Above is a character named BAHATI™ from my franchise THE ADIGUN OGUNSANWO™. This character happens to be a Holographic Game character who came to life. Below starts to document the beginning of this tech in the REAL WORLD.
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http://techcrunch.com/tag/hololens/
Finally I got a chance to watch After Earth. I have always been a fan of Will Smith movies. To see him and his son Jaden doing something in the area of sci-fi action was awesome. The storyline starts off in this world Nova Prime where humans must fight alien creatures to keep their existence. Military leader Cypher(Will Smith) led his team the Rangers to defeat the Urses. He became a legend in Nova Prime.
His son Katai has not seen his father in years. Katai feels estranged from his father so the connection is not there. His father Cypher invites his son to go on a mission to create a stronger bond. A cosmic storm caused the plane to crash. The troops were killed and the only survivors were Katai and Cypher. Seeing his father Cypher injured; Katai saw that he must save father life. His father sent him on a mission to retrieve an item to save both their lives.
In this mission Katai goes through many trials. He is naïve and clueless to the world he is throwed in. His father Cypher guides him through the journey. When he comes across monsters and environmental obstacles; he gets rebellious and bull headed. He gets forced to listen to his father when he gets hurt. In the middle of the movie; his father wanted him to abort the mission and come back to the torn plane ship because he did not have faith in him to finish.
Katai rebelled and forged his destiny to defeat the monster that killed his sister Senshi. He ends up killing the monster and he became a legend in Nova Prime. He exceeded his father expectations and becomes a man. This core story is trusting in your father to guide you into manhood.
I read the reviews from major mainstream websites. It received horrible reviews. The reviews were the plot and characters were not good. The CGI sucked. I was shocked at the reviews. After Earth in my opinion was a well put together movie. Seeing black actors in lead roles of sci fi action. It inspired me and I could see myself as a black man in that movie. There should be a part 2 to that movie. It would be if black people demand for it to be a part 2
We complain about shows like Empire and Love & Hip Hop. We share Empire on our Facebook timeline. When it comes to After Earth we do not promote it on our timeline. Thank you Black Science Fiction for opening up my eyes to the area of Sci-fi. This film opened my eyes to see why we need to black sci fi. Will and Jada Smith are supporting black science fiction. That should be an eye opener to black people to support this genre. The mainstream is not going to accept us we have accept and support ourselves.
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| AltspaceVR users can do things like play chess on a virtual chessboard, shown here in a virtual outdoor garden. Image Source: Technology Review |
Topics: Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Virtual Reality, STEM
Technology Review: A Startup’s Plans for a New Social Reality, Rachel Metz
The bestselling title on Amazon in the US right now is not Harper Lee’s hugely anticipated second novel, Go Set a Watchman, or George RR Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series, or even Zoella’s much-mocked but much-bought young adult hit, Girl Online. Instead, Scottish illustrator Johanna Basford is topping the charts, with her colouring books for adults taking top spots on Amazon.com’s bestseller lists.
Basford’s intricately drawn pictures of flora and fauna in Secret Garden have sold 1.4m copies worldwide to date, with the newly released follow-up Enchanted Forest selling just under 226,000 copies already. They have drawn fans from Zooey Deschanel, who shared a link about the book with her Facebook followers, to the South Korean pop star Kim Ki-Bum, who posted an image on Instagram for his 1.6 million followers.
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| Image Source: CNN.com |
Topics: Boeing, Force Field, Lasers, Plasma Physics, Science Fiction, Star Trek, Star Wars
(CNN) Raise shields!
Wired: That Boeing Force Field? It Probably Won't Ever Work. Rhett Allain
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| Star Trek "First Contact": The Phoenix |
Topics: Dark Humor, Doomsday Clock, Star Trek, Nuclear Power, Treatment
So, Star Trek is definitely not "my baby," I am not a screenwriter; member of SAG nor am I remotely related to Gene Roddenberry. I'm having some tongue-in-cheek fan fun, and hopefully if CBS/Paramount decides to use it, they'll at least give me a byline, but...probably not.
Sir Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis, Denise Crosby, LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Michael Dorn, Brent Spiner – doing cameos in a two-episode pilot, leading to a confrontation where traditionalists fighting change want to return to the “old ways” – that ahem, plunged humanity back into the dark ages. I could see either Stewart or Frakes shouting “no more!” after an emotional soliloquy about not going back to the previous ignorance and fears, selling the scene. Star Trek, like any great science fiction/fantasy story asks the question through its characters (e.g. Data, Picard, Worf) over again we never tire of: “what does it mean to be ‘human’?” It's a prequel, but for example, I watch Gotham with the full knowledge of how the Batman mythical universe will eventually flesh itself out, villains and all. It's just fun watching the creativity of writers building the bricks of it to its logical conclusion: cape and cowl in one instance; warp drive and aliens in another.
“My name is Darryl Draper. I am human. I was born on Earth, Chicago, South Side. I went to the University of Chicago, studied physics. I joined the army, did tours in Eastern Europe and Southern Africa. I joined the CIA after my third tour…” Draper paused, closing his eyes tight to squeeze out more memory. “After my third tour…after my third tour…I was an analyst before being recruited by Special Research, a secret DARPA division…my mission is clear. I have not lost focus. I have not lost focus!”
Draper found himself repeating that mantra more and more. It was a reminder that he needed to pound into his head constantly, like a hammer battering a nail.
He stepped out of his rest pod and stood before a wall that he had buffed until he could see a fuzzy reflection of himself. Oil black eyes the size of golf balls stared back at him. His head was massive and teardrop shaped, divided by a smooth cranial ridge that ran above his bulbous eyes down to the base of his skull. A glistening membrane in the middle of his chalk-colored face acted as a nose. His mouth was a puckering orifice with which he sucked in nutritious gruel, repellant to humans, but quite tasteful to the creature he had become.
The dark gray, close-fitting garment he wore covered a gaunt body with willowy arms, long legs that bent sideways, and a mouse-like tail. His four fingered hands and feet were webbed. If he wanted, he could submerge both sets of extremities in elastic webbing. Draper found that feature the most intriguing of all. The body he inhabited evolved from amphibians and in spite of him being anxious to return to human form, Draper was fascinated by it.
These aliens…or Heritins…as they called themselves were faster than humans, and could jump to heights an NBA player would have envied. Draper was athletic, so he especially enjoyed pushing his Heritin body to the limit in the exercise arena. Heritins placed a premium on physical fitness. Any Heritin falling short of that requirement became useless. A useless Heritin was a dead Heritin. For the sake of the mission, Draper endeavored to be as useful as his assumed identity would allow.
Heritins are superior to all species. We are destined to rule. Those who accept our authority will live. Those who resist us will die.
That voice started out as a faint impression in his mind, a formless whisper he could label as nothing more than a product of a fevered imagination.
If humans had not resisted, two thirds of your home world and all of your colonies would have been spared the ruin inflicted upon them.
With the passage of time, a faint impression, a formless whisper grew more definitive, clearer, until it rang loud as a clarion call.
Humans are lower animals. And like lower animals they must be taught to obey their masters. Your learning experience was harsh but necessary.
“Go to hell,” Draper hissed in the rare occasion when he gave that voice credence. Mostly, he ignored it, continuing to consign it to imagination…or madness.
The scientists who implanted Draper’s consciousness into a Heritin body theorized about the possibility of the host reasserting itself.
Maybe I’m not mad after all, Draper thought. Should he have been relieved or unsettled? Because either way, whether he was losing his mind to madness or this reassertion the scientists spoke of, the mission could still be jeopardized. And it became all the more important that he recited his daily reminders…that he reasserted his own humanity.
***
Darryl Draper alias Umttor, Engine Caretaker, entered Bridge Side.
Ship Master Tuo stood on the watch platform, surrounded by holographic interfaces. He listened to numerous progress reports from department commanders and issued equally numerous orders.
Draper stepped to his work slot, activating interfaces.
“Caretaker, I need you to check Impulse Three,” ordered the Ship Master. “The engine is running at less than optimal.”
“Yes, Ship Master,” Draper responded crisply.
The Ship Master probably ran the most proficient vessel in the fleet. When Draper last checked, all impulse systems had met optimal requirements. Of course, just meeting any requirements was never good enough for Tuo. He had to exceed them.
Draper linked to his interface and brought up the engine’s schematic. A set of numerals floated before him. He tapped a series of characters and the schematic glowed a pleasing shade of green. “Impulse upgrade completed, Ship Master. Engine proficiency is ten percent above normal operational parameters.”
The Ship Master turned to face Draper. “Very good.”
A fragment of the host’s memory brushed across Draper’s awareness. He felt a wave of respect and gratitude toward Ship Master Tuo. Umttor had not been a very promising Engine Caretaker at the beginning of his career. But Tuo had taken the young officer under his wing, tutoring and mentoring him until the latter could practically disassemble and reassemble any ship component with his eyes closed. Draper found himself basking in Tuo’s approval.
“Approaching Mobile Dock,” Ship Guidance Specialist Grinta announced. “Thirty Units to contact.”
Thirty Units, meaning three hours, Draper translated to himself.
Tuo stepped off the platform and the glimmering interfaces he was observing vanished in a sparkling dissolution. “It won’t be long. Once all ships are amassed, it will be on to victory. This vessel and you, the finest crew in the fleet, will be instrumental in our coming triumph.”
The Bridge Side crew cheered the Ship Master’s inspirational words. He is a brilliant warrior and an honorable friend, Draper thought. At that second, he stiffened. Was that his thought or the host’s? He suppressed a shiver and quickly returned to his routine tasks.
There was no doubt that the sound of the blast he triggered could be heard by the entire settlement. That should have been more than enough signal for them to escape.
Dern made it to the first level and leaned against a wall. Pain, verging on debilitating, raced through his body with savage abandon. He clenched his jaw, drawing on Flare to stay in motion. He headed toward a door at the end of a pathway leading from the stairwell. Before he could extend a hand to open it, the door burst off its hinges. An armored figure eclipsed the doorway.
Dern tried to back away, but a cold, metal grip seized his neck, yanking him outside.
“My hunch paid off,” came a wretchedly familiar voice.
Dern made out three men, one woman, their weapons trained on him.
One of the men, Tunnel, stepped forward, a cruel sneer etched into his face.
The former SD soldier clutched his captor’s wrist in a vain effort to wrench himself free. Metal fibrous fingers on his neck constricted. Dern flailed with all of his diminishing strength. He struggled to breathe, his world spiraling into darkness.
“Wait, don’t kill him, yet,” Tunnel said, placing a restraining hand on the enforcer’s shoulder.
“Fucker killed my boss,” the enforcer growled, tilting a helmeted head ever so slightly in Tunnel’s direction.
Tunnel pointed his pistol at Dern’s dangling right leg just above the knee and fired.
Dern would have howled in pain were his airflow not reduced to a trickle by an unyielding grip to his throat.
“He’ll die,” Tunnel assured the armored man. “But slowly, slowly enough where he’ll wish he were never born. And in the process we might extract from him the location of his friends. They’ll die slowly too, maybe slower than him.”
The armored man unflexed his fingers dropping Dern at his feet like a sack of rubbish.
Dern heaved in a few ragged breaths before lunging on one leg for the enforcer’s blaster. He grabbed the weapon’s barrel, ripping it from the thug’s grip. Turning the Tanner around, he blasted the enforcer point blank in the head.
A chunk of helmet tore away in a fiery gout. The armored man toppled backwards, crashing on his back with a heavy thud.
“No!” Tunnel fired on Dern, hitting the former SD soldier in the left rib.
Dern leveled the Tanner on his nemesis and a bright bolt flared from its muzzle like a flaming sword of judgment.
Tunnel’s goons opened fire, striking Dern in the shoulder and upper chest, throwing off the latter’s aim.
What would have been a headshot, ended up hitting Tunnel’s gun arm. The powerful beam blasted the hijack leader’s pistol to molten fragments. The hand holding that weapon was blown away well past the wrist.
Three more flachettes slammed into Dern’s body.
Dern stumbled from the impacts, but managed to drop low and pour out a devastating arc of fire that carved through Tunnel’s goons like a hot blade through cold gel.
Their beam-riddled bodies thrashed in a storm of flesh-rending energy before collapsing in bloody, smoking heaps.
All the while, Tunnel was on his knees staring despondently at a sizzling stump where his right hand used to be.
Harnessing what little strength he had left, Dern limped determinedly toward his downed foe.
He kicked Tunnel square in the chest, knocking the latter on his back, then stamped a foot on the criminal’s wound.
He applied, grinding, unrelenting pressure to Tunnel’s stump, eliciting a blood curdling cry from his opponent. Had he listened to the vengeful chorus in the back of his head, he would have gladly prolonged the suffering he was inflicting.
Instead, he removed his foot and stepped back. Never would he stoop to the sadistic level of a murdering bandit.
Tunnel glared up at the former SD soldier, unbearable pain and hatred twisting his face into a demonic caricature of itself. “You…you’re already…dead! You won’t survive this day! No way you survive this day!”
He was right. Dern reconciled himself to the accuracy of that prediction. No matter how hard the Flare worked to heal him, his wounds ultimately were fatal. Bottom line, he was dying. He felt himself slipping slowly into oblivion. He didn’t have the strength to fight his demise. In fact he welcomed Death.
“I agree with you,” Dern said with a faint smile. “I’ve reached the end of my days. And so have you. You get to go first.” Dern pressed the rifle’s muzzle to Tunnel’s forehead and triggered it.
When the smoke of a point blank discharge cleared, nothing existed above the hijacker’s brow line but a smoldering little crater fused with scorched pieces of brain and skull.
A growing remnant of Hooper’s enforcers gathered at the end of the alley.
Dern tried to raise his rifle, but severe injuries hobbled him. He fell to the ground. Fumbling to get his rifle into position, he rolled on his side, coughing up blood.
Maybe he should point the rifle at himself, he thought. The approaching mob looked too worked up to deliver him the mercifully quick death he would have preferred.
A strong breeze brushed over him. Dern looked up, squinting in disbelief.
What appeared to be a Coalition recon drone hovered above at ground hugging altitude.
Assault rifle rounds smacked against the drone’s hull. The drone soared toward the threat, crimson beams flickering from its raptor wings like shards of glass. Half the mob was cut to pieces. The rest scattered in a wild panic.
Dern witnessed the drone’s assault and then closed his eyes, waiting for death to take him.
After several minutes, he stopped breathing…
He opened his eyes. Dimness surrounded him. He found himself in a prone position, face up. He glanced to his left, saw a bio display and recognized that he was inside a stasis tube. Confused, he tried to clear his muddled head. Flashes of memories zipped through his mind, coalescing into the realization that he shouldn’t have been alive.
The stasis cover retracted and light poured into his confinement.
A face he recognized came into view. A woman’s face.
It took a moment for Dern to connect a name with that face. “Alita?” He croaked in a voice he hadn’t used in…how long?
“Dern, how are you doing? The doctor decided it was ok to wake you.” Alita smiled, pressing a hand to Dern’s shoulder. “No, don’t try to get up.”
Dern managed a self-deprecating grin. He couldn’t move if he wanted to. His body felt heavier than a block of lead.
“Where…am I?”
“You’re on a Coalition patrol ship, in the medical bay. You’ve been in a medical stasis tube since we were rescued seven months ago.”
“Seven…months?”
“A Coalition patrol arrived in response to my distress signal.” Alita’s smile brightened. “My signal got through. They came in the nick of time. You were dead, but not dead enough to be too far-gone. Their doctors revived you and placed you in this tube for extensive treatment.”
Dern could only marvel at the concept of being dead, but not dead enough. The wonders of Coalition medicine.
“Where are we going?”
“You’re going to be dropped off on Talham at a top rehab center. The doctor expects you to make a full recovery there. I’m told it’s the best in Coalition space. Me, I’m going home to Earth for a very long period of rest and relaxation.”
“You’ve definitely earned it.” Dern hefted a forearm, offering a thumbs up to his friend. “Good job back there.”
Alita waved away the compliment. “We’d have never gotten off that planet alive if it weren’t for you.” She lowered her voice. “You didn’t hear this from me, but word of your exploits spread to the highest levels in the Coalition. You’re going to get a reward.”
“A reward?”
“Yes, you’re getting a new suit.”
“A…new suit?”
“A scaled down version, like your old one, but yeah.”
The news gave Dern mixed emotions. He felt so attached to the old suit it became a part of him, even when he wasn’t wearing it. It was a beautiful, familial, symbiotic feeling. Yet, when he destroyed it, a euphoric sense of liberation came over him. Was he ready to receive a new suit? Renew the addictive meld between man and machine?
No more questions. No more concerns. From now on he would look to the future with optimism. “I guess I’ll be reporting to my new job after all.”
An armored, tortoise shaped vehicle, smaller than a TVV weaved conspicuously down Routh’s main street. The vehicle turned onto a narrow path separating two small buildings. A top hatch sprung open and figure emerged, nimbly leaping off the vehicle and scurrying deeper into the path’s recesses.
***
Hooper’s enforcers fanned out across the settlement searching for the escaped prisoner. They were aware that additional prisoners had also escaped, but Hooper’s instructions to his people were explicit. Lowtower’s capture was top priority. As for the other prisoners…kill on sight. Don’t waste precious time on their apprehension.
Hooper jumped out of his personal transport and approached the mouth of an alley at the far end of the market district. A group of enforcers were gathered there. A power-suited enforcer pointed an armored finger at the terrain vehicle parked in the alley.
“That’s the vehicle, boss,” the enforcer said with an eagerness to please that percolated through his voice projector. “That’s the one missing from the facility.”
Hooper glanced at the vehicle, but refrained from venturing into the alley. He frowned.
“My guess is, the prisoners exited the vehicle and they’re hiding out somewhere in a four block radius,” said the enforcer.
“That’s your guess?” Something in the way Hooper posed the question caused the guard’s confidence to falter.
“Well…we are inclined…”
“Don’t incline,” Hooper interrupted with a frigid-eyed gaze. “And don’t give me guesses. If you idiots are done with your break you may resume your search.”
The enforcers scattered in obedience just as another terrain vehicle pulled up with Tunnel and three of his people inside.
“When were you going to tell me that Lowtower’s at large?” Tunnel asked with a crooked smile from the vehicle’s front passenger slot.
“Evidently, I didn’t have to,” came Hooper’s sour retort.
“I’ll be happy to lend a hand to the search effort.”
“I want Lowtower alive.”
Tunnel couldn’t say he was surprised by Hooper’s bone headed insistence on Lowtower’s survival. Still…
“Alive,” Hooper repeated with cold emphasis.
“I got you,” Tunnel griped. “But the time will come when you’ll wish he was dead, then I’ll have to step in.” He signaled his driver and the terrain vehicle screeched away from the scene.
No one expected him to return to the ziggurat building, the place of his unbearable captivity. With the bulk of Hooper’s forces combing the settlement town, Dern managed to slip into the ziggurat’s lightly secured rear entrance. He waylaid a pair of the building’s personnel, knocking one unconscious. The other he kept conscious for interrogation.
“Where’s my suit?” He whispered into the frightened man’s ear. Dern verbalized no threat, yet duress was enough to induce the man’s cooperation.
“Thank you.” A precision chop to the side of the head laid the man out cold.
Dern eased his victim to the floor and skulked deeper inside the building.
He burst into a room whose dusty, well-worn appearance suggested it was a storage space. A large table occupied the center upon which his SD suit was laid out neatly. Four engineers surrounded the table poring over the suit with a variety of analytical instruments Dern had never seen before. They looked up at the apparition in the doorway and paused with collective uncertainty.
It took a moment for them to draw a connection between the armor suit on the table and the person glaring rivulets of rage in their direction. It took a moment for the acid-boiled truth to sink in, and when it did their faces transitioned from curiosity to paralyzing fear.
Dern saw his suit in the possession of men who had no business touching it and he felt a deep stab of violation. An SD soldier’s suit was like a second skin. It was his protection, his life.
Dern controlled his breathing, allowing a veneer of calm to dampen his ire. He had the desire, the ability, even the right to rip these engineers to ribbons for laying hands on his property. Instead, he drilled them with a hard, unwavering stare. “You have five seconds to get the hell out of my sight.”
The engineers cleared the room, giving him the widest possible berth in less than four.
Dern walked over to the table, reaching out with some hesitation before taking his battered armor in a firm grip.
Tricked! Hooper slammed the side of his fist into the wall of the TVV he was riding in. He should have known Lowtower would make a beeline to retrieve his suit. He should have damn well known! He jumped out of the TVV when it stopped in front of his headquarters building. A dozen vehicles filled with his enforcers converged on the site. A panicked flow of occupants streamed out of the building when they learned that the dangerous fugitive was inside.
“His suit is depleted of all power,” one of the escaping engineers informed Hooper. “It’ll take at least an hour for it to be recharged.”
“Then we’ll see to it he does not get that hour.” Hooper gestured for a trio of newly arrived enforcers to suit up. It took all of five minutes for the enforcers to encase themselves in their Series A5 armor. They picked up their Tanner assault blasters and pounded toward the entrance. Hooper and about twenty enforcers followed close behind the armored spearhead.
Tunnel’s vehicle parked just beyond the jumble of other vehicles massed in front of Hooper’s headquarters. They had Lowtower cornered. Yet Tunnel could derive no satisfaction from that development. Nothing short of Lowtower’s demise would sate his thirst for blood.
Additional vehicles pulled up, spilling enforcers. They tramped into the building while Tunnel watched. He opted not to go inside since it appeared Hooper and his people had things well in hand…
An ear-bursting boom ripped the air. Gouts of flame jetted from shattered windows. The entire face of the ziggurat building was scoured away in a ravening rinse of fire. A devastating shockwave punched outward from the blast, sending chunks of the building raining on the street below.
Tunnel shielded his head with his arms as fragments of the devastated administration building pelted the roof of the terrain vehicle. Much good that would have done if the entire building landed on top of him.
Profound silence fell over the scene.
Tunnel opened the vehicle door, emerging into a swirling soup of dust.
“Boss...is it safe to walk around out there?” One of his men asked nervously.
Tunnel ignored the question and surveyed the destruction before him with starry-eyed shock. He saw bodies scattered in the open, a few partially buried under debris piles. An enforcer in Series A5 armor lay pinned beneath a two foot thick piece of alloy slab. The enforcer grabbed hold of the slab and pressed it off him with minimal effort.
Dern stumbled down a rear stairwell, feeling like he’d been chewed up by a prehistoric leviathan and spat out. He had rigged his suit to self-destruct. An SD soldier could resort to that option only under the direst circumstances. Dern could think of nothing direr than his current predicament. Little hope he held for surviving on this godforsaken granule of a world. But if he was going to die, he felt it best to go to his grave knowing he would not be leaving behind an intact, high-grade weapons system in the hands of criminals.
Dern rested on a wall close to the second floor landing. Bits of shrapnel were lodged in his body and his head throbbed ferociously from where he struck it after being torpedoed by the blast. He thought he’d cleared the explosion’s radius enough to escape unmolested. Evidently the blast yield of his suit’s micro reactor was a little stronger than he expected. That feature of his suit he didn’t study as much as the others. Then again, he always assumed that if he was going to trip a self-destruct, he would be inside his suit, not trying to flee from it.
After a few seconds to catch his breath, he resumed his descent. The Flare worked in overdrive to keep him conscience. Even so, Dern’s vision blurred and he moved sluggishly, as if on legs made of iron pillars. He hoped he’d created enough of a diversion to give Alita and the others a chance to head for the port. They were hidden in a parked terrain vehicle when he left them at the detention center. He told them to stay put until the big event.
CONGRATZ and Much success to the 2015 GLYPH COMIC AWARD Nominees that were announced on Tuesday March 31, 2015 from the GLYPH AWARDS Facebook page. The award will be presented on May 15, 2015 at the AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM in Philadelphia. Check the ECBACC site link below for specifics. I can relate with each creator's anticipation from last year when my franchise THE ADIGUN OGUNSANWO™ was nominated and on the GLYPH Award night WON in the category for Best Comic Strip or Web Comic. KEEP PUSHING FORWARD GLYPH NOMINEES!
Complete 2015 GLYPH Nominee List at the following link:
We have another submission making 5 submissions we have now. The Pencil Gladiators competition needs 10 contestants to battle for N30,000 cash prize and also a chance to have their artwork colored by a super colorist and possibly even sold. But we need 6 more contestant for the competition to take off. We have postponed the competition for one more week to give artist the chance to send in their entries. Check out the latest entry
We have 5 entries and we are still looking for 5 more contestant to participate in the month long event where the winner takes home N30,000. Check HERE for more details about the event and below for the entries so far. You would think that a competition like this will get massive participation but that's not the case. If you haven't sent in your entry, you have just 2 days left to enter for this competition. If by next Friday we don't get up to 10 participant the competition will be cancelled.
Check out the entries submitted so far here:
http://comicpanel.org/index.php/content-blog/399-check-out-the-entries-so-far-3
The term Afrofuturism was first coined by writer Mark Dery in his influential 1994 essay Black to the Future, to provide a name for work which addresses black themes through science-fiction and technoculture lenses. Descriptions of it vary from Afrofuturist author Ytasha Womack, who calls it “elements of science fiction, historical fiction, speculative fiction, fantasy, Afrocentricity, and magic realism with non-Western beliefs”, while others, such as Afrika Bambaataa, take a more gnomic approach: “Afrofuturism is dark matter moving at the speed of light.” Conceptual artist Martine Syms, in her wry Mundane Afrofuturist Manifesto, feels that the idea should be grounded in a tangible reality (“No interstellar travel – travel is limited to within the solar system and is difficult, time consuming, and expensive”).
Check out BAOBAB, AN ANIMATED TALE. French Directed and Produced. A Year old but quality animation and even a few clips showing how a few of the scenes in this film was composited to look as stunning as it does. Check it out at:
http://www.theartofnikosmoss.blogspot.fr/
Baobab - Night Compositing from Baobab on Vimeo.
Baobab - Day Compositing from Baobab on Vimeo.
NOW AVAILABLE for IOS, Ananse: The Origin #1. We are glad to have our IOS fans finally experience our comics via Comixology.
GET IT NOW! http://bit.ly/1NjatfE
(Also available on Web, Android, Kindle Fire & Windows 8)
Kweku Ananse is one of Africa’s most popular legends. The Leti Team as part of our African Legends initiative is creating a super hero, based in part on Ananse. Our story of Ananse the superhero, has two main thematic settings, Ancient Africa and Present Day. We give you a glimpse into the world of Ananse, The True Ananse.
“ Long ago, Ananse, the god of Wisdom is banished onto earth as a cursed statue of his totem, the spider, by Odumankoma, Ruler of the Skies for treason. Fast-forward to today, the cursed statue of Ananse is discovered and worshipped until fate brings Ananse and an innocent boy, Selasi Rockson together, his vessel for reawakening. ”
The True Ananse is part of the bigger Leti Arts’, Africa’s Legends series. Africa’s Legends reimagines popular African folklore and historic legends, interspersed with fictional characters, as an elite group of superheroes fighting crime in present day Africa. Comics and games based on Africa’s Legends tell the stories behind individual characters and the collective team.
Do enjoy yourself with the latest African Superhero on the planet :)
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| Image Source: NIST |
Topics: Biology, Diagnostics, Engineering, Medicine, Nanotechnology
NIST: Shape-Shifting Sensor Can Report Conditions from Deep in the Body, Michael Baum
Topics: Diversity, Diversity in Science, Economy, Jobs, STEM, Women in Science
"Science remains institutionally sexist. Despite some progress, women scientists are still paid less, promoted less frequently, win fewer grants and are more likely to leave research than similarly qualified men. This special issue of Nature takes a hard look at the gender gap — from bench to boardroom — and at what is being done to close it."
Women and minorities are not only underrepresented in the sciences, they are openly discouraged from pursuing STEM careers at the university level and at early life stages. I was personally insulted by my middle school science teacher - "No, you big dummy!" - after asking a question about calculating the coefficient of linear expansion on a metal wire. I had stifled the immediate urgent need at that moment to deck him, confident of the outcome with the authorities if I had. My parents were not amused, and scheduled a visit with the principal. That was followed by a sweaty, self-preserving "apology" from the science teacher. I passed his class with a descent grade, and moved on from the twerp. The fact both groups are so low means discouragement is remarkably efficient to maintain the status quo of the "usual suspects" in the sciences, and a concentration of wealth and opportunities along gender and cultural lines. Suffice to say, to resist the "haters": you have to want it!
Albert Einstein was so fond of answering the fan mail of children interested in science, author Alice Calaprice wrote a book on it. In an exchange with a young science fan from South Africa named Tiffany:
September 19, 1946: "I forgot to tell you, in my last letter, that I was a girl. I mean I am a girl. I have always regretted this a great deal, but by now I have become more or less resigned to the fact. Anyway, I hate dresses and dances and all the kind of rot girls usually like. I much prefer horses and riding. Long ago, before I wanted to become a scientist, I wanted to b e a jockey and ride horses in races. But that was ages ago, now. I hope you will not think any the less of me for being a girl!"
To which, Einstein's reply was classic, and classy (circa October 1946):
"I do not mind that you are a girl, but the main thing is that you yourself do not mind. There is no reason for it."
Minorities (an ironic label for the majority of the Earth's population) at least numerically in this country are hampered by generations of specifically-designed social engineering; castigated for not competing in rigged "rights" of citizenship (like voting); when the value of property plummets at their presence; the neurological harmful effects of leaded plumbing in East Austin and other areas not addressed until gentrification (and now I see climate effects); globalization and technology eliminating previous decent-paying jobs, doubled unemployment rates and the obvious differences dependent on which side of the tracks you were born (still) in education since Brown vs. Board. It's also interesting to see screeds on the Internet against the LGBT community, unbeknownst to the screed producer of the Turing Test for artificial intelligence, or that he's the reason we have in the lexicon "algorithm"; "computation"; "cryptography" (the essence of McAfee, Norton or any antivirus software), or as the father of Computer Science that we're typing on laptops at all. Not to mention the ugly, breathtaking displays of xenophobia at the border of California to children by the great-great-grandchildren of immigrants that have yet to recompense the Native Americans for the sins of Columbus.
Related link: Go-Girl - Gaining Options-Girls Investigate Real Life
This is being co-posted from my blogsite, keithaowens.com.
I was told awhile ago to read "Ark of Bones", but I kept putting it off. Not an excuse but, well, it kind of is.
I get like that sometimes.
But deciding to put it off no longer, I made the dutiful trip to my nearby favorite literary watering hole here in Detroit, the Skillman Branch library downtown,which also happens to be yet another in a long list of beautiful old buildings in this city. It's not until you take a pause, stop, then look up and around at what surrounds you as you're standing inside to see just how beautiful it is but...
Another story, another time.
As may now be apparent by now to anyone who has been following this blog, I'm a huge fan of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and just about any genre where reality takes a back seat while the fantastical takes the wheel. Because there are times when reality gets in the way of telling the truth. Or just plan gets in the way. So when discussing with my friend about my love for all things not quite real, he explained that I really needed to read some of Henry Dumas' work. Especially Ark of Bones. As an African American member of that relatively small tribe of darker-hued scifi writers and practitioners, he felt it was somewhat of an obligation of mine to familiarize myself with "Ark of Bones".
He was right.
Except that it is not only black scifi writers who owe it to themselves a pilgrimage to the Ark. What Dumas managed to accomplish within the brief duration of this remarkable short story is of value to any and all writers of speculative fiction any and everywhere. What begins as seemingly a simply tale of a small adventure to be shared by two friends in a small southern town turns into an indescribably larger commentary on African American history and the African American condition that could not have possibly been confined to a narrative fenced in by reality. For this particular telling it was necessary to venture over to the 'other' side, and I was in many ways so reminded of another favorite writer of mine, Toni Morrison, and her book "Song of Solomon" which changed my life as a writer and as a reader.
From "The Devil and Henry Dumas," written by Scott Saul and published in the Boston Review in 2004:
Dumas’s truth came in riddles—fiction that was at once elusive and persuasive. Dumas’s stories are parables by and large, and they reveal the wildly speculative and broodingly contemplative aspects of the Black Arts movement. By turns droll, poignant, surreal, and unflinching in their examination of the rituals and ordeals of black life, the stories are united mostly by their refusal to revel in anything except the richness of the imagination. Dumas’s preference for open-ended tales may help explain how he has attracted a crowd of admirers—Toni Morrison, Ishmael Reed, Maya Angelou, Melvin Van Peebles, Amiri Baraka, Gwendolyn Brooks, Jayne Cortez, Arnold Rampersad—who agree on little beyond their enthusiasm for his work. Dumas’s writing can be a point of origin for any number of journeys.
Indeed it can...
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| Scientific American, see [2] below |
Topics: Diversity, Diversity in Science, Education, Jobs, STEM, Women in Science
I recall once that observation being made by someone I worked with at Motorola: "we're the 'only black engineers' in the room," my fellow alumni said. "And, we're the best damn engineers IN the room" I shot back. He gave me a grin and an "Aggie Pride" verbal acknowledgement. Despite that bravado, I wish I had Dr. JC Holbrook's paper on survival strategies [3] in many instances I have also felt the pressure of stereotype threat. Religion and spirituality - as she mentions - are forms of mental survival strategies (go watch 12 Years a Slave, if you haven't already). Cultural expression - that if not abused by charlatans, pundits, lying politicians and political machinations spewing manipulative talking points, inevitably propels individuals and groups forward despite near insurmountable obstacles. Think of the Civil Rights movement. Unless society were to make a massive, herculean change towards eliminating inequality, this mental skill will remain necessary.
1. Reducing Stereotype Threat: What is 'Stereotype Threat'?
2. SciAm Beautiful Minds: The Need for Belonging in Math and Science
3. #P4TC: Survival Strategies
4. #P4TC: An earlier article on Stereotype Threat
Topics: Drake Equation, SETI, Space, Space Exploration
Centauri Dreams: SETI Explores the Near-Infrared, Paul Gilster
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| Image Source: Earth-Sky - What is a Dyson Sphere? |
Topics: Astrophysics, Dyson Sphere, White Dwarfs, SETI
Physics arXiv: Dyson Spheres around White Dwarfs,
İbrahim Semiz, Salim Oğur
