ewilen

If Egan Loo is still watching, I wonder if he can say if there is an official "correct" way to pronounce Macross in English. In particular, does the second syllable rhyme with "cross", or does it have a long o, or something else? And which syllable is accented?

Everything didn't go okay. The ship rolled 90 degrees unexpectedly, and the main trim controls malfunctioned. The backup controls had to be used. As a result of the problem the plane ended up 20 miles off course and only barely exceeded 100 km altitude (328,491 feet versus a goal of 360,000 feet). A tail nozzle also also "buckled" (according to the New York Times article), which made loud bang, but that had little effect. As a result of the problems, the team is taking a cautious approach toward scheduling the next flight. This isn't to say the flight wasn't a success. Edit: another thing that went wrong, even more serious: loss of attitude control near the time the ship exited the atmosphere. http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996052

Dunno about the Hawkeye and Viking, but your "next Orion" is going to be a 737! http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/15/business/15arms.html

Good for the SS1 team. Whether AgentONE is right or wrong about the benefits of privatization (which I think is not a worthwhile topic for this board), I think it's correct that the main accomplishment here isn't technological, it's just a demonstration that a private group can make it to space. (Not orbit, mind you.) Whether that's worth all the hype layered on top of the basic geek-coolness factor of anything that goes fast and high--personally I doubt it, but to each his own opinion.

Can't agree with you, Keith. The kana for Southern Cross is サザンクロス which contains the same final syllables as Macross マクロス If there's a way of distinguishing "long oh" and "short aw" in katakana, it doesn't appear in the word "Macross". Edit: If they really wanted to specify a "long oh", they'd probably spell it マクロース http://perso.wanadoo.fr/babel-site/jap2.htm http://www.cjvlang.com/Writing/writsys/katakana4.html

Okay, they aren't necessarily going to show the transition, but if they're going to make it plausible that it will happen in the future, they need to do a good job with Lois.

It was only a matter of time... before Shin made an appearance...

Nice. I wonder if they're going to try to pull it off in Smallville. With the amount of angst Clark has gone through with Lana, they're going to need a very special (not just babelicious) Lois, along with good character development, if they want to make the transition work.

Thanks! Somehow I was completely oblivious to that 1980's Superboy show. And I still haven't seen Superman III, either. I forgot about Lana's appearance in the Superman movie.

Lana's first appearance was in Superboy Comics, 1959. She looks good for being 45 yrs old... Thanks. The website linked earlier in this thread gave a good summary of her story in the modern Superman, but there wasn't anything about her "classic" persona/story. What was her original relationship to Clark/Superboy...and how did they explain the transition to Lois as his gal pal? Again, talking pre-1986. If you can give a link, that would also be great. I must say that for being a very goofy show, Smallville is great fun. Both my wife and I think Lex is the coolest character. And I have to give credit to John Glover for adding Lionel Luther to a long string of delightful villains he's played. Edit: props also to whoever cast Terrance Stamp as Jor-El's voice.

I'm wondering...was Lana in the classic Superman/Superboy comics, or was she only introduced post-1986?

I disagree--if American voters had direct input into military gear it would probably LOOK post-Aliens badass. Whether it would work any better than GAP/Old Navy stuff is an entirely separate question. Probably not.

Maybe this is a dumb idea but I'll suggest it anyway: use spray paint enamel primer. At least you won't have to mix/thin/clean up.

Yes, it caused problems in my DVD player too (unless you install a firmware upgrade). But the concept is so simple and so perfectly suited to the DVD medium that the bugs would surely be worked out if the producers really wanted to use it. (Anybody know if the "play all episodes" and "with/without opening music" options on the SDF Macross DVD's are technically SB or not?)

Yup, and again there's a readymade technological solution that's been largely ignored by the studios. It's called "seamless branching".

I'm not sure if that allows for pan and scan which is a big part of fullscreen chopping. It does...there is a way to continuously encode where the center of the cropped screen is supposed to be, and DVD players are supposed to use this to automatically pan/shift the "window" onto the "actual" screen. To my knowledge, very few DVD's actually use this system, and I don't know if all players now support it.

In theory they don't even have to "put both editions on the disk". There's supposed to be a way to just indicate where the center of the fullscreen picture is supposed to be and let the DVD player handle the cropping. (It does mean a moderate loss of resolution relative to a dedicated fullscreen datastream.)

I thought it was pretty well done. Probably better than the real thing.

Yup, that was my first, too, except that I think I had a 1S.

The whole "bumblebees can't fly" story is essentially an urban legend arising from a back-of-the-envelope calculation based on a highly simplified model. And as for the 600 lb. women, they're nothing compared to a 10 meter-tall creature with human proportions, whose weight would be about 125 times that of a normal-sized human--i.e., about 10 tons. But the overall point is that whether or not a 10 meter human is a realistic prospect from the standpoint of biophysics, I don't think anyone feels it necessary to employ a "supernatural" explanation for how the Zentradi can stand and move. By contrast, a lot of people see the "weird" stuff in M0 in "supernatural" terms. And again, even if you think that ESP and telekinesis are no more or less believable than giant humanoids and hyperspace folds, they're a new variety of science fictional element compared to the original series.

No problem. It's just that my intention for this thread wasn't to debate the scientific details of whether a particular element is "realistic" or not--it was to consider whether there's been a shift or discontinuity in the underlying "fictional reality" going from SDF Macross to M0, and whether people like or dislike it. I think that posts on M7 are arguably relevant, too, since it's an open question as to whether there will be a spiritia connection to all the M0 weirdness.

You might want to take it up at a science/biology forum. We're sidetracking the thread.

Shin also damages and Octos with his head laser while underwater. (The scene shows the head laser has rifling grooves!? Anyway...) Probably both the SV-51 and VF-0 have SWAG armor, while the Octos lacks it. Or, in general, destroids of all types are rigged to explode on contact...

Interesting report, but most people will either: a) get the armor by itself to go with an existing VF--in which case by your account, all they have to deal with is a tight fit on the hands or b) get the armor + 1J bundle and either keep them together or put the armor on another valk--again, no real problem I don't think many people are going to get the bundle and then use the bundled 1J with Super/Strike parts from another Valk. At least, I wouldn't, considering you never see the combo with Hikaru's paint scheme.