Road and Track: Best sports car ever

 They had a grunch of 'em, going all the way back to an MG TC.  Somehow they did not have a Corvette.  All American, cheap for what it did, very fast, good car.  I remember going up to Watkin's Glen NY many years ago to watch the Can-Am.  The Glen also ran off a "production"sports car race that weekend.  That year the only two production sports cars that competed were Porsche 911 and Corvette.  Nothing else in production that year was fast enough.  The 911 cornered better than the 'Vettes and would work past them in the corners.  After a couple of laps of hard driving a 911 driver might think he had it made.  Then came the back straight, nearly two miles long.  And we could hear the big Chevy 396 V-8's come on full song.  And the 'Vettes just out dragged the 911's, catching all the cars that had slipped by them in the Esses.  "There is no substitute for cubic inches".  

   After that long ago happy weekend I always considered Corvette one of the best sports cars in the world.

"New strain" corona virus

 

That new Corona virus strain.  The Brits announced that they just discovered it in Britain last week.  Now we have a Colorado man, with NO recent travel, has it.  I don’t believe the “new strain” travels that fast.  I figure the Colorado man caught it from someone in Colorado.  Makes me think that the “new strain” has been around, world wide, for quite some time, maybe since this whole Corona virus disaster started. 

   Does the “new strain” behave differently in patients than the old strain?  Higher death rate?  More infectious? Worse symptoms?  Do we have any clinical data (observations of real patients) to support any of these ideas?  I don’t believe computer models for this, I want real observations.  Far as I am concerned the computer models are merely a Wild Ass Guess (WAG) dressed up as real. 

   How do we tell the difference between patients with “old strain” and patients with “new strain”?

I suppose we use some kind of laboratory test.  This is not confidence building.  A commonly used laboratory test has a distressingly high (20%) false positive rate.  Is the test for “new strain” any more accurate? 

   So far my TV news has not given me backup information about the “new strain”.  For all I know “new strain” is about the same as “old strain”. 

Medieval technological advances.

   The middle ages invented or imported a lot of new stuff.  Far more than the preceding ancient world did.  The last invention made in the ancient world was the discovery of iron working by the Hittites 600 or 700 BC.  The Roman Empire at its peak, say 200 or 300 AD, did not have any technology that the Hittites did not have 800 or 900 years before.  That is a long time for stasis.

   The Middle Ages start after the fall of the Roman Empire and last until Columbus time.  We date the end of the Roman Empire with the deposition of Romulus Augustilus in 470 something AD and Columbus is 1492.  You can round it off and say the Middle Ages run from 500 to 1500 AD, a thousand years.  In that time Europeans invented or imported the following:

1. Trebuchet, a stone throwing machine powerful enough to break stone walls.  It was a weight driven machine, replacing classic catapults, which were powered by skeins of springy materials, perhaps human hair.  Unfortunately the art of making such skeins and keeping them springy has been lost since ancient times.  Trebuchets can be built on site from local timber and some rocks for weight. 
2. Magnetic compass.  We think this was an import from China.  Having a compass on board your ship greatly improved the chances of said ship returning safely from voyages.
3. Wheelbarrow.  Very simple device that greatly improves the amount of stuff that one man can move.
4. Wooden kegs and barrels.  They replaced the clay amphora used as shipping containers in classic times.  Lighter and more rugged than amphora which were just big clay pots.
5. Gunpowder and the fire arms to use it.
6. Lenses and eyeglasses.
7. Stern rudder.  Far stronger than the classical steering oar and less likely to break off in bad weather.
8. Printing.
9. Cast iron.  Classical black smiths only had wrought iron. 
10. Crossbow.  Powerful and accurate.  Although known in classic times it was only used for hunting.  You could train any man to shoot a crossbow well in a matter of weeks.  Robin Hood’s long bow, although effective, required a bowman to start shooting as a child and practicing every day all his life.  The supply of good bowmen was limited.
11.  Water mills.  Although known in classic times, the middle ages made much greater use of watermills.  The Domesday Book, William the Conqueror’s inventory of all the land and buildings in England, lists better than a thousand water mills in England by 1080 AD.
12. Horse collars.  Far more effective horse harness that greatly improved the amount of stuff a horse could move. 

 

How much money can the US print?

 Now that we have a totally fiat currency, a pure paper money whose value is set by public opinion, it is possible for the government to pay its bills by simply printing fresh new greenbacks.  On one hand, most of us believe that printing more money reduces the value of existing money, our savings.  On the other hand some of us believe that we ought to increase the money supply as the economy grows.  

Question, just how much new money is healthy growth?  Who knows??  

   Every year Congress is faced with a gap between obligations and tax revenue.  We spend more than we take in.  The only ways to fixing this are to spend less or hike taxes.  Congresscritters hate doing either.  Spending cuts cause howling from who ever gets cut off from the gravy train.  Pigs hate being pushed away from the trough.  Tax hikes provoke howls from taxpayers.  Congresscritters fear the howling means they will loose the next election. 

  Lately we have been able to keep things going by running a sizable federal deficit each year.  This year is going to be a scorcher.  In simply terms, the US government has been covering the deficit by simply printing more paper money.  So far, nothing too bad has happened.  Perhaps the healthy growth of the money supply, what ever that may be, is enough to pay off the deficit.  I don't really believe that, but it might be true.  Or, far worse, we are printing enough money to crash the currency, sometime in the future.  Maybe next year.  May be five years from now.  Who knows?  But a crash would be bad for us.  Foreigners would stop accepting greenbacks in payment for imports.  Stores would stop accepting dollar bills.  The economy would grind to a halt.  This happened in Germany 100 years ago.  The pain was so intense that the Germans still remember it.  

So, I fear that Congresscritters will continue to follow the path of least resistance and keep right on running big deficits until something really bad happens. 

 I got with the Christmas tree program. I bought the tree from someone in Littleton selling trees at the Meadow St-I93 interchange. That's the last picture of the tree on the roof of the Buick. I left it on the deck until yesterday then I brought it indoors, put the tree stand on it, and set it in place. It brought a good deal of snow in with it, which melted out into the water bucket of the tree stand. Got the lights on it and got them to light. I have a bunch of grandchildren coming over the put the ornaments on it. And I have munchies and drinks for the grownups. If you have any small children who would enjoy hanging some ornaments, come on over. Tomorrow, Thursday, 3 PM, 22 Ridge Cut Road, Mittersill.

Where did that massive hack of Dept of Energy come from??

Where did that massive DOE hack come from??       

 

Trump says it’s China doing the hack.  Biden says it’s Russia.  I doubt that either of them have any solid evidence.  I am talking about the big hack that penetrated the Dept of Energy last week; you know the dept that handles our nukes. 

I know that if I was a Chinese hacker I would try to camouflage my location on the net.  I would have an email account on a Russian email system.  I would use a Russian alias.  I would have social media accounts on Russian systems.  I would have everyone else on my team, and my superiors use my Russian email when they wanted to communicate. 

If I was a Russian hacker I would do the same stuff in reverse.  If I was a third world hacker or a criminal operation I would still use the big boys (Russia and China) for cover on the theory that nobody would believe I was capable of major league hacking and if I tried to look like I was a big boy  everyone would want to believe that. 

US history textbooks

 Anyone know of a good US history book for grade school?  I know some good ones, but they are all college level.  Starting grade school kids on Morrison and Commager isn't going to work.  I would like a text that tells US history straight, not the New York Times 1619 propaganda slant.