People posting here are perhaps missing that it is a comedy - with a bit of tragedy right at the end.

in the 1960s, the UK had lots of double-deck trolley buses with few problems - I used to ride them to school.

Aren't the hanging lines a problem with double-deckers?

no, not really. occasionally the power pickup thingy would get detached from the overhead wires, but the driver had a big pole to hook them up again.

the trolleys were basically replacements for trams, which needed a lot of street furniture in the form of rails, points, etc. which caused problems for the increasing use of cars. but i always liked them (trolleys).

Not if you plan for double-deckers and put the lines higher up. And then single-deckers need a longer pickup pole.

> I don't know where you live but UK summers were unbearable

well, i live in lincolnshire and used to live in london. i usually have a fan on for a few weeks over summer, but that's it. where in the UK did you live that the summers were so unbearable?

A mystery to me as well, given (as I have pointed out before here) he is the spit image of Carter Burke, the creepy Wayland-Yutami exec in the film "Aliens" - if you want to do a deal with face-huggers, either man is for you.

Thinking "I am in the presence of Satan" is quite common, though.

Just so you know, I logged in for the first time in months just to give you an upvote.

Simply lie about it. No one has ever checked up on my educational history - note not qualification (which a degree is not), though I do have some that qualify me as a state registered health technician.

Somehow "USS Dolly Parton" has a bit of a ring to it for the next US warship after the "USS Dorie Miller".

Hang on, why on earth would you think Dolly Parton of all people would want a warship named after her?

> Sierra Ferrell does a pretty good rendition of that.

Emmylou Harris does a great one also.

that "i before e except after c" rule often gets taken too seriously

Oh I've messed that one up before

i think it's kind of beautiful that weird is a weird word

Isn’t there more exceptions to that rule than there are examples where it’s correct?

Yep, at least on most static word lists.

It's a fun exercise to try and improve the rule by extending it compared to just switching to "E before I".

Only if you forget the final part, “…when it sounds like ‘ee’”.

That’s a recent addendum and is far from universally taught.

Though FWIW, they do protect their eggs quite well.

Isn't this tied to the senesce? Where their digestive tract has closed and they starve to death at the nest

Indeed, AFAIK. I've never seen an explanation for this. Most things that reproduce successfully want to do it again - or at least their DNA does. Perhaps octopuses are simply disappointed by the experience.

Octopus senescence isn’t a choice. It’s a fully programmed part of their life cycle. There’s a bunch of hormones released by the optic gland that put them in this stage where they stop eating, stop healing, and sometimes even mutilate themselves.

For the mothers, the entire time is spent cleaning and blowing water over the eggs.

It’s generally accepted this behavior is the necessary pair to their high aggression and cannibalism. It’s likely if they didn’t go through this they’d end up eating their babies. By dying, they make way for a new generation. And this is their reproductive strategy. Live a short very active life. If you survive, mate, then die and leave the hunting grounds to the next generation.

That explains how the mutation was promoted

But not whether other adaptations could be possible. Fix the digestive tract issue and keep the female well fed and defending the nest in a different way

There's no single mutation. Nor is their sensecense merely a digestive tract issue. This is a core feature of their lifecycle. If you mutate the genes that make the hormones that trigger it, or the receptors for those hormones, you won't just prevent their sensecense, because those genes have other functions important to other parts of their life cycle.