Ok, that one hits harder than most. It’s definitely one of my favourites.

I initially read that last sentence as “Hope his prostate collapses sooner than later.” and honestly couldn’t find a reason to disagree.

Even if they were surveilance drones they’d still be real, as opposed to mass hallucinations beamed into our visual cortexes by satellites. Of course, they’re not actually surveilance drones, that’s just a conspiracy theory started by the CIA to identify and monitor conspiracy ‘super-spreaders’ who can be used to spread whatever memetic trope the goverment of the day wants. No, really they genetically altered most plant species to act as resonant cavity bugging devices like The Great Seal. They monitor them with the same satellites they definately don’t use to beam out mass hallucinations.

/s of course, because, haha, that would just be silly, and I don’t want to be picked up and ‘reprogrammed’.

Oh birds are real. Very, very real. The question is, real whats?

Sometimes their emotions have gone so far past reasonable that the first thing you need to do is bring them back to the point you can actually reason with them. After that, yes it’s really vital to take their emotions seriously, they need to understand them and trust that the people around them will take them seriously, but they also haven’t yet built the skills to moderate their own feelings, so sometimes you need to add those externally.

Oof, yeah I could see how that could happen. I guess you really should know the kid before trying something like that. I usually find that making mine laugh is enough to start to reset them, and then helping them calm down is a lot easier. Also, a question like that is definitely for small kids, not those who can fling furniture.

I was told that one way to help a young child break out of a tantrum is to ask them an odd question, something like “What color shoes are you wearing?” It does seem to work sometimes, usually by annoying them so much that they forget what they were upset about in the first place. I can well see it working for someone who needs to get out of a mental spiral.

Isn’t one of the main issues with carbon-monoxide that hemoglobin preferentially binds with it over oxygen, and so it doesn’t get expelled from your bloodstream via your lungs? You can tolerate quite large doses with little more than a headache, so I doubt you could overdose from internally generated amounts, but a large enough dose dangerously reduces your blood’s oxygen carrying capacity.

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Very gouda. You deserve a rind of applause for that one.

I’m using Hacker’s Keyboard, it’s got all the keys where I expect them. None of the others feel right, but the fact it hasn’t been updated in years does worry me. If anyone knows of a keyboard with a similar layout (separate number row, ctrl, esc, alt and cursor keys in place and the usual symbols as long press on the numbers) I’d love to try it out.

That’s the traveling bit sorted, but you suggested living there, and there are many more problems to overcome to achieve that.

As a previous commenter said, within the EU it’s doable, but you’re going to run into visa related issues trying to immigrate to most other countries. Some, perhaps most, of those can be overcome by throwing money at the problem, but others are more permanent. Even once you have a visa there are often limits on what you can do and where you can work until you get the equivalent of a green card, which can take years.

Then there are the logistics of living in your adopted country. I’ve known enough immigrants to know it’s possible, but also how much effort it takes, especially if you’re moving as a family. There may be a new language to learn, there will certainly be a new culture, and whilst you can probably get by for a while, long term you need to learn it and integrate into it, or permanently be the outsider.

Then you have the upheaval of your life. Leaving your family and friends behind, and walking away from all the little things you know that make living where you do easier. These you face moving even a comparatively short distance, but they’re magnified going overseas.

Of course it’s possible, but it’s nowhere near as simple as you suggest.

Russia Putin is throwing their future away on the fields of Ukraine over a strip of land, it’s so mind-numbingly stupid evil.

Let’s face it, it’s a countries leader(s) that decide to feed their population into a meat grinder, not the people themselves. At this point there may ne little the average Russian can do to stop the process, at least, without significant retribution from the same government.

Spray-paint a polar bear orange and stick a mane on it. Confusing and scary.

Interestingly, whilst Wikipedia does say that, the language in RFC 1591 (Domain Name System Structure and Delegation) only says:

There are a set of what are called “top-level domain names” (TLDs). These are the generic TLDs (EDU, COM, NET, ORG, GOV, MIL, and INT), and the two letter country codes from ISO-3166.

Likewise, in ICANN’s PRINCIPLES FOR THE DELEGATION AND ADMINISTRATION OF COUNTRY CODE TOP LEVEL DOMAINS, they say:

‘Country code top level domain’ or ‘ccTLD’ means a domain in the top level of the global domain name system assigned according to the two-letter codes in the ISO 3166-1 standard

In neither case do they actually limit two letter TLDs to being country codes, they only state that all country codes in ISO 3166-1 are ccTLDs. In the RFC, the author does suggest it is unlikely that any other TLDs will be assigned, but this has obviously been superseded with the advent of gTLDs. Thus I still consider it likely that the .io TLD will simply transition to being a commercial one, rather than a country one.

Having said all that, it’s entirely possible I’ve missed some more recent rule that tightens this up and only allows two letter domains from ISO 3166-1. If I have I’d be glad of a pointer to it.

You’re probably correct, but it’ll still have to be competitive with other TLDs, so it probably wont go too high.

It’ll get eliminated as a country code, yes, but that leaves it available as a generic TLD. Seen as it will be available and is obviously lucrative, someone will register it and, presumably allow domains to be registered under it. Off the top of my head, I think it costs $10,000 and you have to show you have the infrastructure to support the TLD you register, so an existing registrar is the most likely. That figure is probably out of date, it’s been many years since I checked it, but the infrastructure requirement is the more costly part anyway.

I very much doubt that the .io TLD will vanish, too many big companies use it. Seen as non-country TLDs are allowed, I suspect that as soon as the country code goes away an existing registrar will buy it and .io domains will carry on.

122L

Most people buy with a mortgage, so that is functionally exactly the situation they are in. Most property transactions are part of a chain, and if any link in that chain fails, the entire thing, which can be many links long, comes to a screeching halt and possibly collapses.