JB0

Gao... Gai... GAR!!!!!!

Faking signatures is hard, IF the hash is long enough and calculated in a reasonably secure manner. 7800 homebrew was blocked until Atari released the keygen to the public because of that. It's not as vicious as SOME control schemes, but a 128-bit signature could be trivial to implement, but very difficult algorithm to crack, just due to the length. Assuming there's no blatant oversight in the implementation. They actually HAVE plugged the hole by requiring a signed executable for the service menu restore data. If they did it right, the signature will be transparent to older units. Even if it DOES hurt the older stuff, it just means they have to have TWO restore cards on-hand for their service techs instead of one.

They closed the service mode hole? I'm actually surprised. ... Until someone figures out how to forge a signature, anyways.

To add to that... top speed is only a useful statistic in an atmosphere. In space, the stat we're looking for is max velocity change, or delta-v, which... isn't available, or even calculable with the available information. Among other things, we'd need to know the actual amount of reaction mass carried to be able to figure out how much a given Valk can alter it's velocity. I think there's enough information available to calculate the delta-V of the VF-1 FAST pack "backpack"(we know the max amount of thrust, and how long it can be sustained, as well as the takeoff mass of the VF+FAST packs), but we don't have a way to figure out the delta-v of the base VF-1 or the FAST pack system as a whole. Probably by design, since it avoids anyone being able to point to a scene and say "They can't do that!" You know, like people counting the seconds on a time-bomb in a movie theater.

Flower girl drove me crazy. For some inexplicable reason, I kept wanting some sort of development with her. She was a recurring character, with more screen time than a lot of named characters, and her entire purpose was to look crushed as Basara blew by without even noticing her.

Don't think of him as Dragstrip, think of him as a Super Saiyan Mirage!

The size of a Smart, maybe. If you discount support hardware, especially. Now, fitting IN a Smart, that's another story. Neutron shielding is unavoldable. It is not reducable. You WILL have a metric butt-ton of lead wrapped around the reactor. And to make a more compact reactor, you need better fuel(ask the Navy why their nuclear submarines use a more highly-enriched grade of fuel). A runaway chain reaction ONLY happens if there are no controls. Though consider: the closer you pack the fuel, the less room you have for control rods, mediators, and coolant. The more you enrich the fuel, the hotter it runs. Restricting coolant also increases the difficulty of harvesting the heat. Sure you could build fuel rods of solid U-235 or Pu-239, but it'd be very expensive to fuel, and just plain dangerous on top of that. Not to mention that the government likes to keep weapons-grade nuclear materials under lock and key. Simply put, microfission isn't a believable technology. Technology changes, but physics doesn't. There's no such thing as cold fission. It's a complete impossibility. And you need neutron shielding too. Which is a pain in the ass.

I got tired of pokesouls after a while. Especially since most of them were fairly useless. EVERY monster didn't need a drop. Though they DO get credit for making it a first-kill drop and auto-absorb. I don't think I ever got more than half the cards in Circle, due to the low drop rate and occasionally dropping one somewhere I couldn't reach. Ultimately I was just frustrated that the game insisted on rolling over and submitting before I did anything. Honestly, the only reason I'm considering the Wii version is the sharper image. I like my pixel edges. If the Wii had demo versions, I'd do a 360/Wii comparison, but as-is... I'll probably go with the 360.

Ewww, a ramjet! Seriously, the nature of fission limits how compact you can make it. You HAVE to have enough fuel to sustain a chain reaction. And you HAVE to have neutron shielding(even if the NB-36 moved a lot of it to the cockpit). Highly-enriched fuel can reduce the fuel mass but it only does so much for you. All the technology in the world won't change the fundamental nature of the reactions involved.

*smacks mikeszekely in the face with a PSP* I did. That's why I included the "home" qualifier. The GBA, DS, and PSP games have been, if not always stellar, at least non-execrable. Sure the PSP had it easy, since they were just remaking the best (or at least best traditional-style) game of the series. But that didn't really save Dracula X on the SNES, did it? OBJECTION! Aria was pathetically easy. I consider it mediocre. Harmony wasn't any better. And the crayon outlines around everything were an embarrassing overcompensation for CotM's low-contrast pallets(I suspect that CotM was never playtested on a real GBA). I haven't played DS and PR. I'm sure I'll pick them up eventually. Now CotM, though... THAT'S a game. And I still laugh in the face of people that claim you need to use summons to beat Dracula(Which is a distressingly common assertion. What's happened to gamers?). As far as Megaman, I'm torn between Wii and 360. The Wii has a fixed resolution that avoids scaling artifacts(my Wii's hooked to a CRT, so NYAH!), but the 360 version has ACHIEVEMENTS! and is portable from system to system. If I need to replace my 360, I still have all my games. If I need to replace my Wii, I lose everything I bought online. Wii version also has the NES pad. Not that it really matters, since I use a joystick.

*sigh* How many times have we wound up in the Botcon seeker debate now? The Hasbro PR Department Mouthpiece party says it wasn't commercially viable for a filler line, no one could've realized Classics was a financial success before they terminated the line, etc. and the Botcon package isn't THAT overpriced. The Blind Irrational Seeker Fanboy party says they had any number of options for releasing them, and screwed the fans out of spite, are currently busy REscrewing them with Universe, etc. and the Botcon package was complete and total surprise buttsex. Both sides have had their positions stated and been suitably mocked for it. Can we move on now? It's really getting old at this point. And yes, I'm still annoyed that a red Ramjet with a Thrust label didn't come out.

Meh, forgot about that one. Though they chose the utterly massive B-36. And used a partially-shielded reactor to reduce weight, as well as using direct air cooling instead of a heat exchanger. So fission-powered FIGHTERS are still unfeasable. Nyah!

*looks at related links* ... You know, I could have lived my whole life without knowing they're making a Castlevania fighting game. Why does Konami even MAKE home Castlevania games anymore? They've ALL been complete ass since Symphony of the Night.

I stopped reading about the time the Hello Kitty massager sex toy came up. I have my limits.

Not only that, he can maintain a good showing in an arcade dog fight while sizing her up!

Actually, it looks like a tribute to EVERY game's art bungles. The US and european Megaman 2 boxes have the most visible influence after the grid background and title logo from the original US box of legend, since they defined the shape of Megaman.

But you can't "burn" U235. A fission reactor is a far more complex device, requiring careful spacing of the fuel rods, mediators to control the rate of the chain reaction, and a way to dissipate LOTS of heat, which is incredibly difficult in the vacuum of space. They're also a lot less safe if something goes wrong. That's why sci-fi focuses almost exclusively on fusion, and why we haven't tucked a nuclear reactor into anything other than submarines and aircraft carriers.

Same here. I consider the VB to be one of gaming's greatest losses. Especially since it "poisoned the well" for future attempts at 3D gaming. There's 2 big problems I see with the VB. One is pure marketing. The only place they could show off the 3D was in-store kiosks. And good luck convincing someone to adjust the IPD and focus for a kiosk run. Talk about bad first impressions. All the ads in all the 2D media available showcased a "red Gameboy." Then you add the big warning on the box about it not being for children under 7, which was read WAY beyond the intended "little kids haven't finished developing their depth perception" intent and into "OH MY GOD IT MELTS EYEBALLS" realm... That big "7-Up" warning scared a lot of parents away from buying it for ANYONE. And Red Alarm was a lousy demo title. The wire-frame graphics just didn't do it once you got past the "WOW! 3D!" angle. , especially given there weren't any occlusion effects. Wario Land should've been the demo from the start, if you ask me. The other issue, and an actual technical failing, is the 50 Hz flicker. It's bad enough on a CRT(Yes, Europe, I'm making fun of your crappy flickery televisions again) with phosphor decay to cushion it, but the VB didn't even get THAT. Each pixel was illuminated ONLY for it's tiny fraction of a second. Personally, I've found turning the brightness down does wonders for the flicker problem. But it's still a real issue with the hardware. I've probably said some variant of the above a few other times in this thread, but I will continue to preach the Gospel of the Red Gameboy until all the non-believers are converted!

Bit cold for bikinis in February. He should've said it in July.

That's an excellent point. Humanity had been brought to the brink of extinction. It was their solemn duty to create as many offspring as they could to repopulate the Earth AND the colony missions being launched at the same time. And if Max had to get in bed with someone that looked like Millia to do it, then, well... that was a price he was willing to pay for the survival of his species.

*sigh* Not this again... What do you think a thermonuclear reactor runs on? A. Happy thoughts? B. Fairy dust? C. A steady supply of light elements, typically hydrogen or helium, transported as a cryogenic liquid due to volume concerns? If you guessed C, you're right! Fusion reactions have consumables that are "burned." And they transport them in a liquid form because it's the most effective way to carry and supply them. And while space is not relevant to a discussion of aeronautics, a VF in space ALSO has to carry a tank of reaction mass that it can heat and expel out it's engines to generate velocity changes. So it has not one, but TWO liquid fuels! And not only that, one set of fuel lines are CRYOGENIC fuel lines! The thermal wear is going to make maintainence even WORSE. In an atmosphere, of course, it uses air for the propellant, just like a conventional jet engine does, so the only fuel is the nuclear reactant. That is incorrect. The space shuttle is vaguely plane-shaped because it was designed to land on a runway, and thus needs control surfaces. It has atrocious aerodynamics, and falls like a rock. It lands hard, it lands fast, and it CANNOT stay in the air for any real length of time during re-entry. A "needle" rocket is FAR more aerodynamic from a launch perspective. And the classic capsule design is better for re-entry since it allows for a protected heatshield until you actually prepare for re-entry. That's one reason the next-generation CEV is going to be an Apollo-style capsule. But really, mass is a bigger concern than aerodynamics for a rocket launch, as long as you keep it reasonable. Again, wrong. The ISS isn't equipped for construction or launch of anything, nor is it planned to be. Besides which, any fuel on the ISS has to be lifted from Earth. Which means you've ALREADY paid the cost of lifting it up there whether it goes to a hypothetical ISS storage tank or to a rocket engine to move your payload on to it's goal. May as well put it in a rocket engine so your payload gets the benefit of the momenteum from launch. There IS talk of using the proposed LUNAR base for rocket launches, but that's got less to do with atmosphere than it does gravity. And they have to be able to make rocket fuel on the moon for it to be a viable option. Otherwise a launch directly from Earth is cheaper.

The disk says "asset CD", so I assume it's all media and not the actual game. Music, images, etc.

And give Max a cardboard box with wings and a super soaker. Just to be fair.

Day after their wedding: "I love you. You're on the pill, right?" "Of course. ... What's the pill?"

I still can't believe they're inflicting that art on people. The CD case is awesome, though. That warms my heart so much. Even WITH the lead-in bashing the VB(and being technically inaccurate about it too!)