I find it surprising that as you put it a "modern mechanical (non-chronometer)" watch would be off 5-10 seconds per day given that I own a 49 year old MIL-3818B wrist watch that I had cleaned and repaired a little while ago and from what I can tell it runs pretty consistently 3 seconds (+-1) fast a day when checked against a stratum 1 time source. Granted it is a very good 17 jewel watch (Benrus) but it is almost 50 years old and was my uncle's service watch while in Vietnam so it isn't like it wasn't exposed and probably abused during it's life. I would have thought that watch making would have improved with modern lower friction, lighter weight, and more thermally stable materials. Although given what I see for men's wrist watches it seems they are more jewelry and "look at me" than functional devices.

Except that was the tax paid to support the BBC and was only paid by those who have a TV (assumed to be everyone). Personally I wouldn't mind that situation if we could produce shows of that quality. I like watching the BBC series on Netflix since while there may not be lots of special effects they are well written.

The other nice thing about not having commercials is not being nagged to buy the latest fad toy that will get used a couple of times and then ignored. Also the kids get less gender stereotyping such as kitchen toys are only for girls and don't get the pressure to not be themselves. Both of my boys like playing kitchen, doing crafts, playing with cars and trucks, and being outside. I did have a good laugh on the first day of kindergarten when my oldest went and started playing with the huge kitchen set the class had and made "breakfast" for all the girls playing house in the class.

I don't know if that was an enforced rule or not but I didn't follow it (60/40 blend t-shirts). That was a long time ago and when little I didn't know what most of those things were. As I got older I started thinking for my self and the whole religious thing just didn't make sense to me. After starting to question some things and realizing that it was pretty shitty to think like that I rapidly fell away from it. It was really strange too when I went to church with my grandparents on my father's side (Presbyterian) on the rare occasion I was at their house for the weekend and while their god and Jesus had the same names they were very different from what I was hearing in my regular church. This new Jesus seemed more like a guy who wanted you to not be a dick to other people and help out to make people's lot in life better, not someone who wants you to carry out a crusade for him.

Do you know how much you could sell virgin primordial untouched by humans without any terrestrial pollutants water for? This seems like something that you could dupe people into paying at least $10 a liter for.

Isn't there available LIDAR information available for your area?

I while back I was looking at some for one of the areas that I hunt and it was accurate enough where you could see the ruts in the road where vehicles regularly drove down gravel roads. I can't find it at the moment but it was available in an interactive form online.

But how deep would it have to be to have the volume of a barn megaparsec?

Well that is only after the flood. I mean it takes a lot of wood to build a boat that big so where do you think it all went.

From my experience (being raised in a fundamentalist baptist church that was probably different only in actions to the Westboro Baptist Church) it goes deeper than that. These people are so invested in their belief system that if any portion is proven to be wrong it means that it is all wrong. The bible for them is the gold standard of truth and everything in it is of divine origin that speaks with one voice (never understood this). For them religion is their reason for existence and provides all the meaning in their life and they don't want that to be a lie. Unfortunately they use religion to justify all sorts of strange belief like the gays need to die, black people carry the mark of Cain and as such are sub human, the universe is only ~6000 years old, a women must submit to their husband, etc.

Given the age of the stories there may have actually been a flood of almost biblical proportion. Go back to the end of the last ice age and if you had lakes like Lake Missoula emptying it would seem to fit. It isn't like dumping 500 cubic miles of water would go unnoticed if there was a human population near by that happened to survive. It wouldn't surprise me if there were similar events that got passed down by oral tradition to various people in Eurasia. Give the story ~8000 years to morph and for people to hear similar stories from all other tribes and it becomes a global flood.

Nope. the likelihood of them remaining ad free is about the same as not seeing any more Bennett Haselton navel gazing posts about solutions to first world problems.

Always, as well as most of the other work on the cars.

No but I haven't eaten peanut butter in close to 20 years, I do make my own jams though.

Yes and I love the smell that lingers for about a day after doing so.

Yes because I can't find good furniture for prices that aren't extortion level priced. That and you try finding a solid walnut desk.

While I understand the need to make things other people's problems there is a real sense of accomplishment when you do something your self. Once you get good at doing things you can generally do a better job than the quick and dirty you paid someone. When I change oil I actually spend the time while the oil is draining to check things that should be checked regularly, like belts, hoses, suspension, wheel bearings, lights, etc. I also will take care of things like knocking some of the dust and dirt out of the air filter, and changing the power steering fluid that is in the reservoir, charging the battery all the way, greasing the wheel bearings. Now add in that I can do a full synthetic fluid change for about $50 on a vehicle that has a 7 quart oil capacity and takes a rather expensive canister filter. The 45 minutes I spend changing oil I come out ahead since I would spend about 45 minutes to go get it changed and get back from the rapid oil change place and they do a shitty job which costs more and likely they would cross thread the drain plug.

Go back far enough and you could get a tractor conversion kit for your model T.

Hell in the US one the the most effective theft deterrent systems is a manual gear box. Then add in not keeping anything valuable laying around in your car and you could probably leave it unlocked in most cases.

I am always shocked at how many people don't know that trick. I did that to an old fire chest I had that in all the moves I had lost the key and the fire chest was only $30 so it was the quick and simple route. Also if you damage the pins and tumbler enough just about anything will work as a key as those things wear out. The ignition on my old Bronco II was so worn I could use a small pocket knife blade in the key slot to start it. For security forget padlocks since the easy way around them has and always will be an angle grinder. Working at a U-Haul with a storage facility we were always dealing with units for non payment and eventually would auction off the contents. The day of the auction you go out with the angle grinder cut the lock, let the bidders have a peak shut the door, and sell it. A nice silicon carbide or diamond coated cutting wheel goes through those locks like a hot knife through butter, even these recommended locks.