Thermal imaging requires specialised organs. The difference between optical and thermal wavelengths is too extreme for a single organ to cover. Long wavelength IR is also quite low resolution for visual purposes.

Snakes have evolved the capability, but it’s not common.

Automatics had a bit of a bad reputation, for quite a while. They don’t/didn’t play well with our road layouts. E.g. they could be slow to downshift when climbing a hill, and kick when they did decide to play along. I believe they have improved a lot, but most people are used to manuals, and so more manuals are sold. This makes automatics more expensive and rarer.

I think it’s a bit of a generational thing. The internet has given us access to a lot more reliable information. Far more parents have learnt the difference between what’s effective and what feels good. Yelling feels good, it doesn’t actually work very well. Rolling with it, followed by a calm discussion gets far better results. Achieving this mentality is another matter, but using it as a goal helps moderate your reaction.

You can spot the parents here.

They are expressing themselves, having fun, and off the iPad. They even put it where I don’t have to see it too often. I’ll call it a win.

During six-month trials in New Mexico, the system harnessed 94% of the energy generated by the solar panels, maintaining a constant production of drinking water even with fluctuating weather, producing up to 5,000 liters of drinking water per day without the need for batteries or an external power source.

It looks like it’s just a test/demo of plumbing reverse osmosis desalination directly into solar power. I’m guessing there is mechanical energy buffering in the system, meaning that batteries aren’t required to smooth power flow out.

You’ve got some catching up to do then.

Pink is countries the UK has invaded. Purple is everyone else.

Baked beans are definitely a VERY British thing, along with fry up in general.

Scotch eggs are Scottish in origin, I believe. I bundle them in with British, though a good chunk of Scotland would disagree. Definitely good, either way. Kippers and haggis are also Scottish/northern England traditionally.

As for Greggs… I personally consider them an example of how British food got screwed over by mass production. I’ve been disappointed most times I’ve brought from them. I know a lot of people swear by them however.

As for Yorkshire pudding. It’s a case of a good one is absolutely amazing, while an average one is just meh. It also needs a good gravy to dip it in. Hence why it goes so well with a roast.

Most of the more obvious ones are intended as travel food. Wrap something tasty, nutritious, or expensive in a semi disposable, edible wrapper. It’s a basic stable of most of mankind. England tended to use pastry or batter for this. Battered fish and burgers are other examples. Other as regions might use leaves for the same job.

If it was in a good state, you could eat it. If it wasn’t, then you could still eat the good bit inside. The crust of a Cornish pasty is intended to be thrown away. Coal miners could take them down the mine, and eat them without washing their hands.

Other dishes are a thing. They tended to be more family orientated however. The recipes wandered over time, with less stable traditional dishes. Bangers and mash, or a ploughman’s would fall into this sort of category.

There’s 3 sort of sections to British food.

• Old staples, things like stews, pies, roasts etc. We exported most of these, with the empire. They are also shared a lot with Europe, making them even more ubiquitous.

• Local specialities. Local traditional dishes, e.g. Yorkshire puddings, Cornish pasties, or Eccles cakes. These were town or region specific. Some have spread, others are still hyper local.

• Imported. Mostly from the empire days. We tended to “discover” spices and flavours. When they came back, they were often reimagined. E.g. the curry was a Scottish invention, using Indian spices. We mostly dump all the related dishes under a label of the country we stole the flavours from. E.g. Chinese food tastes nothing like what they eat in China.

Basically, there is a lot of really good British food about. We also set the baseline for a lot of the comparisons, making us look bland by comparison. The London restaurant industry also does a complete number on tourists, making us look even worse.

It can be used more empirically. The more matching points, the less likely a given match is down to random luck. A smudge will have relatively few useful points, and so far less reliability.

The big problem is you can either use fingerprints to identify someone to a scene, or to search for a match in a database. 1 in a million sounds impressive to a jury, and is in a 1 to 1 test. Compare it to a database of 10 million, and you will expect to get 10 matches by random chance alone.

I personally suspect the crash in solar panel prices is a result of them deciding to get on with fixing the problem. Basically turn it from a political problem to an economic one.

They are also pushing hard for both modern nuclear fission and nuclear fusion power. Once they start coming online in bulk, their CO2 output will likely plummet.

If someone is attempting to drop turds on you, from 20 floors up, you’ve REALLY pissed someone off. That takes dedication and ingenious planning to pull off.

Congratulations on your arch nemesis!

Was lunch included?

You joke, but it’s partially true.

I heard about a tall building that had its basement flooded with sewage. It turned out that the plumbers had simplified the drains. Rather than install the random turns every couple of floors, they just used a straight pipe. In effect, turds were falling 20+ floors, to smash into an inspection/access hatch. Eventually the screws sheered off, and everything emptied into the basement instead of the sewer.

Hopefully they will be careful. A single, well documented attack on civilians would justify a LOT of retaliatory strikes on Ukraine civilians (in Russian eyes).

Taking out the troops/equipment during the parade, without hitting civilians, that would send a message.

It’s a terrifying mix of a Gish gallop (a stampede of lies and half truths, delivered so fast they can’t be countered) and razzle dazzle (camouflage via a swarm of irrelevant or counter intuitive points).

It’s terrifyingly effective, and very difficult to counter.

There’s trust in intent and trust in judgement. My goal is to train them so that I can trust their intent. Any search will be to cover lapses in judgement. If they are hiding things, then that is intentional. If they have thought about it enough to hide it, then at least they have thought about it.

My intent is to spot things like grooming, or bullying (at a level they can’t cope with). Things they might not understand the severity at the time. It gives us a nuclear option, it won’t be used lightly.

A reciprocal arrangement would also work. My little terror will soon be at the point of having a mobile phone. My wife and I already share locations in real time. They will get the same arrangement. We can check on them, however, they can also check on our location. Moving on from this, in the future will be a negotiation, not an ultimatum.

It’s also worth noting however, that a level of accountability is required with phones and social media for children. Knowing that mum or dad might go through their phone to check things makes them think about what they are doing. It is also required to make sure they don’t err too badly. The key is to be open, clear and reasonable in your requirements of them. Also, never mock or belittle. To you, it might be a cute minor kids spat. To them, it’s the life or death of their entire social life.

If you have a good relationship with your children, these will be a non-issues. Mutual respect (not fear) is a FAR better position to take, parenting wise.

Idiot teen is an explanation, not a dismissal. Nowhere did I say to ignore it. My point is that there is a gradient of both crimes and intents. If there is no matching gradient in legal response, then it can lead to injustice.

An idiotic crime will often need fairly minor corrections. A malicious crime requires FAR more of a response. Treating all crimes as malicious ends up diluting the view on truly malicious crimes. It can also drive individuals into the very situation you want to move them away from.

Context matters a lot. However, in general, it’s a far lower crime than many in that category. Critically, it’s not of the level to be desirable to destroy their future over. The punishment should be enough to deter and correct, but not more.

Many/most of us have been idiotic teens before. Society’s goal should be to correct and improve. Not go in with sledgehammers aimed at skulls. In many cases, the embarrassment alone would be enough to do the job. The law just needs to drive that point home.