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Are you ready to be immersed into another world without having to imagine too hard? Here we go.........
First you need a suitable Android device with a camera.
Second you need an app called "Paper Artist", yes it is a sort of kids app.
Third you fire up device, app and holding the screen before your eyes hit the camera button.
The view screen is the world you know through various filters. Talk about rose colored glasses. Oh, get your notebook ready the story lines will start popping into your head as you examine the world you thought you knew as though it were a sketch or a negative or old news paper. The drawings move through 3d space, sometimes shadows are gone, sometimes details are missing. Realism is highly overrated.
Realism speaks but nothing is left to explain. The illustration has 1000 words minimum, You will look again because the unsaid story is so compelling.
Don't take my word for it, go experience it for your self. Tape your USB cam to your shoulder or shirt pocket. Put your view screen in a head mount. Walk through the filter rendered world. Make a voice print of your discoveries in real-time, ha ha ha ha!!!!!
You just didn't know you were doing it. Baseball season is coming...
World Science Festival: The Calculus of Catching Fly Balls
The deadline for Dealer/Vendor applications for Detcon1 is January 27, so get those in if you want to be in the room!
See http://detcon1.org/exhibits/dealers/ for the application and more information.
This event is going to be at the Renaissance Center right in Downtown Detroit. It is the 2014 North American Science Fiction Convention -- people will be attending from all over the country. We expect an attendance of at least 1500 people, including editors and publishers.
Greeting, everyone! I'm Brent Dorian Carpenter, creator/writer of the cult classic comic U.N.Force at Caliber Press in the early 1990s. Currently me and my business partner, indie filmmaker/director Joe Doughrity in LA are working to launch Foundation Comics and Press to bring UNF and other titles back to print and digital formats. While awaiting funding to pay illustrators, advertising, etc, I have written two novelizations of upcoming comic projects that I am extremely excited about.
Enemy Space: The War of Syzygy launches my epic sci-fi franchise series involving the first interplanetary war between Earth and Mars, and presents the saga of the Palladin Family, an African American military clan at the heart of both sides of the conflict. Set in 2098, it explores the overarching themes of climate change, the 99% vs the 1%, and Man playing God to disastrous results. I've always wanted to create my own space opera, and ES pays homage to all my faves, Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica and Avatar through a wildly original story.
T'Schai: The Fall and Resurrection is the first of s four-book series that tells the story of the T'Schai, an ancient African civilization of hyper-powerful masters of osmosis and the Georhythm, a race of titans that self-destructs due to its own hubris. It dovetails with the present-day story of Paul Morgan, a bipolar African American teen who discovers through very bizarre circumstances that he is descended of the T'Schai, bearing enormous powers he is not psychologically equipped to handle while facing the six hostile survivors determined to wipe out modern day humanity and reclaim Mother Earth. Think Superman meets Dune meets Roots.
Since my earliest childhood I have been endlessly obsessed with the subjects of superheroes, sci-fi, astronomy, archaeology, history, geography, genetics, geopolitics and the notion of "Man playing God." I revel in finding unique ways to weave these wildly ranging topics into one epic work of fiction as only my unique bipolar brain and ghetto Detroit aesthetic can cast them all together.
In my day job, I work 60-plus hours a week as a personal trainer, and devote every waking hour on weekends putting Foundation Comics together. I am pleased to have begun weekly posting chapters of both books on my Facebook page, where you can log on to find out where they are available for sale.
Like most of you guys I also have several other projects in the works, including movie and tv screenplays Joe is shopping around Hollywood and could be days away from a stunning announcement or about to hold my breath for another year or two...lol. Just getting my social media chops, so bear with me, and again thanks for the forum. Looking forward to some great conversations.
From the National Science Education Standards: a succinct definition.
The COSMOS reboot in March needs our viewership, support, conversation...and literacy. A lot of myths and untruths are being pushed for an agenda that enriches a few and damages many (and the planet). Prepare for the self-deluded and ignorant to be lit. I speak from experience, and don't want anyone surprised.
Quoting part 3 of Bill Moyers' interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson:
January 24, 2014
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson unwittingly triggered a controversy in the blogosphere last week when he said this on our show: “If you have a religious philosophy that is not based in objective realities that you then want to put in the science classroom, then I’m going to stand there and say no, ‘I’m not going to allow you in the science classroom.’”
This week on Moyers & Company, Bill weighs in on that debate with an essay on politicians and others who refuse to accept the reality of evolution and climate change.
And in part three of their conversation, Bill and Tyson discuss why science literacy is important for the future of our democracy, economy and standing in the world: “Science literacy is an inoculation against charlatans who would exploit your ignorance of scientific law to then take your money from you or your opportunity from you.” And that literacy is at risk, Tyson concludes.
SCI-FI FOR WORLD-BUILDING & SURVIVAL at the Allied Media Conference 2014, June 19~22, 2014 (info via Tumblr)
This year the Sci-Fi Track has returned in the form of the Liberation Technologies track, which hopes to use SF (science/speculative fiction) as a tool in fighting oppression, and builds off past tracks and movement building, such as the Science and Social Movements track and the Octavia Butler and Emergent Strategy sessions.
The post-apocalypse is here and real, where ancient and varied cultures and technologies have been erased in the name of Empire and Progress. What do we do when access to memory/the past has been standardized, and the potential to manifest and (dis)embody the joyous unknown has been shamed and left behind?
This track seeks sci-fi and speculative themed session proposals that disrupt, deconstruct, and reframe oppressive mainstream media networks, narratives, and representation by using sci-fi possibilities to reorient existence.
Appropriate themes and activities include:
Afro-futurism, healing practices, bodies and abilities (paranormal, dis- or otherwise), storytelling, emergence, meme-making, imaginative world-building, fan-fiction, magical real[ness], DIY sci-fi, intersectionality, collective memory, speculative cities, exploding binaries, digital places/cyberspaces, redefining science/technology, technologies that are incomplete, gestural & in process, recuperation of technologies both ancient and contemporary, mythology, affect and public regulation of feeling, ∞.
We explicitly seek to welcome & center the #libtech track around:
People of color, black people, trans* people (transwomen, non-binary trans, transmen), youth, native people, fat and abundant people, surveilled people, dis-abled people, mixed people, non-people, and the communities that exist around the lot of us in all our different places and experiences.
Read the FAQs for Submiting AMC Sessions here for questions about session formats more. Please send comments, and questions to our AMPtalk page or to libtechamc@gmail.com.
»> Submit your Call for Proposals to our Google form here.
Deadline for submissions is March 1st, 2014.
More on COSMOS, and a little commentary:
I've personally encountered the impassioned defense of "creationism/intelligent design" and personal direct attacks on me as "I don't know science." Holding my ground, it turned out these particular individuals didn't know much at all.
My questions are simple:
1. What other country is addressing this "debate" of creationism/intelligent design"?
2. What other country has attempted to introduce this "debate" into their science classrooms and curriculum?
3. What other country has a tax-funded "Creation Museum" (apparently, in financial difficulty)?
4. Are the top countries in the O.E.C.D. results advancing this in their science classrooms?
5. If not, why are WE insisting on doing this?
The Founding Fathers were at most Deists and Free Thinkers that crafted a Constitution separating Church and State, despite David Barton's refuted obfuscations. Deity does not need "talebearers," and there are more noble pursuits: income disparity, gender equality and the reduction of violence towards women in society and the media; gang violence, imprisonment inequity, re-fighting the Civil War to our own detriment as corporations ship jobs overseas are good fields to till; science and politics are not.
We are inundated with sociopathic, manipulative shysters - that we tend to sadly elect because of insincere, memorized 3-point sermons on "family values" - encouraging all to chase chimeras and unicorns; dueling windmills as the republic crumbles.
Quoting Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Huffington Post) regarding science and religion:
"Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. They are complementary. Science keeps religion from sinking into the valley of crippling irrationalism and paralyzing obscurantism. Religion prevents science from falling into the marsh of obsolete materialism and moral nihilism."
Hello everyone!
The campaign for our, “Earth Squadron” Movie has been underway for a couple weeks now and we have made significant gains on the campaign. We still have a long way to go and we would humbly ask that If you like Black Sci-Fi, if we have purchased your books or contributed to your campaign to please support us now. This is serious business. We often ask why we do not have this or why we do not have that, it is because we have to make it ourselves and support others when they venture to do positive things for our community.
This project is just the tip of the iceberg. We plan to use this as a means to open the door for future 3D, cartoon and live action projects. I am asking for your support by donating what you can afford toward getting this movie done. Our team is fired up and ready to make this film a reality! Our community and children in particularly deserved more positive images and role models to emulate. Be a part of making that happen now.
Click here for more info and to support today:
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/earth-squadron-movie-project
Sincerely,
Jarvis Sheffield, M.Ed.
Administrator
Not only was the late Isaac Asimov a writer of great science fiction, he was a biochemistry professor. His assessment of whether there will be a reconciliation between the two in an interview with Bill Moyers leads into tomorrow's posting (more COSMOS, and part 2 of his interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson).
LINK: http://glossi.com/PenelopeFlynn/77789-other-sci-fi-mag-winter-1-2014
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| Source: Discovery link below |
The fastest object ever built by the human species is the Voyager 1 space probe, moving at a speed of 18 miles per second. If it were heading toward Proxima Centauri (which it’s not), Voyager 1 would reach our nearest stellar neighbor in about 80,000 years.
Clearly, if interstellar travel is to be accomplished on human timescales, much greater speeds are required. At 10 percent of the speed of light (a thousand times faster than Voyager 1, but a conceivable speed for likely soon-to-be-realized fusion engines), Proxima Centuri could be reached in approximately 45 years -- less than a human lifetime.
In his 1955 paper Geons, John Wheeler, one of the pioneers of the theory of black holes, coined the term "Kugelblitz" -- which translates literally to "ball lightning." He suggested that if enough pure energy could be focused into a region of space, that energy would form a microscopic black hole, which could be described by the equations of Karl Schwarzschild -- a "Schwarzschild Kugelblitz" (or SK).
Fast forward 19 years to the ground-breaking work of Stephen Hawking, who realized that quantum mechanical effects near a black hole’s event horizon (the boundary beyond which no light or other radiation can escape) would give rise to the emission of radiation, so-called "Hawking Radiation." The smaller the black hole, the greater its radiated power and the less its mass, but the shorter its lifetime until it completely evaporates.
To be useful, a SK would need to be small enough to expel the required energy, light enough to be reasonably accelerated, but large enough to have a sufficiently useful lifetime. Such a Schwarzschild Kugelblitz would be incredibly small, smaller than even a proton, which is one of the basic constituents of an atom.
Despite being so miniscule, Schwarzschild Kugelblitzes are incredibly heavy. A typical SK weighs more than two Empire State Buildings, and has a power output of approximately 129 petawatts (1 petawatt = 10 quadrillion watts). This is 10 million times the July 2013 power consumption record of New York City!
In 1993, Schwarzschild Kugelblitzes pierced the realm of popular culture, albeit under a pseudonym. In the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "Timescape", an artificial quantum singularity (i.e. Schwarzschild Kugelblitz) is revealed to be a Romulan Warbird’s power source.
Thermodynamics: the study of energy and its transformations (description from my undergraduate textbook). Along with fusion power eventually becoming a reality, this could substantially change the way we generate power, wean us of our need for fossil fuel from countries not-to-friendly and change the Calculus of our geopolitics...hopefully for the better.
Discovery: Kugelblitz! Powering a Starship With a Black Hole
Jeff Lee, Icarus Interstellar
Harvard Abstracts: Geons, by John Wheeler
(Note: Dr. Wheeler taught at UT Austin, Texas)
Enormous Craft Detected On Moon, The Secret Is Out (Photos)
At least one enormous object of unknown origin has been visually verified as having landed on our moon. As a result, on Wednesday, January 15, three Terrier-Orion rockets blasted off within a span of 20 seconds from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. EST (0600 to 1000 GMT) on hush-hush missions for the Department of Defense (DoD).
TRN has obtained photos of the unknown spacecraft and has an audio interview with an outside consultant from NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office (MEO) who confirms that for almost two years the U.S. government used the MacDonald Observatory in Texas to track the approach of two of these enormous objects. A year ago, in January 2013, the objects had gotten to within 200,000 miles of Mars when they suddenly vanished.
Realizing these two craft were approaching earth and might not be visible to NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbital Camera (LROC) depending upon where they went, the Government reactivated the previously cancelled Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) to be launched to the moon on September 6, 2013. It took almost 100 days for LADEE to be placed into proper lunar orbit. By December, 2013, both LADEE and the LROC found at least one of the two enormous objects had landed on the moon, in a crater the size of the City of Chicago.
All of this was kept secret until, quite by accident, the LROC images (which are generally made public) were uploaded to the publicly available GoogleMoon service, where intrepid users came upon the enormous object. Now, the whole world can see this "object" on the moon --- the secret is out.
Click here for the full story
It's important that you get your family involved in your writing process. If you're like me, then you have to actually work for a living. Also, if you're like me, you have a family. Both require a considerable amount of attention and thus, take away from the time you have to write on a daily basis. If you've read my previous post on setting writing goals, that's only half the picture. I've fallen way short of meeting mine simply because when I've been able to write has been sporadic at best.
Again, get your family involved. Work, you really can't do anything about unless you can set your own hours. But it would be to your benefit to create a schedule, discuss it with your family, make your adjustments, and then implement.
I've enclosed my Writing Schedule. The green are my blocks for writing, but that doesn't necessarily mean those are the only times I can write. I still use my smartphone when I walk the dog to write using Google Drive. And I tend to stay up later than my wife at times and I might steal a moment or two then.
Liked this post? Why not check out a book or two? A couple of them are free.
Hidden inside nearly every modern electronic is a technology -- called power electronics -- that is quietly making our world run. Yet, as things like our phones, appliances and cars advance, current power electronics will no longer be able to meet our needs, making it essential that we invest in the future of this technology.
Today, President Obama will announce that North Carolina State University will lead the Energy Department’s new manufacturing innovation institute for the next generation of power electronics. The institute will work to drive down the costs of and build America’s manufacturing leadership in wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductor-based power electronics -- leading to more affordable products for businesses and consumers, billions of dollars in energy savings and high-quality U.S. manufacturing jobs. 1
*****
President Obama has declared 2014 a year of action, and while he will continue to work with Congress on new measures to create jobs and grow the economy, he will also use his executive authority to get things done. After shedding jobs for a decade, our manufacturers have added 568,000 over the past nearly four years, including 80,000 over the past five months. Manufacturing production has grown since the end of the recession at its fastest pace in over a decade. The President is committed to building on that progress.
In last year’s State of the Union address, the President proposed a series of three new manufacturing institutes that the Administration can create using existing resources—this is the first of those institutes. In May, President Obama launched a competition for these three new manufacturing innovation institutes with a Federal commitment of $200 million across five Federal agencies—Defense, Energy, Commerce, NASA, and the National Science Foundation, building off the success of a pilot institute headquartered in Youngstown, Ohio. The additional two institutes led by the Department of Defense—focused on Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation and Lightweight and Modern Metals Manufacturing—are still in the selection process and will be awarded in the coming weeks. 2
I stumbled over another one of these scams on Craig's List. Here's another example of someone trying to make money off you without you really getting paid. I'm not saying you can't find a legit publisher on Craig's List, but one that wants to pay you $100, at most isn't one of them. Now I'm not necessarily against getting paid as a ghost writer (which is what this comes off as), but if you're going to take a flat-fee as payment for up to 40 pages of writing, $100 is nothing but a rip-off. If they really meant business, they would cut writers in for a percentage (10% is fair for new or unproven authors, 25% at least for authors who are established).
And I've made no changes whatsoever to the posting as it appeared on CL's site. Why don't they put the name of the company in here? Is there a reason this is kept secret? Again, not that that locks this in as a scam, but it certainly is indicative along with the fact there are no terms put forth outside of the meager stipend they offer.
We are looking for writers that can write structured, well organized content in an ebook format. We are looking for different subjects.
Some sample categories:
- Weight Loss
- Stress
- Health
- Psychology
- FictionWe need books in all categories, so please email us with your areas of expertise. You will be provided with reference material to use as inspiration which you can then rewrite in an original way.The ebooks should be about 30-40 pages long. Pay is $50-$100 per book depending on the subject. If your work is satisfactory there is more work available immediately.Please email me with:
- the subjects you would be qualified to write
- Sample(s) of your work
- Your estimated delivery of such an ebookThanks!
***MUST INCLUDE SAMPLES OF YOUR WORK.. Otherwise your message will be ignored
- Location: anywhere
- do NOT contact me with unsolicited services or offers
- Compensation: yes
Instead of losing money on your manuscript, why not make the most of it? If you don't know how to publish your own story, pick up a copy of How to Publish on Amazon Kindle, Smashwords, & Nook the Easy Way! Only $2.99!
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| Credit: Link below |
A breakthrough using data from the Gaia-ESO project has provided evidence backing up theoretically predicted divisions in the chemical composition of the stars that make up the Milky Way's disc -- the vast collection of giant gas clouds and billions of stars that give our Galaxy its 'flying saucer' shape.
By tracking the fast-produced elements, specifically magnesium in this study, astronomers can determine how rapidly different parts of the Milky Way were formed. The research suggests that stars in the inner regions of the Galactic disc were the first to form, supporting ideas that our Galaxy grew from the inside-out.
Using data from the 8-m VLT in Chile, one of the world's largest telescopes, an international team of astronomers took detailed observations of stars with a wide range of ages and locations in the Galactic disc to accurately determine their 'metallicity': the amount of chemical elements in a star other than hydrogen and helium, the two elements most stars are made from.
Immediately after the Big Bang, the Universe consisted almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, with levels of "contaminant metals" growing over time. Consequently, older stars have fewer elements in their make-up -- so have lower metallicity.
"The different chemical elements of which stars -- and we -- are made are created at different rates -- some in massive stars which live fast and die young, and others in sun-like stars with more sedate multi-billion-year lifetimes," said Professor Gerry Gilmore, lead investigator on the Gaia-ESO Project.
Science Daily:
Milky Way May Have Formed 'Inside-Out:' Gaia Provides New Insight Into Galactic Evolution
Can't wait until the walkers are moaning at your door? Try The Butterman Cometh. Only $0.99.
A new teaser trailer for The Walking Dead has been revealed - scroll down and click to watch. The 31-second-clip focuses on Andrew Lincoln's character Rick Grimes, as he tries to build morale among his fellow survivors following a confrontation with David Morrissey's The Governor. The zombie show is set to return from its mid-season break in the US on February 9. It was revealed in October last year that The Walking Dead had been renewed for a fifth season. It is currently the most-watched show in America among adults aged 18-49 and the premiere episode of season four drew a best ever audience of 16 million viewers.
Read more at http://www.nme.com/filmandtv/news/new-teaser-trailer-for-the-walking-dead-revealed/329544#J8pqUpLZXUk4oHE4.99
Check out Fleshbags, the 'Sickest. Zombies. Ever' according to Zombiephiles.com.
Just a quick update to the Kaizen app.
Kaizen Text app has been updated with some bug fixes and some minor functionality upgrades.
the most important new feature is the addition of the Average number of words per sentence calculator.
The Oxford Guide to Writing - provides that sentence variety is key to maintaining a overall effective style. The Guide provides a handy short cut by stating that sentences should be between 15 and 20 words long. Shorter and you run the risk of choppy statements. Longer, and you risk losing the reader in a sea of commas, semi-colons and adverbial phrases. Of course, different lengths, in the right pen, can make magic. However, it never hurts to evaluate your writing relative to some of the metrics the style mavens think are essential to good writing.
Simply enter your text into the Kaizen text field and see how it shakes out. Use the Kaizen Text App here.
Moorsgate Media
On the bug list side, a bug that prevented the complete analysis of a text where there were words without syllables (such as made up words) has been fixed.
Here's a snippet of things to come. Aura, The Art of Winston Blakely is my first art book and
its almost here.
Chock full of goodies from all genres, Sci Fi, Horror, Sword and Soul, Humor, Pulp Adventures
and Fine Arts.
It has a special introduction by Jarvis Sheffield, creator of Black Science Fiction Society.com,
so you know it must be good. Thanks to William Hayashi for his fabulous interview on
me, months ago... which by his wonderful inspiration that propel me to do this book. I had
always wanted to do an artbook, but never felt the right motivation until that faithful interview.
Its good when creative people inspire each other, makes for an excellent product.
Now... in order of appearance...
1. Kotas, The Dragon ( cover from Immortal Fantasy, created by Winston Blakely )
2. Midnight Phantom Strikes ( Black Pulp Hero from the 1930's, based on
the writings of Jemir Johnson
3. The Road ( illustration from Leopard's Moon- illustrated tales of Sword and Soul
by Melvin Carter
