It’s true for half the species. Women have those stripes. Each cell of a woman’s body only needs one active copy of the X chromosome, so when they’re very young each cell will turn off a copy at random. Each cell that cell divides into will have the same copy turned off, so patterns develop. Those patterns of cells absorb and reflect UV light differently based on which copy is turned off. If you can see in UV light, women are stripey.

Edit to add: after further reading it appears that men have Blaschko’s lines too, although more faintly. If so, the X-inactivation explanation is wrong, or at least incomplete.

Most recently? Pointing out that the Soviet Union were serious contenders in the space race.

This man has multiple degrees

Maybe that’s it. I’ve done hospital tech support and some of the doctors I’ve assisted have such unique combinations of high-level degrees that there may be only a few dozen people worldwide that can match them. Each and every one of them is hyper-focused on their specialty, sometimes to the point that they’ve missed picking up ordinary man-on-the-street knowledge.

Not with friends, but co-workers? I work in IT so you bet I fucking do.

Near the end of his life my father had a condition that made it hard to close off his windpipe when taking a sip of water. They gave him thickened water in hospital to help with that.

When someone discovers me performing some little task and starts telling me how important it is to do the task. Go away. Tell someone who’s not doing the task.

Salt, butter and garlic. But I have a feeling my secret ingredients aren’t all that secret.

American cheese. Your cheese would gain value over time, because the held amount would diminish in the form of grilled cheese sandwiches!

Pretty sure that’s how that works.

In that situation I make myself a half-rack of pork ribs in the slowcooker.

Wife doesn’t actually mind this, she just doesn’t care for pork ribs herself and I don’t feel like making her a separate meal when I’m indulging my inner carnivore.

They’d understand perfectly. When my employers buy something, it’s my job to check that it arrives in good order and matches what we asked for, and then arrange for the sender to be paid.

Sometimes the thing is a piece of equipment for transmitting real-time video of tumours from one part of the country to another, but I don’t think we need to go into that.

I’d like to bring a tall ship sailor. Preferably from the 18th or 19th century. I bet they’d have some interesting work stories to tell.

Guinea Worm. And that’s something we should celebrate!

And I remember decades of American crews arriving at the ISS in vehicles labelled ‘Soyuz’.

Hell, Michigan. Uniquely memorable, for some reason.

Do you remember them making it to space first?

Let’s not forget they managed to match the Americans in the space race even though their space budget was so small they were using cardboard boxes as office furniture.

Many years ago, before I’d heard of the Nigerian prince scam, someone emailed me asking for help to transfer 180 million out of an African country. I had no reason to think this wasn’t a genuine (if slightly dodgy) foreign national trying to involve random internet weirdos in a scheme to raid his country’s treasury.

I wrote back saying “sorry, wrong address” because I ain’t fuckin’ with Inland Revenue.

Has anyone ever seen them both in the same place at the same time? I haven’t.

Yes. Cardboard, clear plastic, polystyrene. I make gaming terrain, although I haven’t made much yet.

I recently read an article that claims people become more progressive as they age, but society becomes more progressive faster, so it just seems like they become conservative.