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Mary and I spent the 4th of July weekend in San Francisco, where we saw a fireworks show unlike any I’d ever seen: Fireworks through fog. Actually, we couldn’t even see most of the good stuff. But when it got really loud and the clouds got really bright, you knew it was a good part. The crowd didn’t seem too put off. Neither were we. San Francisco is an awesome city! We rented bikes on Saturday and went on a nice long ride around the city, going over the Golden Gate Bridge, and riding through Golden Gate Park.

On the way out Sunday, we stopped by the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. Unfortunately, I didn’t bring in the camera, but this place was cool. And free! We got to see a working demonstration of the Babbage Difference Engine #2 which was built a few years ago by a guy from the London Science Museum. I saw an older version of the Babbage difference engine in London when I was there, but it was in a glass case and I didn’t really understand how it worked. In mountain view they give demonstrations regularly where they go through how it works and actually crank out the first 30 values of a polynomial. In the demo we saw, the machine got jammed and the terms after that ended wrong. I think I’ll stick to my silicon-based computing. But it was cool to see none-the-less. They also had all kinds of old computer hardware, including a 2ft diameter hard disk platter (it stored 10MB, I believe it was)! They have a video about the museum on youtube.

A few more pictures after the jump…

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It came up in a recent conversation that Sweden was an example of socialism working. At the time, I really didn’t know a thing about Swedish politics or economics, so I left it alone. I’ve done a bit of research, and I don’t think Sweden is a socialist state at all. At least not as I interpret the word.

Webster’s defines Socialism as:

“Any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.”

And this seems to be not at all what sweden is. Industry in Sweden is primarily privately owned. Even energy production is largely privatized (with very little fossil fuel usage, BTW). It ranks #1 on The Economist’s Index of Democracy. The new face of Swedish socialism on Forbes.com contrasts the “socialist facade” with a booming economy with low inflation and a lot of entrepreneurial growth. The Sweden Wikipedia article and related articles also give a good overview.

I think few will disagree that Socialism as defined above has not worked out well historically. Alan Greenspan captures why this is very effectively in his book, “The Age of Turbulence“. It is because a centrally planned economy relies on the central planners to set prices, allocate production resources, etc. They simply can’t do this effectively. Markets can. When lots of people are acting individually, using price signals to determine the best way to deploy the capitol under their control, they can arrive at a more optimum distribution of resources. Additionally,private property rights must be guarantee, or there really isn’t any reason for anybody to invest themselves or their resources (which they don’t really have in the first place) in anything.

There is little doubt that markets are an excellent tool for optimizing resource allocation and determining prices, and private ownership is required to maximize motivation to succeed. However, what people so often call socialism in sweden, includes both of these things. Okay, some services, such as health care and education, are “socialized”. It is certainly a welfare state by anyone’s definition, with guaranteed health and education services for everything, extensive unemployment support, and a tax burden higher than any other industrialized country (as percent GDP). But these taxes are used to provide services that Swedes apparantly think are worth paying for. They’ve decided that it is worthwhile to pay for health care for everyone. And socializing a service doesn’t mean the government is going to screw it up. Since 1992, Sweden has implemented a school voucher system, where the state will pay full tuition costs to the for-profit private school of the parent’s choice. Schools must compete for students providing the motivation for excellence, yet equal access is still guaranteed for all citizens.

I’m not suggesting that Sweden is a perfect model of government that the U.S. or any other country should strive for. I just want to make two points:

1) I wish people would stop throwing around the word Socialism or Socialist every time someone suggests the government provide health services for the WHOLE public. They are just trying to associate an old stigma, that really doesn’t apply at all. We are not talking about abolishing private property, compromising democracy, or throwing away free markets.

2) Tax-payer funded health care and education (among other things) can work, and has in several countries, Sweden included. As far as I can see, it is the only way to guarantee equal access. The real question people should be asking themselves is if they are willing to pay a bit extra in taxes in order to provide it. The same goes double for education. We ALL benefit from a well educated public.

 I accidentally ended up on MSN today:

Good names? Experts weigh in on Brangelina’s picks for twins.

This was one of today’s “Top Picks” news items. It went along with “Michigan city investigates manhole cover caper”, and “Family sitcoms in sad state”. Woohoo!

Honda is preparing to release 200 fuel cell powered vehicles, called the FCX Clarity, on Southern California and Japan. I think I want one. They claim 270 miles distance between fillings, and they apparently are working on a home based electrolysis system so you can refill in your own garage! The cost is $600/month to lease. Not cheap, but not as high as I would have guessed.

Just one more reason I smile every time I see the cost of gas rise.

Check out this BBC article, or Honda’s FCX Clarity Page.

He’s basically reading from chapter 6 of his book, but a very reasonable speech none-the-less.

See, Asian casino’s are trying to lure gamblers away from the table games to more profitable slots (physorg.com)! They may be simple to play and flashy, but they are not as fun and have a smaller payback (a payback, which by they way, you can’t even know because it is programmed rather than following from the rules of the game!).

Note to Asian Gamblers: Stick to those tables!

Thanks to a co-worker, I’ve recently purchased what might be the best mouse ever. There are a number of great things about it. First of all, it is well-built, small, and the sensor works really well on any surface. But a few things in particular stand out.

First of all, the wheel works in two modes, which you can select by pressing it down. In the first mode, it works like every other mouse-wheel I’ve used, “clicking” through a series of position as you scroll it. In the second mode, the wheel is nearly frictionless. When you give it a spin it keeps on spinning until you stop it, allowing you to fly through long documents. This can be amazingly handy (although also a tad difficult to get used to).

Secondly, the receiver is small enough that you hardly see it, and I can leave it in my laptop while throwing it into my backpack without any fear of breaking anything.

Thirdly, it came with a nice little remote USB port (connected via wire) that I can plug into my desktop and place on my desk for easy plug in if I want to use it on my desktop. This, by the way, proves much more useful for other devices (flash drives!) than the mouse, as the mouse pretty much lives with my laptop.

Finally, it comes with a nice little bag for transport. It can be had for about $50, at places like tigerdirect.com. If you’re thinking that $50 is more than you’re willing to pay for a mouse, think about this: How long have you had that mouse you’re clicking with now? That $50 purchase should be around a long time!

I stopped by a Barnes and Nobles on a recent trip to Orlando, looking for something to read on the plane ride back home. I ended up walking out with “The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments”, by George Johnson (Amazon). Although I could have saved $10 getting it on Amazon (why does anybody buy books at a place like B&N if they aren’t in a hurry?), I don’t regret it. It proved to be a short and enjoyable trip (the former perhaps being a requirement for the latter) through MORE than ten groundbreaking science experiments over the last four centuries, describing how many of the basic facts we now take for granted about our world were tweaked out by clever and persistent experimentation. He tells a great story, without overwhelming it with too much tedium to put you to sleep, but enough that I felt like I knew what was going on.

Although physics dominated, Johnson’s list covered everything from Galileo rolling balls down tracks and his clever mechanisms for timing them in order to discovere basic laws of acceleration, to William Harvey opening up the mysteries of the heart, to Millikan measuring the charge of an electron (and showing that charge was in fact carried by discrete particulars in discrete amounts), and even Pavlov and his salivating dogs made the list. It was an enjoyable, enlightening, and inspiring read. It makes me wish for the chance to discover some hitherto unknown fact about the universe that no human had ever before seen. It also made me appreciate some of the things that seem obvious now but weren’t always so obvious.

So I finally took the little notebook I keep in my car inside tonight to dump the data I’ve been scribbling down into excel. So far, two lessons learned:

1) I really suck at keeping consistent notes. Miss a tank here, leave off a date here and there, yada yada.

2) Gas is getting more expensive.

My gas purchase history. The first entry is in VA, the others in CA.

Of course, you already knew that. But I thought it was cool to see anyway. I can’t remember where I managed to get that sweet deal in March. Maybe I just wrote it down wrong.

Now on to the MPG examination….