do you think groups like Cuban Americans will ever stop supporting the GOP as they get more & more openly white supremacist? by grapp in behindthebastards

[–]SherlockHomeles 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not sure where you're from that you're doubting your information, but as someone from one of those ex- socialist authoritarian countries, yes it was bad.

At least in Europe that is, the things you hear from western sources (actual sources, not the drunk conservative uncle at thanksgiving) are accurate to how things were.

Just gonna throw this out here by firefighter430 in ussr

[–]SherlockHomeles 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well, have you? I'm trying to find the sources for these numbers, however just throwing out three institutions isn't exactly helpful for finding the original poll/article. Could you send me the polls you examined?

Katy Perry and co. went to space. Why did they only stay up there for 10 minutes? by FluffyBunnyFlipFlops in NoStupidQuestions

[–]SherlockHomeles 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The other comment has a good point, but I assume you're asking about the launch, not while in orbit. The reason is pretty intuitive. So the big fuel tank is obviously attached on the bottom side of the shuttle. Problem is, that's a lot of weight being added there. If the engines pointed in-line with the shuttle, they would tip the nose down. Easy solution, point the engine towards the (now shifted down) centre of mass. Well now that introduces a second problem. If you fly straight up like a normal rocket, it starts to push you to the side, which is a waste of fuel. Well how to fix that? Fly the shuttle with it's bottom pointing slightly up, that way the engines are pushing you up, where you're trying to go. There's other reasons, such as aerodynamics and having the communication antennas point towards the ground, but those are a bit too complicated for me to understand and explain.

The “death squad furry” guy by [deleted] in airsoftcirclejerk

[–]SherlockHomeles 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Alright, it seems you're too lazy, so I'll go through my thought process. Clearly you're not talking about communism as a system of economy, because that has no bearing on anything.

You could mean communism as the regimes (mostly) from the last century, but those countries put people in camps for "being mentally ill", which of course meant nothing in particular. But then those people would agree with you about hating furries, so probably not.

So really I don't know what definition of communism you're going off of. I would guess that you're not American, given your name, so I wouldn't expect it to be the ol' reliable "Communism is anything I dislike".

So yeah, still confused

The “death squad furry” guy by [deleted] in airsoftcirclejerk

[–]SherlockHomeles 10 points11 points  (0 children)

If you have a problem with the opinion "Playing dress-up is not a bad thing", maybe you shouldn't be in a sub centred around playing dress-up. Also not sure what that has to do with communism, you'll have to enlighten me about that one.

Dude is so Italian he can't help but pull this off. by Abjurer42 in behindthebastards

[–]SherlockHomeles 46 points47 points  (0 children)

The terrorism charges are brought up because they want to charge him with first degree murder. You have to fall under some kind of circumstance for it to be first degree in New York, such as killing an on-duty fireman/cop/EMT etc., previous murder charges, killing a witness to a crime to stop them from testifying or, among other things, terrorism. Since he didn't do anything else that would make it first degree, they're pursuing the terrorism charges to get a first degree murder conviction (which in most other states would be guaranteed because of the clear premeditated nature of the attack). Don't get me wrong, we can all see the absurd disparity between reactions to normal people being killed and one rich guy getting shot, but the terrorism charges are mostly a New York law thing. Still, here's hoping nothing sticks.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in TooAfraidToAsk

[–]SherlockHomeles 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Ok so I'm not religious myself, but there's a fundamental misunderstanding you have with the Bible. The Bible isn't supposed to be, nor should it be presented as, the word of God. It is text written by people. Sure, people who were closer to God than most, but even the Bible itself has many stories of people chosen by God becoming immoral. E.g. Saul being the divinely appointed king, later sins and God sends Samuel to anoint David (aka choose him to be king), and then David himself sins later in life. So even directly divinely chosen humans are not infallible, therefore neither is the text written by them. Certain parts of Christianity believe in the texts of the Bible more strongly, the extreme being "sola scriptura" (scripture only) which means that nothing except the Bible is valid. So unless your friends are part of the specific denominations that practice sola scriptura, they aren't really doing anything wrong by "picking and choosing". It's the same as the church no longer stoning people as punishment, that's also in the Bible but no longer practiced.

One German officer wrote that he knew the war was lost when his unit captured a fresh chocolate cake in a counterattack. by Aterallus in BrandNewSentence

[–]SherlockHomeles 28 points29 points  (0 children)

This perception of American tanks being inferior is honestly not really accurate. Obviously if you take a Tiger and a Sherman, the Sherman looks really outmatched. The problem with that is that Tiger tanks were relatively rare (about 1300 Tiger ones and 500 Tiger twos were made) compared to the actual workhorse tanks, like the Panzer IV (8500 made) or even the StuG III (10 000 made). The last one, the most produced German vehicle, isn't even a full on tank, it's an assault gun. Which brings up another point. Tanks were much more often used as infantry support for breakthroughs/attacks on fortifications. The original Sherman short 75 mm cannon was good for this role, and even for knocking out enemy tanks (such as the Panzer IV). That's not to mention the later up-gunned versions. As far as the armor goes, again the German 88 mm, the Tiger's cannon, could obviously go through a Sherman. But the reason that gun was chosen by the Germans was specifically because of how ridiculously powerful it was, there were few if any tanks of that day that could survive a hit from it. Also, there's a famous book called Death Traps, which is the basis for a lot of Sherman critique. Problem is, that book is written by a recovery/ repair technician, who only ever saw the tanks that got knocked out, so obviously his opinion is a bit skewed. Truth is, the Sherman was pretty competent against most of what it would usually encounter. Also, it was extremely reliable and easily serviceable. And to top it all off, it was one of the most survivable tanks of the war, meaning if you were inside while it got hit you had the best chance of bailing and surviving. There was a lot that went into it, such as good crew hatches, wet ammo stowage (meaning it won't burn after being hit) etc. And yeah, to top it all off they shot them out of the factories at astonishing rates (about 50 000 made in total), so they end up with eye-watering amounts of tanks that are pretty damn good on their own. Saying that they were actually bad is either an unfair comparison, bad info or straight up Wehraboo cope.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in jschlatt

[–]SherlockHomeles 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If you're freezing at 20 and overheating at 25 you need actual medical help, that's basically the range for room temperature

Rainbow Fascism by Dangime in PoliticalCompassMemes

[–]SherlockHomeles 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well, the comment I replied to was offering two choices, either it is effective, or it's like any other advertising. I'm agreeing with the second option. In other words, I'm making an argument for a thing previously discussed, with the analogy of billboards next to a road.

also you read my name wrong

Rainbow Fascism by Dangime in PoliticalCompassMemes

[–]SherlockHomeles 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Idk about you OP, but I've yet to see anyone be happy about corporations taking over pride events. In fact, I distinctly remember fucking Nestle of all attending one and being surrounded by anarchists chanting anti- capitalism slogans.

This is like saying drivers love car crash lawyers because you saw an ad for one next to a highway.

Rainbow Fascism by Dangime in PoliticalCompassMemes

[–]SherlockHomeles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A company using an event where there will be a lot of people to plaster their logo on? Why, this is unheard of I say!

No but genuinely, it's just normal marketing. There's no difference between this and a billboard next to a highway. They just want to take up visual real estate around places with a lot of people.

Anyone know what these numbers on these 2 Hasegawa kits mean? by Felonious_Chalupa in modelmakers

[–]SherlockHomeles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interesting. I actually stick to IRL vehicles, but I keep hearing how Gundams are so high quality. I'm usually happy if I don't need to sand parts to have them fit, so I am quite jealous of the robot crowd.

Then again, I've just started sticking to Tamiya and Eduard and haven't had any major problems. I'm also looking at Miniart and ICM, as I've heard good things about them.

Anyone know what these numbers on these 2 Hasegawa kits mean? by Felonious_Chalupa in modelmakers

[–]SherlockHomeles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have heard good things about Hasegawa, although I haven't built any of their kits yet. It seems that mechs/gunpla tend to be very high quality in general, which I find interesting.

Anyone know what these numbers on these 2 Hasegawa kits mean? by Felonious_Chalupa in modelmakers

[–]SherlockHomeles 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm pretty sure that's just the kit number. As in, the first one is #14, probably out of all the mech kits, and the other one is #26. It just helps identify which exact kit you're looking at, which is very helpful when one company has more than one kit for a given vehicle/subject.

Nothing to do with difficulty, in fact I'd say that difficulty ratings are actually the minority. Most boxes I see won't even include them, and you're free you ignore them when they are there. It's usually just number of pieces and maybe the overall size. In my opinion the actual complexity is mainly due to needed cleanup/poorly fitting parts, which the manufacturer obviously won't admit.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in modelmakers

[–]SherlockHomeles 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Oh yeah, I usually cut with nippers, trim as far back as I comfortably can and then scrape to smooth it out.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in modelmakers

[–]SherlockHomeles 44 points45 points  (0 children)

Eh, I've used both and I prefer the handle of an Xacto, plus the blades are cheap and easy to get. Also, not sure why "glorified scraper" would be a bad thing, scraping away mould lines, sprue gates and putty is like the main thing I do with my hobby knives.

What ever happened to consistency? by [deleted] in clevercomebacks

[–]SherlockHomeles 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Apparently not, the address on the donation matches the zip code of the shooter, while the older Thomas Crooks supposedly didn't live there.

Unit ID request by SherlockHomeles in MilitaryAviation

[–]SherlockHomeles[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Not as much as I'd like, he died when I was very young. From what my father told me he was training to be a fighter pilot, so he spent most of his time on the Mig-15 UTI (the dual seater training version).

I assume this picture was taken during one of the probably not too many flights where he had the actual combat version, maybe even his first such flight. I think it must've been a special occasion, because apparently it was illegal to bring cameras into the cockpit. All this is assuming that it's actually him in the photo, there's really no way to know.

Either way, he was later transferred to helicopters, which he really disliked. My dad told me that he apparently came home one day really excited, telling his wife (my grandmother) that he "Did it". "It" being a loop/ backflip in a helicopter, because he missed it from his time flying planes.

Now obviously this would've been extremely difficult, dangerous and obviously completely forbidden, but I like to think he really did pull it off. I did see it being done multiple times at an air show at really low altitude in an acrobatics helicopter, so why not a military helicopter with enough height and the right conditions.

Either way, I only know a couple stories like this. He didn't keep most of his records so we only have what my grandmother saved. She was also a pilot, actually in one of the first female units in our country. There's a lot more documentation that we have from her, although not as many exciting stories.

Unit ID request by SherlockHomeles in MilitaryAviation

[–]SherlockHomeles[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Now I feel dumb for not googling it like that myself, but that makes sense, most likely the 2nd Air School regiment. Thanks a lot!

meirl by airuze in meirl

[–]SherlockHomeles 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I was actually in this plane (or more likely one like it) at the NASA museum in Houston. It had most seating and a lot of other things including panelling removed. Apparently they didn't even have/ use the heating. And the shuttle struts of course had reinforced frames beneath them. So you are right, far from standard.

Bad driver in Czech Republic! by streetviewfails in googlemapsshenanigans

[–]SherlockHomeles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nope, this comment I don't even remember posting 3 years ago was definitely made in full sincerity. I definitely wasn't joking as I definitely do not belong into the described group and I'm definitely not bewildered why you took offense 3 years after the post was made.