JB0

Last episode was actually disappointing to me. I'm hoping it was just a one-off, and not because of the staff changes. The double-episode format and fake commercials were good for a grin, though.

Endless Eight is a THREE-parter now? They must really love this story. I can't say I blame them, though. And it's coming off remarkably well. I think the new samples actually add a lot to the story.

That's the thing... having dedicated video RAM means anything you need HAS to be present in video RAM before you can use it. They could store it in main RAM until it was needed, but they'd have to have a few frames advance warning to clear some space and move it over to graphics RAM. And if they're being tidy, there's probably not a lot of "spare" data to move out.

More likely they simply ran out of video RAM and had to cut back on the textures, like several other PS360 games. If you can't fit it in RAM, you can't fit it in RAM, and there's nothing that can really be done about it. The 360's benefitted a great deal from the fact that it just has RAM instead of separate main RAM and graphics RAM. If a game doesn't need a full 256 MB of main RAM, but DOES need more than 256 MB of graphics RAM, you can do that on the 360. You're stuck with a 256/256 split on the PS3.

I'd like to know that too. But my Revenge of the Fallen variant(picked up today) looks pretty good in that mode with a sword from Galaxy Force Vector Prime(the US redeco of the Cybertron toy,to avoid any confusion. Orange sword.). Now if only I could get the engine/tailfin/arm assembly on the A-10-ishes out of the way so he could bring his legs closer. Ah well... Edit: Now with pictures! And some extras I've been meaning to shoot for a while. "So why DOES Megatron like Lazerbeak so much?" Had to shoot this one after I noticed the "intake vents" on the axe. It makes a LOT more sense aesthetically if the trailer is supposed to be a drone and not an axe like the instructions and packaging say it i-*kssh* We interrupt this post for a Cybertron News Network special report. Autobot leader Optimus Prime has just been gunned down by famous scientist Jetfire. Eyewitnesses say Prime had recently experienced a system failure mid-transformation and was seeking help when the famous scientist opened fire. At this point, it appears to be a tragic case of mistaken identity, with Optimus' form resembling a foe from Jetfire's time in Japan. No arrests have been made. Security chief Prowl is investigating the scene currently. He has stated that a thorough investigation of all the facts and evidence is under way, and that the celebrity status of both transformers will not affect the outcome. Eyewitnesses report that Jetfire was screaming "I don't do Macross anymore!" as he attacked. It is unknown what, if any, relevance this statement has to the case. The Matrix of Leadership is secure, and the selection process for the next Prime is already underway. We'll inform our viewers of any new developments. 'Till all are one.

I bet I know what I saw. I remember one scene they were plotting a course, and it looked like they went through some faults and around others. They were probably just going around, but around in a direction that carried them towards the "camera", so it LOOKED like they were going through. Don't mind me. I'm just crazy.

Depending on the interaction between the universes, it could be something relatively trivial on our side. Or even beneficial, like interstellar hydrogen.

I was under the impression it was a time thing... that the faults were "slower" to go through than the rest of fold space. But if you have to go WAY around, it's faster to punch through it anyways.

Still orders of magnitude faster than without fold drives. 10 lightyears a month becomes 120 lightyears a year, which is a LOT more than .75 lightyears a year. And you don't have to worry about slowing down at the halfway point either!

Actually, Frontier says they DON'T take the most direct route. If I recall, they go around some fold faults and through others. It may wind up being the SHORTEST route, time-wise, but it's not the most direct.

Whoops! Clearly my memory is only any good for the original series. Curses!

It's stated, in the show, that the spectacular series of failures on the Macross' maiden voyage was due to the booby trap. Both the gravity controllers AND the fold drive broke because of the unprepared main cannon firing.

Technically, dark matter is denser than empty space. It's density relative to regular matter is highly subjective, given density varies greatly. But I actually like "faults" being related to dark matter. Though that relies on super-dimension space being close enough to our own universe that what we do affects it. In which case... actually, the faults could just be mass shadows. Stars, planets, nebulas... Could also be the fold-space equivalent. Areas of denser/lighter super-dimension energy.

Hmmm... that WOULD make an excellent lower limit, actually. Of course... does Palladium mean 6 minutes ship-time, or 6 minutes real-time? That matters a lot. Sadly, the only fold we have any sort of clear distance measure on is the Earth/Pluto jump, which was depicted as near-instantaneous(it took longer to open the fold than it did to travel the distance). You can actually reconcile the two different illustrations without them being different travel techniques. If it's relative to the speed of the ship as it enters fold, it makes a lot of sense. There may be some sort of transition from real space to fold space that necessitates certain entry behaviors, and you can "project" the fold "gate" in front of the ship if it's moving fast enough, but you have to open the gate AROUND the ship if it's not going above that minimum speed. I'd think opening the fold around the ship would also make it much easier to synchronize multiple fold generators working on a single target. But that's only been needed once, in Macross 7.

If you mean what I think by "tunnel effect"(that the animation when they travel through fold space looks like they're flying through a tunnel), then that wasn't present in SDF Macross. What folding has in common in the various series...es is faster-than-light travel. Everything else is left vague, most likely intentionally. It's also implied that fold space is "wrong" somehow. SDF used the wavering color separation effect to indicate fold space(except in the factory satellite theft, if I recall). Frontier makes reference to fold sickness(maybe, sometimes), and re-invents the old visual separation effect. Oh, and that specific fold drive failures leave behind a strange energy phenomenon that can be harnessed for the creation of a barrier system. That's a bit of a leap there. Especially given the official description involves interdimensional travel, making it sound more like a conventional hyperspace drive.* http://macross.anime.net/wiki/Fold There's also the episode where they steal the factory satellite, which establishes it takes an energy expenditure to leave fold space. Wormholes are open at both ends. You need energy to create and maintain the wormhole, but not to exit it. *Interestingly, several sci-fi stories with "conventional" hyperdrives describe a tunnel effect caused by the apparent elongation of the stars. Star Wars even illustrates it. SDF has a few different fold animations. Sometimes the ships slide into/out of a fold "gate" and other times they appear/vanish. Which tells us is that there's a few different ways of folding/defolding, some of which are flashier than others. ... Or, you know, that the animators bungled defold animations a lot and they're all supposed to be the "portal" type(assumed because the first examples are that type, and the first few episodes are of consistently decent animation{though not error-free}). It's NOT established, but fortunately the effect makes sense anyways if you consider the "gate" to be a hole between the dimensions. Ask and ye shall receive. My understanding is the fold drive moves a ship into another dimension, where the laws of phsyics are different, and moves the ship back to normal space at it's destination.

The REAL question is... did Kyon steal Hikaru's magic bicycle for that scene?

Interesting you mention Short Circuit, since Number 5 was designed to look "human" Hell, he has EYEBROWS. And each species has it's own different aesthetic sense. Look at birds. The "pretty" birds are all male. But the male birds are looking at the ugly plain-looking female birds. And apparently they like what they're seeing. And of course, there's insects and arachnids and shellfish and all sorts of other "ugly" stuff. That which we like looking at is, generally, mammalian. Avians are a runner-up, and things plummet after that. They quite likely did... and their sense of aesthetics is completely different than ours. Heck, even different segments of humanity have different aesthetic values. Now, the PROBLEM isn't an in-universe one. It's an IRL one. They AREN'T appealing from our perspective(though apparently mainstream America is quite happy with them. Not the first time I've considered mainstream America a bunch of morons.). Personally, I don't care for the movie aesthetic in general. Most of the (handful of) toys I bought from the first movie toyline weren't movie characters. My favorite from that line was Wreckage, actually. Especially once I realized you can make him look down into his chest cavity while still being in robot mode. In a stupid bit of anthropomorphization, I decided it looked like he was aiming his gut cannon, and I suddenly started liking the gut cannon. And personally, I think they bungled the Autobot designs horribly. The Decepticon heads fit the "alien robot" aesthetic(and are ugly as a really ugly thing that isn't pretty at all, just like the rest of their bodies). But the Autobot heads fly in the face of the general design aesthetic. "They are alien robots. They do not look like us. Well, except their faces. THOSE are total mecha-human. Heck, they even have noses. WORKING noses! Why a space robot needs a sense of smell we don't know, but... *sniffsniff* Ratchet says you stink."

She's probably just resigned to her fate after all the merchandise whoring she's been through. You can see it on her face.

Oh. Okay, then I can ignore the biker bots. Sorry, Rei. You aren't enough of a booth babe to sell me on the Constructicons.

Why does this picture make me want the biker bots?

That would be supremely, hilariously, awesome. ... Until I realized it meant I wasn't getting my Disappearance.

So... I've watched the raw, and felt something was wrong. And watched some shitsubs with strange punctuation scattered in randomly(seriously, I can't for the life of me figure out how they typo'ed that badly) and... Haruhi's will is not done( ), so next week, we see the first all-new rerun in television history!

As long as we don't have to wait 594 years.

There's worse things than forgetting she's there. I'm on record as mistaking her gloves for her chest. ... Yeah, I'm not really sure how either. But in stills it looked like a REALLY big bust.

That actually kind of proves his point. It's NOT Masterpiece Prime, it just LOOKS like him. The axe-pistol is hilarious, though.