Just add water.

A loud storm woke me up, so I thought I'd write a blog entry.  The rain is good.  Adam D. and I got the garden planted on Sunday afternoon.  It needs the water.

Not to bore everyone with what interests me at the moment, but I just spent most of the evening reading about oxyhydrogen generators you can build at home or buy off the shelf, install in your car, and increase your fuel economy by 25 to 50%.  It converts water (HOH) into "Brown's Gas" (oxyhydrogen, HHO).  This oxyhydrogen on demand makes your fuel burn more efficiently and gives your engine more power.  Now that gasoline prices exceed $3.33 per gallon, this seems worthwhile.

source: gasbuddy.com

Local Price Snapshot Today 3.331 Yesterday 3.329 One Week Ago 3.234 One Month Ago 3.045 One Year Ago 2.705

For this invention to be completely carbon neutral, you'd have to add another battery to your car and add solar panels to charge it.  Otherwise, you're using power from your alternator.  But, my understanding is that the alternator makes much more electricity than is needed to charge your battery and the field current which is allowed to pass the regulator is based on feedback voltage from the battery, so the battery only gets juice when it needs it, so using this energy to make an oxyhydrogen additive is gainful because it's otherwise wasted.  Furthermore, the expense of installing the system is tax deductible.

Here are some plans for making an HHO generator out of some #80 CPVC pipe and concentric stainless steel exhaust pipes with a 1mm gap. These pipes are the diodes and electricity is pulsed at a frequency you can tweak for the best HHO to fuel mixture for your particular engine.  http://www.spiritofmaat.com/archive/feb2/carplans_doc.htm

On YouTube, I've seen pure HHO lawnmowers and cars, so using water plus a pinch of baking soda for fuel with an electrical assist to convert it to HHO is a viable emerging technology.

Suspending the Gas Tax

I read about how John McCain's economic plan includes suspending the gas tax between Memorial Day and Labor Day.  They tried to pass something like this in Texas last year, but it was quashed on the Senate side after the House unanimously passed it.  The only people against it are the people who get this earmarked transportation money, the road builders.  The price of everything goes up when gas prices go up, so the reasons they give in this press release seem like a small price to pay for getting a smaller price to pay for everything that's transported by taxed gasoline.

http://www.artba.org/news/press_releases/2008/04-15-08.htm

Boo hoo.  I'm for repairing and upgrading highway infrastructure, but I think the states can handle paying the bill if the Federal Highway Trust Fund is missing a few months of gas tax revenue.  And the argument that gas tax relief will cause car accidents is quite a stretch.

One of their reasons is highway congestion wastes gas.  It's a bit ironic that most of the congestion I experience is due to lane closures in construction zones, for which the road builders are responsible.

18.4 cents per gallon of gasoline is Federal gas tax.  Who knew?  Ouch.  Diesel tax is 24.4 cents.  That's wacky.  Diesel cars are less polluting than petrol cars.  This disparity in the fuel tax rates encourages pollution.

Master of numeracy

On an employee self-assessment I was asked to rate my "numeracy".  I had to look that one up, and then rate myself very highly.  :-)

April 15 is over.

The Nieda is in town this coming weekend, so there will be some sort of get together.  That's exciting, because my social scene has been confined to work, hockey, and the gym lately. 

There was no hockey last night.  The rink took their ice down last week to repaint it.  They were still making ice last night, so our game was postponed to tonight.  That's fine with me.  I took the niece and nephew to the city rink for public skating, instead, just so I wouldn't be bored and sedentary at home on the couch.  Mission accomplished.

Shuffling money around to avoid paying too much income tax, getting the tax preparer paid, paying the mortgages, and paying for two bathroom updates. . . what a crazy month.  $3.23 per gallon gas doesn't help.  I shopped for loans to get everyone paid.  Instead of taking a crappy interest rate, I obtained a family loan to get me over the hump without selling something.  That'll save me some bank intere$t.  Much thanks to mom and dad.  Last month I had more going out than coming in.  With some prudence and perseverance, I should be able to turn the corner next month.

The garden will be planted next weekend.  I'm excited about that, if the weather allows it.  Adam D. has already started the seeds indoors, and called to tell me not to buy seeds.  He's got it covered.  I like this co-op garden thing already.

Monday

I found out today that I can get "buy one get one" Royals tickets on select dates because I paid my Jackson County personal property tax.  Info here.  Nice.

It's a boring day at work, so I'm doing paperwork.  I hate make work that fills in the gaps between the real work.  If you ask why enough times, someone will admit that the government requires it.  Fine.  It's easier than actual work, but it's all overhead, because I get paid the same to be unproductive as I do to be productive.  Our client's don't want to do the government regulation paperwork, which is one reason why they outsource their IT stuff in the first place.  There seems to be a philosophy of "if it's not written down, it didn't happen."  I mean, we have a Fifth Amendment that says you don't have to give the government information about yourself, but nobody who is beholden to a government regulating body seems to recognize that.  If the government wants to come check the network out, they're welcome, really.  Since the network is used in the manufacture of a drug, I can sign documents all day to that affect, which don't make it any more or less true.  The end result is I've wasted a lot of time and paper so some FDA auditor can check a box.  It's a big game.  I know why drugs are so expensive, though.  Refer to my pay stub.

Hulu to the Rescue

Finding and retrieving torrents of the shows I want to watch has been mostly automated, and only disappointing on occasion.  The main drawback is my internet connection is always sending or receiving video.  I need a second cable modem so I can surf.  The quality and variety of content I can get via torrent is excellent, but I can't always get the hockey games I want.  Today, through some searching, I found what I wanted on Hulu, and it's not HD, but great for streaming video.  Check out some hockey action..

Hulu seems to have mostly Fox and NBC content, in addition to NHL. I'm kinda hooked.  Tonight I watched more Hulu over the internet than I watched MythTV on my local media server.  Hated the ads, but love the ease of finding what I want to see.  If it had the Viacom content, Hulu would hold my attention over the torrent content.

Go Lakotah!

My buddy at work, Joe, was upset on Friday because his son got detention for saying the word "gun" at school.  I said, "no way!"  What is wrong with that?  He and I both grew up in Southeast Oklahoma where teachers were more likely to participate in a discussion of guns than to quash it.  I guess they don't teach the second amendment in that school.  The irony is that Joe's boy was referring to his biceps.  I sent an email to Cam Edwards at NRANews.com in hopes that Joe gets interviewed on the program.  Joe moonlights as a gunsmith, so I'm sure he would.  I discovered the show on Sirius 144 and now I listen when I can.

In December, the Lakotah tribe renounced their treaties with the United States and declared their independence based on the United States' violation of those treaties.  In the not so near future the western 50 million acres of South Dakota which is owned by the tribe may be recognized by the State Department as a separate nation.  I think that they will become the richest nation on our continent, because they are free from the Federal Reserve system of banking, which dilutes our money, and free from oppressive taxation.  They, like Canada, will borrow protection from the United States military because of location.  The Black Hills is rich in resources.  Because of all of that, international investors are pouring tons of money into the Republic of Lakotah.  These Native Americans are putting up windmills to become energy independent.  They are attracting talented professionals who are renouncing their U.S citizenship to work without having their income taxed.  How it would expose the problems in the United States if a truly free country were to emerge within its borders by following the model of our founding fathers.  I'm going to keep an eye on this story.  They are already issuing drivers licenses and passports.  When will they print their own money?  I wonder if they will be socialist or have strongly enforced property rights.  What kind of constitution will they draft?  Will it be in their native language or English?  Will the liens they are placing on illegally homesteaded property be honored in court?  Will the fight escalate outside of court if they lose?  Will people who own property in the Black Hills be compensated if their land was obtained in violation of a treaty?  Which U.S. allies will recognize their sovereignty?