Friday Mad Science: French Socialist Edition

It was kind of slow week on the news front, so this is gonna be short and sweet.  You want more outta me, go read Centurion Six and tell me what you think.  Otherwise, this’s gonna have to hold you.

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France's President-Elect,
Francois Hollande.

In case you hadn’t heard, France elected a new President early in the week.  It’s Francois Hollande, a Socialist.  The NYT argues that he’s likely to execute more American-style policies than did his predecessor, Nicholas Sarkozy, but I think that’s purest bullshit.  What they mean is that Hollande is likely to push for more stimulus to grow the French economy—vs. the current European model of austerity and slow economic contraction on the Continent for everyone save Germany—but in the first place, it’s far from clear that the Germans—as Europe’s creditors—will allow that, and for in any event, it’s far from settled as to what exactly M. Hollande means by “stimulus”.  In America, stimulus usually means tax breaks for growth programs and selected infrastructure investment.  However, Hollande is on record saying that he “hates” business and that if he had his way, he’d impose a 75% tax rate on French millionaires—hardly an American viewpoint, from either party.  His idea of stimulus might therefore be to shorten the French work week again… or God knows what else.

Meanwhile, the Greeks have thrown out the austerity crowd in recent elections, too, so at least for the time being, Europe ought to be interesting again.  It’s hard to say what’s going to happen exactly, but I think I can guarantee that the poorer nations of the EU won’t be allowed to externalize their debts forever.  German taxpayers don’t seem to be in the mood for it, and ultimately, they’re the ones calling the shots.

You ask me, the Europeans are in for quite a bumpy landing.

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Google has built a self-driving car, and Nevada gave it a license.  Wahoo, here’s to robot drivers!

Dave's dad.  I always thought
he looked very distinguished.

Actually, the most interesting thing about this story—which I learned from an Economist podcast—is that the guy in charge of building the car is Vincent Cerf, the father of my best friend from back when I was in 6^thgrade!  I knew Mr. Cerf was famous, of course, but I didn’t realize how famous until just this afternoon when I looked him up on Wikipedia.  Anyway, his son David was my best friend back in the day, the guy I sawGhostbusters and the Star Wars movies with, with whom I played all my early D&D games.  He swam breaststroke on the kick-ass 100-yard medley relay team for which I swam butterfly.  And it was Dave, along with our mutual friend Philip Kim—who’s also a little famous for having worked on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—who introduced me to comics back in the day, especially the X-Men.

Anyway, I can’t say that I care a lot about robot cars, but I will admit to having complete faith in Mr. Cerf’s ability to make one work right.  From what little I remember, the guy was a bonafide genius.

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My boss sent me this article on fear and bicycling in Manhattan.  It’s not a bad read, but I don’t exactly understand why it’s news.  I mean, yeah, bicycling in Manhattan is scary.  But I bet everyone in America already knows that.

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A new study says that by 2030, 42% of Americans will be obese.  That depresses me big time.  I mean, anecdotally I’ve noticed that the girls at the beach just aren’t as shapely as I remember them from when I was a kid, but when you put numbers to it, it makes it sad.  Curves are good, but too much of a good thing is still too much.

Anyway, as I’ve said before, not everyone needs to take up triathlon.  But.  Everyone does need to take up something.  Having an X-Box is not the same thing as having a hobby, and I should know.  I’ve got literally dozens of hobbies.

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I know we’ve had some climate change doubters on here before.  I’m curious to know if the fact that the last twelve months have been the hottest on record does anything to change any minds.  Or if it matters thatten of the hottest twelve-month periods have occurred in the last fifteen years.  Honestly, it’s the second one that scares the Hell out of me.  You can dismiss any single data point as a simple weather anomaly.  Seeing a trend, though, is seeing a trend.  And denying a trend that’s mathematically obvious is just bad math.

Why is it that I sometimes feel like I’m losing my faith?  Because for me, I think the evidence suggests that we’re all just bacteria living in a jar, and like bacteria, it’s only a matter of time until we drown in our own waste.

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Finally, here’s a piece on my favorite subject of all time—the coming thousand years of darkness.  And in the Christian Science Monitor, too!

*sigh*

My kingdom for a journalist who understands transformer saturation.

Have a great weekend.  And watch out for sun bursts!