Original Discovery
I’m encouraging you to pay
attention to FreedomsPhoenix daily entries because local, national and world
events/trends are developing very quickly and I suspect that we are all going
to experience the “Change” that we are constantly being promised, very soon.
If you are not at least a
subscriber to the free Email Dispatch from Freedom’s Phoenix,
you are missing a lot of important information. The Email Dispatch Archive is
available for free as well and is very useful when you want to catch up on news
you might have missed while vacationing or taking a break. The Dispatch and its Archive are designed so that a
very wide assortment of news and original articles & opinions can be
scanned in a very short period of time.
Subscribers to the Digital
Magazine have many additional features available to them on FreedomsPhoenix
that we will highlight and detail in November’s eZine (more new stuff just
around the corner we want to add to a new tutorial - Most recent Tutorial HERE).
October’s Edition of the
Freedom’s Phoenix Digital Magazine focuses on the theme, “American Ingenuity -
Garage Inventions that Changed the World”. The
idea that only teams of scientists with unlimited budgets are the only sources
of fantastic leaps in technology and improvements in our lifestyles is a
fiction embraced by those that seek dominion over the minds and bodies of every
individual.
If you haven’t read my “Publisher’s Backpage September 2012”
article, I encourage you to do so since it is a ‘Part 1’ to this article and
you’ll get a lot more from this piece… I’ll wait……
As promised, I have been
constructing my own laboratory and equipping it to provide me with ‘Original
Discovery’. Please let me share what I mean. At
about 28 years of age, married with 4 young children, I was exposed to massive
government and media corruption that would redirect a great deal of our
family’s time for over two decades. For the first time in my life, I would read
the Declaration of Independence
(very cool), the Constitution and the Bill of Rights straight through. I then
started with some Thomas
Jefferson and immediately stopped. Not because I thought what he had to say was
wrong or uninspiring… but because it was very inspiring. Let me explain.
It has come as
a great surprise to many that desired to know how I came to libertarianism to
learn that it was an organic thing that I allowed to develop from ‘Original
Discovery’. Walter Block’s book ‘I Choose Liberty’ is a
compilation of dozens of libertarian minds that explain their path to
enlightenment. My contribution was written at the end of 2002 and was first
published on LewRockwell.com where Walter
archived the articles until publishing his book in 2011.The article Being Libertarian – I
Only Seek the Truth demonstrated how an individual might discover
libertarianism without even knowing of the existence of the libertarian
philosophy or its many advocates from various perspectives.I intentionally
allowed for ‘Original Discovery’.
After reading the Bill of Rights, I was most
motivated by the 14th Amendment at the time for a specific reason
(yes, I know how the 14th is used to enslave us all). The corruption I was exposed to at the time had a
root and I was determined to strike at it. The 'Equal Protection Clause' made it clear that the government could not constitutionally give special privileges to one group that didn't equally apply to everyone. Well heck, that's all I saw government do,... especially when it came to election laws.
Only a few pages of Thomas
Jefferson’s writings demonstrated to me how powerful his words were and how
easily his mind would be cloned inside my head if I continued to read his work.
My desire to understand what was lurking behind the government’s propaganda via
original discovery has always been how I’ve learned anything. I think it came
from a lifetime of being surrounded by exaggeration and deception (family, TV, school) that created this special sort of
‘method’, but it is just the way I prefer to learn, and why I value truth and
honesty as much as I do.
Lessons
from a boy’s workbench
Before moving to Arizona
in the early 70’s my family lived in central Florida 35 miles NE of Tampa (dry heat is MUCH better). I remember having a
microscope and a self made chemistry kit that I would continue to add to over 3
years. I didn’t cause too much trouble and the damage was limited to stains on
the wooden TV stand that made up my
impressive looking workstation. The
most benefit I remember getting out of the setup was as a convincing bluff to
my younger sisters that I could use my Sherlock Homes skills to determine which
of them ‘Touched My Stuff’ etc.
Whenever I learned of a new reaction
from friends, school or printed material I would ask my parents to buy the chemicals I needed with money I earned in various ways. I don’t ever remember a “no”. I guess I
didn’t ask for anything too dangerous. But I do remember my Mother obtaining
pastes and powders from the local pharmacy and my father would do his part with
items from the hardware and auto parts stores. My father owned a few businesses
that also supplied me with plenty of foaming concoctions.
At the same time Radio Shack always had some
electronic gizmo to build. Getting a radio station to provide even a few static
garbled syllables in an earplug from a crystal radio, it took me days to get working,
was very exciting and something that entertained me and my friends for hours.
Experiments in electromagnetism consisted of batteries connected to
appliance transformers that would provide a zap to unsuspecting participants or
when connected to an outside TV
antenna would make the TV
unwatchable. Then there were chemical reactions that would accelerate the disintegration of
various substances, the launching of just about anything with anything (frogs
with catapults, tennis balls with lighter fluid cannons, rockets with
interesting payloads). From 9-12 years old I was encouraged to learn what I
could and share with my parents what I discovered, as long as I didn’t “burn
down the house”. I remember some stern warnings about the mixing of some of the
most common household solutions (bleach and ammonia come to mind… so I did it
in very small quantities to see what would happen… nothing exciting).
I do remember an interesting education in
chemistry when I was twelve. My uncle made a Silver ring for me that I wore for
years. He cut a hole in the middle of an old Silver Quarter to fit my finger
and then spent days rapping the outside with a spoon to round out the edge. One
day I was sick on the couch and my mother placed an old Mercury thermometer in
my mouth. We were told to be careful and not to bite on the thermometer for
fear of breakage… I tested it to failure. My mother and father saw what
happened and screamed for me to spit out everything. Broken glass and Mercury
pooled in the palm of my hand. What I noticed was how much shinier my Silver
ring was when Mercury was added to it. Soon it would dull, so I added some
more. I soon went to sleep, but that was the last I ever saw of my Silver ring.
I searched the couch thoroughly and ran through the event over and over in my
mind trying to think about what might have happened to my ring. It wasn’t until
4 years later in sophomore chemistry that I learned that I had simply dissolved the silver into
oblivion.
Imagination
Snuffed
Technology, material development, space travel,
computer advancements and energy sources all shared the dampening effect of
central planning. I felt that we were always waiting on “the Experts” to bestow
upon us serfs another toy to play with or a machine that would fill our
spare time with the ability to produce more so the state could get their
increased share.
The massive
increase in human productivity via computer technology, manufacturing and
communications hasn’t provided us with an increase in leisure time; it’s filled
our spare time with more work that is taxed at an ever increasing rate. We are
slaves. To imagine anything different is heresy.
The Italian Renaissance that infected Europe for centuries was the result of favorable weather
conditions, advancements in science and communication as a result
of moveable type. Global warming (it’s a Sun thing), scientific advancement and
the Internet has set the stage for just this type of rapid advancement for our
generation. And just like the institutions of Renaissance Europe challenged the
increased productivity of the individual for their own sake then, we can expect
the same thing to happen now,… and for the same reasons.
If you are not ‘In Their Control, then you are Out of Their Control’.
They/Them/Those? “There
are those that just wish to be left alone and there are those that just won’t
leave them alone”. The good guys and
the bad guys are much easier to discern when this standard is applied. The
government propaganda machine and the mandatory youth indoctrination camps have
been successful for many decades in the effort to get the people to demand that
government not leave the other guy alone to pursue their own happiness when
they can be forced to provide a little more happiness for those expecting their
cut of the plunder… but I think this is changing more quickly than many
realize.
It’s very difficult to advocate for something
that you haven’t even imagined yet. Given the “freedom” to vote for how you are
going to be ruled by others doesn’t nurture an imagination that might
contemplate not being ruled… and that is the goal. The
imagination must be killed.
In the 70’s and 80’s I remember Science
Fiction and Science magazines had their own section at the supermarkets, the
book stores and the video stores. Now they have merged into
Action/Adventure/Fantasy etc. I see a pattern that I hope to help break.
Back to the
garage
This edition of the Freedom’s Phoenix eZine (October 2012) has been created
to remind us of the curiosity of our youth and the power of individual
achievement on your own terms from our own workbenches.
If you read last month’s Publisher’s
Backpage then you know that I intend to demonstrate the increased energy
density of a newly designed Nickel Iron (Edison) Battery
using Carbon Nanotubes that I will produce in my own workshop. This updating of a technology over a hundred years
old has already been accomplished this summer at Stanford University.
But just as other freeing technologies have been suppressed in an effort to
eliminate the possibility of human independence from a coercive collective, I
suspect the same sort of delays in the publicly funded Universities. But this
small effort of my own is but a very small part of my much larger effort.
My true objective is to inspire Generation
Next to get back to Original Discovery of their world. For them to determine
what is important to them on their own and with the help of those that truly
love them, not by government employees whose goal is their own survival at
the expense of others.
Carbon nanotubes are 1000 times more
conductive than copper, many times stronger than steel, very light, can be
electroplated, pulled into a thread and are very very very small. What this
means for what I hope to do is very simply this. Take
an inert gas (I’m working with Argon and Helium) and feed it into a Tube Furnace at 600c-900c while adding a carbon
source (CO2 and/or Acetylene…C2H2). The
heat breaks the chemical bonds of other atoms with the carbon and with the
correct catalyst coating a substrate (a fancy glass slide with a special
chemical coating) the carbon atoms self assemble to form these very useful tube
towers. But wait… there’s more.
As useful as this material is, I’m very
interested in the fact that the carbon is conductive and provides an enormous
increase in surface area. This
allows me to take a ceramic hollowed cylinder wrapped in wire, coat it with a
catalyst and deposit it with conductive fury carbon. This
‘cell’ is then placed in an electroplating bath to have Nickel deposited into
all of the cracks and crannies and then assembled into a Nickel Iron battery
that will have an increase in surface area of… a lot!
But this whole project has another much more
interesting aspect to it,… inspiration. If we can help spark the imagination of
Generation Next with these sorts of efforts, our generation will be able to
help spark the next renaissance. Not just a renaissance in science and
technology, but in the way we think and live.
NO MORE WATING!
The Tube
Furnace and the video documentation being set up.
Hospital
oxygen flowmeters to control the gas mixture and flow rate. I used these
because they were more controllable at low pressures.
Removing
a catalyst test sample. Making any carbon?
Yep!
Now I
need to turn this… Wrapped with a bunch more wire and carbonized…
Magnified :
Into this (with the wire
baked too)
Which is this. Very
conductive and can be plated with the metals I need.
Since these samples need to be
lighted from the top I use the USB LED plugin lamp from my MiniLapTop that I have plugged into my microscope. This will make documentation much easier… we are just
getting started.
Here is station 2 of 5 stations so
far in this project. Fortunately I have a large workshop.
P.S. – I have contacts at the
Phoenix Police Department and the FBI here in Phoenix. I sent them the information on my
project and the cover of this month’s magazine so that all of the glassware
(not pictured) I bought for the creations of the various compounds I need for
the nanotube catalysts doesn’t prompt a raid and the killing of dogs.
Oh, and I needed to warn them about another
project we started yesterday that’s causing a stir :)
Peace,
Ernie