Newsletter for the Alumni and Friends of
Hicksville High School Hicksville, New York

The Editors:
Buffalo Bob Casale '61	Linda (Piccerelli) Hayden '60
Pat (Koziuk) Driscoll '56	Bob (Gleason) Wesley '61

Contributing Editors: Bob Gillette & Walter Schmidt

Webmaster: Roger Whitaker

To contact the editors, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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HICKSVILLE VIETNAM WAR ERA MEMORIAL - PROJECT UPDATE

The new year started with 2 new donors bringing in an additional $250!

We now have a total of $34,638 in contributions and are concentrating our efforts to get the Memorial constructed for dedication and unveiling to the public on Veteran's Day this year (November 11th)!

For those of you who have not yet made a contribution, you still have time to be part of the Memorial. Details on where to mail your donation check are shown in the complete Project Update, which appears in the Honoring Our Veterans section of this newsletter.

As always, should you have any new information to report for either the Confirmed or Unconfirmed Lists of Names, particularly to fill in missing data on the Confirmed List, please email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

On behalf of the Project Team,
Joe Carfora, HHS 1962

The Newsletter

Photo Gallery

What Scientists Just Found Deep In The Ocean Is Seriously Unbelievable

Off the coast of Egypt divers have discovered something that was thought to be lost a long time ago. It was said that the ancient city of Heracleion was lost under the sea for good. Well 1200 years later, off the bay of Aboukir , this ancient city has finally been discovered. The city dates back to the 6th century B.C. and holds some of the most beautiful artifacts you could imagine. Things like grand statues of gods and goddesses standing well over 15 feet tall and carved out of red granite, treasures of gold and rare stones, elaborate temples and enormous tablets. This find is enormous in the historical preservation community and has been commissioned by museums around the world. Take a look at this incredible city found underwater.

This is diver Franck Goddio examining the enormous hand carved statue of a pharaoh. This statue stands roughly 16 feet tall and was found near a large temple under the sea.

Here is the head of a statue carved out of red granite depicting the god Hapi. Hapi is known as the god of the flooding of the Nile . Hapi is a symbol of abundance and fertility and has never been discovered at such a large-scale before.

The divers and their team of researchers carefully lift the statue to the surface in order to preserve and protect this piece of history. It will reside safely in a museum.

Here the pharaoh, the queen and the god Hapi are laid on the barge next to a temple stele. The stele dates back to the 2nd century B.C.. It was found broken into 17 pieces however all were found and placed back together.

This gold plaque was found in the southern sector of the city. The text is written in Greek and acts as a signature for foundation deposits in the name of the king responsible for building this area. King Ptolemy III (246-222 B.C.)

In the reflection of this divers mask we see a bronze statue of the god Osiris. The crown is the typical insignia of power and this statue has eyes adorned with gold sheets.

Every single detail of this site in Aboukir Bay has been meticulously documented. Here a diver measures a red granite statues feet below the surface of the ocean.

A bronze oil lamp in excellent condition. This dates back to the 2nd century B.C.

Diver Franck Goddio showing off the size of this inscribed stele. This was ordered to be built by Nectanebo I sometime between 378 and 362 B.C.

The divers carefully lift the enormous stele out of the water where it has been for well over 1200 years.

Here the divers carefully inspect a stone full of gold fragments that date back to the 6th century B.C. I'm amazed that these are still intact.

This is a shallow gold saucer that was used for drinking and serving.

This is an absolutely stunning statue found under the bay of a Ptolemiac queen. Most likely Cleopatra II or Cleopatra III dressed as the goddess Isis.

This red granite statue was also found near the big temple of Heracleion and weighs a massive 4 tons.

Here is a beautiful artifact, a Graeco-Egyptian statue of a queen carved out of dark stone.

This is the head of a pharaoh statue being raised to the surface. The statue measures over 5 meters and was carved out of red granite.

A bronze small figure of the pharaoh of the 26th dynasty found at a smaller temple in the underwater city of Heracleion.

This is an absolutely epic underwater find that has researchers scrambling to this part of the globe to learn about this incredibly beautiful Egyptian city. The fact that this city found underwater has been left untouched underwater for so many years is an amazing factor on its own let alone being a find as big as it truly is. These statues and artifacts are massive and nearly perfectly preserved. The attention to detail in these pieces is truly beautiful and I'm happy to see it being preserved with great care.

Birthdays & Anniversaries

Memory Lane

How to Tell It's Winter

Casale's Corner

An interesting talk by the Head of Daimler Benz

A bit mind-blowing to say the least! He predicted an interesting concept of what could lay ahead.

Submitted by Art Lembke

In a recent interview, the Head of Daimler Benz (Mercedes Benz) said its competitors are no longer other car companies, but Tesla (obviously), and now, Google, Apple, Amazon et al.

Software will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.

Uber is just a software tool, they don't own any cars, and are now the biggest taxi company in the world.

Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although it does not own any properties.

Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected.

In the U.S., young lawyers already can't get jobs. Because of IBM Watson, you can get legal advice (so far for more-or-less basic stuff) within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans. So, if you study law, stop immediately. There will be 90% fewer lawyers in the future; only specialists will remain.

Watson already helps nurses diagnosing cancer, four times more accurate than human nurses. Facebook now has a pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans. By 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans.

Autonomous cars: In 2018 the first self-driving cars will appear for the public. Around 2020, the complete industry will start to be disrupted. You don't want to own a car anymore. You will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination. You will not need to park it, you only pay for the driven distance and you can be productive while driving. Our kids will never get a driver's license and will never own a car.

It will change the cities, because we will need 90-95% fewer cars for that. We can transform former parking spaces into parks.

1.2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide. We now have one accident every 60,000 miles (100,000 km), with autonomous driving that will drop to one accident in 6 million miles (10 million km). That will save a million lives each year.

Most car companies will probably go bankrupt. Traditional car companies will try the traditional approach and try to build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will take the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels.

Many engineers from Volkswagen and Audi are completely terrified of Tesla.

Auto Insurance companies will have massive trouble because without accidents, car insurance will become much cheaper. The car insurance business model will slowly disappear.

Real estate will change. Because if you can work while you commute, people will move farther away to live in a more beautiful neighborhood.

Electric cars will become mainstream about 2020. Cities will be less noisy because all new cars will run on electricity. Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean: solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, and now you can now see the burgeoning impact.

Last year, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil. Energy companies are desperately trying to limit access to the grid to prevent competition from home solar installations, but that can't last. Technology will take care of that strategy.

With cheap electricity comes cheap and abundant water. Desalination of salt water now only needs 2kwh per cubic meter (@ 0.25 cents). We don't have scarce water in most places, we only have scarce drinking water. Imagine what will be possible if anyone can have as much clean water as he wants, for nearly no cost.

Health innovations: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year. There are companies who will build a medical device (called the "Tricorder" from Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample, and you can breathe into it.

It then analyzes 54 biomarkers that will identify nearly any disease. It will be cheap, so in a few years everyone on this planet will have access to world-class medical analysis, almost for free. Goodbye, medical establishment.

3D printing: The price of the cheapest 3D printer came down from $18,000 to $400 within 10 years. In the same time, it became 100 times faster. All major shoe companies have already started 3D printing shoes.

Some common spare airplane parts are already 3D printed in remote airports. The space station now has a printer that eliminates the need for the large amount of spare parts they used to keep in the past.

At the end of this year, new smart phones will have 3D scanning possibilities. You can then 3D scan your feet and print your perfect shoes at home.

In China, they already 3D printed and built a complete 6-story office building. By 2027, 10% of everything that's being produced will be 3D printed.

Business opportunities: If you think of a niche you want to go in, ask yourself: "In the future, do you think we will have that?" If the answer is yes, how can you make that happen sooner?

If it doesn't work with your phone, forget the idea. And any idea designed for success in the 20th century is doomed to failure in the 21st century.

Work: 70-80% of jobs will disappear in the next 20 years. There will be a lot of new jobs, but it is not clear if there will be enough new jobs in such a small time.

Agriculture: There will be a $100 agricultural robot in the future. Farmers in third-world countries can then become managers of their field instead of working all day on their fields.

Aeroponics will need much less water. The first Petri dish that produced veal is now available and will be cheaper than cow-produced veal in 2018. Right now, 30% of all agricultural surfaces is used for cows. Imagine if we don't need that space anymore.

There are several startups that will bring insect protein to the market shortly. It contains more protein than meat. It will be labeled as "alternative protein source" (because most people still reject the idea of eating insects).

There is an app called "moodies" that can already tell in which mood you're in. By 2020 there will be apps that can tell by your facial expressions, if you are lying. Imagine a political debate where it's being displayed when the truth is being told.

Bitcoin may even become the default reserve currency ... Of the world!

Longevity: Right now, the average life span increases by 3 months per year. Four years ago, the life span used to be 79 years, now it's 80. The increase itself is increasing and by 2036, there will be more than one year increase per year. So, we all might live for a long time, probably way more than 100.

Education: The cheapest smart phones are already at $10 in Africa and Asia. By 2020, 70% of all humans will own a smart phone. That means, everyone has the same access to world-class education.

Every child can use Khan academy for everything a child needs to learn at school in First World countries. There have already been releases of software in Indonesia and soon there will be releases in Arabic, Swahili, and Chinese this summer. I can see enormous potential if we give the English app for free, so that children in Africa and everywhere else can become fluent in English. And that could happen within half a year.

Are we ready for all this?!?