If Ray Kurzweil has his way, we’ll need to start Crisis Mapping this thing right away.

This is a song I wrote a couple of years ago for a novel/film project I’ve been working on for close to 10 years.  It’s the story of a boy named Kris who grows up to become the man we all know as Santa.  The book has just recently been published…Check out Santa Is Real for more info.

Merry Christmas!

The Snowflake Song Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The Snowflake Song

Counting snowflakes, counting dreams, count the days til Christmas eve,
Count the snowflakes, count the stars, count them if you’re near or far,
Falling Snowflakes, tumble down, Lift your head and spin around,
Falling Snowflakes, Count them all, a Christmas wish as snowflakes fall.

Crystal snowflakes, crystal night, keep my brothers, warm and tight,
Watch my sisters, safe and dear, til I return next Christmas year,
Falling snowflakes from above, each unique and filled with love,
Keep them safe until I call, my Christmas wish as snowflakes fall.

Making angels in the snow, playful children, watch them grow,
Read their letters, wrap the toys, each made with love for girls and boys,
Little angels, all around, close your eyes and settle down,
Snowflake angels, find them all, my christmas wish as snowflakes fall.

Falling snowflakes from above, each unique and filled with love,
Keep them safe until I call, my Christmas wish as snowflakes fall.

I have to admit, this really looks cool.  The Trek Geek inside of me just went a little apeshit.   Haynes…the publishing company best known for printing manuals on how to disassemble (and reassemble) your 1972 Triumph Bonneville (I just ordered that one), has put together an owner’s manual for the USS Enterprise.

And it looks pretty damn cool.

Haynes publishes owner’s manual for Star Trek’s U.S.S. Enterprise | Mail Online.

Today I’m returning to Orlando after my first week on the road talking to co-working, hacker and maker spaces in California about +) GWOBorg.

My co-pilots on this journey are Willow Bl00 (codename: Bl00) and Shannon O’Donnell (codename: RaRa). I first met Bl00 in Seattle only a few weeks ago where she gave a presentation on Transhumanism at Gnomedex10. I had never even heard the term “transhumanism” before, lest be schooled on it by a 26-year-old, motorcycle-riding cyberpunk organic chat client sporting a blue mohawk. My presentation on +) GWOBorg immediately followed Bl00′s and within mere minutes after I was done speaking, we didn’t realize it yet, but we had already begun the planning stages of this tour.

RaRa had just embarked on a 6-month journey that was starting in Bali. For the last three years, RaRa has been backpacking around the world and documenting her experiences through her travel blog, A Little Adrift. Before she left for that journey, RaRa helped me make The Karaoke King and served on the crew as our Production Coordinator. Anyone who has ever worked on a film crew knows that the Production Coordinator is possibly one of the most demanding and unsung positions on the crew…high pressure and little glory. RaRa did it with a smile.

Bl00 is the director of maker space in Seattle called Jigsaw Renaissance. While visiting their space in Seattle, I realized that the best way to get the message out about +) GWOBorg was to actually go out and visit co-working, hacker and maker spaces across the United States. I realized that I don’t know enough about these communities and I wanted to learn more. And so I asked Bl00 if she would serve a tour guide of sorts, and introduce me to her world.

Her only concern: “Can we ride motorcycles?” she asked.

Of course!!!

RaRa took a bit more convincing. She had *just* arrived in Bali for an intended 6-month minimum stay. The weekend before she left, she was housesitting for me in Orlando (I was in Seattle at Gnomedex hosting a 24-hour Open Governent Hackathon and meeting Bl00), but I didn’t have enough pieces parts in place for me to convince her to *not* get on that flight. By the time Bl00 and I had a draft of a plan in place, RaRa was already apartment hunting in India. She was literally walking out the door to make a deposit on a 6-month lease when a mutual friend caught her on the phone and convinced her to pause and listen to the possibility of coming back to help me launch +) GWOBorg.

She agreed, and the three of us first met in Los Angeles last week to visit our first space, Crash Space LA. After that, we drove up the coast to visit three more spaces in San Francisco: Mission Social, NoiseBridge and NextSpace.

It’s amazing to meet these groups of geeks who have banded together in this new form of co-working that goes against the traditional corporate model of how things get done. Each space has its own character, enhanced by its unique members, physical location and goals. Everyone we’ve met so far has been amazingly positive, so much so that we’re going to be visiting many more of them.

After a few days of rest back in Orlando, we’re next headed to the midwest to visit spaces in Detroit, Chicago, Louisville and St. Louis. After that we hit Atlanta, New York, DC, Boston, Portland…

We’ll keep visiting spaces as long as we continue getting invites. If you run or are a member of a co-working, hacker or makers space (or would like to start one), contact Bl00 and we’ll see if we can add you to the tour.

And, of course, all of this is leading up to our MEGA Hackathon on the 24 hours leading up to 10.10.10. You can win some prizes, and your space can win prizes too. Check out the 101010 +) GWOBorg Hackathon announcement.

+) Diggz

Asshat of the day award goes to Terry Savage, a columnist for the Chicago Sun Times, who yelled at some little girls who were giving away free beverages at their lemonade stand, ostensibly offending Savage’s perception of how to run a proper lemonade business.

“No!” I exclaimed from the back seat. “That’s not the spirit of giving. You can only really give when you give something you own. They’re giving away their parents’ things — the lemonade, cups, candy. It’s not theirs to give.”

I pushed the button to roll down the window and stuck my head out to set them straight.

“You must charge something for the lemonade,” I explained. “That’s the whole point of a lemonade stand. You figure out your costs — how much the lemonade costs, and the cups — and then you charge a little more than what it costs you, so you can make money. Then you can buy more stuff, and make more lemonade, and sell it and make more money.”

You can’t blame Savage…she is just a cog in the wheel of a larger market.  BP was just trying to make more lemonade in the Gulf after all, right?

Free lemonade stands aren’t what’s wrong with America, it’s asshats like Terry Savage who yell at little girls from the air conditioned comfort of her BP-Oil chugging SUV.

There is no ‘free’ lemonade :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Terry Savage.

25 years ago today, the original Back the the Future film was released.  It was the top grossing film of 1985.  Here’s some things you may not know about the film:

Although Michael J. Fox was always the first pick to play Marty McFly, Fox was too busy filming “Family Ties” to sign on to the project.  They replaced Fox with Eric Stoltz.   After 4 weeks of filming (and $3 million dollars), the producers and Stotz agreed he wasn’t right for the part and he left the project.  Fox was then cast and they worked around his tight schedule to make the film.

Michael J. Fox is only ten days younger than Lea Thompson who plays his mother, and is almost three years older than his on-screen dad, Crispin Glover.

When Marty pretends to be Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan, he plays a tape labeled “Van Halen” to scare George out of his sleep. It is an untitled Edward Van Halen original written for a movie called “The Wild Life”.

In the sequel the entire ending scene from the original movie was painstakingly re-created, shot-for-shot:

Where Is the Spill Site?

Here is the spill site using Google maps (click any image to see a bigger, clearer version of the image):

This NOAA image gives a basic overview of the oil spill site in relation to the surrounding area:

The oil spill is occurring within the “Macondo prospect”, which is located in Mississippi Canyon Block 252 in the Gulf of Mexico.

Here is an image showing the Mississippi Canyon compared to other areas in the Gulf of Mexico:

This shows the relation of Block 252 to nearby sites:

Here is Block 252 shown in comparison with nearby sites:

And this is the definitive high-resolution map showing block 252 in comparison with other prospects in the Mississippi Canyon area and surrounding areas.

But in order to really get a feel for what’s happening underwater, we should look at detailed topographic maps. Indeed, knowing the topography and the geology at the spill site is crucial in understanding the risks involved and being able to determine the best approach for stopping the leak.

Topography of the Spill Site

Here’s a map of the Gulf of Mexico:

Here’s another map courtesy of Wired (the spill site is between the two sets of red hash marks):

Here’s an image of the Gulf of Mexico, showing the Sigsbee and Florida Escarpments (Block 252 is approximately half way in between the 2 escarpments):

Here is a satellite image of the area provided by the Minerals Management Service and NOAA’s Multipurpose Marine Cadastre:

Here is a close-up Here is a close-up (I placed a hand icon at the approximate location of the oil spill based on latitude and longitude):

Here is an image – courtesy of NOAA’s GeoPlatform service – showing the topography surrounding the leaking wellhead:

Here is a close up of the same image:

Here is the same image with the spill location indicator removed, so that you can see the slope of the area at the spill site:

(Note: the GeoPlatform service is also very useful for forecasting the near-term trajectory of the oil spill).

Here is a map giving a different view of the steep canyon in which the oil spill site is located:

Some oil industry professionals are worried that a landslide at the spill site could make the oil spill much worse by carrying away the blowout preventer, riser and all other equipment. While I have no idea how likely it is that a landslide could occur before the well is capped, it is true that:

1. The spill site is located in a steep canyon;
2. There are hundreds of feet of loose mud and muck on top of the sea floor in this area; and
3. Many deepwater, oi-rich areas within the Gulf are tectonically active.

Source:  http://www.zerohedge.com/article/where-oil-spill

I can’t think of a worse week to open a new attraction in Central Florida…the same week Universal Studios opens Harry Potter’s Wizarding World???

Really guys…TIGHT work.  You really couldn’t of held it a week?

Anyway… (In case you missed it…)

Star Trek Live, a new interactive stage show made its worldwide debut at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex on Friday, June 11, 2010.

“Each 30-minute show will combine special effects, audience interaction and an exploration of real space-age technology. Guests will also see on-screen appearances from Captain Kirk and Spock.

“In the show, the audience portrays new Starfleet cadets assembled for the first day at the Starfleet Academy. As we are introduced to the Academy, the Earth itself comes under attack from a renegade Romulan, leaving the fate of the future itself in the hands of our cadets. The new cadets will have to learn the intricacies of living and working in space, modern space travel and the latest in communication and technology.”

Here’s a gallery of images from the Star Trek Live show

Star Trek Live makes its debut at Kennedy Space Center | Orlando Attractions Magazine Blog.

Sea Water passes through: Oil Doesn’t

A group at the University of Pittsburgh has developed a chemical that can be used to readily convert textiles (either natural or man-made) into an inexpensive and efficient water-oil separator.

This video shows how a piece of chemically treated cotton cloth is able to separate oil from Gulf of Mexico sea water.  The treated cloth allows water to path through but not oil.  Quick…someone get Costner on the phone.

You might recall last week I posted about Kevin Costner’s company, Ocean Therapy Solutions.   Well, Costner has now apparently sold 32 of his oil spill cleaning machines to BP.  The 32 machines are expected to process 6 million gallons of water each day and will extract clean water from the oil with a 99.9% success rate.

Costner testified before the House Energy and Environment subcommittee on Wednesday. Costner said “that as long as the oil industry profits from the sea, they have an obligation to protect it.”  He went on to say that the cleaning devices “should be on every ship transporting oil, they should be on every derrick, they should be in every harbor.”

Not a bad idea, Kev.

Kevin Costner sells 32 oil spill machines to BP to recycle 6 million gallons of water a day photos.