Happy 2nd night of Chanukah folks..
It was clear and still this morning.. ut it was an amazing drive into work.. tere were trees down everywhere.. some places liek wes white hill were devastated beyond belief. We’ll be looking at the destruction of last nights storm for the nest 10 years.
My first stop after several meetings at home was an hour meeting with my Echo brethren and cisterns (?)… sisters ? .. to All Earth Renewables. Our friend Dave had offered the group a tour. They make small scale wind and sall scale solar trackers..
… though they don’t look so small when you’re next to them .
Here’s Dave showing us his toys.. this shows the very cool mechanical governor that keeps the thing from flying apart in a wind like last nights.
Here’s one of the extruded blaeds.. (the one in the middle).. the one on the right is molly.. looks kinda like American Gothic.
THen outside to teh solar fields.. these are really cool. they use GPS to track.. they park themselves in high winds and go vertical in heavy snow.. pretty amazing.
oh.. I <3 <3 <3 silicon
GOt home late after an incredibly full , busy (and fun) day.. The power was still off at jen and Tim, but we went up there.. Deb and the kids are back from canada.. so we went up to eat .. They had their generator running.. the only lights on their street that I could see..
Thank goodness the generator can power the essentials
Another great meal with the friends.. it feels like old times when we’re all together.. 
tim even broke out the weird glowy stuff. 
Afterwards we all started talkign aout our cool new project idea.. (still looking for a name).. it’s aotu finding ways to use kids and techical folks to help people in needy parts of the world..
I started using the whipped cream to draw a diagram about the idea..
Yum.. it’s got to be a good idea…
more tomorrow..
nite all, nite sam
-me
John,
Here is a cool song for Chanukah – this is an group from Yeshiva Univ.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSJCSR4MuhU
John,
Still looking for a name?
From the short description above, ‘Technology Without Borders’, or ‘Geeks Without Borders’ comes to mind. However, both of those are taken and providing similar education and services, http://www.technologywithoutborders.org/, http://gwob.org/.
Beyond helping needy countries with technology, I think there is a real need to help engineers everywhere think outside of the box, to think about using technology and their education in unconventional ways. To that, I would suggest the simple name ‘Outside The Box’, or OTB, which implies without borders, technology that is immediately ready to use (out of the box), creative thinking, and leaves room for the organization to grow into new areas of science, technology and art without having to change its name.
The organization could then promote OTB engineering in a wide variety of venues, combining students, volunteers, etc, and helping a wide variety of needy people while demonstrating to our young engineers that they need not be confined by the walls of their classrooms or the ideas of their teachers.
The outsidethebox.org and otb.org domains are both available…
Jerome
Correction on the outsidethebox.org and odb.org domain names. Nobody is using them, but they are taken.
Outside The Box Engineering is also taken (Civil Engineering firm), http://www.otbeng.com/
But, exarca.org is available (Latin, out of chest). Short, sweet, and kinda mysterious.
Jerome