Hi friends! I was interviewed by the wonderful Nichelle Gregory, and I think I had a little bit too much fun. I included a sultry excerpt from my upcoming release for your viewing pleasure. Swing by and show some love. xo
~Yvonne~
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| OpenLibrarydotorg |
U.S. Reps. Rush Holt and Rodney Frelinghuysen visited the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory this morning [13 June 2012] to announce that the U.S. House of Representatives has passed legislation to restore $76 million in funding for fusion energy research.
The funding, which supports the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab and other energy research laboratories, was not included in President Obama’s fiscal year 2013 budget request. Without the funding, the lab would face major cutbacks on research projects and staff reductions of up to 100 people, including scientists, engineers, and lab technicians.
“Fusion research is key to America’s energy future, and we are proud to have this important work in New Jersey,” said Holt, who was the assistant director of the lab before his election to Congress. “If you look around us today, you’ll see workers in lab coats, workers in suits, and workers in jeans and hardhats — in other words, a broad cross-section of the New Jersey workforce. All of these jobs, and all of their crucial research, are placed at risk by efforts to cut basic research.”
Helps to have friends/Physics PhDs (Rep Holt) in high places. He is the only one of two trained in physics, with respect to other congressional representatives and senators, few have backgrounds in the sciences. That may explain a lot of inane decisions from the bubble universe/echo chamber called "The Hill."
Link to article: Planet Princeton
Quantum computers are still years away, but a trio of theorists has already figured out at least one talent they may have. According to the theorists, including one from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), physicists might one day use quantum computers to study the inner workings of the universe in ways that are far beyond the reach of even the most powerful conventional supercomputers.
DC Wiki: Ray Palmer
NIST: Quantum Computers Will Be Able to Simulate Particle Collisions
Black people on the moon. William Hayashi, has taken this premise and built around it a very thoughtful and suspenseful page turner called Discovery. How did this happen? How did a small group of black people manage to depart Earth undetected? How did they gather the resources to construct a habitat in a lunar environment? On the dark side no less? The first volume in this trilogy, subtitled the Darkside Trilogy, (William is working on volume II as I write this) puts us squarely on the path of answering those questions. But first, the author composes a solid story, taking the reader on an investigative journey leading to this monumental (ahem) discovery. He provides a series of occurrences, seemingly unrelated, but destined to converge.
There are the disappearances of nearly 2,000 highly educated, technically skilled black people over a period of decades; the shoot down of an aircraft in the Middle East, an aircraft with a design and composition unlike anything encountered on Earth; an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, and the invention of a device with unprecedented detection capability.
Discovery is a process of...discovery and I thoroughly enjoyed the process. William takes a very deliberative approach in his storytelling. He makes sure that the reader is ensconced as deeply as possible in the view point of the characters, as the pieces of a grand and complex puzzle are put together. He deftly merges real world tech with science fiction and his superb grasp of space age technology portrayed in the book is an outgrowth of the heavy research he poured into the story.
As I mentioned earlier, Discovery is the first in a trilogy. The answers we didn't get in part one are sure to unfold in forthcoming volumes. But unlocking part of the mystery in Discovery was very exciting. William has written a most intriguing work of science fiction, one I highly recommend.
View Lissajous curve and over 3,000,000 other topics on Qwiki.
Wikipedia: Lissajous curves (very good animation here)
Wolfram Mathworld: Lissajous curves (another way to look @ the math)
Not better in the sense of person: Penny as a character seems quite fun and likable.
Better I mean as role model, breaking away from the "traditional" assignments women are forced by societal expectations to kowtow to, sometimes deliberately steered from study in and mastering technical areas because somewhere along the way some idiot brainwashed a budding scientist or engineer with what was "proper" and "ladylike," similar to the Neanderthals that would rather them barefoot, pregnant and out of competition in the workforce. OK, off my soapbox now...
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Black Steam: A steam punk novel
<This is my intro . . . am i too far off base? >>
Black people who came to America did not always arrive in chains. They arrived by luxury China Clipper sailing ships, underneath giant bags of hydrogen gas, or on the backs of giant Vodoun eagles. These people brought the philosophy, socery and science of Africa to the emerging New World. But their divine mission was not to build an Empire to rule over human civilization; the African ancestors had demanded that the chosen people be put back on the right course and onto a proper timeline.
Thus, with the divine help of the Africans, the Southern Confederate States were destined to defeat the Northern Federal Union in the American Civil War. But even the Ancestors make mistakes and rely upon “The Gifted Messengers” to set things right.
-- Black Steam coming Fall 2012
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| SapientUniversedotcom |
The aide (Karl Rove) said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore." He continued "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
Ron Suskind, NYT article, 2004
So, it is with heavy hearts we discern the truth: science is no cure for the made up mind, be it climate change, death panels or birth certificates, facts are for wimps and the dimension Rod Serling narrated on has become a functionality:
"There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition."
Welcome to the USA: we create our own realities and act on them as if they were true. Engaging in creative obfuscation, we make faith a lie and lies its charleton pimp: never clear on the facts, but Paul Bunyan tellers of tall myths; reinforcing our worldviews only with those we agree with; only opening our mouths to bark the latest sound bite. It's no wonder as a nation we're falling behind in STEM careers; it's no wonder our children's attention spans are short: modeled after our adult Twittering own, with the lifespan of dung heap fleas.
Could we even agree - now in the 21st century - to disagree as well as Sam and Ralph?
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| See content in embed below |
ANSTO = Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (European spelling)
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| Brian Coxall - Theses on the Open Humanities |
Audacity: 1.The willingness to take bold risks: "her audacity came in handy during our most recent emergency."
From the web site: "We believe university-level education can be both high quality and low cost. Using the economics of the Internet, we've connected some of the greatest teachers to hundreds of thousands of students all over the world.
"Udacity was founded by three roboticists who believed much of the educational value of their university classes could be offered online. A few weeks later, over 160,000 students in more than 190 countries enrolled in our first class, "Introduction to Artificial Intelligence..."
Udacity: Courses
© 7 June 2012, Thom the World Poet, © 9 June 2012, the Griot Poet (response)
I have a friend who is paid by IBM
Just to sit around and solve conundrums
He is a poet-as several other IBM ex-poets
Whose lateral emotional bases allowed flexibility?
Yet whose individuality clashed with corporate groupthink
(You cannot make soup out of ice cream-
Ideas often threaten power structures focused upon control)
Investment post September 11 is in military, police, surveillance mega-industry
All of which constitute inertial economic drags upon productive creative processes
As schools now focus more on learning to the test
Movies and music become retro /recycled clichés eating off past visions
Toffler was right/De Bono was right-to sell thought processing to Corporations
Every cliché is true. Dick Tracy wristwatches exist/as do jetpacks
They have yet to be commercially marketed. Space travel exists (privatized)
Patents for new inventions compound Jetsons/2001/Star Trek previews of the possible
Venture capital supported enterprises seek solutions/even when most investment is military
Eccentric individualism has been replaced by robotic anime-
Programmed drones kill civilians with no responsibility
Technology has no morality. Science is value free.
Economics only one factor when it comes to innovative technology
What philosophy Armageddon? Sarin, anthrax attacks? Deliberate assassinations…
STUXNET cyber-warfare, universal surveillance, secrecy and censorship-
All limit both individual freedom and initiative. New ideas required
But first we need to replace those robots and drones
With poets, artists, philosophers-free thinkers all!
*****
We forget the lesson of "Ender's Game,"
As Mazer Rackham, of bugger-kill fame
And the faux military-industrial-complex declares fair game
A sentient race we make "other" with epithet
No science used to program
- A Google translator
- Or Star Trek "universal communicator"
To see what a hive-complex species thinks,
To know how an entire entity of beings
Lived in harmony,
Before Ender advertently: made them extinct!
Seeking only to live
Beyond its planetary borders
We were attacked in the story: what for?
Because: "they hated our freedoms"?
Orson Scott Card does not explore
The myriad possible reasons Earth was assaulted
In his treatise...as a species, we’ve got a history of pissing people off!
OBL of 9/11 fame made it quite plain: it was for the children
WE bombed in Iraq between false wars
And his twisted devotion
To eye-for-eye killings of more innocents
as if that would implore
Blood to flow that had once been poured,
Sinews and skin to assemble
Upon dry bones
"La vengeance se mange tres-bien froide,"
Or,
"Revenge is very good eaten cold," (Novel: Matilde, 1841)
As I compose verse to the coming sun,
I bear witness:
IT [revenge] makes a poor spark,
Or kick start
To a resurrection!
It's the old argument: nature versus nurture.
Yet, I've seen parents invest tons of money, time and training in what should be recreational sports programs more than happy to take their investment on the "promise" of becoming superstar athletes with the real (sad) potential of becoming paupers one day. A fraction of the same amount of time could be invested in learning to read and comprehend (needed to solve infamous 'word problems'), instead of endless hours spent mastering the 'next level' in video fantasies that don't matter once the subject has come up for air so-to-speak.
I'd rather nurture: it's something we could control versus wait on and wish for like lotteries.
Huffington Post:
Sho Yano, University of Chicago Student, To Become Youngest MD In School's History
Ok, I was doing a PC tech job on a NASA base. I saw in the hallways a number of older black women who were scientist or engineers. I still imagine older black women as grandmas' or aunts', sort of like the seer in the Matrix movie. Can you imagine granny in her granny dress, baking cookies or cooking a stew being a space scientist and her roles criss-crossing to save a space mission or the class science project.
Do you want a free copy of Trash?
If you do, you can enter the my first free book giveaway! All you have to do is three easy things!
1) Read the free preview chapters of Trash!
2) Write a few quick thoughts about your idea of the story so far. Do you like it? Do you hate it? Why?
3) Be sure to leave a valid e-mail address/private message/review, so I can contact you.
There will be two winners! Winners will be selected by the depth of their review.
The Free Book Giveaway Ends: June 15, 2012.
THIS FREE BOOK GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED! THANKS TO ALL THAT PARTICIPATED!
On black people in Ray Bradbury stories from the Fifties: "They were African-Americans, who had amazingly colonised Mars!"
http://pdjeliclark.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/black-people-on-mars-race-and-ray-bradbury/
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| "On June 6, 2012, Ray Bradbury, the Universe's writer, was called back to his galaxy." - Orange County Screenwriters Association |
JUNE 6, 2012
Ray Bradbury, recipient of the 2000 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the 2004 National Medal of Arts, and the 2007 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation, died on June 5, 2012, at the age of 91 after a long illness. He lived in Los Angeles.
In a career spanning more than seventy years, Ray Bradbury has inspired generations of readers to dream, think, and create. A prolific author of hundreds of short stories and close to fifty books, as well as numerous poems, essays, operas, plays, teleplays, and screenplays, Bradbury was one of the most celebrated writers of our time. His groundbreaking works include Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. He wrote the screen play for John Huston's classic film adaptation of Moby Dick, and was nominated for an Academy Award. He adapted sixty-five of his stories for television's The Ray Bradbury Theater, and won an Emmy for his teleplay of The Halloween Tree. In 2005, Bradbury published a book of essays titled Bradbury Speaks, in which he wrote: In my later years I have looked in the mirror each day and found a happy person staring back. Occasionally I wonder why I can be so happy. The answer is that every day of my life I've worked only for myself and for the joy that comes from writing and creating. The image in my mirror is not optimistic, but the result of optimal behavior.
He is survived by his four daughters, Susan Nixon, Ramona Ostergren, Bettina Karapetian, and Alexandra Bradbury, and eight grandchildren. His wife, Marguerite, predeceased him in 2003, after fifty-seven years of marriage.
Throughout his life, Bradbury liked to recount the story of meeting a carnival magician, Mr. Electrico, in 1932. At the end of his performance Electrico reached out to the twelve-year-old Bradbury, touched the boy with his sword, and commanded, Live forever! Bradbury later said, I decided that was the greatest idea I had ever heard. I started writing every day. I never stopped.
Web site: RayBradbury.com
CNN: Sci-fi legend Ray Bradbury dies
NASA: Transit of Venus
Black Queen of England
Queen Charlotte and her Contributions toBritain
Princess Sophie Charlotte was born on May 19, 1744--the eighth child of the Prince of Mirow, Germany, Charles Louis Frederick, and his wife, Elisabeth Albertina of Saxe-Hildburghausen. In 1752, when she was eight years old, Sophie Charlotte's father died.
A princess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Sophie Charlotte was descended directly from an African branch of the Portuguese Royal House, Margarita de Castro y Sousa. Six different lines can be traced from Princess Sophie Charlotte back to Margarita de Castro y Sousa. This explains her African appearance in her Royal portraits that exist today.
Sophie Charlotte married George III of England on 8 September 1761, at the Chapel Royal in St James’s Palace, London, at the age of 17 years of age becoming the Queen of England and Ireland. Their were conditions in the contract for marriage, ‘The young princess…, join the Anglican church and be married according to Anglican rites, and never ever involve herself in politics’. Although the Queen had an interest in what was happening in the world, especially the war in America, she is seen to have fulfilled her marital agreement.
An indicator of George’s feelings towards his wife may be seen by the fact that, as stated on the Royal website, ‘George III bought Buckingham House in 1761 for his wife Queen Charlotte to use as a comfortable family home close to St James's Palace, …14 of George III's 15 children were born there’.
Having married the King, she became consort to the George III, and they were both devoted to each other. The Royal couple had fifteen children, thirteen of whom survived to adulthood. There fourth eldest son was Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent (2/11/1767- 23/01/1820), who later fathered Queen Victoria.
Her Majesty Queen Charlotte made many contributions to Britain as it is today, though the evidence is not obvious or well publicised. Her African blood line in the British royal family is not common knowledge. Portraits of the Queen had been reduced to fiction of the Black Magi, until two art historians suggested that the definite African features of the paintings derived from actual subjects, not the minds of painters.
In Queen Charlottes era slavery was prevalent and the anti-slavery campaign building up. This may go some way to explaining why Britons are not fully aware of the racial mix of the royal family. Portrait painters of the royal family were expected to play down or soften Queen Charlottes African features.
Painters such as Sir Thomas Lawrence, who painted, Queen Charlotte in the autumn of 1789 had their paintings rejected by the royal couple who were not happy with the representations of the likeness of the Queen. These portraits are amongst those that are available to view now, which could be seen as continuing the political interests of those that disapprove of a multi-racial royal family for Britain.
Sir Allan Ramsey produced the most African representations of the Queen, he was responsible for the majority of the paintings of the Queen. Ramsey’s inclination to paint truer versions of the Queen could be seen to have come from being ‘an anti-slavery intellectual of his day’, Frontline.
The Coronation painting by Ramsey, of the Queen was sent out to the colonies/commonwealth and played a subtle political role in the anti-slavery movement. Johann Zoffany also frequently painted the Royal family in informal family scenes.
Queen Charlotte was a learned character, her letters indicate that she is well read and had interests in the fine arts. The Queen is known to have supported and been taught music by Johann Christian Bach. She was extremely generous to Bach’s wife after Bach’s death. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, at aged eight dedicated his Opus 3 piece to the Queen at her request.
Also an amateur botanist, Queen Charlotte helped to establish Kew Gardens bringing amongst others the Strelitzia Reginae, a flowering plant from South Africa.
The Christmas tree was introduced to England by the Queen who had the first one in her house, in 1800. It was said to be decorated with, ‘sweet-meats, almonds and rasins in papers, fruit and toys,’.
The Queen Charlotte Maternity hospital is in London and has been since 1739. Set up as a charitable institution, it is the oldest maternity care institution in England.
Another care venture for the Queen was when George III became ill in 1765 and Queen Charlotte took care of him, noting in one of her letters to her brother that spending time in Weymouth became frequent as bathing in the sea was beneficial to the King.
Queen Charlotte died at Dutch House in Surrey, now Kew Palace, in the presence of her eldest son, the Prince Regent. She is buried at St George’s Chapel, Windsor.
The only private writings that have survived are Queen Charlotte's 444 letters to her closest confidant--her older brother, Charles II (1741-1816), Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. On 23 May 1773 in a letter to her younger brother: ‘I find that the solitary and retiring life which I lead is not made for me. Having admitted this I assure you I shall not ignore my duty’. This shows that the Queen felt she was in a position of privilege yet a task. Her Christian faith was a protection and a method of endurance, as she quotes from the Bible and recognises her role as a royal of God beyond her royal role on earth.
The Christmas tree that Queen Charlotte introduced is still very evident today. A well established custom of over 200 years at Christmas time, are present in nearly every household and public building in Britain, still decorated with lights and shiny objects.
An exhibition took place in 2004, at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace displaying Charlotte and George’s collections and tastes in the arts.
Queen Charlotte is the great great great grandmother of the present Queen Elizabeth II who still lives in the expanded Buckingham House, now Buckingham Palace. Kew gardens still flourishes and is always being expanded, also the Queen Charlotte maternity hospital and many other places still carry her name in honour globally such as Charlotte town, Canada and Fort Charlotte, St Vincent, West Indies.
