F-ZeroOne

You're telling me. According to one source, its even inspired a call-girl service. Even Bandai hasn't latched onto that Gundam revenue source yet...!

Hey - what about the Bandai problem child?! HCM: "Hey! No fair! I wanna be old school too! I am old school!" Takatoku Milia: "I never should have had him... "

I am British and I don't feel offended by the possible content of the film (though if I had personally been involved in the London incidents then I would almost certainly feel differently), but I think the producers comments are a bit insensitive.

Man it would be cool to have an episode with some of the Watchmen charicters and have it be some history book or alternate world. The Question himself is heavily based on some Rorchach(sp) and Frank Millers Question in Batman Dark Knight Strikes Again. 312629[/snapback] Actually, I think it might be more the other way around - IIRC, the Watchmen characters were based on characters bought up by DC and not used for various reasons until Alan Moore got hold of them. Additionally, I seem to remember reading that some members of the JL (for example, Blue Beetle) were also based on the this same original source (or, even, on Watchmen characters - think how close Blue Beetle is to Nite-Owl, for example), buts its been so long since I read that I may well have got some of things mixed up.

Knight26 and HelloHikaru share the honours - its a Gloster Meteor! According to Martin-Baker, its the oldest operational jet fighter known to be in service, and in case you're wondering, its used for low-level ejection seat testing because it has two centifrugial compression jet engines that are highly resistant to bird strikes. This is what we Brits do while waiting for Lockheed to put the JSF on a diet - whats been referred to as "Must Refurbish Canberras Again"...

Words I never expected to see in a US animation are "based on a story by Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore"...!

I saw a programme the other day that featured Martin-Baker, the ejector seat company. It featured an amazing aircraft fact that I'm going to set as a little challenge for the aviation-minded on this fourm... ...what aircraft do Martin-Baker, in the UK, use for low-level ejection seat testing? MB are going to be working on the JSF programme, so must be something pretty advanced, right?

I'm gonna have to agree and I'll need to add this comment... I dig quite a few british comedies and dramas but I can't stand british sci-fi. They all tend to be so campy or just plain ass gay. Someone is not going to like the new Dr. Who, then... Of course, Quatermass: gay. Ultraviolet: gay. Edge of Darkness: gay. The Nightmare Man: gay. (in other words, I think that the "all" was a teensy bit harsh... )

Very, very nice!

There was a TV programme I saw once where the presenter took the top off an AK-47. I swear there was nothing in there but a couple of bits of what looked like string...! On the other hand, the same presenter stood a few feet away from a car and opened up on full auto. The car was untouched - I think I'd prefer something slightly more accurate if I ever find myself caught in Dino Crisis for real...

Flamethrowers scare the hell out of people but as I understand it, their main use was to suck the oxygen out of fortified positions, suffocating the occupants rather than trying to fy them. Of course, if you're up against dinosaurs, theres always the Holy Laser Beams: http://www.livejournal.com/users/theferrett/519211.html

Sorry, I was thinking of the paperback edition. In the US, each book was cut in half and released as two seperate paperbacks. Boy, you do some weird things to books in the US... (the cover blurb for Terry Pratchetts "Lords & Ladies" which somehow substituted an American football team for a Morris Dancing troupe is perhaps my favourite, though!)

My God. I want one. Badly.

Activate... REVERSE THRUSTA!

Er, being pedantic here: unless theres a difference between the US and UK editions, the "Nights Dawn" trilogy is - well, a trilogy, three volumes. There was a companion "World of... " book and a collection of short stories set in the same Universe, but that still comes up one short...

This aired on the UK channel Channel 4 a few months back. Its a pretty good series; although the "make people today the battle-hardened pilots of yesterday" is probably the least interesting aspect - that goes to the interviews with the real thing, the Last of the Few... It also features comments from Stephen Bungay, who wrote the superb "The Most Dangerous Enemy", and the series appears to be quite heavily based on that work. And, of course, lots of footage of Spitfires doing what Spitfires do best - being the loveliest warbird there ever was...

We British also used conformal fuel tanks. They were never very popular, mainly because - unlike later drop tanks - they affected the aircrafts performance and were vunerable in combat. The Germans once tried using them on Bf-110s during a raid in the Battle of Britain and they got slaughtered. The F-15 was, I think, the first fighter to use FAST packs in their modern sense, but I think a number of jets had experimented with similar concepts before then.

Asides from reading "idiot", "Baka" was also the Allied forces codename for the aforementioned "Ohka" piloted suicide bomb...

Gundam Wing is very probably not the best Gundam series, though other people might beg to differ. In fact, its a bit like Macross 7 in a number of ways; a series some people love to hate but which does have at least some merit. Speaking personally, highlights of Gundam include Gundam 0080, Chars Counterattack, Gundam Zeta (though its more or less mandatory to list this; Graham disagrees... ), and Gundam Seed Destiny (though I like this more than I did the original Gundam Seed). Gundam has a number of seperate timelines and Gundam Wing is set in one of these; it was an attempt, probably successful, to do something different with a long-running franchise. And, no, I wouldn't recommend watching Macross 7 for the mecha scenes - watch Macross Plus for that! And like I always say: the best anime is the one you like the best. Listen to others opinions, but remember Isamu in Macross Plus: you won't know until you try.

Not sure if its feminine or not, but "Ohka" is sometimes translated as "cherry blossom". However, I strongly suggest you read up on where its been used in other contexts, as you might not want to people to note the following association...!: http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/air_power/ap22.htm Personally, I've always enjoyed "Hikari" ("Light"), which often turns up for female anime characters, and is also used for a shinkansen service as well.

One thing that might get a little overlooked in all the "look at Gigaflops on that!" stuff... The X-Box 360s visualiser - thats the thing that plays pretty images while you play CDs - has been programmed by something of a UK games industry legend: Jeff Minter. I'm not sure how well known he is in the US, but stuff hes worked on before includes Tempest 2000 for the Jaguar and Tempest 3000 for the Nuon (plus a load of classic and off-the-wall 8-bit games). Jeff has always been admired for his stuff, but hes generally had the misfortune of working on hardware that wasn't very successful commercially (at least on the "current" hardware platforms). Jeff has long been experimenting with things called "light-synths" - a fusion of audio and sound experience - and the X-Box 360 visualiser has allowed him and some colleagues to acheive a long-held ambition. http://www.llamasoft.co.uk/ for more information, though the servers are being hit a little hard by Jeffs loyal fanbase and so things might be a touch slow at the moment (the X-Box announcement was largely secret until today). I've seen a little of the smaller preview video from the site and I think the best way I can sum it up is "the stargate sequence from 2001 - on steroids!"

A chess craze went through my school once. Some of the players were really, really, good, and though I played a bit I was nowhere near their level. However, I did manage to beat one of them - twice. The second time, he slipped up and didn't realise it. The first time was much sweeter - he could see what was going to happen but couldn't get out of it.. But normally he would have absolutely killed me on a chess board...

Been a very long while since I played RPGs, but from I can remember... All time favourite: West End Games Star Wars. The system probably wouldn't have worked for anything else, but it fitted the setting absolutely perfectly. Kudos to: Mekton Z/Mekton Z Plus. A nice attempt for a "do anything" mecha creation system. Main drawback is that it could get very bogged down in numbers and fractions of numbers, but the core system was elegant enough. Champions: Q: how many Champions players does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: Thats a GM call. Another very points heavy system, and it required more D6s than just about any other system around. But it captured the feel of its subject - superheroes - incredibly well. Call of Cthulhu: Q: How many Call of Cthulhu players does it take to change a light bulb? A: All of them! Never split the party! The system was a little clunky - an outgrowth of Runequest - but has there ever been a more atmospheric RPG setting than Lovecrafts Great Old One-haunted 1920s? Paranoia: possibly the most fun game ever made. You probably wouldn't want to play it for long periods, but seeing as it was almost impossible to even get out the briefing room without someone being shot, back-stabbed, blown up, terminated, run over by a scrub-bot, propelled into another dimension, molecule-spun by some R&D terror device, or indeed, vapourised, that was rarely a problem...

I've seen that one, but unfortunately couldn't get as close as I would have liked as they were refurbishing the USAF section at the time. Would have liked to be there on the day it was bought into the UK, though: Her Majestys Customs Officials: "Anything to declare, sir?"