You know, there must be something seriously wrong with me. One of the most pleasant surprises among my recent purchases has been Kirameki Project, which has become a regular rewatch.

That's not the problem; it's a good show and I'm not ashamed to say that I like it. But it's a fluffy fan service show from the studio that gave us Aika R-16 and Najica Blitz Tactics.

The problem is that I've started noticing things and saying, "That makes sense. It's how it would really be." Like the fact that Junerin's eyes glow when she receives an order from Kana via her cell phone. It makes sense that Kana would include something to indicate that the order had been received and processed, don't you think? Especially since Junerin's face doesn't change and she doesn't have a voice?

Or when Junerin is under attack by electronic warfare, the way she recovers rapidly after the attack is lifted. Kana must have implemented a watchdog, and for a while there Junerin was stuck in a reset loop because the electronic attack was preventing her neural net from operating properly. Once the attack was lifted, she was able to reboot and proceed with the battle.

Another thing is to see the way that Junerin's AI develops over the course of the show, so that at a critical point she spontaneously makes an important decision without receiving orders from Kana. It surprised Kana, but it probably shouldn't have; it means Junerin's neural net was developing. (It took Rincle to explain it to Kana, which is rather nice.) It would seem that the kind of AI that Kana used in Rincle and again in Junerin develops slowly as it's exposed to people and experiences -- which makes sense.

Junerin has 360 degree awareness; she isn't limited to her eyes, which is why she could dodge an attack coming from here rear. Why? Among other things, I bet the top of her head is a radome.

...I'm just too much of a geek, I guess.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Engineer's Disease at 09:28 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 Nah, this isn't Engineer's Disease.  Engineer's Disease is when technical competency *hurts* your ability to enjoy fiction.  When you make cool realizations like that, thats the bennies for being an engineer.

In a slightly related matter, its also always nice when you look at a possible plot hole in a show, and then realize there's a totally sensical and appropriate explanation that closes the hole entirely, that could entirely have been what the writers intended.  They just didn't make it a part of the plot.  Sort of the mirror side of Fridge Logic.

Posted by: metaphysician at June 19, 2008 07:07 AM (9Lztf)

2 I ran into that in the Alastair Reynold's new novel House of Suns recently.  The story proposes an interesting loophole for wormholes that doesn't contravene causality, and then suggests that alien civilisations had been use the technique for countless millennia.

But, I thought, that doesn't work because as the story set is up, this would mean there would be all this missing mass in the Universe...

Oh.  Yeah.  Right.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at June 19, 2008 07:23 PM (PiXy!)

3 I love it when something that seems fluffy and superficial turns out to have depth.  I've been thinking a lot about the process of rewatching things lately, and I think this is one of the reasons rewatching movies/shows is rewarding.  You get to experience something you enjoyed again, but then you start to pick up on new things and you gain a better appreciation for the movie/show.  I don't think this is a bad thing, except in rare instances (I've rewatched some films entirely too many times.)

Posted by: Mark at June 19, 2008 08:32 PM (2cMUJ)

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Ubu Roi's got a beautiful explanation of why Coyote Ragtime Show ended up being a near incoherent mess:

Reality, or the Lack Thereof (Coyote Ragtime Show)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Engineer's Disease at 12:04 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Hoo boy. Too Many Words on why mechas are stupid

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Engineer's Disease at 09:54 PM | Comments (24) | Add Comment
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1

Entirely right.

The best realistic depiction of mecha I've found out there was FASA's Battlemech game... the original table game, not the videogame series or the more recent versions of the tablegame.  Everything you talk about in your post is addressed, and is reasonably explained with a minimum of phlebotinum... but there is still enough to make a battlemech completely unworkable.

The one thing in the game mechanics that DOES make sense, though, is the heat factor.  Each mech has x number of heatsinks that try to deal with overheating; the best place for a mech to fight is in a lake or river... that lets the heatsinks clear more heat away.  It's no surprise that the most advanced anti-mech weapon in the game is a heat-seeking missile.  A pilot can (and often does) kill himself, or cause the mech's ammo to cook off, via overheating.

The largest mech weighed 100 tons and stood 60' tall... not terribly huge as mecha go.  Arms and legs were moved by 'myomer bundles' that replicate human muscles, just a lot stronger.  Again, not impossible to contemplate, just... well, the whole game really fails the fridge test, eventually.

Sure was fun to playtest back in 1982, though...

Posted by: Wonderduck at August 20, 2007 10:20 PM (CJ5+Y)

2 I just made a couple of edits. I forgot to remove my notes from the beginning; they're gone now. And I found a better example of engine power than a diesel locomotive. The P-51 Mustang's Merlin engine produced 1500 horsepower, more than a megawatt. Obviously a building-sized mecha is going to need a hell of a lot bigger power plant than that.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at August 20, 2007 10:41 PM (+rSRq)

3 It has to be said that giant transforming/combining mecha are really cool - if you're a boy between 8 and 12. Which is, after all, the target audience of the original mecha shows like Mazinger Z, Combattler V, and Voltes 5.  And of course the granddaddy of giant robot shows, Gigantor.

I think the series with the multicoloured mechanical panthers might be Voltron as well.  I've never seen it, but the first Voltron series was adapted from an anime called Golion, and the components of the giant mecha are apparently mechanical lions.

Also worth noting is that the creator of the mecha (as opposed to giant robot) genre is the same man who invented the magical girl transformation sequence, the incomparable Go Nagai.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at August 21, 2007 01:24 AM (PiXy!)

4 Giant anthropomorphic robots are cool.  That's pretty much the underlying consideration.  The useless bits make them look like knights or (more commonly) samurai.  In many ways, they're the modern equivalent of stories of King Arthur's knights in full steel plate armor when the best soldiers within a thousand years on his "reign" would have been running around in scale, chain, or breastplate/chain at best.

Now, back to reality, I do believe that we will see power armor, possibly in the next couple of decades.  But anything not literally built around the human body will tend to look less and less human.

As for Battletech, the original designers were intentionally trying to create a somewhat plausible world where anime-looking mecha could slug it out.  Along the way, they drastically lowered speed (200kph is almost unheard of, 50-80kph is the most common), and weapons ranges (the best laser--ever--has a max range of 750 meters, slightly less than the longest-ranged ballistic weapon).  For me, at least, it was the design of the "universe" rather than the mecha that sucked me in and hooked me to this day.

Posted by: BigD at August 21, 2007 06:48 AM (JJ4vV)

5 Although Steve will probably never get around to watching it (mecha), but Armor Trooper Votom went out of its way to depict a realistic use of mecha (they're essentially one man tank) and how they could be use in warfare. However, its length (52 episodes, that includes 3 recaps) and the sometimes unrelenting grimness of the story (essentially how an almost unemotional soldier gets humanized by love and friendship while essentially battling the entire Galaxy).

Posted by: BigFire at August 21, 2007 07:58 AM (i5qPG)

6 Anime-"looking"? All the original Battletech mecha were literally pulled straight out of Macross. (There's some entertaining copyright dispute in there somewhere, eventually resolved - I recall one of the later Battletech mecha guides having Victor Entertainment copyrights on all the Macross-mecha pics.)

The real problem with mecha, as opposed to powered armor, is that anything that would make a mecha possible could also be put in a tank. Lower profile, much better armor coverage per weight ratio, much less complicated, many fewer vulnerable parts. If you're ever confronted with a big mech, go for the legs - they can't possibly have the same thickness of armor as the front of a tank!

An awful lot of mecha shows have the mecha using some kind of super-armor that just doesn't get torn up like normal. Okay, fine, but wouldn't it be cheaper to make a bunch of tanks with the same armor? Flat armor plates are way easier to manufacture than curved ones.

The only advantage to the mecha style is that it can act like a Really Big Infantryman - hugging cover and fast reactions on the flanks. But that makes a lot more sense with powered armor suits (which really are Big Infantrymen) than with huge robots.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at August 21, 2007 08:55 AM (LMDdY)

7 I think someone's going to get a mop to clean up all these catgirls that were killed from all that physics discussed in relation to anime in that article.

I enjoy mecha shows for the most part, but I also can turn off that part of my brain that causes Engineer's Disease (plus chemical engineering doesn't usually come into play into anime, which helps).

Two of the biggest reasons that usually annoy people about mecha shows are the fact that the robots look like people. Allow me to read from Mekton Zeta in response why these are the way they are.

Regarding the human shape (including why they have a nose): "These mechanical giants were shaped like men ... Shaped like men so that the alien blasphemers would know that it was Man who defeated them."

The fact that the robots are human shaped lets the audience identify with the robots. They, however, have to look very different from humans (see the giant shoulder pads and bright colors) because it's been proven that things that are only slightly different from humans are much more horrific than things that are very different. Please see http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main.UncannyValley for more info.

Posted by: Cyndane at August 21, 2007 09:41 AM (NBQEO)

8

Another killer that you missed is ground pressure.  How many mecha are drawn with feet that are hollow rims around a jet exhaust, or worse yet with spiked heels?  So our contact with the ground is a few square feet at most, and we're supporting hundreds of tons on that?  Even if the materiel the mecha is made of could do that obviously the ground, roads, rooftops(!) and such that you commonly see mecha standing, running, and leaping on wouldn't.

From a purely military standpoint, powered armor would be great, since it lets the individual warrior carry more firepower, armor, and supplies, while hopefully retaning mobility, the ability to take advantage of concealment, etc.  If a giant mecha could really move the way they are shown to in anime, this being able to go places neither a tank nor hovercraft could, it would be a viable platform, but unfortunately it would be even more affected by the weight problem than a tank  is.

The most interesting study of a "future weapons platform" from a mobility standpoint was one that had big armored wheels with a huge surface area out on arms, kind of like a spider.  But this is still basically a tank, not a mecha.

Posted by: David at August 21, 2007 10:58 AM (K0q+2)

9 David, it's even worse. A lot of those robots with the relatively tiny feet tend to take flying leaps and land hard. In reality they'd sink into the ground up to their thighs; it would be like hitting soft soil with a pile driver.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at August 21, 2007 11:31 AM (+rSRq)

10 One example of a plausible futuristic mecha is the spider tank from the "Ghost in the Shell" movie. It's got legs instead of tracks, but it's got 8 of them.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at August 21, 2007 11:32 AM (+rSRq)

11 Shirow regularly did through-the-surface landings in GITS and Appleseed, but that was generally robots/cyborgs jumping; the Fuchikomas didn't tend to bust through stuff. Of course they're not really that armored, but they have to weigh something, right?

My big problem with the spider design is that you can't armor the legs worth anything, and there's a LOT of exposed leg there. About the best you can do is have a redundant amount of them... but how much damage can you take before you're stranded? (And they're a lot harder to repair than a busted track or bogey!)

There's always Bonaparte the tank, too... there's a little articulation in the treads.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at August 21, 2007 11:48 AM (LMDdY)

12 I think it is pretty obvious to anyone with a brain that mecha just aren't at all viable weapons.  I'm not an engineer, and it is obvious to me...I still like mecha shows and use mecha in practically every 'Science' Fiction RPG I run.  They're just cool.  Sure, sometimes I'll complain about how little sense they make...but, well, whatever.

Posted by: Arson55 at August 21, 2007 01:29 PM (/JGtb)

13 A lot of franchises, anime, TV, movie, and game, have things obviously engineered by the art department.  Look at the ships of Star Trek / Star Wars, for example;  they've been refrigerator-tested to destruction.

I think the reason for using humanoid mecha is that it allows you to have action movie-style fight scenes against enemies that no lone human is capable of fighting.  It may not be sound tactical fighting even for people, but visually people want up close and personal combat with dirty hand to hand fighting and acrobatic dodges to behind cover.  Modern armor warfare doesn't lend itself very well to cinematic violence.

Posted by: Civilis at August 21, 2007 02:54 PM (UZyiT)

14

I think there's more to it than that. First, it's obvious wish-fulfilment.

Second, if the giant robot is humanoid, then the animators already know how to animate it. If it's something else, they have to learn how.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at August 21, 2007 03:12 PM (+rSRq)

15 And Fuchi/Tachikomas notwithstanding, it's dang hard to anthropomorphize a tank on TV (IRL, it seems to be a bit easier).  A humanoid design evokes human instincts and empathy more than something shaped like a brick, even if both have a pilot inside, and the storytellers can cheat out the wazoo by using human-like cues to show the emotion of the pilot within while remaining focused on the action outside.

Posted by: BigD at August 21, 2007 03:50 PM (JJ4vV)

16

Wonderful gedanken experiment, Steven. There are still some puzzling things in the world, though, such as Supersaurus, thought to have been a land animal 130 feet long, as much as 50 feet high, and weighing some 75 tons. The SF write James P. Hogan has wryly suggested that perhaps gravity was weaker back then.

That said, mecha are part of that vast anime universe where one must dig about for the "off switch" in the ol' cerebral cortex. Some noble attempts at hand-waving have been attempted, however, such as Votoms (they even had huge dish-shaped feet). Shirow has always vacillated between "cool" and "plausible." Some of his comics depict mecha or cyborgs breaking through roofs and such, and the M-66 robot's reason for having long, flowing hair was as a heat sink. (As a side note, the ancient OAV Black Magic M-66 contains a sequence directed by Shirow where the battle robots take on a group of soldiers. This remains the most "realistic" depction of android battle tactics I've ever seen, with their inhuman rapididy and flexibilty used to good advantage. They also withdrew from the field after only about thirty seconds, steaming and overheated. Actually only one with drew--the other self-destructed like a claymore.) He's also postulated a lot of esoteric nanomaterials for construction, which is, of course, the modern day equivalent of the venerable "unbelievium, the comic book element."

Interestingly, he himself is a nanotech skeptic. When I spoke to him some years ago he firmly belived it would never scale due to the waste heat problem. I'm a bit more sanguine, due to the amazing efficiencies of nanomachines. After he went on at some length one dinner about how a large construction of nanomachines would vaporise itself, I pointed at myself and said, basically, Thus you are disproven. To his credit, he was delighted instead of annoyed.

Below the fold: babbling by Shirow.  Not really a spoiler but there's no BTF tag....

"The skeleton comprises carbon fiber around a metal core. Adding strips of reinforced kevlar may improve the skeleton's resistance to attack. A standard 66 weighs between 100 and 200 kilograms, I'd guess. This could pose difficulties in swamps and quagmires, so any 66 deployed in such terrain should be equipped with rocket-propelled hook and winch--reducing its weight is not advisable as this would reduce its advantage in hand-to-hand combat. Even with new materials available to keep weight down, other factors must be considered: reactor heat, strength, center of gravity, weight distribution, the relationship of basal joint strength to peripheral weight during high-speed movement, and so on... As for dynamics--that's another complex issue we won't even try to address here.
Bullet-proof armor is yet another concern linked inseparably to weight. Armor should be impervious to the 10 mm bullets common to infantry. The upper limit is probably +P+.45ACP, but even that would allow rifle bullets to inflict considerable damage. Maybe the best approach would be to dispense with bullet-proofing systems altogether, and instead minimize weight for improved maneuverability. That would make it easier to transport, too...
And then there's the problem of differential heating. Even with a built-in anti-condensation heater, dew may still form on lenses, filters, photoelectric parts and the like. Thus, producing all-weather models of precision machines is no easy task. No doubt, such machines are susceptible to magnetism, not to mention vibration, shock, electromagnetic pulse, torsion-induced load, etc, etc..."

Posted by: Toren at August 22, 2007 10:11 AM (kJAhA)

17 Whoops.  What did I do wrong, Pixy?

Posted by: Toren at August 22, 2007 10:12 AM (kJAhA)

18 Um, you colour-coded the spoiler tag. I do that in the examples because then it displays the tag rather than executing it; if you actually do this, of course, it displays the tag rather than executing it.

I really need to get comment editing set up. It works, and just requires a few template tweaks to go live.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at August 22, 2007 10:31 AM (PiXy!)

19 Oh, and fixed.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at August 22, 2007 10:32 AM (PiXy!)

20 Oh, and while there's no BTF tag, there's a plain hide tag that doesn't automatically insert the spoiler warning, so you could do:

BTF: Sadly, I have nothing interesting to say.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at August 22, 2007 10:40 AM (PiXy!)

21

"Unbelievium" aka Phlebotinum is also known as "unobtainium", "handwavium", and "nanomachines".

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at August 22, 2007 02:04 PM (+rSRq)

22 I do think Shirow's underestimating armor tech like nanotube-impregnated polymers, and sheer-thickening fluid (I dunno that they'll get electric armor down in weight and power requirements to put on anything smaller than a tank--that's apparently what's holding up its usage today).  That said, that's nitpicking considering the topic; there are lots of things that you can do with PA that just don't make sense on anything larger.

Are there any good series that show PA, as opposed to full-sized mecha?  The Starship Troopers CGI series was decent, but didn't exactly take the PA seriously (they used... batteries little bigger than D-cells).

Posted by: BigD at August 22, 2007 06:27 PM (JJ4vV)

23 I'm not sure what you mean by "PA". The mechas in "Sakura Wars" are not very large at all. They're also even dorkier looking than the ones in "Divergence Eve".

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at August 22, 2007 06:59 PM (+rSRq)

24 Err, sorry, I mean true power armor, as in worn rather than piloted from a cockpit.

Posted by: BigD at August 23, 2007 09:19 AM (JJ4vV)

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"Engineer's disease" is where the viewer can't stop thinking while watching a mindless show. Like Tenchi Muyo.

This picture has always bothered me. If the the main cables of a suspension bridge are severed in the middle, the towers will lean out, not in.

Why are Saturn's rings and Saturn's stripes not in the same plane?

NO, no, no... It's not Ryu-oh's key, it's Ryu-oh's ki. As in æ°—, which means "spirit, life force".

UPDATE: One thing that isn't wrong with that second picture is how dark it is. Saturn's orbital radius is between 9 and 10 AU, which means it receives about 1% of the sunlight that Earth does. If one of us was on one of Saturn's icy moons in full sunlight, it would look like night with a full moon. We could see, but we probably could not see color.

All probes intended for the outer solar system (defined as "everything outside of Mars") have to carry nuclear thermal generators for power, because solar cells don't cut it.

Which is kind of a problem for Heinlein's book "Farmer in the Sky". I love that book, but there are a large number of reasons why it isn't practical. (Which I'm sure Heinlein knew, too; he was telling a story, not doing an engineering design.) There's no way you could do open-air farming at that distance from the sun. Jupiter varies between 4.9 and 5.2 AU, which means on average it gets about 4% of the sunlight Earth gets. That would be less bright than deep shade here, and most crops will wither and die in deep shade. If you wanted to grow plants on a terraformed Ganymede, you'd have to use greenhouses and artificial lighting.

What am I doing posting at 3:00 AM? I get punchy and start free-associating.

A different problem with terraforming Ganymede, leaving aside the sheer difficulty of it, is that after you melted all the ice and released all the gas, you'd end up with one hell of a lot of ocean. If you could somehow raise the temperature of Ganymede to Earth normal and keep it there, there would be no dry land anywhere. The now-complete and much-recommended web comic "A Miracle of Science" handled that correctly. All cities would have to be floating.

And now I'm going to bed.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Engineer's Disease at 10:45 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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I'm rewatching Petite Princess Yucie, and thought again about the question of the way that architecture is strongly driven not just by our materials and our building techniques, but also by our physical abilities.

For instance, we build stairs because we have legs. Stairs are far apart because our legs are long. What if we rolled instead of walked? Then we'd be using ramps instead of stairs, right? but what of the problem of rolling out of control? They couldn't be simple slopes, so what would they be?

In PPY the inhabitants of Tenkai live in unusual cities. It seems that the direction of gravity in Tenkai is a local matter, because the cities look like they were designed by Escher. There are stairs, oddly enough. You have to wonder why they use them, though.

Arthur C. Clarke considered this a bit in his book Childhood's End. Without getting too deeply into what the story is about, at one point a human visits the home world of an alien race, all of whom have wings and can fly in the atmosphere and gravity of the planet. And their cities are a lot different than ours, because they fly from place to place where we'd expect to walk. He sometimes found himself walking down a corridor only to encouter an opening and a sheer drop of a hundred feet. For one of the natives, that would be a place to take off from. For a human, it was a risk of death.

In a flying world there would be no handrails. No one would need them.

No one? How about kids? How old do kids have to be before they gain the ability to fly? Would they walk and run until then? Perhaps that's the situation in Tenkai, given that Elmina has legs and does walk without difficulty. And perhaps that's the reason there are stairs in Tenkai: they're for pre-flight children.

How about the spirit world? Cocoloo can dematerialize and can walk through walls, and so can Chawoo. Presumably that's a common ability of spirits.

Why would houses in the spirit world have any doors? Perhaps there would be reasons to divide a house into multiple rooms, but why bother with doors when you can walk through walls?

I think the answer is that if you can walk through the walls of your own home, so can anyone else. That means you have no security. The presumption is that in the spirit world they've figured out how to make walls that spirits themselves cannot walk through -- for security reasons -- and that means that even spirits would need doors in their houses.

There are a lot of other things in our society which rely on specific characteristics of our lives. What if they changed? Chawoo, Cocoloo's steward, is a shape changer. He only attempts to use that ability once to try to fool someone -- and fails miserably -- but if you have a society in which there were lots of adept shape changers, or perhaps in which everyone was a shape changer, then how do you confirm identity? How do you know whether you're really talking to who you think you are talking to?

Presumably it would be considered rude to try to fool someone like that, but surely it would happen. Harry and Ron do it by magic in the second Harry Potter book, but that took an elaborate spell and physical contact with the two guys they ended up impersonating. What if it was a natural ability, requiring nothing more than will and experience? It seems like that would have very widespread effects.

As I watch PPY, it sometimes seems to me that the world I'm viewing really doesn't make much sense as a recreation of Europe in the middle ages. In particular, the city there is much too clean and everything seems to work much too well.

Then it occurred to me that I am not really seeing that. What I'm seeing is a middle ages European town where magic works really well and is common -- and that changes everything. Streets paved with cobble stones? Sure, especially if you can contract with dwarven engineers to build everything for you.

How about running an elite academy to teach the daughters of every monarch in the world?

In 1320, say, the people of Europe didn't even know about most of the rest of the world. Much of what they did know was just rumor and myth; much of it was completely unknown. But magic is a great time saver; people can travel great distances easily with magic, and sending messages is even easier. The world of PPY is fully explored and the academy run by Queen Ercell does indeed draw from every kingdom on the planet -- and a few other realms, as well.

Some kinds of magic could make economic activity very problematic. Duplication magic, for instance: what if magicians could create things out of nothing? Could be really valuable, don't you think?

What if they produce currency? That could destabilize the economy of the nation. (Someday's Dreamers dealt with that one in the second episode.) And in general, if magic is too easy, what happens to the work ethic? (Kamichu taked about that one.)

Actually, if magic is really easy, would you even need a work ethic?

Oddly enough, that one comes up in PPY, too. The inhabitants of the fairy world don't seem to have a work ethic, a fact which becomes a major plot point (for reasons I won't go into). The fairy world is something like the legendary Garden of Eden, so when it eventually becomes necessary for the inhabitants to come together to work for the common good, they don't know how to do it.

The inhabitants of each of the five worlds are different, and it turns out that the cultures of each place are different too.

But I have to confess that I was a bit surprised by the way that the Spirit World looked. Except for the inhabitants, it looked just like the human word. The houses were normal and everything had doors.

Maybe another reason for doors in the spirit word is hospitality, in case someone from one of the other realms comes to visit.

UPDATE: Actually, in episode 13 of PPY we get to see both magical long distance communication and magical long distance travel.

If you think about it, the flower farm in episode 5 wouldn't be economically viable without the ability to ship the flowers long distance. When the flowers bloom, there'd just be too many to sell on a local market. The price would collapse. The only way he could make a decent income would be by shipping his flowers to a very large number of destinations, so that he didn't send very many to any of them.

I wonder if there are magical shipping firms in the business of moving bulk cargo around? Must be.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Engineer's Disease at 09:30 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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1 Some kinds of magic could make economic activity very problematic. Duplication magic, for instance: what if magicians could create things out of nothing? Could be really valuable, don't you think?

Actually, if magic is really easy, would you even need a work ethic?

You can use Clarke's law to extend this to sufficiently-advanced technology.  Neil Stephenson looks at the social effects of ready-made access to "duplication magic" in the form of household nanotech fabrication in his book The Diamond Age.

I think that magic represents a singularity, a point where we can't say what social effects it would have.  We have to imagine it based on our own experiences, and what we create in fantasy is necessarily colored by being based on our own world.  This has become a trap for many authors who have imagined magic in a modern technology setting.  You invariably end up with magic-wielders casting fireballs versus mundanes with guns.  While that passes the refrigerator test in that there are cases where I could come up with an explanation for why that would happen, it doesn't make sense to me as what I would do if I had access to magic.  If I have access to the non-magic "0 level fireball spell" (material component: hand grenade) then studying a magical version is not as useful as studying magic that is not yet duplicated by technology.  If I can magically sense the presence of all enemies within 100 feet, regardless of concealment, magic combat spells are probably superfluous if I have a gun.  But everyone can imagine the power of being able to throw a ball of fire at one's enemies, and it something that can be impressively visualized.

Posted by: Civilis at August 11, 2007 04:06 AM (qCWoW)

2 Both are good points.  We have never had magic per se, so we don't really know how it would work or what we would do with it, and we tend to think of uses for magic that would help *us* in our daily lives.  But if our world had had magic from the beginning, civilization would have developed down completely different paths.  Perhaps today, people would be struggling with the concept of magical mirrors or walls that allowed one person to affix a note that others with similar items could see on the other side of the planet.  Perhaps inventors would be struggling to create a spell or device which would record sights and sounds so that people who were not present could witness them later, without violating the privacy of the minds of those who were present.

But, it's incredibly hard to extrapolate that out, develop a complete, coherent model for how civilization would work, and then explain that to readers.  It's even harder to do so in a movie or series, which can only relay visual and aural information, and cannot really begin to describe things like telepathy or magical senses, so magical civilizations tend to look even more like simple copies of ours with magical elements tacked on.

Posted by: BigD at August 11, 2007 05:57 AM (JJ4vV)

3 Another examination of this (not as good, for reasons I'll explain) is in the Hell's Gate series by David Weber and Linda Evans.  In it, a magic-wielding society with technology about 1200's A.D. (crossbows) ends up in a cross-universal war with a psionic society of about 1900 A.D. technology (trains & early machine guns).  Both sides find the other's abilities to be strange and frightening.  The story is told mostly from the psionic side, and it becomes evident that many of the roles we give to technology, they substitute psionics.  As such, their society does not come across as convincingly alien; in that regard, it's rather disappointing.

If I had to make one complaint about todays crop of prolific sf-fantasy writers, its that they lack imagination.  They steal a plot or idea from history, change the details, and run with it.  It makes for entertaining, but not thought-provoking, reading.

It does sell books, though.  That makes publishers happy.

Posted by: ubu at August 11, 2007 08:03 AM (maFgw)

4 I remember when I started watching anime 25 years ago (oy), I thought Lum looked awfully trim for someone who could fly everywhere she went....

Posted by: Toren at August 11, 2007 11:08 PM (IUaD6)

5 Flying uses a lot of calories!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at August 12, 2007 12:46 AM (PiXy!)

6

(smacks forehead)

Duhh!  Of course.

Posted by: Toren at August 12, 2007 12:37 PM (IUaD6)

7 Assuming angels burn calories. . .

( hey, dragons often don't seem to )

Posted by: metaphysician at August 12, 2007 01:22 PM (dkszP)

8 For instance, we build stairs because we have legs. Stairs are far apart because our legs are long. What if we rolled instead of walked? Then we'd be using ramps instead of stairs, right? but what of the problem of rolling out of control? They couldn't be simple slopes, so what would they be?

Well, staircases don't have anything to prevent us from "walking" out of control, do they? Staircases assume the user is competent enough to use them, which is why we have things like baby gates. But I think I understand what you mean, anyway.

Posted by: atomic_fungus at August 15, 2007 11:49 AM (7YxzV)

9 Staircases have landings every once in a while. Presumably ramps would have something similar.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at August 15, 2007 01:40 PM (+rSRq)

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I just wrote a long answer over at Metafilter to this question: Why are we wasting lots of money on space research and astronomy which could be better spent on other things? Here's my answer:

If history has shown us anything, it is that "pure research" doesn't exist. Everything we learn eventually becomes useful to us, but...

...but it's nearly impossible to predict when or how it will do so.

That said, it turns out that there are significant practical applications of astronomical data. The first major confirmation of the General Theory of Relativity was through telescope observation, for example, and the General Theory is the only theory of gravity we have which has stood the test of time. (In the mid 19th century astronomical observations had already demonstrated that Newton's theory of gravity didn't correctly predict the orbit of Mercury. That was part of the impetus leading to the development of the General Theory.)

Several predictions made by physics researchers working on new theories in subatomic physics could only be tested through astronomical observations.

"Yeah, but what good are those theories?" Well, they're not ready to be turned into engineering practice yet, so we can't really tell. But the last major revolution in physics, the hat trick of the Special Theory of Relativity, the General Theory of Relativity, and the Quantum Theory, gave us atomic weapons and atomic power, modern plastics, and semiconductors among other things.

Take modern polymer chemistry as an example. In the 19th Century chemists did some amazing things, but most of it was the result of brute force experimentation. They didn't understand what they were doing. The Quantum Theory gave them the tools to really explain what was happening, and once they began to utilize that knowledge, they stopped groping around in a fog and began to march in useful directions. The result was things like mylar and kevlar and cyanoacrylate and synthetic ceramics. Not to mention gallium arsenide.

The Special Theory told us that mass and energy were the same thing and that each could be converted into the other. The research going on now is attempting to explain how that is the case, and if it succeeds, it could be just as revolutionary as the Quantum theory was. For instance, we could learn how to directly convert mass into energy without having to muck around with indirect approaches like fusion and fission.

What use was the Galileo probe? One thing it did was to give us a good long look at the weather on Jupiter. All those cloud bands moving at different speeds relative to one another? Well, we've got those here on Earth, too. They're called the "trade winds". Seeing another, larger, more well defined example of that may teach us things about weather here.

Cassini? Saturn is like a great laboratory experiment for gravity. The grooves in the rings are the gravitational equivalent of the trails of smoke in a wind tunnel. No one can explain the grooves right now, and part of the problem is that the Voyager probes didn't really return enough data about that. Cassini will give us years of data about the rings, and if someone eventually figures out a way to explain where the grooves are (and where they aren't) that could begin the process of developing a replacement for the General Theory. (Which is known to need a replacement, by the way.)

But utilitarian explanations like that miss the real point: When a culture stops dreaming, it starts dying. When it stops looking to the future, it becomes part of the past. If we concentrate entirely on utilitarian aspects of "taking care of things here, now" then we lose something precious that we cannot spare.

The most important result of astronomy and space? It's the pictures that kids look at and go "Oooh! I want more of that!" It challenges our children, gives them something to dream about. That alone is sufficient to justify it.

We aren't doing these things for ourselves. We're doing them for our grandchildren.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Engineer's Disease at 03:22 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
Post contains 677 words, total size 4 kb.

Author asks why the liquid-metal android in Figure 17 eats food. Actually, it's the norm in anime for androids to consume food, even if it makes no sense. All the androids in Hand Maid May eat, for instance, and Mahoro loves food. Chobits is one of the few series to get it right; Chi doesn't eat and doesn't have a sense of taste either, which is why she has to rely on the landlady to learn how to cook for Hibiki.

The idea of androids eating never made much sense. In the case of HMM, the excuse is that they were designed to be good companions for their human masters, and taking meals together is part of that.

But the real reason was so that the other androids could complain about May's uninspired cooking, so that Mami could take over and do really well, leaving May feeling inadequate. (Sob)

By the way, Commander Data also has the ability to eat, and for him too it was included in his design for social reasons. He has a hatch on his chest that can be opened, and food he consumes collects in a bag inside which can be removed and discarded when he's alone.

DBZ's Android 18 is an interesting case. She's a cyborg. Dr. Gero kidnapped a pair of fraternal twins and modified them heavily, a process which included adding an eternal power source. "Eternal" is a relative term; it's possible it's good for a hundred years, but we really don't know.

What we do know is that Android 18 never gets tired. It's one of her biggest advantages in combat against a flesh-and-blood. If she's fighting someone stronger than her, all she has to do is maintain stalemate until her opponent gets weary, and then beat the crap out of them. Even if it takes a week of 24-hour days, she can do it.

Dr. Gero designed her to hunt down and kill Goku, and he gave her a power source that would last long enough to make sure she could do it. Anything beyond that wasn't important. The only thing we know for sure is that it lasts 20 years in at least one timeline, and there's no indication that she was beginning to run down. (That version of 18 never got the chance; Trunks killed her.)

There's no indication that she ever eats or sleeps, either. Presumably it's necessary for her to consume at least a little bit of food, in order to properly maintain muscle and skin, but she doesn't use food for energy and she is never shown eating in the series. (One would presume that she did have to eat quite a lot during her pregnancy, of course.)

Of course, physics in that realm is different. Piccolo never eats either, so perhaps 18 doesn't need to on an ongoing basis. And Piccolo can regenerate lost body parts, with mass coming from no-where obvious, so maybe 18 didn't need to eat during her pregnancy. (Sometimes DBZ makes my head hurt.)

Moving right along, Lila in Najica Blitz Tactics doesn't eat on a regular basis, but she can do so socially. When the two of them are at home, Lila cooks for Najica but doesn't eat herself. When they're out in public, Lila does eat (e.g. ice cream, in the second episode).

Instead, Lila and the other humaritts have to soak in a special solution on a regular basis. That seems to perform several functions, and one of those may well be to recharge their power source. It's interesting that when Lila is doing that, she also submerges her head. Apparently she doesn't need to breathe, either. Which makes sense if her power isn't coming from combustion of carbon.

Anyway, I would say that the vast majority of androids in anime do eat. No, it doesn't really make sense -- but that's how it goes.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Engineer's Disease at 10:30 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 653 words, total size 4 kb.

It's been said that Puritans are people who constantly obsess over the fact that someone, somewhere, might be having a good time.

The old Puritans were religious fundamentalists who objected to drink, dancing, celebrating, bowling, gambling, or pretty much anything that was fun. They worried that such things were the road to Hell.

Modern Puritans are leftist atheists. Not being concerned about souls (since they don't believe in such things) their concern is health and well-being -- of people's bodies, and of the body of the holy mother Gaia. These days it seems that if there's anything you enjoy doing, you can find someone who says that it's bad for you. The top excuse is that it causes cancer.

Here in the US, tomorrow is July 4, Independence Day. Traditionally it's a day for garden parties, and a lot of meat is going to get grilled over charcoal tomorrow. People will enjoy themselves. Oh, no!

The shrieks of despair from the new Puritans rise up: barbecued meat contains carcinogens! Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons! Heterocyclic Amines!

Of course, it's bunk. So pile up that charcoal, release lots of greenhouse gases, char the outside of that meat good, and have yourselves a hell of a time!

(It's fortunate that no one has figured out a way to blame anime DVDs for cancer. Yet.)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Engineer's Disease at 02:54 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
Post contains 223 words, total size 2 kb.

1 Don't forget the baby-killing fireworks.

Posted by: Author at July 03, 2007 03:26 PM (9imyF)

2 I'd be more worried about the fireworks, honestly.  Or more accurately, I'd be worried about stupid teenagers attempting to remove themselves from the gene pool.   But then, thats what teenagers do.

That said, *technically* I think the stuff grilling puts off theoretically adds to cancer rate.  OTOH, compared with other cooking methods, grilling melts off a lot of fat. . . which means its a net positive anyway.  Of course, try getting a health-fascist to understand "countervailing effects" or such. . .

Posted by: metaphysician at July 03, 2007 06:51 PM (lXszF)

3 Well, the fireworks are a big no-no down here in the Arizona tinder-box, but it sounds like I'm going to spend the day helping my dad restore his 64 Ford Falcon. It was the Ford Taurus of its day, but we're muscling it up into a gas-guzzling monster. We have to get it ready for the exhaust (classic restoration means no catalytic converter!! suck it greenies!!) to be installed on Thursday. I'm sure meats and fire will also be mixed at some point.

Posted by: Will at July 03, 2007 08:55 PM (olS40)

4 I predict that many people will die tomorrow from DHMO poisoning.

When will we ever learn?

Posted by: Big D at July 03, 2007 09:22 PM (JJ4vV)

5 OLD joke.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at July 03, 2007 10:41 PM (+rSRq)

6 There was a great article in our local left-leaning rag newspaper this morning about the banning of fireworks:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/03/DDG6TQOQE41.DTL

Posted by: madmike at July 03, 2007 10:49 PM (BWBM2)

7 A Very Good Sign, IMHO: on the news they gave instructions on how to safely use fireworks, even the "go up in the air and explode" kind.

Illinois allows the "safe and sane" kind but not the FUN kind. Thanks to a nice loophole in Indiana's laws--I live 6 miles from the border--although people can't USE fireworks, they can SELL all kinds there as long as the customers promise to take them out of state within five days.

But I'm going to the Philippines on Friday, so I'm not buying any fireworks this year. And I'm working tonight, too. *sigh* Maybe I'll light a sparkler before I go to work.

Posted by: Ed Hering at July 04, 2007 04:50 AM (Yz38/)

8

Ed: Would taking them out of state within 5 days include 'by ballistic arc?'

At least this year the fireworks won't set the entire state of Texas on fire! Biblical-flood level rains are good for that, at least.

Posted by: Intrope at July 04, 2007 06:54 AM (AYZY8)

9 Bless you, I had totally forgotten about the meat I had been keeping in the freezer. Then your article fired up some neurons in the "Steak!" portion of my brain. Defrosting it now.


Happy 4th everyone!

Posted by: ErikZ at July 04, 2007 08:40 AM (eFIpU)

10 Only thing that makes charcoling taste better is if you shot it yourself earlier that morning.  Ted Nugent style.

Posted by: jace at July 04, 2007 12:24 PM (f7ZUT)

11 This just goes to show that not believing in G-d or souls does not necessarily make one a more rational person.

Either way, I am wondering whether an obsessive love for "Gaya" constitutes belief in a god (meaning they are not atheists) or idolatry (a practice which I think has real-world disadvantages in a most technical sense).

Posted by: Andrew Brehm at July 05, 2007 04:38 AM (qjQ64)

12 As far as the modern environmental movement goes?  More the latter than the former, unfortunately.  Intrinsic in the difference between paganism and idolatry is whether you really worshipping the works of man, rather than something external and greater than him.

Given that the undertone of most environmental catastrophism is the assumption that man is *capable* of destroying the world, that places man in the superior position of their beliefs.  Hence, its really a form of worship to man's power, and idolatry.

By comparison, a religious ( and rather more rational ) Gaian would emphasize the need to be good to environment, or else *it* will destroy *us*.  Which is a far more legitimate concern, as far as environmental damage goes.

Posted by: metaphysician at July 05, 2007 05:06 AM (lXszF)

13

There are many ironic/hypocritical things about modern day atheists.  In my opinion, the biggest is atheist’s contempt of religion citing all the barbarities that religions have inflicted on mankind throughout history.  Of course it escapes them that during the past century atheists have killed off more people than all said religions.

Posted by: Homerlicous at July 05, 2007 05:48 AM (xkB2C)

14 No, I disagree.  The biggest irony is how your standard Marxist-materialist condemns religion with one hand, and then practices all the behaviors that he condemns with the other.

If contemporary religious reforms tend to consist of removing the cult from the spirituality, communism takes the opposite tack of removing the spirituality from the cult.  Since the problems arise from the cult, not the spirituality. . .

Posted by: metaphysician at July 05, 2007 07:30 AM (euFqi)

15 You guys are getting entirely too serious here. Thread closed.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at July 05, 2007 12:50 PM (+rSRq)

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"OP" refers to the opening credits sequence. Sometimes the term is used to refer to the music, and sometimes to the whole thing.

I've noticed that there's little correlation between whether the OP for a series is good and whether the series itself is good. The situation is complicated further by series where they change the OP once or twice during the run.

So what makes a good OP? (My opinions! Mine! Mine!)

First, it's OK if the music is an earbug, but it has to be interesting music that's appropriate to the show. The lyrics should be relevant, and possibly be explicative.
Second, the OP should be a bit of an intro to the show itself. Certainly we don't want it giving away any spoilers, but it should be representative of the series art, and it ought to show us many or most of the main characters, and give us a brief idea of what they're like.
Third, it ought to give us a look at typical background art.
Finally, it ought to intrigue us.

In otherwords, if the OP was distributed separately, it ought to make a pretty good advertisement for the series, conveying to us a decent idea of what the series is going to be like if we watch it.

So some examples:

UFO Princess Valkyrie 3: show is mediocre, OP is good. Music is nice and fun. It shows Valkyrie's transformation. It gives us a look at Akina and Hydra together, and Chorus and Raine together. It shows us the town with the two crashed spaceships. There's a look at the three remaining princesses who make their first appearances in this series. And the three little guys show up at the end.

Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi: show is very good, OP is mixed. The music is really good; very interesting. (And a special treat for hardcore fans, because it's sung by Hayashibara Megumi.) The images are clips from the first show, which show us all the characters, especially different scenes of the two kids. But it's nearly all placed in Tokyo, in the shopping arcade -- and the series doesn't spend much time there. So the OP doesn't show us backgrounds or art style from the majority of the show. It doesn't really show us any of the weirdness. As such it isn't a good advertisement because it isn't representative. (And the biggest drawback: Munemune isn't in the OP at all.)

Ninja Nonsense: show is OK, OP is excellent. The music isn't the most inspired but it's decent, and the lyrics are both funny and quite relevant. The video shows us a lot of things from the show -- but also a lot of things that never occur in the show. But that's part of the joke, and it's legit. From the OP we can tell that Shinobu is perky, bouncy, shapely, and absurdly enthusiastic -- and gullible, and innocent. We can tell that Kaede is cute and has a temper. We can tell that they're friends. We are shown that Onsokumaru is obnoxious, and that Kaede tends to abuse him. We get to see the girls from the competing academy, and the other students (all guys) at Shinobu's own school. We also see Miyabi using her magic. It's a very good advertisement for the series, and though some of it is deceptive, it isn't a fraud.

Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu (careful, Steve, you're treading on hallowed ground here): show is massively overrated among fanboys, the OP is good but flawed. A substantial flaw in the music is that the vocalist sings flat. (This may bother some people less than it does me.) Most of the important characters in the cast are shown but there's not really any indication of what they're like. The one thing it does convey, which is important, is that Haruhi is the most important character in the series and that she's manic. The OP doesn't show us much of the setting, but since the setting is prosaic that's not really a drawback. As an advertisement the main thing the OP sells is Haruhi and Mikuru as fan-service attractions, which isn't really what the show is about.

Ichigo Mashimaro: show is good, OP is excellent. The music is bouncy J-pop, and the lyrics get right to the point with the very first words: "You mustn't call us cute." Which is impossible because they are, which is the point. In the first ten seconds we see all five major characters plus the ferret. Through-out the entire OP, Miu stands out as an oddball. And Matsuri's nearly-unbearable cuteness is also well established. It gives you a good idea of what to expect from the series.

Kamichu: Show is very uneven, OP is outstanding. The music isn't particularly noteworthy but the visuals do everything they need to. All the major characters are shown, as well as numerous locations critical to the series, and throughout the OP we see various kami in places we wouldn't ordinarily expect, making clear that this otherwise unremarkable town is very different from our own reality. We see enough of Yurie to learn that she's a bit lazy and a rather unremarkable little girl, as indeed she was before she became a kami.

Shakugan no Shana: show is decent, OP is OK but really could have been better. I don't think the music is very good, but I thought all the series music was substandard. The visuals show us all the important characters from the series, and primarily emphasize Shana. We see magic being used, and see torches, but it doesn't actually tell us anything. This is a case where it was a mistake to pack in every single character from the series, because it didn't leave any time for anything else like giving us an indication of what the primary characters are like. In particular, the OP neglects Yuji, who is the protagonist. I think that this could have been a lot better.

Ah! My Goddess! TV: Show is very good, OP is outstanding. The music is magnificent, though it doesn't really have much to do with the show. The lyrics get across that it's a love story, which is the main point. The visuals spend the majority of the time on Keiichi, Beldandy, and Urd, as does the show itself. Beldandy, Urd, and Skuld are all shown with wings, so we know they're not human. Keiichi's motorcycle is featured, and Keiichi and Beldandy are clearly a couple who are deeply in love. Urd is shown to be a meddler. Secondary characters are shown but not dwelt on. There is one CGI shot of the temple and town that is utterly shitty looking, almost like it was a test render, but after watching the OP you'll have a pretty good idea of what's coming.

Hanaukyo Maid Team La Verite: show is decent (and better than it seems), the OP is very good. The big flaw is that Tanaka Rie is a great seiyuu but not so good as a vocalist, and she sings the OP. But the visuals are everything they should be. It concentrates primarily on Mariel and Taro and shows us that there's something going on between them. It shows us the mansion. It also lets us see that Ikuyo is nuts, that Yashima has the hots for Konoe, and that the triplets are sexy and seductive. We see Grace with her computer, and we see Ryuka's airship. There are enough quick images of other maids to make clear that there's really quite a lot of them. It doesn't tell us about Cynthia, or show that Ryuka is a gun freak, but that's OK.

Bottle Fairy: Show is good but with a strange ending (that ruined it for me). The OP is excellent. The music is good and the lyrics nicely summarize the show concept. The fairies are shown wearing lots of different costumes, and we see them with Sensei-san so that we can tell how small they are. Kururu and Hororo's characters come out a bit, and Chiriri always wears a hat. We also get to see Oborochan and Tamachan, the other major characters in the series.

Azumanga Daioh (Careful, Steve, more hallowed ground): The show is uneven and something of an acquired taste. The OP is legendary. The music for it is unusual but works well, especially since the visuals coordinate particularly well with the music. The visuals take something of a stylistic cue from the music, and are rather abstract. No scenery from the show is shown, but that's not a problem because the setting is a normal one. The characters are all given time to show what they're like. There's even time spent cueing the audience in to certain running gags (e.g. Yukari-sensei's mad driving). There may not be a better or more memorable OP in anime.

Divergence Eve: Show is excellent, the OP is serviceable. I like the music, and the OP shows us all the characters and gives us a good view of Watcher's Nest and the equipment used there. While not the best ever, it does the job.

Misaki Chronicles: show is excellent, the OP is not good at all. The problem with it is that it's totally deceptive. Once you've seen the series, the OP does make sense -- but as an advertisement for the series it completely misrepresents what you're going to see. It's not the worst OP ever but it's down near the bottom.

Vandread: The show is good, the OP is excellent. I like the music a lot. The visuals show us the ship, and the vandreads, and all the major characters in ways which give us an idea of what they're like. Each episode's OP is different; there's a spot in the middle in which they include scenes from that episode. I don't think that was really needed but it doesn't hurt anything because they were careful not to include spoilers.

Shingu: Secret of the Stellar Wars: the show is outstanding, and the OP is simply dreadful. I can't think of a worse one. The music is dull and the visuals are worse. If you were shown the OP as an advertisement for the series, you'd instantly write it off. How can a series which is otherwise so good have an OP which sucks so badly?

That's the mystery for me. That's what got me thinking about this. How did they botch up the Shingu OP so badly?

It spends its first 20 seconds showing us clouds drifting in a blue sky. Then we get ten seconds for two leisurely shots of Muryou, and then 45 seconds of badly animated images of kids walking around the town and the school. They're not drawn in the art style of the series. None of them are recognizable characters from the series. Then we see Hajime standing next to Muryou for five seconds or so, and then a long shot of the town and the ocean. And that's it. None of the other characters from the series are shown at all, nor any indication of alien activity, nor the white giant, and from what we see of Muryou and Hajime we can't tell a damned thing about what either of them are like. It's appallingly inept. What were they thinking?

A good OP is a good advertisement for the show. With Shingu they had 90 seconds to sell us on the series, and used it to do everything possible to convince us it wasn't worth our while.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Engineer's Disease at 10:16 PM | Comments (34) | Add Comment
Post contains 1924 words, total size 11 kb.

I was rewatching the original Matrix tonight, and suddenly noticed something in one particular scene. Frame grab below the fold. more...

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Engineer's Disease at 09:31 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
Post contains 155 words, total size 1 kb.

1

Pixy: this is the error I've gotten four times tonight:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/cherrypy/_cprequest.py", line 342, in respond
    cherrypy.response.body = self.handler()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/cherrypy/_cpdispatch.py", line 15, in __call__
    return self.callable(*self.args, **self.kwargs)
  File "Minx.py", line 113, in default
    return Page.go(cherrypy)
  File "/var/minx/live1.0/Page.py", line 361, in go
    page.Opts()
  File "/var/minx/live1.0/Page.py", line 140, in Opts
    if self.session.has_key('tags') and type(self.session['tags']) is dict:
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/cherrypy/lib/sessions.py", line 152, in has_key
    if not self.loaded: self.load()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/cherrypy/lib/sessions.py", line 110, in load
    data = self._load()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/cherrypy/lib/sessions.py", line 423, in _load
    self.cursor.execute('select zzs_data, zzs_expire from zz_session where zzs_id=%s', (self.id,))
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/MySQL_python-1.2.2-py2.5-linux-i686.egg/MySQLdb/cursors.py", line 166, in execute
    self.errorhandler(self, exc, value)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/MySQL_python-1.2.2-py2.5-linux-i686.egg/MySQLdb/connections.py", line 35, in defaulterrorhandler
    raise errorclass, errorvalue
OperationalError: (2006, 'MySQL server has gone away')

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 24, 2007 09:34 PM (+rSRq)

2 Sorry about that.  There seem to have been some glitches on the internal network at Softlayer.  We also lost NFS at one point.

I'm working on a patch to fix the lost MySQL connections; I'll see if I can get that in place today. 

Minx is supposed to automatically repair failed connections, but there's an issue with doing that in the session handler.  Instead of fixing itself, it drops dead, leaving a broken connection in the pool to trip up the next user who gets handed that thread.  It's now my number one bug.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at June 24, 2007 11:43 PM (PiXy!)

3 By the way, one of my claims to fame is that I work mere metres away from that scene. The best thing about watching <i>The Matrix</I> is Sydney spotting.

Posted by: Alex at June 25, 2007 01:23 AM (ENJct)

4 I'm pretty sure those errors mean that Agents are about to show up.... (O_O)

Posted by: Ed Hering at June 25, 2007 01:39 AM (Yz38/)

5 Heh, no, there are only obvious errors when the Agents are *changing* stuff.  Apparently there cheat codes are buggy. 

Posted by: metaphysician at June 25, 2007 05:42 AM (lXszF)

6 *squints* Way over to the right of your screengrab, are there two women wearing the exact same sweater, light on top and fading to dark, or perhaps yet another doubled person? Or maybe even two real-life twins?

Posted by: Just John at June 25, 2007 12:31 PM (LtbY1)

7 My only reference for this is from imdb, since they used the characters called "the Twins", so my searches aren't working too well...

 "Numerous sets of identical twins were cast as extras in the "Woman in Red" scene - in which Morpheus takes Neo through a computer simulation of The Matrix - to create the illusion of a repeating program. Example: the tall man with slicked-back hair and sunglasses in the opening shot is seen seconds later as a police officer writing a parking ticket."

I remembered hearing about it at the time, and how they specifically put it in there so that people would notice.

Posted by: Balentius at June 25, 2007 01:43 PM (PksEK)

8 Clearly you never read anything about the movie or heard the commentary. They deliberately hired identical twins to play those parts. I can't recall the reasoning behind it but there was one.

Posted by: JMB at June 26, 2007 11:29 AM (ZxMhd)

9 I recall from the commentary the reasoning was, since Mouse coded this training simulation from scratch, he took shortcuts, doubling up characters to create a crowd effect with less work.  If you're a fan of the movie it's worth watching the commentaries and extras, there's a lot of interesting little subtle elements like this pointed out in it.

Posted by: nanojath at June 27, 2007 07:10 PM (v+dPQ)

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