The minimum wage argument will go on and on. Conservatives insist that raising the minimum wage is a job killer. Liberals and Economics researchers insist that it kills few if any jobs and makes the lives of many low wage workers better.
It occurs to me that it's fundamentally a competition between two elasticities: the elasticity of the demand for low wage workers relative to their wages, and the elasticity of the spending of low wage workers on their wages. Elasticity a measure of the supply of something to respond to the effects of other economic factors, such as price, resource availability, etc. The textbook example is table salt. We all need salt, but we don't generally need very much. We will pay whatever it costs for salt, but we won't buy more if it becomes cheaper. Salt is thus inelastic on price.
So just how elastic is the demand for low wage workers? Intuitively, not very. Most fast food and big box stores are heavily constrained by the number of low-wage employees. If they have fewer people flipping burgers or stocking the shelves, they can't sell as much. If they let people go, they will get less revenue. Only if the people they fire were unproductive can they retain the revenue they were getting. A reasonably well run business would fire these folks without the provocation of a higher minimum wage.
And how about the spending of low wage workers? Very high. Low wage workers, it seems to me, fall into three classes: When I was a low wage worker, I was saving it for college. I didn't spend it right away, but I spent every cent of it within the following 12 months. 2nd: kids who want some income, but not for something specific and large. These folks have a similar economic impact though: they spend it on the latest movie or video game or a car, and it's rare that they keep all their earnings for long. Finally, adults who need the money to support their family and can't get a better paying job. About 45% of minimum wage workers are 25 or older. A few may be students, but nearly all of these are working to stay alive. All of their money from this and any other jobs goes right into the economy.
So spending of low wage workers is highly elastic on wages--and this includes whether they have a job or not--while hiring of low wage workers is fairly inelastic on wages. This seems like a pretty definitive answer. The lives of the low wage workers are improved, and--this is important--the businesses the low wage workers shop at are improved too. This is consistent with the CBO report that said as many as 500K workers might lose their jobs over 10 years, while 24 million low wage workers would have better lives. previous experiments suggest that raising the minimum wage actually reduces low wage unemployment
21 March 2014
11 March 2014
Job Creators and Social Class
As Nick Hanauer and many others have pointed out, economic growth comes from the middle. Always has. 100 million "thousandaires", taken together, buy a lot more stuff than a few thousand multimillionaires. but they stop doing doing it if they go broke. It's not the very rich that start companies, either, although a small fraction of them do, true entrepreneurs like Hanauer, and NOT the vast majority of rich--the hedge fund barons and dividend collectors. The vast majority are started by the middle class. People who know that taking a risk and losing won't put them and their families on the street to starve. Without a safety net or equivalent support system, they are trapped working for somebody else--or not at all.
Paul Allen wasn't rich when he started Microsoft. His father was a librarian. Bill Gates was rich--his great grandfather founded a bank--but he made a big point of not using his family money. I'm not sure he had access to it. Warren Buffett's dad was a businessman, and congressman for a time, but not rich. Larry Page's father is a computer scientist. Sergei Brin's father is a college professor. Henry Ford's father was a reasonably successful farmer. John D Rockefeller's father was a traveling salesman. Bill Hewlett's father was a professor of Medicine. David Packard's father was an attorney. Steve Jobs' adoptive father was a comfortably middle class carpenter and electronics hobbyist. Fred Koch's grandfather was a physician. His son Harry founded a series of businesses, many of which Fred merged into Koch Industries.
All of these people and many more like them share two properties: All grew up (including Gates) in a very middle class environment, reasonably comfortable, and all had parents that supported their budding interests. None of their families, except Gates and Fred Koch, had more than a middle class income.
Andrew Carnegie was that rarest of things, a true rags to riches story. He was born very poor in Scotland, came to the US as a child, worked a series of jobs which, some of which exposed him to opportunities. But his mother supported him always. Thomas Edison (founder of GE) was also poor, although not as poor as Carnegie--his father was a lumberman and had briefly been active politically--but Thomas rescued a small boy from a moving train, and the boy's father (a telegrapher) took him under his wing, so he effectively had three supportive parents.
I can't find a single example where the founder of a great business didn't have great support from his family, although many were openly skeptical. I can find very few examples where that family was already wealthy, although they do exist. I suspect this is because real entrepreneurship is distributed fairly uniformly throughout the population, and there aren't as many rich people as middle class.. All the rags or near rags to riches stories I can find occurred in the 19th century and a strongly determined, supportive parent or patron looms large in every one. I suspect entrepreneurship is just as common among the poor as anywhere else, but they have a lot fewer opportunities.
I can find lots of examples of rich people providing funding for a business which was really created by someone else--sometimes taking it over, frequently destroying it. I can find very few businesses founded by rich people that actually do something productive--lots of financial houses and such. Mitt Romney's Bain Capital is a perfect example: they bought controlling interests in businesses purely to extract the money, consequences be damned. Very few survived.
Paul Allen wasn't rich when he started Microsoft. His father was a librarian. Bill Gates was rich--his great grandfather founded a bank--but he made a big point of not using his family money. I'm not sure he had access to it. Warren Buffett's dad was a businessman, and congressman for a time, but not rich. Larry Page's father is a computer scientist. Sergei Brin's father is a college professor. Henry Ford's father was a reasonably successful farmer. John D Rockefeller's father was a traveling salesman. Bill Hewlett's father was a professor of Medicine. David Packard's father was an attorney. Steve Jobs' adoptive father was a comfortably middle class carpenter and electronics hobbyist. Fred Koch's grandfather was a physician. His son Harry founded a series of businesses, many of which Fred merged into Koch Industries.
All of these people and many more like them share two properties: All grew up (including Gates) in a very middle class environment, reasonably comfortable, and all had parents that supported their budding interests. None of their families, except Gates and Fred Koch, had more than a middle class income.
Andrew Carnegie was that rarest of things, a true rags to riches story. He was born very poor in Scotland, came to the US as a child, worked a series of jobs which, some of which exposed him to opportunities. But his mother supported him always. Thomas Edison (founder of GE) was also poor, although not as poor as Carnegie--his father was a lumberman and had briefly been active politically--but Thomas rescued a small boy from a moving train, and the boy's father (a telegrapher) took him under his wing, so he effectively had three supportive parents.
I can't find a single example where the founder of a great business didn't have great support from his family, although many were openly skeptical. I can find very few examples where that family was already wealthy, although they do exist. I suspect this is because real entrepreneurship is distributed fairly uniformly throughout the population, and there aren't as many rich people as middle class.. All the rags or near rags to riches stories I can find occurred in the 19th century and a strongly determined, supportive parent or patron looms large in every one. I suspect entrepreneurship is just as common among the poor as anywhere else, but they have a lot fewer opportunities.
I can find lots of examples of rich people providing funding for a business which was really created by someone else--sometimes taking it over, frequently destroying it. I can find very few businesses founded by rich people that actually do something productive--lots of financial houses and such. Mitt Romney's Bain Capital is a perfect example: they bought controlling interests in businesses purely to extract the money, consequences be damned. Very few survived.
09 March 2014
Elevator Speech for PRT
This is really a little too long for an elevator speech, but I don't think you can capture the power of Personal Rapid Transit in 30 seconds, but here's a try.
PRT is elevated, uses computer controlled small vehicles, with offline stations. Vehicles wait in the station for passengers (in most transit, people wait for vehicles), and go line speed, non-stop, the whole trip. The vehicle is small enough that there's no need for schedules--a single rider is enough to move it, so there's no waiting, anywhere, unless demand is so high that lines develop in the station. Because everything is light and small and top speeds are moderate, structural loads are moderate, which means the guideway can be light and small--and cheap. Not as cheap as a ski lift, but not too far behind, and a lot more useful.
Our design uses an on-board switch, which means we can run the vehicles arbitrarily close together (where a train has to move big pieces of rail to change routes--no closer than about 30 second headway and most require 3-4 minutes). Simulations on complex systems suggests that capacity with 1/2 second headway tops out at about 5000 Vehicles Per Hour Per Direction--about 5/7ths of perfect. With a 3 passenger vehicle, this means 15000 PPHPD. Central LINK peaks at 4000 PPHPD with 6 minute headways at rush hour, and the busiest subways in the world can only manage 25K with 2000 passenger trains, cost 10 or 20 times as much and take a lot more space.
Our company hasn't sold a real one yet, but we have a full size working prototype, a 1/8th scale test track, and by far the most sophisticated simulator that I'm aware of anywhere in the transit world. Three of our competitors have systems running, all much lower capacity than our design: Morgantown, WV; Heathrow Terminal 5, London; Masdar, Abu Dhabi. (Masdar is almost comically incompetent--we helped with initial planning, but then they went with a lowball bidder, who really couldn't pull it off. Morgantown's been working almost flawlessly for 30 years, Heathrow for 3.)
None of these systems demonstrates the real power of PRT, which is that the system is arbitrarily expandable and benefits from network effect. We are unaware of any theoretical limits to the capacity or scope of the Skyweb Express design, although there are lots of ways that bottlenecks can be created...system design and simulation is important. I have done several simulated layouts with over 250 km of guideway, 175 stations and 5000 vehicles...it's pushing the capacity of a 3GHz processor, but our design is highly distributed--only optimizations are centralized; all actual control is localized. I believe that in the long term, PRT will completely replace municipal buses, trolleys and subways--basically anywhere population density exceeds about 5 rides per day per acre.
Seattle activist group: www.gettherefast.org
Our company: www.skywebexpress.com
PRT is elevated, uses computer controlled small vehicles, with offline stations. Vehicles wait in the station for passengers (in most transit, people wait for vehicles), and go line speed, non-stop, the whole trip. The vehicle is small enough that there's no need for schedules--a single rider is enough to move it, so there's no waiting, anywhere, unless demand is so high that lines develop in the station. Because everything is light and small and top speeds are moderate, structural loads are moderate, which means the guideway can be light and small--and cheap. Not as cheap as a ski lift, but not too far behind, and a lot more useful.
Our design uses an on-board switch, which means we can run the vehicles arbitrarily close together (where a train has to move big pieces of rail to change routes--no closer than about 30 second headway and most require 3-4 minutes). Simulations on complex systems suggests that capacity with 1/2 second headway tops out at about 5000 Vehicles Per Hour Per Direction--about 5/7ths of perfect. With a 3 passenger vehicle, this means 15000 PPHPD. Central LINK peaks at 4000 PPHPD with 6 minute headways at rush hour, and the busiest subways in the world can only manage 25K with 2000 passenger trains, cost 10 or 20 times as much and take a lot more space.
Our company hasn't sold a real one yet, but we have a full size working prototype, a 1/8th scale test track, and by far the most sophisticated simulator that I'm aware of anywhere in the transit world. Three of our competitors have systems running, all much lower capacity than our design: Morgantown, WV; Heathrow Terminal 5, London; Masdar, Abu Dhabi. (Masdar is almost comically incompetent--we helped with initial planning, but then they went with a lowball bidder, who really couldn't pull it off. Morgantown's been working almost flawlessly for 30 years, Heathrow for 3.)
None of these systems demonstrates the real power of PRT, which is that the system is arbitrarily expandable and benefits from network effect. We are unaware of any theoretical limits to the capacity or scope of the Skyweb Express design, although there are lots of ways that bottlenecks can be created...system design and simulation is important. I have done several simulated layouts with over 250 km of guideway, 175 stations and 5000 vehicles...it's pushing the capacity of a 3GHz processor, but our design is highly distributed--only optimizations are centralized; all actual control is localized. I believe that in the long term, PRT will completely replace municipal buses, trolleys and subways--basically anywhere population density exceeds about 5 rides per day per acre.
Seattle activist group: www.gettherefast.org
Our company: www.skywebexpress.com
06 March 2014
Types of Electric and Hybrid Vehicle
Ultimately, there are two ways to power a car:
Fuel, usually derived from Petroleum but sometimes agricultural sources or coal (namely Fischer-Tropsch), burned in an internal combustion engine, or Electricity, either generated in the car with an internal combustion energy or fuel cell, or stored in a battery--or both. Since current batteries have low energy density compared with fossil fuel, all modern electric cars use various means to minimize or recapture electricity, most importantly, regenerative braking.
There are relatively few Pure Electric vehicles on the market although this is changing rapidly. These must be charged by plugging them into a source of electricity. The people with electrics I know seem to fall into two classes: about half have installed high power--7KW or more--chargers. Tesla has a supercharger: 120KW, but as far as I know, nobody has installed one in their home. The other half have not bothered. They use ordinary 120V power to charge their cars and do not find it to be a problem. In all cases, their daily commute is less than 15 miles. (Most 120V chargers limit power draw to 1200W. I suspect this is due to concern over sketchy wiring and long extension cords.)
Pure Electric cars include the Tesla (all models), and Nissan Leaf, the Smart ForTwo EV, quite a few others. The runaway success of the Tesla has provoked nearly all the big carmakers to follow suit. Most have range well under 100 miles, although the Tesla can go over 200.
The most common type of EV by far right now is the Parallel Hybrid. All of these can be powered either directly by the internal combustion engine or directly by the electric motors, running off the battery. This involves a complicated transmission. The IC engine can power both the transmission, and a generator. Most are have fairly limited range and top speed under electricity. the battery and generator are usually quite small.
Nearly all of the parallel hybrid makers are making or soon will make a Plug-in version, which allows you to top up the small battery. They generally haven't added enough battery to give much all-electric range. There is a substantial aftermarket for larger batteries and plug-in circuitry.
Parallel Hybrids include the Prius and related Toyota products, such as the Camry, the Ford Focus Hybrid, Most of the Honda hybrids, and quite a few others. The Chevy Volt and the new Cadillac ELR are technically Parallel Hybrids although they are mostly Series Hybrids. I'll get into this later.
A Series Hybrid is mostly a pure electric vehicle, but it carries an on-board engine and generator. This is much simpler and more efficient than a parallel hybrid, but for some reason, most of the carmakers didn't go that way. I think they were concerned about the size and reliability of batteries when the first hybrids were being introduced. The power of a series is constrained mainly by its battery: a bigger battery means you don't need as big an engine.
The most important series hybrid on the market, the Chevy Volt, was apparently felt to not have quite enough oomph going up long hills, but instead of improving the battery, they put in a bigger engine and made a clever clutch device which engages the transmission with the engine when the electrics weren't enough. This technically makes it a parallel, but as long as the clutch isn't engaged, it's a series. I believe most buyers of Volts would have preferred to have less power on hills and longer electric range. Most of my friends who own them rarely if ever drive fast or far enough to engage the engine. The new Cadillac ELR uses the same mechanism.
GM has another variation, which they've dubbed a Mild Hybrid. This is an entirely normal internal combustion car, with an oversized battery and starter motor, and a small amount of extra electronics. When you stop the car, at a traffic light for example, the engine stops. When you press on the gas pedal, the starter starts the car moving while it's restarting the engine. I don't think any of them bother with regenerative braking or pure electric while driving at low speed, but if you spend a lot of time idling, this could be a fuel saving. But it's mostly marketing.
A solar powered car that resembles the performance and comfort of today's cars is impossible. Noonday equatorial sun on a clear day is about 1000W/square meter. The total surface area available for exposure to the sun is about 7 square meters on the typical car. Due to inefficiency, and the fact that most of the time it isn't noon on a clear day, and most of us don't live near the equator, that means we have an average of about 500 watts if the sun is up. That's about 2/3rds of a horsepower. even if somebody came up with magic 75% efficient solar panels (today's best are under 40% and most are about 15%), that would only bring it up to about 5hp...still not enough. But that doesn't mean you can't use solar panels to help recharge the battery of your plug-in.
Fuel, usually derived from Petroleum but sometimes agricultural sources or coal (namely Fischer-Tropsch), burned in an internal combustion engine, or Electricity, either generated in the car with an internal combustion energy or fuel cell, or stored in a battery--or both. Since current batteries have low energy density compared with fossil fuel, all modern electric cars use various means to minimize or recapture electricity, most importantly, regenerative braking.
There are relatively few Pure Electric vehicles on the market although this is changing rapidly. These must be charged by plugging them into a source of electricity. The people with electrics I know seem to fall into two classes: about half have installed high power--7KW or more--chargers. Tesla has a supercharger: 120KW, but as far as I know, nobody has installed one in their home. The other half have not bothered. They use ordinary 120V power to charge their cars and do not find it to be a problem. In all cases, their daily commute is less than 15 miles. (Most 120V chargers limit power draw to 1200W. I suspect this is due to concern over sketchy wiring and long extension cords.)
Pure Electric cars include the Tesla (all models), and Nissan Leaf, the Smart ForTwo EV, quite a few others. The runaway success of the Tesla has provoked nearly all the big carmakers to follow suit. Most have range well under 100 miles, although the Tesla can go over 200.
The most common type of EV by far right now is the Parallel Hybrid. All of these can be powered either directly by the internal combustion engine or directly by the electric motors, running off the battery. This involves a complicated transmission. The IC engine can power both the transmission, and a generator. Most are have fairly limited range and top speed under electricity. the battery and generator are usually quite small.
Nearly all of the parallel hybrid makers are making or soon will make a Plug-in version, which allows you to top up the small battery. They generally haven't added enough battery to give much all-electric range. There is a substantial aftermarket for larger batteries and plug-in circuitry.
Parallel Hybrids include the Prius and related Toyota products, such as the Camry, the Ford Focus Hybrid, Most of the Honda hybrids, and quite a few others. The Chevy Volt and the new Cadillac ELR are technically Parallel Hybrids although they are mostly Series Hybrids. I'll get into this later.
A Series Hybrid is mostly a pure electric vehicle, but it carries an on-board engine and generator. This is much simpler and more efficient than a parallel hybrid, but for some reason, most of the carmakers didn't go that way. I think they were concerned about the size and reliability of batteries when the first hybrids were being introduced. The power of a series is constrained mainly by its battery: a bigger battery means you don't need as big an engine.
The most important series hybrid on the market, the Chevy Volt, was apparently felt to not have quite enough oomph going up long hills, but instead of improving the battery, they put in a bigger engine and made a clever clutch device which engages the transmission with the engine when the electrics weren't enough. This technically makes it a parallel, but as long as the clutch isn't engaged, it's a series. I believe most buyers of Volts would have preferred to have less power on hills and longer electric range. Most of my friends who own them rarely if ever drive fast or far enough to engage the engine. The new Cadillac ELR uses the same mechanism.
GM has another variation, which they've dubbed a Mild Hybrid. This is an entirely normal internal combustion car, with an oversized battery and starter motor, and a small amount of extra electronics. When you stop the car, at a traffic light for example, the engine stops. When you press on the gas pedal, the starter starts the car moving while it's restarting the engine. I don't think any of them bother with regenerative braking or pure electric while driving at low speed, but if you spend a lot of time idling, this could be a fuel saving. But it's mostly marketing.
A solar powered car that resembles the performance and comfort of today's cars is impossible. Noonday equatorial sun on a clear day is about 1000W/square meter. The total surface area available for exposure to the sun is about 7 square meters on the typical car. Due to inefficiency, and the fact that most of the time it isn't noon on a clear day, and most of us don't live near the equator, that means we have an average of about 500 watts if the sun is up. That's about 2/3rds of a horsepower. even if somebody came up with magic 75% efficient solar panels (today's best are under 40% and most are about 15%), that would only bring it up to about 5hp...still not enough. But that doesn't mean you can't use solar panels to help recharge the battery of your plug-in.
05 March 2014
The Knights Templar
The Knights Templar were a military/banking institution that grew up during the Crusades. When Jerusalem was conquered by the Crusaders in 1099, many wealthy people from Crusader countries went to visit. The people that lived in the area knew that a sizable fraction of the European visitors making the trek from coastal ports to Jerusalem were rich, which made them good targets for thieves and robbers. The Knights Templar were formed originally to guard these folks.
But somewhere along the line, somebody had a really great idea: You could give your money to a Knight Templar, anywhere in the regions they practiced in, which was eventually all of Europe and the middle east, and he would give you a coded note on a piece of paper. Encrypted in this note, apparently, was the amount of money this person had in Templar banks, and some information to identify the rightful owner of the money, so a robber could not steal the paper. You could take such a paper to any Templar bank, and extract any or all of your money. The Templar would destroy your original note in your presence and give you a new one representing your new balance, and the money you'd asked for. The Knights Templar took a small percentage of each transaction, but it quickly was recognized that this was the best way to travel with money, and many merchants took advantage of their services, even for travel that did not involve the Holy Land.
Even though they only took a small percentage, the Knights Templar quickly became very, very rich. The Pope, the King of France, and others became jealous of their wealth, and on Friday the 13th of October, 1307, the Knights Templar were banned, and soldiers slaughtered as many as possible and took the money from their banks. Their elderly leader at the time, Jacques de Molay, was burned at the stake. It's not clear how the money was restored to its rightful owners, but enough must have been to prevent the Pope and King from joining de Molay at the stake.
The Freemasons, founded around 400 years after 1307, purport to be descended from the Knights Templar. Whether this is true or not (other people claim the Freemasons date back to, and include, Alexander the Great and the folks who built the Parthenon), they have incorporated a lot of symbology from the Knights Templar. Their youth group is named for Jacques de Molay.
The superstitions around Friday the 13th are often thought to be related to the destruction of the Knights Templar. perhaps, but such superstitions didn't seem to exist until well in to the 19th century. Probably not, but it's not impossible.
Prior to 1307, Switzerland had been a bunch of small tribes. But early in the 14th century, these tribes came to be united under what came to be called "The Old Swiss Confederacy", they adopted as their national flag the familiar white cross on red background, and they began to be more important in European affairs. The founding documents of the confederacy date to 1291, but it is very likely that surviving Knights Templar escaped to Switzerland and began running stuff. The similarity between the Knights Templar symbology and the Swiss flag is too strong to ignore, and that Switzerland became the bankers for the world, including the kings and popes, is a clear similarity. They learned to make themselves so valuable to those more powerful than themselves that they would be protected. Many people have pointed this out--most popularly Dan Brown in the Da Vinci Code--but it is probably a lot more subtle than he made it seem.
One of the parts of this story that I find most interesting is the money transfer code. As far as I can tell, no part of this has survived. An important part of the process was that there was ever only one copy of the client's letter--the original was burned in the clients presence while a new one was being created, and after 1307, they were worthless. But the Knights Templar must have had internal records--paper stolen or destroyed in an accident for example, and they'd have needed to move actual money around according to the movement of clients. Modern banks do exactly the same stuff, although they generally use centralized computers. The basic protocol, though, is pretty straightforward. Any code or cypher that's isomorphic with the vernacular can be used, but it has to be relatively hard to crack. There's always been a lot of mumbo jumbo associated the the Knights Templar and Freemasons, so they probably use a lot of slang, intending to deceive. It might be a rotating key that uses some hash of the client's name or origin or other properties. And there has to be a good technique for detecting forgeries. But all that has to be stored is the clients name and description, and the amount of money on account. As long as protocol is followed: only one copy of the paper may exist, and it's impossible to forge, then it is secure.
It was a time that Europe was just coming out of the dark ages, beginning to look around and travel, but the 12th and 13th centuries were still pretty dark and dangerous, still very much a libertarian paradise...a paradise for thieves, not really for anybody else. For merchants and others with wealth, The Knights Templar's service would have been incredibly valuable.
But somewhere along the line, somebody had a really great idea: You could give your money to a Knight Templar, anywhere in the regions they practiced in, which was eventually all of Europe and the middle east, and he would give you a coded note on a piece of paper. Encrypted in this note, apparently, was the amount of money this person had in Templar banks, and some information to identify the rightful owner of the money, so a robber could not steal the paper. You could take such a paper to any Templar bank, and extract any or all of your money. The Templar would destroy your original note in your presence and give you a new one representing your new balance, and the money you'd asked for. The Knights Templar took a small percentage of each transaction, but it quickly was recognized that this was the best way to travel with money, and many merchants took advantage of their services, even for travel that did not involve the Holy Land.
Even though they only took a small percentage, the Knights Templar quickly became very, very rich. The Pope, the King of France, and others became jealous of their wealth, and on Friday the 13th of October, 1307, the Knights Templar were banned, and soldiers slaughtered as many as possible and took the money from their banks. Their elderly leader at the time, Jacques de Molay, was burned at the stake. It's not clear how the money was restored to its rightful owners, but enough must have been to prevent the Pope and King from joining de Molay at the stake.
The Freemasons, founded around 400 years after 1307, purport to be descended from the Knights Templar. Whether this is true or not (other people claim the Freemasons date back to, and include, Alexander the Great and the folks who built the Parthenon), they have incorporated a lot of symbology from the Knights Templar. Their youth group is named for Jacques de Molay.
The superstitions around Friday the 13th are often thought to be related to the destruction of the Knights Templar. perhaps, but such superstitions didn't seem to exist until well in to the 19th century. Probably not, but it's not impossible.
Prior to 1307, Switzerland had been a bunch of small tribes. But early in the 14th century, these tribes came to be united under what came to be called "The Old Swiss Confederacy", they adopted as their national flag the familiar white cross on red background, and they began to be more important in European affairs. The founding documents of the confederacy date to 1291, but it is very likely that surviving Knights Templar escaped to Switzerland and began running stuff. The similarity between the Knights Templar symbology and the Swiss flag is too strong to ignore, and that Switzerland became the bankers for the world, including the kings and popes, is a clear similarity. They learned to make themselves so valuable to those more powerful than themselves that they would be protected. Many people have pointed this out--most popularly Dan Brown in the Da Vinci Code--but it is probably a lot more subtle than he made it seem.
One of the parts of this story that I find most interesting is the money transfer code. As far as I can tell, no part of this has survived. An important part of the process was that there was ever only one copy of the client's letter--the original was burned in the clients presence while a new one was being created, and after 1307, they were worthless. But the Knights Templar must have had internal records--paper stolen or destroyed in an accident for example, and they'd have needed to move actual money around according to the movement of clients. Modern banks do exactly the same stuff, although they generally use centralized computers. The basic protocol, though, is pretty straightforward. Any code or cypher that's isomorphic with the vernacular can be used, but it has to be relatively hard to crack. There's always been a lot of mumbo jumbo associated the the Knights Templar and Freemasons, so they probably use a lot of slang, intending to deceive. It might be a rotating key that uses some hash of the client's name or origin or other properties. And there has to be a good technique for detecting forgeries. But all that has to be stored is the clients name and description, and the amount of money on account. As long as protocol is followed: only one copy of the paper may exist, and it's impossible to forge, then it is secure.
It was a time that Europe was just coming out of the dark ages, beginning to look around and travel, but the 12th and 13th centuries were still pretty dark and dangerous, still very much a libertarian paradise...a paradise for thieves, not really for anybody else. For merchants and others with wealth, The Knights Templar's service would have been incredibly valuable.
Tech Acronyms
In a recent article, it is reported that surprisingly many Americans think that elementary technical acronyms are something completely different.
11% of Americans think HTML is an STD. HyperText Markup Language is indeed a Serially Transmitted Descriptor (TCP/IP, 802.11, USB, etc., which are very commonly used to transmit HTML formatted data, are all serial protocols). However, it is not a Sexually Transmitted Disease, unless you count porn.
77% of respondents could not identify what SEO means. I couldn't either, although I've done the work myself a little and I know a number people who are in the business. It's pretty much only a term for people who are actually in the "Search Engine Optimization" business. It's transparent for most of us.
27% thought that gigabyte was a insect found in South America. There are a number of insects in South America that might do quite a few bites, and a few million of them together certainly will do a Billion...probably not of one critter, which would probably die with bite numbers in the thousands of so... A gigabyte is a billion bytes of some type of storage or bandwidth. A byte is 8 bits, and a billion in this case is usually 2^30: 1,073,741,824 bytes.
42% thought Motherboard was the deck of a cruise ship. That's plausible to me. There's a king post, a queen plank, a king-plank (part of the deck) various knees and ribs, even a gang-plank. Motherboard is really only a desktop personal computer term. Older computers had a backplane, which did something similar, and smaller computers, like phones and tablets, just have the one board. Calling it a motherboard is really not correct unless important components can be plugged in, although we understand what you mean.
23% thought MP3 was a Star Wars robot. Sounds plausible to me. With as many robots as there were in those movies, one of them with that name is likely. But it's more likely the audio format the robots were using to make noises...
18% thought BlueRay was a type of manta ray. It is! It is also an optical disc format. It uses blue lasers because that allows higher data capacity than less expensive red lasers.
15% thought "Software" was a type of clothing. And so it is. Salesmen often refer to clothing generically as "Soft goods", and there are several brands that call themselves "Softwear", including tshirts, rubber jewelry, and more.
12% thought "USB" was a European country. Close. UBS originally stood for Union Banque de Suisse, the union bank of Switzerland, a merger of several of the largest Swiss banks. Its banks are pretty much the reason Switzerland has survived for as long, as it has survived two world wars fought right next to its borders, the acquisitiveness of the Habsburgs, of Bismark, and more. UBL is one of the abbreviations used for Osama Bin Laden. USB stands for Universal Serial Bus. (I'm a subscriber to the theory that when the Knights Templar were banned and slaughtered on and after Friday the 13th of October 1307, mostly so that the Pope and the King of France could steal their money, many of the survivors escaped into the wild mountains between France, Italy and Germany and created their own country, become bankers for the rest of Europe, and did their best to keep their past a secret.)
11% of Americans think HTML is an STD. HyperText Markup Language is indeed a Serially Transmitted Descriptor (TCP/IP, 802.11, USB, etc., which are very commonly used to transmit HTML formatted data, are all serial protocols). However, it is not a Sexually Transmitted Disease, unless you count porn.
77% of respondents could not identify what SEO means. I couldn't either, although I've done the work myself a little and I know a number people who are in the business. It's pretty much only a term for people who are actually in the "Search Engine Optimization" business. It's transparent for most of us.
27% thought that gigabyte was a insect found in South America. There are a number of insects in South America that might do quite a few bites, and a few million of them together certainly will do a Billion...probably not of one critter, which would probably die with bite numbers in the thousands of so... A gigabyte is a billion bytes of some type of storage or bandwidth. A byte is 8 bits, and a billion in this case is usually 2^30: 1,073,741,824 bytes.
42% thought Motherboard was the deck of a cruise ship. That's plausible to me. There's a king post, a queen plank, a king-plank (part of the deck) various knees and ribs, even a gang-plank. Motherboard is really only a desktop personal computer term. Older computers had a backplane, which did something similar, and smaller computers, like phones and tablets, just have the one board. Calling it a motherboard is really not correct unless important components can be plugged in, although we understand what you mean.
23% thought MP3 was a Star Wars robot. Sounds plausible to me. With as many robots as there were in those movies, one of them with that name is likely. But it's more likely the audio format the robots were using to make noises...
18% thought BlueRay was a type of manta ray. It is! It is also an optical disc format. It uses blue lasers because that allows higher data capacity than less expensive red lasers.
15% thought "Software" was a type of clothing. And so it is. Salesmen often refer to clothing generically as "Soft goods", and there are several brands that call themselves "Softwear", including tshirts, rubber jewelry, and more.
12% thought "USB" was a European country. Close. UBS originally stood for Union Banque de Suisse, the union bank of Switzerland, a merger of several of the largest Swiss banks. Its banks are pretty much the reason Switzerland has survived for as long, as it has survived two world wars fought right next to its borders, the acquisitiveness of the Habsburgs, of Bismark, and more. UBL is one of the abbreviations used for Osama Bin Laden. USB stands for Universal Serial Bus. (I'm a subscriber to the theory that when the Knights Templar were banned and slaughtered on and after Friday the 13th of October 1307, mostly so that the Pope and the King of France could steal their money, many of the survivors escaped into the wild mountains between France, Italy and Germany and created their own country, become bankers for the rest of Europe, and did their best to keep their past a secret.)
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