@TheBreadmonkey

In the voice of Sir David Attenborough:

'Welcome to the digital undergrowth. A place far away from the screeching X-site and the bile of Meta.

Behold the Mastodon user! Shhh. Don’t startle them with a promoted post or an algorithmic 'For You' feed. They are sensitive to such disturbances.

Truly, they are the kindest of the great apes. A rare, decentralised species that has looked at the chaos of the modern world and decided, quite simply, to be... pleasant.'

@Canageek @Fiona

Okay! Phosgene (COCl2). Smells like fresh hay (ah!). You breath in and it's completely fine... until 12–24 hours pass and your lungs fill with fluid and ..the kicker! ... there's no antidote. WWI chemical warfare was merciless in large part because of that.

But it's also incredibly boring. Millions of tons of it are produced annually for polycarbonates and polyurethanes. It's also overwhelmingly present in every undergraduate textbook -- and hell, even high school ones too.

As a practical danger bonus: our whole institute was evacuated once because someone found a forgotten few-liter tank shoved into a service duct (yeah, that apparently happens). Nobody knew how long it had been there. 🙃