To understand how seriously the British take the NHS we did a thing in Scouts where we went around the circle asking the children (aged 10-14) what the liked most and least about Britain. Out of around 20 of the kids, 5-6 said the NHS for what they liked most. The first child to mention the NHS was 11 years old.

The weather was by and far the least liked thing about Britain.

I’ve seen someone collecting lionfish, basically using a litter picker and a bag.

Aye, this is the problem with a lot of invasive edibles. Too few people are interested in foraging and usually you can only eat so much foraged stuff.

If everyone went out with tubs, bags and baskets on their days off and did a bit of foraging to make their diets a bit more varied and healthy then we might be able to make a dent in things like Himalayan Balsam and American Signal Crayfish. Realistically though we’d just have to limit foraging of easier to identify and prepare plants and fungi from easier to access areas.

I worked for an ISP that uses Openreach’s infrastructure in the UK. In order to make changes to customer installations or repairs we had to call an Openreach Contact Centre. These were basically big call centres in India. Many of my customers got contacted by scammers from India shortly after me contacting Openreach about their accounts using information like their address, contact details and information about the work they were receiving, and demanding things like card details to ensure the work went forward.

It was obvious Indian workers in those call centres were taking pictures of customer account details and using that info to scam those customers, but my company refused to do anything about it because we “lacked evidence” and just told us to let customers know any communication about their accounts would come directly from us and we’d never ask for any card details etc.

I’m certain any other companies, whether UK or US, that use centralised admin from India and similar places with poor security will be plagued with these exact same issues.

They do destroy biodiversity but at least they are pretty and won’t fuck you up like Giant Hogweed.

It’s difficult to eat your way through an invasive species. Himalayan Balsam is also edible but it’s thriving in the UK.

In fact edibility is often the reason these things are so invasive, it’s why American Signal crayfish are over in the UK.

Near rivers it has to contend with Himalayan Balsam, and the bees love that stuff too.

Yes but in D&D you only quote the rules that support whatever bullshit you’re trying to pull.

Holy shit you’re wrong, now with references

https://gunbai-militaryhistory.blogspot.com/2018/02/iron-and-steel-technology-in-japanese.html

The rules also don’t state that being incapacitated impairs movement in any way, dropping to 0hp is stated to incapacitate you. So you can just move away at 0hp.

Obviously we have DMs who aren’t robots and will play to the spirit of the game, not the word of the rules.

The truth is that the steel made from Iron Sand was not lower quality than the Steel made from other sources of Iron.

There was nothing inherently low quality about using iron sand anyway. Impurities were carried away by slag and the iron in the sand was easily recovered using washing and later electromagnetism. Imports were used as demand increased.

Impurities are melted into slag. Not the iron. That’s what slag is.

What century of katana are you speaking about? Many katana were used with modern metallurgy technology and imported steel. Do you think modern Japanese created cars are also made from steel refined from sand? Do you think the guns Japanese Samurai used were made from steel refined from sand?

Sorry mate, I know with the remaster coming out soon that I should be careful with the spoilers.

Who really believes Russia will stop at their current claims? Once they achieve their current goals, they’ll attack for more, and more, and more. The killing doesn’t stop.

The person Europe appeased eventually went on to go and shoot Hitler, afterall.

The Japanese used western imported iron a lot, as well as western imported guns.

It’s difficult to get historic figures for this, but in the early 20th century anywhere between 70-90 percent of iron ore used in Japan was imported, and even almost 100% in some years. There’s highly likely to be history to this importing going back a long while. https://d-arch.ide.go.jp/je_archive/english/society/wp_je_unu33.html

Tamahagane steel, the stuff produced from sand, was likely much more popular for ceremonial blades whereas imported steel for blades meant for actual combat. This means the historic examples we have left are more likely to be Tamahagane steel, but if a western swordsman and a Japanese swordsmen were in a position to fight, both would likely be using steel of a similar quality as they would both be using steel from similar places.

One thing to remember is that the empires at the time were very competitive and if Japan was fighting with one of the imperial powers, you can be damn well sure a rival imperial power is supplying Japan with the best equipment to fight back.

Both Europe and Japan had lots of different types of sword, ranging from short to long and light to heavy. You should compare like for like.

Both Europe and Japan used weapons both in warfare and ceremonially.

Yeah they’re a bit better at slashing whilst a straight sword is slightly better at thrusting. Typically a curved sword is a bit better whilst on horseback or whilst fighting unarmoured or lightly armoured opponents and straight blades are a bit better whilst fighting one-on-one and against somewhat more armoured opponents.

But these are slight differences and sword styles are also varied in each region, so the Japanese did develop swords which were more adapted to thrusting with reinforced tips and Europeans did develop swords which were more effective at slashing.

I think some people obsess over what swords are the best and the worst. In reality the style of sword was unlikely to be the major deciding factor in a one on one fight. The amount and quality of armour and the skill and capacity (Size and strength) of the fighters themselves are much bigger factors.

The whole “Japanese steel was really weak” thing is as much of a myth as the whole “katanas are super powerful superior weapons” thing.

They’re all just swords, and don’t make that much of a difference either way.