BLOGS

Quantum Frontiers: Reporting from the ‘Frontiers of Quantum Information Science’

Source: Memory Alpha link below

Reading for Uhura...

Naming Uhura...

Discussing Uhura...

Source: Omega Deone Wilhite on FB

• 5 weeks before his dissertation defense, someone purged his data (also known as sabotage). Without data, he'd essentially have failed to get his PhD. He said he stayed up for 3 weeks and re-accomplished 5 years of research. He slept for a week after that.
• He was planning to leave NASA and go into academia. Challenger would be "his last mission." That was sadly true. It devastated me, and inspired some creative writing in his honor.
• A lot of his determination he learned as a participant on the school karate team, which a the time. According to my Calculus instructor and his teammate Dr. Gilbert Casterlow (Sensei), you could get a disqualification for "unnecessary redness of the skin." The rule was designed not to favor African Americans, obviously.

Recalling this makes me determined to stay in science, contribute, help when and if I can, and stand on the shoulder of this and other giants (he was actually only 5'6", but you get the idea).

FIG. 2. SEM micrographs of the KTN thin films deposited on (a) MgO and (b) LaAlO3. Citation: J. Appl. Phys. 115, 024103 (2014); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4858388

© 2014 AIP Publishing LLC

Scitation:
Intercomparison of permittivity measurement techniques for ferroelectric thin layers

Hello everyone,

The campaign to get the Earth Squadron futuristic, 3D, Sci-Fi, action film made is well underway!

The team has been working hard behind the scenes on pre-production work so this film will be great.

We have been putting in many weeks of work and late nights creating characters, ships and environments this awesome project.

We need your help to help with the financing of this epic film. Be a part of something groundbreaking project.

Please make a donation towards getting this futuristic tale today at: 

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/earth-squadron-movie-project

Dern and Alita rushed through a narrow trench that plunged as deep as eight feet in places.
“The cave is a hundred yards up ahead,” she directed, stepping lightly over sharply uneven ground.
In his suit, Dern moved with a surefootedness verging on grace. Suddenly he stopped, looking around, scrutinizing dim surroundings through ultra-violet optics. A trace of motion thirty yards above triggered faster than normal reflexes. Dern vertical jumped out of the trench, landing on a ridge. He aimed and targeted. Particle clusters flickered from his bracelet, ripping into something that burst apart in a scintillating spray.
Alita had no night sight. Nevertheless, her ears picked up a faint vibratory sound. An object--the sound’s source--floated into the trench a few feet in front of her. She leveled her assault rifle and opened fire. A ripple of rounds penetrated the object. It sputtered and clattered to the ground, rolling functionless at her feet.
She glanced up from the trench to see Dern scurrying along the ridge. “Tracker drones!”
Dern jumped back into the trench. “I know. We’d better make haste. For certain Hooper’s follow-up won’t be so harmless.”

Hooper, like the typical crime lord presiding over an illegal settlement, had an assortment of weapons in his arsenal. Being more prosperous than his peers enabled him to procure the occasional first generation weapons system. Corruption ran deep in parts of the Coalition where avaricious generals and opportunistic arms dealers occasionally conspired to meet the demands of an illicit clientele. For Hooper, one of the benefits of that collaboration was the SkyGuard, a high altitude, aerial bombardment craft armed with Shatter Buster bombs.
The massive blue tinted, wedge configured craft soared like a sluggish carrion bird over the canyon. Bomb bay doors retracted and a tubular object dropped out, plunging several hundred feet before thrusters and stabilizers kicked in. Sensors processed data sent by the trackers and guided the bomb to the fugitives’ last known coordinates.

Dern and Alita bounded into the cave, startling the sleeper ship’s crew.
“It’s just us,” Alita announced. “We ran into a little trouble”
The cave boasted far more space than its small entrance conveyed. Surviving crewmembers were scattered throughout its cool interior, two glow strips alleviating the darkness. The healthy ones tended to the wounded, whose injuries ranged from moderate to the cusp of severe. All would live…for now. Their faces lit with a semblance of hope when they saw Dern.
“I’m just glad you made it back,” said the captain. His expression turned glum when he noticed that Alita was empty handed. “You didn’t get it.”
Alita sighed dejectedly. “Sorry Captain. We were spotted. The pod was destroyed…but I did manage to get a signal off. It hit a contact.”
The captain looked suddenly encouraged.
Dern hated to sour the man’s optimism. “We don’t know who or what the contact is.”
“Maybe it’s a patrol ship,” a crewman with a bandaged eye speculated. “If not, whoever received the signal could reroute it to an available patrol.”
“That could take a long time, longer than we can afford.” Dern removed his helmet. He inhaled deeply, taking in a lungful of dry, musk-tinged air. “In the meantime, we can’t stay in this cave indefinitely.”
“What do you propose?” Asked the captain.
“We get off this planet.”
“With what?”
“The sleeper ship. I’m going to retake it.”
“I have no doubt you could do so with your capabilities,” the captain began. He shook his head, troubled. “But we’ll be shot down before we clear a thousand feet.”
“That’s where Alita comes in,” said Dern. “She operated combat shuttles and quite well I might add.” He turned to the woman. “How about we do a hijacking of our own and seize one of Hooper’s planes. You can provide escort, keep the bogies away from us.”
Alita shrugged agreeably. “Sounds like a great plan to me…”
A deafening boom flooded the cave, followed by a bone jarring jolt that sent anyone standing crashing to the ground.
Rocks large and small rained down blocking the cave entrance, sealing everyone inside. Clouds of dust bubbled into the cave following the rockslide.
Between hacking coughs, Alita scrambled to her feet. “What happened?!?”
The Captain moved to calm panicked crewmembers while Dern dashed toward the blocked entranced.
“Looks like Hooper called in an airstrike,” Dern replied. He half turned. “Everyone get down.” He raised his bracelet arm and a brief splash of daylight illumined the cave as a plasma beam blasted a hole through tons of small rocks and boulders.
A second explosion shattered the stillness, near enough to cause a mild tremor, but far enough away to not precipitate a second rock slide.
“Sounds like that one landed a quarter of mile away,” Alita estimated. “Thanks to the trackers, they have a general idea of our location, but not an exact position.”
The captain looked to Dern. “What now?”
“The plan is still on,” said Dern with a cast iron look of determination. “We’re getting the hell off this planet.”
“Perhaps we just hold out here.” Uncertainty and fear clung to the captain’s words. “Maybe…maybe a patrol ship picked up the distress…maybe help is on the way…”
“And maybe it’s not,” Dern dismissed curtly. “Better to take the initiative than wait around hoping for a rescue that’s not likely to occur.” He ventured toward the cave’s mouth and ducked through to the outside. “If not I’m back by daylight, you can start making your own plans.”

Once outside, Dern pulled up directional data on his display. His suit had calculated the last known location of the sleeper ship and from there, estimated Routh’s distance. He was looking at a 43 mile trek to the settlement…50 if he chose a roundabout route. Either way, Hooper’s enforcers…the bulk of them, he was sure… were out here in the middle of nowhere looking for him. None of those goons were expecting him to head to the settlement. And for certain no one in Routh would be expecting an armored intruder in their midst. Not that Dern planned his visitation to be so conspicuous. Chances were Hooper didn’t have all of his aerial assets in play. Otherwise, they would all be in the sky. Perhaps, in light of the craft Dern shot down earlier, Hooper was taking no chances with deploying low altitude flyers.
Dern fine tuned his visual enhancers and active sensors for tracker detection and proceeded forward on ground choked with rocky debris.

My wife has 6 cats, I have them too only one or two at a time. The Egyptians held them in high regard. I keep them in kibbles, my fingerprints worn off from petting. God they love petting.

There is a secret language the cats have. Not between themselves, but with humans. They sit and watch, fixed eyes, transfixed stares and speak in gestures. I believe they can interpret the temple walls, sitting there taking it all in whole like a cameras shutter, then with a meow, a turn of the head agreeing, walking off to do as prescribed. Sounds funny but they sit by their empty bowls of kibbles and of water. They stare unblinking, wrinkling the corner of their eyes ever so slightly, then turning their head, you realize they have not really moved at all. They got you. I am so compelled to fill the bowls, to care for them, not forget them. The grip of compassion, the expressions of comfort, the hand extension and the expectation of feeling the softness of feline fur and hearing the affirming purrrrrr..........damn, they got me trained!

You can go now, I've got things to do and don't tell anyone I spoke to you, humans are such blabber mouths.

“For the first time, we will identify continents and oceans—and perhaps the signatures of life—on distant worlds,” says NASA in its 30-year vision for astrophysics. (Credit: Technology Review)

Physics arXiv: Enduring Quests-Daring Visions (NASA Astrophysics in the Next Three Decades)

Deep within the bowels of the Internet, past decrepit Geo-Cities  archives, below Live Journal post regarding unwavering love for Hansen, tucked in a forgotten corner of a low-baud rate server, there exists a lively classifieds bulletin board.

However, this is no ordinary "missed connections", "soiled futon " market place. This is market for wonders, for forbidden objects found where brave men fear to tread. It is a market for outdated technological marvels, arcane works, eldritch objects from a beyond the borders of the ordinary.

The denizens of these boards engage in a brisk trade, seeking to acquire or unload nameless horrors from the Deep, insane robots from a nightmarish future, hire teams of blind ninja assassins, or just adopt a couple of genetic monstrosities.

Below is just a taste of the terrifying and degenerate ads that populate these boards.

Check here, or the Moorsgate Media Twitter feed for more Chaos Classifieds.

Are you ready to be immersed into another world without having to imagine too hard? Here we go.........

First you need a suitable Android device with a camera.

Second you need an app called "Paper Artist", yes it is a sort of kids app.

Third you fire up device, app and holding the screen before your eyes hit the camera button.

The view screen is the world you know through various filters. Talk about rose colored glasses. Oh, get your notebook ready the story lines will start popping into your head as you examine the world you thought you knew as though it were a sketch or a negative or old news paper. The drawings move through 3d space, sometimes shadows are gone, sometimes details are missing. Realism is highly overrated.

Realism speaks but nothing is left to explain. The illustration has 1000 words minimum, You will look again because the unsaid story is so compelling.

Don't take my word for it, go experience it for your self. Tape your USB cam to your shoulder or shirt pocket. Put your view screen in a head mount. Walk through the filter rendered world. Make a voice print of your discoveries in real-time, ha ha ha ha!!!!!

World Science Festival: The Calculus of Catching Fly Balls

The deadline for Dealer/Vendor applications for Detcon1 is January 27, so get those in if you want to be in the room!  

See http://detcon1.org/exhibits/dealers/ for the application and more information.

This event is going to be at the Renaissance Center right in Downtown Detroit. It is the 2014 North American Science Fiction Convention -- people will be attending from all over the country. We expect an attendance of at least 1500 people, including editors and publishers.

SCI-FI FOR WORLD-BUILDING & SURVIVAL at the Allied Media Conference 2014, June 19~22, 2014 (info via Tumblr)

This year the Sci-Fi Track has returned in the form of the Liberation Technologies track, which hopes to use SF (science/speculative fiction) as a tool in fighting oppression, and builds off past tracks and movement building, such as the Science and Social Movements track and the Octavia Butler and Emergent Strategy sessions.

The post-apocalypse is here and real, where ancient and varied cultures and technologies have been erased in the name of Empire and Progress. What do we do when access to memory/the past has been standardized, and the potential to manifest and (dis)embody the joyous unknown has been shamed and left behind?

This track seeks sci-fi and speculative themed session proposals that disrupt, deconstruct, and reframe oppressive mainstream media networks, narratives, and representation by using sci-fi possibilities to reorient existence.

Appropriate themes and activities include:
Afro-futurism, healing practices, bodies and abilities (paranormal, dis- or otherwise), storytelling, emergence, meme-making, imaginative world-building, fan-fiction, magical real[ness], DIY sci-fi, intersectionality, collective memory, speculative cities, exploding binaries, digital places/cyberspaces, redefining science/technology, technologies that are incomplete, gestural & in process, recuperation of technologies both ancient and contemporary, mythology, affect and public regulation of feeling, ∞.

We explicitly seek to welcome & center the #libtech track around:
People of color, black people, trans* people (transwomen, non-binary trans, transmen), youth, native people, fat and abundant people, surveilled people, dis-abled people, mixed people, non-people, and the communities that exist around the lot of us in all our different places and experiences.

Read the FAQs for Submiting AMC Sessions here for questions about session formats more. Please send comments, and questions to our AMPtalk page or to libtechamc@gmail.com.

»> Submit your Call for Proposals to our Google form here.

Deadline for submissions is March 1st, 2014.

Hello everyone!

The campaign for our, “Earth Squadron” Movie has been underway for a couple weeks now and we have made significant gains on the campaign. We still have a long way to go and we would humbly ask that If you like Black Sci-Fi, if we have purchased your books or contributed to your campaign to please support us now.  This is serious business. We often ask why we do not have this or why we do not have that, it is because we have to make it ourselves and support others when they venture to do positive things for our community.

This project is just the tip of the iceberg. We plan to use this as a means to open the door for future 3D, cartoon and live action projects.  I am asking for your support by donating what you can afford toward getting this movie done. Our team is fired up and ready to make this film a reality! Our community and children in particularly deserved more positive images and role models to emulate. Be a part of making that happen now.

Click here for more info and to support today:
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/earth-squadron-movie-project

Sincerely,
Jarvis Sheffield, M.Ed.
Administrator

LINK:  http://glossi.com/PenelopeFlynn/77789-other-sci-fi-mag-winter-1-2014

Source: Discovery link below

Discovery: Kugelblitz! Powering a Starship With a Black Hole
Jeff Lee, Icarus Interstellar
Harvard Abstracts: Geons, by John Wheeler
(Note: Dr. Wheeler taught at UT Austin, Texas)