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JB0

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  1. JB0
    Ditto. Mine arrived this morning. And I swear FedEx was trolling me. It made three stops before it moved south at all(I'm in Texas). And then they gave it to the USPS on friday night so it would sit in a warehouse all weekend.
  2. JB0
    I have heard people say they don't like the first movie. And my rule on time travel stories is simple: Pick one set of rules and stick to it, or be fun enough that I don't notice the writers aren't thinking four-dimensionally. From that perspective... The first Terminator film goes for predestination rules, and ruthlessly edits to make EVERYTHING fit that set of rules. There are a huge number of details packed in to reinforce the loop. It is, honestly, the single most consistent time travel story I can think of, and I give Cameron a lot of points for how well everything meshes. If I am going to pick at the first movie's depiction of time travel, I am going to ask what makes living tissue special, since only living tissue and the stuff inside living tissue can go through time(which is obviously a narrative conceit to stop Skynet from sending back a gigaton nuke and vaporizing the entire city to kill ALL the Sarahs). It just seems like a really odd rule. Sure, some people don't LIKE predestination, but it is as valid an approach as anything else until we actually build a time machine and figure the actual rules out. It is actually the LEAST weird way to handle non-mutiversal time travel, as horrifying as that is. Terminator 2 starts with that same premise(Skynet is based on the dead Terminator, and thus Skynet is its own grandfather), and then kicks that loop it to the side so they can create a happy ending by stopping Skynet from ever being created. Unanswered is "if Skynet is never created and war with the machines never happens, then who sent back the Terminators to kill Sarah and John, who sent back Kyle Reese to protect Sarah, who killed all those innocent bystanders, and who got Sarah pregnant with John? And wait, did they just say Skynet was invented BECAUSE it sent a Terminator back in time how does that even work if Skynet was never created because they blew up the terminators Skynet created?" But we don't really care about these questions because "EVERYTHING BLOWS UP TWICE AND DUDE THAT COP ROBOT JUST TURNED HIS ARM INTO A SWORD MADE OF MERCURY WAIT DID HE JUST WALK THROUGH THE JAIL BARS LIKE A PUDDING MAN THIS IS AWESOME!" It is not very consistent and has huge holes, but it is fun enough that no one cares. Terminator 3 takes on the thankless task of making the two movies mesh by applying a modified predestination rule where the details can change but the major points are immutable. It is only partially successful, and it kind of upset a lot of people when it ended with everyone getting nuked because Judgement Day wasn't avoidable. (Trufax: When I saw the movie in the theater, the guy behind me shouted "This is bullsh!t" at the screen when the missiles started flying. It was a memorable moment.) Apparently, Genisys implies that each successive time travel instance connects to a new parallel timeline, which DOES resolve the awkward questions about what happens when you change the future(since any travelers are from Universe Alpha, Universe Beta's future has no effect on them). Quantum physics saves the day! Sort of... See, multiversal time travel ALSO means that you can't really change the future. You are creating a new timeline with a better future, sure, but the old one continues to exist just as sucky as ever(unless the creation of a new timeline destroys the old one, in which case you KILL EVERYONE when you use your time machine). You are doing charity work for another world, and as far as your buddies back home can tell, you got vaporized and died when that alleged time machine activated(if they survive your trip). And no one wants to deal with a multiverse that works the way reality implies it does. The double-slit experiment that implied the existence of parallel universes ALSO implied that they observably interact with our own. THAT gives me more headaches than any time loop ever did(especially when you get into the more complex variants of the experiment, where it starts seeming like the world behaves differently if people are watching it than if they aren't). Time travel is hard to write, but CAN be done coherently. Just saying "continuity is impossible because time travel" is the easy way out, and I'd rather obsess over the details for days on end(which is probably not healthy, but I already know I'm crazy).
  3. JB0
    I prefer the first movie too. It seems to be a minority opinion, though. I suppose the general impression I get is actually less "I didn't like The Terminator" and more "I never saw a reason to watch it when I already had Judgement Day, which is better in every way". It feels like for most people, the franchise simply begins with T2. Which is oddly appropriate, given that the sequels take most of their inspiration from the second film.
  4. JB0
    Yeah, that was a big problem even with The Second Raid. It was depressing as heck, and the cliffhanger ending didn't help matters.
  5. JB0
    Honestly, at this point, they should probably eject EVERYTHING and begin from scratch(which I thought they were doing with Genisys at first, because it made sense). The franchise needs a fresh start if one truly intends to keep making Terminators. AT BEST, you could keep the first two movies, but the setting becomes increasingly dated now that Judgement Day(the event, not the movie) is two decades in the past. And most people don't LIKE the first movie(ignoring the serious continuity issues between the first two). The popular thing to do is keep Judgement Day(the movie, not the event), and eject everything else. You still wind up remaking the first film to bring it in line with modern big-budget action sensibilities and tell a (wholly unnecessary) origin story. But that happy ending in 2 is a bear to work around coherently. Also, starting over lets you create a consistent set of time travel rules that ALL the movies adhere to, instead of having every film play by a unique set of rules that spits in the face of every other movie. Personally, I would let the franchise die, but it is somehow still worth too much money for THAT to happen. As far as ejecting specific films... I'd start with axing Salvation, but only because I refused to WATCH Genisys after the trailers and thus cannot fairly judge it. The first three movies have the advantage of ALMOST telling a single coherent(if not necessarily GOOD) story when taken together. Salvation can't even tell a coherent story BY ITSELF, much less when taken as part of the overarching franchise plot.
  6. JB0
    That is one of the problems that radiator setups have faced the last several years. The acceptable size of traditional coolers has gone up enough that they are punching in the same weight class. And mounting a waterblock on a video card is still a pain in the rectum, though it is where water shines best in a modern system(very limited cooler space at the card, more heat than the CPU).
  7. JB0
    I keep telling myself this is the year I throw in a pump and a radiator, and it keeps not being the year. So I am not, but am definitely interested.
  8. JB0
    Oh, cool! Last I'd heard, it sounded like they were restarting from book 1 of FMP, but this sure looks like a continuation. Signed on a bunch of staff from the prior serieses, which makes me doubt it is coincidence that Invisible Victory abbreviates to IV.
  9. JB0
    My thoughts too. I really like that these kids aren't perfect goody-two-shoes heroes right from the start. They have the heart, but circumstance has tempered it, kept it from showing. They are diamonds in the rough, as it were. I did like seeing the individual robots fighting. Nice to see they are useful for something other than forming feet and legs, arms and body this time out.
  10. JB0
    So this is cool... http://home.cern/about/updates/2016/12/alpha-observes-light-spectrum-antimatter-first-time Scientists at CERN have managed to trap antihydrogen in quantities sufficient to do spectral emission testing on it. Testing indicates it has identical spectral emissions to regular hydrogen. Obviously, we have long EXPECTED antimatter to behave identically to regular matter(aside from the "blows up whenever it touches the normal kind" thing), but it is always good to get some confirmation.
  11. JB0
    Hey, Mecha Worrior was the best name. Only way it could've been better was if it came with some Bandai-style Phase Shiznit Armor stickers.
  12. JB0
    Little over three pounds? Not bad, not bad.
  13. JB0
    RTGs are adorable, and why I specified power plant. (Also incredibly low-efficiency, but overtechnology solves all!).
  14. JB0
    Man, that new Voltron is snazzy. Shame about the quality. If it gets a higher-grade toy, I will be all for it.
  15. JB0
    Much the same as they do in a real-world fission power plant. The nuclear reaction is primarily a heat source, not a direct source of electrical or mechanical force.
  16. JB0
    Add me to the "Anime Island preorder has shipped" list. GET HYPE!
  17. JB0
    It was CLEARLY a Magic Knight Rayearth reference.
  18. JB0
    Oh man, I love Railgun! I am somewhat more ambivalent in my feelings towards Index.
  19. JB0
    All I remember from looking up 2040 is that Priss's singing is some godawful cats-in-a-trashcan wailing instead of anything resembling song. That alone was enough to turn me off the idea of watching it.
  20. JB0
    That is adorable, and I love that he shared the entire theory of operation.
  21. JB0
    See also: F117?
  22. JB0
    Spiral Zone terrified me. In fairness, I don't recall ever seeing Inhumanoids.
  23. JB0
    http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/01/hackers-unlock-nes-classic-upload-new-games-via-usb-cable/ ROM injection on the NES Mini. Thing's no longer locked to thirty games.
  24. JB0
    Fair enough. There's a lot to geek out about there. (I spent more time than I care to admit wondering what processor they're using to meet those long-term power draw requirements. )
  25. JB0
    No, but the SP is darn uncomfortable. Also old enough where replacing the battery might be a concern. Also: Stereo speakers and a headphone port.
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