|
Slime posted:The same way a bunch of genetic diseases haven't evolved out of the species. Common mutations, recessive genes, the disease being down to a combination of issues that would only rarely happen etc etc. Yes, stuff that is obviously harmful but does not play into the grand scheme of evolution. In nature, the ones born with that stuff just get eaten and die early, and only the positive genetic straits survive. We just don't observe that because they simply do not survive to adult age. For example in nature, becoming a blonde or red-head (or any other color variation) is usually harmful, because it also fucks your ability to blend into the background and hide.
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2018 20:12
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 26, 2024 21:03 |
|
|
The_White_Crane posted:I'm sorry, what? How the gently caress did that not evolve out of the species? It would have if people would just let their mutant babies die, but alas
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2018 20:52
|
|
|
Slime posted:recessive genes This is almost certainly the answer.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2018 01:36
|
|
|
PMush Perfect posted:This is almost certainly the answer. Ok Liquid. Whatever you say.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2018 04:36
|
|
|
Der Kyhe posted:Yes, stuff that is obviously harmful but does not play into the grand scheme of evolution. In nature, the ones born with that stuff just get eaten and die early, and only the positive genetic straits survive. We just don't observe that because they simply do not survive to adult age. Just wear hats, duh
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2018 04:46
|
|
|
bunnyofdoom posted:Ok Liquid. Whatever you say. Wait, was everythhing Liquid did motivated by the fact that he couldn’t eat cheese without having diarrhea later? EDIT: Oh, that’s why he called himself that.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2018 05:17
|
|
|
Solid Snake's fiber intake is kinda hosed up.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2018 05:20
|
|
|
royalnavy.txt from Massie's "Dreadnought" 
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2018 05:36
|
|
|
C.M. Kruger posted:royalnavy.txt from Massie's "Dreadnought"  the commander enameling the entire ship lol
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2018 06:57
|
|
|
C.M. Kruger posted:royalnavy.txt from Massie's "Dreadnought" how did they win everything
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2018 09:45
|
|
|
Having a fuckload more ships that weren't on full 'impress the royals' duty all the time, probably.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2018 09:47
|
|
|
Trauma Dog 3000 posted:how did they win everything Moral Fibre. Also to be fair, a lot of the British empire-building wasn't really about wars fought against other great powers on a similar technological level, it was more about invading places where the height of industry was a water-powered mill and murdering everyone until they signed bits of paper to make us stop. I like the shortest war in history, the Anglo-Zanzibar war. It was approximately 40 minutes of a single Royal Navy destroyer shelling a (mostly wooden) palace full of civilians. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2018 10:32
|
|
|
It’s not like there were other navies just as well equipped but more battle‐hardened.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2018 10:35
|
|
|
"Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash." and also apparently enamel.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2018 21:48
|
|
|
C.M. Kruger posted:royalnavy.txt from Massie's "Dreadnought" Fully polished guns glistening in the sun. Forevereal pointlessly polishing and loving it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2018 09:34
|
|
|
Navies have been known to rub things
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2018 09:39
|
|
|
Rub and rum https://twitter.com/NavalAuthor/status/955063203465179138
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2018 09:55
|
|
|
verbal enema posted:Navies have been known to rub things Seamen makes a mess when the gun discharges. Platystemon has a new favorite as of 10:42 on Jan 23, 2018 |
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2018 10:07
|
|
|
So my mom has been doing a bunch of family tree research lately, and it turns out we're direct descendents of Isaac Allerton, one of the 41 signers of the Mayflower Compact, and an important figure in not only Plymoth Colony but also New Amsterdam and New Haven as well(although admittedly his notoriety wasn't quite entirely for positive reasons) Which is kinda surprising as I had before this point assumed my mother's side of the family didn't have anyone of note in them(while on my father's side I have a silent film era actor and director as a great grandfather, and I'm supposedly related to the Marx Brothers, although I'd have to ask my grandmother exactly what our degree of relationship was, also apparently her family's farm was one of the only one's not to be burned down or sacked by General Sherman during the later parts of the Civil War)
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2018 10:32
|
|
|
verbal enema posted:Navies have been known to rub things yeah I suppose it's one way to keep the men off of each other
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2018 07:26
|
|
|
It's why I find submarine launches so romantic. 100 men go down, 50 couples come up.
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2018 22:37
|
|
|
One big disadvantage with the flamethrower is that it requires the wielder to strap on a big fuel tank which can easily be ignited by the enemy. During WWII the russians tried to solve this by camouflaging the flamethrower as a backpack and a rifle:
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2018 17:55
|
|
|
That's actually pretty clever. In the heat of combat, I wouldn't exactly be double taking at each gun the bad guys had making sure it wasn't a different kind of horrible killing machine.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2018 21:19
|
|
|
PMush Perfect posted:That's actually pretty clever. In the heat of combat, I wouldn't exactly be double taking at each gun the bad guys had making sure it wasn't a different kind of horrible killing machine. The flamethrower is still gonna stand out though. You know. Because it’s throwing flame.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2018 21:31
|
|
|
Ugly In The Morning posted:The flamethrower is still gonna stand out though.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2018 21:39
|
|
|
Nessus posted:I expect the purpose is to make it more likely that Ivan Flammenwerfer can make it to the bunker without being sniped because he's apparently Generic Rifleman #7, not Flamer Attachment #1. Yea that seems the likely purpose also it should be Ваня огнемет (pron. Vanya Ogniemet) 
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2018 22:20
|
|
|
PMush Perfect posted:That's actually pretty clever. Certainly more clever than painting your horse black and white and pretend that it's a zebra.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2018 00:00
|
|
|
Krankenstyle posted:Yea that seems the likely purpose That is the purpose, actually. One of the problems with flamethrowers is that you tend to be carrying around a can of heavily flammable and probably at least slightly explosive crap around on your back. That makes you a gigantic target as if you can make the flamethrower guy's tank explode you can kill his whole squad. Guess who tended to get shot at first? If you could hit that guy's fluid tank you could possibly make it blow up. If nothing else you wanted very badly for him to not get close to you so he got shot at first. The response was to make his gear look as much like everybody else's as possible. Up close it would be pretty obvious but at a distance it'd be hard to tell, especially at a glance. Consider that war tends to be very dirty and smoky. Plus it'd be harder still to see that at night and not all fighting happened cleanly during the light of day.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2018 00:41
|
|
|
Here's me thinking exploding flamethrowers was just a fiction thing,.goddamn. Youll be telling me red explosive barrels are just lying about next.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2018 00:55
|
|
|
ToxicSlurpee posted:That is the purpose, actually. One of the problems with flamethrowers is that you tend to be carrying around a can of heavily flammable and probably at least slightly explosive crap around on your back. That makes you a gigantic target as if you can make the flamethrower guy's tank explode you can kill his whole squad. Guess who tended to get shot at first? If you could hit that guy's fluid tank you could possibly make it blow up. If nothing else you wanted very badly for him to not get close to you so he got shot at first. Welp I was literally just kidding. I thought they were camouflaging the flamethrowers as busywork to poo poo on ol' Stalin.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2018 00:58
|
|
|
Krankenstyle posted:Welp I was literally just kidding. I thought they were camouflaging the flamethrowers as busywork to poo poo on ol' Stalin. Nope. Joke or not you were totally 100% correct. That was literally the purpose of making the flamethrower not look like one. That guy got shot first. Granted there's also another practical side of it; if the flamethrower guy gets shot first nobody wants to be him so find out a way for him to not get shot first.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2018 01:35
|
|
|
I was literally kidding though lol --- Why else would they camouflage it? In other historical news, I've been looking through royal decrees regarding an area one of my ancestors came from and I came across one that said "2 farmers of Cronborg district namely [blah blah], may be reimbursed for two horses that were rammed to death by a deer" (May 22, 1724)  Guess the king was in a generous mood
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2018 02:17
|
|
|
Krankenstyle posted:I was literally kidding though lol --- Why else would they camouflage it? It’s the king’s deer, innit?
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2018 04:05
|
|
|
Platystemon posted:It’s the king’s deer, innit? Yeah, true. All deer were the king's and the trees in the forests too. Still, he could've just said whatever to those two dudes, not like anyone could come and overrule him.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2018 04:12
|
|
|
Krankenstyle posted:Yeah, true. All deer were the king's and the trees in the forests too. Still, he could've just said whatever to those two dudes, not like anyone could come and overrule him. "Your horses shall be cut in two, so you both shall have two halves of dead horses."
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2018 04:22
|
|
|
Solice Kirsk posted:"Your horses shall be cut in two, so you both shall have two halves of dead horses." Oh no doubt they ate them already (or sold what they couldn't eat in time), this was a reimbursement deal... probably took at least 2 weeks to get a royal decree back, if you even got a reply at all.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2018 04:26
|
|
|
Video game flamethrowers tend to suck compared to the real life ones too, given they were basically hoses that spewed burning, sticky chemicals. Though apparently they were usually more useful for denying ground and destroying equipment than actual combat. And generally it's a measure of practicality that the king would reimburse people for a stag killing horses, I'd bet, otherwise people would take things into their own hands with poaching.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2018 04:30
|
|
|
I'm sure there was a "balance". I noticed in other places that so-and-so was behind in taxes and was forgiven for those, or what have you. That's not to say that it was excellent to live under a king, I guess it just makes it that more interesting to me to find those specific points where the king was like "alright, fine" about a literal life-and-death situation. I have notices of poaching too somewhere, that I discovered earlier.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2018 04:45
|
|
|
Inescapable Duck posted:Video game flamethrowers tend to suck compared to the real life ones too, given they were basically hoses that spewed burning, sticky chemicals. Though apparently they were usually more useful for denying ground and destroying equipment than actual combat.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2018 05:02
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 26, 2024 21:03 |
|
|
They're also fantastic for burning down plants or heavy foliage which led to use in Vietnam. Now that use is used for civvy purposes for stuff like controlled burns and what have you. In WW2 they were used a lot for cracking open hardened positions. It's easy to convince people to leave a bunker if you fill it with fire, smoke, and a lack of oxygen.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2018 05:04
|
|