Krytos

Glad you didn't take offence Tex I was also thinking of things as double entendre - Mad crying with happiness, you forgetting because you didn't care etc. Now lets go get some of those whimper sappers ... almost sounds like a breed of dog. *Starts whistling* Here boy!

http://5x5m.com/files/badcompany/badworld/ http://5x5m.com/files/badcompany/rainbowsprinkles/ http://5x5m.com/files/badcompany/snakeeyes/

Didn't know wherer to put this. I was thinking Art stuff, or maybe even the engineering thread. So went half way! Cool bit of art mixed with some nice technology @Def: Welcome back mate, I was beginning to wonder if you'd show your ytmnd face around here again Some of us also have been missing a certain story thread

Hahaha, I love the first one

I had forgotten about BSG! Crap, I'll start watching the 4th season now

Definetely. Not a bad game in the bunch, all the HL2 games were fun - with Ep 1 probably being the least fun of the 3 (which isn't saying much considering how fun the other two are). Portal is great, if not too short (my opinion was it could've been a bit longer, but it's not dragged out at all which is a nice turn of events). TF2 is fun, but it's different to TF1 noticeably and can be a bit of a learning curve if you're use to TF1 or other class based modern online games.

Have fun Tofu! That sounds like a great little .... camp? Not sure if that's the right word for it, but it sounds like something I'd have had a kick out of in my day. Lets just hope you don't go ruining your state ..it's not that I don't trust you, it's just that I don't trust you Oh, and we'll get by without you - if only just. There'll be tears from Mad, whimpering from Eagle, rejoicing from Tex for about 3 seconds before he forgets what happened, and I'll be hiding under the table eating your play lunch. I mean ... waiting for your return

Crap! I didn't read this thread. I'm down for this.

Happy birthday mate. And which land mass do you hail from so we know where to avoid

I don't get what's wrong?

Oh yeah, was meant to post this. For those without broadband I'd advise not watching or just watching the start (6 meg video), which is where the main footage takes place. Always test the waters first

Congrats Mad. Hope the rest of your exams will go as well.

This bloke found a German WW2 bunker in his backyard

It really depends on situation. Smaller fleet battles allow you to focus on all the units fighting which makes for a nicer read. That being said, if the context of the battle sometimes means a massive fleet works better - imagine fighting for Coruscant with 30 ships a fleet ... it just doesn't have the same desperate feeling as pulling in as many ships as you can. I remember having this feeling for one of the earlier NJO novels - the one with the Battle of Ithor. Both sides of the battle are carrying on about how important the fight is going to be and yet muster roughly 20-30 ships each. It kind of lost the impact, especially when the NR had Imperials ships as well. It wasn't like either side was bogged down at that stage of the war, and it just gave the over all battle a lack luster feel (I don't remember the writing of the battle being anything special either). So, yeah, small tactical battle groups are cool but only when they suit the situation otherwise I'll be constantly thinking and wondering why there are so few ships now when we know there's a thousand more currently twiddling their thumbs

As you have already surmised, that is a scam. Technically though, it is possible to do this, just NOT in the manner you would normally suspect. There is a company (click on the video) in Clearwater, Florida that has demonstrated this. They do "on demand" electrolysis, with the added flare of getting HHO gas. Basically another system of using more energy than you get out (electricity in, hydrogen-oxygen gas out for combustion), but it increases the efficiency of the combustion in the engine, thus getting more power for less gas. And with gas prices rising, this might be worthwhile to "stretch" your petroleum dollars Yup, what Tex said. There's been a few of "these" products shown here on "Current Affair" programs - each person staking claim to it being their idea. I've seen it work on old cars, but I'd be interested to see how modern cars go on the stuff. Apart from the obvious "not working" I wonder if ECU's are smart enough to compensate for the added HHO - I'd be thinking if it couldn't figure out the difference between regular fuel (say a low octane like the crap 90-92 we get here) to the modified stuff you'd get knocking in the engine. Also, any idea how more modern fuel injectors or direct injection (basically injectors firing directing into the cylinders) would take this stuff? They're not exactly known for being robust (for those who don;t know, never EVER let your car run completely out of fuel, the high pressure injectors will get worn away. Also if you're low on fuel, taking corners at speed or even hills can stop fuel getting through the injectors. Ditto for Diesel. Injectors don't like to spray just air ) I'd be curious on how they effect the life of such a crucial engine part. A lot of people seem to forget that even if you pay a grand in petrol and think that's a lot - the chance is that the repair cost is going to be a lot more if you bugger things up. Does anyone else ever get these "great breakthrough" devices such as items to attach to your fuel lines to further "catalyse" the fuel? I always laugh when they're on these so called Current Affair programs who one week will be all for them, saying they achieved greater fuel efficiency (No, you didn't there's just a restricter on your fuel lines now - you can achieve the same result by not pushing so hard on the accelerator) and the next week they go and show they're a waste of money. Oh well, I'm not going to bother with anything like that on my car. @Sin: Good find though! I had a laughing fit at that little lady video on the side!

BMW Concept car

It's kinda hard to say whether or not SSD ships are useful or not seeing that there isn't a clear picture on their true abilities. The glimpses we saw in the movie didn't say much, except that like anything it can be taken out with an unexpected sucker punch during a battle. Novels and games portray it as being either cumbersome and useless, or a beast to be feared. The Lusankya is a demonstration of the good and bad of such a vessel during the NJO. It wasn't deemed much of a war asset to the New Republic, seeing that it had a sub-par crew and wasn't used in the war of any significant note until Enemy Lines. When used in battle, it proved to be devastating due to its shear firepower and armour, and in the Borelias campaign it proved extremely valuable as a way to keep other vessels in the fight, thanks to borrowing materials from it (I swear, we'll put it back once we're finished), and as a big target. So overall, the SSD seems to be past it's used by date - like Tofu pointed out numerous smaller vessels are more capable of achieving the same goals, which would probably cost less as well. At the same time the New Republic has produced two of their own Star Defenders - equivalent to Super Star Destroyers. The Viscount seems to be a Mon Cal equiv of the traditional SSD and the Strident more along the lines of an Allegiance. The Strident makes the most sense to me, filling in a role of great offencive firepower but not being a massive vessel that's trying to be all things at all times (ie. it's not going to be a carrier as well, a multi-role destroyer and the size of an island etc. etc.) ideal for big fleet/task force conflicts or protecting key worlds/installations and filling in the role of a battleship (but again, is it needed in the SW universe?). The Viscount seems to be a newer SSD, but more focused on being a command and control vessel/carrier/Fleet centre point. But again, it seems like a bit of a waste unless it's thrown into an entire fleet (Thousand or so ships) battle as a decided centre point. Because otherwise a couple of carriers, plus a fleet carrier (usual centre point and C4i command vessel of a NR fleet) then some cruisers, frigates and destroyers would achieve the same thing. At the end of the day, the SW universe isn't the same as our own where a real world battleship can be superseded by modern frigates and destroyers thanks to modern missile technology. At any rate, the big ships that can take and give a pounding have proven to be a powerful adversary in SW and whilst their realistic and strategic point still seems lost when some modern Star Destroyers could be just as devastating, they'll be there to stay in SW where bigger is often better. I guess the one thing that these ships do have is staying power, and if you drop one into a battle you're going to have to raise your game a lot to counter the ship - either with a small fleet worth of ships or your own big Bertha of a ship.

Long live the randomness! My favourite modern super car too

I believe that that movie is called Flying High here, with the sequel being Flying High 2 (which I've still got on VHS somewhere) @Sinsiter: There's Crow sequels

I believe that that movie is called Flying High here, with the sequel being Flying High 2 (which I've still got on VHS somewhere) @Sinsiter: There's Crow sequels

From a fiction point of view I'm very much on the side of "if ain't broke, don't fix it ... just upgrade it", and from a novel point of view it'd be stupid if every series had a new range of warships. And addition is fine, it'd be ridiculous make a new warship every 10 years just because a new upgraded gun has come out. In fact, I'm getting annoyed at the constant change of somethings - there already at an XJ7 or 8 X-Wing...too much too fast. And new ships made in the NJO series seem to have disappeared as well. This Republic class Cruiser, Mediator, Viscount seem to have gone already - even though all 3 were used against the Vong successfully. Hell the Republic was slated as being a cheaper version of a Mon Cal Cruiser and the Viscount was the New Republic's Mon Cal equivalent of an SSD. But just because they don't score a mention doesn't mean they're not there My gripe is that in the extended universe, or whatever it's called, there are ships that the New Republic built after years of being in power to suit their way of fighting and to get past problems in the current Imperial line up that they were using or the civi-turned-warships that they used. During the Black Fleet Crisis and after there was a whole range of new warships that got used - Nebula/Defender class Star Destroyer, Majestic Cruiser, MC 90, Warrior Gunship etc. etc. etc. Come NJO, and subsequently the novels after, and apparently these newer and superior vessels have all but vanished as if never they were never there to start with (and continuing from my last explanation of keeping the original SW feeling for new people, I believe that the novelist probably didn't know about them either). At least, being a novel, you have the freedom to simply pop in another word and the antiquated ISD I that is apparently being used for the cutting edge Mon Mathma is really a cutting edge Nebula Star Destroyer I guess in their defence I'd say most readers wouldn't know of these ships (which is kinda weird seeing as during the NJO series of novels being written there was a source book released for RP gaming with star ships and it has the Defender class Star destroyer and mentions a few other newbies) As for fighters in the EU, that has almost worked flawlessly through the novel series. I completely got the X-Wings were still around, cheap, good and reliable. And that there were E-Wing and XJ X-Wings to supplement them with "top of the line kick-arsery". My complaint with the fighters .. actually it's just the bombers .. is the B-Wing being close to non-existent and that the ancient and heavily flawed Y-Wing still pops up (and not just in the hands of freelancers. Remember that in A New Hope it was old and in need of replacment) when there was the K-Wing Heavy Bomber which I don't remember reading about for a long time. It's as if they were made and just forgotten, which doesn't work seeing that when they were written about they were considered substantially superior to their predecessor. What's more annoying, I think, is that during the NJO series people who can really only be described as Star Wars nerds complained to Del Rey and certain authors (which didn't go unheard, they often got replies) about their errors and they still did it. The bloke who wrote Destiny's Way came clean and said had he known about the newer ships, he'd have written them into his novel(s) and that the sources he was given simply didn't have anything beyond roughly what we saw in the Original Trilogy. He also fed some "retcon" into the NJO series for his novel, saying that due to the brutality of the war the New Republic was forced to recommission old, derelict vessels. At the end of the day, this is nothing more than a continuity issue that mature readers can simply think to themselves "No, this here is a typo. My SW nerd-ism has automatically upgraded you to better choice."

I rather liked Academy, and the idea behind it compared to Outcast. I think it could have been better, it felt a bit simple, but the ability to choose your own mission, weapons, lightsaber, lightsaber styles and force powers was rather cool. All it really needed was the ability to create random missions so when you replay it there's more to do. Also, the two different endings was nice. It just felt less linear

Bugger, when I heard about the flooding in Germany I was getting worried about you mate. Glad you're alright Eagle!

And Australia Here's some extra info for those who care ... and if you're really interested the site also holds a lot of info on most current/mainstream military projects/equipment

Here's a rather delayed welcome Enjoy the site, and more importantly enjoy your nth instalment of Rebellion