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TERROR ON TELDERAN
SYNOPSIS:
Time 1990
After breaking away from the Planetary Alliance the planet Otar finds it’s self on the brink of ruin. In a desperate move, their leader Rotart makes a foolish attempt to terra-form the planet Telderan so that he may claim it and relocate the Otarian race. Ancient oracles have been warning Alliance leaders for years that such an attempt would be made and that it would have catastrophic results for planet Earth billions of miles away. Rayna, High Ruler of the Southern Quadrant of Lazon and J’lore Chief Council of Earth’s Guardians have been lifelong friends. Although Earth Guardians are considered outlaws by the government Rayna sympathizes with their cause to save the human race. Earth’s Guardians is also aware of the impending disaster for earth but Rayna confirms it. Taz, son of the ruthless dictator of Otar is dispatched to clear Telderan of the handful of inhabitants so that the terra-forming process can began. His harsh and heavy-handed ways do not go down well with the settlers and his father's confrontation with leaders of the Planetary Alliance does not fair any better. Only time will tell if the Planetary Alliance’s oracles were right.
- Free
- Available on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Mac.
- https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/terror-on-telderan/id365937820?mt=11
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| Screen shot from the Genius series on Nat Geo: Einstein on Ars Technica |
I'm obviously a fan of Einstein for his stance on Civil Rights for African Americans, his views on women's rights, his friendship with Paul Robeson and his views that were decades ahead of his time on social issues that were just percolating in the political cauldron of the day. Above all, he shows the positive impact of an immigrant in our American "melting pot."
I often read biographies of the people we consider giants in science and engineering. What I find disarming and charming is the discovery they, like us, were quite flawed and human with their own eccentricities and foibles. It's easy to deify heroes with the distance of time.
Like most young people, the young Einstein was amorous and prolific in his couplings. He was also indifferent to the emotional impact many of his romantic betrayals had on his many partners, Elsa Einstein acknowledging as much in the first chapter of the Nat Geo series: Genius (ahem: he's sober shtoofing his secretary in one of the first scenes, right before a class. I don't know if that's actual history or hyperbole, but I've read he took off for weeks at a time in full knowledge - and disrespect - of his second spouse).
Excerpt of an interview with Ron Howard at SXSW (South by Southwest) by Ars Technica:
AUSTIN, Texas—Writer, director, and actor Ron Howard is very careful when considering his place in the geek-media universe. Over 20 years ago, his film Apollo 13 kicked off a trajectory of major science-and-heart storytelling, which recently crystallized as an ongoing series-development deal with National Geographic's TV channel.
Apollo 13 convinced Howard that audiences had more hunger for science stories than he'd assumed. "It surprised me pleasantly how interested people were in the science of it. The irony that there were virtually no computers then, and they had to use slide rules... I realized that none of these things were lost on the audience. In fact, it was very engaging. I learned that it wasn't just the adventure or the emotion. There was an intellectual component to what was entertaining and engaging the audiences." He then quoted Neil Degrasse Tyson to remind me that TV's CSI broke the dam open for an even wider audience given the series had major characters applying scientific thought, as opposed to "odd characters hidden away in a room somewhere with a lab coat on."
The pilot episode sees these distinct Einstein eras explored chronologically, and for older Einstein, that means facing the changing political climate in Germany and taking steps toward immigrating to the United States. (Rush, I should add, is absolutely masterful in his performance as the older Einstein, with snark, wit, and charm rolled together in a delightfully light German accent.) Howard insists that the entire sequence, which includes a rise of German nationalism and public hatred for immigrants and scientific thought, had already been locked down before the last American Presidential election concluded.
"It's suddenly politically prescient, which we were... aware of this as we were shooting," Howard says. "Of course, it's not just the United States. There's a call to conservative nationalism [worldwide]. Closing borders, blocking immigrants, imposing controls. That's been going on around the world for some years now—but one of the pressures, the surprises for me, in reading Walter's book, that we really depict episode after episode, are the times when institutional thinkers would impose a barrier to Einstein. And sometimes a threat. Imagine how close we came to not benefiting from his genius! That's shocking. If there's a cautionary element to this story, I hope it's that."
It's also a reminder of the maxim: “History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes,” as Mark Twain is often reputed to have said. Quote investigator sites several possible sources other than the witty writer.
“Good morning, children.”
Ms. Tanaka swiveled into the command console of her living room class station and turned on the holographic display. The room flickered momentarily as the display connections were routed through the house’s main computer grid.
The console lights for each section of her class lit serially as their students appeared in the classroom behind her.
“Singapore. Five. Online.”
“New York. Three. Online”
“London. One. Online.” Tanaka shook her head sadly. Her student base had dropped off significantly since the Accident.
Her internal Image sensing a change in her blood pressure activated its search mode and related it to recent infonews. “Would you like me to provide search data for the Accident for class today?”
Snapping back to the present, she waved her hand. “No Mei, I don’t need it, today. I may do something on it to commemorate the anniversary but today, we celebrate.”
Each of the children snapped into high resolution focus, most with smiles of anticipation. “Good morning, Ms. Tanaka.” The network adjusted as the bandwidth required for translation was properly allocated. Each child learned in their native language during routine class operation.
“Happy SALT Day.”
Mei adjusted the translation matrices based on her morning downloads with any language updates, regional dialects or specialized phenom databases.
“I guess I don’t have to ask you if you’re ready for today, do I? So, tell me who knows what SALT Day is and why we celebrate it?”
Abayomi, a Nigerian living in the outskirts of London whispered, “We celebrate the day Humaniti was first fully aware and could confirm the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence.”
“Why do we call it SALT Day?”
“It’s named after the South African Large Telescope, where the first confirmation of alien intelligence occurred and remains until today.” Yi Ling chirped up in an extremely professional tone. Her parents were also teachers. Her additional exposure to the infogrid meant she was always searching for new things of interest, likely she had been studying the curriculum in advance.
Mei, brought up the infonet images for the SALT and provided the age appropriate data infographics on the specifications of the telescope and its associated satellites. Each of the children received the information they could assimilate based on their intellectual capacity. This particular class was rated mid-tier though their ages varied from eight to eleven.
“I assume you all received your Fragment in the last drone-drops in your region.” Each student held out a sliver of shiny, but impossibly hard glass.
The electronic voice intentionally left quite robotic signaled Marcus’ entrance into the conversation. “Not sure why we should be celebrating extraterrestrials we’re never going to meet?” He was the only student not sitting. He lay back in a medical support pod.
Marcus was borne with a rare bone disease, he was only rarely able to enter the gravity well of a planet for an brief period. Normally, he lived on L2 Station. He returned to Earth to receive his Fragment and to be connected to the SALT. He floated in his biosphere, his gills flicking gentle in support solution. His radiotelepathic implant meant he never spoke verbally.
“No, we won’t ever get to meet the Precursors, Marcus. But what we have learned has given us many opportunities to understand who they were, what they accomplished and if one of us or all of us can further decypher the SALT we have a chance to travel to where the Precursors came from one day.”
Ms. Tanaka picked up her crystalline prop, she was already connected to the SALT, and placed it across her hand. “This is the SALT interface. You have all been selected to interface with our alien benefactors because you have all shown unique intellectual aptitudes. Art, writing, creativity, scientific, exploratory and other learning styles, each allowing you a potentially unique experience into the mind of the SALT.”
“Will it hurt?” Abayomi looked tentatively at the Fragment. “It seems very sharp.”
“No, you won’t feel a thing. I promise.” Ms Tanaka modified her datastream to send comforting subliminals to ease the children’s anxieties. Each of their comm centers triggered each child’s conditioned pheremonal nootropic.
“Stand it on the top of your head. You will feel a tingle when you are near the perfect spot for you. Each of you will have a different emphasis so your location may be slightly different.”
The children each place their Fragment on their heads aided by the feedback system they were assigned while they were growing. Once they were connected to the SALT their previous system would be repurposed by the implant.
Ms. Tanaka checked the data retrieved from each of the children. Her own Image, Mei coordinated the data between Tanaka and the children.
“Okay, let the crystal go and imagine your favorite avatar.” The children each let go tentatively, looking over at the other children to see what was happening by proxy. They saw the crystal stand straight up and then slowly melt into the heads of their classmates. Then each turned back and put their heads down as they thought of one of their favorite interweb avatars.
Each had been told this would become their first Image, their first connection to SALT. It would look and act just like their previous avatars but now when a connection was good, they would be allowed to enter the Flow.
Mei adjusted several of the children’s life signs remotely ensuring the integration into the cerebellum of the students was smooth.
Avatars popped into existence as the children settled on their favorites. Marcus was the last to choose and his was a hyperrealistic horse. No one had seen a horse in fifty years. His avatar was one of the last simulations ever taken from a living specimen.
The others chose more historical visual icons from games they enjoyed. Once icons were chosen, Ms. Tanaka gave an information burst-loaded, “Sleep.”
For twenty four minutes, they dreamed of electric sheep. Fantastic vistas as their neural cortex was rewritten by a technology Humanti in all its varied intellectual forms, still did not truly understand.
“Okay, children. Open your eyes. Welcome to the Flow.” Each child stood up from the ground or the desert they each thought they were standing in.
“This is not like your game virtualities. This is a seamless environment completely integrated into your nervous system. You can experience life here. Hot, cold, wet, dry.”
Mei connected to the children, something new, a part of a network they had never known before. Each child felt it, the strangeness, the scent of something unknown. Never known. Their faces wrinkled.
“That is the smell of the SALT. The air of this place. Look over there.” As if the desert had been filled with a fog, suddenly a towering black line appeared in the distance. It shot from behind what now appeared to be a sky, a mountain range, a treeline, meadows all fading into the distance terminating where the children stood on what they now see as a beach, not a desert.
“What is that?” Marcus was still adjusting to riding his avatar.
Tanaka looked wistfully into the distance. “That is SALT. The Archive of the Precursors. That’s where you will be going. You won’t be going all at once. You will be traveling toward the Black Tower in the distance. We don’t know what you will see. We won’t know what you experience. Each of us sees the journey differently. That’s why when you come back, you have to write down your experience in class. You have to teach us what you learn while you’re in the Flow.”
“We’re the teachers?” Yi Ling looked as if she was suddenly understanding something.
“Everyday you’re able, you will enter the Flow and experience something. As you become more acclimated you will slowly move toward the Tower. Maybe one day you will reach the Archive?”
Abayomi looked back at the shore walked over to and touched the water. “Have you ever been to the Archive, Ms. Tanaka?”
Tanaka bent down next to Abayomi and whispered into her ear. “Can I tell you a secret?”
The child face lit up with the chance to hold a secret from an adult. “Yes, ma’am.”
“No one has. It’s been a hundred years and we have never reached it. We feel it call to us, but no one has ever made it.”
Marcus, ever-listening caused his avatar to rear up and he shouted, “Well, I’ll be the first,” his horse tearing into the beach sand and he fell away into the distance.
“Take notes!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Abayomi watched the others as they made their way toward the Tower. “You still have a question, don’t you?"
“If that tower is the destination, what is this shore we’re starting from?”
“That dear child, is the rest of Humaniti, the ones who simply don’t have what it takes to make this journey. This ocean is the best we could do. It is the sum of everything we have ever learned and created on our own. Our singularity.”
“We’re the teachers.”
“Yes, now hurry along. Humaniti’s waiting to learn what you discover. Remember…”
“I know. Take good notes.”
SALT © Thaddeus Howze, 2017, All Rights Reserved
After almost five years of development and production, the new project from Jericho Projects critically acclaimed director\writer Adrian "Asia" Petty has finally come to life, "Who is Darius Key?"
Darius Key is a demon hunter with a shameful past who has been handling his tasks for an interminable time. He blurs the lines between a historical figure, a spiritual master, a paranormal adventurer and an arrogant jerk. The time has come for Darius to pass his mantle to a new protégé, Maxwell Lightfoot. Will Darius' student be able to handle it or will Darius' obnoxious attitude bring everything to a deadly halt?
"Who is Darius Key?" is done in an innovative 52 page photo novel format featuring actors, Wanda, from the truTV reality show "South Beach Tow" as Freda Eves and nationally known heavy metal musician, Spidy Womack, who is featured in the upcoming film, "Pitch Perfect 3", as Maxwell Lightfoot. Get your copy, available now on Amazon.com!
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| Ricardo Bessa for Quanta Magazine |
Topics: Black Holes, Information, Quantum Mechanics, Theoretical Physics, Thermodynamics
Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics1st Law of Thermodynamics2nd Law of Thermodynamics3rd Law of ThermodynamicsDicebat Bernardus Carnotensis nos esse quasi nanos gigantium humeris insidentes, ut possimus plura eis et remotiora videre, non utique proprii visus acumine, aut eminentia corporis, sed quia in altum subvehimur et extollimur magnitudine gigantea - Bernard of Chartres used to say that we were like dwarfs seated on the shoulders of giants. If we see more and further than they, it is not due to our own clear eyes or tall bodies, but because we are raised on high and upborne by their gigantic bigness. Source: Wikiquote, John of Salisbury.
In his 1824 book, Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire, the 28-year-old French engineer Sadi Carnot worked out a formula for how efficiently steam engines can convert heat — now known to be a random, diffuse kind of energy — into work, an orderly kind of energy that might push a piston or turn a wheel. To Carnot’s surprise, he discovered that a perfect engine’s efficiency depends only on the difference in temperature between the engine’s heat source (typically a fire) and its heat sink (typically the outside air). Work is a byproduct, Carnot realized, of heat naturally passing to a colder body from a warmer one.
Carnot died of cholera eight years later, before he could see his efficiency formula develop over the 19th century into the theory of thermodynamics: a set of universal laws dictating the interplay among temperature, heat, work, energy and entropy — a measure of energy’s incessant spreading from more- to less-energetic bodies. The laws of thermodynamics apply not only to steam engines but also to everything else: the sun, black holes, living beings and the entire universe. The theory is so simple and general that Albert Einstein deemed it likely to “never be overthrown.”
Yet since the beginning, thermodynamics has held a singularly strange status among the theories of nature.
“If physical theories were people, thermodynamics would be the village witch,” the physicist Lídia del Rio and co-authors wrote last year in Journal of Physics A. “The other theories find her somewhat odd, somehow different in nature from the rest, yet everyone comes to her for advice, and no one dares to contradict her.”
Quanta Magazine: The Quantum Thermodynamics Revolution, Natalie Wolchover Related linkPhysics arXiv: Quantum ThermodynamicsSai Vinjanampathy, Janet Anders
“This isn’t the way to the police station, Jack. You said we would go straight there and tell them what we know.”
“I’ve got something I have to do first. It’s important.”
“What’s so important all of a sudden?”
“You’ll see. We’re almost there, and it won’t take long.”
“What about Hillary? She’s being framed. We have to get her out before something bad happens. She doesn’t belong in a jail cell. You know she won’t last long in there.”
“Don’t you worry about Hillary. She’ll be fine. I promise.”
Jack wasn’t making sense. He and Hillary started getting serious in college. They were going to get married right after she had finished the bar exam. The three of them had known each other since high school. They were so close people joked that they should move to Portland and join the polys. Jack graduated a year before Hillary, and was already enjoying the life of an overpaid associate in a high profile law firm in Beverley Hills catering to Hollywood stars.
Why was he being so nonchalant? Ben thought about what had occurred the night before. The Times Online had reported that Hillary was found unconscious in the living room of her parent’s house. They were found dead in the kitchen, stabbed in the side of their necks, clean through their carotid arteries. Whoever was killed last was probably too shocked to move before the killer got to them. But there was a scream. A neighbor overheard and went to the door. He told the reporter the lights went out as he approached. He tried to peer through the living room window, but the curtains were closed. He ran home and called the police. The cops found a bloody knife lying next to Hillary.
Ben arrived around 10 pm, just after the murders. They were all going out to give Hillary a break from her grueling studies, which went on for nearly twelve hours a day. The California bar was no joke, and she was determined to pass on the first try. He was parking in the driveway in the back when Jack came running out of the house. He said, “Did you see the guy?” He was panting, but Ben didn’t recall that he was sweating.
Ben asked, “Who are you talking about?”
Jack leaned into the car and said, “The guy who just killed Hillary’s parents.”
The strange thing was he didn’t look like someone who had just seen the dead bodies of the people who were about to become his parents-in-law.
Before Ben could respond, Jack said, “C’mon. We might be able to catch him. He ran that way,” pointing down the dark alley, lit only by the moonlight.
“What about Hillary? Where is she?”
“I didn’t see her. Look, we need to get out of here and find this guy. If the police show up, they’ll think we did it.”
“How? We don’t have a motive.”
“LA cops don’t need a motive. They’ll make one up.”
They drove around the area but did not spot anyone. The next morning, the news of the murder popped up on Ben’s ‘Breaking News’ feed. He called Jack while the story unfolded on his laptop screen.
“Have you seen the news? They arrested Hillary.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“We need to tell the police what you saw.”
“You mean what we saw. The story will be more credible if we both say we saw someone. Cops love corroborating evidence.”
“You’re right. You’re the lawyer.”
“Cool. I’ll come over and pick you up.”
As Jack drove, Ben noticed he had the same vacant stare he had seen last night. There was a deadness in his eyes that he had chalked up to shock and probably lack of sleep. Then Jack’s nose began to bleed.
“Not again,” he complained.
“What do you mean? You don’t get nosebleeds”
“Just happened recently. How can I help it?”
He wiped the trickling blood away with his sleeve before turning into an empty industrial parking lot. That was not something Jack would normally do. He was meticulous about his clothes, which were expensive, as was his car and the apartment that he bragged overlooked Laurel Canyon but was actually in boring Studio City.
“Here we are,” Jack announced in a flat monotone.
“Are you alright Jack? You’ve been acting strange since last night. You don’t seem concerned about Hillary at all. You didn’t even want to go back to the house to check on her. Did you even call?”
Jack looked at Ben as if he hadn’t heard him at all. Suddenly his eyes became snakelike, turning red and green. Strange bluish spikes appeared on his arms. Ben recoiled and clutched at the door handle, but the locks engaged, trapping him inside. Jack leaned toward him, his eyes glowing with hunger. Ben tried to fend him off, holding his arms in front of his face. He screamed, “What are you? You’re not Jack! Get away from me!”
Jack calmly responded, “No. I’m not.” He slashed Ben’s neck and drained the blood from his convulsing body. He pushed the corpse out the car and drove away. In the fading recesses of its mind, the creature felt sorrow for someone named Hillary.
Photo credit: David Nunuk
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| An artistic rendition of the experimental setup for a quantum sensing experiment. The diamond quantum sensor is controlled by lasers. Graphene (a single layer of carbon atoms) sits atop the sensor. Red lines represent the path of the electrons as they move through the graphene. Credit: David A. Broadway/cqc2t.org |
Graphene, a sheet of carbon just one atom thick, has a number of unique electronic properties, so it is ideal for fundamental studies in condensed matter physics and for making novel electronics and sensing devices. Researchers normally study the electron transport properties of graphene by measuring the material’s resistivity but this approach cannot make out variations in electronic properties caused by local structures, such as defects, which are very important in nanomaterials. Now, a team at the University of Melbourne in Australia has overcome this problem with their new technique based on quantum probes made from nitrogen-vacancy centres to image the flow of electric current in 2D nanomaterials like the carbon sheet - and has found that it is indeed disrupted by minute cracks and defects.
“Our technique is non-invasive, offers high sub-micron spatial resolution and works under ambient conditions,” explains lead author of the new study Jean-Philippe Tetienne. “It could be used to study electron transport in any atomically-thin materials and structures, which are especially vulnerable to imperfections like defects. This is important because it will allow us to see how electric currents are affected by these imperfections and so ultimately help us improve the reliability and performance of existing and emerging technologies.”
The new technique is based on a quantum sensing platform that consists of a diamond chip engineered with an array of atomic defects, known as nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centres. These centres, which form when a nitrogen impurity finds itself next to a missing carbon atom in the diamond lattice, are essentially tiny magnets and can be used as sensors for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at the nanoscale. This is because the spin of an electron associated with the NV is relatively insensitive to its environment thanks to the fact that diamond does not have a net nuclear spin.
Nanotechweb: NV-quantum probes measure electron flow in graphene, Belle Dumé
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| Figure 1: Doyle and colleagues [2] have cooled SrOH molecules using Sisyphus cooling. In this type of cooling, the SrOH molecules are made to climb a potential energy hill, only to be transported back to the bottom, much like their Greek eponym who was doomed to roll a boulder up a hill over and over again. The energy lost in climbing the hill cools the SrOH molecules to ultracold temperatures. Show less |
Topics: Bose-Einstein Condensate, Laser, Modern Physics, Nobel Prize, Quantum Mechanics
Only because of the illustration and the myth, but the process of laser cooling is quite sound, as the article describes below.
Physicists considering a foray into the study of molecules are often warned that “a diatomic molecule is one atom too many!” [1]. Now John Doyle and colleagues [2] at Harvard University have thrown this caution to the wind and tackled laser cooling of a triatomic molecule with success, opening the door to the study of ultracold polyatomic molecules.
The technique of laser cooling [3], which uses the scattering of laser photons and the concomitant momentum transfer to bring atoms to a near halt, has revolutionized atomic, molecular, and optical (AMO) physics. Laser cooling and an important variant known as Sisyphus cooling [4] underpin three Nobel prizes in physics—for magneto-optical trapping (1997), Bose-Einstein condensation (2001), and the manipulation of individual quantum systems (2012)—and are crucial to a host of quantum-assisted technologies and fundamental physics measurements.
Since photons carry very little momentum and therefore reduce an atom’s velocity by just a small amount, a prerequisite for effective laser cooling is the ability to scatter thousands of photons. Thus laser cooling has predominantly been used only to cool simple atoms, whose electronic structure dictates that after a photon is absorbed, spontaneous emission places the atomic electron back into its original state, allowing the process to repeat nearly ad infinitum.
Spurred on by the possibility of another revolution in AMO physics when ultracold molecules become available [5], a brave group of researchers recently began work to achieve laser cooling of diatomic molecules, guided by a new proposal for how to deal with their complex structure [6]. Diatomic molecules, or “diatoms,” are challenging targets for laser cooling as their electronic structure is complicated by their rotational and vibrational degrees of freedom. When a diatom absorbs a photon from the laser, spontaneous emission can place it in any of a multitude of these rotational and vibrational states, whose transition frequencies no longer match that of the cooling laser. These so-called dark states are the bane of laser cooling, bringing the cooling process to a stop. Nonetheless, by carefully choosing molecules with unique properties—for example, those which contain an optically active electron that does not strongly participate in the molecular bonding—laser cooling of molecules has been successful, and it has culminated in the demonstration of magneto-optical trapping of SrF molecules [7].
APS Viewpoint: A Diatomic Molecule is One Atom too FewPaul Hamilton, Eric Hudson, University of California, Los Angeles
A member of the expat group I'm in posted a humongous list of remote jobs.
Sites similar to Fiverr and online teaching gigs, things like that.
Some of the sites are free, some are paid, and some are a combination (pay for greater access, pay to post a gig, etc)
The idea for you, the budding writer/artist, would be to join one of the 58 sites and see if you can attract any work for whatever price you want to set.
I live overseas, so this is the sort of thing I look for when I want to make a little extra on the side, or to find artists for my book projects. Click here for the list.
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| Image Source: Public Domain Pictures |
Topics: Commentary, Climate Change, Existentialism, Politics
As Michael Lewis has written, “It’s more than a little nuts for a man who has a billion dollars to devote his life to making another billion, but that’s what some of our most exalted citizens do, over and over again.”
Greed begins in the neurochemistry of the brain. What fuels our greed is a hormone neurotransmitter in the brain called dopamine. The higher the dopamine levels in the brain, the more pleasure we experience. Cocaine, for example, directly increases dopamine levels.
By using magnetic resonance imaging studies, the Harvard researcher Hans Breiter and his colleagues have found that the craving for money activates the same regions of the brain as the craving for cocaine, or sex, or any other instant and intense pleasure.
Excerpts from the article "Dope, Dopes, and Dopamine: The Problem With Money," by Tony Schwartz, Harvard Business Review.
After reading Robert Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad, Poor Dad," the one line that stuck with me after finishing the book was from his 'rich dad':
This idea probably started when humankind went from a simple barter system - I'll give you this, if you give me that. It evolved into representing wealth by precious minerals that seemed to occupy one or many mountains; a particular swath of land. Perhaps that is where the designation of sacred grounds (set apart) came about. Thus Asgard, Heaven, Olympus, Nirvana, Valhalla - paved with precious stones, streets of gold and anatomically perfect beings who live forever. This would be quickly approximated by royalty and the wealthy with gourmet chefs, excellent healthcare and massage therapists.
Economies were begun on this "idea," and the idea fueled the quest for more stuff, be it rubles, rubies; silver, gold, platinum; women or slaves.
Wars have been fought over this "idea," as instead of "I'll give you this, if you give me that" an inventory of sorts takes place and the statement becomes:
THEY have that (gold, silver, platinum, etc.) and we want it.
WE have more stones/arrows/catapults/mortars/guns/bombs - so, let's take it!
It's simplistic, but essentially the goal of colonizers and conquest. The only thing that changes is whether it's in the name of a deity, a particular form of government or the expansion of empire, i.e. the motivating factor to sell the population that will be fighting the wars to get the booty, bounty, cheddar; precious stuff.
You also have to give some detestable attributes to those designated as "they" or "them": black, brown, evil, mud people, red, reprobate, soul-less, terrorist, violent, ugly, yellow.
You MUST have ascribed to yourselves noble attributes akin to the gods: beauty, good, pious, pure, snow, white: your women as property are "flowers of womanhood" and any violation of her pedestal - real, or falsely perceived - met with violent retribution.
The political economist Benjamin Friedman once compared modern Western society to a stable bicycle whose wheels are kept spinning by economic growth. Should that forward-propelling motion slow or cease, the pillars that define our society – democracy, individual liberties, social tolerance and more – would begin to teeter. Our world would become an increasingly ugly place, one defined by a scramble over limited resources and a rejection of anyone outside of our immediate group. Should we find no way to get the wheels back in motion, we’d eventually face total societal collapse.
Safa Motesharrei, a systems scientist at the University of Maryland, uses computer models to gain a deeper understanding of the mechanisms that can lead to local or global sustainability or collapse. According to findings that Motesharrei and his colleagues published in 2014, there are two factors that matter: ecological strain and economic stratification. The ecological category is the more widely understood and recognised path to potential doom, especially in terms of depletion of natural resources such as groundwater, soil, fisheries and forests – all of which could be worsened by climate change.
Excerpts from BBC Future - How Western Civilisation Could Collapse, Rachel Nuwer
The ecological strains are myriad: air pollution, acid rain, climate change, dumping toxins in potable water (see Flint, Michigan). We're permanently in a Caste System that requires "Brahmins (priestly people), the Kshatriyas (also called Rajanyas, who were rulers, administrators and warriors), the Vaishyas (artisans, merchants, tradesmen and farmers), and Shudras (labouring classes)." Lastly the pariahs or "untouchables" provide the base for the hierarchal system, and apparently the untouchables are there for all time: they must know and never get out of their place. (emphasis mine). Source: Wikipedia. Such rebellion by the untouchables is usually met with violent repression, and no one in the top tiers of the Caste System are interested in things like equality or hierarchy mobility.
This sandbox has the measurable dimensions of density, mass, volume elevation and depression (valleys, canyons). It has an advanced age that has allowed five previous extinctions. A lot of the yellow trucks, machines and devices on it are like the trucks in the stock photo showing their wear. Living beings before humans have breathed and passed on in this sandbox's long history.
The strain and the stratification is over this "idea" that is being hoarded by the obnoxious kids in this sandbox. We've all seen them at the beach. Their mothers (and quite a few of their fathers) in particular are enablers to what amounts to the keen behaviors of a sociopath. Their castles must be "the biggest and the best"; the shiny shells found on the seashore the currency of their "kingdoms." They must have MORE. Their narcissism is far beyond Maslow's five basic needs, on steroids - or an elicit drug. The builders of smaller sandcastles are seen as weak, puny, ugly, evil: other. The narcissists cloister around one another building moats, draw bridges, catapults and exclusive sandcastle enclaves, only for the "best" kids. Their bullying is excused, explained and defended by their enablers. Eventually, the snot-nosed sociopaths move on due to boredom, a new shiny toy or goes home near twilight and bedtime.
Inevitably as will happen with the passage of time, ocean waves roll in with the rising tide, and Entropy washes the king's sandcastles and bauble away... making both extinct.
Perfection itself is imperfection.
Vladimir Horowitz
Related link
The Crisis of Western Civ, David Brooks, The New York Times
It's the Apocalypse, already in progress…
“Gabriel’s Horn is the only thing that can drive back the Rising Tide and you let them take it to Hell?” Father Finnegan threw the glass of box wine into the fireplace in disgust. Renwick didn’t flinch and threw the chain holding Jillian Pace onto his desk.
“Is that what they were doing? You didn’t say anything about a damned horn. You said get the girl away from the Tide. She’s here. Bounty’s done, I want my money. I intend to be on a plane by tomorrow morning."
He pinched that spot between his eyes before continuing. "You can’t beat the Rising Tide. I barely got away and she had to help.” Looking over at Pace, she smiled a toothy snarling smile indicating her respect for the crazed mercenary’s skills.
“You’ll get your lucre, Renwick, as soon as the so-called Master of the Mystic Arts arrives.” Finnegan sat back down in to his armchair after getting a new glass from his cabinet.
The stink of cheap wine permeated the air as the door opened and a short, disheveled, probably drunken man with a scraggly beard and none-too-fresh breath staggered in. “Anyone call for a Master?” Pace’s eyes rolled back into her head and she slumped back into her chair, hiding her face in the shadows.
Another fellow came in behind the Master. Tall. Quiet, with sharp penetrating eyes. His vision swept the room and locked in on the chair where Jillian Pace, cloaked in darkness, clenched her jaw. The tall man’s predatory smile pissed her off.
Darrin Wells, former master of the mystic arts found his way to the dispenser of box wine and placed his mouth on the spigot, slurped noisily without spilling a drop.
When he rose, his facade was gone, replaced by the face of a broken man. “Jillian Pace, you are now the only thing between us and the Rising Tide. They’re past trying to initiate you, they were going to kill you. Are you ready to join us?” An unexpected belch at the end of the statement disrupted any chance he had at sounding ominous.
Pace looked at the failed mystic, the danger-averse but efficient bounty hunter, the sex-crazed architect and the priest who sounded the alarm all those years ago and leapt up from her chair toward Wells screaming, “You let my sister die. You promised me she was the Chosen One and that she would be able to turn them back. She’s dead, and now you come to me, second-best, barely worthy of teaching in your opinion and now you want my fucking help? Screw you.” Only Renwick’s quick reflexes kept Wells from getting knocked flat on his backside.
Not done, she turned to the tall man, “Are you finished with me too? I helped you with your designs, you thought it was okay to take advantage of me and then threw me away when you were done. How did your little project work out? Did you tell your clubhouse buddies what you were doing in your spare time?”
“As a matter of fact, I did. And I am the reason you are sitting in this room, instead of dead on the alter of a bunch of crazed and fanatical demons. I enjoyed your…company and you were very helpful. It was the least I could do.” Reeves licked his lips staring right into her eyes, hungrily feasting on a past memory of their debauchery.
Pace, unflinching, stared back.
Renwick, like a dog with a bone, snarled “What does this have to do with my money? I don’t know what those crazed demon-cultist were doing when I left, but there were thirty other people being sacrificed when I made my escape. I know that can’t be good.”
Wells, recovered, staggered to the table and pointed to a series of magical sigils across the map. “This is what they are trying to do. They want to build a gate straight to the door of Hell. It’ll open right in the middle of the city.”
Renwick looked at the map and noticed of the five points, only one was circled. “That’s here, isn’t it?”
Father Finnegan nodded. “They need this spot and one more to complete their spell. They’ll be coming for this one soon. You and Pace will have to stop them from laying claim to their final location.” The former mystic and Father Finnegan began moving around the room lifting paintings and shoving aside cabinets. Behind them were sigils, old things which made her flesh crawl, something from a time before Man, using a language preceding the Enochian runes used in demon binding.
“We have one more job for you, Renwich, Wells, said. Take her to this address. Your payment has been doubled and already in your account. No complaints. No bitching. Get it done."
Outside the church three vehicles pull up at three different points. Two men get out of each vehicle, stopping only to check the bindings on the three people in the back seats. Slamming the door, each man touches the sides of their vehicle and runes flare causing the cars to burst into flames.
The roaring flames disguised the screams of the victims within. The six men step into the center of the triangle of the three vehicles. They grab each other's hands and are consumed by flames that shoot from each vehicle. When the flame clears, a demon twenty feet tall, with chained manacles and runic symbols etched into its bleeding flesh stands instead.
It roared. Car alarms blare, the walls of the church shake while tiles fly from the roof, doors rattle, windows explode, pre-Enochian symbols flash in response.
The properly attuned heard a bell-like sound reverberating in response to the roar. Surprised, the demon gathers its chains which stretch into its home dimension and crossed the boundary from its world to ours. As the rupture closes, the chains which bound it are severed and it uses them as weapons lashing out at the protections on the ancient but steadfast church.
Each strike makes the symbols grow dimmer. Each blow causes more of the church to crumble. Inside, three men, all mystics of one sort or another, make their final peace. The architect takes his pen and tube and heads to the street, drawing symbols in the air that follow him, glowing with his arcane power.
Father Finnagan, carries an old wooden cross, a relic blessed three centuries ago with the blood of a saint. His belief coursing through it creates a spiritual shield before the last of the men.
The former master of the mystic arts chants and channels the power of ancient gods, redirecting his very life force in sacrifice. These men have no illusions they can defeat this creature. They only have to hold it long enough.
Renwich looked at the chains holding Jillian Pace, chains which bound her magic. “I can’t make you go. You can’t hurt me with your magic. These three men are about to die for you. Will you do this last thing they asked?” He unlocked the manacles with a simple touch of his hand.
Pace, ran out of the door and down the hall to where what looked like lightning lit the sky outside. Her voice caught in her throat as she saw the demon towering over the three men. They looked so old, so feeble, they were tiny stars trying to glow against a backdrop of towering darkness.
She gathered her power. The Darkness, the Light and the Way, the unique energy she bound together making them more powerful than their individual parts. The demon looked at her. It sensed her as the true threat.
“NO, don’t you dare!” Father Finnegan roared and charged the demon, swinging his cross like a club. Where it struck the demon ,a star flared and the priest, defiant to the end, died, a withered husk, drained of his lifeforce in an instant. The demon was thrown back crunching a car with its landing twenty feet away. It turned its eyes to the remaining two men.
A strong hand grabbed hers. Renwich whispered. “No. If they thought you were ready, you would already be there. They brought you here to give you this.” He handed her a box covered with thaumaturgic circles. “Now, we have to go. Trust their wisdom.”
Renwich gripped her arm, almost holding her up as she watched the two men fight a losing battle. She turned her back and ran with a man she couldn’t forgive for bringing her back to a life she never wanted. As they ran to his car, they could still see Wells and Reeves holding the demon in thrall, each in their own way.
Wells shouted out as the two of them pulled away. “You can only stop them with sacrifice! Remember that!”
The demon pulled away from the two men and ran toward the car. The architect, Reeves, stopped and drew a sigil on the ground. The archmage took the architect’s tube and revealed runic symbols on the side. He speared the sigil on the ground and both men fell to the ground. The ground where the demon stood lit up, a searchlight speared the heavens.
Tears streaming, Jillian watched as the demon turned to ash. The smell of death was everywhere.
Come Forth, the Rising Tide © Thaddeus Howze 2014. All Rights Reserved
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| A still from a short animated film depicting Cassini’s passage between the cloudtops of Saturn and the giant planet’s innermost rings. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech |
Definition: "suicide flier," 1945, Japanese, literally "divine wind," from kami "god, providence, divine" (see kami) + kaze "wind." Originally the name given in folklore to a typhoon which saved Japan from Mongol invasion by wrecking Kublai Khan's fleet (August 1281). Dictionary.com
Running low on fuel, NASA's Cassini spacecraft has begun the final — and most daring — phase of its epic mission to Saturn.
After using a final flyby of the moon Titan on Friday to boost its speed, Cassini was flung by the moon's gravity to a trajectory that sent it diving through the 1,200-mile (1,930 kilometers) gap between the planet's upper atmosphere and innermost rings, NASA officials said.
Cassini completed the first crossing of the ring plane at about 2 a.m. PDT (5 a.m. EDT, or 0900 GMT) Wednesday, the space agency said in a statement.
This final journey will end Sept. 15 when the spacecraft burns up in Saturn's crushing atmosphere. There is no turning back now; Cassini is on a "ballistic trajectory," and its fate is sealed, NASA scientists have said. The Grand Finale has been designed to prevent the spacecraft from contaminating the potentially habitable Saturnian moons.
September 15 would be Mildred Dean Goodwin's 92 birthday if she were still here. I'll be sure to commemorate it. I think this would make her smile.
Scientific American:NASA's Cassini Mission Conducts Daring Dive through Saturn's Rings, Ian O'Neill
What if a abandoned baby blue whale hooks up with a school of flying fish and a couple of old pelicans and figures out how to fly?
The three ship escort arrived in Havari space, three weeks after we left what was left of Corva Prime. The Havari were preparing a new offensive now that the Hegemony was in disarray.
Rapacious, the Havari had chaffed under the Hegemony’s rules for the annexation of worlds. While they were barely members of the Hegemony, they were forbidden to take any planets that were part of Hegemony space. This meant they were forced to move away from the coreward worlds they preferred, and instead into the radiation-poor regions of the the edgeward planetary systems.
When the news of the Insurrection reached Havari Secundus, they mobilized for a new war. A war where they might be able to annex new territories under the cover of anarchy.
The Havari living ships were already clustered throughout the sector, their energy signatures testament to their biologically-enhanced, self-contained singularities powering their star-drives. Their fleet was one of the few not dependent on the Galactic Gate Network, they could reach most of their close neighbors in as little as three months Standard.
My job was to convince them, not that it was an error to be preparing for war, but that their target was not Corva Prime or any of the Hegemony’s core planets but the approaching alien fleet hoping to take advantage of this moment of engineered weakness.
As we dropped into Secundus’ atmosphere, our ships were reconfigured for the thick, dust-filled air. Two dozen of their winged attack insect ships flew alongside and paced us in directing us where we needed to land.
I could not make heads or tails of the sensor data at first, the land scanning systems were having difficulties determining depth and visibility was low in the upper atmosphere. It was only once we got below the cloud cover did I determine why the land-scanners had problems. It was having trouble discerning hives from mountains! The Havari hive-cities were three to five miles high arches created from the rock of the mountains themselves. They were reputed to be hand-crafted taking hundreds of years to create and perfect.
They were a symbol of power for each hive who created one, such that each was unique, yet signifying a social order and social hierarchy rarely seen in the Hegemony. These were beings who believed in order and were organized through their hive minds to bring about the order they were seeking.
The Hegemony was right to be afraid. These were this sector's apex predators. With a taste for the grand, capable of building what they needed and wanted. And when they could, they would take what they wanted from anyone unable to stop them.
The Hegemony’s destruction of Havari Prime in the First Wars of the Hegemony would not make this an easy sell. We needed them as allies because we had enough enemies.
Truth of the matter is, if we cannot convince them to join us, what’s left of the Hegemony’s Corvan leaders, in their current, devolved state, will destroy every last element of this civilization to make their borders safe making the First Galactic War little more than a border skirmish. The fate of twelve billion sentients lie in my hands.
As our ships dock, my translator activates and my Human crew prepares to disembark. Nothing prepared me for the scale of the Havari. Insectoid, they stand three meter tall. Their armored limbs and insect-like heads are shiny black and covered with sharp spines. They have both simple eyes and compound eyes surrounding their heads. Their segmented bodies are beautiful and yet terribly alien.
There is a sound, a quiet reverberation underfoot, something like the sound of crickets, like a rhythmic breathing, growing louder and then softer. The air is filled with a panoply of scents some sweet, even cloying, others bitter, carrying the rage of the Havari with them.
“I am Essver Dream-singer, of the People of the Sjurani, son of Minru, son of Daor the Terrible, warrior-poet of Harata II, Sjurani Rex, mated to the nǚgōngjué the Glorious Pielienhis, Representative of the Great and Glorious Corvan Hegemony, representing the High Council of Worlds on Toranor.” This is one of the few times I am forced to look up at my hosts. My human cousins bow as deeply as I do.
“We are Hive Harak, representing Havari Secundus and the Confederate of Larani Star-systems. We greet you in the spirit of hospitality. That no arms will be lifted against you, no poisons shall be presented in any cuisine you may partake with us, no threat or ill will shall be directed toward you while you are a member of Hive Harak. We welcome you as Hive Brothers. I am Prefect L’al.”
Before I could even answer the generous benediction, two of the Havari flying overhead, all of whom I assumed were maintenance technicians of one sort or another wheeled about and dropped directly into the center of our group. Weapons were drawn and pointed at my delegation and the House Harak group drew weapons on the two intruders.
“You do not speak for all of Havari Secundus, Prefect L’al. Leave our world aliens; know that we are coming for all of the coreward worlds we can take.” He leveled his weapon and I realized we might all need to defend ourselves in the next few seconds.
I felt it before I saw anything changing. A vibration so powerful it silenced all other sounds in the room. The Havari standing around us moved back and then prostrated themselves on the ground. The two intruders backed up but did not lower their weapons, at first. Then the vibration sounded again and a shadow appeared above my head.
I could hear the thrum of a huge set of wings and feel the backblast as the giant landed in our midst. Black and golden with fiery red highlights, she was twice the size of the warriors who already towered over us.
She landed light as a feather and her giant wingspan folded neatly beneath her carapace. The two armed intruders dropped their weapons but before they could hit the ground, both were beheaded. Their heads were simply gone. Their black blood shot into the air as their bodies toppled backward.
The Queen turned to us, and still chewing she announced, “Forgive the intrusion. Now our negotiations can begin.”
Conflagration – Saga of the Twilight Continuum © Thaddeus Howze 2014, All Rights Reserved
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| Artist’s impression of the super-Earth exoplanet LHS 1140b. Credit: ESO |
"LHS 1140B": We have to talk about naming conventions.o_0'
IN BRIEFScientists have located an exoplanet that's the best candidate for life as we know it. They believe it may prove to be an even more important target for the future characterization of planets in the habitable zone than Proxima b or TRAPPIST-1.
Only a few decades ago, the thought of any alien planets existing in the reaches of space were just hypothetical ideas. Now, we know of thousands of such planets – and today, scientists may have discovered the best candidate yet for alien life.
That candidate is an exoplanet orbiting a red dwarf star 40 light-years from Earth—what the international team of astronomers who discovered it have deemed a “super-Earth.” Using ESO’s HARPS instrument and a range of telescopes around the world, the astronomers located the exoplanet orbiting the dim star – LHS 1140 – within its habitable zone. This world passes in front of its parent stars as it orbits, has likely retained most of its atmosphere, and is a little larger and much more massive than the Earth. In short, super-Earth LHS 1140b is among the most exciting known subjects for atmospheric studies.
Futurism:Scientists Just Discovered an Alien Planet That’s The Best Candidate for Life As We Know It
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| This photograph of the quantum device has components highlighted in false colour. The superconducting qubits are numbered 1–10 and the central bus resonator is labelled "B". The red and blue structures are control lines for the individual qubits. (Courtesy: Chao Song et al/ arXiv: 1703.10302) |
A group of physicists in China has taken the lead in the race to couple together increasing numbers of superconducting qubits. The researchers have shown that they can entangle 10 qubits connected to one another via a central resonator – so beating the previous record by one qubit – and say that their result paves the way to quantum simulators that can calculate the behaviour of small molecules and other quantum-mechanical systems much more efficiently than even the most powerful conventional computers.
Superconducting circuits create qubits by superimposing two electrical currents, and hold the promise of being able to fabricate many qubits on a single chip through the exploitation of silicon-based manufacturing technology. In the latest work, a multi-institutional group led by Jian-Wei Pan of the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, built a circuit consisting of 10 qubits, each half a millimetre across and made from slivers of aluminium laid on to a sapphire substrate. The qubits, which act as non-linear LC oscillators, are arranged in a circle around a component known as a bus resonator.
Initially, the qubits are put into a superposition state of two oscillating currents with different amplitudes by supplying each of them with a very low-energy microwave pulse. To avoid interference at this stage, each qubit is set to a different oscillation frequency. However, for the qubits to interact with one another, they need to have the same frequency. This is where the bus comes in. It allows qubits to transfer energy from one another, but does not absorb any of that energy itself.
Physics World: Ten superconducting qubits entangled by physicists in ChinaEdwin Cartlidge
Afrofuturism on PBS
(The Good Part Starts at 16:30)
I thought you might like this: http://www.pbs.org/video/2365794059/
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| Mid Hudson March for Science, Poughkeepsie, New York |
I participated in the Mid Hudson March for Science Saturday, 22 April 2017 at 2:00 pm Eastern. The weather was overcast but not rainy at a comfortable 57 degrees, so it made a 0.6 mile march quite doable and pleasant.
I was a little concerned and jealous when I saw the marches in DC and NYC, the crowds featured by the news outlets in Times Square and the nation's capital were impressive and large. Poughkeepsie held its own quite impressive display of unity for science, reason and ultimately truth. I estimate we had 350 - 400 science enthusiasts, young and old - from toddlers to retired - and as diverse as a prism or rainbow. There was the sign "proud parents of a PhD in Chemistry"; the beautiful fraternal twins, one of them couldn't relax in his dual stroller out of the grasp of his mother. I had interesting side conversations in things ranging from the origin of the Internet, Moore's Law and the current policies that have everyone concerned. I saw a few irritated drivers as we gummed up traffic down Main Street. We had to stay on the sidewalk to the final destination along the Hudson River.
Every march needs a GREAT BAND with a driving beat to step forward, even for brief trek. Please note the creative signs displayed at the march.
A coed from Marist College remarked: "Last semester, I went to concerts. This semester, my life revolves around marches." I asked her and her friend - an African American and Asian - if they were registered to vote. They enthusiastically said yes, and pledged to vote in EVERY election. That, like science matters.
I felt overwhelmed, first at the brief memory of my deceased parents and their support of my science pursuits. Then something I used to experience when I jogged, similar to "runners high," as we got to the end of the march at the shore of the Hudson River at Wayas Park: there were several "science teach ins" and people that wore t-shirts that said "ask me about _____." I talked to a member of the Mid Hudson Astronomical Association (I'm on their meet up) and we talked shop about when and where they meet. Since my schedule had changed, I said I could meet them on their Wednesday night star gazing.
I talked to a man that had a t-shirt that said "ask me about Ebola." I found out he was not a medical doctor as I had surmised, but a historian. He was born in Sierra Leon, and was documenting how colonialism had affected his country in the way of infectious diseases (sounded similar to the book Germs, Guns an Steel by Jared Diamond). We had a pleasant conversation and a good exchange. I shook his hand as I moved to other exhibits.
I saw the STEM teach-in by IBM with the typical wafer samples and motherboards, and chuckled that the electronic snap kits I use to do the same thing they also brought (they had the 100 experiment kit, I have that, the 750 experiment and 3-D kits).
There were conservationists, botanists, possum skeletons and pelts for some reason, people in lab coats and 45 in effigy. I purposely didn't take a photo of it since he's quite ubiquitous and nauseating without my broadcasting.
I guess my high was the concern shown by a diverse community quite concerned with science and its pursuit of truth being warped to the desire of authoritarians that since Galileo have been threatened that the Scientific Method typically doesn't agree with their narrative. I felt my eyes weld; my chest warm as my blood rushed.
Though I went there by myself (my wife exhausted from a real estate exam), I at no time felt "alone."
March for Science web site.
New York Times: Scientists, Feeling Under Siege, March Against Trump PoliciesNicolas St. Fleur