npts2020

I imagine prior to the 70's it flattens out. My grandfather, who had made maple syrup since at least the early 1920's, was really set on not tapping before the beginning of March but by the time he died in 1986 we would have already been either missing the first run or tapping while it was happening more years than not. It was like parting the Red Sea, and took missing an early run or two previously, when we finally got him to agree to tap on February 24 for the first time. Now it is more like second week of February, depending on weather forecasts (I am a big fan of the Penn State meteorology department forecasts).

I can tell you the maple syrup season has gotten earlier by at least a couple weeks in Pennsylvania as well. When I was a kid back in the 60's, we never put a tap in the trees before the first week of March. Now, if you aren't tapped by the middle of February you will miss at least one hard run* of sap. *Maple trees produce the most sap when it freezes at night and gets warm in the day and the earlier in the season syrup will usually be a lighter (in color) grade and considered better than later product.

Would "motivated reasoning" apply to a mouse that thinks it can get a drink from a bucket of water but ends up drowning because it can't get back out or any other creature misjudging a given scenario?

Well, my understanding of the principle involves "supercavitation" at the nose of whatever is being propelled through the water. Even though the pressure bubble doesn't have to be made by a propeller (the applications I have seen use one), it is still generally referred to as supercavitation in my experience. Maybe we are debating semantics (cavitation vs supercavitation)?

That's all well and good but if anyone has an idea of what anglegenta or sectorsgenta means, I wish they would explain. I googled both terms and it was like fishing without a hook and bait, I got nothing.

You just explained it. The cavitation (your "air sheath") takes place at the front, thus reducing drag close to that through air instead of through water resulting in higher speeds by almost an order of magnitude. The main limit for such a scheme is how fast the bubble in front can be made.

Cavitation is also how to propel an object up to high speeds under water, just at the front instead of using the rear mounted propeller. To the OP; I must have missed something because the whole discussion about "fracturing" seems like semantics to me. When I do a cannonball into the swimming pool, isn't the resulting splash from water "fracturing"?

IDK but it seems likely to me that 95% is probably what reads as 100% when you turn it on because that is what it always reads whether it's been just long enough to charge or overnight.

Supposedly i-phones cut off at 100% and don't begin recharging until it goes below a certain threshold (someone told me 75% but I couldn't find any trustworthy confirmation). The battery in mine doesn't seem to have changed significantly in well over 2 years of use.

There are candidates in every election who want this. Trouble is, the sincere ones are not generally Republicans or Democrats and Americans don't seem to mind "evil" too much so we get what we have...

Most Americans are neither. In a country where basically only Democrats and Republicans are the only parties allowed, barely half of the registered voters are either one. Unaffiliated or independent is the largest segment of the voting populace so there is no way of knowing for sure short of asking. Having said that, most people still vote D or R and whether they support or oppose the policies of whoever is in power will usually show which side is their preference. This is especially true if they are critics because partisans are slow to criticize their own, even in the most egregious cases.

IMO the whole argument over Iran (or any country) building a missile and nuking the US with it is silly. Why would any entity able to refine uranium bother trying to put it on a missile when you can just smuggle it to wherever you want to set it off with likely a higher chance of success and lower cost. This is why I think a long term conflict with Iran is far more dangerous than most people wish to believe, especially if the materiel they have isn't fully secured.

I never considered it to be a big deal since I don't use the reputation arrows that much. It just seemed to me that when someone bothers to answer a question with information, good or bad (up or down arrow), is what the reputation system is for. Some, unfortunately, seem to use it for personal reasons.

IMO you ought to give Mordred an up vote for helping out. There, did it for ya.

Whether it is or not, there are more than a few prominent Americans who don't mind portraying it exactly as a crusade, Pete Hegseth among them