With Vacations Like That...

... who needs enemies.

Actually, the vacation itself was wonderful. Unfortunately, while I was vacationing, I really should've been working 60+ hour weeks. So, after 10 days of vacation in December, I was a good 90 hours behind. Add that to continuing 60+ hour weeks, and, well, you can see that I've been kinda drownin' in work lately. I'm still not anywhere near to being caught up, but I think I see the light in the end of the tunnel. Hopefully, I'll be able to start fitting an occasional post, or at least an occasional comment on someone else's posts, in the near future.

Transportation transformation

In this earlier post I pointed to the Tesla Roadster. The Futurist is also pointing to the same...
What is this? GM has a bold move here with the Volt.

As the 42 volt bus makes its' appearance in cars soon and the price/performance of power chips really improves along with some other related technologies the incremental progress towards less petroleum required for transportation will accelerate.

Hold off calls for any grand plan from government (hear that Thomas Friedman - you have no idea how much change is already being worked on...) and great things will happen!

Complexity and Evolving Orders

This line in the Science Journal article in today's WSJ really caught my eye:

Mathematicians, to their dismay, are the first scientists to face the shattering and humbling prospect that the complexities of nature may be beyond the reach of the human mind.

Despite accelerating scientific and technological breakthroughs including in the study of complexity all that we really get to do is chip away at our ignorance. The complexity of an economy or the even greater extended order of human cooperation is beyond anything but the fairly general comprehension of any one mind or small group of minds.

Allowed to evolve through trial and error of both the rules and specific activities, such orders can evolve complexity and useful powers far beyond those derived from any grand plan!

Minimum entry hurdle

How clever is this Henry Payne cartoon? Hey, good intentions are everything, right? Wouldn't an additional expansion of the EITC be more effective...