Lion batteries have flames without explosions because of design considerations with the batteries: vent holes that allow pressure and heat to escape a failing battery. It’s possible that if those safeguards were compromised, you could trigger an actual explosion.

Yeah the difference is hot fusion works, see: the sun. Cold fusion would require a fundamental change in how we understand physics works. It’s junk science.

Sure, but I wouldn’t really find the process of starting the conversation to find that out “small talk”. Even if there’s not a lot new most of the time, to me small talk has to be the kind of banal and meaningless conversations that basically never lead into those ‘real’ ones. How’s the weather, what about that local sports team, did you see someone bought that house/building/store down the road, etc.

I think the complicated thing is there are people you don’t really know, acquaintances, where the generic “how’s the wife and kids” is small talk, because they don’t actually really care, it’s just a generic greeting thing. But a friend asking that is different, imo.

Talking to a friend you haven’t seen in a while about what’s new in your life is basically the opposite of "small talk’. I can empathize with those kind of social interactions being hard for some people, but it’s a social skill that’s worth either practicing or finding alternative paths to accomplish if you want to make and keep friends.