Which ship did you serve on?

Don't try to put "Battleship" in the same league as other summer movie blockbusters. More along the lines of something for a Saturday matinee from days long-gone. Like Gary said, the movie was fun. Little bit hokey, but on reflection that might have been intentional (and if it was, it was brillient). I'd put in the same category as watching "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", only with a different flavor.
I was entertained, and really, that's what I want out of a movie. If I want to think and contemplate, then I'll watch a film. There's a distinct difference.

Wouldn't "real aliens" have just dropped a solid block the size of that craft at a high fraction of lightspeed? Oh wait, that's just claptrap isn't it.

Thanks for the naval insight, PC. I haven't seen more than a few minutes of this movie (and heard the audio for the entire first half; too busy in the next room over er... cuddling ) so when I do see it, I'll keep it in mind. Reading in your blog that Michael Bay isn't involved is a shock (this seems right up his alley) and encouragement to see this film without raising the blood pressure too much.

I have to say...... Aside from the silly comsat collision thing I loved this movie. It was silly, fun, lots of explosions and a James T. Kirk like character being thrust into command.

Yes, there were a lot of technical issues with it, certainly some shipboard ones I never caught as I don't know the details of these ships and reading your blog makes those much clearer but I can over look those because its FUN.

Too many movies today don't have a storyline or have one so weak you can poke holes it in. Battleships storyline was 'aliens invade, YES THEY DO, big guns, boom' - they never tried to techno babble why the aliens travelled light years through interstellar dust then ran over a comm satellite which I appreciate more than endless claptrap trying to justify a bad plot point.

As for that anchor maneuver I loved it. Very clever visually appealling and helped the good guys to win. Of course, 'real world' aliens would probably have tracking systems on missiles so this wouldn't work but what the hell. I'd love to know where that was done previously because I know I've read about it before!

Yeah, that was a sad day, I knew some of those guys. Only enough to nod at them in a passageway, but still.

I'd considered this after-the-fact. But they clearly show a 9 gun broadside into the baddie, and it was turret 3 that took the impact of those alien whatever thingys.

I must say though that direct fire with 16 inchers at less than 5000 yards is as easy as it gets. Pretty cool use of CGI, but a bit of camera shake would have been welcome. Hopper and Capt Nagata would have seen flames from above, below and both sides. The O-5 level bridge was my absolute favorite place to watch gun-shoots.

I'm going to get my printer to start talking to my computer and scan in some old pictures. I'll take the best and post them here.

About the turret issue: Maybe they mistook it with the Iowa... which had its turret 2 destroyed and sealed after a massive explosion.

Well, I tried to implement this in my project, and it all worked fine up until a rather strange error. When I put in the part in InitModule, like this,

DLLCLBK void InitModule (HINSTANCE hModule)
{
g_hDLL = hModule;
hFont = CreateFont (-20, 3, 0, 0, 150, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, "Haettenschweiler");
hPen = CreatePen (PS_SOLID, 3, RGB (120,220,120));
hBrush = CreateSolidBrush (RGB(0,128,0));
ShuttleD::panel2dtex = oapiLoadTexture (“ShuttleD\\MainPanel.dds”);

My compiler tells me that the name ShuttleD, under the filepath given in the last line, is undefined. That doesnt make any sense does it?

Your Orbiter videos, especially the fly with me series, are a pleasure to watch. They are not exactly tutorials, but from my experience you always learn something when you watch how other orbinauts set up and achieve their goals.

Cheers

Nice job. The tension, while palpable, is relaxed just enough with the "ACME" gag. I used to answer to similar questions with "The lowest bidder".

Today we live in a world where the skycrane WORKED.

Thats the best achievement I can think of, I reall had my doubts that it would work. it was such an ambitious way to put a rover on Mars and so complex that it seemed impossible.

But it worked. This means that some scientist who had this crazy idea of the skycrane x years ago has been validated.

Amazing stuff, I look forward to what other discoveries Curiosity makes.

The dream thing was really vivid. Also the tension in the story..you could cut it with a knife. There were studies that when a person watches TV or plays a video-game or reads a book, the brain does not understands that it's a fictional world and tends to react as if the person is actually living that action. The best way to relax the reader is to offer some extensive details about some items or mundane tasks (a description) pausing somehow the action without coming with an additional story-line. If this is done in a short manner and quite frequently (although you used also a nice joke 'ACME Surplus Supply,(...)' and the irony '"No, I'm taking a very lucid nap," Jamie replied immediately.' to bring a smile), than the effect is quite opposite and similar to a roller-coaster feeling. Someone else would have fallen into that trap, but no, Scav had to master this sorry very good, specially the way you build your phrases and arrange paragraphs/events. It starts very good: '(...) felt the blood drain from his face (...)'. 'Williams was a military man, and he was also very fastidious in his dispatches; he never used . . . casual language like that.' rebuilding the tension from previous chapters. This phrase: 'Williams, it seemed, had given up his role of project coordinator in this endeavor.' calls for the hero...guess who, but you explain it too fast. ' "You've got the manpower--er, womanpower (...)' - I guess misogyny is still strong and kicking in that guys head. 'Jamie paused to look around her.' - oh, i paused with her, probably it should have been better after the vertigo phrase, but that is just a personal opinion. 'You've got this, Jamie Lee. You've got this.' - yeah, you got this, Scav, definitely got this

Firstly, I love spaceflight and I love sport. I find the Olympics fun and interesting.

While you can compare Curiosity and the Olympics, in the end, the people will find what they can relate to easier to enjoy and understand. Most of us (humans) have, at some point, done some of the sports played at the Olympics. We know how hard it is to swim, run and throw metal things. Very few of people understand the technological know how to land a rover on Mars (or even launch a rocket). Even fewer have actually done it.

The news is designed to provide most of the population with an acceptable understanding of the events around them. In order to do that they need to filter the hundreds of news items from around the world and show the ones that matter to the most people or are the most important. Due to the popularity of the Olympics, obviously it is going to get more news time. We (humans) can understand the work that goes into getting better at sport. It is something we can relate too. So when it is on, we watch it and know full well what went into winning that gold medal.

Space is much harder to cover as news. As most people don't understand it, you need more time to provide background for it. This takes time and energy. Something news outlets don't have much off. So they provide the minimum and move on to something people can relate too.

Anyway, this is what the internet is good for. Connecting like minded people that have interests that are not very mainstream. I hope this provides some explanation as to why...

You probably cant read this anymore, but I'll say it anyway.... A lot of people really dont understand our commitment to this sim, Well as all can see, Its way better than spending time with games that insult the rules of physics. Its here in this sim that you can learn a lot of things and appreciate spaceflight. Though its not much of a beauty now in terms of graphics, but at least its giving us the experience that only a few people can.... though virtually, but at least.

Lots of drama there, hope Constitution gets repaired

Ooo, this is going to be fun!

Nice story, indeed !

Good luck and farewell!

Very sad to read! It was fun to have you around. I hope to see you back sometime

Not really. That counts as "temporary inconvenience".

Good luck man, and try to visit!