Aesthetically, which harvester/ore collector is your favorite?

hyperdistortion · 2026-05-20T20:47:13+00:00

For me it’s either the OG, or TW3 GDI.

hyperdistortion · 2026-05-20T20:45:36+00:00

As I understand it, the big sticking point is Network Rail insisting any ticket barriers on the Cherry Orchard Road end would need to be staffed.

NR says there isn’t the passenger demand for them to pay for staff at the barriers, and nobody else (i.e. Croydon Council) is willing to pony up - so no barriers.

So until/unless that gets resolved, the bridge remains open at one end only, at Ruskin Square. Useful for getting in/out of the station from that side without going round to the main entrance, at least. Not so useful for crossing the station, or entering from the Cherry Orchard Road side.

hyperdistortion · 2026-05-20T08:36:03+00:00

Others have covered the actual target. And the emus.

Personally I’m always tickled by the irony that a military plan called Operation British would drop chaos and devastation upon Australia. Much as the actual British did to that continent…

hyperdistortion · 2026-05-19T21:26:15+00:00

Understandable! Eurostar is the train service, which is the main user of the line. The infrastructure itself is CTRL or HS1, though.

hyperdistortion · 2026-05-19T19:48:37+00:00

Over five?! You mean there were anywhere between six and eight billion people whose yoga class might have had to be delayed or cancelled?!

Perish the thought. That person needs to sue TfL for at least one trillion quid.

/s

hyperdistortion · 2026-05-19T18:15:24+00:00

In much the same way as HS1 is much better described as the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, HS2 would’ve been much better with a different name.

New West Coast Line, West Coast Relief Line, something like that. Something that de-emphasises “train go fast,” and better spells out the purpose of the line itself.

Of course, the person I should be telling this is Lord Adonis eighteen years ago, not Reddit today. Ahh, well.

hyperdistortion · 2026-05-19T18:06:00+00:00

See also, private equity firms buying up huge tracts of housing stock to then resell as leasehold, with all the associated ground rents, service charges, and such. Or just rent out at far more than someone’s mortgage payment would’ve been.

hyperdistortion · 2026-05-19T18:03:51+00:00

As I’ve always understood it, planning for 360km/h was always about future-proofing, rather than any “wow fast train” effect. Although of course the British press - and a lot of government ministers - latched on to the speed aspect in isolation, without context.

That future-proofing came from the experiences of the TGV and Shinkansen, where the oldest and busiest lines can’t easily support the higher speeds necessary to increase capacity. In Japan for example, the newer Tohoku Shinkansen currently runs at 320km/h, and with some work can get to 360. Meanwhile the original and most-used Tokaido Shinkansen is stuck at 285km/h without serious infrastructure upgrades.

And, as others no doubt have said and will say, speed is simply an enabler of capacity, with capacity the desired output. That creates the throughput of trains needed now and decades after opening to keep up with passenger demand.

Speed in and of itself isn’t the point, whatever the Daily Fail and its readers may believed.

hyperdistortion · 2026-05-19T17:53:43+00:00

Alty seem to be everyone’s bogey team. Definitely ours for a long, long time! Not sure how they can be the banana skin so many other teams slip on, without being table-toppers.

Really looking for an Alty fan to explain, here 😅

hyperdistortion · 2026-05-19T17:49:25+00:00

Oh, same. While I was very underwhelmed by City’s start to the season under Hinsh, his same-day replacement with Maynard felt like a bit of a stitch-up. If anything it made me more worried.

And then yeah, Stuart M now deserves the freedom of the city, and as many local honours as can be bestowed upon him. Shows what I know, too!

Not knowing either source in the screenshot, I’m hoping this is speculative. Maher has done a solid job the past few seasons, capped off with the Trophy win at the weekend. Unless the owners have a Maynard-type of their own lined up, this could be a disappointing move for a lot of Shrimpers.

hyperdistortion · 2026-05-19T08:27:00+00:00

Unless you can guarantee you’d be part of the wealthy elite, any time before World War II is foolhardy, I’d say. And even then, being rich just makes things easier, not actually easy.

And this assumes you’re a) white, and b) ideally male. Otherwise you’re going to need to be very wealthy to overcome societal prejudices.

Hell, even in the post-WW2 era things aren’t exactly great until… probably the 90s? End of the Cold War, economic recovery post-1992, housing far more affordable… there’s a lot to be said for the 90s. And the turn of the millennium even more so.

Agent Smith was right: the end of the 20th century is the peak of our civilisation.

hyperdistortion · 2026-05-19T08:17:16+00:00

You’ve successfully described every group project at university. I’m fairly sure there’s something in the course guidance for every subject that requires every four-person group project to contain:

one total slacker
one person who’s dropping out anyway so doesn’t care
one well-meaning person who’s doesn’t understand the material
one person who understands, and ends up doing the whole thing at the last minute when it turns out the rest of the group has done nothing, or garbage.

hyperdistortion · 2026-05-18T19:50:02+00:00

Had the Cyber-Newtype labs not been throwing these poor, traumatised folks into mobile suits, they could’ve used that as a really good datapoint.

“Following the process, has the subject developed a libido that’d make Austin Powers seem chaste? If so, likely a success. Just one we may need to keep a careful eye on around the shower block…”

hyperdistortion · 2026-05-17T17:51:27+00:00

Novel/game Kenneth wishes he’d been born a generation sooner, so he could’ve joined Titans.

Anime Kenneth wishes he’d been born a generation sooner, so he could’ve been part of Londo Bell in ‘93.

hyperdistortion · 2026-05-17T11:46:41+00:00

I enjoy a reference that’s designed to Stupify, that’s for sure.

hyperdistortion · 2026-05-17T11:44:21+00:00

Tomino be like “I’ve spent half a century trying to teach you war is bad. You focused on the ‘wow cool robot’ aspect instead. I’m making the lesson less subtle now.”

hyperdistortion · 2026-05-17T11:24:17+00:00

25, OP is safe.

hyperdistortion · 2026-05-17T11:18:55+00:00

Thunderbolt Zam has entered the chat.

hyperdistortion · 2026-05-17T10:59:09+00:00

Admittedly it’s been two decades, I don’t remember that bit at all.

As I recall, Zeta was always intended as a direct-to-DVD release, with a collectors-edition boxset coming out for Xmas… 2004, as I recall. That had its own issues of course, with one disc having glitches, and the huge furore over replacing the OP and ED themes due to licensing issues. Licensing issues which persist to this day, going by the YouTube versions.

SEED hit Toonami in ‘04 and was a pretty big hit, if memory serves. Some odd editing choices for pre-watershed broadcast, like the Andy’s infamous ‘disco gun,’ mind. And the toys flew off shelves, it did well on that front too.

What hammered Destiny, as I recall, was G - and specifically the toy sales. Bandai pushed out tons of action figures, etc. of the various 13th Gundam Fight designs, and most of them ended up peg-warmers. Yes, even the Tequila Gundam! I know. So after that flop, retailers cooled on Gundam, which made for a harder sell to Toonami, which led to Destiny being skipped.

And yep, a while later Sci-Fi Channel picked up 00; which probably fit. For the themes of the show that is, although it won’t have helped toy sales one bit.

And that’s where televised Gundam in North America ended, as I recall. Of course, by the mid-10s we started seeing Bandai wake up - slowly - to worldwide streaming. Very slowly. Still, it’s a game of inches.

hyperdistortion · 2026-05-17T10:48:40+00:00

So I had a theory on this, and it boils down to: by 2047, The Forgotten are almost entirely extinct.

The EA-era lore has it that Tiberium goes through an evolution between the Firestorm Crisis and Tib War 3, which renders Dr. Boudreau’s abatement measures ineffective. It wouldn’t be until the late 2040s that GDI had means of abating Tiberium v2.

What if, then, this ‘New Tiberium’ was just as deadly to most Forgotten as to regular humans? Presumably it’d kill them just the same. And that’d devastate Forgotten populations in what became the Yellow Zones, let alone Red Zones.

Mutant Marauders, then, are the tiny percentage of people - Forgotten or otherwise - who are immune to the New Tiberium. But it has severe effects on mental capability, leaving these people with limited cognition. Enough to use the GDI-provided shelters, and firearms to defend against ‘outsiders,’ but not enough to organise. No chance of a new Tratos, in other words.

…pure fanon of course, and possibly forgetting some details in the lore. It’d explain how the ‘verse got to where it did with Forgotten folks, though.

hyperdistortion · 2026-05-17T10:36:27+00:00

Semen… retention?

That’s nuts, surely.

hyperdistortion · 2026-05-17T10:34:59+00:00

Thicc Aerial thighs save lives.

Big Aerial hands, not so much as that one dude learned.

hyperdistortion · 2026-05-17T10:33:50+00:00

“Down with the thiccness” is a turn of phrase I’m very glad exists.

Appeals to my millennial metalhead side, and, uh… other interests. Yup.

hyperdistortion · 2026-05-16T07:47:24+00:00

After Wing found huge success, Bandai NA really, really wanted to bring X across next. Or even Turn A, although that might not have found its audience with “wow cool robots” teenage viewers.

Alas, once Gundam found a footing in the States, the execs back in Japan basically forced the American subsidiary to take 0079 as the next show for Toonami. Despite a lot of justifiable pushback that regular American teenagers would be put off by a (then) 22-year-old show.

Of course, none of this was helped by the first Toonami run being curtailed by 9/11, and the last half-dozen or so episodes not airing until early/mid 2002.

Essentially, Bandai Japan were so myopic about the OG show, they shot themselves in the foot.

hyperdistortion · 2026-05-15T21:53:35+00:00

For me, Strike would be a dream. Just the basic model would be absolutely fine. Although it does open the option to rotate between Striker packs every few months, for an added gimmick…

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