It's best to describe a space using perpendicular axis, though not required. Strictly speaking you could have a coordinate system which doesn't have perpendicular axis, but the maths gets more complicated.

Mathematically speaking this is asking what the optimum choice of basis is for a space, a 2-d manifold in the case of the earth. So it's mostly just convention, to make the mathematics easier.

It's been about a decade since I touched linear algebra, so I'm sure someone more recent can expand on my answer, but that's the basic jist.

Your body only knows to breathe because of increasing CO2 concentration, so unless you tape the bag to your face, you are likely to know when the air in the bag is too stale. Too much or too little O2 isn't something you can detect.

That is also why hyperventilating and holding your breath can cause you to fall unconscious, you run out of oxygen without hitting CO2 levels which tell your body to breathe. Never try to hyperventilate in order to hold your breath longer, doubly so if it's to dive underwater.

OTAN is their abbreviation for NATO, which is why it's part of the branding.

> but yeah some academic sociology experience should be 100% required for any position of power

Way to gatekeep with a soft-science subject, one all but completely captured by social engineers.

Let's not have people who think societies are giant experiments in charge shall we? That's how you get shit like collectivisation.

From what I've heard it's somewhat similar to Atatürk. An autocrat who is using that autocratic power for what he thinks is genuinely best, rather than just enriching himself.

Atatürk was technically a dictator, one who led his country from caliphate to secular nation-state. More in the mold of Cincinnatus than Saddam.

Not copper but tin.

Copper was relatively common, and most of the Bronze Age empires had their own supply. Tin was much rarer, and so was traded much further.

I've also heard that the name Britain (and Brittany) come from the Cornish tin trade, but I've not seen evidence.

I prefer the version where he swims back to England wearing tights.