I didn't really like the movie. Certain parts of it was well done, but there are some glaring issues that ruined my suspension of disbelief.

For example, early in the movie we got a shot of John's character's workshop, and there's this whiteboard with the most basic information about the monsters written on it in large bold letters. Your character has masterfully survived for over a year under constant threat from these monsters, and you have to write down that the creatures are blind? Who is this even for other than the audience? It's such a lazy way of conveying information and disrepectful of your viewer's intelligence.

Also, the ending was pretty ridiculous.

*spoiler warning*

The fact that these monsters are susceptible to small firearms (even if they have ARMOR as the whiteboard reminds us) makes the premise that they overran all the world's militaries in a few months pretty unbelievable.

The ricochet was unexpected. I wonder if it bounced off the armor of the approaching lizard men.

I saw it, it was good. I thought Thor: Ragnarok was more fun, but that was also meant to be humorous. This is up there with Captain America: Civil War for me (among Marvel movies).

The dumbest thing in Black Panther were the armored rhinos. Totally unnecessary.

Possible, but I don't really think so. I think that the Medical minds of the time thought that physical shock, pressure waves from bombing etc. as you described, were a (or perhaps THE) primary cause of the psychological problems of returning soldiers. So the name "shell shock" came from there, but the symptoms that it was describing were psychological and, I think precisely equal to modern PTSD. Basically, "shell shock" became a polite euphemism for "soldier that got mentally messed up in the war and is having difficulty returning to civilian life".

My grandfather was an Army Air Corps armorer during WWII. He went through basic training, but his primary job was loading ammunition, bombs, external gas tanks, etc. onto P-47 airplanes. He was never in a direct combat situation, as I would describe it. He was never shot at, never in the shockwave radius of explosions, etc. But after the war he was described as having mild "shell shock", manifested by being withdrawn, not wanting to talk about the war, and occasionally prone to angry outbursts over seemingly trivial things. Eventually, he started talking about the war in his mid 80's, and here's a few relevant (perhaps) stories of his:

He joined the European theater a couple days after D-Day. Came to shore on a Normandy beach in the same sort of landing craft seen in Saving Private Ryan, etc. Even though it was days later, there were still LOTS of bodies on the beach, and thick smell of death. Welcome to the war!

His fighter group took over a French farm house adjacent to a dirt landing strip / runway. They put up a barbed wire perimeter with a gate on the road. In one of the only times I heard of him having a firearm and being expected to potentially use it, he pulled guard duty at that gate one evening. His commanding officer gave him orders to shoot anyone that couldn't provide identification on sight. While he was standing guard, a woman in her 20's rolled up on a bicycle, somewhat distraught. She spoke no English, only French. She clearly wanted to get in, and even tried to push past my grandfather. By the letter of his orders, he was "supposed" to shoot her. Instead, he knocked her off her bike when she tried to ride past after getting nowhere verbally and physically restrained her. At gunpoint! When someone that spoke French got there, it turned out that she was the daughter of the family that lived in the farm house. They had no food, and she was coming back to get some potatoes they had left in the larder.

Riding trains was a common way to get air corps support staff up to near the front, and also to get everybody back to transport ships at the end of the war. On one of those journeys later in the war, my grandfather was riding in an open train car with a bunch of his buddies. They were all given meals at the start of the trip. A short while later, the track went through a French town. A bunch of civilians were waiting around the tracks begging for food. I'll never forgot my grandfather describing that scene. It was tough for him to get out, and then all he managed was "they was starvin'!" He later explained that he and his buddies all gave up the food that they had to those people in the first town -- only to have none left to give as they rolled past similar scenes in each town on down the line.

When my mother was growing up, she and her brothers learned that they'd better not leave any food on their plates to go to waste. She has said that the angriest she ever saw her dad was when her brothers got into a food fight one time, and my grandfather went ballistic. They couldn't really figure out what the big deal was, until years later when my grandfather started telling his war stories and suddenly things made more sense.


A lot of guys had a much rougher war than my grandfather. Way more direct combat. Saw stuff much worse -- and had to DO things that were hard to live with. I think the psychological fallout of stuff like that explains the vast majority of "shell shock", without the addition of CTE-like physical head trauma. I'd wager that when the docs said Stewart's father's shell shock was a reaction to aerial bombardment, that was really just a face-saving measure to try to explain away the perceived "weakness" of his condition.

Or a Naruto style armored headband.

They appear to have only one kill mode.

If you don't know who Matthew Silver is:

"My role as a clown, trickster and village idiot is to parody excessive seriousness by playing with taboos, rules, and social norms. My inspiration comes from my heart. I perform for smiles and laughter, loosening people’s armor, and opening up a portal for imagination, creativity and love.

Some people see me as a raving lunatic, pompous “artistic” hipster, or attention-starved 9 year-old, but people don’t consciously understand the role of a clown in society. Read between the lines and you will start to see things from a different perspective. By breaking down boundaries, I provide you, the viewer, with permission to open your mind and realize it’s okay to act silly from time to time. We may trick ourselves into believing we know everything, constantly striving for perfection in a society that requires a civilized, job-holding, serious individual. We cannot be perfect. If we allow ourselves the chance to be flawed perhaps we can let the obstacles humble us, rather than make us rigid. In the end we can let our guards down to attain our most basic need of giving and receiving love."
http://www.maninwhitedress.com/?page_id=2

The data of the study came out of Germany, where the effects of a change in temperature are much more moderate than in many other areas. Basically, this decline is attributed mostly due to farming, the saturation of everything with pesticides, and, generally speaking, the destruction of the ecosphere. Even worse, this is in a country with comparably extensive regulation on all these matters, unlike, say, India.

As you say, this really is no bueno.

Driving past fields of rapeseed in the late '90s meant a windshield full of bugs. We used to head into the fields wearing yellow shirts just to see who can get the densest armor of bugs. Now, I can walk past the very same fields outside the town I grew up in with less than 5 bugs on a yellow shirt.

Or how about another anecdote: when I grew up, barbecue in my (grand-)parents yard meant paying attention to all the wasps, so that you don't swallow one by accident. I haven't seen a single one over several barbecues this year. Bees and bumblebees are still around, though less plentiful, but wasps are a complete no-show. Haven't seen a hornet in two years.

I actually agree with you mostly, but you're not gonna like it.

One thing I will point out though - "I just don't connect gun regulations as an effective solution to mass murder."

We have data on this. Take Australia. In the 21 years leading up to Port Arthur and that massacre itself, which triggered the nation into heavily regulating guns, there were 16 mass murders of four or more people, totaling 137 murders. Since then, there have been 12, with a total of 76 murders. This despite there being population growth.

Violent crime rate has dropped from 1996 to now, mainly from reductions in robbery and a small drop in homicide rates.

There is very clear evidence that if most guns are removed from circulation, there are very real and likely benefits when it comes to reducing violent crime in general and murder.

I'm a political moderate and pragmatic. I go with what works. Don't care how liberal or conservative the solution is. I'm never in favor of regulation that is ineffective at solving problems.

And to that end, I'm against most gun control measures. I'm on board with banning assault weapons, fully automatic weapons, armor piercing bullets, but most gun control things like psychiatric evaluations, universal background checks? No.
Why? Because societal models we know that provided real progress on problems seemed to suggest one thing - it's the prevalence of guns that is the problem. If you make it marginally harder to buy guns by things like...

Three day waiting periods
Universal background checks
Psychiatric evaluations

They don't work. Banning guns works, though. It's worked time and time again. Australia, Britain, over and over and over, if guns lose prevalence, violence, murder, etc. decrease significantly.

At some point, society has to decide that giving up guns is worth it. But until that time, "common sense" gun control is a waste of time, and I quite frankly think it might do real effective gun control measures harm because when nothing gets better from these mild measures, they're going to point that out.

Since the mechanization of war, armed citizens stand zero chance against a better trained, armed, and armored military. You can barely buy a rifle that might penetrate a hummer, and they are the least armored vehicles.

You forget, armed coups happen all the time without the support of the populace. See, when the military is overwhelming, no one balks at paying exorbitant taxes, at least not after a few public executions on the spot. Willing public support is definitely not required to retain power. If it were, we wouldn't have a word for tyranny or draconianism.

Ok, you got me to watch...up until he said "this time it's been a lot harder for the media to defend the far left and antifa without any fake nazis". There's so much bias in this it's lost any meaning or point it might have had. Your prodding earned it my downvote.
Happy?

EDIT: Also, his third sentence is a pure lie, the patriot prayer protest was officially canceled, no longer permitted, and those that showed up anyway were only there to attack the lefties, which they did wearing armor and swinging clubs as they rushed into the crowd, they were NEVER peaceful, they were intentionally provocative and violent so they could show us all how violent and out of control the left is with their response, and so they could get a few good licks in on some libtards. It didn't work out like they hoped, though, some of those snowflakes hit hard.

Sweet zombie Jesus, Bob. Did you even watch the video? You might note the people wearing masks, helmets and armor are all unite the right wingers, as is the one who jumps out to shoot into the crowd of non-antifa citizens (not one masked on the counter protesters side here) shouting what sounds like "just die nigger" before shooting and melting back into the right wing marchers that instantly defend him after watching him shoot into a crowd....but yeah...all this horrendous leftist violence must be stopped.
Jesus Bob.

Not that any of this is acceptable, but it's funny how your video omits the part where the armed and armored (clubs, helmets and full body pads) right wingers violently pushed into the counter protest crowd, starting the violence you now decry, and that this video edits to look one sided.

At this point, it's more than probable that nothing will get Trump reelected, but if the right is successful painting these anarchist asshats as liberals, and by extension liberals as these asshats, it could get another Trump like feculent demagogue elected.
That's why I think it's important to denounce them (antifa) at every opportunity. Fascists against fascism are still fascists, just incredibly stupid ones. They don't stand for what I think the left is about, and I certainly don't stand with them.

I agree, horrifyingly, this is apparently escalating towards gunplay. I'm not at all sure which side will shoot first. Don't fool yourself into thinking the left and the anarchists don't have guns too, though, or that totally non political citizens won't take up arms against rampaging Nazis and fascists (hopefully fascists left and right). Just something to consider when you're standing next to one hoping a gunfight breaks out.

key terms:

Defense in depth: multiple layers of anti-tank guns interwoven with mines, trenches, infantry, and artillery already registered and aimed at killing zones in front of the obstacles. No single hard crust; rather, more like the layers of an armored onion; as you peel one layer, the next one pops up.

"Pak belt": the reference term for anti-tank guns.

Commissar: the political officer who will shoot any man who retreats from their defense of the motherland.

"Shoulders": the sides of the place in the line pierced by the first plunge of the blitzkrieg that have to held by the defense in order to slow it and give the counterattack a wide open flank to punch into.

Reliability: new German tank models were rushed into battle at Kursk at Hitler's direct insistence before they had been debugged. The battle started 6 days after the last just-barely-not-a-prototype Panther had been delivered to the front. The battle began with 184 Panthers on the rolls; by day two, there were 40 operational; by day 5, there were 10 total...

https://tankandafvnews.com/2015/02/08/from-the-editor-panther-reliability/

Ironically, the decision to delay the battle by two months, giving the Soviets time to build up all of their defenses (digging trenches and anti-tank obstacles takes time)--was made to make it possible for the Panther to get to the front..

The video has a lot of jump cuts - could be an extra bar that never made it to the video...

Certainly if they did keep it, they would not have posted a video about it. That's just inviting burglars to come around. When he called the police, he should have said "send an armored car" rather than an ambulance.

I couldn't see any stamp from the video, and if each bar was that heavy it's pretty close to pure, would be hard to trace unless they could prove where the tank was around the same time something large and gold was stolen...

I'd love to see a follow up on this one.

That's why you unequip them BEFORE the battle -- or during the battle, if whatever game it is allows you to unequip as a move. I suppose if it's Aerith though, you have like special armor only for her... Actually, it's been ~20 years since I played that so I don't remember the equipment system in FF7. Materia and junk. Breeding chocobos. Quadra+Ultima+W-Magic.