I'm not hyped either about the DVD, as I currently don't have a player. But it's nice to know that if I get the itch to watch it, it'll be easier to find now.
Quite possibly I'm over-pretentious and full of it, however I just do not think Akira compares to some of the anime we have now.
Well, I would hope it wouldn't. Kind of like saying that the special effects in the Wizard of Oz don't compare to today's. The big point is that Akira is a classic. Everyone has an opinion on how good a classic is, but it's what impact it has that's the important thing in defining a classic.
I can't disagree with most of the points already brought up: the hard-to-follow plot, the occasional slowness in the story. But, you're totally right about "It just simply blew away our poor little scooby-doo minds."
That's why Akira is a classic. It attracted many people to the genre in a way few other pieces at the time could. It was revolutionary in it's own way. Yes, the story was a bit sub-par compared to what we might have liked, but the fact is that many of us "poor little scooby-doo minds" were first introduced into this awesome subset of cinema and TV by Akira.
BTW, no offense taken on the poor little minds part. Luckily, I've seen the error in my ways and corrected them.
Akira wouldn't last a moment in today's anime culture. It would just be so subpar. But it wasn't produced recently, and people should keep that in mind.
It's just like comparing the computers of 1993 to the computers of today. Yeah, today's desktop models have almost as much, if not more, computing power than many of the near-supercomputers in 1993, but some people still look back with fondness to their first computers back in '93. Nostalgia is a powerful feeling.
Yeah, as a previous viewer of Akira, I will advise all anime fans to make sure to see it. It's nice to see a classic like that get the proper re-release treatment. Thanks much, Pioneer, if you really are doing this!
I must admit that this is nice, but the engineering and scientific problems will probably take a while longer than the engineers predict. (When was the last time a non-computing technology prediction actually verified?)
Even with the problem with hydrogen's explosiveness, I think that this is the way to go. The one big question I have, assuming that this technology comes to fruition is where would the hydrogen to power our cars come from? Are there some good current sources that we could tap, like some current industries? I'm aware of the splitting of the water molecule to get H2, but from what I remember, it's difficult to get any reliable amounts out without a significant energy input.
Also, dealing specifically with the explosiveness of hydrogen, could it be more harmful than current hydrocarbons (HCs)? Again, I'm not a chemist (in fact, I rather dislike it...), but isn't the reaction between hydrogen and oxygen significantly faster than that between HCs and oxygen? Granted, this might increase the initial explosion, but there wouldn't be all the additional problems with the slow burn of HCs. But again, I may be entirely wrong.
One last issue is the water vapor output. While we currently worry about CO2 as a greenhouse gas, H2O can be just as bad. However, given the lifetime of H2O in the atmosphere is on the order of days and CO2 is on the order of months and years, this might not be too much of problem. But from a meteorological point of view, it would be interesting to see what a urban center emitting extra quantities of water vapor would do to local weather/climate changes. (Not like I would trust current climate models to tell me my weight even if I gave it to them as an input...)
I don't know if that's a true sign of intelligence, however. All you need is a mailing address to get an AOL account. However, it would be interesting to see slime mold manipulate a mouse...
I don't understand this fascination about biologists trying to prove intelligence through things "figuring" out mazes. Any person with a basic programming knowledge can solve a maze using exhaustive methods.
Also, it sounds like they ran this experiment once. As the great fortune program will tell you: If reproducibility is going to be a problem, conduct the experiment once.
I'll be convinced of the intelligence of this slime mold if it, and lots of its relatives, can do a maze without resorting to simple or exhaustive methods, or until the researchers can figure out a better test than exhaustive methods to prove intelligence. Until then, slime mold is a mostly unintelligent fungus-like growth that can solve a maze, like everything else that can move can do...
Consider me a skeptic.
That's exactly why I refuse to update my ICQ and AIM until it no longer works on whatever system I currently have. The bloat put into so many of these current applications is sick, annoying and downright horrible. It seems that for every good new feature a program by the big corps. (M$, AOL, etc...), there are 10 others that you can't get rid of and are just plain obnoxious.
Mercury prototypes pack a single G4 chip running at between 400 and 500MHz, according to sources, although the PowerBooks may ultimately ship in configurations as fast as 750MHz. That will depend on what speed of G4 chips are available in quantity from Motorola or fellow PowerPC manufacturer IBM Corp.
Does anyone think that this might be a hint at a speed bump soon? My observations on this lead me to believe that whenever another possible configuration is talked about, it often shows up soon. We can only hope...:) (Trying to imagine a MP 750MHz G4... wow!)
That's a great point which I wholeheartedly agree with. I recently assisted in a Climotology class at my last university, and global warming was discussed in depth. It's amazing how many people think, thanks to the media, that, for example, CO2 causes global warming. The final conclusion in most of the scientific articles I've seen on global warming is that CO2 and temperature are "correlated". And as we told the class many times, "correlation is not causation". It took many hours to get people to understand this concept. The media tends to distort science to the point that anyone who tosses in big words is considered an expert. But, that's just my observation.
Truthfully, I think an anime-only channel should definitely go in the works, not just from CN, but from anyone. It makes economic sense currently, because out of all the film/video industry, I believe that Anime has been growing the fastest. (This is judging from the size of section at video stores and such...) And thanks to CN, even with the censoring, there are more people being exposed to anime. It's becoming more and more feasible for a cable network to start up that could make money and satisfy a want of so many of us. So, to those of you with the money and know-how, here's your opportunity! Just make sure that you leave them uncensored!
Another problem you would have with electric in most forms is that, overall, pollution-wise, it can be just as bad. Unless you're using solar power to recharge, pollution from the electric companies will replace the pollution from cars. There's also the problem that I doubt the world power grid could currently handle the charging of millions of electric cars. The original story has the best point that until the energy source and its infrastructure grow up at about the same time, or a crisis occurs in fossil fuels, we'll be with gas.
This may be a bit off topic, but I couldn't help but noticing some people mention that global warming is real. There is some truth to that currently, in that the average global temperature has risen in the last 100-200 years. However, one of the things which bothers me about the whole global warming "debate" is the role of carbon dioxide (CO2). Yes, there is a pretty decent correlation between CO2 concentrations and global temperature. However, this is a correlation, not causation. Causation is not proven currently. For all we know, the temperature could be rising for some other reason and the CO2 rises in response. Point is this: don't be quick to take generalizations about an incredibly complex system like the atmosphere as absolute truth.
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I'm not hyped either about the DVD, as I currently don't have a player. But it's nice to know that if I get the itch to watch it, it'll be easier to find now.
Quite possibly I'm over-pretentious and full of it, however I just do not think Akira compares to some of the anime we have now.
Well, I would hope it wouldn't. Kind of like saying that the special effects in the Wizard of Oz don't compare to today's. The big point is that Akira is a classic. Everyone has an opinion on how good a classic is, but it's what impact it has that's the important thing in defining a classic.
I can't disagree with most of the points already brought up: the hard-to-follow plot, the occasional slowness in the story. But, you're totally right about "It just simply blew away our poor little scooby-doo minds."
That's why Akira is a classic. It attracted many people to the genre in a way few other pieces at the time could. It was revolutionary in it's own way. Yes, the story was a bit sub-par compared to what we might have liked, but the fact is that many of us "poor little scooby-doo minds" were first introduced into this awesome subset of cinema and TV by Akira.
BTW, no offense taken on the poor little minds part. Luckily, I've seen the error in my ways and corrected them.
Akira wouldn't last a moment in today's anime culture. It would just be so subpar. But it wasn't produced recently, and people should keep that in mind.
It's just like comparing the computers of 1993 to the computers of today. Yeah, today's desktop models have almost as much, if not more, computing power than many of the near-supercomputers in 1993, but some people still look back with fondness to their first computers back in '93. Nostalgia is a powerful feeling.
Yeah, as a previous viewer of Akira, I will advise all anime fans to make sure to see it. It's nice to see a classic like that get the proper re-release treatment. Thanks much, Pioneer, if you really are doing this!
I must admit that this is nice, but the engineering and scientific problems will probably take a while longer than the engineers predict. (When was the last time a non-computing technology prediction actually verified?)
Even with the problem with hydrogen's explosiveness, I think that this is the way to go. The one big question I have, assuming that this technology comes to fruition is where would the hydrogen to power our cars come from? Are there some good current sources that we could tap, like some current industries? I'm aware of the splitting of the water molecule to get H2, but from what I remember, it's difficult to get any reliable amounts out without a significant energy input.
Also, dealing specifically with the explosiveness of hydrogen, could it be more harmful than current hydrocarbons (HCs)? Again, I'm not a chemist (in fact, I rather dislike it...), but isn't the reaction between hydrogen and oxygen significantly faster than that between HCs and oxygen? Granted, this might increase the initial explosion, but there wouldn't be all the additional problems with the slow burn of HCs. But again, I may be entirely wrong.
One last issue is the water vapor output. While we currently worry about CO2 as a greenhouse gas, H2O can be just as bad. However, given the lifetime of H2O in the atmosphere is on the order of days and CO2 is on the order of months and years, this might not be too much of problem. But from a meteorological point of view, it would be interesting to see what a urban center emitting extra quantities of water vapor would do to local weather/climate changes. (Not like I would trust current climate models to tell me my weight even if I gave it to them as an input...)
I don't know if that's a true sign of intelligence, however. All you need is a mailing address to get an AOL account. However, it would be interesting to see slime mold manipulate a mouse...
I don't understand this fascination about biologists trying to prove intelligence through things "figuring" out mazes. Any person with a basic programming knowledge can solve a maze using exhaustive methods.
Also, it sounds like they ran this experiment once. As the great fortune program will tell you: If reproducibility is going to be a problem, conduct the experiment once.
I'll be convinced of the intelligence of this slime mold if it, and lots of its relatives, can do a maze without resorting to simple or exhaustive methods, or until the researchers can figure out a better test than exhaustive methods to prove intelligence. Until then, slime mold is a mostly unintelligent fungus-like growth that can solve a maze, like everything else that can move can do...
Consider me a skeptic.
That's exactly why I refuse to update my ICQ and AIM until it no longer works on whatever system I currently have. The bloat put into so many of these current applications is sick, annoying and downright horrible. It seems that for every good new feature a program by the big corps. (M$, AOL, etc...), there are 10 others that you can't get rid of and are just plain obnoxious.
But I could just be exagerrating or paranoid.
How much did MS pay him for that article?
Mercury prototypes pack a single G4 chip running at between 400 and 500MHz, according to sources, although the PowerBooks may ultimately ship in configurations as fast as 750MHz. That will depend on what speed of G4 chips are available in quantity from Motorola or fellow PowerPC manufacturer IBM Corp.
:) (Trying to imagine a MP 750MHz G4... wow!)
Does anyone think that this might be a hint at a speed bump soon? My observations on this lead me to believe that whenever another possible configuration is talked about, it often shows up soon. We can only hope...
That's a great point which I wholeheartedly agree with. I recently assisted in a Climotology class at my last university, and global warming was discussed in depth. It's amazing how many people think, thanks to the media, that, for example, CO2 causes global warming. The final conclusion in most of the scientific articles I've seen on global warming is that CO2 and temperature are "correlated". And as we told the class many times, "correlation is not causation". It took many hours to get people to understand this concept. The media tends to distort science to the point that anyone who tosses in big words is considered an expert. But, that's just my observation.
Truthfully, I think an anime-only channel should definitely go in the works, not just from CN, but from anyone. It makes economic sense currently, because out of all the film/video industry, I believe that Anime has been growing the fastest. (This is judging from the size of section at video stores and such...) And thanks to CN, even with the censoring, there are more people being exposed to anime. It's becoming more and more feasible for a cable network to start up that could make money and satisfy a want of so many of us. So, to those of you with the money and know-how, here's your opportunity! Just make sure that you leave them uncensored!
True, but the infrastructure to distribute could not handle the amount of traffic it would need to, if a mass conversion were to occur.
Another problem you would have with electric in most forms is that, overall, pollution-wise, it can be just as bad. Unless you're using solar power to recharge, pollution from the electric companies will replace the pollution from cars. There's also the problem that I doubt the world power grid could currently handle the charging of millions of electric cars. The original story has the best point that until the energy source and its infrastructure grow up at about the same time, or a crisis occurs in fossil fuels, we'll be with gas.
This may be a bit off topic, but I couldn't help but noticing some people mention that global warming is real. There is some truth to that currently, in that the average global temperature has risen in the last 100-200 years. However, one of the things which bothers me about the whole global warming "debate" is the role of carbon dioxide (CO2). Yes, there is a pretty decent correlation between CO2 concentrations and global temperature. However, this is a correlation, not causation. Causation is not proven currently. For all we know, the temperature could be rising for some other reason and the CO2 rises in response. Point is this: don't be quick to take generalizations about an incredibly complex system like the atmosphere as absolute truth.