The Words Coming Out of My Fingers

Per my friend Evans having this on his blog, I thought it was pretty cool, so I decided to add it to my own:

Link

Japanese T-Shirt Folding

The internet is a cool place.  It helped me find this:
Japanese T-Shirt Folding

I was then able to take this:


And turn it into this:


Thanks internet!

Does My Dad Have a Website?

I swear, this could be my dad's post:
Cake Wrecks - The Readers Have Spoken

I think he's secretly out there running a bunch of blogs, is actually internet savvy, and only pretends to not like technology to keep us from trying to find out his sum body of works.

...or maybe there are other people out there that just love puns?

Forced at Gunpoint

Alright, fine I'll do it.

A - Attached or single: Attached
B - Best Friend: Grimes
C - Cake or Pie: Cake, chocolate cake, with chocolate icing...I like chocolate.
D - Day of the Week: Can't get any better than a Saturday. Weekend is fresh and the whole day is yours.
E - Essential Item: Chapstick
F - Favorite Color: Brown, then gray, then green...I like earthtones.
G - Gummy Bears or Worms: Gummy candy hurts my teeth, don't like it. If I'm eating it, it's probably just to be nice.
H - Hometown: Temple, TX
I - Indulgences: Little Debbie cupcakes
J - January or July?: July, I love the summer.
K - Kids: Are my monthly fear.
L - Life is incomplete without: Carbon
M - Marriage Date: July 8th, 2006
N - Number of Siblings: 6. 4 in the family I grew up with (1 older step, 1 younger step, and 2 younger half). 2 in the family I visited (1 older step, 1 younger step).
O - Oranges or Apples: Apples. But both are pretty boring.
P - Phobias or Fears: None really. I don't really like the dark. Ghosts freak me out.
Q - Quotes: There is neither happiness nor unhappiness in this world; there is only the comparison of one state with another. Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss. It is necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.
- Edmond Dantes in Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
R - Reason to Smile: Awkward situations
S - Season: Basil
T - Transport: Mazda3, Honda Interceptor, and a Mountain Bike
U - Unknown fact about me: I peed in the crater of Mt. Vesuvius
V - Vegetarian or Omnivore: Omnivore
W - Worst Habit: Forgetting to charge my phone.
X - Rays or Ultrasounds: Ultrasound. Much safer and varying intensities can do vastly different but cool things.
Y - Your favorite food: Fajitas
Z - Zodiac Sign: Gemini

Time to Panic

Saw this on CNN.com earlier. Hope you didn't have a lot of money in the S&P 500.

A Deposit, a Bank, a System, and a Dream

I found out how we can all afford our dream houses! How? Just make the money ourselves out of thin air like banks do.

Now before you simply dismiss this as a stupid idea, you have to realize 2 things:

1. Our entire economic system is built on the use of Fractional Reserve Banking. The short story on this system is that when a bank creates a loan it never has to actually have that money in its reserves.
2. People are allowed to create their own banks. Those banks are known as Credit Unions. Therefore, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em by making our own bank. 10 steps to starting your own credit union.

So how exactly do I pull this off? And how do things actually come together.

Principle 1:
Well, first let's cover the basics. You see up there in item 1? Fractional Reserve Banking is the real key. Banks don't have to have money in their vaults to loan that money. Now the upper limit according to laws in the US mean you have to have a ratio of 9 parts magically created money on loan to 1 part money in the vault. In other words, if you deposit $1000 into my bank, I can take that $1000 in reserve and loan out up to $10,000 to the person of my choice.

Now here is the beauty and the sadness of this system. When a normal bank created that $10,000 loan, they charge ~6% interest on all $10,000. So by you giving the bank $1000 to hold as a deposit they are now using that money to make 6% interest on 10x that much. In other words, in that first year the bank is going to get $600 in interest money on the $1000 you gave them.

So now you should start getting the idea of why the biggest building in town is always the bank's building. -Try to show me any other industry where you can use somebody else's money to make a guaranteed 60% return per year AND be able to only offer the person that gave you the money a 5% money market rate and they are happy about how much they 'made' off the bank.-

So, my point on this level is that it seems somewhat wrong for me to pull out a loan for a home and be charged 60% interest per year on money that the bank magically created. It basically makes the whole I work hard for my money thing seem futile. I spend all of my life working for money and you can simply say that money exists and viola! There it is.

Principle 2:
So the real question is not so much, how do I earn $100,000s for a house. It really should be more focussed on what can I do to make this amazing system that banks have created for themselves work for me. Now I can't just run out and buy Wells Fargo because I'm simply not that rich. But, there is a bit of a legal loophole that I could try to pursue. And that would be point 2, establish my own credit union.

Unfortunately I'm sure somebody saw this establishing a bunch of individual "Federal Credit Union of Me"ses could create some serious problems because then any individual could say they are a bank and loan themselves money. However, if you can get 500-3000 people together you CAN create a credit union. As a credit union you would have all the power that a bank has. You could borrow money from the Fed for 3.5%, and then loan out 10x that much for 6% and laugh all the way to the bank...which fortunately is not far away because you are in the bank.

But, then comes that sticky situation. I've been to my local credit union. They aren't exactly loaded in dough, so what gives? And this is where my credit union would be completely unique, and why my credit union will offer an advantage unheard of in today's world.

Solution:
So the key to this whole situation is figuring out a way that you can create a loan for yourself using the banks 10x fractional reserve system. In my credit union I would keep a couple things in mind.

1. Banks would not make loans to people who are not members.
2. Members would have to buy 'shares' of the bank (likely at around $1000 per share).
3. Members would only be allowed to borrow up to 10x their share value, no more than that, no exceptions.
4. All costs would be reduced to minimum so that fees are low.

The first part is really important. Because a bank can only loan out 10x what it has on hand it's important not to give out money to people that aren't vested in our institution. Therefore, no money can be lent to people that aren't members. However, after a strict screening policy we could allow new members the opportunity to buy shares.

Shares put money into the bank's coffers. By putting that money in, you allow the bank to loan that money out. Therefore, if you want to buy a $250,000 house you need to put in $25,000 otherwise we simply can't give you the money. If you can only save $2000 for a house over the course of a few years, then frankly...you shouldn't be buying a house because you obviously don't know how to save. This bank will only be for those motivated enough to save a 10% downpayment on whatever it is that they want. Now say you wanted to use that $2000 for a $20,000 car, then by all means use it for that.

Now you won't be able to pull out any more loan money until you pay off the amount that you owe OR you deposit more money into the bank by purchasing more shares. The way banking regulations work, if you pulled out $250,000 for a house you have to pay back all of the principle before the original $25,000 is free to be multiplied out for something else.

One thing we also have to keep in mind is that all businesses have underlying costs that need to be paid. We'd have to hire a CPA, setup a website, etc. However, those costs could be greatly minimized if we had NO business front, required that all members handle their own loan authorizations (it's THEIR money after all, not the bank's), etc. But the beauty is that by not having a real front, we can easily run the thing in our spare time as an algorithm that simply sits there willing to help anybody that understands how it all works. Or at the very least somebody who understands that you can't pull out more than 10x what you put in in the first place.

So, how would we pay for those fees? I'm thinking just interest on the money that is on loan. But here's the kicker. Instead of charging 60% interest like the bank would our credit union would simply charge 6% on the principle, which means that you're only paying 0.6% on the entire loan. Now that is one SWEET deal. And totally legal because banks are not required to charge a minimum interest rate.

So let's look back at that home you might be interested in. Say the home costs $200,000. Well, if you want to buy, that means you need to start saving. In fact, if you save $10,000 per year (feasible if you're willing to work for it), you could own that home within 2 years. And the best part is you only pay 0.6% interest! So, based off of this calculator, that make your home go from costing you $1200 per month for the life of the loan and paying a total of $231,750 in interest...on top of the $200,000 for the house. And brings things down to paying $600 per month over 30 years and owing a total of under $18,750 in interest. So quick comparison. Would you rather pay $431,750 to Bank of America for your home, or would you rather just save 10% down-payment and pay $218,750? I can tell you which one I would do.

So, now all I have to do is find 500 people who like using the system to their advantage and we're set! Who's in?

Note:
This post quite possibly had a lot of concepts in it that may be unfamiliar. Just so you know, everything written is totally legit. If you have some questions about what I'm actually talking about I suggest you watch a documentary called Money as Debt. Once you've watched that once (or if you're too lazy), do a search for "Fractional Reserve Banking" and you'll come up with all sorts of sites, such as this one, that one, or this other one. Most sites will be paranoid because they are thinking 'fight the system'...I'm thinking 'work the system'.

Social Netiquette

Alright, so I've had a bit of nostalgia lately and I decided to look up a few old friends on facebook (not MySpace because it's a the epitome of horrible web design by default...at least facebook has limitations on 'personalization').

Going through all of the old people though, I realized that it wasn't going to be a simple task. Somewhat because a lot of people don't appear to be connected to the web. While I personally can't understand that, I can understand that some people don't want to have an active web presence. So that I could forgive, but people make it ridiculously hard to tell who they are for 2 main reasons:

1. The profile image is of something random
2. They got married and decided that their maiden name isn't important anymore
   

Now, I could just list those 2 things and not explain, but what kind of post would that be?

So let's delve into the first since it's the shortest. The site is called FACEbook, not randompicturebook or noimagebook or fungroupphotowhereeverybodysheadis2pixelstallbook. No it's facebook, and the reason it's called that is so that I can see your face and tell who you are and then we can become friends. Why do I want to be your friend? Because I think you're a cool person that I'd like to see again at some point in my future.

Now, the even more aggravating problem, because at least if people don't have a good image you could potentially find them by their information. However, girls that run off and get married and then toss aside their maiden name with reckless abandon aggravate the snot out of me. I understand that you're married, I am too. Marriage is a great thing, and it is the source of so much joy. But to be on something like facebook and completely abandon any mention of your maiden name is the most 100% guaranteed way of making sure that your future will only involve people that you ever see again are people that hung out with you after you got married. While that may be cool to you, I once enjoyed your company and who you are...now I can never find out what became of you. If I'm in your same area I could drive right by your place and not even say hello. Mini disaster in my book...chances squandered and opportunities missed. The worst part is that for you married ladies out there, there is a field called "Former Name", you could just fill that out and viola all is well. Instead you lead a life that abandons a great chunk from your past...when you were just 'you' and you were great then too.

So to all of you social-site-using people out there. Social sites are like a big phone book with all of the cool people from all over the world, the best part of these sites is that you can use them to find all of the people that you want in your own personal phone book so that you can meet and relive who you were. By fixing these 2 simple things we can change ourselves from being simply strangers in this world passing by one another in the ether to once again sharing laughs, reliving memories and developing our friendships further from this moment on.

PS
Chris Johnson...if you're reading this, I tried to find you, but MAN are there a lot of you in the world.

The Ride

This past October I made a most excellent adventure that was the first I've ever made of its kind. I am a bit of a forum lurker over at the VFR Forums, and I saw that they were planning on doing a group ride. Now most of the people were folks of real commitment that save vacation days and all that jazz to do things like this. Me I was lazy, so I decided to meet up with them that morning.

Unfortunately that meant that I had to wake up at about 6am and get on the road to meet them for an 8am start in Kerrville. Well, I sure got up that early and my goodness is there a huge difference in temperature between the city and the country. In the city everything felt fine (but cool) at around the mid-50s. However, out in the valleys things got into the 30s. And if you've never ridden a bike in the 30s, first I don't recommend it, and secondly, just imagine that you are stuck in a car with the windows down, no heat and it's freezing outside...that's warmer than a bike in the 30s.

Anyways, I raced as best as I legally could, but found out later that I missed them heading out by no more than 2 minutes. So I decided to go ahead and follow the route as best as I could:


View Larger Map


One thing I have to say about the Hill Country in this region is that it is breathtakingly beautiful. Fertile valleys, rolling hills, old 2-lane roads, lots of trees and vistas everywhere. I first found this area with the wife earlier in the year, and I've already been back 3 times in the last year...just gorgeous!

After playing a little rende-miss with the group, I finally met up with them and had my chance to sign The Flaf. My bike is definitely not one of those you see all the time, but when they came I couldn't help but get excited. What mods did they have? Are there any tricks to our bikes that I don't know about? What is that weird crack on my windshield? All sorts of questions. It was a really nice crowd too because most of the guys that ride my bike are a bit older so there were no crazy antics, talks about the craziest wheelies and stoppies that they mustered around minivans. Nope, just good people (okay, a couple weirdos, but for finding them on the internet I was impressed) on a good bike, riding great roads, in a gorgeous area. Oh, and did I mention that they were good riders. I've never seen people on bikes that were that confident and FAST! Not that we ever pursued supra-legal speeds, because that would be stupid (that's for you dad). They really pushed me to gain a lot of confidence in what my bike could do and to realize that the limiting factor in my relationship with my motorcycle is not the motorcycle...it's me.

Fortunately I was really happy, and practically grinning the whole time.


There's just a certain Zen that I reach on my bike when riding closer to my limits. All you can do is focus on the road, the angles, the lean, the brake balance, bike pitch, contact patches, friction limits, max lean angles, pushing of the handles, keeping enough throttle on so that the rear doesn't break loose, pulling the handle, gassing the engine, squeezing the tank, setting the line for the next turn... So much to think about that when I ride I realize that riding is the ONLY thing I can think about. And it cleanses my soul and leaves me more satisfied than practically anything else.

It was a good day, a long day, a challenging day, and a satisfying day. Although I must admit...I was really sore afterwards too because by the end of it I had been on my bike from 6am to about 8pm, ridden 500 miles, and really attacked it for about 300 miles of that. I simply got back and collapsed on my bed satisfied at having gone, and filled with dreams like this:

Poly-Ticks

Alright, I'm on a political bent, so you'll have to bear with me.

Really excited about Ron Paul running for president. A guy like this would do AMAZING things for this country. Too bad most of America is too dumb to understand what needs to be done, and he's not your mainstream Republicrat so he's getting no coverage whatsoever in the media. But the good news is he's gaining a lot of support thru the internet, and who knows, if I can convince some people that can convince some people...could become something real.

Death and Taxes. The only sure things in life. Question is are you so sure about why you're paying them? According to this interesting documentary (America: Freedom to Fascism). While certain lawyers may disagree (ahem) with it, the fact remains if you cannot clearly point out where a law is and why it exists, then you cannot enforce such a non-existent law. Why don't we just implement the Fair Tax instead of our current overly complex system that provides too many loopholes for those with the money to evade it?

RTfB Act. I really think that one of the worst parts of our government is the ambiguity and ridiculous length of what members of congress say they approve of. When a bill is 1000 pages long there is NO way that you could have the ability to read, much less comprehend what you're voting for. Not only that, but much of the language of laws is deliberately worded so that it's so ambiguous that nobody can understand it (much like credit card contracts), that way the authorities that be can really do whatever they want and claim that the law is actually on their side. I really applaud DownsizeDC for trying to get this off the ground. Yet again, probably will never make it, but if it does...expect great bad things like abolition of Habeas Corpus to be a thing of the past.

Other ideas in the pipeworks that I like. A law that would only allow one topic to be addressed per bill proposed. And having automatic runoffs or making the house of representatives reflect the voting percentages of the electorate on a per party percentage (like in the Netherlands). Whatever happens in this country the first thing to do is to take control of our currency, shift taxes so that they do not punish production, and then create laws that force it to where Congress can only really do something if it's VERY important or relatively simple to accomplish. Not that any of this will ever happen though...unless we can somehow get Ron Paul in for president. What would be really interesting is if Hillary gets the Dem nomination, and Paul does not get the Rep nomination, then to have a Paul/Barrack ticket...now that would get America interested in the race and prove on both their parts that they are more concerned with helping America than with partisan politics. We'll see what really goes down though.

[Edit March 23, 2007]
One more great link.
A Visual Guide to Where Your Taxes Go by Death and Taxes

New Favorite Web Comic

After feeling like ToothPasteforDinner has gone down the drains a little lately, I have finally found a new favorite Web Comic. This is a great find for me today because I was able to have many laughs while sifting through all 231 of the entries.

This person seems to think a lot like I do. A whole lot of nerd, thinking of life as various algorhithms and charts, and spending too much time coming to logical conclusions via faulty thought processes. Anyways, I hope you enjoy as much as I.

To help all of you out I found the following to be the best entries:
http://xkcd.com/c26.html
http://xkcd.com/c29.html
http://xkcd.com/c30.html
http://xkcd.com/c37.html
http://xkcd.com/c41.html
http://xkcd.com/c53.html
http://xkcd.com/c54.html
http://xkcd.com/c70.html
http://xkcd.com/c75.html
http://xkcd.com/c85.html
http://xkcd.com/c87.html
http://xkcd.com/c88.html
http://xkcd.com/c93.html
http://xkcd.com/c94.html
http://xkcd.com/c109.html
http://xkcd.com/c131.html
http://xkcd.com/c132.html
http://xkcd.com/c134.html
http://xkcd.com/c135.html
http://xkcd.com/c136.html
http://xkcd.com/c138.html
http://xkcd.com/c140.html
http://xkcd.com/c145.html
http://xkcd.com/c148.html
http://xkcd.com/c151.html
http://xkcd.com/c152.html
http://xkcd.com/c154.html
http://xkcd.com/c164.html
http://xkcd.com/c165.html
http://xkcd.com/c166.html
http://xkcd.com/c168.html
http://xkcd.com/c172.html
http://xkcd.com/c178.html
http://xkcd.com/c186.html
http://xkcd.com/c187.html
http://xkcd.com/c188.html
http://xkcd.com/c194.html
http://xkcd.com/c203.html
http://xkcd.com/c207.html
http://xkcd.com/c210.html
http://xkcd.com/c227.html
http://xkcd.com/c229.html
http://xkcd.com/c231.html

Oh, the Places I've Gone!

A Real Daredevil

Check this out. And prepare to be amazed.

Woot

I'm a Superhero!

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

PS
Heroes is the best new show on TV.

Cool Tech

The other day I ran across this really cool new product called d3o. I have no clue what the name stands for but the product is really cool. It's based off of the principle of a non-Newtonian fluid. A newtonian fluid is like water in the sense that if it flows at a slow rate or a high rate pretty much the same things will happen. However, some common elements don't behave like a normal fluid. For example, if you slow down blood it begins to thicken and eventually forms clots...that's a non-Newtonian fluid. Another example is a solution of Corn Starch, if you run your finger thru is everything is fine, but if you punch it then all of the sudden it is like punching a rock. When under high amounts of strain Corn Starch will resist any forces acting on it. Or for those of you that like Sci-Fi it's like the shields that they wear when fighting on Dune.

So that brings us to the main point. What if you could make a material that was amazing at taking hard bangs and hits, but was still flexible and comfortable to wear? Enter d3o. This stuff is really cool, and I can't wait until it's more widely available.

Check out some stuff on it here:
What is d3o?

Or a similar thing being done with balistics here:
Liquid body armour for soldiers?

Seeing stuff like this makes me really think that we may be finally reaching a new era in material technology. If you look at most things we deal with in our everyday life, they are built focussed around materials that have been around for at least a century, maybe more. However, with the coming of newer materials such as GoreTEX, UnderArmour, and maybe this d30 stuff it is sure to change the way we interact with our world for years or centuries to come.

Grossest Thing Ever!

Note: This is NOT for the squeemish at heart. Literally, this is probably the grossest thing I've ever seen/heard of and what's worse is that it's real! Yuck.


Here are a few more links in case you're interested in the medical side of things:
TheFetus.net
Fetus In Fetu: A Case Report and Literature Review

An interesting thing to think about with this is how does all of this apply to the theory of people having souls from the moment they are conceived? This is more developed than a few day old fetus, so are the doctors committing murder by removing it?

"Facial and cranial structures also are uncommonly seen, yet eyes, ears, mouth and poorly organized brain and cerebellum have been observed"

Stupid Fungus

I finally found a brand of contact lens solution that I loved! This stuff was perfect, nice and smooth, no rubbing required, very moist. My eyes actually felt better after putting in my contacts than before. Such an improvement on the harsh wetness of most lens solutions. However, like Love Monkey anything that you love is guaranteed to be quickly pulled from your life.

In comes the stupid fungus (story). Evidently because some people in Singapore don't know how to wash their hands, the product had to be pulled and now I have to live a life of optical discomfort. And there's no hope in site, just a bunch of empty shelves await me every time I go to look for some MoistureLoc solution.

Picture in a Picture

This is one of the coolest things that I've seen in quite some time! I could easily spend hours on it. I find life so interesting and some of these pictures represent some normal images just brilliantly captured.

For those of you confused as to how it works, each picture is composed of pixels and each pixel has some sort of RGB (Red, Green and Blue) value. In this compilation, each picture is assigned a particular RGB value based off of the average RGB value for the image. That way an algorithm can be made to create an image, but when zoomed in it loads the image of the assigned RGB. The algorithm could probably be made in a day or so, but the real coolness is in the size of the library of photos.

I love it when art and technology combine!

If you guys get on me enough I might be able to whip up a program that makes a collage out of your own photo library. I think I have the base now, just might need a few tweaks...and the LabVIEW Runtime Engine (only language I can code in).

Conspiracy Theory: Pentagon on 9/11

Go here fast before it's taken down.

I'd put this right up there with JFK's head flying back instead of forward when he was supposedly shot from the back right by a 'communist'.

What I Wish I Did

Before I gave up on my future and hit the cold reality of the real world, this is what I hoped to actually do. Maybe I shouldn't give up?

So incredibly awesome. So much potential. And you actually make people's LIVES better. So cool.