BLOGS

All Posts (6495)

Sort by

The Shadow Knows...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 16, 2014 at 6:55am
Image Source

The Shadow knows (or, at least "they" do).



"They" know without any critical thinking skills, reason, logic or investigative training. "They" know without any expertise that climate change is a hoax (even write books of pseudoscience on it), get reelected with committee appointments in congress over environmental regulation. Clean air; clean water; survival of the species: no problem! I guess the Department of Defense can scrap that whole pesky, fact-based road map.



The moon landing was faked, "they" say (and a few sadly, trained in STEM). "They" know, despite having never worked at NASA, or in my case at near seven-years-old, having my Saturday morning cartoons interrupted the day before (I quickly got over it). Never mind if it had been, the Russians would have broadcast our shortcomings, gloated at our obtuse obfuscations, then traveled there themselves just to prove the superiority of their system over ours.



Almost immediately after the Sandy Hook Massacre, these speculators spun tales of government "false flag operations"; "the children were actually alive"; "the parents were in on the plot," etc. Boorish, insane and insensitive to the families that everyday: their losses are quite real. The truth is, fear, bamboozle and boondoggle are quite profitable; bankruptcy the only muzzle provocateurs would ever respect.



There were 1,500 inadvertent leaks with the Manhattan Project (you know, the one that built the nuclear bomb), and we're to assume not a peep has come out from a so-called faked Moon Landing?



The Keystone pipeline may actually increase gas prices at the pump by 20 cents per gallon as its done in the Midwest despite the most optimistic propaganda; the purported "thousands of good, blue collar jobs" may only number in the hundreds; instead of making us energy independent, we'll see Canadian shale processed in Texas refineries and put on ships out to the global open market, but no matter. We're being sold a bill of goods by consummate, pathological liars and con artists cum "elected" officials. Instead of reasoned debate, we get: birth certificates...death panels...votes against what was a market-based solution from the Heritage Foundation...UFOs and government cover-ups...Apocalypse...demonic possession requiring telecommuting exorcism (now a state senator despite a colorful military record)...Bigfoot! All fanciful and colorful; worrisome that there is no distinction from reality and fantasies for some citizens determined to propagate them.



When China eventually sets up camp on a new moon base and spin off the world's first trillionaires from the Helium-3 mineral wealth abundant on the lunar surface that will make fossil fuels obsolete (as well as the billionaires profiting from it), I'm sure "they'll" have another explanation: the Chinese (will have) faked it! The profits, political and economic leverage however, will be quite real and felt here as well as globally. Ignorance won't be pleasant.

As humorous as this post attempts to be, my observation is we're addicted to "reality TV"; becoming un-moored from actual reality and facts; prone to the bill of [not] goods snake oil salesmen sell that poses as "information" supporting our worldviews, warped or otherwise to ensure they remain in or gain power.

History bears no evidence adherence to fantasies ever generating, in the long term, national prosperity.



 Skeptic:
Conspiracy Theories: Who, Why and How, Michael Shermer and Pat Linse
Skeptical Science: The History of Climate Change

Read more…

Spooky Physics and Wormholes...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 15, 2014 at 8:02am


Image of a simulated traversable wormhole that connects the square in front of the physical institutes of Tübingen University with the sand dunes near Boulogne sur Mer in the north of France. The image is calculated with 4D raytracing in a Morris–Thorne wormhole metric, but the gravitational effects on the wavelength of light have not been simulated. Wikipedia

Wormholes — shortcuts that in theory can connect distant points in the universe — might be linked with the spooky phenomenon of quantum entanglement, where the behavior of particles can be connected regardless of distance, researchers say.


These findings could help scientists explain the universe from its very smallest to its biggest scales.

Scientists have long sought to develop a theory that can describe how the cosmos works in its entirety. Currently, researchers have two disparate theories, quantum mechanics and general relativity, which can respectively mostly explain the universe on its tiniest scales and its largest scales. There are currently several competing theories seeking to reconcile the pair.

One prediction of the theory of general relativity devised by Einstein involves wormholes, formally known as Einstein-Rosen bridges. In principle, these warps in the fabric of space and time can behave like shortcuts connecting any black holes in the universe, making them a common staple of science fiction.

NBC News: Spooky physics phenomenon may link universe's wormholes, Charles Q. Choi

 Tomorrow: The Shadow Knows

Read more…

Encore Presentation of 'HOST' online starting @ 8pm Tonight 'Friday the 14th!'

Posted by H. Wolfgang Porter on November 14, 2014 at 6:30pm

Tonight 'Friday the 14th', the only reality-tv show that counts airs again on DEU-TV! Online streaming begins at 8pm CST (US) and will run all night long. So after you catch The Genesis Radio Show with William Hayashi, you'll have another chance to catch the award-winning horror film that shows where reality-tv will ultimately go for ratings!

*Suggested Mature Audiences for L,V and gore.

http://www.dreadedenterprises.com/HOST_home

Read more…

Kickstarter for Mulogo and His Quintuple of Trouble

Posted by Martin Reese on November 14, 2014 at 4:00pm

Hi All -

My name is Martin Reese and I have recently re-launched a new and improved Kickstarter for the short live action fantasy film Mulogo and His Quintuple of Trouble. The story deals with a young wizard's apprentice from Kush who unwittingly recites a spell from a forbidden book of magic and conjures up a powerful five-headed dragon. The dragon is more than eager to make him pay for his mistake. Our Kickstarter will run until December 15th.  You can check it out  at this link:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1549181393/mulogo-and-his-quintuple-of-trouble-a-magical-shor?ref=category  We humbly ask for your support of this project. If we want more of us featured in positive roles in science fiction and fantasy films then we have to prove that we will support films that feature us in such roles. We have a great creative team and cast in place. All we need is your help. Thank you for any support you are willing to give.

Read more…

Colliding Universes...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 14, 2014 at 7:29am
Olena Shmahalo/Quanta Magazine; source: S. M. Freeney et. al., Physical Review Letters

An ancient collision with a bubble universe would have altered the temperature of the cosmic microwave background (left), creating a faint disk in the sky (right) that could potentially be observed.



Early in cosmic history, our universe may have bumped into another — a primordial clash that could have left traces in the Big Bang’s afterglow.



Like many of her colleagues, Hiranya Peiris, a cosmologist at University College London, once largely dismissed the notion that our universe might be only one of many in a vast multiverse. It was scientifically intriguing, she thought, but also fundamentally untestable. She preferred to focus her research on more concrete questions, like how galaxies evolve.



Then one summer at the Aspen Center for Physics, Peiris found herself chatting with the Perimeter Institute’s Matt Johnson, who mentioned his interest in developing tools to study the idea. He suggested that they collaborate.



At first, Peiris was skeptical. “I think as an observer that any theory, however interesting and elegant, is seriously lacking if it doesn’t have testable consequences,” she said. But Johnson convinced her that there might be a way to test the concept. If the universe that we inhabit had long ago collided with another universe, the crash would have left an imprint on the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the faint afterglow from the Big Bang. And if physicists could detect such a signature, it would provide a window into the multiverse.



Erick Weinberg, a physicist at Columbia University, explains this multiverse by comparing it to a boiling cauldron, with the bubbles representing individual universes — isolated pockets of space-time. As the pot boils, the bubbles expand and sometimes collide. A similar process may have occurred in the first moments of the cosmos.



 Quanta Magazine: Multiverse Collisions May Dot the Sky, Jennifer Ouellette

Read more…

also black elves

Posted by Geoff Thorne on November 13, 2014 at 6:30pm

the ladies at Black Nerd Girls put out a call for art featuring black elves. I'm like obsessed with it now.

here are mine. I'm trying to make them look like stills from an animated series.


Read more…

K5...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 13, 2014 at 7:07am
The K5 Security Robot

As the sun set on a warm November afternoon, a quartet of five-foot-tall, 300-pound shiny white robots patrolled in front of Building 1 on Microsoft’s Silicon Valley campus. Looking like a crew of slick Daleks imbued with the grace of Fred Astaire, they whirred quietly across the concrete in different directions, stopping and turning in place so as to avoid running into trash cans, walls, and other obstacles.



The robots managed to appear both cute and intimidating. This friendly-but-not-too-friendly presence is meant to serve them well in jobs like monitoring corporate and college campuses, shopping malls, and schools.



Knightscope, a startup based in Mountain View, California, has been busy designing, building, and testing the robot, known as the K5, since 2013. Seven have been built so far, and the company plans to deploy four before the end of the year at an as-yet-unnamed technology company in the area. The robots are designed to detect anomalous behavior, such as someone walking through a building at night, and report back to a remote security center.

A Dr. Who-like Dalek - as the article alludes - comes to mind, as well as Weeble; WALL-E and EVE or salt and pepper shakers. Weighing in at 300 pounds, I hope no one is tempted to tip them over and put themselves in line for next year's Darwin Awards. I do have privacy concerns, as the video embed brings out. I am cautiously optimistic this is a good thing, but outfitted with battlefield weaponry, specifically for urban crowd control and artificial intelligence, and it could start looking and acting...like a Dalek.

Also, like a mountain - because it will soon be ubiquitously "there": someone will try to hack it.


 MIT Technology Review: Rise of the Robot Security Guards, Rachel Metz

Read more…

Viability of targeting a Black audience.

Posted by Greg Denmark on November 13, 2014 at 12:30am

I like to use the phrases “Thinking within and along the circle; an ever expanding and evolving circle”. I use this instead of “thinking outside the box” because whether it is outside or inside, “the box” is still using someone else paradigm.

With that being said, I want to address Black Sci Fi/Sword and Soul/Steamfunk and making money by appealing to a target audience; a primarily Black one. When we examine the effects of Black culture and creators within the entertainment world and how that translates into money, the purpose of appealing to a Black audience is justified.

The justification comes from the fact that using our cultural creativity throughout history has produced the most relevant forms of modern entertainment in the world and multi-billion dollar industries.

For example, the statistics for album sales in 2012 show how primarily Black originated music overwhelmingly dominates the charts. Modern rock music owes its origins to early rock and roll. Rock and roll was created by Black musicians creating music for Black folks.

It should be expressly noted that there are many such forms of entertainment that Black folks created for a Black audience that was later “taken over” by non Blacks. There are also forms of Black focused music that are still primarily sung by Blacks for a Black audience that have made those Blacks millionaires. Within the Black focused genre there are White artists singing Black focused music and becoming hugely successful. Rock, R&B, Gospel, Hip Hop, Jazz and Dance accounts for over 200 million albums sold.

It is understood that music is a universal medium. By that same logic, then so is writing and other forms of expression.

Success is a relative term that sometimes elicits controversy.

If a Black author or artist makes 6 figures a year doing what they love, in their minds and to many of their peers and community, they are successful. If a Black movie producer, director or film company nets seven figures, they see themselves as successful.

Now, focusing on appealing to a primarily Black audience we have the richest Black actor in the world - as of 2012 - Tyler Perry, with a net worth of 400 million. This beats Will Smith at 200 million and Bill Cosby at 350 million. By 2005, Tyler had made over 100 million with his plays. His plays are primarily aimed at Black audiences. One can also argue that Spike Lee’s earlier movies were targeted towards a primarily Black audience. His net worth is 40 million.

Moreover, the Wayans Bros. created “In Living Color” aimed at a primarily urban audience. The term urban audience brings to mind several points. The gist of the modern entertainment market, be it mainstream(White) or Black, is driven and kept relevant by including urban concepts, language and fashion.

I must add, most emphatically, that it is of a great insult to imply that entertainment targeted to Black audience will not have non-Black viewers and cannot be seen as universal. There are groups, production companies, TV shows etc. that have an entire cast of only Whites and seeing them as universal is rarely if ever called into play.

The entire history of modern music demonstratively weakens that argument. R&B and Rap music has an international following of non Blacks by the millions and is still considered "Black music".

Despite a few additions here and there, Tyler Perry’s movies are still primarily made for Black audiences and has a large White viewership. It is only AFTER these facts are presented, are the addendums and in depth critique of quality come into play.

This article’s focus is about how one can be ‘successful’ and make significant money targeting a Black audience. It is to address years of discussions on how Black artists should go about being ‘successful’ within the entertainment industry. It is one of many avenues, but it is a viable one if a Black individual or company chooses to go that route. Any talk about the quality, morality, socio-political and other such discussions are not within the scope of this topic.

This topic was also written to address the so-called bottom line that a great many Black folks say is the most relevant. If you are not making X number of dollars or if you are targeting a primarily Black audience, you will never be successful is what has been stated over the years.

The Ojays, Martin Lawrence, Patti Labelle, Toni Morrison, Will Smith(the rapper), Anita Baker, Spike Lee, Robert Johnson and legions of other Blacks whose focus was within a primarily Black market are factual proof that we can make significant money in entertainment within a primarily Black market and be seen as and later become universal and mainstream respectively.

I would also argue that the Cosby Show and a Different World would fall into that category. I could give a better argument for a Different World than Cosby, so I would compromise with Cosby. I still choose the Cosby Show because a show that showcased a Black family with the many nuances of Black culture(without pointing them out explicitly as in previous shows or no shows) could not have been made by and would have never been made by anyone else except a Black creator. Picture these shows being made by any White entertainment company and they would be completely different shows.

The affect that Different World had on the Black community was profound. Black student interest in college rose significantly during the years of A Different World and, again was a show that would have never been made except by a Black creator with the influence of a Bill Cosby.

Of special note is Robert Johnson who, when starting BET was told he would never make it because there was no money or future in a channel devoted to a Black audience.

From Wikipedia:

Johnson left NCTA in 1979 to create Black Entertainment Television, the first cable television network aimed at African-Americans. When the network launched in 1980, it only aired for two hours on Friday night. BET first turned a profit in 1985 and it became the first black-controlled company listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1991. In 1998, Johnson and Liberty Media bought all outstanding shares of the company. This purchase gave Johnson 42% of the company. Viacom acquired BET in 2000 for a reported $3 billion. Johnson remained BET CEO until 2006.

In conclusion, Black Sci Fi/Sword and Soul/Steamfunk creators can target Black audiences and be appealing to a wide and diverse audience. The entire world has, from its earliest beginnings been drawn to and inspired by our culture – fashion, science, music, spirituality, comedy and everything else we created within our communities and for ourselves.

IMO there is nothing more universal and edifying.

Read more…

Landing on a Comet...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 12, 2014 at 6:38am


So, what will we find?

Ice, minerals are sure bets. Hopefully the harpoons they've engineered hold on whatever qualifies as a "surface" on a comet. The fun of science is the unknown; that's the adventure!

The ancient Greek on the Rosetta Stone told archaeologists that it was inscribed by priests honoring the king of Egypt, Ptolemy V, in the second century B.C. More startlingly, the Greek passage announced that the three scripts were all of identical meaning. The artifact thus held the key to solving the riddle of hieroglyphics, a written language that had been "dead" for nearly 2,000 years. Source: The History Channel

It is appropriate that we'll be reaching back in time, perhaps to the dawn of our solar system, a hieroglyphics of radiometric and Carbon-14 dating: back to our very beginnings.

European Space Agency: Live Rosetta Updates

Read more…

Wounded Vet and NASA Tech...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 11, 2014 at 6:46am
US Department of Veteran Affairs

The video at the link is heartwarming, but I don't want it to seem dismissive or diminutive.

"Supporting our troops" has to go beyond trite social metaphor and bumper stickers to actually SUPPORTING us post a conflict with either job retraining to a suitable civilian career field (if our military specialties didn't have a one-to-one match); psychological counseling for PTSD as well as the technology that grants mobility after a life-changing injury; some measure of human dignity.

A "country's gratitude" cliche will never be enough. A very good way to support the troops is to reduce the frequency of wars we're called to serve in; increase the assist when we get home.

 Space.com: Wounded Vet Aided by NASA Tech
Read more…

Cannon Busters: The Animated Series Pilot on Kickstarter

Posted by LeSean Thomas on November 10, 2014 at 10:46pm

 

Cannon Busters: The Animated Series Pilot on kickstarter has ARRIVED!

From the Creative Producer/Supervising Director (Season 1) & Supervising Director (Season 2) of Black Dynamite: The Animated Series, Storyboard/Production artist on The Legend of Korra (Book 1) & Co-Director/Supervising Character Designer (Season 1) & Supervising Character Designer (Season 2) of Peabody Award-winning "The Boondocks" comes a brand-new adventure series unlike ever seen featuring the talents of some of the industry's top talents in anime/illustration--domestic and abroad!!!

 Let's make Cannon Busters happen TOGETHER!:D Go here to pledge your support !!!!:

GO HERE TO PLEDGE!!!! OR SIGNAL BOOST!!!:  http://kck.st/13ygPZ0 Thank you!!!! :-D

Read more…

HOST an encore showing on DEU-TV

Posted by H. Wolfgang Porter on November 9, 2014 at 3:16pm

Since a good number of BSFS members couldn't get past the crush of folks watching our Halloween Event online, DEU-TV will present an encore showing of 'HOST' online starting at 8pm CST (US) The film will run all night on 'Friday the 14th!' So if you didn't get the chance to see it the first time or want to go around again, you have another shot at being 'The Next Contestant on HOST!'

Read more…

C-Span and Mirrors...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 9, 2014 at 8:00am



Said in 1960 in response to racist signs held by Johnson's motorcade in Tennessee. Recounted by Bill Moyers, then a member of Johnson's staff, in Bill Moyers: "What a Real President Was Like; To Lyndon Johnson, the Great Society Meant Hope and Dignity," The Washington Post, Nov. 13, 1988. This popular meme can be taken out of context that this was LBJ's view, which it was not. Source: Wikiquote

The below embed will appear in some platforms as a link. Dixiecrats - the spiritual, and in many cases, literal descendants of former slave owners in the South - formed as a splinter of the Democratic Party in 1948 in protest of its Civil Rights platform; it was also the year President Harry Truman desegregated the Armed Forces by Executive Order, paving the way forward to the Civil Rights, Women's Rights, Hispanic/Latino and LGBT activists and struggles that form the matrix for our current society. These malcontents eventually made their way out of the donkey to the elephant of the Republican Party after the passage of the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts expressing similar disdain to expanding the enterprise of citizenship; Senators Phil Graham, Strom Thurmond and President Ronald Reagan being three notable former members. Add to them the ingredients of antebellum "states rights," the John Birch Society, Ayn Rand's self-centered philosophy; the general chicanery of Lee Atwater's "Southern Strategy" cloned by Karl Rove; dark money enabled by the oxymoronically named "Citizens United" ruling, and you have the modern conservative movement, now expressed in the so-called AstroTurf Tea Party. Full-steam ahead...to Dystopia.


Emoticon

Read more…

Birth of a Planet...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 9, 2014 at 7:57am
(Courtesy: ALMA/ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)

Image of HL Tauri taken by the ALMA array of radio telescopes. The ring structure in the disc of gas and dust surrounding the young star probably means that planets have begun to form.

The clearest image yet of planets forming around a star has been unveiled by astronomers working on the ALMA array of radio telescopes in Chile. The image shows a series of concentric rings of material surrounding HL Tauri – a very young star that is only about one million years old.

"When we first saw this image, we were astounded at the spectacular level of detail," says Catherine Vlahakis, ALMA deputy programme scientist. "HL Tauri is no more than a million years old, yet already its disc appears to be full of forming planets. This one image alone will revolutionize theories of planet formation".

Physics World: 'Spectacular' image shows planet formation in action, Hamish Johnson

Tomorrow: C-Span and Mirrors

Read more…

Novel Sodium Conduction...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 7, 2014 at 5:34pm
Credit: Udovic/NIST

When heated, this sodium-based hydride changes to the more open structure shown here (hydrogen atoms are omitted for clarity), featuring large, connected corridors through which charge-carrying sodium ions (in yellow) can travel with ease.

Rechargeable battery manufacturers may get a jolt from research performed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and several other institutions, where a team of scientists has discovered* a safe, inexpensive, sodium-conducting material that significantly outperforms all others in its class.




The team’s discovery is a sodium-based, complex metal hydride, a material with potential as a much cheaper alternative to the lithium-based conductors used in many rechargeable batteries. Because lithium is a comparatively rare commodity near the earth’s surface, the industry would prefer to build reusable batteries out of common ingredients that are both economical and inexhaustible.




The novel hydride—which has the formula Na2B10H10—might fit the bill, and not only because it is formed of the three easily obtainable elements of sodium, boron and hydrogen. There are other practical reasons as well: It is a stable inorganic solid, meaning it would pose fewer of the risks carried by many flammable liquids in traditional batteries, such as the potential for leaking or exploding. And compared to other sodium-based solids, it can enable more power output.



 NIST:
Novel Sodium-Conducting Material Could Improve Rechargeable Batteries, Chad Boutin

Read more…