I have seen it a few times, it's not bad,but it has been snuffed of all life and pleasure by Hollywood formula and fear of being original. John Carter is very much a character in the mould of Douglas Fairbanks and Errol Flynn, instead they made him yet another of the same growling, faux-angsty anti-heroes with…

It does get bothersome having to explain to the kids that Radio Gaga isn't a tribute song to the eponymous Lady, that Avril Lavigne didn't invent punk rock, or explain to Marilyn Manson fans who David Bowie and Alice Cooper are and that yes, there was a musical culture before 2005 and no it didn't suck and wasn't…

Matt Smith might work as Raistlin ...

Instead of using all those lizards in non-Harryhausen films they could have dressed up chickens in a costume ...

Hollywood accounting is about trying to pass of a hit as a bomb so that people who were promised a share of the profits get squat.

Half the people who ever lived were killed my mosquitoes carrying Malaria.

Only a few years ago most container ships were about 3-4K TEU (Twenty foot equivalent unit) with the odd bigger one. They debated two possible options either going for bigger ships which would require much more expensive twin engines or smaller, but much faster vessels with a higher turnover. But then a viable new…

Years ago my grandmother had a nasty fall with a deep gash in her leg. I grabbed our supply of sterile gauze and other stuff to stop the bleeding until the ambulance arrived. I got badly chewed out by the doctor who said that it was critical not to put anything in the injury since they had to dig it all out and it…

I'm a bit confused, she looks a lot like this Marvel

Here is my understanding of ballistics, it's one big lottery. Some people are hit by big nasty ammo and carry on as if nothing happened, some are hit by an exhausted .22 and instantly drop dead.

It's just a fancy hollowpoint with a lot of sales talk about high-end lethality, but just about every bullet on the market is being sold as being able to kill your target a lot deader than any other bullet ...

I wouldn't blame Hitler for 5). German industry and prototype design had no real adult supervision, everybody armed with a drawing board and enough chutzpah could sell a crazy project and sink lots of money into their pet project even if it had to be eventually cancelled. The Allies had review boards and issued…

Perhaps one of the biggest mistakes is how Hitler perceived things. At first he was very hands-off, making broad overall decisions and leaving the execution to his subordinates. He would set goals and more or less capable people went to work implementing these. When things did not run smoothly he had to intercede…

Franco inherited a very poor country completely ruined by years of civil war, he was still fighting rearguard actions by Republican diehards throughout the 1940's (this continued until the 1950's) Franco made everybody dance to his tune and his tune alone. He was nominally an old school Carlist, but he was mostly…

The weather in April 1941 had been very rainy and the terrain in Russia was very wet, an earlier offensive would simply have delayed by the mud. This was the view of HQ, but after the war they all blamed Mussolini and the Balkans sideshow even though only a small fraction of troops were committed there and most were…

The German navy knew that the Heer was pushing Hitler to invade and prepared documents that would sum up all their objections to crossing the Channel. The Heer considered it little more than crossing a "broad river" and in the rush after the victory over France Hitler was tempted to try, believing the navy was merely…

No, the RAF was certainly getting beaten up, but was able to more and more pilots and planes into the air in the late summer and fall of 1940. The Luftwaffe suffered a lot more and was unable to replace the lost pilots and planes. German morale was becoming extremely low. The British could afford to give their…

Yes, one suitcase under each arm and a bag or the smallest suitcase in one hand ... marching from the train station all the way to your hotel under the burning sun or slogging through the half-molten, half frozen brown snow by the side of the road. If you were lucky you could hitch a ride in an oven-like bus or leave…

I liked the idea when I first heard it, had Hermione married Harry, it would have been so obvious.

I've given up on mainstream comics, it's not worth the effort, all the retcons and pressure to make the characters "hip" mostly backfire. I just enjoy the odd book and if it nosedives or somebody takes it in the completely wrong "bold new direction" I simply drop it. I keep to mostly European comics, some manga and…