Language.

Here goes. A good language for everyday interhuman communication. You start off with an alphabetical sytem, kind of. You know, as opposed to the entire chinese character thing... Every character makes one sound, and only one sound. Always the same sound, regardless of circumstances. I spent years intermittently analyzing the vocal abilities of the human mouth. I developed a chart. Not a random string of sounds to be recited with a song by first graders, or backwards by drunk people at policemans request, a chart. Ok. It's an 8*8 chart, with 4 notation possibities. One byte/ character total. Consonants. Not just English ones, either. All the possible ones. Or most anyway... I'm never really done.
<>,K,,T, ,,, P.
<>,G,,D, ,,,B.
<>,ng,,N,,,,M.
<>,gh,,Z, dh, <>, V, <... grr... getting tedious... but you get the picture...
Then you have the "vowels". I've classified them into two groups by behavior. One group contains vowels which cannot easily be switched between without changing syllables. The other is the opposite. We'll call them "long" and "short" as I do, simply because.... the short mostly coincide with themselves in english.
a,e,i,o,u,oo...
and the long? brace thyself.
y,w,l,r. That's right. R is a vowel as far as I'm concerned (said that earlier, people found it funny)...
Then you have the glottal close and mixed aspirates and such. Anyway...
I don't feel like typing all this up right now... my end result yileds cahracters that in primary script appear similar to this:
LEFTI... yeah... I'm just gonna post now.

System of Measurement

I mentioned English and our system of measurement. Here's what I've been working on for some time...

Measurement'll go first, why not. Um... So we have American Standard and Metric, right? American Standard isn't base ten and is useless for any kind of calculation. So then its metric we're left with. But it can be improved. We can do this by assimilating constants. We must first establish some kind of unit of time. The second? Did God ever divide time into hours, minutes, and seconds? I don't think he did... pretty sure not. So let's take it base ten. Ten units in a day, ten units in each of those and so on... down to about the same range as the second we know today. I calculated 1 day *10^-5 to be like .86s or something like that... just a sec...
.864s... wow, I remembered pretty well.. ok. Then you set c to be an even power of ten. as opposed to 2.98*10^...6 I think it is, just say c = 10^x d/t. That sets your units of distance. That turned out to be... Man, I've typed this all up already... shame I didn't bring my PC up here... 299,792,458 m/s to 10^8 d/t... meaning that its...
346982011.57407 m/ so 346982011.57407 m = 10^8
3.46982 revised meters in a meter, placing us at 28.82 cm/ revised meter. Or... yeah, I probably screwed it up. The right calculations are at home in Omaha. If you care, just email me. Moving on.

English. Oh.. man. Starting new post.. I'm sorry this rather sloppy, people. My other documents are awesome, and stuff never seems to go into type twice at the same quality. First time is always better...

And so it begins.

I think its safe to say that if you walk up to some random pedestrian and say, "Hey, dude. Is the system screwed up?" They might just say, "Yup." without knowing what part and how. The system is messed up. Common knowledge. Let me give you the details. First, lets lay out categories, and then I'll show you a system layout that is NOT messed up, so everyone out there can see what it is.

English- duh.
The government- duh again.
Our system of education- you don't say!
Our system of economy- this is kind of obvious, right?
Our systems of measurement- see that one coming?
Our systems of comunication- 56k, need I say more?
Our basis of belief- Atheism, etc...
Capyrights and Patents- Google "GNU".

I typed one page just now. And intentionally deleted it. Keep it simple. Keep it straight on. So I begin anew. Lets get some important concepts out of the way first.

Free money causes problems. What is given to a person, they value less than if they had earned it themselves, and thus are more inclined to use it unwisely.

Free market/capitalism is the system that human nature implements by default. "You want this? How much are you willing to give me for it?"

Monarchy/oligarchy is the simplest form of actual government to put into practice.

Democracy in its full form can only be put into a place of power by information technology we have not until recently in human history posessed.

A republic is a compromise between a democracy and an oligarchy. It has some of the advantages, and some of the disadvantages of both.

If God is not who you rely on, you are powerless. If God is on your side, though you be more helpless than the weak you are stronger than the mighty.

Truth is not meant to be witheld. Truth is meant to be given to all for free. All truth. You don't say to a person, "Hey, you want the good news? Give me your wallet and I'll tell you." Sure, it would be worth it. But doing things that way is wrong. God gave you that truth. God gave you all the abilities you have. Let's apply the concept, shall we, to patents. "Hey, I came up with that design! You can't use that! I'll sue!" So, the other dude goes and does something else instead, and progress, once again, has been impeded for persuit of personal gain.

Now lets go back and look at a popular mantra of the U.S.

Life, liberty, and the persuit of happyness. Hmm... Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you.

Because the direct persuit of happiness doesn't lead to happiness! It leads to destruction, inneficiency, disorder, competition.... all that. The form of government that I propose works like this. You have God's people. They unite. You have a state that in practice is a pure sovreign democracy, and in effect is a theocracy. It's citizens, being the members of the body of Christ, work as a body, as opposed to a bunch of random rivaling entities like corporations and political parties and activist groups and secret societies and cartels. Simplicity. You have a central IT backbone through which all data travels. All data is free to all citizens, all citizens do their best to contribute. Because the state IS the kingdom of God on earth until he comes again, and everytime a part of the body does its part, the entire people benefits. Currency is redefined. No one is obligated to honor it but the state. People's obligations are to the kingdom, and currency is but a quantization of what they have worked for and are worthy to receive. I-owe-you's from the governmental structure, if you will. The state has departments of different things, which keep track of what the people need to have done, and coordinate the people's efforts in the most productive way possible. People lay out plans for a processor and operating system, people work through plans, plans get done in such a manner. New technology is discovered, everyone learns about it within a day or two, technology is implemented immediately. A sweet application is developed for a particular purpose, everyone gets to use it right away. Someone sees a way to improve it, collaborates with department, application improved, everyone can update... Some one sees a possiblity for a new program, brings it to the public's attention, public sees it too, project begins, project ends, everyone benefits.

And so it would go... but back to the communication system. Everyone needs the equivalent of:
--a cell phone. A person should always be able to be directly contacted.
--a PC.
--an online profile and address through which to send an receive communication, vote, discuss, blog, and all that. Every time a new service is thought of, account functionality simply expands to include it. Like.... Google! You know, email, IM, search, blogging, online file storage...

The results of this system would be very similar to Firefox, Linux, Open Office, and all that. GNU General Public Liscence. All the way. (At this point, I'd like to urge you to boycott all software that costs money... like Windows Vista and Microsoft Office...) Stuff gets better, its free, modify it as needed, no problems. Good system. Wikipedia, MySpace, all that, too. Everyone has a net-passport-profile kind of thing, everyone works together regardless of physical location..

I'll begin a new post now...

The Dahlman Episode

The summer my dad and I were working on the Plymouth voyager in his parents' die cutting shop bay; I don't remember the year... We had an old black Chevy truck that had been owned by my other grandparents, namely my Grandpa Jerry. He sold it to my mom for a dollar, and we had it sitting by the aforementioned die cutting shop. One day, it disappeared. My dad didn't like that very much. So we decided to hunt them down, and that we did (hang on here, there's a car chase near the end) We found out that this criminal was kind of an idiot. For other thieves out there, there are four things you do not want to do when stealing things.
1: revisit the site on a nearly daily basis looking for other stuff to take,
2:(in the case of a vehicle) drive them around town casually after stealing them,
3: steal them from my dad or those close to him,
4: offer to buy them beforehand, giving out personal information in the process.
My dad actually chased them in my sister's car when he realised that the truck that had just passed him in the other direction had all of grandpa's union bumper stickers, right where they'd been for who knows how many years...
So my dad rapidly and energetically turned around, and the other guy, guilty as he was, immediately sped up. Chase #1. Eventually, the guy took the truck through a bunch of parking lots and then over a curb or something, which ended the chase, as my dad was using my sister's low-profile Le Sabre, I think it was...
So let's see what my dad and I did... ah yes: it is important to note that my dad and I would work well into the night on that van of ours. They drove by once, late at night, while we were still there. We failed to get a license plate number, unfortunately... We used the personal info given to my grandma by the suspected crook to track down a few things. Like the dudes house, for example. Call the number. "Hi, you've reached so-and-so, please leave your message.."
Look up the dude, and I have forgotten his name as of writing this, in the phonebook. Borrow Grandpa Jerry's other vehicle, which he still has, and use it to conceal our identity with my sister's car from the earlier chase... Go to the dude's house late at night. Attempt to slip a camera under his garage door. Return multiple times to stake out the neighborhood. And here's what you will likely remember most: steal his trash at 3 AM and dig through it and make observations at a nearby bag and save (or some store like it)
Uhh... I'll try to remember what we found out from his trash, and you may find this impressive. There were two households in that house. One of the guys recycled, one didn't, and the guy who didn't, I believe was abruptly quitting many pharmaceuticals and returning to habitual smoking and consumption of beer. Soon after that, we found we weren't getting anywhere. Dead lead. So we were driving around SE Omaha looking for leads. We found one. The dude who offered to buy the thing before it disappeared said that he worked for Dahlman Auto Body. We drove down some major street and sighted a Dahlman Avenue. Here began the real fun. We located this "Dahlman Auto Body". Now, a regular auto body shop is usually open from like 8 AM to 11 PM or something like that, right. 2 AM was a little unusual. And regular auto body shops, well, don't have bald lanky white guys dressed in black clothes patrolling nearby intersections... I smile as I now type this... we drove up to the guy, he walked up to us, and we drove away quickly. We came back again. With a disposable camera. We pulled up to him and leaned over as if to ask for information of some sort. The information? A picture of his surprised face. A real shame it didn't turn out :) Don't feel bummed- WE DO HAVE A PICTURE OF THESE GUYS. And it's great. When we locate it, I'll be sure to put it up here. "Whatcha doin', dudes?" He asked in shock and suppressed surprise as we sped off. Then we made our mistake. We kept driving around the area. Chase #2: We happened to notice we were being followed by a black truck. Not our black truck, though: much newer and generally spiffy-looking. My dad is generally a very legal driver. This chase then, went the speed limit for probably all of its duration... Whenever we put on our turning sniggles (family tradition, Caroline started it), the dudes in the truck would immediately pull into the corresponding lane. This was all fun for my dad, who played with them like that for a while. They were getting pissed. We proceeded into Council Bluffs, Iowa. When the highway was like four lanes, we pulled into the far right one. We passed up an exit. Then my dad says "Hold on!" and I'm thinking "Great." We take the exit, at like an 80 degree angle off of our course. They followed us. We then... pulled into a McDonald's drive through. They soon pulled up beside us. Before they did, however, my dad once again said four little words, which I think offer an interesting insight into my dad's way of dealing with life... "Get the camera ready..." They pull up, I raise the camera, the dude raises his finger....

*click* Oh, man, that was terrifying.... The entire time this is happening, of course, I'm thinking, "What if these guys have a gun?!?!?"
Beautiful picture, by the way; that's the one I need to find for you people- the other dude we snapped earlier was in the passenger seat, and conveniently leaned over to see us.

The driver, a bid bald white guy dressed in I think a black T-shirt and jeans, promptly cut us off in the drive through and began to jiggle the door handle with fury trying to get out of the truck ASAP and scare us as much as he could in the process.... My dad shifted our vehicle into reverse and we backed up with a terrified me in the passenger seat, and a severely angered criminal sprinting after us to be seen right through our windshield and headlight beams. We escaped into Council Bluffs... but we had to get back home sometime, right? There are only two or three highways that go between the two cities. They camped out in a gas station parking lot monitoring one of them, which we were going to take. Then, my dad realises that we need gas. So we turn left twice into the gas station. I look out my window, and Oh, Joy! They are right friggin there, intently monitoring the patch of road we would have been on just seconds ago had we not turned off to get gas. We got gas, hoping they wouldn't notice us. They didn't. We then crossed the street and tried to see them with binoculars, but couldn't. We then went down the minor neighborhood street we were on, on got back on the highway via the last possible chance we had, thereby evading their detection.

The truck got left somewhere in Omaha. The police picked it up. It had a ton of parts pulled out of it. We went to the impound lot. And don't you just love our system of law and justice? If we were to get our vehicle back, we had to pay an impound lot and vehicle desertion fine! Because of course, it's obviously the victim's fault the vehicle got stolen, right? Of course. So we said goodbye to the old truck. *sniff* So endeth the Dahlman Episode.

If you would like some excitement yourself, or want to learn more about fine criminal establishments like Dahlman Auto Body, feel free to visit Dahlman Avenue late at night with a camera. The criminals there are in full operation to this day, I do believe. Oh, yeah... wear body armor :)

My Alaskan Journey

Well... I'll start off with the reason. My dad's a dental hygenist, and Alaska pays them more than the other states, on average. He flew up, he flew back to Omaha.... Now, I'm here for the summer. The interesting part? We drove. that's right. Three thousand four hundred miles of American and Canadian highway. Let the tale begin: We started off trying to fix a miss in the engine of my dad's 1980-something Honda Accord... it kinda worked. We do a lot of that. Last summer, no kidding, my dad and I rebuilt the engine on that thing. On a hot summer day, it's not...... fun- to rebuild twenty-year-old engines outside.... but as you may later see, "fun" is not really what my dad is about. If you know him well, you may agree. Andrew Hammond has helped us with that project, and he can tell you how it feels...
So. We couldn't completely fix the engine miss, but we had to head off anyway. All morning on 6/7/06, we packed that car so efficiently it's hard to imagine. I got some of my music to listen to on the drive, four Enya CDs and the AOE soundrack (the only music I have performed be Microsoft employees)... I asked what kind of music we'd listen to before I did, see, and the response I got was that we had plenty of sermons to listen to.... We drive up through the dakotas and we hear a radio station for which our good friend Paul Rehm was the manager. We tried to call his cell. No luck. Anyway, we continued past Sioux City, switching drivers every few hundred miles or so.... it was insanely flat and boring land, but the clouds were pretty. So we reach the Canadian border the following morning... pretty early, too... you know, when its all cold and everything... We had a lot of ID and stuff, but we lacked the following :passport, visa, dad's birth certificate (which my mom tells me wasn't given to him because his mom didn't want him to marry his wife/my mom) So we received an interesting line from the Canadian customs agent: "You do realize you're entering a foreign country, right?" No really! I thought Saskatchewan was a state! 'Course, you don't SAY that, but.....
We drive across Canada... and then past Edmonton things got interesting. My mom called us on my dad's cell. I talked a little while. "Do you have anything important to tell us? Anything interesting going on down there in Omaha?" So she wanted to talk to my dad. With his being so impaired we see our first deer in Canada, I do believe. Up close. *beware- TMI risk* It was pregnant, we had deer fur all over the side of our car, and some deer blood and stuff... our hood was jammed down, as were our headlights, we temporarily lost a blinker... let's see... ah yes. *end TMI* So here's the deal with cars and our family. We have one rather new car. We go through old cars every other year it seems... we had that van (I think Andrew helped with that one) we still have my olds.... Kevin Grey gave us this Honda... there's a story there. Here it is.
Kevin's outside of the system (good for him) but that means he can't get loans. He needed one, and my dad has been purposely building his credit rating for many years. My dad let him borrow some money, and as a token of good will, he gives us this car. See, he had two of them, and he took one and did its body up good as new (that's what he does)..... he did the wrong one. We essentially spent our summer transplanting the internal "organs" of one Honda into the other. Here, a while later, we put it in for more bodywork... drgang land vehicles.
Well, anyway, as we drove through the mountains, which was quite fun at high speeds, but don't remind my mom of that, there were signs for many different types of animals to watch out for. I'm completely serious here. There were signs for: caribou, deer(a few km too late, I fear), moose, mountain goats/sheep, wild horses, bison/buffalo... I think that was it. It made me feel like it would have been a great joke to make a sign for some random other lifeform and put it at the end of the mountain pass both ways. Here are some of the ideas we came up with:
Borg next 15 km: prepare to be assimilated. (Andrew Hammond and myself on one of our random long phonecalls where he's otherwise bored out of his scull...)
Rhinos next 3 km or some other African animal, you know.. (the first idea)
I don't know what else you could do.... if it's not a real animal, I guess it doesn't fit in with the same scenario, but such signs could be great jokes... I liked the borg one because you can imagine what a simplified black drawing of a borg would look like on a road sign ;)
Ah yes. There were these people with "Alaska bound" scrawled on their rear windshield with window paint... Through the mountains, I was officially dissalowed from attempting to keep up with them... They hit a deer too, and it took out their AC... Speaking of which, even way up there, it was insanely hot the entire trip! Evidently, the lakes just thawed days before we were up there... man! (We never even bother trying to keep up with our auto AC systems- just roll down them windows.) Ah, the mosquitos. (random note: probably from spanish "mosca"= fly)
They are man eaters. I mean, you get up where we were and the nights are about the same length, except the mosquitos determine when they start instead of the sun :) Really though, up near Tok, where we camped (for free of course) I woke up like at 4 Am and it wasn't really that dark. Insane. From then on... oh yes! Our annual Criminal encounter! Ok.
My dad was looking for free lodging the entire trip, mainly campgrounds, right? We pull off the highway late at night on a random Canadian road and find a field with an abandoned truck. We've had a truck stolen ourselves (much more on that later, I lead an interesting life) with similar results. They steal the truck, they pull a bunch of random parts, then they dump it somewhere. So my dad looks at this probably stolen truck and says something to the effect of "How nice! Let's set up camp right next to it- it should be able to protect us from charging moose!" To which I replied something to the effect of, "I don't feel comfortable maintaining such close proximity to a vehicle which we can suspect to have been stolen from a random person at some recent pont in time and abandoned here be nefarious criminals who may soon revisit the site" Of course, we then set up camp. and wouldn't you know it... A bunch of young adults pull into the field in a truck towing a small car with brocken windows, and proceed to unload its contents before our eyes. I'm dead serious. And glad to not be dead, period. See, guns are illegal in Canada, but so is the thievery of small cars, I'm pretty sure, so you never know what to expect. We pretended not to care while frantically attempring to call the police on our cell phones. Annnndd..... you guessed it! No coverage. So these dudes pretend not to notice us, get done, drive a ways away behind the trees, and shut off their engine. We waited for a few hours, and decided to just go to sleep. We slept in the car, despite that we had the tent all set up between it and the stolen truck. In the morning, we drove to a power plant or something and told the police what we knew over the phone. We had captured a few liscence plate numbers and such, vehicle descriptions, of course... I think that's it for the journey, basically...