Is it some sort of socially-synthesized safeguard against insults and hurtful words, meant to make the accuser feel just as bad as the accused? Is it just a natural reaction, or something people actually think is granted them by some outside source? Whatever it may be, it seems to be used quite often, especially from hecklers at stand-up shows.

Why am I even addressing this? Judgment is good! When made vocal or written, it allows everyone to understand what is thought of, felt, and perceived by other people, which is a perspective which would otherwise be near impossible to acquire. Even the most poorly thrown together judgments based on little to no facts or evidence serve a role in the exchange of ideas, because when the misinformed remain silent, you can’t really tell who needs what information.

If you are insulted by someone, consider how they would arrive to their conclusion! Is their statement true? Perhaps you should change your behavior? Maybe they haven’t seen the whole picture? It’s okay to be mad at them, but letting them and everyone around know that you feel that you deserve to only hear nice things about yourself is unrealistic, full of undeserved ego, and sometimes the source of more insults.

Lastly, I know someone is going to think bigotry is going to be some sort of exception, so I’ll cover that, too. Although an awful thing, it’s important that these ideas are heard as well. The only way a sexist, racist, homophobe, or other bigoted person gets through life easily is if they keep it to themselves. If that happens, their ideas will never be challenged, and they’ll stubbornly remain misguided for life.

There’s a lot of buzz about SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act. You may already be aware of my anti-copyright views, so I’ll skip that and get right to the SOPA concerns.

Lobby money: The person in the video above seems to be under the impression that congress members will (watch a 15-minute YouTube video) value information more than money. The right amount of money could get a “100 Puppy Sacrifices Daily For Jesus” bill passed, no matter how many cute puppy pictures the American people send to congress.

More control for power holders: As state and business lucratively merge, it will be harder to retain paperwork-derived rights for individuals. Conservatives will make it easier for large entities like corporations and the military (see: National Defense Authorization Act) to do as they please, while liberals will use monetary redistribution techniques to provide the appearance of a government that cares about the little guy. Such great teamwork!

SOPA is only one of many options: It doesn’t matter if SOPA passes or not; the next control-the-Internet paperwork is probably being written as you read this, if it hasn’t been already. If I had to guess, something similar to the controlled-monopoly of electricity providers will show up, to “eliminate redundant Internet cables”, which would guarantee incomes for ISPs, which would in turn be able to more effectively trace “suspicious activities“.

We’ve already started losing the Internet. In order for something to be truly free, oppressing it has to be too costly for governments or other control-based entities to value investing in taking over. This could be possible in a few years when wireless technology allows individuals to create their own broad networks, which would grow into the people’s Internet, which can’t be turned off anywhere other than on an individual level.

Yesterday we (by “we”, I mean my friend that started the company) completed our first repair (successfully and without any problems, I may add), and our first customer became our first return customer (we’re working on a different computer and a phone of theirs).

Although my main role in the company is web design, I will also be filling lead roles in odd jobs like maintaining company/employee cars, advertising/public relations, and solve inter-company issues like employee disagreements and such. Here is a list of the services I either do or am a part of:

• Web Design
• Web Hosting
• WordPress & phpBB implementation
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Logo Design
• Statistic Optimization (for web sites & servers)

As a result of being part of this company, I’m no longer offering my free web design services, but I will be able to give you a discount if you follow this blog (be sure to mention that!). That’s for web design (and the related areas listed above) only, though, since I’m not a computer repair person.

Clearly, I’m a bit rusty, but I’ll likely start making videos again (I used to do that to express my thoughts, but migrated to blog format, which ultimately became this blog).

According to ThornBrainSA on Twitter, he also got this offer for his old abandoned account. I suspect it may be a PR move coinciding with the state of the economy, giving people the opportunity to make a little money and advertisers more reach on YouTube. Needless to say, I approve.

People in this country can make quite a living by fully (or coming close to fully) understanding the law of the country, since it is information most people don’t have. When I realized this, I began to wonder why (aside from artificially creating the job called a “Lawyer”) countries allowed this to become the case. Sure, it probably generates some income for local governments which can arrest people for doing something because they weren’t aware it could financially hurt them if the police are around when they do it, but it creates the potential for confusion in any person when they are overloaded with things to remember. Does every police officer remember what is and isn’t against the law, and what the proper way of dealing with someone breaking each particular law is? When laws are updated as much as they are, how quickly is the average citizen expected to pick up on it? If an unjust law was to be created tomorrow, would you know about it before you were arrested?

If you’re convinced the people have power to change things, make this happen. Your representatives, if you even consider them that, have no motivation to lower their pay on their own.

The earliest thing I remember was being in the side of some large rocky hill where there was a cutout. A few other people were with me. We split into two groups and headed out. My group went below a suspension bridge of some sort and made our way up the access stairs. Before we got all the way up, though, group two radioed in warning us of an ambush.

The road that the bridge was on went through a tunnel in the hill we came out of. I guess the other group climbed the hill to get there, since they were shooting at some of the enemies that were going to ambush my group, which had to start shooting at enemies coming up the same stairs we came up. Some of us were unarmed, like myself, so we could only pretty much run for cover.

After the firefight, we continued down the road, away from the tunnel, and came to a strange complex. It was like a budget fortress, but in the style of an oil rig, and built in an artificial well, which meant to get in and out you had to climb down the ladder on the lad wall, then up the giant pole that held it up. Apparently, this was what I was here for. It was at this point, I had some sort of flashback.

I was in a building with some other people, watching some important news on the TV. The reporter said negotiations with… Some country I don’t recall the name of that doesn’t currently exist yet, had ended and the food, clothing, and other material shortages would soon be over. The flashback ended. I understood more than that, though; The supplies did come in, but due to the shut-down of businesses during the long negotiations, the goods had nowhere to go, so the government was just stockpiling them on these well fortresses.

I climbed down the ladder and waded through the 4-foot-deep water. The others that were armed did not follow me; I suspect for metal detection reasons. I climbed up the ladder which went through a hole in the main building at the top, taking me to the roof of it. I encountered a guard not far from there and had to fight him. I snuck up on the second one and knocked him out; he was guarding some boxes that hadn’t been put away yet. I started throwing the boxes off into the water below. This was done because people could get to the supplies at that point, and it was the best option I had.

I climbed down the building’s ladder and up the well’s ladder hoping I wouldn’t be caught on camera. After a while, though, I went back to see how much progress the people had been making, but no one had even tried. I went down to get some stuff, but I was caught on camera.

The dream skipped ahead to my next attempt at freeing unused supplies from a well fortress. This one was a bigger well and there were a few buildings at the bottom (not on oil rig-like stilts). I climbed up to the top to find not supplies, but one female government employee waiting. I’m not one to hit girls, but the dream was semi-lucid and she threw the first punch, so why not? Turns out the government was using the surplus stuff and the artificial scarcity to raise funds for biological modifications, which made this woman nearly invincible. By the time I realized this, I pushed her off the edge of the well fortress, and started to make my escape.

I couldn’t use the main ladder, because it was completely vertical and I’d be a sitting duck there, so instead I took the stairs down to the nearest building. As I got there, the biologically enhanced woman climbed over the other side of the same building, and ran towards me. Although she was clearly nearly unaffected by my last attempt, I continued the knock-her-off-the-building technique in order to make my escape. However, I woke up before I found out if I got away or not.

Political Science: I didn’t know science had anything to do with that! On the second day of class, the teacher said there wasn’t truly any science to it. Perhaps I’ll learn something in this class that will help me tolerate the condition of the world.

English Composition II: Just one of those classes I had to take. Maybe I’ll do better with my past/present/future tense in stories for a while after that class.

Macroeconomics/Microeconomics: These two economics classes last half a semester, so I get 6 credits for taking economics for one semester. Looks like they teach you market-based motivation before you even take the class. Also, what a typical class for a libertarian/anarcho-capitalist to take, huh?

Looks like all these classes will improve my writing here, too. Now I just need some actual readers!

I thought it may be interesting to take a good look at the neighborhood for the first time in a long time. The next building was clean, freshly painted, and… It was a church. It was quite unnecessarily tall, and hung over the next set of buildings, which was one of the many elderly neighborhoods in the area. These buildings look like they were taken from what I’d suspect a prisoner of war camp to be like. They’re small, nearly featureless, rectangular, and all an old shade of white.

The appeal to that neighborhood was that it was a short walk from there to the hospital. It was a nice-looking hospital, with a lot of nice cars out in front. There have always been BMWs and Porsches in front of that hospital, which I suppose happens when a nation says doctors must practice state-of-the-art medicine or not practice at all. Maybe it was just a good town to set up a hospital.

After some smaller medical buildings, we reached the intersection we’d be turning on, which mostly consisted of gas stations and fast food; you probably have one of those in your town. Turning the corner, I noticed the McDonald’s was almost done being remodeled. Really? They could be spending that on improving the food.

I wasn’t going to give their horrible food any thought, though. I had just observed the town I have lived near all my life, and it’s clear that it’s not owned by the people that live there.