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Amentep

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Everything posted by Amentep

  1. Too much exposed skin around the sternoclavicle joint. I tell you, you have to go full on Quarian to get it to work right.
  2. It is a serious problem. I think volume (due the requirement to publish for many researchers) and speed of delivery of said volume (overwhelming people who take it on face value that some other gatekeeper would have caught something somewhere) have increasingly made the peer review system a unreliable as if no one critically reads and checks the findings being submitted, its not really being peer reviewed anymore, but will be treated as if it is.
  3. Proof that Starfleet Academy doesn't pay for itself...!
  4. You'd have to convince people to have sex with only the uninfected to eliminate STDs (and to never again have sex with livestock, because...well that happened and STDs leapt species). So I don't think its going to work totally, because if history teaches us anything its that people gonna have sex and they ain't going to check their medical history in the heat of the moment... Besides some bacteria or fungus will come along and ruin the plans. End up with something called suit rot over your body or something because, well, life finds a way.
  5. If the science is correct, the mask's protection is to lower how far out moisture in your lungs is expelled as an aerosol when you breath with some limiting effect for bigger amounts of liquid not passing the mask. You wearing a mask doesn't really help you as technically the infected moisture could get around the mask (most likely through the eyes). Therefore if Person A wears a mask and Person B does not, Person B has some limiting barrier to catching COVID from Person A, but Person A does not have the same from Person B. This is why the "if you're vaccinated you can not wear a mask" stuff is so weird, as the mask wasn't protecting you effectively, but protecting others from you and the vaccines are only ~90% effective meaning a vaccinated person could easily still be a vector for the virus. My understanding with your follow-up question, is it depends on the method of transmission of the virus or bacteria. I believe there are some that can bypass the natural barrier of your skin through the pores. Not sure if any have an ear vector or not. Theoretically if we all wore hazmat suits with independent breathing apparatus with appropriate air filtration you could theoretically I suppose eliminate most transmissible diseases from humanity; eliminating them from animal populations would be a different story, and as diseases can jump species unless humanity plans to live in their suits Quarian style...
  6. "The Weed of Crime bears Bitter Fruit!" I love the pulp heroes (Shadow, Doc Savage, The Avenger, and The Spider particularly, but I've read a few others). That said I'm not really all that surprised about the lack of knowledge of the characters. Their original runs all ended in the late 1940s or earlier (73+years ago), the lass mass market reprints ended in the late 1980s or 90s (25+ years ago) and while there have been comic adaptions, they've been lost in the glut of superhero comics in the specialty shops (it doesn't help that - at least IMO - most of these weren't very good, either). The fact that the last attempt for movies for The Shadow and Doc Savage seem to have both went to development hell means that there really hasn't been a lot of ways younger folk can find the characters. Character need to constantly have something come before the public eyes to continue being a part of the public pop culture.
  7. Ugh...that article...ugh. Not saying the film isn't worth watching as I enjoyed it (even took my parents to see it, the last film they saw in theaters), but I take issue with the article anyway. I wouldn't consider the film a satire. Not that it isn't funny, but to me the funniness is built on character and situation in the film (for example the Brooks Brothers dialogue between Cranston and Khan). "It’s written as what a child’s perception of a tough guy would be, a clever interpretation of a character originally created as a “darker” take on a costumed character that was still aimed at children." This line is almost nonsensical, but if I parse what its saying correctly, its wrong. The character wasn't originally created as 'a darker take on a costumed character that was still aimed at children', he was created because Street & Smith wanted a radio show to advertise their Detective Stories Magazine and the narrator they created proved to be popular (people showing up at the newsstand asking for that 'shadow' magazine). Note that the Shadow predates what we think of costumed superheroes (5 years before THE PHANTOM in comic strips, 7 years before SUPERMAN in comic books) and would only have literary and film antecedents of people with disguised personas (Scarlett Pimpernel, Zorro) and a few literary proto-superheroes (Hugo Danner from Wylie's GLADIATOR), with possibly the most direct antecedent being from French cinema (Judex; however I'm not sure how strong that connection really is). We can argue all day long about who the pulps were aimed at, but I wouldn't say the were particularly aimed at children; Detective Stories Magazine almost certainly wasn't; a hero pulp like The Shadow most likely was aimed at teens and young men, not kids specifically (even if kids ended up reading them). Many pulps were probably too lurid in subject matter for kids to read with their parent's knowledge. "Margo Lane ... easily sees through Baldwin’s outwards personna (sic) and uncover (sic) his secret." Because she's latently telepathic. Not saying the character isn't good or anything, but the sentence implies a savviness the character didn't have, particularly given that she's confused about what is going on for much of the film. That said Baldwin and Miller sell the connection and generally speaking the cast is great (Tim Curry, Ian McKellen, and John Lone are mentioned in the article, but Peter Boyle and Jonathan Winters (plus a number of good actors in smaller parts). "With Highlander the precision of the sword fights made sense given the film’s focus on ancient warriors, and in The Shadow it is effective given the more primitive early television stunt work the film is emulating." - Wut? Where did television ever enter into this? At worst it could be seen as emulating the work of earlier film serials (there were 4 Shadow serials) and maybe 30s Crime Drama films (2 Shadow films were made in the 30s). Not really sure where the television comes in at (early television didn't have the kind of stunt work you might see in the mid-to-late 50s and most of that is because of the studio serial production units becoming tv production units). "...the credits song “Original Sin” from Taylor Dunne surprisingly fit within the nostalgic soundtrack." It's Taylor DAYNE. Also points off to Universal for allowing the Original Sin music video to show the end of the film. But the soundtrack is good (just don't know why anyone would okay the end of the film footage for the official music video).
  8. And those who can't avoid the idiot? Like cashiers or bus drivers? Or even you when the person in question is walking up behind you or coming around a corner or other area where you can't see them to avoid them? And if they refuse to leave, instead pulling out a binder of internet research about their "rights" to enter a private business without a mask...what are the employee's going to do? Call the cops. And the cops with guns will come and take the maskless person away. Which you say is bad. I'm sure your response is that "well at that point they're trespassing when they refuse to leave and that's okay" but they're only trespassing because they aren't following the mask mandate, which seems to be a rather fine distinction to make between okay/not okay to me...
  9. But...the masks weren't to stop the wearer from getting sick, it was to prevent the wearer from making everyone else sick. So not wearing a mask in public had a much bigger responsibility on the individual beyond their mask wearer's own health. Do you think the individuals right to not wear a mask trumps the rights of those who come involuntarily into that person's presence to not get sick?
  10. New thread
  11. Old thread - Previous posts:
  12. The rule was, as I understood it, if you tried to change the past you created a branch in the timeline rather than changing the past. That's why the Ancient One was loathe to give Banner the time stone until they promised to clean up the nodes, and they didn't stop the snap but reset it. ...and then Cap had to have his 'me' time...
  13. I'd forgotten about the wardrobe change. I really need to watch the whole film again - its been a few years...!
  14. But why does Rawhide show up in the end credits...?
  15. That'll be fine until the Air Force One crash lands there during a hijacking. "Ayy! Number Onnee! You're the Duke! You're the Duke!"
  16. Isn't taking a date to your vaccination a bit unusual...?
  17. Based on a novel by Kenji Miyazawa, the book, ostensibly a children's book, deals heavily with the idea of those who sacrifice for others. Miyazawa started writing the book shortly after the death of his sister and continued to revise it at least through the start of his own illness. It wasn't actually complete (the middle section is missing parts) and was posthumously published in 1934. Because its a seminal work of fiction, its influence shows up in a lot of other Japanese fiction, most strongly perhaps in Matsumoto's Galaxy Express 999. Not sure why the Anime re-envisioned Giovanni and Campanella as cats though.
  18. Most modern US films use some CGI, even if its just to eliminate things from the image that shouldn't be there (excepting maybe the most micro-budgeted of independents). I think the problem can come when the CGI starts to do all the heavy lifting of the film - acting, visual narrative, action etc. There's something positive to the use of practical effects, in camera images and physical sets that perhaps is lost when your actors, your set and everything else is generated from heavily processed mo-cap and/or out and out in computer creation.
  19. Eh, CGI is a tool, neither good or bad. It can be used badly, though, and I think sometimes, to paraphrase Jurassic Park, the filmmakers were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should I saw Black Widow. it was okay, but the H2H combat was about what you get from the other Marvel films, IMO. The strength of the film is really Johansson-Harbor-Pugh-Weiss and their character interplay. But Ray Winstone's Russian accent was all over the place (possibly a product of reshoots).
  20. Generally speaking, some leeway has been provided in political/topical news to provide context to current events that made be of national or international interest. A man and woman having a bloody and protracted fight in an elevator was determined to not meet that standard. That said, we are human and as the moderator team changes so too will the views of the moderator team, but no human is perfect. If you wish to object to how the moderator team reviewed the now removed post, please contact @Fionavar.
  21. They could haunt the land the house stood on. Or worse, it could free them to travel wherever they like!
  22. What if the ghost was of an introverted person with OCD and they spent their time trying to not be noticed while they organized your pantry?
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