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Valkyrie Driver

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  1. Valkyrie Driver
    My family is a pretty diverse one culturally. My mother's family is from the Netherlands, and she grew up speaking Dutch. Dad learned a bit of Russian, and mom's father speaks German fluently. My dad, brothers, and I really like playing language games, like letter swapping and pig latin, that coupled with all of the different languages getting thrown around have made it pretty easy to pick up other languages. Now this relates because, Mom will say something to me in dutch, and I'll understand what she's saying, despite the fact that I don't speak the language. Dad will do the same thing with russian phrases, and again I can understand. I've picked up some phrases and things along the way, and I've taken German, which I picked up easily. I also took some Japanese, and will be continuing that to the intermediate level (as my university requires that). That seems to suggest that the brain's internal computing language is independent of spoken language, and that it's really just pattern recognition. I may be completely off base, but It seems to me to be the case, seeing as I have an aptitude for languages, that I can't explain.
  2. Valkyrie Driver
    I would have thought that the nozzle operated in reverse. I mean when you add a restriction it increases pressure (like putting your thumb over a garden hose) so why does the nozzle get wider? I'm not doubting that that's the way it works, I just want to know why.
  3. Valkyrie Driver
    You're right. Still though, I actually kind of like the idea of weathered valks, it makes them seem more real. Or at least like they could be real.
  4. Valkyrie Driver
    What took you there? I mean you have to be working, right? What sort of jobs are there for foreigners in Japan? Automotive? Aerospace? Computer Programming? Software design? Anything that you don't need a technical degree from a university to do?
  5. Valkyrie Driver
    This is for all of you living in Japan, what do you do there that got you living in such a cool place? I'm incredibly jealous...
  6. Valkyrie Driver
    That still leaves grunge that's in the air. If it's not stain resistant, well, even the grunge in the air will make them look like a bag of hammered crap after a while...
  7. Valkyrie Driver

    I really want a VF-19 Advance...

  8. Valkyrie Driver
    Holy God Seto, was that even English? I understood about half of what you said. Something about variables, and a bunch of things I haven't worked with in over 5 years... If I can't fix it with duct tape, paracord, and/or a swift kick, I ain't getting it fixed (to be fair, almost all of my problems can be solved with the proper application of duct tape, paracord, and/or violence). Which leads me to this point, I don't want my brain running on C++ or python, or java. I like the language it uses just fine.
  9. Valkyrie Driver
    True enough. Shouldn't get bogged down, and start making mountains out of mole hills.
  10. Valkyrie Driver
    I'm not going to lie, my knowledge of astronomy is very limited. Mostly limited to the impacts of astronomical phenomena on the atmosphere of our world. So I'm much more qualified to answer questions about the impact that solar radiation is going to have on pilots and electronic equipment, than if and/or how ice would accumulate in a vacuum. As far as we know large asteroids don't retain atmosphere, but then we really only have our solar system and whatever nearby systems we can see to study, so who knows there may be a sufficiently massive or dense enough asteroid to have an atmosphere (maybe not as we think of it, but a low lying layer of elemental gasses and/or water, probably microscopic ice crystals). Icing can accumulate in a number of ways, if there was enough fine crystals cast off from an explosion or collision and the fighter flew through it, it is possible (however unlikely) that it may collect, on the wing surface. Like I said, unlikely, but then I've seen unlikely things happen in my 5 years of predicting weather. It's definitely a consideration even if the probability is remote.
  11. Valkyrie Driver
    I'm hoping I'll have enough money to pick one of these up soon, before they're all gone...
  12. Valkyrie Driver
    It's possible, though the cases in which it would occur are few in number. For instance the scene during the battle of Saturn's rings in SDFM, you could see ice accumulation there, depending on the composition of the rings, or you could get it near a sufficiently massive asteroid, or from battling in an asteroid field where there has been significant water ice in the field, granted it would need to be very dense to see accumulation, but still the potential is there. Even in the arctic circle where an airplane is the hottest thing in the environment (granted this is a planetary atmosphere with sufficient atmospheric pressure I'll concede that point) you still get accumulation regardless of how hot the bird is. I was saying it was possible, not probable. Still though, there are other considerations that we don't account for in VF design that would likely be present, like redundant controls, or auxiliary power systems, cooling systems, and a host of other things that on an aircraft that I don't have the technical knowledge to understand or even know about. Just pointing out the worst case scenarios, because that's what military planners do...
  13. Valkyrie Driver
    I suppose I cannot argue with that, seeing as all I have is conjecture and philosophical thought.
  14. Valkyrie Driver
    I'm not denying that it's happening, and that it can be beneficial, especially for organ replacement and advanced prosthesis, but integrating telecom gizmos into the brain Ghost in the Shell style, seems like a philosophically dangerous idea. It also seems dangerous from a sociological perspective too, I mean just look at what cell phones have done to our manners, not to mention smart phones (I'm guilty too), just imagine how bad it will be if you couldn't tell that someone was doing it. It's bad enough that they can GPS hack your phone, imagine if your brain had such a thing, or if your thinkmeat had it's own MAC and IP address. Your thoughts wouldn't even be safe. If we really want to watch a show that deals with that sort of stuff we could just watch Ghost in the Shell, and imagine Macross as a backdrop. Despite how robust the tech is, you still have to PMCS (Preventative Maintenance, Checks and Services, for those that don't know that one) your crap, or it will fail when you need it. As for the thousand year computers and space ships, well, if you properly maintain stuff (which we humans are pretty meticulous about) it'll run at peak performance for longer. I'll bet those Zentran and Meltran computers were not operating at optimal capacity.
  15. Valkyrie Driver
    I remember forecasting for Eglin, during the summer you could set your watch by the thunderstorms. Every day at around 1600L , thunderstorms. I actually miss the coast, land locked bases just kind of suck. Alas, I never made overseas, deployed or otherwise. We'll see if I still have a chance in a few years after I finish university.
  16. Valkyrie Driver
    The only Dub I have seen of SDFM is the ADV dub, which I have on DVD. I don't mind the crew that ADV assembled, since they did a bunch of other series that I really like as well, not specifically ADV, but that group of voice actors specifically seem to work together a lot. The best part about having it on DVD is I can have either language track so no loss there. Also, the ADV dub featured Mari Iijima reprising her role as Minmay, so that's kind of a novelty. I really wish we could get more of the macross franchise dubbed and brought to english speaking audiences...
  17. Valkyrie Driver
    All military aircraft should have the capability, because you never know what sort of environment you'll end up operating in. Besides, you can still get ice accumulation on the wings in space, which while not affecting the aerodynamic properties since you're in a vacuum, but it would affect the balance and mass of the fighter, meaning your engines will need to work harder, your controls will get sluggish, and it could even lead to overstressing the structural components, due to excess mass. So, even in space you'll need deicing equipment, and every planet is going to have some form of wintery weather somewhere, and you can bet your bottom dollar, the military will operate there. Especially if it's a planet with any similarities to earth (which has got to be my biggest complaint with star wars, a spheroid planet is going to have differences in temperature at different locations on that globe. If you have land and water you're going to get weather similar to earth, and with varied terrain you're going to get different effects based on local circulation patterns, because science!).
  18. Valkyrie Driver
    Yeah, The heat that a VF would create is pretty hard to fathom. Though if your fuel is a cryogenic agent it seems like using engine heat in a pre-injector stage to expand the fuel would be an efficient use of it. I would also tend to think that you'd use waste heat to prevent ice build up in winter or in the frozen zones. Use bleed heat for wing and engine de-icing.
  19. Valkyrie Driver
    Good 'ol Battletech. I credit MechWarrior 2 with kindling my love of giant walking war machines. Gundam also helped fuel my love, but something about the designs just didn't feel right, and then I discovered that my favorite mechs from MW2 were actually borrowed from Macross through Robotech. I skipped Robotech altogether. After watching most of the Macross Franchise (I think I have every animated production to date save FB2012), I tried to watch the Robotech Macross saga while it was on netflix, but I just hated the voices, and some of the incongruities, I didn't even make it past episode 2, the characters just didn't seem as real.
  20. Valkyrie Driver
    Yeah, lightning is no joke. I remember one specific instance where we'd had a lightning strike dead center of Campbell Army Airfield, the ops guys brought in a glassed chunk of asphalt about 18" across and 6 inches thick, weighed about 15-20 lbs if I had to guess. They pulled it up during the FOD walk that morning, shut down the airfield for a good day and a half, to fix it.
  21. Valkyrie Driver
    I spent most of my time concerned with the people and making sure that they didn't get hit by lightning or that the aircraft didn't get hailed on. Which is another source of corrosion. Bam, how'd y'all like that segue? Ask most maintenance folks, the hangars are not generally where aircraft get stored, they're usually sitting out on the tarmac, so if it was bare metal, the aircraft would corrode with simple rain or even just humidity.
  22. Valkyrie Driver
    Yeah, I missed that one, but I think I made my point pretty well without it. Still though good catch. I think the Gulf coast bases require something similar. I remember seeing crews washing WC-130's at Keesler every week or so.
  23. Valkyrie Driver
    Honestly, I have to say that putting technology into a human body is a dangerous idea. For one, I don't believe it would catch on in a military organization, simply because of the maintenance that such tech would incur, and that means more than just a yearly check up. There's also the failure danger. Last thing you want is the power surging in the cockpit and shorting out the pilot's brain, if the pilot can still function there's a chance he can limp a crippled bird back to base, or eject. Still, it's fun to toy with the idea.
  24. Valkyrie Driver
    See, I told that contracting company (I interviewed with a contractor before I exited the Air Force, don't remember which one though) that they needed weather guys. But hey, look at Afghanistan, taliban took over and executed the meteorologists for practicing witchcraft...
  25. Valkyrie Driver
    I really want a single engine VF, for a cheapie CF unit. I think that would be really cool. I've had the idea in my mind but I'm not very good at drawing, so I can't really put it down on paper. I imagine it as looking similar to the F-35, and transforming like the YF-21/VF-22S.
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