Brian

The obvious answer is that some people heard you speak in Chinese. Not only heard you but saw you, or they would have been disturbed that your mouth didn't match your sounds (see also, "Dub's disease").

Yes, and the shifts seem to be coming in shorter intervals -- whatever is happening is happening more and more quickly.

I was thinking the same thing!

That's Frank Herbert, from Chapterhouse: Dune (an absolutely phenomenal series which I have read several times...)

"Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn than how to use freedom." Alexis de Tocqueville

Potatoes

I fell asleep in a library.

13, whatever that means...

From one stranger to another...

Don't dwell on things, don't form strong attachments, don't become static.

Ah. http://www.airduster.com/MSDS/BlowOff134aSDS201502-04-15.pdf http://mfc.engr.arizona.edu/safety/MSDS FOLDER/Memorex Air Duster MSDS.pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_duster Not all things which do the same thing are the same thing, you see.

Martians are people too, you know...

Personally, I think everyone benefits from looking in the mirror. Here's a (somewhat simplistic but still valuable) example of such a mirror... https://psymed.info/personality-disorder-test-cluster-b

At the risk of seeming pedantic, not all brands of "canned air" used for dusting electronics and such use the same ingredient. Memorex Air Duster actually uses HFC-152a rather than 134a. A minor detail, I know, but a significant one at the same time.

Perhaps it happened before I joined the forum. I've only been here seven years (joined seven years ago this past Monday, in fact...)

You tried? When? Where??? Link, please?

This is wonderful and an accomplishment to be proud of. To keep things in perspective, the US produces 17,000 times that much in hydroelectric alone. The Hoover Dam alone provides electricity for nearly 8 million people. You'll never see a claim like "Los Angeles runs on renewable energy for a month" because the US power grid is so tightly interconnected but it would be justifiable to say "the entire US runs on renewable electricity nearly 7 weeks each year" because 13.4% of our electricity currently comes from renewable sources. EDIT: Wanted to add, this is not to say that the US doesn't waste lots of energy (on stuff ranging from fast cars to "The Bachelorette" and from "fidget spinners" (not sure what that's all about) to unnamed spiritual web forums and funny cat videos, to name a few) or that we won't see significant growth in the "alternative energy" marketplace in the years to come, but wanted to point out that the US doesn't and never has ignored "alternative energy sources." In fact, not only are we currently the world's largest producer of "alternative energy" but it isn't a stretch to say we have always been pursuing "alternative energy" ideas.

Exactly!

So let's do an experiment -- let's build long-distance running teams. I'll randomly select from a pool of healthy young men of Nilotic ancestry and you randomly select from a pool pool of healthy young men randomly chosen from around the planet. Shall we say 20 on each team and three months of training? Then the top fifteen runners from each team run a marathon, lowest combined time is the winning team. Or, let's have a pulling contest -- I'll take a pair of Belgian draft horses and you get two randomly selected members of the species Equus ferus caballus. Sound reasonable?

Had to look up "punnet" -- looks like a pint-sized basket? $2.50/pint at the grocery store but they aren't necessarily locally grown, $22 to $25 for a dozen pints at the farmers market.

Yeah, they are coming in here, too, but they grow better in South Carolina than in the mountains. Apples, now -- that's a different story! Heck, we'll even have a parade... http://www.ncapplefestival.org

Just south of here, in fact...

Geometry is just a social construct. You can be whatever shape you identify as.

How do you feel about a warm peach cobbler?

How about pi? That's mathematical rather than gastronomical. And I do love a nice tasty pi, regardless of whether it's square.