Akilae

It's not a Japanese movie... it's a French movie...

Well... I rather liked Z-95 headhunters.. they were just so easy to shoot down.... j/k TIE Interceptor, Avenger, and Defender... also the gunboat and missile boat. The Rebels never had any fighters that really outperformed those... maybe the B-Wing, so wierd that it's actually pretty cool. Since people are bringing in arcade games... The R-series from R-Type... a lot of the designs in R-Type Final were pretty cool.

If it's the suvastika, remember that it was a symbol used before the nazis. Besides it's the reverse swastika, which has a different meaning. See Blade Of The Immortal manga. There's the Old World Swastika, and there's the Nazi Swastika... two very different symbols if you know the differences. Key here: The Nazi Swastika is tilted 45 degrees, the Old World Swastika more often than not sits on one of its four edges.

One more off topic quote from me, now that I can pinpoint the quote... "Game over man! Game over!!" mm... need to get myself the Quadralogy.... On topic now... Anyhow... air supremecy, while key in any war, is not sufficient. Let's see... we didn't win Korea because the Chinese threw their entire army across the Yalu River, and we were ill prepared to fight against massed armies (US troops were still using semi-automatic rifles... the Korean war is one reason why weapons development happened the way it did in the US). In Vietnam, despite us bombing the crap out of them, we lost mostly due to low morale... consider that the Tet Offensive was actually a military win for us... but we weren't prepared to think that the North Vietnamese could even go on an offensive (same thing happened at Battle of the Bulge, although we handled that better...). Iraq? We didn't just send the fighters and bombers in, we sent in our heavy armour and infantry to crush whatever they had on the ground. The "air supremecy" part was just an opening act. Further proof that air supremecy doesn't win wars: World War II. However, it WOULD be awfully nice to be prepared to snatch air supremecy right at the outset, instead of having to play catch up later on. The Germans had air supremecy in the early days of World War II, catching the Allies with their pants down (not only that... their entire mechanized army caught the Allies with their boxers down too...). Imagine how the war might have gone if Spitfires, Mustangs, and B-29s had all been ready in 1939... then again, that's a moot point, since politically and socially, the US was not ready to fight in 1939... Anyhow.... enough of my spiel. My point: closest war we've fought that's even remotely close to what we might expect in the future would be Vietnam, and on the big picture, our air power did nothing to help us win (Although "We Were Soldiers" was cool with all the air support. )

Alright... I know where the flu and virus references come from... but I can't for the life of me remember which movie "harsh language" is referencing...

Oh come on guys... Yu-Gi-Oh is really no worse than Magic was back in the day... Although as a longtime Magic player, I say Magic is really miles ahead of Yu-Gi-Oh :-p Now if I could just find people who still know how to play by Ice Age rules...

grrr... I want one... anybody knows anyplace carrying this that also ships overseas? Walmart doesn't ship outside of the US...

All those chaines gives me nightmares... electric motors would definately fit into those hubs though, considering the miracles we've achieved in miniaturization these few decades. I think the whole problem with most real-world Akira bike reproductions would be the front fork... I probably have no idea what I'm talking about, but the front fork does seem to be quite maneuverable, ie it raises for mounting/dismounting, the forks actually turn quite a bit side to side, and it seems to raise a bit when Kaneda does his 180 after the short chicken play with the clown. Throughout the anime, Kaneda handles the bike like a cruiser. At the very end of the anime, when he rides off into the sunset with his battered bike, it would seem that under all that plastic, the bike is just another cruiser, just sleeker. If anything, the bike that was unveiled in Japan looks like it doesn't even allow for it to be handled like a cruiser... Maybe Kaneda has some sort of ride-by-wire technology, with a computer handling most of the stuff while he just revs the throttle

Well, just IMHO, anything is better than DBZ It's a totally different style from the ones you're using as comparisons... not as bloody as Berzerk, although the fight sequences are absolutely amazing. It does feature the DB habit of spanning a fight across quite a few episodes. But overall, the anime moves at a rather nice pace, taking a lot of time for backstory so you actually understand what the characters are going through. Animation quality tends to vary, depending on if the Japanese studio did the episode or if the Korean studio did it. Do a google and you'll find at least four different groups... likewise, any online vendor that imports DVDs should have a rather large selection. It's a rather hefty investment though, considering that the entire series is on Ep. 77 this week and still going strong.

Go Here I remember somebody was building up a working Akira bike a while ago... got posted onto the forums. Well, apparently somebody else in Japan beat him to the job, and actually made a working model, complete with a DVD nav system.... Doesn't look like it would handle too well though... EDIT: grammar, spelling, etc..

I'm probably dating myself here, but Cyborg Mermaid from Gunm... all time favourite.

I think the key here is different design philosophy (East v. West)... Lineage II to me was very boring... bam! born into the virtual world... then what? Talk to somebody, get mission, finish mission, get another totally unrelated mission, this time wait for mobs to spawn cause tons of other newbies are killing your quest mobs. There's really no story there. I'd say Lineage II was made purely for player interaction (even then it's only very rudimental... I'd really limit this to PK...). Aside from the graphics, there's really not much that Lineage II holds over, say, Diablo II. And Diablo II is *old*. I could be even crueller and say MUDs, but not now =) Maybe it's just me, but I really can't see why MMORPGs for a lot of people involves PK... PK... and more PK. People should collaborate to accomplish certain missions (haven't played one that really does this), work together to build an entire economy (limited, and in a lot of cases don't work well. I hear UO has it down well, and SWG somewhat nerfed it), set up some kind of LAW and ORDER (sorely lacking... players are not held accountable for what they do. Hapless victim is PK'd and that's the end of the story...). Attainable? Why not? Quite a few MUDs way back when had all of the elements I just stated, and actually worked quite well. Oh, the "different target audience" doesn't really work here... MUD players way back when were not much olders than a lot of MMORPG players now. k.. enough of the ranting... maybe I just miss the days of becoming a superhero and attaining triple classes in Aardwolf :-p Come to think of it, I think my account is still alive... need to log on and see how the MUD scene is doing these days... EDIT: Spelling corrections... god I can't spell....

Why plop down enough money for 10+ 1/48s, when you can just use Blender? Just doing some pimping =) For more information: The Blender Homepage

For a description of how they *might* be used, read the beginning of the Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton.

hmm... I see a FSS MH on the lower right.... far more exciting IMHO... damn, I need to get myself a copy of Hobby Japan...

No need to be shocked... if you've been reading manga by any of the more famous artists, you'll immediately notice that the artwork can vary wildly from volume to volume, depending on who the assistant was at the time. Take Ah! My Goddess... while the artwork improves as the manga progress (Vol. 1 anybody?), later on as it stablizes, you can start catching up on who did which volumes. The much acclaimed TV series designs (also the most famous designs) draw from Volumes 15~18 I think. Vol. 20 onwards was done by a new assistant, since some proportions were really simply not drawn to previous designs. I don't think you'd get that kind of variation if the artist himself was doing the actual work. In fact, I believe for Ah! My Goddess in the latter volumes, artwork is done entirely by assistants. Disclaimer: Volume statements might be off by one or two... or ten :-p I'm only making rough estimations, haven't read the manga in a long time.

hold on... I know I'm totally misunderstanding what this sentence means... but does this mean I have to pay for every new version of the game?

Used to have it, till mom figured I was too old for Gundam and tossed it... along with all my Gundam design books, HG models, and a half-completed MG ZZ.... grrr..... well, that was way back in high school... starting to rebuild now =) Anyhow... like the description says, it's half-toy, half-model. As a toy, it's very detailed, well articulated (although you won't see individual finger joints a-la the PG Zeta), and fun to pose. As a model though, it's a tad bit underwhelming... not enough detail. For a while though, it was the best thing sitting on my shelf. The F91 comes with beam shield, dual sabers, rifle, two back-mounted rifles, and a large cannon. The face plate can be changed, depending on which mode you want it in. Fins deploy from the shoulders (manually...) and calves (spring loaded =). Damn... talking about it makes me want it again, if only for the good memories...

GP 03 Stamen? pfftt.... I wanna see a PG Orchis!!! To be more realistic... FAZZ, Nu, Sazabi, or F91 would all be nice =)

I see a lot of airliners and whatnot... is this a sim in the sense of MS Flight Simulator, ie flying a 747, Cessna, etc.. Or could it also be used for combat flight sim? Would be interesting to see how the Supernova Project might have gone given similar piloting experience and controls...

I caught it on the HK versions... although I get the sneaking suspicion they chopped it up pretty badly. Is the whole "Twin Blood" episode a whole episode in its own right? Mine seemed closer to 10 minutes.... I'm more curious about "Missing Link", since all I got was a preview... I liked how the artwork took a turn for the better towards the latter half of the show... the initial designs were a bit lacking in detail. By the time you see Blade in the last episode, you can see all the cracks and what not on his armor.

Christian Bale... good choice.. liked him in Equilibrium. Would be nice to see retro Batman though... everything after the first Batman only made it fruitier and fruitier...

Impossible. A ship can not simply be stationary, it can only be motionless in relation to it's surroundings. The Macross may have been stationary in relation to the surface of the Earth, but the Earth's surface was moving at about 1,000 mph (IIRC that is the rotational speed of the Earth), while the Earth moved rather rapidly around the sun, which itself was orbiting the center of the mily way, I could go on like this. The point is that a vessel can not simply be motionless, nothing can. It's one of the most basic tenets of reletivity. Another of the basic tenets of relativity is nothing can go faster than light. As a hyperspace fold does exactly this, I think we can accept that folding is NOT constrained by relativity. Funny, I always envisioned "folding" and "hyperspacing" to be complete different... here's how, according to what basic physics I know. Hyperspacing (or Warping?): You go FTL, travel takes time, but you run into A LOT of problems, mainly energy, mass, and the entire issue of time. Folding: A more "elegant" solution. You don't travel in the typical notion. Closest thing I think would be akin to opening up an artificial wormhole to your destination ("folding" the fabric of space and time), go through the wormhole, either using conventional drives or other methods, and appear on the other side almost instantaneously. There's the problem of how to open up a wormhole, and where you open it to, but from what I've read, it does seem to be more feasable than FTL travel (or hyperspacing). You also circumvent the entire time-space issue.

Don't worry, you'll find out all in time... even what happens to the Guild kid =)

Last Exile was great (heh, I was naughty and grabbed the fansubs... maybe I'll buy the DVD version to get the full quality... MPEG4 compression still leaves visible artifacts). The ending was a bit rushed, but I think fitting for the overall series. The only DVDs I'm aware of are the official Asian releases, Vol. 1 comes with Keep Case, Mousepad, poster, and a 14 page booklet. I think Vol. 3 is either out or about to come out. DVD itself is 16:9 widescreen, Dolby 2.0 Super Bit Rate. Hopefully the R1 version should get the same treatment. EDIT: Almost forgot... Japanese release comes with Al figure instead of poster.