SchizophrenicMC

Schizo, hope that op goes well for your father. I've read about such implants and at least in some cases they're said to make things much more manageable for some sufferers.

Okay, so who else is disappointed the B-21 isn't the YF-23 reincarnated?

I'm disappointed every time something isn't a YF-23.

I need this.

Awe man I would love to drive a stealth or 3000 every day right now but I'm sure they're maintenance nightmares. I always liked them.

DOHC transverse V6 twin turbo with AWD, from Mitsubishi, circa 1990. "Nightmare" does not begin to describe them.

I had an 96 eclipse gs-t. And it was a fun car but it was nickel and diming me to death. It was an extra car but it still had to go. It's ok because I eventiually replaced it with a 02 camaro SS.

My cousin had a '95 GSX. It was literally on jack stands more than it was on the road.

My mom had a 92 Talon TSi, FWD. Fun, fun little rocket, and dead reliable.

Two words:

Crank. Walk.

I'm the oldest living member of my family who has yet to own a Mitsubishi. I like to think that makes me the first to learn from everyone else's mistakes.

I retired out of Eglin AFB. They fly the F-35's there but as far as i can tell by just listening they aren't really any louder than the normal 15's and 16's that fly from there. Do you see any formation lights on it when it takes off Spanner?

Spent some time at Lockheed Ft Worth, can confirm. No louder than an F-16 from where I was standing.

Those of you who have had hearing problems associated with jet engine noise, you have my sympathies. I have a relative who suffers from tinnitus and although I obviously can't know directly what its like, their descriptions are enough to learn it is not something overly easy to live with.

Tinnitus is pretty bad. A lot of my family has mild tinnitus, but my dad is profoundly deaf and his tinnitus is so bad, it gives him vertigo, makes it hard to sleep, and causes him to lose focus a lot. It's gotten so bad, he's having surgery next month to get a brain implant we hope will help reduce his tinnitus. (As an aside, as I'm typing this, my ears are ringing at about a medium. Hooray)

I wish I'd been in the position I am now, 5 years ago. Before the NSX hype really kicked off, they were $20,000 cars. Now I can't find any under 60.

Now's the time to buy a Z32 though. You can still get the NAs under 5 grand all day, but once the twin turbo stock starts to dry up, even those will start appreciating.

Any DC-9's or 727's still flying around there?

Ugh there's a guy who parks his 727 at the municipal airport down the street. It's not hard to tell when that guy's going somewhere.

Oh come now, the F-15 JFS is the iconic fighter jet startup sound.

The glowing cuts is what really sells it.

Was that a Pyrotechnic starter on the F-22?

Most American fighters have Jet Fuel Starters. Typically a small turbine, spun up by a hydraulic accumulator, that generates enough bleed air to start one of the engines cold in a few seconds. From a cold start, the engine typically reaches stable operation in under a minute, and is ready to start the other engine, if the aircraft is so-equipped.

The Block 40's have all those external stiffeners now though, any different from the N's issues?

Air Force pilots are showoffs, Navy pilots are simply insane.

To be fair, for someone who hasn't drawn professionally (not even as a hobby?) before his manga debut, he's done pretty well.

Speaking of his origins, I remember reading somewhere that he got the idea for the story after an incident at a cafe where he worked. If I'm not mistaken, a really large foreigner who didn't speak Japanese physically threatened him or something, and he got the idea of an impossibly strong force that you can neither communicate with or reason with. Is this a true story or just a rumor that some of his fans made up?

The version I heard was, he worked at a net cafe and was confronted by a very drunk Japanese man. The man, purportedly, was in such shambles as to look grotesque, and was incapable of coherent speech or understanding. Seeing this man-shaped creature, according to what I believe was an actual interview with Isayama, inspired him to write a story about his childhood in an area surrounded by mountains, where the impossible boundary wasn't a simple mountain, but a race of unspeaking giants whose constant hunger keeps people trapped in a veritable cage.

Nor, unless its the best kept secret in naval aviation, are there any F-16s.

Not really a secret. The US Navy employs F-16s as training aircraft, and has since the 1980s. In fact there used to be a dedicated Navy variant: the F-16N.

US Navy website

The art style is distinctive. It's worth noting that Isayama wasn't a writer or an artist before starting Shingeki No Kyojin. I think the art style, while not itself visually appealing, lends itself to the story in a meaningful way. Nothing about any of this is pretty, and the art is no exception.

Well, that's more than enough reasons to give the manga a second look.

BTW, how's Hanji gender ambiguous? She's always seemed like a typical obsessed female scientist, as far as I know. The only one that ever got me wondering was Armin.

Hanji, who is portrayed with a more feminine aspect in the anime, is much more ambiguous in the manga. In fact, Hanji is never once referred to by a gendered pronoun in the manga. (And has a flatter chest)

With that said, it's my opinion that Hanji is best girl, and even canon can't take that away from me.

I think midsize sedans aren't bland enough. They're overstyled and over-equipped. Big, heavy, stupid things that look too fancy. There's a lot to be said for the understated looks of the 1990-94 Nissan Maxima.

A $65,000 SUV will break the 5-second barrier by a wide margin, with a curb weight well in excess of 5,000lbs, and a 6,000lb towing capacity. And they're making an even faster version of that SUV, with over triple the horsepower of its original version, which was also praised in its time for its blistering 0-60 time. (1998 Grand Cherokee 5.9 Limited 0-60: 6.7s; 2016 Grand Cherokee SRT 0-60: 4.4s; some are speculating the 2018 Grand Cherokee Trackhawk will do it in 2.7s!) And many much cheaper cars break the 6-second barrier. The Miata does it in 5.8s for $25,000. The Focus ST does it in 5.9s for around the same. The WRX does it in 5.2s for $28,000, and the STi will break the 5-second barrier at 4.6 for only $35,000!

The horsepower war is over. We won. And yet somehow we still lost. The new Miata, perhaps the slowest sports car in production, is faster to 60 than the 300ZX non-turbo was in its heyday, and that was a very expensive dedicated sports car. And yet the original Miata, the tiny, objectively slow thing, was still so much fun. And so was the 300ZX. The new one still is, but it's a little strange to put that much speed into a car designed to not be fast. But that's the new normal. Everything's gotten faster, bigger, and heavier all at the same time. We've added so much power to everything, we have to use electronic aids to wind it back in and keep people who have no business holding that kind of power, from killing themselves because their enormous sedan weighs more than its tires can corner it with at those speeds.

And yet somehow, my 160hp Outback is still capable of achieving freeway speeds before the end of the on-ramp, and usually before these 300hp sedans with their drivers who don't comprehend the power they wield. People have become insulated from driving, and driving has become just another chore to use technology to whittle away into something that is lived through, rather than experienced. All of this makes me want to add an 80s car to my stable again. The 90s was a golden era for cars, and my 240SX is so representative of that. But the 80s was a special time, before we had the engineering tools that made the 90s such a golden period. Everything was mechanically brutal. Clever suspension that can keep itself composed under anything but perfect conditions didn't exist yet. Brakes were just getting used to the idea of rear discs, and there was no ABS at all, for anybody. Fuel injection was in its infancy, and likely the most complex electronic driving aid you had was transistorized cruise control. "Turbo" was a cool and meaningful word that meant your car was on the bleeding edge of engine technology. "Twin Cam" too for that matter. And maybe that sheds light on the matter:

People by and large just don't care about cars anymore. They've become appliances. Objects purchased to improve quality of life, then discarded when they wear out. The days of "Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday" are over, as racing viewership has diminished. There's no more emotional or cultural investment in cars. Just the financial one. No sense exciting people with exciting cars that do exciting things. Just give them enough horsepower to move their large appliance from A to B fast enough, and give them the electronic help they need to not kill themselves with all that power.

brb guys, I'm gonna go for a midnight drive in the 240.

In the 70s, 80s, and even the early 90s, 13s was a lot of speed. The fastest cars of 1990, the F40 and 959, struggled to break the 12 second barrier. The '93 Viper hit its lowest reported time at 13 flat, and it was a lot less car with a lot bigger engine. (Both, funny enough, were Chrysler products at the time) Not to mention, that Diablo did 13.2 with a slipping, burned-up clutch.

This was back in a time when 400hp was supercar territory. Today there are pickup trucks with more. Even 300hp was high-end sports car power, and now most midsize sedans have a 300+hp option. Back then there was no traction control, ABS, or clever AWD systems to make you faster than you deserved to be. And if you had the gold and the guts to buy a Lamborghini, you were either on top, or backwards in a ditch, leg snapped clean off by the heavy clutch.

The early 90s, truly, was the golden age of the sports car.

Japan in general has tried to ignore G Gundam.

Besides, I can hardly get an RG to stay standing on both feet, let alone in partial arts poses on one foot.

That's subjective. The story is definitely worth following though. The anime is slightly out of order, which works too, but it also skips a lot of character development that makes certain spoilers from the anime make more sense than they do without that context. And it only gets more intense as the manga progresses. The stakes keep finding a way to get higher and higher and higher, and Isayama manages to progress the story without making anything happen. It's a constant building tension, and when it releases, it's anybody's game. Every question that gets answered raises four more, and everything is up for speculation. And Hanji is even more gender ambiguous!

I'm down for anything Unicorn, but I haven't had a very good track record with RGs thus far.

Well, it's always good to end a season with a cliffhanger to keep the audience interested. I wonder if the 3rd season's delay is to get more people to buy the manga. Honestly, I'd read the manga if the artwork weren't so..."minimalist." I actually tried reading from where the anime left off, but after a few pages, I just gave up.

You should try from the beginning. It's so, so worth it.

The worst part about the anime is, it ends right when the manga gets good. I can only surmise this was deliberate. I can think of a few places the writers might pick for a season 2 finale, but it's going to be all the more painful to wait for season 3 after that. Especially because they can't make it too quickly, since the manga moves so slowly. I wonder if Isayama knows Ryuta Amazune- he's really playing a sadistic game with us, but never quite so much we drop the safe word and put a stop to all this.

It really depends on the manga. The manga is a monthly publication that manages to progress the plot while also opening more plotlines that all need their own progression. The author has done a strange job of moving the story while also constantly opening up more of the story to explore. Every question that gets answered causes us to ask more questions, that sort of thing. There's awhile yet before the manga will get through all of its major plotlines, and it has yet to devolve into cash cowing in itself. (Which a lot of shounen manga do on their own, before their anime can reach their first filler arc)

Now, the rest of the franchise, they're milking it for what it's worth. Who can blame them?

Throw me on the button/dial/cupholder love train, I don't have much love for touch screens. I just like the feel of turning a knob or flipping a toggle as opposed to poking a screen. I also hate seeing modern radios in restored classics, why cheap out at the radio when you spend thousands getting everything else just right?

I didn't mean you can't have the modern amenities like CD/Bluetooth/Whatever else there is I am more against seeing those cheapo head units you buy at best buy in a 50k resto project. There are a few brands that have radios modeled after the original designs with all the new stuff hidden in them to keep the period look.

The problem is, the retro-styled decks are expensive and all of the money is in the styling. The sound quality is awful and the fitment is not guaranteed. They also often lack the features of a modern stereo, such as bluetooth hands-free and media profiles, HD Radio, Sirius/XM compatibility, or extensive digital signal processor controls. Most of which are reasons why, despite loving the throwback styling of Nakamichi and Blaupunkt decks, I won't be buying one for my 240SX. They look like modernized versions of the period style, but they just do not have the features I demand in a stereo. The same is true of many builds. Why spend all this money on your build, then put a deck in that sounds like trash and has no way to control your sound staging, while also not providing the types of media inputs you require? At that rate, why not go really big and put together a custom deck with a microcontroller and PCBs? (Answer: it's way too much dick pain for anybody sensible to bother)

Also, some touch screen decks have volume knobs. The one I put in the Subaru does. The Fusion has knobs for volume and tune, though the latter is difficult to reach if you have small arms.

Because AM/FM radio sucks these days?

Hear hear.

on the button/dial subject, my favorite thing is steering wheel mounted controls. I love being able to flip radio stations without having to take my hand off the wheel at all.

also, any car you plan to drive in for more than an hour should have cup holders. I'm all for driving as an extension of your being and driving for the enjoyment of the ride itself, but that experience is gonna be better when you're properly hydrated.

I love steering wheel controls. I wire them into all my Jeeps. Unfortunately the Scooby and the Nissan don't have them. Also, agreed on the cupholders.

In other news, the headers for the niner arrived yesterday. Behold:

My commuter has cupholders. My Jeeps have cupholders. My sports car has several ash trays.

Ah, Japan.