Wizodd

Wizodd is the handle used by Charles M. Barnard (me!) for the majority of his online activity.

Wizodd was formed from the name of my company: Wizard of Odd, Ltd. a Wisconsin, USA corporation.

About Me

I was born and raised in Menomonie, Wisconsin, United States of America.

I am a baby boomer.

Unfortunately, this was well after the decline of the empire of the USA had begun, and within my lifetime I have seen a nominally free democratic republic degenerate into a Fascist state.

I'm moderately active politically, having been associated with the Libertarian Party since the late 1970's and heavily involved in public criticism of poor government throughout my adult life.

Space

In the mid-1970's I was a member of the L-5 Society involved in promoting the exploration, colonization and exploitation of space. One of our most important projects was to promote the construction of O'Neil space habitats and orbital based solar power generation satellites.

Unfortunately, at the very point in time at which the US was most prepared to expand into space, the Government decided to drastically cut the budget. This forced NASA to choose a new launch vehicle design without much evaluation, resulting in the Space Shuttle being the manned launch vehicle used through 2009.

Had we begun construction of power satellites in the late 1970's, the US could be generating 120% of the electrical power used in the United States by 2008--with no coal or nuclear power plants required.

Work

From the late 1970's through 2000, I worked as an analyst programmer for a number of companies and consulting clients. My work primarily involved installation and conversion of manufacturing database systems on the IBM Sys/3x|AS400 midrange computers. These systems included: MAPICS and BPICS. I also did some device level and hardware work, including assembler code.

During this time I worked for around 25 different companies, and found that most companies appear to make money despite themselves.

Personal

Been married, been divorced, raised a kid, raised cats and dogs and ferrets.

I am both male and heterosexual and interested in finding a companion who is female and heterosexual or bisexual. I can be reached.

Designs

I like machines and systems which do what they are supposed to do in an elegant fashion, and I have designed a number of devices and systems over the years, few of which have been built.

I have a particular interest in massively passive energy systems and efficient building design.

Currently

I'm working on Project 6 in The Cepia Club (cepiaclub.com)

Project 6 is a simulation of the world economic, political and military situation which was started by Tim Krenz of The Cepia Club in the late 1990's. Since 2003 it has been %80-85 accurate in predicting future events. In particular, it predicted nearly day-by-day the course of the 2nd invasion of Iraq by the US 5 months in advance.

It has also successfully predicted the precipitous fall in value of the US$.