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sketchley

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Everything posted by sketchley

  1. sketchley
    Not sure if I'll see this movie, but I must be of the right age, as seeing all those toys is bring back a flood of nostalgia. That said, I'm really curious if a Slime Pit and/or Glow-in-the-Dark Ring will appear in the movie? 🤣
  2. sketchley
    Wasn't Starfleet Security (in the TOS–Next Gen era) something along those lines? I may be conflating the origins of the M.A.C.O.s from Enterprise here though... 🤔 It begs the question: is Starfleet Academy the Nu-Trek answer to The Orville? (albeit, coloured by the show runners' interpretation of Star Trek as seen in Discovery et al.)
  3. sketchley
    There's nothing wrong with that. I enjoy watching The Mummy (Brandon Fraser's version) for that very reason! However, Star Trek is... well, for certain fans like me, it's known as the type of show that I watch to be challenged and use my critical thinking. (Yes, I stopped watching Nu-Trek after the first Kelvin timeline movie and the 2nd season of Discovery. On the other hand, I'm currently rewatching the 4th season of Enterprise, and thoroughly enjoying it.)
  4. sketchley
    Is it a Windows PC? If so, you can try playing it with VLC. (This advice is for Win 10. Not sure if it'll work for Win 11) As VLC* doesn't natively support Blu-ray, you'll have to take some extra steps. The first is to put the Keys Database and AACS Dynamic Library on your PC. You can find them here: https://vlc-bluray.whoknowsmy.name/ * I believe you'll also have to install Java in order to enable the Blu-ray on-screen menus. It's not a necessary step. However, even if you do, annoyingly the menus are keyboard activated only. (As these programs are free, we can't really complain. 🤷‍♂️) I'm having about a 50-70% success rate in watching Blu-rays with just that. For those Blu-rays that don't work, you can try using MakeMKV to decrypt the Blu-ray. Regrettably, MakeMKV is in beta, and you have to update the Free Beta Key monthly. So far that has worked on the handful of discs I've tried. Instructions: https://www.reddit.com/r/VLC/comments/1fnbp3k/comment/mpkp9tj/?context=3 https://www.free-codecs.com/guides/how-to-use-makemkv-for-free.htm Hopefully this will work, and you will be able to watch those discs! The alternative is buying an expensive Blu-ray viewing app, or—as Shawn said—a super cheap Blu-ray player.
  5. sketchley
    Japanese publishers print those multi-volume novels in "pocket sized" editions, and there's no particular rhyme or reason for where they break up the books. For example, my Japanese version of The Hobbit comes in 2 volumes. Perhaps the translation of Children of Dune would have resulted in 4 volumes that were too thin (for the market and/or the publisher), so they opted for 3 slightly thicker volumes?
  6. sketchley
    Yeah, definitely not safe for work! 😅 Incidentally, those pages appear in the bilingual edition (random pages comparing the bilingual edition; not those, erm... "delicate" pages): There were generally no age restrictions on the translated manga sold at the comic shops I used to frequent back home. So it makes sense that those 'delicate' pages were removed to keep the manga from disappearing into the 'adults only' section. It's a bit odd, though, as Crying Freeman (published in the same era) wasn't censored nor in the 'adults only' section either... 🤔
  7. sketchley
    Agreed. He was (is?) a talented artist. In addition to what you wrote, there was one other thing that struck me way back when about his work: the fashion design. For example the consistency in the clothes worn by the two characters in the manga above—they're different, but one gets a sense of the in-universe fashion trends. Even though he didn't go into as much detail about them as say the weapons and mecha, they greatly added to the world-building in his manga.
  8. sketchley
    In those screenshots—are the wings on the starliner merely copied over from the VF-25?!? Aside from being lengthened and the SMS logo removed, they look exactly the same. Even the angled bits in the red stripes and the vernier thruster nozzles match up!
  9. sketchley
    "Lego unveils tech-filled Smart Bricks - to play experts' unease" appeared in the BBC in the last 12 hours: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crmlnmnwzk2o I have mixed feelings about the Smart Bricks. It's great that Lego is continuing to innovate, but I'm not sure if this is the right direction...
  10. sketchley
    Chris Foss is a very icon artist. Recently "Jodorowsky's Dune Official Trailer" popped up in Youtube, and what I now know as Foss's artwork immediately caught and retained my attention whenever it appeared—even in the background! The covers above reminded me of a book I used to love taking out of the library when I was a youngin': While Stewart Cowley's style isn't quite as iconic as Foss's, I can see a lot of Foss's influence in Cowley's work (such as the checkerboard patterns on several derelicts in the book). Nevertheless, the combination of artwork and short stories in "Spacewreck: Ghostships and Derelicts of Space" had quite an impact on my young self. I don't know how well the stories hold up now, but the whole concept of the book still gives a lot of food for thought.
  11. sketchley
    More nerdery stuff for you 😉: The big question is: is what we see in Macross Zero what actually happened, or is it an artistic representation? Based on the "what we see is what happened" and the "lightning indicates the extent of the mushroom cloud"*, we still have to contend with the curvature of the Earth, and the proximity one would have to be to see that much of the smoke plume. Let's presume that the plume over South Ataria is the same scale as the one produced in the 2022 Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai eruption, that reached a height of 58 km**. One would have to be within 870 km just to be able to see the very top of the plume***. To see a large portion of the plume, Shin would have had to be much closer. For argument's sake, let's say his house is located on a 1,000 m tall hill. At 500 km away, he wouldn't be able to see the bottom half of the plume (the bottom 12 km [approx.]). That puts us into the ballpark for his maximum distance from South Ataria Island based on what was shown. As per the Macross Compendium's location of South Ataria Island (24N, 141E), Tokyo, Okinawa, and Guam are all over 1,250 km away; too far to see any part of the plume (Wake Island is even further, over 2,500 km East). However, islands like Hahajima and Chichijima are within viewing range, at around 315 km and 360 km distance (only the bottom 4.8 km of the plume would be obscured on that 1,000 m hill—well in the ballpark for what is shown). So while I agree that Chichijima doesn't fit the East-West travel, its location does fit with what we're shown in Macross Zero. That said, Macross is not the same as our world. If islands like South Ataria and Mayan exist, then it is possible that other islands also exist. Maybe there is another Guam-like island (in the sense of being a US territory and mountainous), somewhere near Iwo Jima (92 km NNE from South Atari) and South Iwo Jima (54 km ENE of South Ataria)—perhaps due south or to the south east of those real islands. This heretofore unseen, fictitious island would satisfy all the conditions surrounding the ASS-1's "landing", and be where Shin could be in order to see what was depicted in the show. * If Shin was on Chichijima, it would take about 17 min. for the sound to reach him—plenty of time for a plume to grow really big before being woken up and seeing it. Not to mention that plumes over nuclear detonations and volcanic eruptions also develop ridiculously fast... ** the sustained height is indicated as 30+ km—the viewer would have to be closer than 630 km just to see the very top. *** according to the Earth curvature calculator: https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/earth-curvature
  12. sketchley
    I should have rephrased that, the ASS-1's course immediately before "landing" could plausibly be in any direction. In the sense of a small island in the centre of the ocean offers the largest firing range (there are no mountains blocking the shot), and the ship adjusted its course during final decent to "land" there. That line is a bit misleading, as it suggests that there is 2 suns in the sky at the same time. The quote above states that at "18:15 JST" an object enters the atmosphere above Burma. It's travelling at 10 km/s. The ISS travels at roughly 7.67 km/s, and takes approx. 90 min. to orbit the Earth. Therefore, the ASS-1 would have taken at least the same amount of time to circumnavigate the globe, putting its "landing" at around 19:45. As it happens in July, there's a slim possibility that the dusk light from the setting sun would still be seen in the West (based on Tokyo sunset in July at just before 19:00). Based on that, the "the other in the west" would be the sun, and "one sun in the east" would be the crash landing of the ASS-1. By that logic, Shin would be on Okinawa, or some place to the west of South Ataria Island. It's possible, but as a 2nd generation Japanese-American, it's also plausible that Shin had travelled back to Japan for a short time and was visiting relatives when the ASS-1 "landed".
  13. sketchley
    Not many does not equal zero. Also, as you earlier stated, the ship was performing controlled braking manoeuvres. So that plume in the sky may not be "East to West", but plausibly any direction. Therefore, in addition to Chichijima, places like Guam and Okinawa are also plausible. However, I doubt that Shin was somewhere as far away as the coast of North America, simply because he wouldn't be able to see it due to the curvature of the Earth. Even Hawai'i is pushing it.
  14. sketchley
    He could have been living on one of the more populous islands in the Bonin Islands (aka Ogasawara Islands), like Chichijima: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chichijima If memory serves, they replicated the technology without fully understanding it; and this is given as the reason why the Gravity Control System and Fold Drive both go out of control and 'exit the ship' on their own accord when they are first used.
  15. sketchley
    Awesome! Now the big question for those of us living in Japan: where are you going to put it?!? 😅
  16. sketchley
    Wasn't the "no current military" stance the smoke screen for faulty technic gears in that V-22?
  17. sketchley
    It's kind of supposed to be extremely cramped. The head, shoulders, and left arm of the pilot can be seen in the image on the right, and the mecha's view screen is ridiculously close to the face shield on the pilot's helmet! As some of the captions are cut off, I dusted off my copy of the Macross movie Gold Book to find out what those bits are: Right image, lower right: 肩や胸にも肉質パイプがからんでいます。(Fleshy pipes also entwine around the shoulders and chest.) Bottom: 胸から下は肉質パイプクッションに完全にうずもれています。(From the chest down, the pilot is completely covered by a fleshy pipe cushion.) The description (in the Gold Book) provides a bit more context to those "fleshy pipes" (= the squiggly bits): 倍力機の内部は半生体組織となっており、兵員の肉体と生体コネクターによって直接的に接合される。(The interior of the servos consists of semi-biological tissue, and is directly connected to the soldier's body via biological connectors.) 神経系による直接制御は補助的なシステムとされ、過剰フィードバックによる兵員と倍力機の神経的損傷を防ぐ設計となっている。(Direct neural control is considered to be an auxiliary system, designed to prevent neurological damage to both soldier and the servos due to excessive feedback.) There's a lot to unpack in that description... 😮
  18. sketchley
    Personally, I don't think we need likes at all. Maybe I'm old school, but I always felt that likes (or reactions) have been an unnecessary addition. This kind of also ties back into that 'social media vs discussion forum' topic that appeared a month or so back. Likes are arguably one of the worst aspects of social media, as it removes part of the incentive for communication (E.g. someone becomes motivated enough to type in "I agree with your post, and...", and furthers the discussion). Never mind the potential of creating slop merely to generate likes, let alone the bullying/harassment aspects of the downvote feature... So yeah, MW is a discussion forum, and the passive interaction of 'likes' is kinda antithetical to that. It's a shame that Invision introduced it, and even more of a shame that they haven't also added the option to completely disable that so-called 'feature'.
  19. sketchley
    I'm neither for nor against Gundam being "super" or "real". However, there's one salient fact that stands out when compared to Macross: Gundam: hero vehicle is an experimental craft Macross: hero vehicle is one of many hundreds of mass produced vehicles Again, I have nothing against Gundam being "real" (or "super"). It just speaks volumes to me on Kawamori san's mindset and world-building.
  20. sketchley
    Does quick Google search... Well I'll be darned, apparently "virtually all" LED strips are dimmable*. They just need a DC PWM Dimmer (or something along those lines) between the LED strip and the DC power supply.** Looks like it's something that doesn't need to be factored in while reassembling the building at all. * https://www.waveformlighting.com/home-residential/how-to-dim-led-strip-lights ** There seems to be multiple ways to dim LED strips. I think it would boil down to how one wants to use it. The PWM Dimmer could add flickering if its used in video. Alternatives (flicker free, but other pros and cons): https://luxx.com/led-strip-dimming/ PWM dimming: source: https://www.ledsupply.com/blog/dimming-led-strip-lights-with-mean-well-pwm/?srsltid=AfmBOooWNUCoALmpqmKrUmBPDxehrFl7uDInMIm7f818xPScFcANvIoo
  21. sketchley
    Talking about bad packing jobs... did they just wrap it in plastic? Or did they at least add an outer cardboard shell over the plastic wrap to protect the sides? Good luck! Incidentally, I couldn't help but notice the discolouration on parts of the metal framework. Is it rust? I hope its not something that will leech into and discolour anything you attach to it! Are those dim-able LEDs? I wonder if it's possible (or even worth the effort!) to add a controller to give it a dawn→day→dusk→night↩ lighting effect.
  22. sketchley
    Lots of good SF designs. The Gunstar was also influential in my youth. Another one that stuck with me is the "Trimaxion Drone ship" from Flight of the Navigator. The effects used to make it were also groundbreaking in 1986—probably why it was so memorable: https://propstore.com/product/flight-of-the-navigator/trimaxion-drone-ship-model-with-replacement-animation-morphing-stair-sequence/ Not sure who designed it, but what appeared on screen was very inspired and inspiring. Found some images on the evolution of the design. Glad they went with the polished/brushed steel. It's truly a less-is-more when it comes to surface detailing.
  23. sketchley
    Tangentially, I think that what happened made a deep impression on Kawamori-san, as he continues to provide justifications for the existence of giant robots (or their continuing existence in the face of technological developments), à la the dancing Battroids at the start of Macross Delta.
  24. sketchley
    Did Kawamori-san work on this? I swear that's not only his drawing style, but also his handwriting! The way he writes "へ" in "への字" in particular hasn't changed since he did the designs for M+'s YF-21!
  25. sketchley
    Thanks for the image! Interesting... the blue parts are labelled "want to use if possible" and the red parts are "not used parts". However, many of the red parts have "プロポーション優先": Prioritizing Proportions.
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