The battle in Heaven rages as the Gods and the Trynaught's army of duplicates storm the Pearly Gates. But as the vanguard rains the fire of war upon the heavenly sphere, the real target is frantically sought. But before the prime objective can be moved upon, the invaders must contend with one pissed off Archangel!
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As we prepare for the Dec 4th launch of NASA's new Orion Manned Space Mission(http://goo.gl/t4gO94), lets remember the trials of the first 2 Black Astronauts, Capt Edward Dwight, Jr and Maj Robert H Lawrence.
Help fund the making of the documentary SpaceRACE. http://space-race-net
Easy to imagine a sci-fi fix but hat we really need is a organized MASS MOVEMENT against police excesses.
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| Gravitational waves travel through space and time much like ripples on the surface of water. (Courtesy: iStock/mic27) |
I've used "table-top" for several postings before. I think science needs to come up with a less-cliche descriptor.
A coin-sized detector might observe gravitational waves before the giant LIGO interferometers, according to two Australian physicists who have built the device. The detector is designed to register very high frequency gravitational waves via the exceptionally weak vibrations they would induce. Other scientists caution that the astrophysical objects thought to emit such radiation may do so very weakly or might not actually exist.
Predicted by Einstein's general theory of relativity but yet to be directly observed, gravitational waves are ripples in space–time generated by accelerating massive objects. The tiny detector has been made by Maxim Goryachev and Michael Tobar of the University of Western Australia in Perth and is based on the decades-old technology of resonant-mass detection.
Physics arXiv:
Gravitational Wave Detection with High Frequency Phonon Trapping Acoustic Cavities
Maxim Goryachev, Michael E. Tobar
Physics World: Tabletop experiment could detect gravitational waves
The plan is set and the Trynaught has recruited a cadre of gods along with a vast armada. The assault upon Heaven begins, but it will not be an easy task. The 'Hordes of Heaven' descend on the force and the outcome looks bleak....
From the title of this post, you might think that we are going to discuss rapacious financial systems that leave bleak and shattered worlds in their wake. However, there are libraries full of critiques of every economic system under the sun, from Marx to Hayek to Piketty. If you want to understanding why the modern world looks, acts and even smells like it does, then a complete understanding of our economic system (neo-liberal capitalism) is a must.
What we are discussing is fictional governments and the economic systems that power them. In the same way you shouldn't trust a work of fiction that lacks a political view (post on that later), you should never trust a work of speculative fiction that fails to have a coherent economic model.
There are a number of hard science fiction stories that detail the economic model of the universe they inhabit. The anachro-capitlaism post-scarcity of The Culture universe, to the Techno-liberalism of Peter Hamilton's Nights Dawn and Pandora Star series and the Ur-libertarianism of Snow Crash.
With the increasing interest (some might say "peak interest") in YA anti-Utopian fiction, care should be made to create plausible economic models that support the oppressive government systems in your work.
As an example of a partially detailed economic system, take the Hunger Games series. The economic model of Hunger Games is never explicitly described. However, we do know that it features both low and high-tech manufacturing (and presumably some form of higher and advanced education), as well as massive resource extraction (see districts 12, 4, 3, and 7). Most of these resources appear to be earmarked for the use by the citizens of the capital. While there is some form of income and wealth generation in the Capital, the mechanisms of distribution, both in terms of employment and luxury end-products, is murky. Clearly, Panem operates on an authoritarian command economy (equal parts oppressive communist in the districts, and some form of open / limited market in the Capital), but there is no clearly identified private firms or companies. It is possible that everyone in the Capital works for the Capital, at which point it forms a closed economy independent from the rest of the districts, but receives tribute as a form of "Dividend on oppression".
What's the point you ask? The Hunger Games is about a contest (and thinly veiled allegory) of teenagers forced to kill one another for entertainment value, who cares about economic models? Well, arm chair economists for one, but authors and readers who appreciate detailed world building for another.
Economic systems influence political systems, and you can't world build without a political system. You can try, but your characters ( more so if they are plucky teens rebelling against authority) need to have a platform for their views. Why is the Authoritarian government bad? Because it controls people. In the Hunger Games, one of the reasons the Government is so terrible is that it appears to run forced labor facilities all over the country (See District 11 and 12 - forced shaft coal mining and Farming. Lets avoid the fact that District 11 is full of African Americans forced to pick fruit).
Forced labor camps only make political sense in certain economic systems. If your economic system does not prize competition and liberty, your political system will reflect that, not vice versa. For instance, slavery is an economic system, racial supremacy and oppression come about as political rationals meant to justify the economic model. So in truth, the economic model (cheap/ free labor and resources) informs the political system (massive authoritarian repression), not the other way around.
Conflict, the lifeblood of good characterization, often stems from disparities in economic standing. As another example, the Lannisters of Game of Thrones are wealthy (or so they say ) patrons of the crown based, not on their knowledge of science or mathematics, but their ability to extract gold from the land under their feet. In contrast, the Iron Bank of Bravos yields capital in the form of interest bearing loans on prior loaned capital and merchant marine services. In both instances, their wealth and resources allows them to take political positions that lesser equipped houses and organizations could not implement. The golden rule abides.
Therefore, when constructing a world for your characters to inhabit, look to the economic model to explain motivations of not only the government (if there is a government) but the people rebelling against the government. When conducting analysis or reviewing the work of others, look to the naturalness of the political and economic systems. Is the world resource constrained? If so, the political system will seek to control individuals. If the individuals rebel, what will that rebellion do to the availability of resources? Does the author address the economic rational of the villains, and the economic downside of the protagonists goals? Working through these issues will leave less gaps that must be hand-waived through exposition or ball-hiding, resulting in a tighter work that focuses on plot.
2014 Moorsgate Media (www.moorsgatemedia.blogspot.com)
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| Source: Planetary Habitable Laboratory |
It was yesterday. It's perhaps been traveling a million years to this date.
The NASA brief:
NASA: Comets: Siding Spring
NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER ON AMAZON KINDLE!!!
The Everlasting: Da Eb'Bulastin
After another incident of sleepwalking, Aiyana Gamelle wakes up lying under the stars on the Beach of Sa'Fyre Island, an island off the cost of South Carolina with a rich Gullah and Native American history.
Knowing these incidents of sleepwalking have something to do with her long awaited transition into queen of the island, Aiyana shrugs them off as little more than a nuisance to be expected since her lineage leads to a mysterious African goddess.
Aiyana moves forward with plans to host a week long festival that will end with her succession to the island throne, but the murder of an important guest and the passing of her grandmother bring the festivities to a screeching halt and Aiyana learns that the transition involves an unwanted possession and the revelation of a dark family curse.
Go to www.rasheedahprioleau.com to purchase.
ADVANCE COPIES AVAILABLE for Blog Reviewers.
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| Source: The Bathtub Theory of Economics and Life |
"My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." Grover Norquist
The bathtub: source of childhood delight in soap bubbles and added flatulence. In Grover-the-Grouch's special case, it is clearly the latter...
My apologies for the unannounced "blog break." Posting twice a day for any celebratory month can be taxing mentally. I'm back, somewhat refreshed and perplexed at the same time...
It can be said I spend a lot of time thinking about Sequestration from the search results that will now include this posting. Likely because I think it is the dumbest idea of self-inflicted immolation on the altar of libertarian, free market austerity I think humans have ever conceived! It requires "magical thinking"; fairies with pixie dust and exacting miracles on drive-through demand to pull off. The pixie dust is someone, somewhere in the "free market" writing a big enough check to cover what would normally be the "collectivist conspiracy" also known as a democratic republic. It should have healed Thomas Eric Duncan and the two nurses affected with the Ebola virus. Cutting $490 million from the CDC; $2.5 billion from NIH and STILL refusing to confirm or appoint a Surgeon General the NRA loves puts a huge dent in Tinker Bell's pixie dust. Nate Silver gives the stats why an Ebola travel ban is pointless. Pixie dust...
Yet, Nate Silver gives a republican takeover of the US Senate a 60% chance at succeeding, but he hedges with reassuring nuance. Meaning: at the worst display of stupidity and cognitive dissonance, brace for more austerity cuts, magical thinking, "shining city on a hill" cliche bull excrement; repeal of The Affordable Care Act putting 10+ million recipients back to square one of waiting for death; further slippage internationally in our technological competitiveness and likely a sham impeachment trial that will make us permanently a mockery in the pages of history. We'll be the Proverb, the Byword of how a government of the people, by the people and for the people perishes from the Earth for the racial disdain of the real-life Huxtables at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (1400 is apparently the annex down the street). The charge has been levied back-and-forth from the last administration to the present, but Eric Fromm's treatise "Escape From Freedom" is instructive in this excerpt:
"The fact that somewhere else he declares that a boy should be taught to suffer injustice without rebelling will no longer strike the reader-or so I hope-as strange. This contradiction is the typical one for the sadomasochistic ambivalence between the craving for power and for submission.
"The wish for power over the masses is what drives the members of the 'elite,' the Nazi leaders. As the quotations above show, this wish for power is sometimes revealed with an almost astonishing frankness. Sometimes it is put in less offensive forms by emphasizing that to be ruled is just what the masses wish...While the 'leaders' are ones to enjoy power in the first place, the masses are by no means deprived of sadistic satisfaction. Racial and political minorities within Germany and eventually other nations which are described as weak or decaying are the objects of sadism upon which the masses are fed. While Hitler and his bureaucracy enjoy the power over the German masses, these masses themselves are taught to enjoy power over other nations and to be driven by the passion for domination of the world."
"Trickle-down = golden flow" as the working class ("middle class" a moribund label now) are taught to spit and stamp on those at the bottom that not for luck or grace they would quickly be, and will to their own self-delusion, not likely leave their current stations and social stratus without the advantage of connections the 1% nonchalantly enjoy.
Or in our case, why the country went insane in 2010 and seems determined to continue it in 2014.
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| Free Thought Nation and Google Books |
Related link: Eric Fromm dedication site
Monday October 20th Ronald T. Jones', 'Dark God's Gift: Of Mortals and Gods' debuts! What does a powerful god-like entity do to validate it's existence? Gather like minded Gods and rampage across the universe, that's what. With a cadre of displaced gods and a vast armada at the command, the Trynaught will lead the assault upon Heaven and Hell!
In the aftermath of the EXWEPFAC Testing Chamber accident, rescue crews have abandoned the effort to seek survivors deep underground! Alicechild 88130 and her research team are presumed dead. Yet, strange incidents are occurring throughout the Facility. Strange and brutal deaths, disappearances and sicknesses abound forcing the corporate facility to remain on lockdown. However, the source and perhaps the solution to the situation lies deep underground in the sealed Test Chamber. Did Alicechild and her team unleash a terrible power upon ARES 04? All will be revealed in the exciting conclusion!
Are you a YouTuber? Would you like to be? Now days, YouTube's becoming a hit with some people and in its right, launching careers of many of the YouTubers that have put so much hard work into their channels. I know BSFS has a channel (I've subscribed)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCUFX4mE0SxrfiBww1154Vw (Channel Name: Black Science Fiction Society)
I have one as well:
https://www.youtube.com/user/SoveReignComics (Channel Name: SoveReign Universe)
At the moment I only have about 3 videos that I have done but eventually, I plan to turn this channel into a haven for individuals that want to learn to create comics.
I, like a lot of people, have no clue on how to get a YouTube channel up and running (thriving); pulling in multiple viewers to where the things that I create, or choose to share with others, are being seen on a daily basis. However, YouTube has found a way to help people like me or you; people that want to create there own channels. Not just create mind you, but thrive with their own channels. This, is the reason for the blog really. I've come across a channel that helps those that want to be a YouTuber, or have a thriving channel, by giving advice to you, the newcomer, from some of the veterans of Youtube. I'm sharing this channel with you all here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkRfArvrzheW2E7b6SVT7vQ (Channel Name: YouTube Creator Academy)
If you are interested, I recommend taking a look. There's so much you can do with YouTube...just think, TV...on the internet. You can release trailers to up coming books, animated shorts, movies your working on. You can show your work flow (how you do things from beginning to end), build an audience to support you and late buy the products that you are putting so much time into. The list goes on and on. Yea, it does take time but, time management is a detrimental tool for anyone trying to do anything more, than just work a 9-5,6,7,8 or 9. Time management and drive, that is.
This isn't for everyone, nor is it on everyone's to do list. I understand that. However, I wanted to spread the information that I learned, just in case there's someone that's interested.
Peace to you BSFS Fam,
Tyrone (Tyr1AR) Jackson
The sudden flash of light during the initiation of testing on the device has ended abruptly as it started. Communications with the Control Module, Alicechild and her research team have been cut! What has happened to them? As Director Shasta puts emergency protocols into action, what is going on far below the The Testing Facility? Was the team successful in analyzing the device or did something go terribly wrong?
A tense research team finally receives the Artifact and Project Leader Alicechild must keep all heads level while the transfer of the potentially dangerous EROS Device commences. However, the Project Leader has her own reservations concerning the pending tests. In spite of her trepidations, Alicechild plans to forge ahead. Too many corporate eyes are watching and the fate of her team depends on their success. But, will the EROS Device give up its secrets without endangering the research team?
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| Alder Koten Institute |
From the beginning of the month, I quote the post Mes de la Herencia Hispana:
"The irony: in a country of immigrants, we're becoming "tribal"; somehow E pluribus unum: out of many, one - has lost its original Latin origins and just become a slogan printed on our money - if we ever bother to look at it.
"'Self-deportation' and repatriation as some have suggested would be a logistical and political nightmare that the global economy would immediately reject us as incompetent and unstable. Diversity has to be our strength, we have no other choice for continued existence as a nation state. If not, other countries that had neither a 'remember the Alamo' nor Civil War will make us look like a byword, an anachronism...a joke on the pages of history.
"That devolution does not have to take long..."
If you've reached this point, I hope you've learned something that you didn't already know about Hispanic History; Hispanic and Latino diaspora.
Diaspora: a group of people who live outside the area in which they had lived for a long time or in which their ancestors lived (Merriam-Webster). The term is typically used for certain groups - African Americans, Jews, etc., but it should apply to everyone - EVERYONE in America is from somewhere else, voluntarily or not, than where their ancestors lived.
Hispanic and Latino culture originated in Europe/Spain, spread through colonization to the Central and South Americas; the Philippines. It is a story that is not often told, as diversity studies are under assault by myopic, authoritarian forces that attack education - important for an informed citizenry as well as the 1st Amendment right of civil disobedience; voting rights and thus the underpinnings of democracy itself.
I am neither Hispanic/Latino nor an expert in your history. I am a science enthusiast and an advocate of the democratization of knowledge - real knowledge, based on observation, empirical study and peer review - bringing to its participants freedom and empowerment.
You are the generation that since 1982 have never known life without a search engine. It's on your cell phones. Use it to fill in the gaps your schools for various reasons cannot. If the Internet is a playground, let it be for your own enrichment, knowledge and thus your power. You are also the generation that has not thought deeply about your rights, how tentative they are and the forces aligned* to block you from them, delude them and ultimately eliminate them.
"Remember, remember the 4th of November." The fourth - if you're 18 and above - is important for you to register and participate in. I will be, off line: volunteering, calling, campaigning and voting. It's homage to my sister - a youthful soldier in the Civil Rights Movement, so that her sacrifices and temps of fate - nearly losing her several frightening times - won't have been in vain. Democracy is not for armchair athletes; solutions are by the "consent of the governed," as shown in participation in the democratic republic procedure of elections, and that cannot be downloaded at optical speeds. Participation is vital to its existence; lacking it the opposite becomes undesirable, and darkly obvious.
Seeing where you've been as a culture hopefully will give you pride and confidence in where you are all eventually going - inevitably, to the future and the majority. That is a matter-of-fact; not destiny. Be an informed citizenry - and be involved in your country. Now is a good time to practice.
"We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely."
Edward Osborne Wilson, entomologist and biologist known for his work on ecology, evolution, and sociobiology.
* “The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite."
Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father, author of the Declaration of Independence, scientist, statesman and 2nd President of the United States.
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| Source: LinkedIn |
Hometown: Chihuahua, Mexico
Link to patents: here
System and method for preforming cable for promoting adhesion to overmolded sensor body
Patent number: 7077022
Abstract: The end portion of the insulation sheath of a cable is formed into a grommet to promote better mechanical bonding with a vehicle sensor housing that is overmolded onto the cable.
Type: Grant
Filed: March 3, 2004
Issued: July 18, 2006
Assignee: Delphi Technologies, Inc.
Inventor: Benjamin Valles
Embed for some platforms (patent 1 of 5 in both mediums):
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| SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES |
Scientists are reporting a significant advance in the quest to develop an alternative approach to nuclear fusion. Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, using the lab’s Z machine, a colossal electric pulse generator capable of producing currents of tens of millions of amperes, say they have detected significant numbers of neutrons—byproducts of fusion reactions—coming from the experiment. This, they say, demonstrates the viability of their approach and marks progress toward the ultimate goal of producing more energy than the fusion device takes in.
Fusion is a nuclear reaction that releases energy not by splitting heavy atomic nuclei apart—as happens in today’s nuclear power stations—but by fusing light nuclei together. The approach is appealing as an energy source because the fuel (hydrogen) is plentiful and cheap, and it doesn’t generate any pollution or long-lived nuclear waste. The problem is that atomic nuclei are positively charged and thus repel each other, so it is hard to get them close enough together to fuse. For enough reactions to take place, the hydrogen nuclei must collide at velocities of up to 1000 kilometers per second (km/s), and that requires heating them to more than 50 million degrees Celsius. At such temperatures, gas becomes plasma—nuclei and electrons knocking around separately—and containing it becomes a problem, because if it touches the side of its container it will instantly melt it.
"Holding my nose, and diving deep": the first paragraph sounded like cold fusion, but Science published it, so I'll wish them well, and print the results - successes or failures, as this proceeds.
AAAS: Z machine makes progress toward nuclear fusion, Daniel Clery
Sometimes, what happens in the dark, doesn't stay in the dark. Here's a small piece of what's been floating in my head today. The start of something or the end of it. Depends on your point of view. - CAG
When I first woke up, I could hear its panicked breath. It was the kind of breathing you do when you’re having a bad dream and the monster almost gets you but you wake up just in time. I woke up the same way. No light. None. I scuttled backward until my back hit the wall then stood up, ready to fight. But the fight never came. I waited in the silence; sometimes holding my breath so I could listen. I knew it was doing the same. It spoke to me in some language I didn't understand in a voice I didn't recognize. The voice was garbled. I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman or even human. Then something clicked, I don’t know what but suddenly, I understood it.
“Who are you?” he demanded. It was a man. Immediately, I wanted to spit out an angry reply. Old memories flooded back of the last time I was trapped in a dark room with a man. What he had done to me. How he had hurt me. Over and over again. I nearly died. I was never the same since. That was never going to happen again. Never.
I would have answered but then I realized that I didn't know who I was. How was that possible? I couldn't think of my name. My knees almost buckled at the onslaught of that realization. I shook my head and pulled myself back into the moment. I could figure all that other shit out later. I answered his question with one of my own. “Who are you?” The silence was broken by rapid breathing. His and mine.
“I don’t know.” The reply was a mixture of fear and acceptance. I kept my back to the wall, slowly and quietly, I took a step to my right, walking the perimeter; softly tapping the wall. Searching for a breach, for a way out. A door. A weapon. I wanted a weapon. I didn't need one. I could fight to the death if I had to. But a weapon would give me a nice advantage.
I didn't know who I was trapped in here with or who would be waiting for me once I found my way out of here. I was going to get out of here. My gun was gone and I left my knife embedded in the chest of the man who attacked me in the alley. I could feel him behind me; in the shadows. He was as blind as I was and just as wary of me as I was of him. Good.
*********************
Sometimes, I need to bounce story ideas off of friends to see if it works from a technical stand point or if it reads realistically enough to be what I intended it to be. There are times when I just want to share what’s going on in my head. It may be the start of a story, a scene or two from a story that I’m already working on or just a flash of something going on in my writer’s realm. This morning I was “hit” with this little piece of inspiration and shared it with my good friend Ed Maisonet, who is also my LifeDefense Instructor. He replied with this:
"Be what you need to be in the moment. Head not the tail. Predator not prey."
How true those words are. They brought to mind what Ed teaches in every class and that is, every person should know how to protect themselves, especially women. Some of the female characters I write about start off their literary lives as prey. They don’t always remain that way though. More often than not, they are compelled by circumstances and survival instincts to fight when running to safety is no longer an option and giving up is definitely not the plan. They learn what they have to learn and do what is necessary to become the predator and not the prey. This holds true in the real world as well.
Please understand, I am not man-bashing, the same idea of being prepared to defend yourself applies to men and children as well. Trouble arrives uninvited in many forms and can be delivered to anyone at any time. All one has to do is pick up a newspaper or watch the news to see just how many men, women and children fall prey to violent acts all the time, day or night, while they’re at work or school and even when they’re home. Some of us have already been a victim of violence. Women and children are commonly thought of as “weaker” targets. I wonder how many would be alive today if they had the advantage of knowing how to defend themselves from the bad guys that prowl our streets and break into our homes.
I've been taking Ed’s class for some time now and while I am in no way near to being like the bad-ass protagonists of many of my stories (I’m a work in progress), I no longer feel as though I would be helpless in a dire situation. If I could offer advice specifically to women today, it would be:
- Learn how to protect yourself. There are ways to fend off your attacker. Find a good self-defense class and train. Personally, I recommend Krav Maga but find what works for you. With commitment, you’ll also gain the side benefit of getting into shape and feeling empowered mentally, spiritually as well as physically. I know I have.
- Be cautious of who you let into your life. Take your time to learn more about the person you’re going on a date with, regardless of how good they look. That adage about wolves in sheep’s clothing holds truth.
- Think smart, act smarter and learn how to fight so you can live to fight another day.
Just a few things I’ve learned from a 250 pound man, that makes sense. As Ed would say “See you on the mat.”
-To learn more about Ed Maisonet, Author of "Things I Teach to Every Woman I Know" Written by a 250lb Man", you can follow Ed's blog at http://twocentsfroma250lbman.blogspot.com/ or learn more about his LifeDefense Krav Maga classes by visiting his website at www.lifedefenseinc.com
You can purchase Ed’s book on Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/Things-Teach-Every-Woman-Know/dp/1448683580/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1413304089&sr=8-1-fkmr1&keywords=two+cents+from+a+250lb+man
To learn more about my stories, visit www.darksecrets.net LIKE the Dark Secrets Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dark-Secrets/296476453700082?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
Quantum Computers A Step Closer to Reality
Researchers at the University of New South Wales have pushed quantum computers a step closer to reality, which one former NSA technical director says calls for a rethink in how the whole security of the internet is managed.
