General > Except for the Pig
Answers from the pig (responses to questions asked over Skype)
Sindobook:
2007-jun-19 12:47PST: Reference number A057
Not even loosely based on reality, there is no way the ABG concept vessel would carry over into spacecraft. The ABG dreadnaughts were certainly above the non-ABG ships of the pre-dreadnaught era, but this design clearly reached the end of its usefullness by the second world war. Spacecraft would either be an extension of the modern supercarrier, or some new concept altogether, but definately not a return to the super-dreadnaughts of the early to early-mid 20th century.
Sindobook:
2007-jul-03 12:47PST: Reference number A060
If you are paying too much, just stop running the air conditioner. You can cut your energy bill 10-20% this way. If it's too cold, put on an extra layer of clothing. If it's too hot, remove a layer of clothing. Open the windows on each side of your house so that you can get a steady breeze going through. It's not too hard really, people have it easy.
Sindobook:
2007-aug-21 21:30PST: Reference number A064
His latest attempt to compare the current situation to the EOJ or ROK is just a re-hashing of previous messages. And a horrible comparison at that; during the war the EOJ was a clear agressor, and following the end of the Showa era and subsequent occupation, other than Okinawa, the people of Japan were unified and not fighting a civil war against each other.
The people and culture of Japan remained largely unchanged at the end of the Showa era. The change was the lifting of the oppression imposed by the fascist, militaristic government. The occupation imposed and supported democratic government once again allowed a people and culture to flourish. The occupation was drawn down due to the subsequent war in Korea and this brought about its de-facto end long before the treaty of San Francisco was formally signed.
The same can hardly be said for the middle east. The middle east is not a single culture, it is a hodge-podge of different cultures and peoples divided between countries with artificial boundaries. Iraq alone has three major distinct groups and many more minor ones. What the president has done in Iraq would be like if the US were to occupy post-war Japan, Signapore, the Philipines, and Japan-occupied China and insist they were one country, one unified people, and must remain as such. This, compounded with the evolutionary gap (modern inferiority?) between most of the predominant middle eastern cultures as compared to post-Showa Japan, leads to the current untenable situation.
Those who doubt this evolutionary gap or modern inferiority need only look at the development of postwar Japan, and what that culture produces today as compared to those in the middle east. From the most modern robots or other 'gadgets' to art -- anime, manga, drama shows, etc.
Sindobook:
2007-aug-26 20:30PST: Reference number 065
"Homely" is misused in this case. To refer to a girl as 'homely' is an insult, at least in the US. If you have seen ****'s wife, *****, in public, that is an example of 'homely' girl. She doesn't even try to look good in public.
I know what they were getting at, but for him to basically say "I prefer a homely girl" outright like that is wrong. Basically he is trying to say he prefers a simple, straightforward, honest, laid-back, carefree, unassuming girl. In constrast to a scheming, seductive, outlandish girl who engages in risky behavior just for the hell of it.
Sindobook:
2007-sep-07 22:14PST: Reference number 067
That is not a question I can answer. Perhaps you should ask ******.
NOTE: I don't remember the exact timeframe or details, but since it came up, here's what I can remember of it.
This was around or prior to mid-1998. SM was going to, or had already been pulled off the air. I don't remember whose original idea it was, nor was I ever a member of SOS. SOS had a petition to keep SM on the air and after that, proposed the now-infamous 'procot'. To me, it was patent nonsense from the beginning, the rationale never really made sense.
Basically the idea was the reverse of a boycot, that if fans demonstrated their loyalty by buying a certain item advertised on the show, that advertiser would pressure the channel to keep the show on the air. They took some kind of online vote and the item that was chosen was 'strawberry pop tarts'. For those who are unfamiliar with these sugary, processed breakfast-foods go here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop-Tarts
Pop tarts had made news about 5 years before when it was found they were among the list of 'combustible breakfast foods' and could literally explode if over-toasted, shooting flames feet in the air. After this, all pop tarts carried a label warning against over-toasting.
SOS made many oddball claims like that for every box of strawberry pop-tarts people bought, SM would stay on the air for 22-point-something minutes longer and therefore if X number of pop tarts needed to be sold. Fans were encouraged to buy multiple boxes, way more than they would ever need, and the buying was to be done on a certain day(?) or week(?) in order that it would be noted by company executives. The plea to buy strawberry pop tarts was posted to many anime MLs and websites to the point where some MLs had to forbid messages like it and ban any offenders. SOS made a bad name for SM fans everywhere and if challanged their answer would be things like 'at least we're doing something'.
The procot came and went with much fanfare in SOS but little elsewhere. In the aftermath, not much happened. SOS posted lots of self-lauding appraisals, vague statements like "my friend in the industry says we definately made a dent". But the sales numbers came and went, SM still got pulled off the air, and after the fact, many people who had supported the idea wondered just what had gotten into their heads.
SOS, however, never really learned their lesson. When Irwin got the latter half of SMR back on the air, in an attempt to sell more of its toy line, SOS claimed the procot had been a great sucess. In reality the two things were completely unrelated, the decision to finish the latter half of SMR was already made by Irwin and in the works long before the day the procot took place.
So every once in a while, SOS would declare a procott on some other item like lunaballs or lunchboxes in hopes that more merchendise would come out, that the show would go back on the air, or something like that. They claimed responsibility for every SM-related sucess and when the procots failed, they blamed the fans for talking them down or not buying enough of the item. If you want to see more the lunacy, just do a search on google for 'pop tart procott'.
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