Persistent, Niggling Questions

[Nate the Great]

http://dcanimated.wikia.com/wiki/Bat-Embargo

The Bat Embargo has long been a thorn in my side, even though the DCAU is old news. However, the page at the DCAU wiki indicates that this nonsense is still continuing to this day during preparation of the Young Justice series.

Hello? The DCAU ended in 2006 and The Batman ended in 2008. Any and all conflicts related to these shows should be OVER.

Furthermore, I'm reminded of when this happened back when Batman was on Superfriends AND The New Adventures of Batman, but nobody else could be on both shows. Who cares?

PNQ: Why would kids NOT be confused by two Batmans but WILL be confused by two Jokers, or two Wonder Women, or whatever?

[Nate the Great]

You may or may not know that Chef Boyardee's real name was Ettore Boiardi. He changed it to Boyardee so people could pronounce it properly.

PNQ: What other way is there to pronounce "Boiardi"?

Well, I could see "Boy-ee-air-dee", but it's a bit of a stretch. "Bo-yar-dee" would certainly occur to me first.

[Nate the Great]

So the masses are getting a little restless waiting for the white iPhone 4...

PNQ: Do white phones look that good?

I mean, they may disguise fingerprints like the black iPhone can't, but whoever said white and black are the only choices? Why not silver, or burgundy, or navy, or camouflage, or whatever?

And wouldn't scratches and stains show up more obviously on white plastic?

[evay]

Here's my PNQ, or just call it a rant:

This is the time of year when many folks are sending out cards. Holiday, Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Saturnalia, Solstice, whatever. And given the ease and ubiquity of stores and websites which allow you to upload a photo, throw on some text, and print out a hundred personalized cards for thirty bucks or so, many folks are sending cards with a picture of themselves and the kids, or the pets, or kids and pets. I think these are great. I love seeing how the sprogs have grown.

Additionally, many computer-using people have their address books in some kind of database, so they can use a mail merge function to print out address labels for all the people to whom they wish to send these cards, and practically everyone has return address labels (even if they're the ones you get as a "free gift" from some nagging charity). I certainly do this; after 20+ years of keyboarding, my handwriting has deteriorated to the point where even my poor husband needs a Rosetta Stone key to decipher the grocery list. If I didn't mail-merge my to-labels, none of my cards would ever get out of my zip code.

To recap:
You have a pre-printed card.
You have a pre-printed "to" address label.
You have a pre-printed "from" address label.

So WHY, for the love of little green apples, can't people SIGN THE DAMN CARDS?!?!?!

They don't have to be personally addressed with thoughtful comments ("to Bob and Mary, hope Junior and Muffin are well! throw Spot a bone for us! can't wait for next year's Arbor Day BBQ!"). They don't need some cheery holiday-specific sign-off ("Merry Christmas! Happy Chanukah! Bitchin' Bacchanal! Reason's Greetings!"). I'm just talking about SIGNING YOUR DAMN NAME at the bottom of the card to prove that you didn't hand off the entire project to a fulfillment house.

Hubby and I are graphic designers, so we put a little more effort into the creation of the pre-printed cards, but we still take one or two evenings and personally sign every. single. card. we send. It may just be "Merry ho ho! evay and mr. evay," and I often sign the ones for the distant in-laws because hubby doesn't care, but there is physical proof that somebody touched every card before it went into an envelope.

Is it so much to ask?

[Nate the Great]

I was just reading an article over at Cracked, and the following suddenly occurred to me...

PNQ: Why DID Data have to die? It was the last TNG movie, we'd never be seeing these characters again anyway, so what's up with that?

[Nate the Great]

Yet another question inspired by Cracked...

PNQ: If you could see any movie on the big screen (in a proper theater) again, which one?

For me, Speed Racer. That was a fun time.

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: Did they need to remake the classic Sesame Street segment "The Ladybug's Picnic?"

Original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX9J7WcYtxI

Remake: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXwIiYMJuWU

[NAHTMMM]

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

Yet another question inspired by Cracked...

PNQ: If you could see any movie on the big screen (in a proper theater) again, which one?

For me, Speed Racer. That was a fun time.

Probably Fellowship of the Ring for me. That movie really benefits from being on the big screen, with all its panoramas.

[MaverickZer0]

Speed Racer. Yes. Provided we were walking home; I don't want to get into a car with a driver who just saw Speed Racer.

[Nate the Great]

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Miracl...-Blu-ray/5584/

The original black and white version of Miracle on 34th Street on Blu-ray?

PNQ1: Can a sixty-year old black and white movie possibly be restored to a quality (colorized or not) beyond what DVD can do?
PNQ2: Doesn't a Blu-ray have enough room in it to present both a B&W and a color version on the same disc? After all, there are some connoisseurs that prefer their movies to be the original version. And the director shot the movie to be B&W in the first place.

[Nate the Great]

I'm watching Stuart Ashen's review of the Nintendo 3DS and he raises a valid point...

PNQ: How long should a portable gaming console expect you to play in one sitting? Should all portable games be able to stop and start in short increments (say ten or twenty minutes)?

[NAHTMMM]

I dunno, but that Rocky & Bullwinkle Game Boy game we have ought to allow saved games. <_<

[Nate the Great]

It's a valid concern. Even taking the 3D out of the equation, how often are we playing handheld consoles with the view that we're going to be lying on our bed doing it for hours at a time? I thought portable consoles were supposed to be able to provide enjoyment in smaller chunks than that.

[Nate the Great]

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/04/30/ru...itial-release/

I'm just gonna quote on this one:

"Japanese retail news blog Sinobi (translated by Andriasang) reports Nintendo has a somewhat surprising supply strategy for its upcoming, three-dimensional remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. According to the blog, Nintendo's initial shipment of the title to retailers will be "extremely small." Furthermore, Nintendo supposedly isn't letting retailers order extra units of the game, and is allotting a limited number of copies for all retailers, regardless of their respective size.

It seems bananas to limit supply on the 3DS' most anticipated title to date, but Sinobi suggests this could be a reaction to the overstocking of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, which ended up in Japanese bargain bins faster than the franchise is likely used to. If that's the case, then Nintendo is forgetting one very important factor: Spirit Tracks is a pretty okay game, while Ocarina of Time is the best game ever made."

PNQ1: Is this a valid criticism?
PNQ2: If a retailer wants to buy X units and a game company is able to manufacture X units, should the game company be obligated to sell them X units?
PNQ3: Isn't there a certain ratio of "number of pre-orders" to "number of games sold in the first three months of release" that's pretty consistent? If X million people have preordered OOT 3D, should this be considered a hint to Nintendo to manufacture 5X (or whatever) copies of the game?

[NAHTMMM]

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

PNQ1: Is this a valid criticism?

Never played any of the games, but the implied logic seems sound to me.

PNQ2: If a retailer wants to buy X units and a game company is able to manufacture X units, should the game company be obligated to sell them X units?

Not unless they have an agreement to that effect. The retailer can make it clear to the consumer that the company is the bottleneck, though.

PNQ3: Isn't there a certain ratio of "number of pre-orders" to "number of games sold in the first three months of release" that's pretty consistent? If X million people have preordered OOT 3D, should this be considered a hint to Nintendo to manufacture 5X (or whatever) copies of the game?

I would guess that that ratio varies from one game to the next. That said, I don't think of Link and Zelda as being a niche game series (strong, broad name recognition), so I would expect the actual number in place of your 5 to be fairly large.

[Nate the Great]

In watching the sfdebris review of "The Maquis" something suddenly occurs to me...

PNQ: Okay, the Federation/Cardassian treaty made a border that put Federation colonies on the Cardassian side. Were there any Cardassian colonies that were put on the Federation side?

I mean, if the border was set to be more or less a straight line, presumably the line was set to split the difference and maintain an equal number of planets/area of space, right? So why was the border set to disrupt a bunch of Federation colonies, but not Cardassian?

[Nate the Great]

Once again I read an article warning us about the fact that nuclear disposal site warning signs will be unintelligible a thousand years from now...

PNQ1: Hasn't it been proven that widespread printing has slowed down the evolution of the English language dramatically? Yes, new words are invented, but will old ones like "radioactive" really disappear into the mists of time and become meaningless?
PNQ2: Don't government radioactive disposal sites have to be inspected at regular intervals? It's not like we lock up nuclear waste into a vault, toss the key into a junk drawer, and walk away, right?
PNQ3: Okay, forget words for now. Are you telling me that the radioactive symbol itself will become meaningless gibberish at any point in the future?

[Nate the Great]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spinning_Dancer

An optical illusion of a woman in silhouette spinning on one foot. The article claims that depending on where you observe it from, the dancer could be spinning clockwise or counterclockwise. Specifically one could take the foot touching the ground to be the left or right.

PNQ: Try as I might, the lower foot is clearly her left and she's spinning clockwise (if seen from above). Can anyone see her spin counterclockwise with the lower foot being her right?

I see the extended leg sweep from the right to the left and the vertical leg hop up and down as the foot sweeps from right to left. The other way is not presenting itself, it doesn't matter where I'm viewing it from.

EDIT: There's a YouTube video explaining how to do it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udfDv...layer_embedded

[Nate the Great]

Not so much a PNQ as a tech support question. I'm contemplating buying this:

http://www.microcenter.com/single_pr...uct_id=0352098

You see, my DVD player is in the computer, but I want the ability to send the video signal about ten feet over to the big TV by the couch. That's not the problem. I'm really wondering...

PNQ: Could I use the additional VGA port on the card to run two computer monitors at once to have a larger desktop?

[Nate the Great]

I've been watching some New Super Mario Bros. Wii gameplay...

PNQ1: Does four-player co-op really work as an enjoyable experience for all?

The footage I saw seemed to imply that there was always going to be one player far ahead and one player straggling behind. Someone is always going to be stealing the powerups, and someone is always going to be mucking up the plan by warping ahead (pipes, whatever) before someone else is ready.

Furthermore, given my bile for the two generic Toads as Players 3 and 4...

PNQ2: Would a focused two-player mode go over better?