You would be shocked at the number of “Irish”-Americans who believe the IRA are good guys.

No troubles, mate.

Oh, God. Freeze Peach has reached the UK.

For the first problem, you use thicker grades of plastic. If you tried to tear one of these plastic milk bags by hand you’d be … well … it’s hard, just trust me. (Hell, they’re even marginally knife-resistant. Don’t ask me how I found out.)

For the second problem there are special holders custom shaped to put the bags in. Maybe a picture will help.

Wait until you find out that craft beer in China is sold in bags too.

Yeah, pretty much.

I’m not sure where the difficulty lies.

You take milk. You take a plastic bag. You put the milk into the plastic bag.

(I’m not being sarcastic here, I’m genuinely flummoxed at where the conceptual problem is.)

Most things get denser as they get colder. Water is one of the major and most important exceptions to this. Water is at its densest (without invoking the various exotic ice forms) at 4°C. It gets lighter as it gets colder.

Without this property there could have been no life in Earth. If water acted like almost all (perhaps all?) other liquids, its solid form would be denser than its liquid form and ice would sink to the bottom, meaning all bodies of water would freeze solid bottom to top in cold weather. The fact that water freezes only at the top is why life could form and why non-aqueous liquids are unlikely to allow life to form.

When I had lots of money I preferred giving, partially because it made me feel good, but partially because often gifts I received were just not very well thought-out. (“I noticed you have a lot of RPGs, so I got you this new D&D module.” Never mind that the one RPG I don’t have is D&D in any flavour… That sort of thing.)

When I have less money (like now) … I still prefer giving, but only marginally.

Relating to other people without an accounting system.

Roko’s Basilisk is all part of the “Less Wrong” cult that permeates Silly Con Valley.

The sweet release of d… Ah, no. Too morbid.

The collapse of the U… No. Too political.

I’ve got some very nice tea (an Anhui “golden flower” black tea) coming in a couple of days. I’m looking forward to that because golden flower tea is almost unbearably tasty.

Jade is quite a bit harder than even a hardcover book. ;)

It’s not all that posh, though. That example there costs the equivalent of about $35.

There are a few stories about it, but the most plausible one is that an alkaline lake dried up and someone found an egg (or maybe a batch of eggs) in it and decided to eat it.

I agree with you. I use pillows of that shape almost exclusively these days.

You consider that a difficult pillow?

Try these on for size. The first turns your WiFi into 5G. The second into 6G, and the final one turns it into an ansible.

Yes, this last one is, in fact, a solid piece of jade. Why do you ask?

Whatever you do, do not look up terms like “TESCREAL” or “Less Wrong” or “Roko’s Basilisk” or “Effective Altruism” or “Longtermism” or …

Well, basically, don’t look up anything related to Silly Con Valley techbrodude CEOs. It is literally insane.

Take something perfectly edible, like say an egg, and cover it in a coating made of mixed clay, wood ash, salt, and quicklime, rolling it in rice hulls and then letting it sit for weeks to months before, you know, eating it.

Oh. I see we have a Canuckistani in our midst here.

Yeah, the “freedom convoy” was one of those more bizarre things in recent Canadian history. (Funded by Americans, of course, because every right wing grift in Canada is funded by Americans.)

And here you come SO FUCKING CLOSE … and still fumble the ball. Tsk. Tsk.