It's a fact of life in the anime industry that DVD/BD sales are an essential ingredient in a profitable series. The studios lose money on the original broadcast. So obviously they want to encourage DVD/BD sales as much as possible. BD offers higher resolution than is usually used for broadcast, though the material may not benefit from it. But DVDs are lower resolution than typically used for broadcast these days. How, then, to encourage people to buy them?

Obviously, by offering things that weren't in the broadcast, and the easiest way to do that is censor the fan service in the broadcast version. That used to be exceptional, but these days it's pretty much expected, at least for shows which have fan service.

The latest example of that is Princess Lover. The first DVD just hit the streets, and hit the torrents. When the show was broadcast originally, it was marked that the boobs were huge, plentiful, and bouncy, but the up-skirt shots were all massively censored. So are they, in the DVD version? Check the NSFW pictures below the fold to see for yourself.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 09:48 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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And as always, RACS shipped next business day. This time it was this:

Real Bout High School DVD's 1-4
Dragon Ball season 2
Dragonaut (first half)
Sgt. Frog (first set)
DBZ Bardock movie (BD)
Burst Angel (BD)

And so I ordered enough stuff to qualify for a 10% discount.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 08:36 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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A few days ago a jet going from San Diego to Minneapolis overshot its target by 150 miles. Attempts by air traffic controllers to raise the pilots were unsuccessful for quite a while. Eventually the pilots responded, turned the jet around, and took it back.

There was strong suspicion that they'd fallen asleep. Modern jets actually fly themselves for the most part. But both the pilot and copilot denied it.

Today the official explanation came out:

The pilots of the commercial jetliner that last week overshot its destination by about 150 miles have said they were using their laptops and lost track of time and location, federal safety officials said Monday.

Playing Unreal Tournament, eh?

UPDATE: Been a while since I've done a poll.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Weird World at 01:30 PM | Comments (18) | Add Comment
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1 Aliens, but dumb ones.

I mean, they borrowed 2 NWA pilots when they could have had 2 Hooters Air flight attendants.

(Sure am glad my office is under the flight paths for MSP. Not.)

Posted by: Mikeski at October 26, 2009 03:20 PM (GbSQF)

2 Why can't it be both A and E?  These days, Unreal Tournament probably would put you to sleep. 

Posted by: metaphysician at October 26, 2009 04:44 PM (vM63Z)

3 Obviously, they stumbled on TvTropes and everything went downhill from there.

Posted by: Jaked at October 26, 2009 04:55 PM (ojxDZ)

4

I personally don't believe their story for a minute. I really do think they were asleep.

This story about laptops sounds like a coverup. If that was what happened, then those guys will lose their pilot's licenses and be fired. But if they really were asleep, they could be jailed. So this story sounds like their way of avoiding that fate.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at October 26, 2009 06:02 PM (+rSRq)

5 I have a hard time wrapping my mind around both pilot and copilot falling asleep simultaneously for that long. . . but I suspect thats because I'd prefer not to believe it.

Maybe they should have the stewardesses regularly check in at the cockpit ( or rather, cockpit intercomm ) to see whether they want any food or drink, as a way to help ensure they stay awake. . .

Posted by: metaphysician at October 26, 2009 06:40 PM (vM63Z)

6

It is an evil plot by the onboard computers.  See, since there is no longer attentive flight engineers to keep the rogue AIs in check (Or to actually keep the rogue AIs completely out.), they can start screwing with the minds of the pilots...

C.T.

Posted by: cxt217 at October 26, 2009 07:06 PM (Bhzsk)

7

The pilots being asleep is my guess, too.  The first thing I thought when hearing the news was "Those guys were conducting a rack attack."  Although, if they were using their laptops, watching a movie isn't out of the question, (hard to get a WiFi signal at 36,000 feet) and that could certainly distract you just as well for that long.

I remember my flight instructor telling me about a cargo pilot he knew years ago.  He said the guy would program the autopilot to fly inbound to a VOR (a radio transmitter used for navigation).  The system sends out signals that tell what heading you're on, but there is a "cone of confusion" over the transmitter where the receiver in the plane can't tell exactly what radial it's on.  Therefore the autopilot would get confused and the wheel would start shaking.  The pilot would just set the autopilot, and fall asleep with his head on the wheel so it would wake him up when it finished with that leg of the trip.

It sounds apocryphal to me, but it always stuck with me that you really don't know what's going on in the cockpit of a commercial flight.

Posted by: CatCube at October 26, 2009 07:16 PM (4WWhC)

8 They were reading the Chizumatic archives and your reviews page.

I mean, they sure weren't reading Bridgebunnies.  Unless that was just before they fell asleep.....

Posted by: ubu at October 26, 2009 07:20 PM (FxDET)

9 I don't know whether to believe asleep, doing Unreal Tournament, or TvTropes.

Is it good or is it bad that the plane can fly itself safely for 150 miles with two asleep people at the controls?

Side question: how long does it take an airliner to travel 150 miles?

The news story says Airbus A320...the manufacturer lists speeds in km/h and knots, while Wiki lists a Mach number...assume cruising speed, so 840 km/h = 520 mph, giving 17.2 minutes of nap time, assuming that the distinction between airspeed and groundspeed isn't important.

Possibly a 16-minute nap for the both of them. I imagine that they didn't start talking over the radio immediately after waking up.

Scary.

Posted by: karrde at October 26, 2009 07:22 PM (F3U2E)

10 The ground speed depends on the wind a lot. Two weeks ago I was flying from Narita (Tokyo) to San Francisco using the southern route. Ground speed hit 1110 km/h at one point. That's how powerful jetsteam can be.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at October 26, 2009 07:35 PM (/ppBw)

11

There's also no guarantee that they fell asleep just as they flew over Minneapolis.

Modern jets largely fly themselves. Interestingly enough, many of them can land themselves, at properly equipped airports. The 747 was one of the first jets to be able to do that.

That's why the "Airport" nightmare, i.e. both pilots dead or unconscious and someone with no training trying to bring the plane in, isn't really a threat now. There are other safeguards in place to prevent that, but if both pilots were out, the expert on the ground would just tell whoever was in the cockpit how to activate the auto-landing program. After which, everyone would just sit back and wait (presumably with white knuckles) until the plane was stopped on the runway.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at October 26, 2009 07:45 PM (+rSRq)

12

In figuring out sleep time, it's important to remember that they didn't just overshoot their destination, but that they were out of contact with ATC for 78 minutes prior to turning around.

They were declared NORDO (a status indicating a lack of radio contact) by Denver Center not far east of Denver, and remained so during the handoff to Minneapolis Center and until they reached mid-Wisconsin.

Posted by: CatCube at October 26, 2009 07:54 PM (4WWhC)

13 Flight deck is closed and locked after 9/11. There's nobody onboard to help if anything goes wrong in the cockpit (this may be easier for long-haul flight with the crew rotation).

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at October 26, 2009 08:36 PM (/ppBw)

14 And when they finally regained contact, they were at 37,000 feet, so they hadn't even started to make an approach.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at October 26, 2009 08:39 PM (+rSRq)

15 One wonders whether a review of the cockpit voice recorder might be informative.

Posted by: snark at October 27, 2009 05:15 AM (w47od)

16 I saw mention of that in one of the news reports. It also mentioned that there are two different kinds. One stores the last 6 hours of sound, but the other only stores the last half hour. If they'd had the latter kind, all the evidence would have scrolled off the back end by the time they landed.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at October 27, 2009 08:09 AM (+rSRq)

17

There's another reason for more people to be willing to go along with the "laptop" excuse for what was actually "pilots falling asleep at the controls." The airline itself might have come under investigation. Like trucking companies, many airlines have the unofficial "we can't legally require you to stay up 48 hours at a time, but we can fire you if you don't" rule. With the airlines struggling financially already, it's entirely possible that an investigation that unearths a pattern of enforcing such a rule could put the airline permanently out of business. From a public safety standpoint that's a very good thing, but from a soon-to-be-unemployed flight crew's standpoint, it's better to just tell anyone who asks whatever the official company line is.

After all, they weren't the ones who ended up dying in a plane crash, right? Not yet, anyway...

Posted by: Tatterdemalian at October 27, 2009 10:05 AM (TaHHC)

18 After all, they weren't the ones who ended up dying in a plane crash, right?

As the old joke goes, "I always wanted to die in my sleep like my grandfather, not screaming in terror like his passengers."

Posted by: Mark A. Flacy at October 27, 2009 11:42 AM (Lbkvv)

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I saw this and was curious about it, so I just started watching the first episode. I'm 6 minutes in. How would I describe it?

Take 40% Azumanga Daioh, 40% Lucky Star, 20% paint, and mix thoroughly.

It's putting me to sleep, I'm afraid. And the Tomo-surrogate and the Yomi surrogate are not working for me. Also, I hoped for better from Kisaragi. She's kind of vanilla.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 09:57 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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One of the products I tried from the local oriental food store was from Japan:

And it was really, really yummy. It comes with the expected dried noodles, and a pouch containing dry flavorings.

Plus a second one. The little green one contains liquid, and you're supposed to add it after everything seeps in hot water for 4 minutes. I think it's got sesame oil mixed into it, but I think there's also fish flavoring of some kind. And they claim soy sauce, but I can't taste it.

Whatever it is, it really tastes great! Usually with this kind of thing I eat the noodles, drink some of the broth, and toss the rest. But with this I eat (or drink) every last bit of it!

For $1.69, this gets the Chizumatic seal of approval!

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 07:52 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I just tried using Flash 9 and was told I needed to register again. So I let it, and it told me that my serial number had reached its limit on the number of registrations. One of the things they told me I could do is find one of the other places where I'd installed it and deregister.

The problem is, most of those don't exist any longer. For instance, there was a copy on Arcturus one time, but I deleted it. It seems that doing a Windows uninstall doesn't involve calling home to deregister, so that one still counts.

I think what this means is that I'm going to have to put the 200G drive back into Procyon and bring up Vista again, so that I can deregister the copy which is on there.

But I shouldn't have to do so. This copy of Flash was working under Vista; doing a Win7 upgrade shouldn't make it stop working.

UPDATE: Well, before I try that, I'll see if Adobe tech support can help me. (Heh heh heh heh...HAA HAA haa haaa... I break myself up sometimes.)

UPDATE: I'll be damned. It's the next day, and I received an email response this morning telling me that they'd fixed it. I assume they incremented my use-count. Anyway, I just did the registration thing again, and this time it didn't bounce.

So good going, Adobe tech support!

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Computers at 05:40 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Today's Mystery Meat is "Keisatsu Sensha Tai TANK S.W.A.T. 01". I downloaded it for bonus points. (By the way, I'm over 19,000 bonus points as of this morning.)

It's rendered, not drawn, and the figures don't look good and don't move smoothly. And the tanks don't quite make sense to me. It's a bit like Kemeko, in the "How in hell do they fit in there?" kind of way.

Some of the characters are androids.Two of the cops are named Yuni Puma and Ana Puma, and they are androids. They have cat ears.

It's 29 minutes long, and a stand-alone story. It seems to be a case of them really trying to do something their technology didn't really permit. The rendering just doesn't look very good. The character designs are unconvincing. It's also a no-name cast.

It could have been reasonable with about twice the budget, but then what show can't you say that about? For a show that came out in 2006, the 3D is really surprisingly crude. It isn't that the tools didn't exist by then, it's that they were too expensive. This whole show reeks of corner cutting.

Definitely not recommended.

UPDATE: Yes, I know where it came from. And what else came from the same source.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Mystery Meat at 11:42 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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Remember Dexter's Laboratory? One of my favorite cartoons ever. And I remember the episodes which introduced Dexter's rival, Mandark. Mandark demanded that Dexter shut down his lab, since it was obviously inferior to Mandark's own. And when Dexter was given a tour of Mandark's lab, it did indeed seem amazing.

But... Mandark fell for Deedee, Dexter's sister. Dexter helped to arrange a date, and once Deedee got inside Mandark's lab, the whole place was ruined in about 10 minutes.

Dexter's Lab has survived Deedee's predations for years. Deedee is Dexter's Quality Assurance team, though he doesn't know that. And it is a sign of how good Dexter's designs are that even though Deedee runs rampant in the place (Dexter never figured out how to keep her out) it doesn't come crashing down to the ground, the way Mandark's lab did.

Who's the better president, Bush or Obama? Hmm?

Well, consider that Bush accomplished most of what he really wanted to despite years of bitter criticism and obstruction by the American left and most of the American press.

Obama, on the other hand, is screaming and crying because Fox News refuses to genuflect the way all the other TV networks (and most of the newspapers) have been.

Adverse news reporting is QA for politicians, and Obama seems allergic to it. Worse, he says that it could derail his program.

If so, it's a pretty poorly constructed program. Obama's political effort is more like Mandark than like Dexter.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Weird World at 08:19 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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My TMW about Bottle Fairies gets read a lot by people following links from TV Tropes. Based on my referers, it's linked from several places. But tonight I found a new one, and it makes me sound like some sort of stuffy academic.

I added a demurrer. I wonder if it'll get deleted again.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 07:47 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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Today's Mystery Meat is "Ninja Gaiden". I know that I downloaded this for bonus points, so it could be anything. Presumably it has ninjas in it, though.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Mystery Meat at 06:49 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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