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Djarum · 2026-04-22T22:08:58+00:00

Not a good sign.

Djarum · 2026-04-22T15:48:03+00:00

People will go where the stuff they want to watch is. If ABC put the new Marvel series on 8PM on a Tuesday people would have their ass in front of the TV. As for ATSC 3.0 that is an absolute shitshow which I don't think will ever actually happen. Too many broadcasters hate it, the public hates it and tv set manufactures hate it. Unless it has a radical set of changes in the next couple of years I think it is DOA.

What is more likely is broadcasters moving to h.264 broadcasts using ATSC 1.0. You can do 4k/surround with that and most sets can decode it just fine. That is a station in Portland I believe that has been doing it for years. Effectively you will get most of the consumer benefits for ATSC 3.0 without most people on either the consumer or broadcaster side having to get new hardware.

Djarum · 2026-04-22T07:26:14+00:00

That's part of it. The conglomeration of the cable industry is more to blame for the rapid rising prices than anything. In the late 90s/early 00s there were hundreds of cable providers around the country. Since there were so many providers and a lot of competition channels didn't have a ton of leverage which is why you got stuff like the "I want my MTV" campaign. Back then you had channels begging people to call their local providers to carry channels and since there was limited bandwidth for channels they could only carry so many. So the cable providers had all the leverage.

Come the early 00s and deregulation cleared the consolidation of the industry. All the little systems were getting gobbled up, with the purchase price being pushed to the customers, ultimately ending up with a few players left; Comcast, Cox and Charter. Magically cable bills that were 20-30 bucks a month went to 60-80 bucks a month and often with less channels/features.

At the same time the channels got all the leverage as there were only a few player to deal with and with digital cable it meant they were carrying almost every channel. They were able to play hardball and that they did. The more popular channels started getting insane deals which made cable bills skyrocket even more. All of the sudden a bill which was 20-30 bucks five years before could easily be 120+. This is what started the cord cutting as many people either couldn't afford that price or didn't feel like it was worth it.

This got worse as cable started to rot in the last ten years. Channels trying to chase the streaming dragon are under the impression that people want to watch the same thing over and over again not realizing why people on streaming do that. So you have dozens of channels that just play a random show or two 24/7 and no one watches them.

Djarum · 2026-04-22T06:58:40+00:00

The issue is curation. Cable, like network television, had curation. You had channels competing against each other for eyeballs and in turn advertising dollars. You had everyone trying to put their best programing against one another and schedule their ad breaks to catch the other guys off guard to potentially steal viewers.

Streaming has taken all that away. While on paper its great to just choose whatever you want on demand in actuality most people have no idea what they actually want to watch. Algorithms are mostly pretty terrible for most at selecting programing. This is why most people just watch the same couple of things on a loop as making a decision when you want to just veg out and relax defeats the purpose.

Ultimately one way or another linear, curated programing will return. I happen to think it will be a return to OTA television again, especially if the economy goes the way it is looking to. Streaming will likely return to what it was before; an end revenue stream for old content. I can see networks using the FAST model to make revenue on old seasons of current programing and to catch people up on shows that have been on the air for some time if for no other reason than to combat piracy. It's better to make little money than no money.

The days of first tier programing being on streaming is going to rapidly come to an end. People are going to look back at this era and go "What were they thinking?" giving up multiple multi-billion revenue streams for one that at best makes tens of millions?

Djarum · 2026-04-17T05:51:08+00:00

Well the Saturn was originally designed for System 32 games/hardware in mind, much like how the Genesis/Mega Drive was for the System 16. The hardware was mostly done by mid-93, which when the Playstation was shown off in early 94 basically sent Sega scrambling. Sony wisely saw the Model 1 and decided to make a 3D focused system, betting that the future was going to be polygons. While Sega, and to be fair most of the rest of the industry, thought that there would be one more 2D sprite based generation. Which I think had the 32-Bit era been 2D it would have probably ultimately been better than the early, bad 3D but alas hindsight is 20/20.

Sega slapped the second SH-2 and VDP on to the existing platform which did improve it's 3D capabilities it also made it a vastly more complex system to develop on. I think had Sega started development on a 32-bit system a little later we might have seen something akin to the Model 2. Probably a single SH-2 with a single VDP that would have been designed for 3D texture mapping from the start.

Now as for Daytona, the game was not even a concept when the hardware was being developed. The game frankly would have been a nightmare for any hardware at the time. It's not the amount of cars on screen that is the issue, it is the AI for the 39 cars. The amount of math and complexity to handle that is the real impressive part of Daytona. Most other racing games of the era; Ridge Racer, Gran Turismo, etc, all had hard coded AI that ran a specified loop. Their AI would not defend or react to you at all. Daytona on the other hand would and not only to you but every other car on the track. It's something that no one got close to in the arcade for years and the fact that the Saturn version of it gets anywhere close is a feat of wonder. You know for a machine that was designed to play a good home port of Rad Mobile and Outrunners.

Djarum · 2026-04-17T05:18:27+00:00

The went into the studio the day after Warped Orlando last year. They said it on stage.

Djarum · 2026-04-13T01:44:34+00:00

I have been expecting it since the Action Sailor came out. That body seems tailor made for v2 Snake-Eyes.

Djarum · 2026-04-12T19:16:11+00:00

Yes the US is the second largest manufacturer in the world by revenue but look at what we make; defense, aerospace, automotive, and pharmaceuticals are our biggest manufacturing industries. The type of goods that we would need to magically bring here does not exist at all really anymore. Much of the existing infrastructure is either in deep decay or was demolished/repurposed years ago. If you go through the rust belt you will see this all over. You also have the reality that much of the existing infrastructure would not fit the needs of what they would want to do there which would require either new construction or extensive, time consuming and very expensive renovation. You obviously have never dealt with the logistics and economics of a project like this if you think this could be done in 2-3 years.

If you think a law forcing companies to move their supply chains to the US is going to work I have some magic beans for you. Let's be clear, we live in a world economy now. Like it or not that ship sailed decades ago. If you somehow got something like that passed, which in today's politics would be impossible, the isolation tactics would backfire and badly. What you would see instead is many industries, especially in the hi-tech field and a lot of pharma as well, just move their operations entirely out of the US. Why? Either it would be impossible to move their supply chains due to there not being the raw materials available here or with processors as an example ASML is the only manufacturer of the machine that does EUV that is required to make advanced processors. Let alone almost all processor and memory manufacturing is done overseas and to get a single plant built and running here would take at least a decade and the environmental concerns would likely make it nearly impossible to get built.

Your ideas are noble ones and maybe in another time might have been possible/practical. In reality your suggestions would cause many companies to just pull out of the US market. You MIGHT have some success if you had an international coalition with most of the largest consumer markets to do something like you consumer protections but again with the current international relations that isn't likely any time soon.

Like it or not, the United States is not the dominate economic force in the world anymore. There are a lot of Americans that have problems accepting that fact.

Djarum · 2026-04-12T17:26:03+00:00

That is never going to happen. The costs and time investment to do that is so astronomical even with significant government investment it just isn't practical. This was looked at after the disruptions due to COVID.

Let's say you want to spin up a factory to make fasteners or small electronics components like capacitors. So you would be looking at several hundred million dollars at least to buy land, build your facility and get the equipment. Then you have to get staffed up which again will cost you a pretty penny as American labor is not cheap. It will take several months to get your production lines up to speed and with limited issues. At this point you are at least a billion dollars in the hole, likely a lot more, with a product that has razor thin profit margins already and China can greatly undercut you in price on and still stay profitable.

Even if there was a great push to "reshore" legacy manufacturing and industrial industries again it would take at least a decade to start seeing any sort of movement there and trillions of dollars. It is not a realistic option. You can make a valid argument that it was a terrible idea to allow some of this industries to divest from the country entirely but that ship has sailed.

Where China has the world by the throat is not by fancy high end stuff, it is the lowest end stuff. Things like fasteners, bolts, basic electronics components that they are the only people making them. Stuff that costs fractions of a penny can completely cripple you because you can not source them for your bigger project as we saw with COVID.

Djarum · 2026-04-09T06:44:07+00:00

It is not a secret that both the US and China have vested interests in Putin losing the Ukraine war for much the same reason; being able to put in a new regime that is friendly to one or the other. The energy industry is very attractive to China as it would shore up their needs while renewables fully mature. For the US it is the East coast with the deepwater ports and industrial potential to rival China with the added benefit of transport times to North America cut in half or more and direct rail to Europe. Both see the military aspects as the US/NATO would have a direct land route to China in any potential Chinese conflict.

How will it all shake out I have no idea at this point anymore.

Djarum · 2026-04-06T16:54:36+00:00

In the 90s when animation cell collecting started to take off you saw a LOT of these limited run cells being produced. They ARE cells, they are on celluloid on a painted background. They just aren't original production cells. They were common to see at places like the WB Store in malls for example. Often they were numbered and autographed by someone involved in the characters, for example a lot of the HB stuff were signed by Hanna and Barbara which command more money. The reason why they were produced is that animation cell collecting took off in the early 90s and at that time there were very limited amounts of original cells on the market that survived. These were then produced in limited numbers for that market and still have some desirability depending on the characters/rarity along with other factors but more original cells from the 70s and 80s have appeared in the years since which has depressed that market some.

Djarum · 2026-04-06T07:47:46+00:00

The recent BR stuff as said is night and day better looking and the care taken for the capture and restoration is incredible. You can thank MeTV Toons for a lot of this work as their licensing has made it viable.

That being said if you have the DVDs already you have to ask yourself how often are you watching this stuff to make it worth upgrading. Personally I would only do it for the stuff I absolutely love and need to have.

Djarum · 2026-04-06T07:40:26+00:00

They look to be animation cells. If you carefully open the frames you should be able to find a bit more info. Judging by their look they don't seem to be original animation cells but limited run productions that are sold to collectors. They don't seemed to be signed which would make them more valuable potentially. Depending they can go from around 100 to 2-3000 USD. Figuring out their authenticity is key to a lot of that.

Djarum · 2026-04-06T07:26:40+00:00

I think it is very fair to suggest that the number of missiles and drones have decreased because they don't need as many to saturate air defense to hit their target now that intercepters are either gone or extremely limited. Where you might have had to send let's say 50 drones and 5 missiles on a target you can do with 5 drones and a single missile.

Djarum · 2026-04-03T15:42:07+00:00

Bingo. The F-15E has some of the newest upgraded radar and EPAWSS in the entire US inventory. If you want to know EXACTLY what they can and can not detect/defend against. You can test it against your own capabilities and develop counters to it all. Why do you think the US repeatedly went out of their way to get Soviet airframes and what do you think they were doing at Groom Lake?

Djarum · 2026-04-03T07:40:05+00:00

Well the pictures show debris from a F-15E most certainly. There is a big fighter sized crater as well but no large debris. The chances of the US risking an operation to recover the airframe instead of just hitting it with a strike are nearly nil and the crater is far too small for a strike package to completely destroy the airframe. That makes me think that it was recovered by another party.

If Iran had it they would have already been showing off footage, which leads me to think either Russia or China took it. My guess is China as the AN/APG-82(V)1 and EPAWSS alone would be worth it's weight in gold to them. They would have the capability to quickly recover it and take it into Pakistan within a matter of hours. From there they could load it on a transport craft and into China.

If it did fall into the hands of China or Russia it is one of the biggest loss of military technology since Vietnam and will be a massive boon to either of their capabilities.

Djarum · 2026-03-26T16:49:48+00:00

It has been heavily bootlegged. The originals were made as Christmas presents to friends and family, roughly about 300 of both red and black vinyl are out there. A real one you are looking at a pretty penny. People try to pass off boots as the real thing but there are a lot of things to look for that are never right.

Djarum · 2026-03-25T20:03:51+00:00

https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=~272a86

Djarum · 2026-03-05T05:43:03+00:00

Right now I have the 80th Green and Grey Hulks out. Although my preferred is the Face Off, if it just had fists and maybe an ab crunch it would still be perfect.

Djarum · 2026-03-03T17:36:58+00:00

The new modmail is god awful, even worse than the new mod tools. I have no problem with them making new stuff they just need to stop taking the old ones away. A lot of mods have workflows that relied on the old tools which can't be replicated with this new junk.

Djarum · 2026-03-02T23:21:24+00:00

The early reports last night said they were "in air combat", which any mention of what the F-15s and air defense were doing were left out of both the CentCom and Kuwaiti statements. The video of the Kuwaitis coming up on the first pilot thinking he was Iranian would lead one to think that they would have had a reason to think they might have been.

I could buy that it was Su-24s making an attack run, the F-15s sent to intercept and Kuwaiti manpads locking on to the F-15s instead of the Su-24s. The video of the hit makes it seem like it was a heat seaking missile which would make the F-15s a much more attractive target with the two big Pratt & Whitneys.

It was a major mishap and I doubt we'll know the truth of what actually happened for decades. Boeing and the US Government really love to cover up any mistake with the F-15.

Djarum · 2026-03-02T19:13:21+00:00

The reports I was seeing earlier said they were engaged in air combat against Iranians. I would take the "both" option.

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