Our high school is just no longer acceptable. It needs to go and we have a golden opportunity to get it replaced with 2/3 of the cost coming from the government. Our need is that great. However, we (the town) still need to pay for the other 1/3 and we have two votes coming up that will let the deal go through.

Not everybody in our town thinks it is a good idea, I think mostly because their taxes will go up. Even though the new high school would pretty much ensure that they recouped what these taxes would be just in the increased property values of their homes, not to mention the myriad other benefits a new facility would bring and the overall strengthening of the community as a whole, they are still against it. I am at a loss as to how best to explain the benefits so I had a friend of mine comment on his blog about what it really means to a community (economically) to get a new school, please check it out;

Shade Tree Economist

Please watch this video from Intellectual Ventures Lab. This group is working on ways of combating malaria in developing countries. Every 43 seconds a child dies of malaria in Africa and while spraying and nets are somewhat effective a lot still needs to be done to protect people. One of their ideas is to install mosquito defense systems around villages and clinics that would use lasers to shoot down malaria carrying mosquitoes as soon as they came in to a certain range.

DID YOU HEAR WHAT I SAID? Use lasers to shoot down mosquitoes!

As you can see by the video they already have a working model. The most amazing thing about this is that they made this, they did not invent it. They purchased all of the components for this device off of ebay. Think about that. All of the components to make a FRICKIN LASER ARMED MOSQUITO DEFENSE SYSTEM are OFF THE SHELF! From the blue laser taken out of a Blu-Ray player to a fast moving mirror from a laser printer. Also, computing power has become so cheap and abundant that the system could be made so that it would measure the wingbeat frequency and size of the flying object before deciding to shoot it down. This way the system would shoot only the disease ridden mosquitoes and avoid any friendly fire situations like shooting down a local honey bee on its way to pollinate some flowers.

Now, a lot of you will read this and say that this is pretty cool and then forget about it. As a society, we have become indoctrinated to expect and accept the wondrous as almost mundane. The idea of a mosquito laser defense system is an idea right out of science fiction. An idea that would be far fetched to even the most forward thinking sci-fi writers from 30 years ago. Yet, not only does it really exist now, but there is so much abundant technology out there that nothing new even had to be invented for it to work. Someone just needed to take existing tech and put it together in a novel way.

Our technology is becoming pervasive and invisible to most people. So many of you out there, right now, have no real concept that the device they carry around and use everyday to send texts and pictures and check reservation and movie times on, which they laughably call a phone, is actually a miniature computer with a million times more computing power than the lunar lander, Eagle, the first vehicle to land on another world. Most people don't know and they don't care. All they care about is that their stupid "phone" doesn't have enough bars for them to talk with their friend 600 miles away while checking their flight schedule to see if there are any delays ... "No bars! This thing sucks!" The wondrous has become commonplace.

I will give you an example. If people woke up tomorrow and saw a news story about scientists successfully cloning a herd of woolly mammoths that would soon be heading to their local zoos they would not even bat an eye. Cloned, prehistoric creatures. Are you kidding me? This is a classic sci-fi concept. Except, now it's not. Now it is just a concept, because people know that not only is cloning prehistoric wooly mammoths feasible, they fully expect that it is inevitable.

Even as they ignore the technology around them people have come to fully expect the amazing revelations that science will bring them. "Oh, we received radio contact from an alien civilization at Tau Ceti? Well, it's about time. We have been waiting for that one for years." There really isn't very much out there that could surprise a person living in our society. Things that would astonish and dumbfound people 50 years ago have become what a lot of people feel they are entitled to and are pissed off that it is taking so long for them to get, i.e. The Flying Car. "C'mon people! It's 2010! What is taking so long? I want my flying car!"

So, the next time you go to text your friend or check your exact geographic location on your "phone" take a second and smell the wonder. Reflect on the miracle that is in your hand and remember that old beat up calculator that was once used to pilot a ship to another world.

Link: http://okgo.forumsunlimited.com/index.php?showtopic=4169

OK Go - This Too Shall Pass from OK Go on Vimeo.

I came across this open letter from the band OK Go about the changing nature of the music industry and the unexpected issues that arise from these changes.
Open Letter from OK Go

This is a very cool video of an Italian singer performing a song whose lyrics are complete and utter gibberish meant to sound like American English. The intent of the video is to illustrate which English phonemes and syllables carry into the foreign ear.
Even though I know the song is complete gibberish it sounds just like English to me, with a kind of James Brown feel to it. I keep wanting to relisten to it because I swear I can almost make out what he is saying. It is very weird. The Italian Singer is Adriano Celantano and this was written in 1972.

It is easy to forget all of the ripples that occur and how many people are affected when a loved one is gone. Not just gone, but gone to a place that is far from safe. And to know that they volunteered to go there when they joined our armed services so that we can continue to live in the comfort and safety that is a product of our amazing country. I am humbled by their sacrifice. Thank you for that.

Also, anyone who tries to tell you that animals can't feel need to watch this and these other videos. Go get yourself a rescue dog. You'll never regret it.

Cheers

Originally uploaded by jlmoyni at 16 Aug '09, 5.23pm EDT PST.

Summer is over and the kids are back in school. Our weeks and weekends are now filled with homework, practices and soccer games while our days are filled with work.

I miss the Vineyard. We had a great summer vacation there this year that was full of the four F's; Fun, Family, Frolicking, and Feeding our faces with gigantic, yummy, lobster rolls.

I can't wait to go back. Until then i will have to make do with some pics;
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jlmoyni/sets/72157621926299737/

Cheers,
John

Cheers

From the recent TED Conference;

A word of warning to everyone out there. If you are at work tomorrow and are having problems with your email or you can't print something or you are having trouble uploading pictures of your cat to your FaceBook profile I am just here to tell you that you may be waiting for quite a while for any kind of IT support. Why? Because tomorrow is the geek equivalent of a snow day. All over the country geeks, nerds, techies, and fanboys will be silently wrapping things up early, signing out their pagers, and putting their cell phones on vibrate so that they can all go out and see the earliest possible screening of the new Star Trek movie.

Why the earliest possible screening? It's all about your Geek Cred (kind of like street cred but you don't have to shoot anyone for it). The first one to see the latest and greatest thing in Geekdom wins. It's as simple as that. And Star Trek is about as close as you can get to being the Holy Grail of Geekdom.

So if you're having technical issues tomorrow you may have better luck talking with your help desk friends over in India because the local guys may be "busy". In fact, I will go so far as to predict that there will be a lot of convenient server related emergencies that will absolutely require your local IT guy's undivided attention in the data center (which, of course, no one but your IT guy knows the location of). These emergencies will probably last for a block of, oh, let's say 3 hours in the early afternoon. After which things will miraculously be fixed and your local IT guy will have averted certain disaster.

Also, if you are heading to the movies tomorrow or anytime this weekend, you may run into some klingons, vulcans, and romulans, plus the occasional jawa (not all geeks are smart. We do occasionally have a confused one). So expect theaters to be packed but if you are going to see "Ghosts of Girlfriends past" or "The Soloist" you should be OK.

Where will I be tomorrow? I will be at work tending to my duties. You see, us older, more seasoned geeks no longer have the need to see the latest and greatest as soon as it comes out. Even if it is Star Trek ... I'll probably wait until Monday.

Cheers

Here is a short video starring Maeve and Ella that was shot by Maeve. As you can see, she went to the Blair Witch Project School of Filmmaking.

Cheers