David Hingtgen

I have no idea why it was locked, I came by and re-opened it when I saw it was locked. If I was really nosy, I could check the admin logs and probably see who closed it and when. Excluding a few one-off experiments, A-10's have carried two schemes: 3-tone "European 1" scheme. 2 shades of green (one rather 'evergreen' and another being a more olive version of olive drab) and a VERY dark grey. (same shade of grey on a Jolly Rogers tail, when they don't use pure black) Used from the 70's through Desert Storm. 2-tone "compass ghost" scheme. Your standard 2-tone light grey found throughout the world, from F-15's to Gripens. Post Desert Storm to now.

Except for the fact that A-10's aren't silver, and don't have red trim... It's no more "realistic" than making a purple firetruck. Sure, SOME trucks are purple, but not firetrucks. SOME jets are silver with red accents, but not A-10's...

Sundowners!

Let's hope there's a "lose 500 points each time you crash" or something option.

Personally, I like the fact that Kawamori seems to design mainly with LEGOs nowadays---it means his designs are very feasible in real life, with little to no "anime magic" used. And thus---much easier to make good-looking toys from. Though you have to wonder, what would the YF-19 and -21 have looked like, if he designed them from LEGOs?

Sunstreaker IS backwards. He's a repaint of Sideswipe, with the torso turned around to look different. It sometimes happens that the repaint comes out before the original. Sideswipe will be how the mold is "supposed" to look and was originally designed, with the hood for the chest, etc. Look closely at the fists, wrists, and forearm kibble--it can all be flipped 180 to make the arms look right if you turn the whole torso around at the waist joint. Sunstreaker is the "torso turned around to look different" version of Sideswipe. He's just coming out first for some reason.

Here's the real F-15 scheme in blue, if you'd like a reference: (if you'd like a little something extra---paint the wheels black. Early F-15s had black wheels, not white---why not do the same for the YF-19?)

I hate edge enhancement NOW with DVD on a CRT. Nearly every movie has it done when transferred to DVD, some just do it more than others.

Part of it is "raw size of the pixel itself" at this point. The PC monitor you're viewing on probably has a FAR greater pixels-per-inch count than even the best HDTV. Anyone here viewing the comparison pic using an HDTV as a monitor, instead of a "real PC monitor"?

Slightly OT----How did Northrop get the rights to the A-10? Fairchild just kind of went away, no one bought them out AFAIK.

****! The new cobalt blue DS Lite isn't blue! It's "blue" in the same way the crimson one is "red". It's exactly the same as a crimson one, just with blue. 90% black, with blue paint on top. C'mon, at least give us colored BUTTONS or something so that when you actually open it up to play it, it doesn't look IDENTICAL to a pure black one....

And we still don't have a triple-changer that's good in all three modes. G1 Astrotrain's still the best of all, compromise-wise, followed by G1 Blitzwing. I'll put the new Octane/Tankor 3rd. His plane mode is just so incredibly disproportionate, regardless of having not much kibble besides around the rear stabs. He's got itty-bitty tailfins, itty-bitt engines, and HUGE nose and forward fuselage. It's like they took a 1/48 C-130, but used 1/72 wings and tail, and a 1/32 nose... Of course, the original was a 2-engined 747, and without the chrome tanker and stickers, few would have called truck mode a truck... (I'm a big Octane fan, one of the very few airliner TF's---and he's a truck, too!)

This would be a great time to post a pic I found, comparing different resolutions. Everything is re-scaled to match each other, so it's as if you saw each format on the same size TV. It's from "I, Robot" if you've never seen the movie. Slight issue though---it appears to be a PAL DVD, not NTSC. So DVDs in the USA and Japan look even worse, as NTSC DVD is encoded at only 480p instead of 576p. Anyone know of a similar pic that shows 480 vs 720 vs 1080? Or is the "Xvid1" at top basically 480?

Couldn't find anything about Paramount, but I did find proof that Sony in Germany is giving you 150 Euros off a BluRay player, if you bring in your HD-DVD for trade. And they may expand that deal to the UK.

How will Starscream be made to look "good"? I mean, he already has "Autobot red and blue" as his main accent colors.

That reminds me, I have to go download some more novels (I only check like once a month when the show's not airing)

It's both! Cavemen in Egypt!

Wow, the number of video game links of the cast is insane. Rhona Mitra is one of the many former Lara Croft models.

Razgriz Tomcat. Yellow Flanker. http://www.xbox360fanboy.com/2008/01/26/ne...ing-next-thurs/

Exactly. ONCE? That's like saying you played Halo once. It's all about replay...

Lots of neat Raptor pics: http://www.airshowbuzz.com/photos/browse.php?category=4

I have the same issue with one hand, never figured out why though---I constantly compared to make sure they both had the fingers the exact same way, but one never wanted to stay in place. Except once. Don't know how, but I got it in place. For a while at least.

LAFtoys.com is getting in Rei within the next 72 hours or so.

Well that's exactly it--Beast Wars is a great SHOW. Many of the toys leave something to be desired. The TM1 and TM2 sub-lines had some very nice, G1-esque toys. But a lot of the rest were from "meh" to "that's just plain lazy design". Dragon Megatron is still one of the coolest TF toys ever IMHO. So cool I bought the repaint as well. (I do plan on selling a lot of my BW toys though, gotta fund the valk collection---everything that came with a box still has the box---I just don't want to do it on ebay)

I would say they're not vernier nor would they be called slats. Slats in the aviation sense means a track-mounted flap on the leading edge. They're vectoring louvers. It may even be a vectoring louver *cascade*. louver: movable slat (slat in the non-aviation sense--like a window blind) cascade: an assembly to re-direct airflow vane: fixed slat, or with a quite narrow range of movement (vane cascades are mostly seen on the thrust reversers of large airliner engines) Thus, a vane cascade has a fixed flow direction, while a louver cascade is adjustable.