and it promotes co-operation and teamwork.

Don't say things like that - it'll inspire fear, uncertainty and doubt amongst Trump and the tecbrodudes.

What are you - some sort of pinko-commie-subresive? Or even (say it not in Gath!) a Canadian?

America requires babies to wear helmets when driving motorcycles?

I'm surprised.

I'd have expected American motorcycle babies to be maximising their legal disruptiveness by being required to shoot passers-by. Why not - they're under the age of legal responsibility. Until it comes to the consequences of violating their NDA.

YouTube has adverts?

You mean the incessant "and here are some words from Brilliant/ some "educational toy company"/ ... actually, I can't bring another example to mind - I FF past them so fast, without engaging the brain.

Am I destroying YT? Maybe, maybe not. Do I care? Not in the slightest.

As a geologist, I obviously thought of lapis lazuli while trying to work out the name. But I didn't know the Persian linguistic connection.

Classic lapis should have flecks of iron pyrites (FeSâ, approx ; brassy-yellow, possibly cubic habit ) in the blue (frequently white-mottled) groundmass ; if you don't see that, it's probably a good idea to put the specimen down and move on to the next dealer, because you're probably being sold sodalite - and the dealer themselves may not actually know it. Now sodalite is a very pretty stone (I've got about 20 sq.cm of 8mm slab myself) ; but it isn't lapis lazuli (which I've never found a good sample of which I could afford ; though I haven't really tried hard).

Poor people in the West don't need children for labour or are afraid that the child won't survive. They still procreate.

Actually, there are some people who wail, profusely, that that is, indeed, a problem, because they don't do it enough.

I've never understood it myself, because I've never had any idea how to get the consent of my future adult children for the life of unmitigated misery they're going to suffer, before conceiving them. But some people do indeed seem to think that inflicting misery on their children is their right. And they're very vocal that doing so should become your obligation to ... somehow dilute the evil of their choices?

Yeah. Some people, eh?

So 2026.

So MAGA.

So ... he has some deal with Nielson (sp? the TV ratings organisation) to somehow monitor people's vision of the sky, and how effective the adverts are. Because if you're selling adverts, at some point the customer is going to ask "are my adverts reaching the right eyeballs and leading to more sales.

Yes, I am anticipating, for example, a new (?) use for all those under-employed Google Glasses. Should have the correct range of sensors and communications to do the job.

You think it won't have a viewing proposal evaluation committee, and a distinct time-allocation committee? Seriously?

How do you think telescope time will be allocated? Votes on some website? Likes on Facebook? In which case, you can guarantee that the "Moon Landings were a Hoax" idiots will at some point game the system to burn out the sensors and claim proof that the Moon Landings did, indeed, never happen. That, or the Tangerine Shitgibbon will annex the telescope and require it to search minutely for proof of the non-existence of Democrat-inspired Moon Landings.

Oh, it's an AC. So an opinion that is not worth considering. Sorry for feeding the AC.

Yeah, you really don't get the "wilderness" thing, do you?

What did you think of Tejado-Flores' analysis in "Games Climbers Play"? I think it amply punctured the nature of the game in expedition climbing, and a full decade before the first oxygen-free ascent. Anyone playing the expedition game these-decades knows they're a failure before they start.

Yeah, you really don't get the "wilderness" part of mountaineering, do you?

Elevators all the way to the summit.

This would be much more effective if it applied to all countries with scenic mountains. Shit on one country's mountains ; discover that other countries with nice mountains won't let you off the plane.

Technically, preventing people from leaving the country like that would be a violation of basic human rights.

Hos so?

You break the law of a country you're visiting.

You are convicted of that crime.

You lose your liberty for a period of time determined by the court.

What is the problem?

Still, you're talking about a decade long prison term for littering.

If only we had organ banks, so we could use such miscreants productively.

You've never seen a photo of the Khumbu Icefall, have you?

... then drop them onto the dog-owner's head?

And the problem is ...?

You go to Everest base camp ; you're already accepting a non-zero chance of death through altitude sickness.