I think that’s a Thiel thing. Tolkein was was one of his obsessions growing up. It doesn’t surprise me that he saw a plot device intended to be a warning as a really cool idea…

As I understand it, the head of Dreamworks at the time used to work at Disney, but had a falling out with the animation chief there and based the entire Farquaad character, and name, on him. Professional level pettiness.

Corned beef? What in Gods name would that be doing in a Full English? A proper Full English is served scalding hot on a plate that’s nearly glowing red. The egg is fried and has brown crispy bits, the bacon fat is browned but the meat is tender and the sausages are anything between brown and dark brown. The beans, well, if you aren’t mad you ask for it without those because they’re disgusting. The bread should be either toasted & buttered or fried in the bacon fat. Deranged people will add HP sauce or, heaven forbid, tomato ketchup, but it is best to offer such people pity and support in the hope that they will one day recover.

That sounds like an XOR pointer, which did used to be a standard feature in Windows. There were patents on it and xorg were threatened with legal action by the patent holder, so I don’t think it was ever added to X. Those patents have probably expired now, so it may be possible to do.

Caol Isla is my favourite - the best of the Island whisky, in my opinion. If you like it, I’d recommend trying Talisker and Bowmore. If you enjoy the peat notes, Laphroaig is the daddy.

Sure it does, but most countries see the US as an ally and a valuable trading partner.

Countries outside the US don’t see it as an enemy, but as a wealthy partner. Having that partner suddenly go insane and lashing out at its friends due to a malignant brain tumour is sad to see. They might well support surgery to remove the tumour in the hope that their former partner can one day recover.

It’s a bit complicated, both because some studies just asked people if they are ‘natural redheads’ and didn’t actually test whether they have the MCR1 mutation and because it depends on the mechanism of action of the drug. Some sedatives are less effective, so need higher doses, but the majority of opioid based pain control drugs require lower doses in redheads.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/study-finds-link-between-red-hair-pain-threshold

Redheads need a lower opioid dose than the general population to achieve the same effect. At least those who are redheads because of a mutation in their MCR1 gene, which is about 75%, IIRC. Interestingly, the same mutation group also have worse tolerance of cold, which seems odd given that scotland is the global redhead centre!

I can’t offer any comparison between the Us and the UK, but I have some experience of having a neurodivergent child in the UK. We live in the NE of England, an area which is on average pretty deprived by UK standards*, however the support from the primary and secondary state schools we have used has been exceptional, with additional staffing as required and sensitive adaptions to needs throughout. There was some bullying at one point in primary school, but that was dealt with promptly and effectively and strategies were put in place to avoid social isolation - things it would never have occurred to me to do. The support for LGBTQ kids in secondary has also been pleasantly surprising - to the point that those who try to pick on trans kids find themselves becoming persona non grata pretty quickly.

There are some pretty huge cultural differences between the UK and the US, as you will know, and I suspect adjusting to those are going to be the primary problem in the move, rather than the support for a neurodivergent or SEN child.

*I feel like I should stand up for my adopted North-East; whilst it’s true that there are deprived areas, the NE is a beautiful place, the people are friendly and welcoming and the cost of living is low compared to many areas. The accents are proper canny too!

I think that it’s implicit that the volume of Godzilla would increase; we need to assume that the bounding layer has a degree of elasticity and that that the matter displaced by the flotation cavity will expand into that, reducing the net density.

Mighty Godzilla, with power untold

Rises through the waves; his powers unfold

Hidden muscles in clever design

Create a new chamber as they realign

Inflating his body, a titanic display

Defying the depths, he floats up and away

No long bound by the oceans’s might

Godzilla soars, a triumphant sight!

Yeah, it’s been pretty universal in the UK for at least the last couple of years. Not sure where this idea came from.

You are right that you need to dehumidify a large volume of air (like, more than 150 cubic metres) to get enough water for a person, in a rationing scenario. That isn’t necessarily a huge problem; fans can move large volumes of air quite efficiently and dehumidifiers work more efficiently at higher temperatures, but your main point that it isn’t scalable on a population level is definitely true - it’s something you can do for off grid or survival situations, but not easily for domestic water supply.

That’s 17g or 17cc per cubic metre, not 17 litres!

In dry countries the relative humidity can be low - sub 40% is common. That said, the absolute water carrying capacity increases rapidly with temperature, so at 40C, the saturation mass is more like 50g/m3 and at 40%RH it still carries more water than 100%RH air at 20C.