Car Lust: The best streetcar ever

It's a little out of my area, but I'm posting this because (1) I like trains, or anything on rails, and (2) I went to grad school in Pittsburgh, where these ran until 1999. (The Car Lust blogger is from Pgh. himself, and he has a whole history of the city's streetcars.)

Quodlibeta--whatever you like

Figulus recommends this blog: Quodlibeta. Excellent mediaeval/classical studies by knowledgeable guys. Nice emphasis on the intersection and compatibility between science and religion.

I'm going to add it to our Blog Roll when I have some time. Until then, enjoy it from this link.

P.S: check out their post on Oresme and the moving earth!

Code among Jefferson's papers solved

It's not a code Thomas Jefferson created (and he did make some), but rather one a friend sent to him in a letter. It's lain unsolved from 1801 until now. Robert Patterson, math professor at U. Penn and a friend of Jefferson's, sent it to him as a challenge, while they were discussing code and cipher techniques. Jefferson didn't solve it and was clearly impressed.

Now another mathematician, Dr. Lawren Smithline of the Institute for Defense Analyses, has cracked the code. Check out the WSJ article on the story for the details of how Patterson enciphered his message. Really impressive. And you'll enjoy Patterson's humor in what the message actually says.

An amazing mechanical pocket calculator

The Curta pocket calculator, designed from within a German concentration camp, of all things. Absolutely amazing device, with about all the details you'd want, here. And yet, more here. And here's an online simulator.

Democracy and the ability to lose

I remember a historian making the argument that American democracy was not demonstrated (or proven, maybe) with the election of George Washington in 1789, so much as with the election of Jefferson in 1800. In that year, the Federalists lost their first election, and Jefferson's Democratic Republicans came to power. It was a peaceful, orderly transfer of power from one party to another. You've got to have that, if you want a stable democracy.

In that vein, read Jerry Pournelle's comments on the Democratic party today:

And meanwhile the Democrats seem to be drifting toward the concept of prosecution of former office holders by criminalizing policy differences. That's a certain formula for civil war; perhaps not immediate, but inevitable. The absolute minimum requirement for democratic government is that the loser be willing to lose the election: that losing an election is not the loss of everything that matters. As soon as that assurance is gone, playing by the rules makes no sense at all.

I don't think we're heading towards civil war, but this attitude does undermine the stability of our system. An Instapundit reader adds some historical context to this, on the Roman civil war.