Working William

William is my best friend at this point of my life. He has an uncommon developed talent for understanding processes, though I don't think he fully realizes it yet. He gets close when he says 'they could learn it,' but he misses the point that 'he sought the information and figured out how to use it in practical application.'

William, as most people who think commonly, dreams of seeing the world from new heights in his life. He is, however, a very large man who carries the load of his responsibilities admirably.

The reason I love William, though, is because he is a man of conscience. He is very benevolent despite that he could be very intimidating.

William should probably not think about 'flying to those heights' he dreams of. The Spruce Goose flew, but not well and certainly not safely, yet he would need that design and has (conceptually) wood to work with.

William could build a ladder with the wood, and carry his family up the ladder with him. There is probably even a visual demonstration in some Laurel and Hardy flick. There is too much danger to everyone for William to ascend to the heights he dreams of. Even scaffolding would be safer than a ladder.

The best design I can envision with the resource of wood is the 'stair step.' He could build one step, and just ask his family to step up with him. When everyone is stably on the first 'stair step,' he can build a second one.

He need not cart a load of wood with him for, unless he plans to descend the stairs, he can just use the stairs he has at any point to build another 'stair step' that is upward.

Stairs are not built fully upward. They are both upward and lateral.

So how does one 'step up' and 'step forward?' PLEASE, go walk the stairs and figure it out!

Don't mind the emphasis, please; I've told him what I believe is the 'next step' for him to build!

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So, William tells me this joke his boss told him. It was something about a computer programmer not being able to count past one.

I grabbed a pen and paper and wrote '100' on it. I handed it to William and told him to give it to his boss and tell him his friend has four figured out, but is struggling with five.

He just smiled, and offered up 'you know what he meant.'

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What he likely meant: in binary systems, there are only two options like 'on/off,' 'yes/no,' or, in numbers, '0/1.'

In the 'common numbering system' (the base ten), the whole number closest to the decimal point is 'ones,' the second is 'tens,' the third is 'hundreds,' etc.

Binaray number systems are similar, but there are no symbols except for 0 and 1. The series, instead of being (1,10,100,1000 . . . ) as in base ten would be (1,2,4,8 . . . ) when considering in which spot either a 0 or 1 would be placed for counting.

He likely meant 'I can't use a symbol greater than '1' for counting.'