Smart mosquito traps – To laugh or to cry?

There is an article  in the ST with a photograph of a foreign talent pushing a platform of potted plants and a water contraption, the aggregate is called Ovitrap, or in layman language a mosquito trap. It is supposed to be a smart device that would lure mosquitoes to lay their eggs there and the water would be purged regularly and refilled automatically. NEA has granted a patent attorney to a Martin Schweiger to conduct a pilot trial on this smart device on condition that he would have to closely monitor to see that it works.

I remember during the dengue outbreak a few years back, a local lecturer, I think, conceived of a similar concept, by laying water contraptions in strategic locations around housing estates for the mosquitoes to lay eggs and then to pour the water away. It is as simple as that. Some laughed at the simplicity of the idea without wanting to know how effective it could be and how cheap and efficient to operate the concept given the abundance of resident committees to give a hand.

The problem is that he did not call the idea a smart idea and did not put in a few batteries and water pump to do the job automatically, in the current thinking calling it a smart mosquito trap. Also I think he is a local and is not recognizable as a talent. In this island, locals are branded as daft and foreigners as talents.

So the same concept, one is laughed away, another is seen as a smart device and approved for trial. The first one, not so smart, can be operated cheaply and efficiently, the other is going to cost a lot of money. Oh, the mantra, it must be expensive to be good.

Shall I laugh or cry for the increasing stupidity of a people that no longer thinks, incapable of thinking, and is in complete reliance of foreigners for ideas?