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Sciences As One Would...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 24, 2013 at 10:30am

"The human understanding is no dry light, but receives infusion from the will and affections; whence proceed sciences which may be called 'sciences as one would.' For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes. Therefore he rejects difficult things from impatience of research; sober things, because they narrow hope; the deeper things of nature, from superstition; the light of experience, from arrogance and pride; things not commonly believed, out of the deference to the opinion of the vulgar. Numberless in short are the ways, and sometimes imperceptible, in which the affections color and infect the understanding." Sir Francis Bacon, NOVUM ORGANON (1620)

"A clairvoyance gap with adversary nations is announced, and the Central Intelligence Agency, under Congressional prodding, spends tax money to find out whether submarines in the ocean depths can be located by *thinking hard* at them."






Both quotes from "The Demon-Haunted World: Science As A Candle in the Dark," chapter 12 - "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection," Sir Francis Bacon's quote is in the chapter intro.



Sciences as one would: Sir Francis Bacon was part of Thomas Jefferson's "Trinity of Three Greatest Men." That simple fact of history is clouded by the David Barton's of the world that would have history as they would; science as they would and magical thinking as salvation.






This is the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. It's larger than I remember as a young boy. My elementary class visited it. It was a lot different then than this current photo. I'm not sure it was the faux conservative Steven Colbert referring to North Carolinian's as bumpkins or the documentary on climate change that caused its censor - or both.



This is Alayna Wyland:




The tumor on her innocent and beautiful 18-month-old face with its remainder of an eye, the result of zealous parents, apparently so invested in faith healing they put their child in jeopardy. Cosmetic surgery will reconstruct her face. She'll have to adjust her depth of focus; lateral vision for the rest of her days; a prosthetic versus a genetically-generated eye. Numerous other parents have similarly endangered their offspring as well (see the link).



For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes. Therefore he rejects difficult things from impatience of research; sober things, because they narrow hope; the deeper things of nature, from superstition; the light of experience, from arrogance and pride; things not commonly believed, out of the deference to the opinion of the vulgar.



There should be no need to rearrange recorded history for one's authoritarian whims. There should be no departure of critical thinking skills and science reason to push an agenda. There should be no endangerment of the environment, the planet, children, the geopolitical balance of nations...but, there appears to be a danger in this charade, essentially this "science as one would." An actual fabrication of facts appears to have addled a few of us; the casualties are young, old, all of us. Pray...and take your medicine. Pray...and go to the doctor. Bedouins had not the advantage of professionals certified by the AMA; priests gave up prognosticating weather conditions long ago. Learn real, not pseudoscience because its conclusions challenge your beliefs. A great many questions and motivations science is bereft of talents to handle: abolition, birth ceremonies, charity to the needy, last rites, The Underground Railroad, the March on Washington. I'm frustrated with modern-day Charlatans encouraging us all to chase chimeras outside of their lane of expertise, usually to sell a product of snake oil. 

 I've come to the sad conclusion from some exchanges with trolls on the Internet, firm residents in the dimension of the fantasy-based community that facts - those pesky things - don't really matter. This willful ignorance appears corporately and individually to affect us all as a species. We're in the life-threatening danger of "sciences as one would" and the "opinion of the vulgar," our common sense lost near the cereal box next to the AM talk radio blathering nonsensically nostalgic utopia.

 We've lost our baloney detection kits to our own peril.
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Breaking The Rules...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 23, 2013 at 9:11am
UNUSUAL BONDS: Chemical bonds between cesium (Cs) and fluorine (F) might form with not just valence electrons, but inner-shell electrons as well under very high pressures, new calculations suggest.
Image: Maosheng Miao

A study suggests atoms can bond not only with electrons in their outer shells, but also via those in their supposedly sacrosanct inner shells






By Clara Moskowitz



Most of us learned in high school chemistry class that chemical bonds can only form when electrons are shared or given away from one atom’s outer shell to another’s. But this may not be strictly true. A chemist has calculated that under very high pressure not just the outer electrons but the inner ones, too, could form bonds.



Inside atoms, electrons are organized into energy levels, called shells, which can be thought of as buckets of increasing size that can each hold only a fixed number of electrons. Atoms prefer to have filled buckets, so if their outer shell is missing just one or two electrons, they are eager borrow form another atom that might have one or two to spare. But sometimes, a new study suggests, atoms can be incited to share not just their outer valence electrons, but those from their full inner shells. “It breaks our doctrine that the inner-shell electrons never react, never enter the chemistry domain,” says Mao-sheng Miao, a chemist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the Beijing Computational Science Research Center in China. Miao predicted such bonds using so-called first-principles calculations, which rely purely on the known laws of physics, and reported his findings in a paper published September 23 in Nature Chemistry. Such bonding has yet to be demonstrated in a lab. Nevertheless, “I’m very confident that this is real,” he says. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.)
Scientific American: A Basic Rule of Chemistry Can Be Broken

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We Chose To Go...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 22, 2013 at 1:51pm

Mr. President,



We chose to go because you challenged us. I was barely a month on the planet when you spoke this dandelion seed into the wind. It culminated with a chemistry set, science kits, interrupted cartoons and "one small step for mankind." That seed of science made its landing on me in an urban neighborhood in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, a degree in physics and a career in science.

 Sadly, you didn't live to see its fulfillment, as is equally sad those that have reduced this technological achievement that set the modern electronics age; an accomplishment that riveted the WORLD'S attention into conspiracy theory in line with your own assassination, UFOs, the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot.

 Sadly, your successors have looked at science as anathema to national prosperity; they have clouded facts; created faux "controversies" tainting K-12 education to cater to the myopic view of a dwindling few who's choice of living in the darkness of ignorance is threatened by Darwin, Einstein, Feynman, Galileo, Hawking, Hubble, Krauss, Raizen, Sagan, Susskind, Tyson, Weinberg. Depressingly, this ignorance is foisted upon us by elected officials more interested in their personal enrichment and retirements than doing the business of the nation.

 I will always remember you for this...when your words, your vision for this nation's science sagacity was so clearly set.

 You...are...missed...



From the You Tube page this embed originates (part of the speech):



"Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, 'Because it is there.' Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked."



-John F. Kennedy, Rice University, Sept. 12, 1962

Dallas News: JFK50

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Quantum Dot Chains...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 21, 2013 at 4:57pm
FIG. 2.
(a) 5×5 μm 2 AFM topography image of QDC sample C. The chains are aligned along the [1¯10] crystallographic direction; (b) 1×1 μm 2 AFM image of the same sample; statistical distribution with Gaussian fits of the (c) QD height; (d) distance between QDs, d in , within the chains (peak-to-peak) measured along [1¯10] direction; and (e) distance between neighboring chains, d bc , measured peak-to-peak; (f) hall bar structure used for electrical characterization with a channel width of 25  μm.

ABSTRACT






Detailed experimental and theoretical studies of lateral electron transport in a system of quantum dot chains demonstrate the complicated character of the conductance within the chain structure due to the interaction of conduction channels with different dimensionalities. The one-dimensional character of states in the wetting layer results in an anisotropic mobility, while the presence of the zero-dimensional states of the quantum dots leads to enhanced hopping conductance, which affects the low-temperature mobility and demonstrates an anisotropy in the conductance. These phenomena were probed by considering a one-dimensional model of hopping along with band filling effects. Differences between the model and the experimental results indicate that this system does not obey the simple one-dimensional Mott's law of hopping and deserves further experimental and theoretical considerations.




 


Journal of Applied Physics: Electron Transport in Quantum Dot Chains
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Octavia Butler Papers at the Huntington Library-now open for research

Posted by Rebecca Hankins on November 20, 2013 at 12:13pm

Issue #2 of The Eaton Journal of Archival Research in Science Fiction has been published online at eatonjournal.ucr.edu. This issue was edited by English PhD students here are UC Riverside (Josh Pearson, Jeff Hicks, Richard Hunt, Mark Young, Anne Sullivan, and Stina Attebery). Check it out--and do consider submitting material for subsequent issues! It is a refereed journal with a particular interest in archival issues and questions. For submission guidelines, consult this page: http://eatonjournal.ucr.edu/guidelines.html.  The Butler papers write up is on page 119.

Rebecca

Associate Professor

Texas A&M University

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Single Photon Detection...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 19, 2013 at 6:54am
Source: Photonics.com

Quantum physicist Stephan Ritter and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany, wanted to follow up on a 2004 proposal of a nondestructive method for detecting photons. Instead of capturing photons, this instrument would sense their presence, taking advantage of the eccentric realm of quantum mechanics in which particles can exist in multiple states and roam in multiple places simultaneously.



The trick was manipulating the rubidium so that it was in a so-called quantum superposition of these two states, allowing one atom to be an overachiever and a slacker at the same time. Consequently, each incoming photon took multiple paths simultaneously, both slipping into the cavity undetected and being stopped at the door and reflected away. Each time the attentive state of the rubidium turned away a photon, a measurable property of the atom called its phase changed. If the phases of the two states of the rubidium atom differed, the researchers knew that the atom had encountered a photon.



 Science News: Single photon detected but not destroyed
Quantum Dynamics Homepage: Dr. Stephan Ritter

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Quantum Cheshire Cat...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 20, 2013 at 6:37am
Physics World: see link below

"It's the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!" Alice thought to herself when she saw a Cheshire cat disappear and leave only its grin behind. It is not only in Wonderland, however, that properties of objects can exist independently of the objects themselves. That is the conclusion of a group of physicists from Israel and the UK, which has shown how the strange laws of quantum mechanics permit a photon to be in one place and its circular polarization in another.

This counterintuitive result was achieved thanks to the quantum-mechanical concept of post-selection. In classical physics, the initial conditions of a set of particles and the rules governing the behaviour of those particles are in principle enough to determine the properties of the particles at any arbitrary point in the future. That is not the case in quantum mechanics, in which a particle's evolution is inherently probabilistic. So while the results of a measurement carried out on a set of particles will have a known probability distribution, individual results cannot be predicted.
Source: Ibid

Post-selection, pioneered by Yakir Aharonov of Tel Aviv University, involves preparing a group of particles in some initial state, measuring each of the particles at a certain point in time, and then making a second set of measurements at a slightly later time. The results of the intermediate measurements will, on average, imply certain results for the later measurements but will not determine them. If the group is then split into sub-groups according to these later results, the identity of the members of those various sub-groups is information that can only be obtained after the final measurements, and not before.

The devices are chosen and arranged so that the first of the detectors only clicks when the photon is in a specific superposition state, and it is this state that is post-selected. The researchers then consider what happens to the photon – the Cheshire cat – and its polarization – the grin – in that post-selected state. They find that while any photon detector would reveal the photon to always travel along the left-hand arm, a polarization detector would occasionally measure angular momentum in the right-hand one. "We seem to see what Alice saw," the researchers write, "a grin without a cat!"

Rabbit-in-hat: yes. Jaffar: yes. So far, no Cheshire cat, quantum or otherwise (ABC needs to step up its game):

Physics World: Physicists reveal a quantum Cheshire cat

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'Necessary Evil'....

Posted by H. Wolfgang Porter on November 18, 2013 at 9:00pm

Villains make or break any story especially those in the Sci-fi, Fantasy and Horror genres. The old adage of 'The Hero is only as strong as their Villain' is gospel when writing your stories.

In my latest work 'Dark God's Gift', stories are spawned from the creation of an implacable extra-cosmic evil bent on gaining ultimate knowledge so it may one day destroy its creator. In the process of doing so, heroes and villains from many universes and realities will confront entity's terrible powers in unimaginable ways. Those that survive find that is bare compensation for that which they endured!

Villains must always be 'strong' in that whatever their motivation, it must overpower the Hero's own abilities and cause them to rise above their nemesis' comfort zone. All in order to draw the hero in to either be defeated or thwart the villain's goals. Villains when written well can be vastly superior to the hero or vice versa, but there must always be a 'chink' that allows either gain the upperhand to force the conflict to its ultimate resolution.

The main thing that makes a great villain is believability. The villain does not have to be 100% 'reality based'. Instead, there needs to be credible reasons for why they exist, what their motivation is and why they are a genuine threat. Not much more aggravating than reading an 'oh-by-the-way' villain (or hero) who no matter what comes up, they can't be outmatched by any means (you hear that Japanese Battle Anime' writers?) Just as there must be a chink which allows a villain to gain the upperhand, there must be an equal one which may allow them to fail.

The best stories always leaves an 'open door' by which either the villain or hero will win. How it is 'closed' decides the impact of the tale written. Villains and Heroes justify their existences. If your villains are nothing more than 'meatballs' tossed into the open maw of the hero to be devoured, that gets old quick and your hero becomes more of a 'beat cop' or even a bully. Same goes with Villains. A villain can be imposing or overwhelming, but if they cannot be defeated or at least be made to pause then there wasn't much point to them being there.

Here's a really good look at the discussion and analysis of Villains in the DC Universe:
"Necessary Evil: Villains of the DC Universe"

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Physics' Top 10...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 18, 2013 at 7:28am
Source: AAAS (see #9)


  1. Neutrino Mass
  2. Shor's Algorithm
  3. Accelerating universe
  4. Extrasolar planets
  5. Higgs Boson
  6. Quantum Error Correction
  7. Topological Insulators (TI)
  8. AdS/CFT
  9. Bose-Einstein Condensate
  10. Quantum Teleportation




Neutrino Mass - surprisingly, neutrinos have a nonzero mass, which provides a window into particle physics beyond the standard model. THE STANDARD MODEL has been getting a lot of attention recently. This is well deserved in my opinion, considering that the vast majority of its predictions have come true, most of which were made by the end of the 1960s. Last year’s discovery of the Higgs Boson is the feather in its cap.







Shor's Algorithm - a quantum computer can factor N=1433301577 into 37811*37907 exponentially faster than a classical computer. This result from Peter Shor in 1994 is near and dear to our quantum hearts. It opened the floodgates showing that there are tasks a quantum computer could perform exponentially faster than a classical computer.






Accelerating universe - the universe is expanding, and the rate of this expansion is increasing. This result has been the source of an incredible number of misconceptions. First, how do we know this is happening? In the 1920s astronomers discovered that some of the really faint ‘stars’ that we see in the night sky are actually distant galaxies. Shortly thereafter, it was discovered that these galaxies are actually moving away from us, and away from each other. The question becomes: how did this happen?


Extrasolar planets - over the past two decades, we have detected ~1000 planets outside of our own solar system. As a prerequisite for finding extrasolar life–unless they find us first–we need to discover candidate homes.

Higgs Boson - The Higgs “field” permeates all of space; excitations in this field are interpreted as particles (Higgs bosons); these particles give other particles mass.

Quantum Error Correction - we want to protect quantum information from noise. We also face this challenge with classical computers. It also turns out that our enemy is formidable: we are battling decoherence. One way to think about decoherence is that every quantum system interacts with its environment, creating entanglement between the two – since we can’t control the environment (it both large and unknown), we lost control of our quantum system.

Topological Insulators (TI) - we’ve known for a long time that solids, liquids, gases and plasmas aren’t the only phases of matter; but only recently, we’ve unexpectedly discovered a huge new class of phases. Before topological phases, we classified phases based upon their local symmetries. In the early 1980s, experimentalists discovered quantum hall systems, which were the first materials whose ground states couldn’t be differentiated by only using a local description. The ‘phases of matter can’ had a few dents in it, but the lid was blown sky-high when topological Insulators were discovered in 2006. These materials have bizarre properties; they provide the foundation for a multitude of cousin systems; they are shedding light on questions from fundamental physics; and they will probably be widely utilized in the electronics of the 21st century.

AdS/CFT - AdS/CFT, which sometimes gets called the holographic principle, is basically a mathematical toolkit which says that in certain situations, there is an exact correspondence between gravity problems in n+1-dimensions and strongly correlated electron systems in n-dimensions.

Bose-Einstein Condensate - One of the original BEC experiments involved cooling thousands of Rubidium atoms to extremely low temperatures (a few nanokelvin above absolute zero), at which point their behavior is described by quantum mechanics. The Rubidium atoms behave as predicted, where the thousands of atoms coalesce into a very small area.

Quantum Teleportation - Why is this amazing? Well, teleportation would certainly be amazing, but that’s a bit of a misnomer, and a point I tried to clarify in my posts. Quantum teleportation IS NOT an all-purpose teleportation protocol. But it is incredibly awesome, and will undoubtedly have major technological significance someday. Basically, it’s easy to send photons all over the universe (we are very good at building and operating lasers), but it’s very hard to send more exotic forms of matter, especially when the matter is supposed to stay in a specific quantum state. Quantum teleportation allows us to first spread entangled matter throughout space. Then, at a later time, we can exploit this resource to move delicate quantum states to the location of our entangled matter.




 Quantum Frontiers:
The 10 biggest breakthroughs in physics over the past 25 years according to us

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Unknown Unknowns II...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 17, 2013 at 9:47am

Original link here.

No Child Left Behind mandates that states use standardized tests to determine if schools are succeeding. (Photograph: Image Source/Rex Features)

Having been briefly a high school math/physics teacher, and personally experiencing the Herculean requirements placed on all of my fellow educators, this article by Erika Sanchez (link below) is a poignant observation and quite sad when you read it. I'd often mused about my students at the time “they don’t know WHAT they don’t know,” meaning our nation's youth have only a bottom-line obsession with “is THAT the answer?” (a byproduct of a-b-c-d and "drill baby, drill") rather than falling in love with the process of actually finding the answer, the sheer joy of learning something you pressed hard to discover; presenting proudly to fellow students on what you initially didn't know. From cell phones to Facebook, Twitter, reality TV, fashion web sites, glorified sporting events et al, they are becoming perfect consumers, narcissistic "ditto heads," automatons that will not question the world around them: they’ll just “Google it.”




In my admittedly fanciful utopia, there are no standardized tests and K-12 teachers are allowed free reign to instruct, be creative and be as close to Robin Williams in “Dead Poets Society” or Denzel Washington in “The Great Debaters” as possible. It only works in Star Trek apparently: post warp drive, world peace, matter replicators, ending world hunger, the dissolution of money (at least in politics) and hierarchical society. Yep, only Star Trek and Friday night mind blitzes with colorful drinks after several bar hops could fantasize this. No wonder there is such turnover in the profession (low pay also a factor). Idealistic enthusiasm smacks hard into the wall of reality.




In reality: teachers are hemmed by state-mandated test regimens; they are chained to performance evaluations based on unrealistic percentage passing rates in both said tests and classrooms. Greater than the unrealistic 10 – 15% failure rate can get you terminated, or in education parlance “contract not renewed,” a fancy way of not having to pay you unemployment benefits; a legal way to lie through your teeth at the next high school, i.e. you can say you weren't “fired.” The passing rate ironically mimics a manufacturing line's “bell curve,” usually more stringent on the floor (about < 5%); a failure rate there is considered and labeled: “waste.” We are Pavlov’s canines, conditioned and salivating writ large for our sensual drugs of pleasure, knowledge mastery not being one of them. A glimmer of hope: some parents are opting out of standardized testing, a "bathwater immersion" I hope gains broader support.

 [Meanwhile, back at the ranch]: Apparently, it requires 40 armed gun enthusiasts to thwart 4 moms against gun violence, as every tragic shooting, the Boston Marathon bombing is quickly defined a "false flag" operation designed to "take our freedoms." Neither Sandy Hook nor Chicago, both offered as false equivalencies will sway this addled crowd from infantile attachment to their metallic "binkies." There can be no sensible legislation in an environment like this that protects everyone's 2nd amendment rights and damns all others (like, education for example) because the gun manufacturers would lose profits. Any mental health screen prior to purchase would probably fail a large percentage of the 40 demonstrably low-esteemed (and possibly libido challenged) enthusiasts, but no such passions to educate our citizenry to be good citizens and compete against a global workforce that is so much better prepared than we. For those that pant after “conspiracy theories” and every word of the post-Fairness Doctrine talk radio circuit, this is a huge, in-your-face social engineering experiment – well designed to our national detriment, and largely quite successful – that the screaming numb skulls are missing... 




Whether it be No Child Left Behind or Common Core, the problem lies in manufactured learning. In teaching English at the university level, I have noticed that students are often ill prepared for the demands of higher education. Students who are used to multiple choice tests lack the skills and the confidence to formulate their own complex opinions and interpretations. It is irresponsible to have these students graduate without the proper skills to succeed.




Rigid curriculum's that focus on right and wrong answers teach children to see the world in binaries. These methods don't encourage creativity or innovation. I fear that our deeply flawed education system will produce generations of people who lack critical thinking skills.




What kind of choices will they make in their adult lives when they have never been taught how to look at the nuances and complexities of situations? Who will have the tools to question authority? Who will question the status quo?



 Common Dreams:
America's Dumbest Idea: Creating a Multiple-Choice Test Generation

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Superconducting Stripes...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 16, 2013 at 7:44am
APS - Superconductivity Explained

The physics of low-temperature superconductivity is fairly well understood, but the ultimate goal of achieving the phenomenon at much higher temperatures remains tantalizingly elusive. The most promising high-temperature superconductor candidates are generally considered to be cuprates with perovskite structures, but it is unclear what mechanisms allow these materials to become superconducting — and how the superconducting temperatures (Tc) can be increased.






By examining the stripe phase-ordering in La1.875Ba0.125CuO4 (LBCO) under high pressure at the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science’s Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory, a team of researchers from Argonne, Washington University in St. Louis, and Brookhaven National Laboratory probed those questions, specifically, the relationship between stripe ordering and superconductivity. Their work reveals the interplay between stripes, lattice structure, and the superconductivity of LBCO in unprecedented detail and is an important step in understanding high-Tc superconductivity and eventually achieving practical room-temperature superconductors.


Argonne National Laboratory: Superconductivity with stripes

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Another Use for BMI...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 13, 2013 at 7:34am



Researchers have developed a brain-machine interface (BMI) that allows monkeys to move two virtual arms just by thinking. A separate team of scientists has designed a device that mimics bladder function in paralyzed rats. Both technologies are wedded to the nervous system in a way that could potentially produce more natural, personalized control of sensory and motor function in paralyzed patients. The studies, which appear in the 6 November issue of the journal Science Translational Medicine, highlight the future of neuroprosthetic and robotic technologies in human health. The idea behind BMIs is to link the brain activity from imagined movements to a computerized device that enables actual movement. A person with a spinal cord injury can still think about moving his or her limbs, but because the spinal cord is disconnected from the brain, these actions cannot be carried out. BMIs aim to bypass the spinal cord to regain control of limb movement.

AAAS: Technologies Seek to Bypass Nerve Damage in Paralyzed Patients

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a thought character sketch

Posted by Arnold L. Johnson on November 12, 2013 at 9:43am

Can't fathom his strange life strutting about in platform shoes. Dang man didn't that go out in the 70's. I was born in the heavens above the earth (inches), never touched it, never, but I'm tied here by gravity. My shoes insulate and weigh me down so I can live among other men. It was normal to me as a kid to jump and glide with the wind across the plains. They captured me and tied me with leaded boots but made the mistake of throwing me off a cliff not knowing my power exponentially increases the further I am from the surface. I kicked off the hindrances and rode the wind to this place.I can glide in silence and kick thunder, I harness and release a skill like Aikido, Geomancy and Alchemy combined.

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Inter-racial relationships mean disaster!

Posted by Moorsgate Media on November 12, 2013 at 12:13pm

The recent election for mayor of New York City was remarkable for a number of reasons. For one, it was an election where the right to "Sext" became a front page issue. More importantly, it was an election where one candidate running for mayor is married to a woman of a different race, and no one made a big deal about that relationship. In fact, most political observers believe that the Mayor-Elect owes much of his success TO his bi-racial family.  

One of the ways that science fiction has sought to portray "the future" is through the use of non-typical character positions and relationships. This is a polite way of saying "you know it is the future because of X", where X could be anything that would't happen today ( i.e. Black President, to well....female president). Basically, any time (prior to 2008 ) you saw a non-white, non-male president, chances were that you were dealing with some sort of speculative fiction. See Freeman, Morgan;

Another tip off to the fact that you were dealing with dire straights was the taboo of interracial relationships. 

Anti-miscegenation laws were still on the books in southern states until 1967. However, even when certain relationships were illegal, science fiction authors used them to demonstrate either the scope of the catastrophic fall of humanity, or the blinding pace of "otherness" of the future. The 1959 film, The World, the Flesh and the Devil, explores this premise with the sort of rye humor one expects from a sci-fi film starring Harry Belafonte.  In it, Belafonte plays Ralph an educated, technical savvy individual who spends most of his post-apocalyptic free time avoiding the sexual advances of Inger Stevens [ed: What ?]. The movie sets the audience up with an "unusual" tale with the threat and hope of interracial love in the face of total devastation. Modesty on Ralph's part keeps the action from getting into pearl clutching territory (remember it is 1959).

By the 1970's, audiences were more tolerant of "inter-racial" relationships taking the next step. As shown, 1971's The Omega Man (the second remake of I Am Legend)  features Heston and Rosalind Cash in all their leisure suit meets Afro in plague ravaged mutant Los Angeles {Ed - this differs from present day Los Angeles how ?]

Unlike Belafonte, Heston has no qualms about romantic entanglements that might make some uncomfortable.

Even in present day media (see current season of Walking Dead, and past episodes of Firefly, Caprica, BattleStar Galactia, Star Trek,  Terra Nova,  the remake of I am Legend, Hancock, 28 Days Later, etc., ( Ed. we could have a separate discussion on Wil Smith and depictions of his love interests )  interracial relationships are sometimes used as a short hand to demonstrate the dire straights of humanity or a wild future where the uncommon is common.

The reason that this trope work[ed] is because historically, interracial relationships were unrecognized, if more common than conventional wisdom dictated. By showing "uncommon pairings" the world builder is telling us something about the underlying social strata in which the work takes place. Humans are social animals, and prize companionship over all else. These relationships are meant, in part, to tell us that human nature is to seek companionship, even in the face of societal (or because of societal) collapse or advancement.

However , it also takes the subversive position that social structure, miscegenation laws and the like are not natural to human condition. The world builder is winking at us, telling us that social mores are artificial constructs which float on top of a simpler society, one of individual choices and preferences, of a freedom of relationships which is not possible while the trains run and the Man punches your time card. The relationships in these pieces of fiction are simplified, there are no walks past disapproving peers, awkward family dinners; but they are also presented as partnerships. Survivors, regardless of social strata and ethnicity, make a good fit together.

As time and progress marches on, the rate of interracial relationships are on a steady rise. What does that mean for this short hand, this short cut, when these types of relationships are common. I would love to see this trope get taken in different directions. Humanity is varied, so should our future disastrous relationships. With a Bi-racial president and a biracial family in the Mayor's residence of the largest city in on the continent, it is time we updated what the future looks like. 

www.moorsgatemedia.blogspot.com

Twitter: Moorsgate

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Once Again...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 12, 2013 at 8:00am

...we are imperiled by our own inanity, our inability to separate willful ignorance from governance; science fact from misapplied faith.


Katrina, Rita, Irene, Sandy...Typhoon Haiyan. The list increases, one domino falls after the other; each block more powerful than the last; not the geopolitical spread of communism as personified by Kissinger: These dominoes are costing treasure, human and capital. An estimated 10,000 casualties - fellow travelers - have departed our planet. We cannot keep rebuilding forever. This is moral and literal bankruptcy by bloodletting.

Once again we are here...
Philippine Red Cross volunteers throughout the region are reporting significant damage and a growing death toll from Typhoon Haiyan. Photo: Romulo Godinez/PRC

The denials will begin as loud and as shrill as they always are. My post from two days ago eluding to emphasizing the Scientific Method will be called into question; trolls I willfully ignore, having limited science training to appreciate the research of expert others; clearly no agenda other than an authoritarian need to police "THOUGHTCRIME" as I assume I will be seen as violating some Orwellian dogma.


Links are provided below. Give to humanity and our human family in need. It doesn't have to be much, but a little from many has impact. I await an eclipse of real acts of charity. "Pay it forward"...

You never know when karma will choose us next, and we are in need of "love in action"...

(donate button at link)
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That Rejection May not be (Completely) Your Fault

Posted by Eden Royce on November 12, 2013 at 6:43am

We’ve all been there. Getting a rejection from a publisher.  I’m not sure which is worse: waiting or receiving a rejection. I’ve experienced both and have learned to deal with them.

 

For the first time, however, I’ve had to send out rejections. As submissions editor for a small press, I now have an additional viewpoint on the rejection process and there are two types of reasons your story may get rejected.

 

Those you can control and those you can’t.

 

The ones you can control are what you read about in almost every how to writing guide out there.  Easy things that all writers should do:

 

-Check for your work for spelling and grammar issues before you submit.

-Send in work that is the genre that the publisher publishes.

-Format your manuscript the way the publisher asks.

-Send your submission or query with a professional, yet personable cover letter/email.

 

I’ve spoken with editors that will reject your work solely for the above.  It seems harsh, but there are a lot of people that do follow the presented guidelines and publishers tend to take following their rules as a sign that you’ll be easy to work with. (Who doesn’t want that?)

 

 

 

 

Other things you can control that are not so easy:

 

-Craft a fresh, interesting, well-paced story with engaging characters. 

-Ruthlessly self-edit to make your dialogue snap and your plot “un-put-downable”

-Find the time to read (in and out of your genre) to improve your exposure to styles and literary devices used in fiction.

 

However:

 

There are reasons your story will get rejected that you have zero control over.  And once you’ve assessed the above, your rejection may be because of one of the following:

 

-Your story is too similar to one the company has already accepted for publication. 

 

-Your story doesn’t have the tone the publisher prefers. (Publishers are looking for an intangible element that is impossible to put into words. It’s a “I’ll know it when I see it sort of thing”.)

 

-Your story doesn’t “fit” with the others they’ve already chosen for an anthology.

 

-Editors just don’t like to read some things. They’re human. It may be a particular point of view or tense or a certain period in history. Most times, a call for submissions will state absolute no-no’s for the publication like no profanity or no child endangerment.

                                                                                                                                                           

But there’s more. There are editors and slush readers that prefer not to read phonetic spellings or don’t want to see another shape shifting macaw. Again, these are impossible for you to control unless you are told that the editors don’t want to see.

 

 

One such list you may have seen before is from the submissions page of Strange Horizons’ website.  Strange Horizons is a well-regarded online speculative fiction magazine and their list of “Stories We’ve Seen Too Often” has been referenced and reprinted by many publishers of speculative fiction. http://www.strangehorizons.com/guidelines/fiction-common.shtml

 

It isn’t all-inclusive and it doesn’t hold true for all publications, but I’m using it as an example that there are storylines that won’t appeal to certain publishers, even though your story is otherwise well put together.

 

So take heart when you get a rejection.  It isn’t always you.

 

Receiving a rejection does mean you’re finishing and submitting your work and that’s something to celebrate.

 

Happy writing.

 

 

 

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Cypher Team i02 Angels of Anarchy

Posted by Tyrone "Tyr" Jackson on November 11, 2013 at 10:00pm

This would be the third installment. Here's the short story, again before turning script. What do you all think? Read, if you have the time, and give some pointers or advice. It would be greatly appreciated!


Cypher Team i02 (c) 2009-2015
Angels of Anarchy



Transparent daggers exploded outward, tossing themselves from the pane of transoms placed along each cascading tower. They rained from the heavens, crashing to the earth as they either shattered on entry or pierced through the bodies of Reapers who had already lay, lifeless on the ground.

Buildings continued to buckle as bricks and concrete chipped away, imploding into dust. The twisting of metal screeched though the eerily quiet air. All that sounded was the high pitched wail of the atmosphere being drawn into the lungs of the woman who had made her presence known. Even the ambient noise of animals and city alike paled in the depths of its key.

In the midst of it all, a stream began to fall into visibility siphoning between the woman's lips and into her mouth as she continued. Cars in her vicinity crumbled like soda cans and so did everything else in the locale as the area of about 50 yards crushed in on its self.

As the cyclone continued to spiral The Madame cut her eyes back into the direction of Breather. She and Elias had gotten everyone that they could out of the area. Surely though, this mission was no longer about stopping the riot but stopping the two woman who had caused so much damage in their wake. If anything, The Madame knew that the two weren’t alone, she also knew that to pull the rest of the team out she would need to send in some strength.

She cast her eyes onto Elias as he stood strong, feet planted as his hair and clothing pulled into the direction of the vortex. He looked back at her, catching her in her gaze. He rolled his eyes.

“Elias!” She yelled over the howl of the makeshift sound of a freight train. “GO!”

“On it,” he gritted as he dug his boots into the ground launching himself into the woman's direction.

He hit the earth, exploding into it as asphalt flew into the sky and instantly flew into Breathers direction disintegrating. His trench coat flowed even heavier into Breathers direction. He was in the safe zone however, just outside of her radius, so, he was keeping the air in his lungs this day.

“Damn it, I’m always the one getting beat on.” He bellowed to himself.

Breather looked at him and stopped her inhalation. She squinted at him letting her lips pucker a bit. The two had a past, a deep past and it went as far back to TEMPLE High where they went to school with one another. To keep it short we’ll just say, she had the hots for him but, he had the hots for a blue-skinned, sassy, ice throwing Puerto Rican who now, he was married to.

Breather licked her lips and then winked at him, sure that he remembered what her lips taste like. He gulped readying in wonder as he planted his feet even more into the hole, the taste of her lips farthest from his mind. She however, reached up placing an open hand to her puckered lips. Behind her hand and before her lips a bluish colored ray of light began to emerge, bursting out like a mini supernova flickering out of existence. She pointed her finger tips towards him and blew causing a tight spiral of blue energy to leave her mouth as she released all the air she had sucked in, compressed into a stronger air flow. Slowly she opened her mouth letting the rest of it follow in a more heavier blast.

A cascade of various shades of the color painted the masses as the beam of energy sped his way.

“Fuck.” He sighed shaking his head in angst as he crossed his arms in front of himself, forming an “X,” to take the impact. “She sure as hell isn’t holding back this time. Fine then, neither will I.”

He grimaced as the energy hit him, waves and waves of stronger bolts beat against him like rough ocean tides crashing into a rocky cliff. Each pulse pushed him back farther, causing him to plow deeper into the already demolished inner city street. However, he did manage to find the inner strength to hold on against her massive assault.

The blue flood of condensed air stopped abruptly, leaving trickles of its former trailing behind it. Breather closed her mouth and looked on to Elias who now had black smoke coming from him. His uniform tattered from her onslaught. She smiled, never speaking a word as he breathed heavily.

She turned to walk away from him as he stepped out of the hole that was dug. “Where are you going Breather? You know this is far from over.”

She turned to him, frowning.

Elias grinned, looking up to her, “You know what happens next right or did you forget?”

As the words left his mouth his hands began to glow in an aqua hue, gradually brightening as it spiraled around his arms forming itself into a larger buildup. Two clenched fists raised into her direction as sweat rolled down his face and with a sharp thunderous echo his very own energy left him, moving faster than her own as it crackled through the air, sounding as though it had broken the sound barrier as it ripped the ground apart under its slipstream.

Her eyes widened as the rampaging blast bolted her way. Her body shifted tones, matching the color of the energy as it got closer.

She was familiar with his power but never had she seen it on this level. The last she had seen him he had an extremely low absorption limit and that, she thought, was broken when she attacked him. Obviously, the previous information was wrong or he was hiding his true level the whole time. She attempted to blocked it, cowering back as her hands went up and then.

Nothing, no force, no rush...just emptiness, as though nothing was there. She opened her eyes to see that the energy had dissipated, leaving no aftermath. What the hell, she thought to herself. Maybe he wasn’t as strong as he thought...maybe the energy didn’t quite make it. Then again, there was the other reason. She looked into his direction as she noticed him starring off, looking above her, his expression shocked and a bit hurt as he gazed on.

She followed his stare, she knew what it was.

“Mona?” He whispered.

“It’s Tarot.” The Madame followed, landing behind him.

“I can see that Sara....I thought she was...”

“Obviously not.” The Madame interrupted, looking on to her former friend and teammate as she stood on the building looking down to them.

Mona, or Tarot which was the name she chose to go by, wore a long black dress. Nothing fancy really, just enough to help the imagination. Her lips were also coated in black, her eyes in black mascara. Finishing with jet black hair accenting her bronze flawless skin.

In all aspects of a woman, she was beautiful. Most people however thought that she obtained her beauty from her magical background. Her home country of Mexico spoke that she was the strongest “brujah” around. She however, didn’t feel the same, modesty being her persona. Which may have been why Elias and Sara were so set in awe to see her on the side of The Angels of Anarchy? It just didn’t fit her.

She sighed, standing on top of the ruined building as she twirled a card between her fingers tips. The Fool, is what it read.

“Breather, are you okay?” She asked, turning her attention to the woman in white. Her English perfect and her accent sexy, sure to make any mens attention rise.

Breather shook her head yes, still not speaking as she flew towards Tarot landing beside her, both of them now looking down to the two Lions.

“Damn it, we are not gonna beat them if Tarot is there. You know what she can do.” Elias spoke, turning his attention to The Madame.

“Yea, I know. This isn’t good, at all.” She answered.

~

Feline looked over her shoulder, eyes in instinct as she caught the view of the blast from the other fight. Claws extended, she anticipated the next attack from her own opponents as her lightly layered fur began to show strips fading to black from the solid blondish brown.

“Hmm...” she purred, turning back to the Alchemy and Pyreblade. “Looks like someones getting their asses kicked.” She taunted in song.

Alchemy sucked her teeth to the comment, she saw the blast too and knew, full well, who it belonged to. “Check you’re stats again kitty...that blast was from the Colonel. That bloody harlot is going down, I can assure it.”

“Maybe...but what can be said about you two,” she snarled her fangs flashing under the sun.

“Bunt edges away?” Jordan asked, looking to his wife.

“Bunt edges away babe.”

Jordan sighed as a smile crossed his face, “Don’t have to tell me twice,” he spoke as he quickly tossed his blade from his right hand to his left, handling it to where the sharpened side faced the sky. He followed crouching down as his left foot extended forward, his sword pointed in the direction of Feline, his right hand to the end of the hilt.

A medium orange light bathed in his eyes as red clashed within it. For the first time since leaving the heli-jet he allowed his blade to engulf itself in the flames that were him. With a spiraling burst it erupted, feeding on the air as the blaze reached out, stretching as though they had slept for a millennia. The inferno crept up the weapon until finally finding the tip. He looked at it, smiling.

“Rise and shine sleepy head.” He spoke to his broadsword. “It’s feeding time.”

Alchemy looked to her husband seeing the pure want for violence on his face. It turned her on a bit, seeing him in his stance, nearly engulfed in flames as he stood in wait, intent on his charge. She smiled, thinking about later.

“Show off,” she joked as her arms took on its mercury form, stretching out in its liquid state as they morphed into two largely built katanas.

“Love, do you mind making me hot?” she asked looking over to her husband. He looked back grinning.

“Right now?”

“Yea”

“Of course not.” He answered leaving his stance. He kept his sword ablaze as he switched it back to his right hand and laid it across his shoulder. The flames bothering him none. He set his left hand ablaze pointing it towards his wife.

She stood, waiting as he sent flames out towards her. They licked away at her mercury skin as she mentally began to harden her liquefied form. The gray of her skin started to turn a piercing red as she took on the look of molten steel pulled straight from extremely hot fire.

“Thanks love.” She said as her blades produced their very own flames. Her body sheering as the quicksilver on her coursed, looking alive as it flowed over her body, shining red like embers and as hot as hell. Her eyes piercing the same.

“You’re welcome. Now, back to her.” Pyreblade spoke as he got back in his stance.

Feline snickered, “Ready now? Lets play,” she growled phasing from site.

“Dammit!” Alchemy yelled as the tiger patterned woman blended into her surrounds.

“Relax, she can’t stay hidden the whole time. How many cats does that make now anyway?”

“Three. Cheetah, Lion and now Tiger. Each one has a different skill.” She breathed looking around anticipating. “We can’t let her get close to us.”

Pyreblade nodded as he raised his engulfed blade into the sky. In sheer force he jolted it back to the earth, stabbing it as flames erupted from it and out, encompassing the two in a blaze set ring.

“Not what I was thinking because now...we’re trapped.”

“Exactly,” the tigresses voice echoed in laughter. She was in the circle with them and with no where to run, she began her assault. Phasing back into existence as the stripes faded into spots. A still of her self stood in place as she bolted towards the two, moving at speeds to where it seemed she hadn’t moved at all.

Alchemy watched as best she could as again she was knocked from her feet. Instantly, Pyreblade swung his sword into the direction of where his wife stood, hoping to catch Feline from behind since the woman had slowed down a bit when she met Alchemy. To his dismay she had anticipated his attack and flipped backward over the blade and into his direction not completing the full flip. Time seemed to slow down as she twisted in the air to face him. The stained dye of black vanished from her face as the smaller spots grew in size looking more Jaguar.

She landed to the ground on all fours, looking up to him as she roared. He attempted again, to finally hit her, only to have her dodge each attack and with the dodge she’d land a devastating blow, knocking him back as she used feet and clawed hands, scrapping about in a capoiera style of fighting.

Alchemy found herself, standing back to her feet as she charged the woman from behind. Bladed arms raised mid body as she ran into her direction attempting to thrust them through her. Feline sensed her and flipped forward knocking the weapons away with her right foot and hitting Alchemy’s chin with her left causing the woman to moan out in pain as she was stopped in her tracks and lifted off the ground.

Feline finished bringing her heels to the back of Pyreblade’s head sending him face first into the concrete.

“Is that it?” She asked, looking to her prey, laughing at the two as they lay, stricken on the ground.

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I Need Your Help

Posted by Gerald Dean Rice on November 11, 2013 at 8:30pm

Yes, you. Sitting at your computer or holding that smart phone in your hands. I need you. Take a look at that cover. It. Sucks. I need a new one. Something that will catch people's attention. The new cover also needs to have a snappier title. You can download this book for free right now at http://bit.ly/1diApYv and type in code HZ66Q at checkout. Please read to get a better idea for a title because I'm just stuck. I'll buy the winner your choice of any of my eBooks and a copy of Axe to the Face once it's published. Contest ends at the end of the month and I'll announce the winner with the cover reveal.

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