Comments on: ‘Drink less, or taste not the Pierian spring’

By: Building a Realer Robot « FungaFuFu

Building a Realer Robot « FungaFuFu — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 04:35:54 +0000

[...] are essentially two axes at work in any given mecha anime. As Iknight points out in some older posts, part of what makes mecha interesting to watch is that they are essentially anthropomorphic [...]

By: Bookmarks about Oldskool

Bookmarks about Oldskool — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 20:15:19 +0000

[...] – bookmarked by 1 members originally found by kevmasterflashdeluxe on 2008-07-19 ‘Drink less, or taste not the Pierian spring’ http://animanachronism.wordpress.com/2008/07/02/drink-less-or-taste-not-the-pierian-spring/ – [...]

By: The Animanachronism

The Animanachronism — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 10:30:12 +0000

Well, yes. Ultimately mecha are there to be fun, rather than inhibit fun, but I found it interesting that some people can’t help but pull apart exactly why mecha are implausible – which gets int he way of their fun.

By: Kaioshin Sama

Kaioshin Sama — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 02:04:00 +0000

I tend to take the j.valdez stance on mecha. Plus, for as long as I can remember I’ve loved Science Fiction and Fantasy and how the good ones often use a setting that attempts to seperate the issues of our day and bring them into a futuristic context to philosophize about any variety of topic.

This love of Sci-Fi ultimately carries over to mecha and I too couldn’t care less about whether mecha a plausible or not because they are usually just plot devices or meant to exist for fun anyway. It’s the love of the mecha and not any sort of realism that sustains them for me.

Anyway, as long as the job market isn’t allowing for steady and secure employment of engineers and those duties are often being relegated to India and Southeast-Asia among other regions I wouldn’t count on that shortage going away anytime soon. It strikes me as more a self-manufactured deficiency in skilled labour and human resources than anything. It’s an incentive situation as Crusader points out.

By: Haesslich

Haesslich — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 18:43:19 +0000

As much nutritive value even.

By: Haesslich

Haesslich — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 18:42:19 +0000

Animanachronism: Short form is this – the media lies like a rug, and tends to present uniformed speculation as ‘THE TRUTH’. They go for short sound-bytes which are easy to digest, but have about as much sustenance as eating a bag full of pork rinds with extra salt.

Crusader: Electricians may, yes. I don’t know about EE’s, though… at least, not initially. Still, between the heavy science and maths requirements, along with the prospect of a low-paying job… you have to love it to do it, and even many people who love engineering are debating between spending 10 years of their lives trying to earn enough to pay off their heavy loans on top of living like otaku in Japan… or else getting another job which pays semi-decently, which they don’t love, but allows them a better lifestyle AND the chance to pay off loans faster so they can save for a house.

By: The Animanachronism

The Animanachronism — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:41:12 +0000

I was going to email you saying something clever about the Il-2 (it was an Il-2, wasn’t it?) image you used recently, but similarly I don’t know much.

The fact that she’s carrying the torpedo on an over-the-shoulder strap could just possibly be a reference to the ‘Stringbag’ nickname. Wikipedia says, without any citation, that

The Swordfish received the Stringbag nickname not because of its construction but because of the seemingly endless variety of stores and equipment that the aircraft was cleared to carry. Crews likened the aircraft to a housewife’s string shopping bag which was common at the time and [. . .] could adjust to hold any shape or number of packages.

By: Author

Author — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:19:52 +0000

You know, I was just going to say something good about the Swordfish… Unfortunately, I don’t know much. The picture is historically accurate in the sense that Emil did not have a central canon.

By: The Animanachronism

The Animanachronism — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 17:37:38 +0000

~~Epic thread.~~ I think your discussion has travelled several miles beyond the borders of my knowledge, so I’ll stay out of this one.

By: Crusader

Crusader — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 06:41:13 +0000

What you say is true that starting pay these days is shit, but one thing I learned while being poor during my childhood was that you have to start from somewhere. In tough times some work is better than no work even if it requires a diet of $0.10 ramen. I believe that there is no job in existence that I am too good for, I have to eat somehow and positive income is always better than zero or negative income.

As far as I can tell an electrical engineer can make more than I can for starting salary at Lockheed, so while pay is shit it’s somewhat better than other college grads.