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The Prophet - Giving Away 10 Free Copies

All you have to do is go to www.razorlinepress.com, click on any post and respond with, "Yes, I'd like a free copy of The Prophet."  Make sure your email address is included because that's what I'll be using to send it to you as a gift through Amazon's website.

 

Description

Greg is a reporter who is about to get the story of his life. The Prophet, an elusive figure who makes predictions about disasters has just tapped him to do an exclusive interview. Except Greg's not really a reporter. Two minutes before entering his apartment, he didn't exist and when he meets the Prophet he finds out his true purpose- to kill the Prophet. But killing someone who is near omnipotent isn't easy, in fact, it takes more than one try even if you get it right.

The Prophet is a half horror, half weird, half comedy that will leave your jaw fully dropped by story's end.

 

Excerpt

No,” the Prophet materialized out of the flashes- shoeless, in jeans with ragged cuffs and his hands stuffed in the pockets of a grey hoodie.  His beard hung to his knees, but it was edged at his cheeks and jawline.  Locks of hair spilled out of his hood, trailing down to mid-chest.  If it weren’t for the eyes, he’d look like a hippie-ish twenty-something.  But those eyes held the ancient stare of the bug-fucking nuts.  Greg realized this person had the same face, but this wasn’t the man he’d seen earlier in the shower. 

“Where?” the Prophet said.

“The guy… y’know, the one standing right there.”

“I don’t see anyone.”

Blue walked over and grabbed Greg by the shirt sleeve, giving it a good tug. “He’s right here.”

“No.  Sorry, I see nothing but you making the international sign for jerking off.”

“Wha—oh.”  Blue sounded embarrassed and let go of Greg’s shirt.

“I knew Anthony was up to something.”  The Prophet scratched under the corner of his lip.  He looked in the general area where Greg was.  Greg was glad those eyes couldn’t find him.  “Did he send you here to kill me?  He should have told you I can’t die.  I am not a man.”  Somebody giggled.  “Shut up!  You know what I mean.”

The Prophet reached up with both hands and made tight fists around his eyes.  He grimaced, a single, strangled cry coming from his throat as trickles of blood ran down his cheeks.  He yanked his hands back and Greg saw empty holes where his eyes used to be, blood flowing freely from the empty spaces.

“Gather closer, children,” he said.  They all pulled in tight around him and he began reaching out, feeling their faces one at a time.

“Too big… too squishy…” he mumbled as he passed each one by.  “I really should have done this part first.”  Finally, he settled on a face that seemed to be to his preference.  A short, fox-headed man looked nervously right and left, but his body went rigid.  He seemed to be struggling, but didn’t move.

“Now open your eyes… wide.”  Fox-head reared his head back, but it was a far cry from the distance he needed to get away from the Prophet.  He made small, grunting noises as the Prophet raised his hands, turning them so his thumbs were poised directly over his face.

He plunged them beneath Fox-head’s eyes, working his hands like he was trying to work twin combination locks with only his palms.  Fox-head’s mouth was pulled back like he wanted to scream, but no sound came out.  Everyone was silent.  The only sound was the dual squelching as Fox-head’s eyes were being plucked out.

It probably only took seconds, but they stretched on forever as Greg watched Fox-head’s bulging eyes being extracted from the sockets.

They finally came free and he collapsed, his limbs curling up to his torso like a newborn baby.  His mouth hung open in agony, but still he didn’t scream.

Greg didn’t know how long he stared at the manimal on the ground, but at some point the Prophet had put the new eyes in his own head.

“There you are,” he said, looking at Greg and wiping the trails of blood off his cheeks with the backs of his hands.  He pointed a gun finger at him and fired.  “You’re dead.”

Greg felt a flash of white, pain more intense than anything he’d felt in his life and then it was gone.  He looked down and saw a perfectly circular hole in his chest and stomach that he guessed went all the way through.  Something warm and red squished around in his socks.  He looked up at the Prophet, wanting to ask a question, but the words were suddenly a million miles away.

He collapsed.

“Now that that problem’s taken care of, let’s get Neil out of my forge.”

“It’s Harry, master.”

“Whatever.  Just get him out.  I’ve got a schedule to keep.”

Greg lay on the ground, listening to them talk and mill about.  It surprised him that he could listen to anything at all, unless this was supposed to be the afterlife.  But then he opened his eyes and looked at his hand and then he began drumming his fingers on the dirt.

“Would somebody scoop that thing up and feed it to something?”

Feet moved closer to him and then two pairs of arms lifted him half to his feet.

Greg raised his head and saw the Prophet surveying the pit.

You have everything you need,” Anthony had said.  Greg wondered at that, but quickly realized he had the solution to his current problem.

He opened his mouth, moving his lips and waggling his tongue.  Despite having no lungs, he was trying to speak.

The words came out, but they were thick and unintelligible.  But loud enough that the two people-things holding him heard and most importantly, so did the Prophet.  He turned and let his hands slide from the small of his back.

“What?” the Prophet said.  He had a look of dumb shock, so Greg repeated.

“I said,” Greg began and cleared his throat, “you’re a pizza.”

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What Lies Beneath...

This image shows a computer simulation of the polarized electron-spin density on a plane that contains the Earth's rotational axis and Amherst, Massachusetts. (Courtesy: Daniel Ang and Larry Hunter of Amherst College, more info @ link)

Evidence of a minuscule force that could exist between two particle spins over long distances could be lurking in magnetized iron under the Earth's surface. That is the conclusion of a new study by physicists in the US, who have used our planet's vast stores of polarized spin to place exacting limits on the existence of interactions mediated by unusual entities such as "unparticles".



The intrinsic angular momentum, or "spin", of a particle gives that particle a magnetic moment, and the interaction between spins generates magnetism. A ferromagnet, such as iron, becomes magnetized when the spins of some of the electrons in its constituent atoms line up, while quantum mechanics tells us that the magnetic force between spins results from the electrons exchanging "virtual" photons.



Some theoretical physicists have suggested that other, as-yet-undiscovered particles might be exchanged virtually and so give rise to new types of spin–spin interaction. In 2007, for example, Howard Georgi of Harvard University proposed the existence of unparticles, which would have the unusual property that their masses would scale with energy or momentum.

Physics World: Search for 'unparticles' focuses on Earth's crust

A fun, loosely-related embed from "minute physics":

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For Aspiring Video Game Makers - Extra Credits!

Hey, folks!  

After talking for awhile with some of you guys in the chat area, I've learned that some of you are aspiring video game makers.  In case you didn't know, there is a LOT that goes into making a successful video game, so much that you could fill chapters of books with all you need to know.  And we're not talking about knowledge of coding or game writing software.  This is where the web show, "Extra Credits" comes in.  Hosted by game designer James Portnow, animator Daniel Floyd, and artists Allison Theus and Elisa Scaldaferri, this show tackles the deeper issues of video games and video game design, like understanding your audience to tailor your game for them, content, dialogue, etc.  It has been around for about 3 or 4 years now, and has amassed quite a library of shows on a wide range of subjects in the interest of gaming and game design.  Here is the link to the current library, found on PATV, an offshoot of the popular webcomic, "Penny Arcade."

 http://penny-arcade.com/patv/show/extra-credits

If you have any aspirations towards video game design, then you owe it to yourself to watch this show.  It's presented in a rapid-fire, funny, and insightful manner, and these guys are very knowledgeable about the subject.  Hope you enjoy, and you're welcome!  Happy gaming!

-Brandon


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The Makers...



Benjamin Banneker was born in 1731 just outside of Baltimore, Maryland, the son of a slave. His grandfather had been a member of a royal family in Africa and was wise in agricultural endeavors.His father, Robert, was an African slave who purchased his freedom and his mother, Mary, was the daughter of a freed African slave and an English woman. As a young man, he was allowed to enroll in a school run by Quakers and excelled in his studies, particularly in mathematics. Soon, he had progressed beyond the capabilities of his teacher and would often make up his own math problems in order to solve them.




One day his family was introduced to a man named Josef Levi who owned a watch. Young Benjamin was so fascinated by the object that Mr. Levi gave it to him to keep, explaining how it worked. Over the course of the next few days, Benjamin repeatedly took the watch apart and then put it back together. After borrowing a book on geometry and another on Isaac Newton's Principia (laws of motion) he made plans to build a larger version of the watch, mimicking a picture he had seen of a clock. After two years of designing the clock and carving each piece by hand, including the gears, Banneker had successfully created the first clock ever built in the United States. For the next thirty years, the clock kept perfect time.

Thomas Jennings was the first African American to receive a patent, on March 3, 1821 (U.S. patent3306x). Thomas Jennings' patent was for a dry-cleaning process called "dry scouring". The first money Thomas Jennings earned from his patent was spent on the legal fees (my polite way of saying enough money to purchase) necessary to liberate his family out of slavery and support the abolitionist cause.

Inventor, electrical engineer, and business executive Jesse E. Russell, Sr. was born on April 26, 1948 in Nolensville, Tennessee to Mary Louise Russell and Charles Albert Russell. He was raised in inner-city Nashville along with his ten siblings. In 1972, Russell received his B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Tennessee State University. As a top honor student, Russell became the first African American to be hired directly from a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) by AT&T Bell Laboratories. The following year, he earned his M. S. degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

After the completion of his education, Russell continued to work at Bell Laboratories as a pioneer in the field of cellular and wireless communications. In 1988, Russell led the first team from Bell Laboratories to introduce digital cellular technology in the United States. He was a leader in communication technology in cellular devices and some of his patents include the “Base Station for Mobile Radio Telecommunications Systems,” (1992), the “Mobile Data Telephone,” (1993), and the “Wireless Communication Base Station” (1998). Russell held numerous posts while employed at AT&T, including director of the AT&T Cellular Telecommunication Laboratory and chief technical officer for the Network Wireless Systems Business Unit.

Site: Black Inventor Museum Online

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About That Death Star...



The proposal, which was announced by press release and press conference, comes from cosmologist Philip Lubin of the University of California at Santa Barbara and engineer Gary Hughes of California Polytechnic State University. Calling it a Death Star immediately makes the idea sound both sexy and goofy. The researchers use the term Directed Energy Solar Targeting of Asteroids and exploRation (DE-STAR), which isn’t much better. Setting aside the name, though, the idea is interesting.

Lubin and Hughes envision building a scalable, phased array, space-based laser system, powered by large solar panels. Solar power is abundant and uninterrupted in space; developing large, lightweight photovoltaic arrays would be a useful technology for future space stations or power-hungry scientific experiments. Laser beams could be useful for characterizing the composition of near-earth asteroids, and for conducting experiments on how laser heating or laser vaporization could alter an asteroid’s orbit. And phased arrays are an intriguing way to create a steerable light beam from a flat surface without turning it.

 

Discovery: The Case for Building a Death Star

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Dr. Barry C. Johnson, PhD...

IDEXX

Dr. Johnson worked in Austin, Texas for a time, and I had the distinct honor of meeting him. He was one of nine African American Vice Presidents I featured during Motorola's Black History Month celebrations. He used one of my products - D54H - as test vehicle for something that's now quite common in the industry: manufacture on 300mm (12") wafers. At the time, standard was 4 - 8" wafers. That was in the microelectronics era, or when gate feature sizes were measured in micrometers or microns in measure. I was not on that high-powered team (PhDs only), but they showed that boules could be pulled, sliced and processed in that circumference. Nanotechnology is acknowledgement of the current feature size in nanometers (10-9 meters) in direct adherence to the predictions of Moore's Law, and the multi-functionality we enjoy one cell phones, flat screens, etc.

The industry is now currently working on 450mm (18"), or "pizza sized" wafers. As we shrink smaller, the increase in area allows more product to be shipped and purchased, thereby increasing profitability.

BUSINESSWEEK: Dr. Barry C. Johnson, Ph.D. served as the Dean of the College of Engineering for Villanova University from August 2002 to March 2006. Dr. Johnson served as Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Honeywell International Inc. in Morristown, NJ. from July 2000 to April 2002. He served as a Corporate Vice President of Motorola, Inc. and Chief Technology Officer for its Semiconductor Product Sector in Tempe, AZ. He joined Motorola in 1976 and held a variety ... of technology, product development and operations leadership positions during his 16 year career with Motorola, Inc. Dr. Johnson served as a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Arizona, and serve a three-year stint as a Senior Research Fellow at E. I. DuPont & Co. He serves as the Chairman of the Board of Verisae, Inc. He has been a Director of Rockwell Automation Inc., since September 7, 2005. Dr. Johnson has been a Director of Cytec Industries Inc. since August 13, 2003. He has been a Director of Idexx Laboratories Inc., since March 2006. He serves as a Director of Cytec Engineered Materials Inc. He served as a Member of Advisory Board at Plextronics, Inc. He serves as a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2000 and the first U.S. citizen to be elected to the Fraunhofer Society in 1999, Germany's prestigious applied research organization in 1999. He is an inventor named on seven U.S. Patents. He is the recipient of numerous professional honors. He has been awarded eight patents and has authored over sixty technical papers. Dr. Johnson studied Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in metallurgical engineering and materials science from Carnegie-Mellon University and a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Villanova University.
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Black Tribbles?

It is a special calibre of nerd that knows what a tribble is (a hint: Trekkies). A group of Afrogeeks calling themselves "Black Tribbles" have come together to create a unique radio show every Thursday night 9 pm EST. You can tune in at gtownradio.com. Here is the Black Tribbles page: http://www.gtownradio.com/content/blogsection/59/134/. This week I'm a guest on a special episode dedicated to African American women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). I will be sharing the virtual spotlight with two amazing sisters: Leslie Chapman and Amaliris Gonzales. Our host, Kennedy, has made beautiful images with bios overlaid.I can't wait to be on air with such interesting sisters! Listening to past Black Tribble shows they seem to be lively and full of humor...of the nerdy kind! I will be answering questions and hope to get a plug in for my documentary Black Sun. There is usually a dial in number 215-609-4301 so join in the discussion. Also, you have to appreciate the poster for this special show. Fierce!

It is a great way to end Black History Month.
Here are the details:
Thursday February 28, 2013
9 pm - 11 pm EST
Listen Live at gtownradio.com (Germantown).

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PAnd0RA returns!

Pandora returns in the last week of February! The weeks spent in 'Bubble Time' aboard the DROMEDARY have come to an end and the Transport's crew is looking forward to some leave planetside on the world of AIPOTU. The Android Pandora is also looking to her first experience off the transport and some time alone to bond with her companion Captain Gital. But with the Retrieval Team aboard the Attack Transport WHIPLASH entering the HESTIA SYSTEM, will our ever-popular manufactured girl achieve her goal in peace? And what of the mysterious Transport BOX still aboard DROMEDARY? Is there a link between it and the strange malfunctions aboard the corporate transport? Answers to these questions and more questions will be revealed in 'The PAnd0RA Ultimatum, EPISODE 4: Planetside!

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http://scriptwritercontest.com/?et_mid=604413&rid=232899166

James Lassiter and Will Smith of Overbrook Entertainment are searching for the next great TV scriptwriters — Are you one of them?


James Lassiter and Will Smith of Overbrook Entertainment have entered a unique and innovative new partnership with the ANA Alliance for Family Entertainment in search of the most talented and undiscovered writers in the country, with the vision of bringing extraordinary entertainment to air.

Submit either your 30-minute comedy or 1-hour drama today.

If any creators are interested in this contest, I would be happy to help you adapt your comedy or drama short story or novel into TV script format. Let me know!

 

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The 18-year-old who built a nuclear reactor
Editor's note: Taylor Wilson is the subject of CNN's "The Next List" on Sunday at 2 p.m. ET.
By The Next List Staff, CNN

(CNN) - At 18, Taylor Wilson has probably accomplished more than most people will in a lifetime.
He is the youngest person in the world to build a nuclear fusion reactor. And he won national acclaim for a counter terror device that sniffs out nuclear material in cargo containers. If that’s not enough, he built a prototype for a device that generates medical isotopes - a feat that could make diagnosing and treating cancer cheaper and more widely accessible to patients.
Wilson has won a dozen awards at the prestigious Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), the Super Bowl of science fairs, over the course of his high school career. Not to mention tens of thousands of dollars in prize money.

“Some people wonder if he’s for real,” said Bill Brinsmead, one of Wilson's mentors, and a Senior Technician in the Physics Department at the University of Nevada, Reno. Brinsmead and others who know him are sure that he is. The director of The Davidson Academy, Wilson's high school, calls him “larger than life.”
It would be easy to conclude that what sets Taylor apart is his rare intellect, something only a tiny fraction of the world possesses.
But ask Wilson why he’s successful and the answer might surprise you.
“I think it’s mainly passion. We all have a similar intellectual capacity within reason but the people who really change the world, the Steve Jobs of the world, have always had that passion, that drive," he said. "They have that unique image of how the world should be and I have that. And I think that’s what sets me apart. You know my brain does work differently, but it’s the passion that really makes me successful."
And where passion is concerned, it seems Wilson has a nearly inexhaustible supply.
That and, as his father, Kenneth Wilson, points out: “He never takes no for an answer.”
Wilson started building the nuclear fusion reactor in his garage but finished it at the University of Nevada, Reno. He did it initially because he was amazed by the power contained within the atom and obsessed with making things radioactive.
Here's what he had to say on that subject:
"I had this obsession with radioactivity, and short of contaminating something, to make something radioactive, you had to have a source of neutrons. And I don’t have weapons-grade plutonium around the house, or at least not at that time. But anyway, to make things radioactive, I would need a neutron source, so I decided to build this fusion reactor, but kind of with that came this interest in fusion."
Subsequently, he used his reactor as a basis for the devices he invented.
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The Whiz Kid...


Who is Kelvin Doe?

Kelvin Doe, often called “The Whiz Kid,” is a 16-year-old self-taught inventor and engineer from Sierra Leone.


He has created batteries and generators from scrap parts in his community to help provide electricity for his family and friends.  Doe built his first battery at the age of 13, and has since developed a local FM radio station, which runs off homemade radio transmitter and generator.

The whiz kid explained his influence for making the radio station, “if we have a radio station in my community, the people can be able to debate about issues affecting our community and Sierra Leone as a whole.”


“People normally call me DJ Focus in my community because I believe if you focus you can do invention perfectly,” he said in a video that profiled him, produced by @radical.media for the THNKR YouTube channel.

 

Ubuntu: I am because we are and because we are, you are. It is a statement of being.

The Grio: Kelvin Doe, the Whiz Kid from Sierra Leone

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Hello BSFS Graphic Artists, Artists,

This series of conferences specifically examines the intersection of Astronomy/Sky and the Arts. In the past this has included musical compositions, paintings, literature, you can see the range. 

Unfortunately I will not be attending! But I encourage BSFS members to submit their inspired works for consideration. Sending in an abstract or a sample is free! 

See http://www.amnh.org/insap-viii

INSAP VIII "City of Stars"
The Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena Conference, July 7–12, 2013
All the ways our exploration of the cosmos has inspired communities and cultures that would not otherwise do so, to think about the universe.

Hayden Planetarium
Rose Center for Earth and Space
American Museum of Natural History 
Central Park West at 79th Street
New York, NY 10024
USA

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Nelson George has an article in the New York Times today titled: 

Still Too Good, Too Bad or Invisible

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/movies/awardsseason/black-characters-are-still-too-good-too-bad-or-invisible.html?emc=eta1&_r=0

The following paragraph pretty much captures why I make documentary films and write science fiction. I would only add "Are they scientists?"

"Looking at these Oscar-nominated films, we should ask: Are black characters given a real back story and real-world motivations? Are they agents of their own destiny or just foils for white characters? Are they too noble to be real? Are they too ghetto to be flesh and blood? Do any of these characters point to a way forward?" 

Nelson George writes about four movies that feature African American actors: Flight, Django Unchained, Lincoln, and Beasts of the Southern Wild. The Oscar nominees are Denzel Washington, Jamie Foxx, and Quvenzhané Wallis, however George discusses many more than the three characters these played. He is searching for character complexity and only finds it in Wink, the father in Beasts of the Southern Wild. 

I'm not so particular a critic, I like to see African Americans playing all types of characters reflecting the true diversity within the African American community (and our scientists). I expect there to always be another film so no one film MUST carry the weight of the entire African American community.

 

Let's keep writing complex characters in our science fiction and maybe, just maybe, they will find their way into a feature film. 

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Melba Roy, NASA Mathematician, 1964.

Melba Roy, NASA Mathmetician, at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland in 1964.

Thanks to National Society of Black Physicist member and fellow USCS Alum Dr. Anouk Shambrook for pointing me to Melba Roy an African American woman that was part of the USA space efforts! I tracked the original post to here: http://vintageblackglamour.tumblr.com/post/43006851970/melba-roy-nasa-mathmetician-at-the-goddard-space.

In the post Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein another NSBP member is mentioned. 

Melba Roy was head of the group that tracked the Echo satellites. The picture is courtesy of NASA.

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Just Saying...


[2006]: Inside Higher Ed reported this week that a new document from the National Science Foundation says that historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) educate a disproportionate share of African American women and men who go on to earn Ph.D.s in the STEM fields (STEM = science, technology, engineering, and math.) In some ways, this is not surprising: given the data we have about the greater percentages of graduate degrees among women who attended women’s colleges, it would make a lot of sense that African American students who have the opportunity to study in an environment where they are typical instead of exceptional, and where they can work with a variety of different faculty of color, would be more encouraged and better supported in their ambitions.1
College of Arts and Sciences

 

North Carolina A&T State University has been ranked in the top tier of national universities in several categories in the 2013 U.S. News & World Report college rankings.

The national news magazine released its annual list of rankings in early September. N.C. A&T earned top 25 honors amongst the nation’s top online programs in the area of information technology. Online IT faculty ranked No. 7 in faculty credentials and training while the program ranked Nos. 15 and 19 in student services and technology and student engagements and accreditation, respectively.2

 

1. Historyann | HBCUs tops in Making African American PhDs
2. A&T News | A&T Ranked in Top Third National Universities

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