For some reason being a nerd about heraldry scratches an itch for me. Traditionally the “stain” Sanguine represents blood.

Red is the most common color in national flags. I wouldn’t want to cede the color to Nazis.

There’s something kind of clever about heraldic implications of the original (intentional or not) that this misses.

Supposedly, the first rule of heraldry is " the rule of tincture: metal should not be placed upon metal, nor color upon color". White represents sliver and yellow represents gold, so they should not touch (metal upon metal). There are many exceptions in heraldry, but the rule still kicks around. Vatican City’s flag explicitly breaks this rule to demonstrate that “Vatican follows God’s rules and not man’s.”

I find it clever that a flag of capitalism would have a field of gold and a giant roundel of silver (called a plate when silver, silver plates are also associated with wealth), and they touch to demonstrate that capitalism doesn’t care about the rules.

In heraldry red often stands for courage, and that’s not a virtue I associate with capitalism. Also a red roundel is called a tart, and tarts are delicious.

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.

The scientific method is more about falsification than problem solving.

“If you ever succeed, devise and implement a test to see if it was a fluke.”

Without a purity test how can I tell which members of the tribe are loyal and which might betray me?

The yard spray folks come around every spring offering me a deal because they are spraying all my neighbor’s yards. I’m the only yard with lighting bugs in the neighborhood.

A Silent Spring was supposed to be a warning, not a how-to.

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.

This is a good video on the subject