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a little free audio book action for those who like something creepy with their holiday.
I was taught this outline at North Carolina A & T and still use it to set up problems.
I actually do it before I've read any chapter. It's almost a mental prep: I assume the problems are solvable, then I tackle them.
Some problems are almost unbearable: I opted not to go to our homecoming due the impending Hurricane Sandy, which from previous experience with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita I could tell from Weather.com was going to be formidable.
I was concerned with my fraternity brother (our alumni chapter Polemarch) who was stalled in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania coming back from GHOE due to Sandy's wrath. He eventually made it to New York.
Stevens University is in Hoboken, NJ. It's where I'm taking my online class in Microelectronics and Photonics. I am attempting to contact the other registrants -- my "classmates" and the instructor. We're all professionals, working at full time jobs pursuing a Masters of Science degree. None of us imagined experiencing science - or, the ignorance thereof - in such harsh, graphic violence.
GIVEN: The most significant display of climate change and its dangers to date
WANTED: Your help
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I will get nothing from this, NOTHING, and canned goods are logistically impossible. As John Donne is often quoted, "I am involved with mankind." It is my hope as reader of this blog, you are too.
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Hopefully, all my classmates will check in. As soon as it is safe and clear, I will visit the campus; we will meet face-to-face, students and professor.
I have given, I'd appreciate those of you who read my postings give what you feel led to give. Thank you.
Site: Ready.gov
"Discovery" Volume I of Wiliam Hayashi's Darkside Trilogy is a riveting, even-paced Science Fiction mystery novel that opens on a young scientist's discovery of a previously unidentified asteroid hurtling toward earth. At the same time the FBI is made aware of several unsolved missing persons cases beginning as far back as the 1960's where nearly 2000 U.S. citizens have simply vanished. Half-way across the globe an advanced aircraft of unknown origin is shot down over the Middle East. The story follows the threads that tie these people and incidents together as they become the focus of government power-brokers, and where national security concerns seek to compel the commodification of scientific discovery to serve military, political and/or industrial purposes. Set against the backdrop of a period 40-some odd years after the Civil Rights movement in a fictionalized alternate U.S., the novel pointedly addresses issues of race, class, gender and educational stereotypes as they relate to career, loyalty, friendship, love, the pursuit of happiness and freedom in the burgeoning Space Age.
The novel is steeped in science and scientific terminology but gratefully made accessible to those who have long forgotten their last physics course. The author, William Hayashi's style is methodical and procedural. He writes with exacting detail which is either a minus or a plus depending upon the reader's preferences. Because this is a mystery novel, early on I found myself sometimes thrown off-track by the author's focus on mundane details wondering whether these were important to the storyline. It became clear, however, as I read on that the details were simply atmospheric and not relevant to the plot which allowed me to consume the 500 plus pages in about 3 days. The book contains some "adult" situations. The sexual depictions are intense, somewhat graphic but written in the vein of adult modern romance which was infinitely suitable for the characters and the plotline.
The final section of the book is a sneak peek of Chapter 1 of Volume II of the Darkside Trilogy entitled, "Conception." "Conception" appears to be a prequel to "Discovery" providing the reader with historical reference and introducing the reader to the players who created the technology behind the first novel. I look forward to its release and enthusiastically recommend "Discovery."
A revised version of my debut novel Crowning of the Good King is now available as a Kindle book! This is the first time any of the books in series has been available as an ebook. Here is more about it:
Edgar Winefellow lives in a peaceful hamlet with his maternal grandparents. When that peace is broken by a surprise attack from the Dark Lord, the warlock ruler of Dark Land, Edgar and his friends, Pryant, Sarah, Sam, and the mysterious wizard Agon Laragen, go on a quest to exact revenge. Little does Edgar know how intertwined his destiny is with the fate of the Six Lands.
Download it for the Kindle at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009YNGLW0
Thanks!
Greetings and salutations!
In the spirit of Halloween, I’m giving readers a treat without the trick. During today and tomorrow, I will have three of my titles for free on the Kindle. These books are:
The Laroarian Conflict - An adventure fantasy set in the kingdom of Laroar, which is in a civil war over control of the vacant throne. When two teens, Logan and Mary Wallace, help one of the injured combatants, they embark upon a quest that will take them across the land and make them targets for the opposing armies. Logan and Mary soon discover that no good deed goes unpunished. (Free Days: 10/31/12 – 11/1/12)
“Swordbreaker” - ”He had believed peace only lived at the tip of a sword.” A warlord turned pacifist must face the consequences of his bloody past. *This is a short story. Included in the e-book are extended excerpts of the novelsCrowning of the Good King and The Laroraian Conflict.* (Free Day: 10/31/12)
Heart and Soul of a Thinker - This collection is full of poems chronicling the triumph and tragedy of humanity. In a world where differences are emphasized, this collection is universal because it simplistically relates the common threads that bind us as a species. The collection as a whole connects life, poetry, dreams, love, space, and time into one circle. There are speculative poems in this collection, featuring poems about sea monsters, dragons, and space travel. (Free Day: 11/1/12)
These ebooks are free on the days listed. Don’t hesitate to download them. Please share with family, friends, co-workers and on social media. Thanks! And enjoy.
Words = Life,
A. Jarrell Hayes
Dalziel is an ally if the Black Mau and Bast. Dalziel has telekinetic powers much like Jean Gray of the X-Men, but Dalziel can also manipulate the molecules in her body to shape shift. Dalziel is one force to be reckoned with.
You'll meet her along with the other characters in the Black Mau Chronicles 12.12.12. Stay tuned!
Dalziel is illustrated by Jing Dizon
By the Galactic Core! Now that I've started my own sci-fi short story series, I have to do all this research on feasible science and tech to make a believable tale. One bit of useful info I turned up is a comprehensive list of Sci-fi Cliche's. When I initially saw the long list of symbolic nomenclature to mark the level of cliche' I thought it was overdoing it. I was incorrect. Not only are the cliche's brought up but the symbols marking them are like badges by which the more there are, the more heinous and 'cliche'' the cliche' is! Be advised: this isn't your typical 5-10 list of cliche's. This thing is deep and will take more than one reading to get through. So far, my new story is guilty of 4 however, since I've adapted it from an ancient Greek Myth I may be able to get a 'waiver'....
http://www.cthreepo.com/writing/cliche/
Hurricane Rita: estimated 4-5 billion.
Hurricane Irene: estimated 7-10 billion.
Hurricane Sandy: To Be Determined.
We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.
Carl Sagan
We've received a lot of calls: my sister and best friend from NC; my mother-in-law; my oldest son and my daughter-in-law from Oklahoma and Texas respectively. I've answered more than my share of thoughtful and appreciated Facebook updates. We're OK.
My youngest son called at 3:15 EST, which prompted me to ask why he was UP (2:15 CST). The news disturbed him and he was concerned about his parents. A price he has already paid, and now I pay as his concerns kept me awake.
As I blog this, 7.1 million people are without power on the east coast, 2.2 million in New Jersey. An explosion and fire at ConEdison has left downtown Manhattan dark. Sixteen people have lost their lives. Schools are closed all over NY state. The NYU Medical Center is being evacuated after backup generators failed. The Metro Transit Authority is saying this is the worst disaster in the 108 year history of the New York City subway system. Seven tunnels are flooded and the New York Stock Exchange remains closed for a second day.
We must be cunning, discerning on our choice in one week of Head of State. I have my opinion and my vote already decided. It has not been decided by dogma, prejudice or melanin: I self-identify politically as a logician, a proud member of the reality-based community.
The Venn diagram intersecting set between prophecy and predictive modeling is both are warnings: given for the listeners to take heed and change their course of action before probable disaster becomes all the more real and credible.
However, denial of reality has an associated cost as I've listed above. We cannot long afford this cost. We cannot on the one hand want to compete toe-to-toe with countries that don't have our internal struggles, our inane politics, our sound bite attention spans; dogma and sloganeering, and expect in the end to be successful for very long. Empires after all, have lifespans.
Science, to further quote Carl Sagan "is a way of thinking," and so is believing the earth is 9,000 years old while holding a position in the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. One works towards a solution to real-world problems; the other an associated, ever-inflating cost.
Whatever your choice next Tuesday, we'll all live in the real aftermath (and price) of that choice.
"What's past is prologue." Tempest, Act 2, Scene I
Site: Ready.gov
The Nation John Nichols: Disaster Relief
In Austin, Texas I witnessed the caravans from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: Interstates 10 and 45 packed headed towards Austin and Dallas respectively.
Houston received the first wave of fleeing masses of humanity from Louisiana. Churches and shelters in the three cities put up cots and sleeping bags as fast as they could; clothing and canned foods were donated; homes opened. We were brothers, sisters, cousins, friends: suddenly any differences were rendered utterly meaningless: "Vanity of vanities" said Solomon. I became used to life in "tornado alley," and the Texas colloquial phrase of "hunkering down," but nothing like shelves emptied at the grocery stores; sudden influxes of students from 9th Ward NOLA.
Moving from Texas to New York last year, my wife and I experienced Hurricane Irene, which was described at the time a once-in-a-lifetime event as far as its power (hurricanes and tropical storms have affected NY before). Sandy has now proven that comforting logic wrong, coupling winds, flooding, rain, and possibly tornadoes and snowstorms. Last year, the one and only snowstorm happened on Halloween, downing powerlines made heavy by wet snow caught on autumn leaves and tree branches that snapped under the great unexpected weight, leaving families without lights; heat. We took in friends that lived in Hyde Park due to that: their children had an increased commute to school when it started again. In Irene's aftermath: Insect populations flourished that in times past should have passed on in seasonal death. Our power blinked in and out before it settled then, but I'm not so sure we'll be as lucky. I hope we are.
WE WILL HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS: soberly using critial thinking skills, (which, as a nation we show ourselves remarkably bereft), not sound bites and slogans. We have lawyers as administrators of the republic: lawyers argue. Eight of the top nine government posts in China are held by engineers and scientists according to Forbes. Accordingly, they will move to economic prominence, no dominence in 2016, or at least by the 2020s. Narry a tax exempt creation museum on the Sino land mass.
Perhaps it's too late to solve it, and the carbon producers can revel in their profits merrily, having obfuscated truth and fact in our elected officials on science committees; literally running out the clock until...we are here.
And, great wealth only matters: when you have a functional planet to spend it on.
Site: Climate Change Refugees
It's been fun getting TPU's first episode and initial artwork out. Look for the official cover art the first week of November and EPISODE TWO: A Tale of W.O.E.S. in the last week. Things will begin to heat up for PAnd0RA 001 and her human companion in many ways so standby....
"… [it] is shown how, within the framework of general relativity and without the introduction of wormholes, it is possible to modify a spacetime in a way that allows a spaceship to travel with an arbitrarily large speed. By a purely local expansion of spacetime behind the spaceship and an opposite contraction in front of it, motion faster than the speed of light as seen by observers outside the disturbed region is possible. The resulting distortion is reminiscent of the ‘warp drive’ of science fiction." (Alcubierre paper abstract)
By placing a spheroid object between two regions of space-time — one expanding, the other contracting — Alcubierre theorized you could create a “warp bubble” that moves space-time around the object, effectively re-positioning it. In essence, you’d have the end result of faster-than-light travel without the object itself having to move (with respect to its local frame of reference) at light-speed or faster.
The only catch: Alcubierre says that, “just as happens with wormholes,” you’d need “exotic matter” (matter with “strange properties”) to distort space-time. And the amount of energy necessary to power that would be on par with — wait for it — the mass-energy of the planet Jupiter.
So we’re back to “fuhgeddaboudit,” right?
Maybe not. According to NASA physicist Harold White, the energy problem may actually be surmountable by simply tweaking the warp drive’s geometry.
White, who just shared his latest ideas at the 100 Year Starship 2012 Public Symposium, says that if you adjust the shape of the ring surrounding the object, from something that looks like a flat halo into something thicker and curvier, you could power Alcubierre’s warp drive with a mass roughly the size of NASA’s Voyager 1 probe.
In other words: reduction in energy requirements from a planet with a mass equivalent to over 300 Earths, down to an object that weighs just under 1,600 pounds.
Time Tech: NASA Actually Working on Faster-than-Light Warp Drive
New afronerdradio.com show starts this Sunday at 6pm. Call the hosts live at 646-915-9620: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/afronerd/2012/10/28/double-shows-interview-w-13-comic-creator-david-walker
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| One nanoelectronics approach studied by the NRI MIND center is nanomagnet logic (NML)--logic circuits that work by magnetic coupling between neighboring nanoscale magnets. Here, SEM (l) and magnetic force microscope (r) images show an NML circuit that adds binary numbers. Credit: Courtesy SRC-NRI Midwest Institute for Nanoelectronics Discovery (MIND) |
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced today the selection of the Nanoelectronics Research Initiative (NRI), a collaboration of several key firms in the semiconductor industry, to support university-centered research for the development of after-the-next-generation “nanoelectronics” technology. NRI is made up of participants from the semiconductor industry, including GLOBALFOUNDRIES, IBM, Intel, Micron Technology and Texas Instruments.
“The NRI is a model for industry-driven consortia,” said NIST Director Patrick Gallagher. “It funds a highly leveraged, coordinated nanoelectronics research program centered at leading universities in partnership with federal and state government agencies. The innovation stemming from this NIST award will enable the United States to keep our current leadership in nanoelectronics that stimulates the economy and creates high-paying jobs.”
NIST: NRI to Lead New Five-Year Effort to Develop Post-CMOS Electronics
If you ease up on a pencil, does it slide more easily? Sure. But maybe not if the tip is sharpened down to nanoscale dimensions. A team of researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has discovered that if graphite (the material in pencil "lead") is sticky enough, as measured by a nanoscale probe, it actually becomes harder to slide a tip across the material's surface as you decrease pressure—the exact opposite of our everyday experience.
Technically, this leads to an effectively "negative coefficient of friction," something that has not been previously seen, according to team leader Rachel Cannara. Graphite, Cannara explains, is one of a special class of solids called "lamellar" materials, which are formed from stacks of two-dimensional sheets of atoms. The sheets are graphene, a single-atom-thick plane of carbon atoms that are arranged in a hexagonal pattern. Graphene has a number of exotic electrical and material properties that make it attractive for micro- and nanoelectromechanical systems with applications ranging from gas sensors and accelerometers to resonators and optical switches.
NIST:
Slip Sliding Our Way: At the Nanoscale, Graphite Can Turn Friction Upside Down
Had to. 
It's Friday to boot:
Hey everyone! It's been a busy month and a half getting the first two full episodes and cover art ready for the debut of The PAnd0RA Ultimatum. This is my first foray into sci-fi and I believe it's good as any of my fantasy/adventure stories. 65,000 years after humans made the Galaxy their home, the problem of loneliness is still prevalent. One lucky winner will receive ZEUS INTERSTELLAR INDUSTRIES prototype Personal Android series Zero Romeo Alpha (PAnd0RA) for Beta Testing as his companion. However, powerful forces within the Milky Way Galaxy will pit the lucky winner and his new companion will be pitted against woes mankind hasn't faced for tens of millennia. To survive and prevent the destruction of the Galaxy, they must willingly accept... The PAnd0RA Ultimatum!
Call it "Standard Model, part II," and a welcome respite post debates...
I am an AFROFuturist. And, I boldly state that I make my own definitions. I can define myself and the conditions that I thrive in. It does not bother me if other people describe the term differently or take offense at what I choose to believe and promote. In fact, I welcome and embrace the diversity of definitions.
I am an AFROFuturist. Don't label me as a Moslem, Hindu, Jew, Christian or Atheist. Organized belief systems that are rigid and unable to adapt can be dangerous and lead us down the path of extinction. Ask T-Rex. However, true AFROFuturists can open our minds to new paths of survival and life satisfaction and the perpetuation of our kind. Therefore, the AFROFuturistic vision is wide and welcomes multiple interpretations and new pathways of thought. It is not imprisoned by words or canvas or song or movement.
As an AFROFuturist, I believe that racism is insanity. Social classes are a wicked delusion. We all are born naked and at the end of our lives we leave accumulated earthly riches behind for others to fight over. Our truth wealth are the contributions that we offered to society during our sojourn that will hopefully enrich the lives of others. We are all one race, one species, one culture, subject to the whims of a Universe that could eradicate us all in a bright solar moment. No one survives a Super Nova. It merely recreates us into new forms to start over again. But until that event we must strive to be the best that we can.
I am an AFROFuturist. This is what I believe:
1) We must mold a future that embraces all of us
2) Education and learning is "cradle to grave" and critical to our survival
3) Our greatest wealth resides in the people who have the least
4) We have the knowledge and the power to protect the planet and all the creatures that live on it
5) God is not above us, God grows within us, if we allow and listen!
I am an AFROFuturist. Join me!!
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Roddenberry unwittingly unleashed a phenomenon in which Star Trek enthusiasts became a veritable cult, numbering physicists, aerospace engineers, housewives, senators, children, teachers and intellectuals among its devotees (affectionately known as "Trekkies," and later, "Trekkers"). The show went outside television to win science fiction's coveted Hugo Award and then spawned an animated spin-off, as well as a series of feature films.
While making Star Trek, Roddenberry's reputation as a futurist began to grow. His papers and lectures earned him high professional regard as a visionary. He spoke on the subject at NASA meetings, the Smithsonian Institution, Library of Congress gatherings, and top universities.
Star Trek was so wildly popular that it has since become the first television series to have an episode preserved in the Smithsonian, where an 11-foot model of the U.S.S. Enterprise is also exhibited on the same floor as the Wright brother's original airplane and Lindbergh's "Spirit of St. Louis." In addition to the Smithsonian honors, NASA's first space shuttle was named Enterprise, in response to hundreds of thousands of letters from fans demanding that the shuttle be named after the beloved starship.
Site: Gene Roddenberry bio
Taking a little break from "bayonets, horses" and unicorns...
Source link: FERMILAB
