Aeration is a known factor in cocktails, it also requires some kind of protein or structure in the liquid to hold onto air for more than a few moments. Slurping a bit as you sip will impact the taste more than shake/stir (assuming equal dilution, temperature, and clarity) The other factor bruise-truthers trot out is Volatile Organic Compounds and the “top notes” evaporating out or oxidizing and I’m sure that would happen if you left a neat glass out on the counter for half an hour, but ten seconds of tumbling is nothing compared to the distillation and bottling process.

It’s like the “espresso dies in thirty seconds” thing that’s actually an efficiency training benchmark that got misinterpreted at some point. The chemistry just isn’t that fast.

I prefer mine a bit sweeter. I also prefer a coupe so I guess my champagne tastes are just two hundred years old.

This isn’t a real thing.

Pipe guns exist, you can build a device that fires a 12-gauge shell in a decent garage workshop. The fancy bits, like a break action that closes properly or a spring to eject spent shells/cartridges, are where the fiddly springs and such come into play. (Of course you know this, but for the sake of conversation.)

Those homemade submachine guns are properly crazy though.

To be fair, we sorta knew it was possible because birds. I think it’s more impressive when we don’t know what can happen, like breaking the sound barrier or putting people in space.

I don’t need ignorance to feel wonder. I think things are cooler when I can marvel at the complex mechanics behind it all.

What, and take any responsibility for the Commons?

Pretending to read instead of engaging with the lesson is going to do that, yeah.

Ecology is my favorite, and the focus of my secondary education, but it can’t come before chemistry and biology and those build on algebraic math and require and understanding of science built from “general science”. Should probably also have some statistics. Geology and cartography are going to be in there, as well as the history of conservation, there should be some anthropology… It’s all very iterative. Ecology specifically encompasses a ton of disciplines.

I’ll add that introductory stuff can happen early. In my state we learn about the salmon life cycle in grade school and that includes a tiny bit about watersheds and streams and clean water. But it’s very rudimentary.

No, that wouldn’t actually provide a baseline understanding of a variety of topics. Things like media literacy can only be taught by reading and watching and analyzing a wide range of things, and that takes several years of just one general thing. Basic biology, enough to understand fundamental things like how/why vaccines work or the importance of diet and exercise also builds on many years of learning. Math should be confidently understood at least through algebra in order navigate taxes, bills, budgeting, and other legally important but boring situations.

A lot of stuff doesn’t feel important while you’re learning about it and partially that’s just teachers doing a bad job contextualizing the lessons but yes many topics just aren’t intrinsically interesting to everybody. It’s still good to have a robust base of understanding because that makes tangentially related things easier to parse.

And that’s not even getting into “electives” that would be super useful for most people if they had the time, things like cooking and shop class so folks are more self-reliant, or music or art or crafting because hobbies can also be menaly stimulating and fulfilling, or better or more varied PE types because it’s also important to develop some decent health habits early in life. In a perfect world a lot of that would be introduced or reinforced at home by family and friends and neighbors, but that’s not the world we have.

Because a broad educational background is important and people can’t know if they’d be into old literature without being exposed to it.

I don’t think chickens are usually referred to as “dog-sized” even if it’s occasionally true.

Upgrade to hardened steel key caps so you can use a .22 for extra range.

They like sharing with the right kind of people.

I think discord works for up to perhaps a dozen people. Big servers are pointless to engage with, they flow too quickly to be useful.