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Cake day: February 2nd, 2025

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  • There’s lots of talk about the kids who didn’t wait 5 minutes, but I also find it interesting to read about the kids who did delay gratification. It’s not that they were superior specimens, or junior ascetics, or reborn Buddhist monks. They were as tempted as the rest.

    They mostly avoided temptation by coming up with games to distract themselves. It’s something creative and it can both be learned and improved like a skill. It reminds me of the people who compete in memory games. It’s not a super normal talent, it’s games people can practice.

    It does raise a question why kids who could do this were more academically successful later, and if kids who are taught this will have similar success later. Important questions that should be considered carefully.





  • Ok, so sure, a reasonably large chunk of all states education budget is going away, but for the states that do well, the hole will both be a smaller portion of the overall budget, and easier to make up.

    No child left behind testing goes away, so the testing and standards all go away. You can bet the bottom 25 states in education ranking will quietly stop testing and claim they’re doing just great!

    It’s the special Ed programs that are really going to catch hell. No dept. of Ed. no enforcement of standards. It will be the easiest portion to cut to save money, and the families left in the lurch will get nothing but thoughts and prayers to fill the gap.


  • This is the sort of thing that makes me feel more sympathy for the Democratic party. The party simply can’t win with the left.

    The party leadership worked against Sanders candidacy because they are convinced a liberal can’t win in America. I don’t agree, but recognize with Nixon and Reagan dominating over leftist candidates, Carter ekeing out a win as a centrist, Clinton winning convincingly as a centrist, and Obama winning as a rather vague candidate, recent history has given limited reason think a leftist national candidate is a safe bet.

    But if voters are supporting Cuomo and the party doesn’t intervene the party is the wrong for not ignoring the will of the voters and tanking his candidacy.

    I mean I get it. The left wants their candidates to win, but the lack of consistency is grating. It makes the centrist seem more sensible.



  • The reason is apparent in history. Party leadership lived through Nixon and Reagan’s punishing wins over a liberal leaning Democratic party. Labor support went lukewarm, and their funding stream dwindled. The left absolutely utterly to fill the gap. Clinton ran and won as a centrist, and just as important his cohort had a plan to fund the party. The ranks of party leadership were filled with this cohort, and the left hasn’t done the work to take back party control.

    I quite like Sanders, but his vision of a groundswell of public support fails to account for the importance of campaign spending in election outcomes. It’s not enough for a few charismatic candidates to win, a party needs to win to effect change, particularly in a federal system. That reality, in my opinion, is why the left is still shut out of party control.

    All this too say, the party should stand as an anti-oligarchy party, but the party needs a cohesive vision of what what that means.




  • BalderSion@real.lemmy.fantoScience Memes@mander.xyzSun God
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    4 months ago

    Wow. I was in middle school and had to do a creative writing assignment, and I wrote a science fiction short story set in a colony on that boundary of Mercury. I thought Mercury was tidal locked. I was praised for my creativity.

    I was today years old when I found that Mercury is not tidal locked.


  • The largest stellerator currently operating in the US is. HSX at UW-Madison. The copper magnet coils had to be explosively formed. The coils were delivered one at a time. At one point one was stolen off the loading dock. This caused a lot of panic, as the budget was spent. There was no way to replace the stolen coil.

    Something like a day later the sheriff called the university asking the if they were missing a hunk of copper. The thieves took the coil to a scrap yard for scrap value. The yard figured there was no way this bonkers shaped thing wasn’t made to a particular purpose so they played along long enough to call the cops to find the rightful owner.

    It’s worth recognizing stellerators since HSX have all been periodic, that is every coil isn’t unique. The designs used to be even more insane.