I'd say leave two inches, and @miles_garcia is right about the food volcano thing.

That's a pretty good name for it honestly. The tech we use now would seem like straight up wizardry to someone from back then. Guess we're all just modern day magic string workers.

That huge inrush current thing makes sense, it's like old appliances that dimmed the whole house when you turned them on.

Yeah that facepalm moment is so real. What finally clicked for me, lily70, was making a whole new empty list and only adding the items I wanted to keep while I looped through the original. It feels a bit silly at first, like extra work, but man it saves you from that panic. I mean it's basically just not messing with the thing you're actively reading from. Took me way too long to figure that one out honestly.

Yeah, it's like what @taylorellis said, the mess spreads. You see this everywhere, cheap stuff costs more in the long run because you're fixing the problems it causes. Saving a few bucks upfront just isn't worth the hassle.