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I don’t use a spoon, but I do twist it on the plate or bowl to get a “ball” of spaghetti (or linguini or angel hair).

While it’s not directly-related to this news item, I was reading the text, and the next news item in the CNN feed on the conflict has Iran warning Israel that it cannot attack Iranian diplomatic facilities, as they are inviolate. That caught my eye:

Iravani also “strongly” warned against “any attack on [Iran’s] diplomatic premises and representatives in violation of the foundational principle of the inviolability of diplomatic and consular premises.”

I think, from memory of reading the Vienna Convention for some other conflict, that that’s not an obligation on parties other than the host state. The host state (the Lebanese government) commits to not entering Iranian diplomatic facilities when it permits establishment of same, but I don’t believe that other countries hold any obligations towards Iranian diplomatic facilities in Lebanon.

kagis

https://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_1_1961.pdf

Article 22

1. The premises of the mission shall be inviolable. The agents of the receiving State may not enter them, except with the consent of the head of the mission.

2. The receiving State is under a special duty to take all appropriate steps to protect the premises of the mission against any intrusion or damage and to prevent any disturbance of the peace of the mission or impairment of its dignity.

3. The premises of the mission, their furnishings and other property thereon and the means of transport of the mission shall be immune from search, requisition, attachment or execution.

kagis more

This Reddit comment from several months back does seem to agree, and is talking about this conflict:

https://old.reddit.com/r/internationallaw/comments/1btv5f7/embassy_protections_in_war/kxpg19y/

First of consulates and embassies are protected under different Vienna conventions, respectively the Vienna convention on Consular Relations of 1963 and the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations of 1961. They confer broadly similar, but not identical, protection to embassies and consular premises.

Both of theses conventions confer on the receiving state an obligation to protect the embassies and consular premises cf. on diplomatic relations art.22 and 45(a), on consular relations 27(a) and 59, but impose no duty on any third party to protect or respect these premises.

Therefore Israel has no obligations towards the Iranian embassy/consulates other than those conferred generally to civilian objects under Jus ad bellum and IHL. Neither IHL nor Jus ad bellum has any special protection of embassies or diplomats.

Regarding locations in third countries it would be a violation of the sovereignty of the third country to conduct millitary operations on their territory (definition of aggression (A/RES/3314, as reflecting customary law art.3(b)). An embassy could be a legal millitary target under IHL, but attacking it would constitute a violation of the sovereignty of the third country.

On the other hand allowing your country, including embassies on your territory, to be used for acts harmful to a country, outside of those acts generally accepted under under customary law applicable to neutral states, would be a violation of the sovereignty of the country injured. Those two countries have a duty to peacefully resolve that conflict and not resort to armed conflict. It could, if severe enough, constitute aggression on the part of the state hosting the embassy cf. A/RES/3314, as reflecting customary law art.3(g and f).

Israel would be obligated to not violate Iran’s embassy in Israel, though (though I doubt that those two have diplomatic relations).

kagis

Yeah, looks like they don’t have diplomatic relations:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_Iran

Following the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the two states become hostile and the current Iranian government does not recognize the existence of Israel. The back covers of Iranian passports read: “The holder of this passport is not entitled to travel to occupied Palestine”. Both countries have severed their diplomatic and commercial ties with each other. Iran does not recognize Israel and refers to it as a Zionist entity or a Zionist regime.

So the Iranian-embassy-in-Israel situation probably wouldn’t come up; no Iranian embassy in Israel for it to affect.

That being said, if Israel were to hit Iranian diplomatic facilities in Lebanon, it’d presumably tick Iran off, but I don’t believe that it’s an issue from an international law standpoint; it’d be like any other building in war.

I understand that water reacts with it too – that is, the gas that it releases reacts with the water in your eye, so if it reacts somewhere else, that’d be better. I’ve seen a recommendation to cut it under water. That seems like too much trouble for me, but I at some point in the past, I did start quickly rinsing the onion after the first cut so that there’s water on the onion and knife and cutting board, and it does seem to significantly reduce the impact; it’s never really been a problem since then.

kagis

https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/59688/why-does-cutting-onions-cause-tears

Propanethial-S-oxide is the major cause of the flavor and aroma of onion. However, it is a volatile compound i.e. vaporizes very quickly.

when propanethial-S-oxide comes in contact with cornea, a small amount of it reacts with water to form sulfuric acid. This sulfuric acid is the cause of itching and irritation in eyes due to onion.

Looking elsewhere, I also see a couple recommendations to chill the onion in a refrigerator prior to cutting it, and several webpages saying that it worked well for them.

https://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/cooking-tips-techniques/how-to-cut-onions-without-crying

I left the onion in the refrigerator for 24 hours and then peeled and chopped it like usual. No tears! No burning! I cut the entire onion without needing to grab a tissue. While I felt a slight irritation in my eyes towards the very end, overall it was painless. I was surprised this method worked so well since onions aren’t a produce item that generally need to be refrigerated. However, if it helps prevent blubbering, I’m all for it.

I’m not sure what’s going on here. I saw one page that said that it makes the gas coming off the onion cooler, so it drops away from your eyes. Not sure if that’s the actual mechanism, and I’ve never done it myself.

Some people may plan ahead well enough to be able to refrigerate their onions in advance of needing to chop them; I’m not really that organized, myself.

The prophecies say that one day, all vehicles in the region will be parked at the Pawnee County courthouse.

Note, just to be clear, that this is federal legislation, not Oregon state legislation.

Ah, okay, fair enough.

It’s not in some counties in Nevada.

But everywhere else in the US, this is a no-no.

Yeah, I have family who say that they’re gonna be out for an estimated three days. But, hey, that’s doable. They’re gonna lose climate control for a few days, lose stuff in a refrigerator or freezer. But it’s not too bad.

I’m assuming from the fact that you can post that you still have some form of Internet access going. IIRC cell towers have diesel generator backups that come on automatically. And a lot of folks out there have some kind of emergency inverter generator, cars can provide a small amount of accessory power (maybe 100W or more) and lithium batteries, and small solar panels are more widespread than they were just a few years back. Not enough to do a lot of things, but getting light and communications is a lot easier, even in power outages, than it once was.

Hmm. I haven’t been following it, but was Hezbollah really that centralized? It seems like a super-bad idea if you’re aiming to fight guerrilla war.

EDIT: This says ~300:

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2024-09-28/ty-article/these-are-the-command-centers-and-buildings-attacked-by-the-idf-in-beirut/00000192-385f-dc91-a1df-bedf69f10000

The Israeli army carried out an airstrike on Hezbollah’s central command in southern Beirut on Friday, killing its longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, along with approximately 300 people, including other members of the group.

I mean, that’s obviously still a really successful strike, but you’re talking maybe an order of magnitude fewer people.

I don’t know whether Altman or the board is better from a leadership standpoint, but I don’t think that it makes sense to rely on boards to avoid existential dangers for humanity. A board runs one company. If that board takes action that is a good move in terms of an existential risk for humanity but disadvantageous to the company, they’ll tend to be outcompeted by and replaced by those who do not. Anyone doing that has to be in a position to span multiple companies. I doubt that market regulators in a single market could do it, even – that’s getting into international treaty territory.

The only way in which a board is going to be able to effectively do that is if one company, theirs, effectively has a monopoly on all AI development that could pose a risk.

https://viewer.weather.noaa.gov/water#layers=42904+40090+42133+41707+41708+41709+41631&x=-92.96832&y=40.68848&z=8.4&panel=legend

Has kind of a nice visualization of the flooding and related information.

I’d guess that they mean that they reliably show up in an assortment but aren’t many people’s favorite.

Wikipedia is under a Creative Commons license.

$100 crude target

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that that probably wasn’t a number resulting from a bunch of economists and computers spending a long time crunching numbers to try to produce an optimal target for Saudi Arabia anyway.

I’d probably be a softie here and just pick something obscure that would cause a minimal ripple. There are songs out there that I don’t like, but if they get much play, it’s because there are people who do like them, and they should be able to listen to their favored music.

I don’t know about that. It seemed to have a pretty rapid impact on the phone in that video, and it’s not like those are exactly open. And they weren’t pressurizing it.

Hydrogen

This says that hydrogen isn’t just a problem, just helium:

https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/669763/why-is-a-mems-device-affected-by-helium-but-not-hydrogen

It seems that MEMS is very sensitive to helium, but only helium. This Link stated that hydrogen does not affect MEMS, which surprised me.

Hmm.

That seems like it’d open a lot of potential abuses.

I wonder what the failure mode of various electronic locks is when they’re exposed to helium?

I’d be fine with hissy fits if they were about something real.