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My expression of PRIDE for the BLACK PANTHER MOVIE are the Promotional posters of the characters within the Movie. Soon I am getting each of these enlarged and posted on a wall or two in the crib. Just wish I had a LARGER crib with more walls!
They can be found during black history month at horroraddicts.net
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| Image Source: Debate dot org |
Topics: Commentary, Existentialism, Politics
Abstract from Oxford Handbooks:
“Sources and methods” is a term used to describe the practice of intelligence collection and analysis. Intelligence sources and the nature of information obtained vary. Intelligence sources may include information obtained from espionage, images obtained by satellites, intercepted communications, and publicly available media reporting. The nature of information may vary from purloined documents to the “signature” of ship's radar. The term methods, which is synonymous with tradecraft, pertains to the techniques used by operations officers and analysts to carry out their duties. Methods may include social-science methodologies, computer-based analytic tools, maintaining secretive communications and so on. Sources and methods of intelligence agencies are heavily guarded because it comprise of the ways the information is collected and analyzed can give opponents opportunity to assess the capabilities and interests of their enemy. Intelligence agencies surround their sources and methods in a cloak of secrecy because they are significant in the success of ongoing and future operations and analysis. In the advent of globalization, the barriers are dissolved between foreign and domestic violence activities including the way local and national law enforcement and intelligence agencies work. Distinctions between private and public interests and entities are also blurred as activities in the public and private sphere interact to shape domestic and international threats. Apart from globalization, the advent of information revolution also changed the practice and study of intelligence. Policymakers, analysts, and scholars are now confronted with a torrent of data and information as well as the virtual realities of “cyberspace”. New collective workspaces which are empowered by the advancement in communication and computer technologies are also creating new opportunities for collaboration. This article discusses three emerging topics in the study and practice of intelligence in such a way to illustrate the emerging sources and methods of intelligence studies. These new emerging topics are: the intelligence for homeland security, the concept of collective intelligence, and the application of intelligence and warning methodologies to mitigate risk.
We can no longer call them the party of "family values." That title went out the window with the Birther Movement cum Orly Tate cum the 45th occupant-Manchurian-candidate of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. That title went when quite a few of them PROUDLY displayed a bumper sticker quoting Psalms 109: "8 Let his days be few; [and] let another take his office. 9 Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. 10 Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek [their bread] also out of their desolate places." about the p-grabber's black predecessor. That title went with justifying an avalanche of lies that impugns the so-called "faith" of white evangelicals, from the p-grabbing serial adulterer that has his third wife pissed with him at the state of disunion because he paid off a porn star to hide their secret backgammon games! Which is kind of ironic, since she was his affair on his second wife, and his SECOND wife was his affair on his first wife! Talk about not getting-a-clue. Kind of makes you NOT stand on the applause line "family and faith." There's only so much felgercarb even a possibly illegal Slovenian can take. From his warm-up act at the Vice President Debate to the Olympic-level obfuscations we've endured since January 20, 2017, Pence is the physical embodiment of John 8:44. Millennials may be lost for generations for this laid-bare, abject hypocrisy.
We can thoroughly jettison national security as a bona fide of republicanism. It was way before changing the republican platform in 2016. The same political party that went after their president's* opponent for mishandling classified information in the form of emails on a private server is MISHANDLING CLASSIFIED INFORMATION! The sanctions are not being implemented, even after overwhelming, presidential* veto-proof support in congress. Vlad the impaler is hellbent on repealing the Magnitsky Act, and he has the right stooges in our executive and legislative branches in the government of our shredding republic to do it.
With the release of the Nunes memo, likely on Carter Page that's probably being exploited as an asset (my thought) in a "honey pot" trap, the FBI's hands are tied, and the republican* house knows it. They can't say which area in the memo is true or false because THAT would reveal "sources and methods." Methods like those the traitor Edward Snowden revealed on his work in the NSA (he's conveniently in Russia for "protection"). Sources like HUMINT: human intelligence, meaning spies and informants, behind enemy lines in Afghanistan and Iraq, or allied agents in Russia.
As someone who had to go through an excruciating interview with the-then Defense Intelligence Service over my SF-86 form (the same one the first son-in-law has botched ad nauseum without consequences), that the investigator kept me over 2 HOURS because as the only African American in my Air Training Command class, he couldn't believe I had never smoked weed. "Why should I believe you?" he asked. My answer: "because most of my class would likely have driven into my neighborhood to buy it, going back to their pristine suburbs. Just because I lived there, doesn't mean I used anything!" He said they would personally interview five people and "I'd better be telling the truth." I challenged him to interview ten. I passed my security clearance.
"Sources and methods" was drilled into ALL of us the whole time I held a Top Secret SCIF (special compartmental information facility) clearance in the Air Force. I had to in order to work in Communications for COMSEC (Communications Security) and OPSEC (operations security). I was in during the Cold War, when Vladimir was master spy head of the KGB. It was the difference between winning and losing; the difference between agents and informants for the FBI or the CIA living through an operation...or dying.
I'm incensed as a veteran because a lot of people are about to get killed, and that's not hyperbole.
What American would want to serve their nation when its president* is willing to sacrifice their lives to cover up a possible crime, collusion or espionage? What American would want to serve in the Armed Forces when our elected representatives* (I guess I have to use the asterisk for these yahoos, too) would collude to stop an investigation to protect ONE man and a demographically dwindling party, versus our COUNTRY?
The frightening thing that's likely to happen is a lot of good, experienced people are going to start running for the door, or retiring before being put in harms way by traitorous buffoons. #MAGA should mean: morons are governing America. I can't blame them.
However, you can't GO FUND intelligence services. They take years to build in apparatus and infrastructure and apparently, a few months of septuagenarian bowel-movement tweeting incessantly to deconstruct, along with a feckless congress that hasn't read The Constitution they swore to "protect and defend."
And like a hog fattened for the slaughter, that's when our republic (like Rome) will topple over the cliff, pushed over by a master spy...and his orange puppet.
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| Portrait of Katherine Johnson Credits: NASA |
Topics: African Americans, Diaspora, Diversity, Diversity in Science, History, Women in Science
Date of Birth: August 26, 1918 Hometown: White Sulphur Springs, WV Education: B.S., Mathematics and French, West Virginia State College, 1937 Hired by NACA: June 1953 Retired from NASA: 1986 Actress Playing Role in Hidden Figures: Taraji P. Henson
Being handpicked to be one of three black students to integrate West Virginia’s graduate schools is something that many people would consider one of their life’s most notable moments, but it’s just one of several breakthroughs that have marked Katherine Johnson’s long and remarkable life. Born in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia in 1918, Katherine Johnson’s intense curiosity and brilliance with numbers vaulted her ahead several grades in school. By thirteen, she was attending the high school on the campus of historically black West Virginia State College. At eighteen, she enrolled in the college itself, where she made quick work of the school’s math curriculum and found a mentor in math professor W. W. Schieffelin Claytor, the third African American to earn a PhD in Mathematics. Katherine graduated with highest honors in 1937 and took a job teaching at a black public school in Virginia.
When West Virginia decided to quietly integrate its graduate schools in 1939, West Virginia State’s president Dr. John W. Davis selected Katherine and two male students as the first black students to be offered spots at the state’s flagship school, West Virginia University. Katherine left her teaching job, and enrolled in the graduate math program. At the end of the first session, however, she decided to leave school to start a family with her husband. She returned to teaching when her three daughters got older, but it wasn’t until 1952 that a relative told her about open positions at the all-black West Area Computing section at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics’ (NACA’s) Langley laboratory, headed by fellow West Virginian Dorothy Vaughan. Katherine and her husband, James Goble, decided to move the family to Newport News to pursue the opportunity, and Katherine began work at Langley in the summer of 1953. Just two weeks into Katherine’s tenure in the office, Dorothy Vaughan assigned her to a project in the Maneuver Loads Branch of the Flight Research Division, and Katherine’s temporary position soon became permanent. She spent the next four years analyzing data from flight test, and worked on the investigation of a plane crash caused by wake turbulence. As she was wrapping up this work her husband died of cancer in December 1956.
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| The Greensboro Four |
Topics: African Americans, Diaspora, Diversity, Diversity in Science, History, Women in Science
I will be here. It will be an honor to be in their great presence.
Greensboro, N.C. (Jan. 8, 2018) - In continued honor of the legacy of Jibreel Khazan (Ezell Blair Jr.), Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil and David Richmond -- better known collectively as the A&T Four, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University will hold the 58th Annual February One Sit-In Commemorative program “Conscious for the Culture.” The university will welcome White House correspondent and CNN political analyst April Ryan as keynote speaker for the event scheduled for 8 a.m., Thursday, Feb. 1, in the Alumni Foundation Event Center.
Similar to the leadership and courageous acts of the A&T Four’s protest against segregated lunch counters (which ignited a national sit-in movement) and corresponding segregation laws of the 1960s, Ryan has been a leader among her peers. She stands alone as the only black female reporter covering urban issues from the White House, a position she’s held for American Urban Radio Networks since the Clinton era.
Ryan has served on the board of the prestigious White House Correspondents Association, one of only three African Americans to do so in the association’s over 100-year history. Even in the face of often pointed criticism and ostracism, she continues to champion the cause and agenda of minorities.
NC A&T State University to Commemorate 58th Sit-In; Award-Winning Journalist April Ryan to Keynote
Glad to see this project being a little less American and more a AFRICAN DIASPORIAN musical project. I cannot wait to hear. So is the BLACK PANTHER movie the catalyst that ignites the SPIRIT toward unitfying the children and lost children of the African continent worldwide? This project drops 2/9/2018
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| Ali Kaya, Nature |
Topics: African Americans, Civil Rights, Commentary, Cosmology, Martin Luther King
As we are juxtaposed between the celebration of Dr. King and the advent of African American History Month, post the (I did not watch) SOTU address from a president* that thinks "hole," not "house" was the insulting part of his epithet, it's healthy to be reminded this dark, fascistic and authoritarian march is global. The world is smaller with more people in it competing for resources, and there are those reptilian brains that wax nostalgic for an idyllic past that never was, but determined to take us all back there, wherever and whatever "there" is in their Gollum minds. It is also sobering to remind ourselves that democratic republics are both fragile and without proper care: fleeting. Dr. Kaya's courage should inspire us all.
Atlantic Journal Constitution: Letter From Birmingham Jail (cultural reference to post title).
Thousands of academics in Turkish universities stand accused of either having supported terrorism or the attempted coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in July 2016. Theoretical physicist Ali Kaya is one of them. He was arrested three months after the failed coup and held for more than a year before his trial took place. On 20 December, a court declared him guilty of being a member of a terrorist organization and sentenced him to six years of imprisonment — but released him early owing to the time he had already served in prison while awaiting trial. Kaya says that he is innocent and is appealing against the verdict. In the meantime, he has been suspended from his academic post, and he has yet to learn whether his university, Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, plans to fire him or to await the outcome of the appeal.
Kaya says that while in prison, he kept his sanity by continuing his work on fundamental topics in cosmology. He wrote three research papers during his incarceration, on topics including inflation theory and cosmological perturbation theory. After his release, he posted the papers on the preprint server arXiv. Each contains a footnote that he dedicates to his friends in jail “who made my stay bearable at hell for 440 days between 7.10.2016 and 20.12.2017. I am also indebted to the colleagues who show support in these difficult times.”
Nature interviewed Kaya by Skype about his experiences.
What access did you have to research materials while in the prison?
Of course there was no Internet. Nothing digital — not even a pocket calculator — was allowed. No books could be brought in. Nothing in a foreign language was allowed in the jail. One of my students Google-translated some research papers for me into Turkish, but they were held back on suspicion that they included secret codes — presumably because they contained so many equations.
I worked up the research ideas I had already in my head before my arrest. Of course, it took much longer than it would have done if I had been at my computer. I had to start from basic formulae and derive things myself.
But time is something you have plenty of in prison. OK, I could not do ground-breaking work, but I think the papers I produced are solid, and I expect to get them published in good journals.
Science behind bars: How a Turkish physicist wrote research papers in prison, Alison Abbott, Nature
Another post Black Panther must see for me is Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, THE DISNEY MOVIE. I must confess that this project has my heart for two reasons. First is the FACT that this book got me to literally READ on the level of pure enjoyment as a elementary school child. It was my FIRST Science Fiction story ever, was relatable as the main character was MY age at the time. A book was assigned to me by a teacher, a black woman named Mrs. Garrett whom at the time was one of the many teachers (Black) at my school in Oakland, Cali whom I believe took her job for teaching young black children SERIOUSLY. She had a reading list to which we were given a choice of many books at 3rd/4th grade level and I out the blue choose this one just to get her off my back. After forcing the first few chapters, my attention begin to focus when the group encountered the tesseract. I read the entire book in a week and it inspired me to begin to WRITE my own Sci Fi story.
SECOND reason I must see this is that it is directed by "QUEEN SUGAR" director Ava DuVernay my film shero. This is her time showing her hand at a pure IMAGINARY direction which looks better than AMAZING YO! I am used to her work with the REAL and the TRUE which has (to me) all been cinematically OUTSTANDING. Now this YO! Is 2018 going to be the year I have to create a budget for MUST SEE movies? At least in the first three month is looks like..... Enjoy
Oh Yeah FYI: "A Wrinkle in Time", the winner of the 1963 Newbery Medal, celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2013 and continues to thrive. It holds the ranking by many critics as one of the most frequently banned novels of all time.
FYI
http://blackrockcoalition.org/gigs/screening/
Hurry, this invite opens to the public on January 24, 2018
How to get your seats...
We're so excited about the Black Panther movie
that we rented out a theater just for BRC friends & fam.
Before we open the floodgates & invite e'rybody on our e-list,
we're offering 1st shot at seats to BRC members.
The theater only holds 100, so reserve yours today.
$20 per seat (doesn't include $20 food & drink minimum).
Be one of the first 50 to reserve a seat
and get a BRC + BuddhaBug Records Swag Bag.
Followed by a panel moderated by GREG TATE + special guests.
LIMITED SPACE, RESERVE YOUR SEATS NOW.
Click to Reserve
A Collaboration Between the Black Rock Coalition
& BuddhaBug Records Artist Dope Sagittarius
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| Image Source: Movie Pilot. Where's a benevolent Kryptonian when you need him? |
Topics: Existentialism, Nuclear Power, Politics, Star Trek
One of the premises of Star Trek is we'll overcome our technological infancy, our myriad differences with one another, and somewhat Pollyannish: nuclear war. That we'll survive - in the spirit of the Drake Equation - not just long enough to communicate, but to become a space-faring species.
Some of that optimism has a limit: a 280-character limit.
The president* can launch a thermonuclear first strike or counterstrike presently without any consultation with Congress. A relic of the Cold War with the former Soviet Union, speed and efficiency was encouraged when we had more rational actors in possession of the nuclear football. It takes about 5 minutes for ICBMs; 15 minutes for submarine launched missiles to be deployed once the order is given. In the event of negative findings from the Mueller investigation, he could literally have "nothing to lose." There are no calling these "dogs of war" back once they're off-the-porch.
The world moved closer to an existential catastrophe this year as the threat of nuclear warfare escalated, bringing the symbolic Doomsday Clock two minutes away from midnight, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists said Thursday.
The move of the Doomsday Clock to two minutes away from midnight, the symbolic time at which the planet meets a world-ending disaster, represents a 30-second jump from last year. It is the closest the planet has been to midnight since 1953 when the U.S. and the Soviet Union were testing hydrogen bombs.
“To call the world’s nuclear situation dire is to understate the danger and its immediacy,” said Rachel Bronson, president of Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
The Nuclear 'Doomsday Clock' Is the Closest to Midnight It's Been Since the Cold War, TIME
Yeah As you guessed with this posting that I am a MECHA HEAD and Love Monster Movies.. I was a GODZILLA Nerd. Well my favorite NEW movie of all time will hit the screen in March with my boi JOHN BOYEGA, just after get over my BLACK PANTHER fix. Seems like a winner since John is playing the son of IDRIS ELBA's character in PR1.
I have included a few STILLS for the movie so you can see why my nerdy behind is so STOKED! And for ALL you haters... Just keep it pushin Please.
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| Minjeong Cha, an author of the research article, holds up a sample of the gel infused with chiromagnetic nanoparticles. Photo: Joseph Xu, Michigan Engineering, Communications & Marketing. |
Topics: Electromagnetism, Optical Physics, Nanotechnology
Magnetic nanoparticles with chiral distortions in their crystal lattice provide an unprecedented degree of control over circularly polarized light. The effect, which was demonstrated by the nanoparticles embedded in a transparent gel and exposed to a magnetic field, can be understood thanks to careful consideration of the magnetic field of the photons, in addition to the familiar electric field.
Where magnetism and chirality (a lack of mirror symmetry) overlap there are often intriguing discoveries. These two concepts are fundamental to the advancement of spintronics, chiral catalysis and magneto-optics. Much of the research in this field aims to enhance the interaction between electrons in matter and the (often ignored) magnetic field of a photon.
A recent and very successful example of such an attempt is the work from Nicholas Kotov and collaborators in the University of Michigan, USA, and the Federal University of São Carlos, Brazil. The researchers created a material comprised of magnetic nanoparticles (NPs) with a chiral or twisted crystal structure encased in a transparent gel. This chiromagnetic gel responds to circularly polarized light with a sensitivity 10 times greater than previously observed in similar non-magnetic composites.
Distorted nano-magnets for agile polarization control
Lauren Barr is a PhD student contributor to nanotechweb.org.
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| Sacred Cow Disease - JKS Talent Network |
Topics: Civics, Commentary, Existentialism, Politics, Research, STEM
As a species, most of what we have come to know as science and develop its different branches as well as engineering comes from our hunter-gatherer ancestors in Africa or Pangaea, dependent on the state of our sphere's geological evolution.
I'm an anomaly as a graduate student. I'm "non-traditional" in that I started this program on my 55th birthday (my children are adult men). I'm an African American having majored in physics and again majoring in a STEM field (Nanoengineering), which is interesting in a place LIKE America.
America: Where it's important to "debate" the efficacy of creationism vs. evolution; whether the universe is 6,000 or 13.8 billion (at least as far as our telescopes can currently see) years old. Where Bill Nye the Science Guy can have a public "debate" with Ken Ham of the morbidly performing (monetarily) Creation Museum. Where the COSMOS reboot can have online trolls and will likely have them again in March. Where anti-vaccine advocates finally got a president* that will let them affect the CDC notion of herd immunity and might kick off the next pandemic, courtesy of the USA.
AS RESEARCH FOR his latest novel, The Quantum Spy, Washington Post reporter David Ignatius spoke with some of the world’s leading experts on quantum computing, which led him to believe that we may see a working quantum computer in the next five years.
“Initially what I would hear back from technologists was, ‘it’s fascinating if it works,’ and I hear more now ‘fascinating when it works,'” Ignatius says in Episode 291 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. “There’s a sense that these problems probably can be solved.”
The downside is that a quantum computer would be the cyber warfare equivalent of a nuclear bomb, which means the US government is often reluctant to let foreign scientists work on the most promising research. It’s a system that can slow down progress due the lack of ‘smart Americans,’ as one character in the book puts it.
“The number of American citizens who can do very high-end research who also can easily get security clearances is limited,” Ignatius says. “The ability of our schools to produce American students at a world-class level, that’s an important national challenge.” [1]
...lack of 'smart Americans'...ouch!
I'm a product of Sputnik scaring the bejesus out of America and a slew of money was put in public education...fast, to catch us up with the Russians (you know, back-in-the-day when we weren't colluding with them to topple our federal republic). The country invested in education from a republican president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and continued through successive administrations regardless of party affiliation, the ONE thing at the time we could all agree on as a country.
Now, stupidity is a virtue. To be too smart is a liability, especially if you're female, a minority or other-than white Anglo Saxon Protestant (WASP). It's the equivalent of barring slaves from reading the Bible (the whole "setting the captives free" thing), and some actively discouraging their fellows from the dangers of learning. And just for icing on the cake, the previous year's Doomsday estimate of two one half minutes has been moved up by 30 seconds: it is now two minutes to midnight. As a former high school nerd that used to be terrorized by the football athletes and the Barbie-perfect cheerleaders, it appears the "beautiful people" have won, dangerously dumb as they are.
It also appears fear - a great motivator sales agents, especially in the home security industry use to the HILT - has triumphed. Part of the attraction to Creationism, Intelligent Design and "Alternative Facts" is that actual facts shake strongly held beliefs that humans tend to challenge to right their cognitive dissonance. It never occurs that the text of several cultures was limited by the technology of the times. For example, "cattle on a thousand hills" is a specific reference to enormous size, usually associated with wealth. The etymology of the word "million" did not enter the lexicon until circa the 14th Century. From the link at Etymology online: "The ancient Greeks had no name for a number greater than ten thousand, the Romans for none higher than a hundred thousand. "A million" in Latin would have been decies centena milia, literally "ten hundred thousand." To say to an ancient culture: "King David was a millionaire and his son Solomon was a billionaire" would have had no meaning to the audience at that time.
A great analogy by Joe Madison on Sirius XM used a petri dish to describe culture: when you place a bacterial sample in the petri, a culture usually grows, his point being whatever you encourage will eventually manifest. Again, when you deal in nonsense, you get it. I'd be greatly confused as a young person in public education now. WHAT exactly do you want me to study? based on what our culture currently values: actors, athletes, charlatan ministers fleecing their flocks with promises of spiritual "trickle-down" wealth; not doctors, scientists or engineers. The careers of the future necessarily involves hard, demonstrable FACTS. International industries will follow the brain power - away from us, thus other places will see a rise in their middle classes while ours struggles, stumbles and falters ever downward. The peddling of the alternative type [of facts] is undermining our trust in institutions like our intelligence services and our government. Anarchy only sounds noble, and it doesn't eventually work itself out to Nirvana. It's usually - by the evidence of historical, documented FACTS - a failed state.
"One of the things taken out of the curriculum was civics," Zappa went on to explain. "Civics was a class that used to be required before you could graduate from high school. You were taught what was in the U.S. Constitution. And after all the student rebellions in the Sixties, civics was banished from the student curriculum and was replaced by something called social studies. Here we live in a country that has a fabulous constitution and all these guarantees, a contract between the citizens and the government – nobody knows what's in it...And so, if you don't know what your rights are, how can you stand up for them? And furthermore, if you don't know what's in the document, how can you care if someone is shredding it?" [2], [3]
[1] Why Aren’t There More Smart Americans? Stephen Voss, Wired "Geeks Guide to the Galaxy"
[2] "Notes From the Dangerous Kitchen," a review and a quote from Frank Zappa, Critics at Large
[3] America's Best Selling Pocket Constitution Book, Constitution Facts dot com
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| The image on the left shows the apparatus and the 3D image of a man. The trapping and illumination light emerges from the lens at the left of the man. The image on the right is a close-up of the 3D image of the man. (Courtesy: D E Smalley et al/Nature) |
Topics: Holograms, Optical Physics, Science Fiction, Star Wars
A technique to create multi-coloured 3D images that can share space with physical objects has been developed by researchers in the US. The work is at an early stage, but it offers several potential advantages over currently available techniques for creating 3D images such as holography.
The technology used by the android R2D2 to project the 3D video footage of Princess Leia pleading "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi: you're my only hope" into thin air was never explained in the film Star Wars. Scientists, however, have invented several technologies capable of producing the impression of 3D images. The best known, and most widely used is holography, in which a 2D surface sends light to the eye in such a way that the brain reconstructs this light as having come from a 3D object. Unfortunately, this optical illusion only works for a fairly narrow range of viewing angles: "Holograms and displays like them are based on 2D modulating surfaces that have to be looked at like a TV screen," explains Daniel Smalley of Brigham Young University in Utah, "You always have to be looking into the screen to see it."
In a volumetric display, however, the light originates from where your eye sees the image. Such displays have several advantages over holograms. As the image does not rely on an optical illusion, for example, it is unaffected by the viewing angle. "You can be lying flat on the ground and you can see what's coming up out of the display," says Smalley. Furthermore, it is (at least in principle) possible to wrap the image around the viewer or another physical object.
Display creates 3D images that can be viewed from many angles, Tim Wogan, Physics World
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| Credit: Mark Ross |
Topics: Astrophysics, Black Holes, Cosmology, General Relativity
How could the oldest black holes have grown so big so early in the universe?
Imagine the universe in its infancy. Most scientists think space and time originated with the big bang. From that hot and dense start the cosmos expanded and cooled, but it took a while for stars and galaxies to start dotting the sky. It was not until about 380,000 years after the big bang that atoms could hold together and fill the universe with mostly hydrogen gas. When the cosmos was a few hundred million years old, this gas coalesced into the earliest stars, which formed in clusters that clumped together into galaxies, the oldest of which appears 400 million years after the universe was born. To their surprise, scientists have found that another class of astronomical objects begins to appear at this point, too: quasars.
Quasars are extremely bright objects powered by gas falling onto supermassive black holes. They are some of the most luminous things in the universe, visible out to the farthest reaches of space. The most distant quasars are also the most ancient, and the oldest among them pose a mystery.
To be visible at such incredible distances, these quasars must be fueled by black holes containing about a billion times the mass of the sun. Yet conventional theories of black hole formation and growth suggest that a black hole big enough to power these quasars could not have formed in less than a billion years. In 2001, however, with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, astronomers began finding quasars that dated back earlier. The oldest and most distant quasar known, which was reported last December, existed just 690 million years after the big bang. In other words, it does not seem that there had been enough time in the history of the universe for quasars like this one to form.
Many astronomers think that the first black holes—seed black holes—are the remnants of the first stars, corpses left behind after the stars exploded into supernovae. Yet these stellar remnants should contain no more than a few hundred solar masses. It is difficult to imagine a scenario in which the black holes powering the first quasars grew from seeds this small.
To solve this quandary, a decade ago some colleagues and I proposed a way that seed black holes massive enough to explain the first quasars could have formed without the birth and death of stars. Instead these black hole seeds would have formed directly from gas. We call them direct-collapse black holes (DCBHs). In the right environments, direct-collapse black holes could have been born at 104 or 105 solar masses within a few hundred million years after the big bang. With this head start, they could have easily grown to 109 or 1010 solar masses, thereby producing the ancient quasars that have puzzled astronomers for nearly two decades.
The question is whether this scenario actually happened. Luckily, when the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launches in 2019, we should be able to find out.
The Puzzle of the First Black Holes, Priyamvada Natarajan, Scientific American
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| Mars fission power system concept in the Kilopower project is shown in this undated NASA handout photo released on January 9, 2018. Courtesy NASA/Handout via REUTERS |
Topics: Mars, NASA, Nuclear Power, Planetary Science, Space Exploration
...or vice-versa. This was alluded to in the novel and movie The Martian.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Initial tests in Nevada on a compact nuclear power system designed to sustain a long-duration NASA human mission on the inhospitable surface of Mars have been successful and a full-power run is scheduled for March, officials said on Thursday.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration and U.S. Department of Energy officials, at a Las Vegas news conference, detailed the development of the nuclear fission system under NASA’s Kilopower project.
Months-long testing began in November at the energy department’s Nevada National Security Site, with an eye toward providing energy for future astronaut and robotic missions in space and on the surface of Mars, the moon or other solar system destinations.
A key hurdle for any long-term colony on the surface of a planet or moon, as opposed to NASA’s six short lunar surface visits from 1969 to 1972, is possessing a power source strong enough to sustain a base but small and light enough to allow for transport through space.
“Mars is a very difficult environment for power systems, with less sunlight than Earth or the moon, very cold nighttime temperatures, very interesting dust storms that can last weeks and months that engulf the entire planet,” said Steve Jurczyk, associate administrator of NASA‘s Space Technology Mission Directorate.
U.S. tests nuclear power system to sustain astronauts on Mars, Will Dunham, Reuters Science
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| Creativity-Onliine.com: Super Bowl Ad |
Topics: Commentary, Existentialism, Politics
“We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Tomorrow...is the anniversary of what would be known first as "the carnage" after his inauguration speech, then accented with "alternative news" as truth itself was made malleable, "fake news" as he attacked the fourth estate; feverish, septuagenarian bowel movement tweets (at least he's regular) and "covfefe."
“Welcome to the dawn of a new, unified Republican government,” said a beaming Paul Ryan, just over a week after Donald Trump’s improbable 2016 win delivered control of the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives to the GOP for the first time in over a decade. Eyebrows arched in an expression composed of equal parts glee and incredulity, the House speaker allowed himself a brief moment of public self-reflection. “It feels really good to say that, actually.” [1]
One year later...we're deep in the throws of an investigation on Russian interference in our elections, two indictments (more coming) and two confessions from a former national security advisor with ties to Russia and Turkey and a drunk, blabbing campaign aid. The stock market looks GREAT, likely artificially propped up by supporters of the president* that want it (and him) to at least look good before the next bottom falls out. 1929...1987...2008...we've been here before. We're hours as of this posting from a government shutdown...a shutdown after a year of "unified republican government." We're now here because of a mythical "wall" that Mexico isn't going to pay for.
One year later, that unified Republican government is on the verge of imploding. Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have been unable to pass a regular appropriations bill for 2018, relying instead on a series of continuing resolutions since September to keep the government’s doors open for a few weeks at a time. Now, however, both parties' appetite for these stopgaps has disappeared. Barring a last-minute breakthrough, on Friday at midnight, a government controlled by the same political party will shut itself down for the first time in modern American history. [1]
McClatchy News now reports the FBI is looking into links between the NRA and the Kremlin. [2] From the changing of the Republican platform, the daily violation of the Emoluments Clause; money laundering to his dubious dealings with mobsters and oligarchs, the NRA funneling Russian oligarch rubbles to the Kremlin's preferred candidate and the United States of America is looking a lot more like a criminal enterprise in a Dystopia rather than a federal republic.
The NRA and the KKK have a shared history:
Within months of the surrender at Appomattox, recalcitrant white racists committed to the reestablishment of white supremacy determined to take those guns away from blacks. States in the South passed the Black Codes, which barred the freedmen from possessing guns. Racists quickly learned, however, why gun control is not always as effective as planned: You can draw up any law you like, but people don’t necessarily comply. To enforce these laws, racists began to form posses that would go out at night in large groups, generally wearing disguises, and terrorize black homes, seizing every gun they could find. These groups took different names depending on locale: the Black Cavalry in Alabama, the Knights of the White Camellia in Louisiana, the Knights of the Rising Sun in Texas. In time, they all came to be known by the moniker of one such posse begun in Pulaski, Tennessee after the war: the Ku Klux Klan. [3]
Racism and white supremacy has been our national shame. What we have buried and ignored, others beyond our shores have exploited to their advantage. It is quite American, like Facebook and social media, Putin the puppet master used our divisions to storm the breech of our republic. Apparently, Forbes magazine is a tool of sadism and masochism. The "golfer-in-chief" is going to Mar-a-Largo at a current count of 91 trips as a new Rome burns. The shutdown is looming, "United States" officially is an oxymoron and "they (the Russians) are laughing...at us."
A-M-E-R-I-C-A (move the I to the front)
I-A-M-E-R-C-A (move the E to the end)
I-A-M-R-C-A-E (switch the C and A positions)
I-A-M-R-A-C-E [4]
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man he won't notice you picking his pocket. Hell, give him someone to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." President Lyndon B. Johnson with Bill Moyers on a tour of the south. [5]
[1] Paul Ryan's Unified Republican Government Is Coming Apart at the Seams, Jay Willis, GQ
[2] FBI investigating whether Russian money went to NRA to help Trump, Peter Stone, Greg Gordon, McClatchy News
[3] Gun Control Is “Racist”? The NRA Would Know, Adam Winkler, New Republic
[4] The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors, Dr. Francis Cress Welsing
[5] "Lowest white man" related links:
Did LBJ Advocate: 'Convince the Lowest White Man He's Better Than the Best Colored Man'? Snopes
The Lowest White Man, Charles M. Blow, New York Times
How LBJ Foresaw the Election of Donald Trump, Derek Beres, Big Think
