Just IMHO.

Which is how Kawamori has designed the gear of most every valk, and many real planes do it to save space. It's just that the YF-21 is about the only design where it's critical that a *toy* do it too---you can get away with non-rotating gear on a toy -19 and -1 because the legs are deep enough (and hollow) to accomodate a non-rotating wheel. But the YF-21 retracts its gear into the wing roots, and needs the rotating wheels to do so. The original Yamato YF-21 has paper-thin wing roots, and no fuselage sides---merely the exposed arms. Which is why the gear couldn't be done right at all----that part of the plane mode basically didn't exist.

This triggered a memory from another forum, and googling around it seems it's the same problem they had back when:---Comcast is blocking MW's IP. We're on their blacklist. http://forum.securitycadets.com/index.php?showtopic=2734 Recent discussion of similar problem--they just "got off" Comcast's blacklist so registration emails are now going through. Anyways---it's Comcast blocking MW's emails at a high level--you'll never see it in your spam folder because it never even gets to Comcast to start with. You know how a lot of places used to list "AOL users click here" or "AOL users do this" because AOL email was incompatible with everything else? Well now you often see "AOL and Comcast" directions, because Comcast blocks so much stuff.

Line art vs CAD comparison:

Ah, the Wii Fit parody----it's hilarious (IMHO)

I never knew of that book, but after looking it up, now I want it. There's one question which will decide if it's worth the money (that's a lot of money, even for a large art book IMHO): How are the B-Wing references? B-wing stuff is almost non-existant. There's a few pics at Starship modeler, and one decent pic in my "Technical Journal of the Rebel Forces"--but that's about it. I want pages of B-wing stuff. Every detail, every angle. If there's a well-known ship in SW that's undocumented, it's the B-Wing.

Graham said Yamato has like NO chance/desire/intention to release a VF-4, and has repeated that for years. Plus the whole M7 license issue means no M&M -22's.

Due to my Fei-Yen collection, I believe I have more pink mecha than any other color. I actually plan to skip Ivanov and only buy Nora's. PS--excluding Transformers, they don't count.

Hey wait--is the Sv-51 even out yet?!?! There has to be some sort of "wallet recovery time" between releases...

The current trend is for airlines to spend millions on new, ugly, bland paint schemes. If nothing else, it's different. QANTAS has however decided to spend money and repaint the fleet, re-logo everything from napkins to uniforms to ticket-holders, and generally waste money, for a subtle change--I present to you, the NEW logo and name for QANTAS: Definitely one of the bigger wastes of money I've ever seen.