Yama

Very cool. Apparently that 1988 RC-135 sighting was not the first of its kind. All kinds of weird lights have been seen associated with missile testings, most commonly rocket fuel clouds which can be spectacular but not mysterious in nature. This is said to be photograph of 'dome of light' phenomena but I dunno, seems to me that it might be just another rocket fuel cloud?'Dome of light' was reported to be quite quick, while rocket fuel clouds stay visible for some time. On related subject, there was mention of 1984 Pacific mystery explosion. Did some quick digging and th

I think it dropped to zero at some point as Archer was late and old towed 155mm arty was retired after shells ran out of shelf life. Well, there were still mortars but...

There is also a hypothesis, particularly promoted by Jehova's Witnesses that instead of cross, Romans used a simple stake. In practice all kind of constructions seem to have been used.

Even if Caiaphas was involved in crucification of Jesus, seems unlikely he would keep the nails as some kind of trophy or memento. If any nails were taken, it would have been by Josephus and his helpers. I have understood that the crosses were used in multiple executions so the cross was probably left there and used again.

And in Syria, 90% of the 'target destroyed' videos came from the side which lost the war...

Their current count of 160 tanks includes all of 4 damaged tanks. Supposedly rest are total losses. According to Wikipedia, Artsakh Army had 187 T-72's before the war. So we are to believe they have been almost all lost, or alternative Armenians have supplied them massively from their much smaller tank fleet...

I think those numbers are rather massively inflated. I think there is no way Armenian side has lost 157 tanks and 58 MLRS's - they probably don't even HAVE that many. Reminds me of claim how USAF claimed 900+ Iraqi tanks destroyed by 'tank plinking' sorties during Desert Storm. It was based on video evidence on tanks hit and no tank can survive a 1000lb LGB so it must have been accurate, right?? Well, once they got to study the target area, actual number turned out about 1/3 of those claimed - still substantial, mind you, but they found out many tanks had been more than once as already de

Yea it's really sad what happened to Lloyd particularly. Apparently he nowadays thinks Star Wars ruined his life It was a mistake from Lucas to write Anakin as a preteen kid for the Phantom Menace, in more than one way. On the subject of Disney princesses: Marge Champion (née Belcher) "the real Snow White" passed away couple of days ago at the age of 101. She was picked at age of 14 from the lineup of ~300 girls to work as live reference model for characters of Snow White & Seven Dwarves, mostly Snow White herself. She was the last surviving person to have worked on the g

Yes true, Andals are essentially English, though other ethnicities are based on different Europeans (Ironborn are Scandinavian, Dornese something Mediterranean etc). Any way, the above was sort of my point, I don't think Raya is meant to pander to Chinese audiences any more than say, Moana. If they wanted to do that, they would have just picked up another story from Chinese legends and visually the setting doesn't look very Chinese.

Well there's always Dardanelles. But if we're limiting ourselves to WW2...was Dodecanese his idea?

Pretty much. It's easy to spot foreigners in wintertime as they're the ones wearing colourful clothing. Finns, especially men, nearly always wear black or gray or dark green, truly adventurous might sometimes wear dark blue. And it's true for interiors too, your modern Nordic home is 90% white with some black or gray, it looks like an operating room of a major hospital. In stand-alone houses you might see wood paneling, that's the most colourful you're going to get. Also especially in Finland, house exteriors are often very drab and muted, even compared to Sweden. Being 'filthy rich' - th

It has been also argued that the Balkans campaign actually helped Germany to cover Barbarossa, as Stalin did not believe Germany would be ready for another huge offensive so quickly after major involvment in the Balkans. Whatever may be said about German intervention in Greece, it is also true that British intervention in the Greek campaign was not the best idea ever.

Well, there's tons of fantasy settings with 'generic European' look (Westeros, for starters), doesn't look like anyone sees it as a problem.

What you need is a network of systems which can maintain high readiness as a whole. Having a singular system, no matter how modern and deadly it is, does little alone as it can't maintain its readiness 24/7, needs to be maintained, moved around, crew needs to eat, sleep etc. You need a layered network where information moves quickly laterally and systems are covering each other so even if they are offline they aren't instantly vulnerable.

I don't think Vietnamese/Filipino/etc influences are catered much towards the PRC as such. More like generic Asian, surely nothing wrong with that. Live-action Mulan where she was made into 'cool martial arts kid' (which the original Mulan wasn't) is another thing altogether. Opening scene is clearly a training set-up from her childhood, probably made by her father or teacher. She looks more or less adult in later scene (also her pet has grown to like 50 times larger). I agree that the plot outline at this point seems quite cookie-cutter, but how the movie works rests on the characte