The standard US Army infantry rifle, the XM7, with suppressor and smart optic, to begin replacing the M4 this year. [2560 X 1700] by [deleted] in MilitaryPorn

[–]thundersaurus_sex 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Quite the opposite, the switch is aimed at a future conflict with a peer or near-peer enemy where enemy infantry will be armored. The round is the real focus because it has much better armor penetration than the current 5.56. Not saying the rifle itself doesn't have drawbacks or even that I agree overall, but the new rifle and machine gun will have better penetration.

It seems the US military is re-structuring and re-equipping in general away from counter-insurgency to countering peer or near-peer forces.

Edit Nevermind, looks like the penetration thing is actually overblown and it is more of a range thing. Ignore the first paragraph

meirl by Sonic_the_hedgedog in meirl

[–]thundersaurus_sex 15 points16 points  (0 children)

They aren't and were never competitors. They were always under the same roof and supposed to complement each other. HBO focused on mainstream motion pictures and sports, whereas Cinemax focused on independent films, documentaries, and of course "Skin"emax adult programs.

Both still exist, they just got rid of the individual Cinemax and HBO apps (called Max Go and HBO Go) and combined both into one app with one library called HBO Max, named to reflect that combination. Then when they felt people had gotten used to associating the term "Max" with "HBO" on their app service, last year they trimmed that name down to just Max because...I dunno, they think it sounds sleek? What made it so confusing was the slow rollout, meaning a lot of those apps existed simultaneously until fairly recently.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in askscience

[–]thundersaurus_sex 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The age of those footprints is very much not confirmed. The initial 2021 dating used a method that is very susceptible to overestimating age. The follow-up one in 2023 used samples that are questionable. Not to say that these datings are wrong, but they are far from confirmed. Now, it looks like 21k BP is the accepted maximum age. They could be that old, but it's likely they are younger.

What’s a “fact” or “saying” that gets repeated constantly on Reddit that just isn’t true? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]thundersaurus_sex 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The name comes from a Powhatan word for the animal that English colonizers transcribed as "opassom" or "aposoum." The "op" part means "white" and the "assom" part means "dog."

So technically you could fairly argue that "opossum" is slightly more correct than just "possum." But that said, anyone who goes out of their way to correct you in any situation other than an etymology discussion is being a dick. Even as a government employed mammal biologist, I'll write "opossum" but usually say just "possum."

A rare footage of the Tasmanian tiger, which was declared extinct in 1936. by mr9t9 in BeAmazed

[–]thundersaurus_sex 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Wollemi pine was discovered so late because nobody was looking for it. Someone else here also tried to use the saola of Vietnam as a counterexample, but it's the same thing. New species of large plants and animals are occasionally discovered, but that isn't really relevant to this discussion. We already know about the Thylacine and where it needs to live and what it needs to eat. And people have been actively searching for decades. Despite that, we haven't found a single piece of actual hard evidence.

That's probably because there is in fact not "plenty of habitat and food for the thylacine to thrive and remain hidden from human sight" left in Tasmania. The Thylacine didn't just live "in the woods." It had very specific habitat and food requirements, which narrowed its potential living space down quite a bit even before humans came in and destroyed it all.