The First Cross-Country Drive in an Electric Car

In 1903, most people "knew" automobiles were just toys for rich people and eccentrics that would never be used for long-distance travel because they couldn't go far enough. That year Horatio Nelson Jackson proved them wrong by driving across America in his 2-cylinder, 20 horsepower, 1903 Winton. The trip took 64 days. Five years later Ford introduced the inexpensive Model T and soon long-distance travel by automobile was routine.

Today, most people "know" electric cars are just toys for rich people and eccentrics that will never be used for long-distance travel because they can't go far enough. Last week, 111 years after Jackson made his trip, John & Jill Glenney became the first people to drive across the country in an electric car. The trip took 5 days.

First Cross-Country Electric Car Drive

Review of Windows 20 and Macintosh OS XX

After many years of convergence, Windows and Macintosh OS are so similar that they can both be reviewed at once. This review is of both Windows 20 and Macintosh OS XX. They even have the same version number, go figure.

As it turned out, it was quite simple to review both. After many years of striving toward the graphical ideal of having fewer and fewer screen elements, they now both have no screen elements at all. Both operating systems boot to a completely blank screen.

Both Microsoft and Apple say that the screen color can be changed, but don't provide any way of doing it. In fact, with both, you can't do anything at all, except stare lovingly at the pure blank screen and squeal with joy.

Since both are great for that -- staring at the screen and doing nothing but enjoying the pure graphical blankness -- both get 5 stars for this review. Congratulations, Microsoft and Apple!

As you've no doubt heard and read, the fanbois of both camps are ecstatic. Both insist that their own favored brand's screen blankness is better than the other brand's, which they each dismiss as derivative and inferior, attracting only morons for users. Perhaps they are each half right.

To take full advantage of these new versions of Windows and Mac OS, PC manufactures and Apple have all brought out new computers. They have no keyboards, no ports, no potential for user input of any kind, so as not to distract the user from enjoying the great new blank screens.

As laptop product manager Terry SmarterThanThou at Dellibanysus explained, "These new laptops may look exactly the same as the last generation, but they are a huge improvement. Users complained that they had a hard time finding the locations of the keys on the completely blank deck. They'd start typing and find they were on the wrong keys, and make a lot of typos which would take time to for them to correct. We listened to our customers and addressed their concerns by removing the ability to type anything at all. Now you can type wherever you want on the deck, and just imagine that you're typing correctly."

So, what's next for Windows and Mac OS? We're not sure, but we're pretty sure there is no basis to the persistent rumors of them bringing back the very first versions of both operating systems, to satisfy users who want to do productive work. Of course there is no such user. As everyone can see in the ads, users only care about bling. And blank screens are the blingiest bling of all, as they set the user's imagination free.

What I learned from my 7yo yesterday

We're lucky to have a nice nature path nearby that takes us most of the way to our library. Yesterday we walked there.

On the way, our 7yo Avery started walking funny. I asked him what he was doing.

He explained that he was "skalking" -- that's SKipping with one leg while wALKing with the other.

Bookplates with Illustrations from Old Children's Books and More

I've been making bookplates with illustrations from old children's books and other illustrations. They include the original illustrations from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the original Wizard of Oz books, and the classic children's stories of Thornton W. Burgess:


Bookplates with the original illustrations from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Including Alice and the Cheshire Cat.


Bookplates with illustrations from the original Wizard of Oz books

Including the Tin Woodman (as he was called in the original book series), Scarecrow, Dorothy, and her cat Eureka.


Bookplates with illustrations from the classic children's stories of Thornton W. Burgess

Including Grandfather Frog, Sammy Jay, Chatterer the Red Squirrel, and Whitetail the Marsh Hawk.

More Bookplates

Including the famous "Inverted Jenny" upside-down biplane postage stamp error of 1918, and an 1865 engraving of a spectacularly grotesque 1645 painting featuring an exceptionally hideous demon.


Also available on Etsy.com.

Restoring the Children's Books of Thornton W. Burgess and Illustrations by Harrison Cady

When I was 7 years old in 1972, as I was waiting in the book section of a store for my parents to do their shopping, I pulled a Thornton W. Burgess children's book from the shelf and started reading it. When my parents came to collect me, I asked them if I could have it, and though money was very tight for them at the time, I must have been very earnest because they agreed. I finished reading it that day -- I was a voracious young reader -- and asked for more. They bought what they could afford, and Burgess was my favorite author then. My younger siblings enjoyed his books too.

A few years ago, when my kids were old enough that I thought they might enjoy having Burgess read to them, I asked Mom about the old Burgess books and she gave me what survived of them after much love from me and my siblings and from a set of nephews too. My kids enjoyed them and I started buying up more of them, and soon started making sure to get the editions with the best Harrison Cady illustrations.

On reading the Burgess bibliographies by Wayne W. Wright and Michael W. Dowhan, Jr., I learned that the books had originally been serialized in newspapers, and it appeared to me that only around 10% or so of the over 15,000 newspaper installments had been published in book form. I also learned from those bibliographies that the vast majority of those newspaper installments had an illustration by Burgess' wonderful illustrator, Harrison Cady. I started borrowing microfilm of the old New York Globe newspapers from the Library of Congress through my local library, and scanning the Burgess newspaper installments.

It's been slow going, and very tedious, but when I was reading Burgess' "The Adventures of Sammy Jay" (1915) to my kids, and came to the place in chapter 21 where Sammy Jay remembers a previous incident not in the book, my kids asked me when that happened. I recognized the incident as one that had been in newspapers August 11 - 23, 1913. They wanted to interrupt the reading of Sammy Jay to read those newspaper installments, so we did. I believe they were the first kids to have that episode read to them since 1913.

I also discovered that three chapters had been removed from "The Adventures of Old Man Coyote". Reading the three missing chapters in the newspapers, I could imagine no reason for their removal other than space constraints. So I made the restored version of Coyote now available on Amazon, with those 3 chapters restored to their original places in the narrative.

Then I found that 10 chapters had been removed from "The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver", so I did the same for that book. I especially love the new (restored) ending, which is probably the most sublime ending of any of Burgess' books. Also, the original newspaper illustrations for Paddy were by longtime Burgess illustrator Harrison Cady, one per chapter. The restored version includes those illustrations.

For both of those books, Harrison Cady had made two sets of illustrations for the books, one set for each of two publishers. My editions are the first to include BOTH sets (and both sets are complete), making them the most illustrated editions ever. In case of Paddy, since it also includes Harrison Cady's original newpaper illustrations, that means it has THREE complete sets of illustrations. Coyote was serialized before Cady began illustrating Burgess' newspaper stories.

It looks like the same is probably true of several other books, though in some cases I won't know for sure for years, at the very slow rate I'm able to get the microfilm rolls from the Library of Congress. It's impossible to be sure whether a given day's newspaper installment is a lost chapter in one of the book's storylines, or about something else, until I scan it and read it. Reading it is often no easy task because the newspapers were over 40 years old and in poor condition when the microfilm was made, the microfilm photography itself was sometimes sloppily done, and the the old microfilm rolls are often heavily damaged. Sometimes it requires intense study and analysis to figure out what they said. The original newspapers themselves have not survived.

There are many more restored Burgess books to come in the years ahead. Currently I'm working on restoring a set of short stories from Burgess' newspaper serializations.

It's a lot of fun seeing these wonderful old stories and illustrations that have been virtually inaccessible and unknown for a century, gratifying to see how they improve the books from which they had been excluded, and exciting to put them back in front of readers after all these years. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

You can find them here:

"The Adventures of Old Man Coyote: With 3 Lost Chapters Restored" by Thornton W. Burgess

"The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver: With 10 Lost Chapters Restored" by Thornton W. Burgess

Words of Wisdom from my Kindergartner

Earlier in the day I had driven my Kindergartner to his music lesson in my Honda CRX, a subcompact two-seater. Later I drove all the kids and their bikes to a park in our minivan.

As we put the bikes back in the garage when we got back, my 5 year old asked why we keep the garage door locked. I answered, "Because otherwise someone might steal your bike".

He replied, "Well, at least no one would steal your CRX."

I asked why not. I wondered if he'd noticed that the engine was not running very smoothly when I took him to his weekly music lessons; it needs a part that is nowhere to be found, new or used. Or was it because, at over 25 years old and well over 200,000 miles, it looks a little tired? Or was it just that it was overdue for a wash?

"Because it's not very useful. It only holds two people."

Oh. Well, fortunately we keep the minivan locked up in the garage too.

Christmas Carol Quiz

1) What well-known traditional Christmas carol was originally about a songbird announcing the arrival of Spring?

2) What well-known traditional Christmas carol was originally about the Arthurian legend of the Lady of the Lake?

3) What well-known traditional Christmas carol marks a transition from pagan Winter festival to Christmas?

4) What well-known traditional Christmas carol was originally about the Gutenberg printing press?

Time to Retire the Penny

When the United States first began minting coins in 1793, the smallest denomination made was the half cent. By 1857 the half cent coin was worth only about 13.5 cents in 2014 dollars and was discontinued, leaving the penny as the smallest denomination, then worth just over 27 cents in 2014 dollars.

At that time, the remaining coin denominations still being made were worth, in 2014 dollars, 27 cents, $1.35, $2.70, $6.76, $13.51, $27.03, $67.57, $135.14, $270.27, and $540.54 (cent, "half dime", dime, quarter, half dollar, dollar, $2.50, $5, $10, and $20 coins). Later a few more denominations were added, ranging from (in 2014 dollars) 54 cents to $81.08.

(If the highest of those denominations seem strangely high for coins, it's because America didn't have it's own paper currency until later.)

I wonder what Americans in 1857 would have thought of Congress if, instead of discontinuing the half penny that year, they had not only kept it but added even smaller denominations, down to a "1/25 cent" coin or even less -- the value then of a penny today. Especially if that coin cost about twice as much to make as it was worth, as is the case with today's penny.

The annual cost of making pennies is now $58 million more than the value of the pennies made. That's the reduced number after factoring in fixed costs and overhead that would be allocated to other coins if the penny were eliminated. That's like throwing $58 million dollars into the garbage can, every year. It will only get worse in the years ahead as the costs of production rise while inflation reduces the value of a cent. I wonder if anyone in Congress can imagine any other uses for that annual $58 million dollars.

Some of that $58 million is recovered by individuals by melting down pennies and selling the metal. Your tax dollars are paying for that, though it's less common now that melting or exporting pennies has been made illegal, with a 5 year prison sentence.

Since nickels are also minted at a loss, and eliminating pennies would increase demand for and production of nickels, the losses on making more nickels would subtract from the savings on eliminating pennies. However, the Mint is already looking at reducing the cost of making nickels (and dimes and quarters too) by about 85% by using different metals (pennies are already made about as cheaply as possible). Once that change is in place, making nickels would once again be profitable, so increased demand for and production of nickels due to eliminating pennies would increase the gain from eliminating pennies, not reduce it.

Eliminating pennies would have no effect on electronic, check, or any other non-coin kind of transaction, which could still be done down to the 1-cent level (or even lower). Since most transactions are electronic, most transactions won't be affected.

Some argue (I'm looking at you, Snopes.com) that since pennies change hands many times, they add a penny to the economy every time they are used. But using a medium of exchange to buy something does not add the face value of that medium of exchange to the economy. If it did, you and I could just buy $100 dollar bills from each other repeatedly (paying for them with $100 bills, just by passing two bills back and forth!) until the economy reached economic nirvana. Gosh, why didn't Ben Bernanke just do that to get us all out of the Great Recession? No, a transaction improves the economy by how much it improves the overall well-being of the parties to the transaction -- the seller's profit plus the buyer's net benefit. More importantly, whatever positive effect each penny does have on the economy each time it is spent, a nickel has five times as much positive effect, plus more since using a nickel is more efficient than using 5 pennies.

Others argue that the problem is caused only by rising metal prices, and we should just wait for metal prices to come back down. But even if huge motherloads of metal ore are discovered, driving metal prices down, eventually inflation would catch up to the cost of producing a penny, even if the metal itself were absolutely free; the production cost alone is already well over half a cent. Also, it seems more likely that metal prices will continue to rise long term due to rising demand, than to drop back down. As the huge populations of China and India become ever more industrialized, their demand for metals will certainly not decrease. Well, maybe if China pollutes its population literally to death, but even if it did, India would pick up the slack.

Some argue that eliminating the penny would increase prices, as sellers round up to the nearest nickel. But that would create an opportunity for the competition to take market share by rounding to the nearest nickel, making customers happier. Perhaps the most worrisome example for some might be gas stations. But gas stations already price to the tenth of a cent, and most customers buy with a credit card. Eliminating the physical penny won't change what those customers pay. If you pay for your gas with cash, you might lose as much as 4 cents per fillup until you find a gas station that rounds to the nearest nickel for cash customers, as you can be sure some will do to get your business.

Economists who have studied the nickel rounding issue in great detail disagree as to its effects, and even quote contradictory real-world results from countries that have already done it. If there is a small net increase due to rounding, it is probably less than $58 million per year. On the other hand, if we should keep the penny because the rounding issue saves money, we should introduce 1/10 cent, 1/25 cent, and even 1/100 cent coins immediately to save even more money. What are we waiting for?

Similarly, some argue that eliminating the penny would be a tax increase because sales taxes are rounded up. But that would create an opportunity for political candidates to get votes by promising to round sales tax to the nearest instead of rounding up.

Some say even a tiny increase in prices and sales tax caused by eliminating the penny would cause massive inflation. If so, again we should introduce 1/10 cent, 1/25 cent, and even 1/100 cent coins immediately for the undoubtedly massive economic benefit. Why aren't penny advocates demanding these coins?

Looking at both seller rounding and sales tax rounding, some argue that we should keep the penny as long as there is even the slightest economic benefit. But they should first subtract the large economic cost of making pennies and consider the net result.

Some argue that we should keep the penny just because it is traditional, and because of course we love Lincoln. But Lincoln could be put on any other coin we choose, and anyway he is also on the $5 bill. Why not introduce a $5 coin featuring Lincoln? Also, there have been any number of beloved traditional things we have forgone due to their cost, even where the cost was much less than $58 million per year. Many want to keep traditional things, but few offer to pay so much for them.

Some argue that people are more willing to give pennies to charity than larger denominations. But most money given to charity is not by coin, and many people who now give pennies would give nickels if there were no pennies to give. Total giving might remain steady or even increase.

There are a lot of silly arguments out there too. For example, "eliminating the penny would ruin the economy by requiring the revamping the entire monetary system" (no it wouldn't, and no it wouldn't). "It would require replacing all vending machines" (most of them don't take pennies anyway, and few if any still take only pennies). "Pennies add up" (sure, but so do nickels). "It would mess up how we pay for things" (but it's messed up now, and eliminating the penny would make it less messed up). "People will save less because the old saying 'every penny counts' will become meaningless" (but people will probably just start saying "every nickel counts"; after all we haven't been saying 'every half-cent counts' since 1857). "Keeping the penny shows our independence" (no it doesn't; we can be independent without throwing money away). "It's fun to look for old pennies in your change" (but you can do that with any coin). "Small children like to save up pennies because they don't know they are worthless" (okay, but they can save nickels too, even if they don't get as many of them). "All the other denominations are multiples of the penny, so their value will become arbitrary" (no, all denominations are fractions or multiples of the dollar, and anyway eliminating it wouldn't make other denominations arbitrary). "We depend on the penny" (no we don't).

Why is there so much more resistance to dropping the penny today than there was to dropping the half-cent in 1857? What's so different today? It's pretty simple -- what's so different is that today we have the Zinc Lobby. The US Mint is the #1 consumer of zinc today, and it is mostly used for pennies. Dropping the penny would be catastrophic for zinc mining. The Zinc Lobby has been engaged in an all-out propaganda war to make people feel sentimental about the penny and fearful of dropping it. They have been very successful propagandists.

Of course, eliminating the penny would have other repercussions too. Jobs would be lost; the economic base of some towns would shrink, even if only by very little. No doubt Coinstar would suffer. No one wants a good worker to lose their job, nor for any town to be blighted by economic loss. But we would all be better off if a few years' worth of the $58 million were applied toward investing in new industry in affected areas and in retraining affected workers for new jobs, rather than continuing to throw it away each year.

As for Coinstar, perhaps nothing can be done to mitigate their loss from the elimination of the penny. But ask yourself whether you want your tax dollars to continue to be spent effectively subsidizing their success.

Inflation will continue to erode the buying power of a penny while increasing the cost of producing one. Today we're paying $58 million more than they're worth; in the years ahead it will be more and more. How much is too much?