BLOGS

Image Source: American Association for the Advancement of Science (link below)

Topics: Diversity, Diversity in Science, Economy, Education, Science, STEM, Research

From Forbes: "Why You Can't Ignore Millennials," Dan Schawbel

AAAS: Collaborative Spirit of Millennial Generation May Benefit Big Science, Earl Lane

       If you guys read my previous blog on File Organization. You will clearly see how unorganized and scattered my files were. I had 133 Transportation  graphics. I did the file and pile method where I will pile my files and look for it later. That is okay for an amateur who is doing personal projects for friends and family members. It is not an okay practice when working among professionals and corporate clients.  

     If you are in the creative field where you are a producer; writer; graphic, and motion designer; animator; video editor; website builder,etc. This blog is for you. I had 864 files of Illustrator Vectors that were scattered out in just one folder that were not identifiable. Out of 864 were the 133 Transportation graphics you seen in the previous blog.  I finally got it organized where I can quickly identify and find what I am looking for. Putting these files in categories makes a big difference.

     In this picture you can see the preview pane in the left showing the folders I created. Next to the preview pane you can see how I put the 133 Transportation graphics in categories.  The folder I created was VEHICLE EXT. Under that category I created sub categories and folders.  With vehicles you have to be specific according to their model and weight. 

       The problem was I was naming them common names such as Cars and Trucks.  When file naming the vehicles Cars 1; Car 2; Car 95; Luxury Super Car;  I was  doing a keyword shortcut so I can search easily search it. When I was trying to find a specific car model. I went from Arkansas to Japan to find it. It took at 10 minutes or more to go find  the right car model I wanted to use in a design.

     It was frustrating going through a pile of files with the name Car at the end of it to find the right one. I realized it was time to put this vehicle models in categories and be as descriptive as possible. I created 11 folders with their sub categories within that folder. The key to better computer file organization for creative people is the method Category and Find.

       The Category and Find method will help you to identify your files easily. You can find the folder associated with those files easily than to find scattered files with no categories.  Take an extra three to four hours to organize your files using this method.  You don't want to wait to get on team projects and not being able to deliver because of files disorganization. 

        In my next blog if you are working on multiple projects and you have more than 6,000 files.  Be sure to check out my next blog called Projects and Non Projects.

This is the first part of our effort to build a base of Black Businesses who are willing to work with a Black Owned and Operated Media outlet dedicated to building the Black Community!!! Please tag and share it with anyone you know who has a book to promote!

So here is the deal we will offer to Authors in order to promote their books via our Black College Sports Network. Starting the weekend of Sept. 5th we will be broadcasting live from some of the top HBCU football games in the country. What do you do: Pay $100 and provide a standing banner to the network. What do you get: 100 60 second radio ads on the V108 radio network of your choice (Gospel, Urban or Talk) for one month (Sept-Nov), interviewed on one of the network talk shows and your banner posted at 3 games of your choice. Game choice is on a first come first serve basis. Game schedule will be released on Saturday August 22nd at our BCSN GameTime season kick off broadcast!

Technology Review: A piece of pig skin glows with laser light after being stimulated by an optical fiber.

MIT Technology Review: Making Pig Fat into a Laser, Karen Weintraub

Image Source: Fig 2, CERN Courier article

Abstract

Physics arXiv: How to Recover a Qubit That Has Fallen Into a Black Hole
Aidan Chatwin-Davies, Adam S. Jermyn, Sean M. Carroll

   If you are looking at this picture and wondering what the hell is this; these are my transportation graphics dealing with airplanes, boats, bus, compact cars, ships, semi trucks,etc. Since I am a graphic designer and working on an animation show; I need my graphics to do these things. I have a total of 133 transportation  graphics and I pile it up in one folder called VEHICLE EXT.

      Looking at this was a nightmare because it was so unorganized and all over the place. How am I going to quickly find what I am looking for? The method I used was pile and find method.. I piled my items in one group and typed keywords to help me find what I was looking for. I did this method for years until I realized I am working with a team of professionals critiquing my organization skills. I realized time will not be on my side when I do professional work for clients.

       I read several article that talks about how amateurs are poor  when it comes to file organization.  They gave me insight how to file organize the professional way. The Pile and Find method is the way I used for a while. This picture is an example of the Pile and Find method. The method I am implementing is Category and Quick Access. I will explain that in the next blog. Don't let your files pile up on you. Start organizing your files ASAP.

The surface of the double-gyroid photonic crystal used by Marin Soljačić and colleagues. A US dime is shown for scale. (Courtesy: Ling Lu)

Physics World: Weyl fermions are spotted at long last, Hamish Johnston

Why The Warrior from Monde? What motivated me to write such a story?

Well, I won’t spoil the novel by going into details, but I’ll hint at things through covering the themes I used to guide my writing. These themes inspired me to write the story in the first place, and they’re the road map for my entire astral warrior series.

Theme one – Physical strength; the joys and struggles of it:

I never played sports as a kid. Well, not for long. I was in ballet for a few months, and I did well. But for some reason, my mother took me out of the classes. That was when I was around eight years old. From then on, I did no sports. I loved physical activity, but I was too shy to perform in front of an audience. I recall going to volleyball tryouts when I was in 9th grade. As I watched the bleachers fill up with spectators, I grew nervous. At some point, before the tryouts even started, I walked out of the gymnasium and went home. I mean, who knew there’d be so many people interested in volleyball?

It turns out, a few years later, I learned that I was a pretty damn good athlete. But, by then, I was a mother.

The moment I left the hospital after having my son, I started working out. I had formulated a game plan while he was still in my womb. I would eat healthy and workout every other day. I did that. And fitness grew on me. When the idea came to me to join the military, I decided that I wanted to be part of The Few and The Proud, The Marines. So, I looked into their fitness standards, binged on military basic training videos, Navy Seal training footage, war movies and books, and I trained hard. I figured that I might as well torture myself at home, so the training instructors wouldn’t have to torture me too much during basic training (BMT). I was right. But it took time for me to reap the benefits.

In 2004, I joined the Air Force. I ditched the idea of the Marines, because as a mother, it was a selfish dream. When I first stepped foot on the concrete training block of one of Lackland’s training squadron buildings, I was singled out. I was nerdy-looking with my black, plastic-framed glasses, and corn-rolled hair. I’m five foot nothing as well. My training instructor loved to pick on me, “Petro, Petro”. Yeah, well, that did not last. Cause I kicked ass on the training field. I beat all the women within the first minute of every run. And I passed more than half of the men. This was standard for me each training day. I did more push ups than the other girls, the same with pull ups. Here I was, a new mom, and I was beating girls who never had a child, and were in sports for years; girls who I expected to surpass me athletically. By week three, my training instructor held off on picking on me. And by week four, the fittest male and I, were separated from our peers. We were placed on a platform with the training instructors, where we performed exercises for the trainees on the cold, concrete below. At the mess hall, training instructors offered me cake and extra food. In the end, I was awarded Top Physical Readiness Female and Warhawk. Yeah, I looked nerdy, but among those in the military, physical strength was well-respected.

So what does all of this have to do with my novel? Read more: http://snpetro.com/2015/07/27/why-this-book/

Topics: Astrobiology, Biology, Existentialism, Philosophy, Science, Research

About Quanta Magazine:

My last beta reader has just completed my manuscript. He loved the book, and wrote a long, glowing review. I'm on a roll right now! So far, I've had no bad reviews (fingers crossed). Below is a snippet of the review from my last beta reader, Steven Farmer a comedian, actor and independent film screen writer. The full review is loaded with spoilers--sorry, can't share that. Not unless you're an agent or publisher. : )

“I’ll start by saying I was completely blown away by your book. I’m impressed by how well made this book is. Not just the story, but the formatting. It’s an easy read. That being said, the story is excellent. It transcends so many genres. You have a small scale story of a soldier kidnapping a woman, and turn into a burgeoning romance novel, and it would have been good enough with just that. Then you added the backdrop of a looming war, the political effects of taking a foreign woman with child, and the sci-fi element. Combined them, and then you took the sci-fi to the next level. Never a dull moment. And it all flows together seamlessly.” - Steven F.

Read the first 25 pages of The Warrior from Monde: https://snpetro.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/first-25.pdf

Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat… On our freelance writing blog, I start reminding writers about the importance of Christmas sales from July onwards. If you’re a Kindle author, you need to create an ebook publishing strategy for the holidays NOW too.

The holidays are the big spending days of the year

Companies small and large make the bulk of their income over the holiday season, and here’s why — people are spending money. Think of all the new Kindles, iPads, phones and other devices which will be given as gifts over the holiday season. Shouldn’t some of your ebooks grace these electronic toys?

I’ll answer that question for you — YES, they should. So start writing.

Ebook publishing: Christmas can be both fun, and profitable

I reminded a student about Christmas ebooks last week, and he complained that he didn’t have any ideas. No ideas? Of course you have ideas. Writers get ideas more easily than pets get fleas.

Here’s what I suggested to start him thinking:

• Nonfiction: Christmas recipes; how to create hand-made paper for gift wraps and cards; recipes for easy Christmas treats you can cook and bake to give as gifts; how to create gorgeous decorations…
• Fiction: a series of ten short stories with a Christmas theme, in a mix of genres, or in a single genre; a mystery novel with Santa Claus as either the sleuth, or the corpse; a romance novel with a hero and heroine who are both alone during the holidays, and…

I’m sure that you can come up with any number of ideas for Christmas-themed ebooks. Make a list now. Use Trello to collect ideas, or my new fave app, Quip. I use Quip as my ideas notebook, accessible to me anywhere, on any device.

Continued...

The artistic concept shows NASA's planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft operating in a new mission profile called K2. Using publicly available data, astronomers may have confirmed K2's first discovery of star with more than one planet. Image Credit: NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T Pyle

JPL: NASA Hosts Media Telecon About Latest Kepler Discoveries

Illustration of the programmable photonic circuit. Photons enter from the left, are processed and exit to the right. The connector at the centre top of the circuit is to the external control system. (Courtesy: Jacques Carolan et al./Science).

Topics: Consumer Electronics, Electrical Engineering, Nanotechnology, Optics, Photonics, Quantum Computer, Semiconductor Technology

Physics World: Physicists build universal optics chip, Edwin Cartlidge

Scientists have created a transistor made up of a single molecule. Surrounded by just 12 atoms, it is likely to be the smallest possible size for a transistor – and the hard limit for Moore’s law.

The transistor is made of a single molecule of phthalocyanine surrounded by ring of 12 positively charged indium atoms placed on an indium arsenide crystal, as revealed in the scientific journal Nature Physics.

Click here for the full story

Image Source: Science Alert

Topics: Boeing, Lasers, Nuclear Fusion, Plasma Physics, Star Trek, Star Wars

Last week, the US Patent and Trademark Office approved an application from Boeing’s Robert Budica, James Herzberg, and Frank Chandler for a laser-and-nuclear driven aeroplane engine.

Science Alert:
Boeing just patented a jet engine powered by lasers and nuclear explosions
Benjamin Zhang, Business Insider

Why Chase Vapor is important: Chase Vapor is a show anyone can enjoy, but it is a show FOR geeks, most specifically kids who don't know they're geeks yet. Being a geek or nerd or whatever your preferred nomenclature is, can be a hard sad lonely time. The world isn't kind to people who don't fit in, especially when you're young. Weirdness is seldom treated as the commodity that it should be. As a weird young kid whose brain was full of 'What ifs' Star Trek was the perfect show. Every episode a 'What if' with a mystery and a moral conundrum thrown in., and ultimately a franchise about good people struggling to figure out what the right thing to do is. A universe where you could be a large gruff crinkly headed alien, and still have a ship full of friends who respected you, or a morphing glob of goo who solved crimes and was uncomfortable in social situations, but still got invited to them. And like any space faring sci-fi show, it gave you the stars. No matter how bad your day was you just had to wait 'til nightfall and look up. To a geek the night sky is no mere black curtain with holes poked in it, every star becomes an adventure just waiting to be imagined.
The outcast, picked on, left out kids of the world need that. The opportunity to turn a speck of distant light into a spark of magic. That spark can turn you from feeling like a loser, to chasing the dream of becoming an astronomer, or an engineer, or an astronaut, or a doctor, or if you're very unlucky a writer. It is vitally important that the next generation believe that they can save the world just like Chase, because they will very likely need to. Right now there is a child sitting somewhere feeling left out cause she isn't really into the pink princess doll she got for Christmas, or feeling confused because no one the same color as him ever seems to save the day in any of the shows he watches. Give them Chase Vapor, Chase Vapor will give them the stars.

The other day I was listening to the podcast The Auteur Cast. In discussing The Empire strikes back, one of the hosts used the character of Lando Calrissian to question why there are so few black people in science-fiction. It’s not a new question. In 1976, on the album Bicentennial Nigger, Richard Pryor observed:

“I don’t like movies when they don’t have no niggers in ‘em. I went to see, I went to see Logan’s Run, right. They had a movie of the future called Logan’s Run. Ain’t no niggers in it. I said, well white folks ain’t planning for us to be here. That’s why we gotta make movies. Then we be in the pictures.”

It would be nice to say that times sure have changed in the 37 years since. There’ve been nineteen black astronauts in NASA, there’s a black president, a black attorney general and countless other black people have attained positions of power or advanced science (it's even fair to say that Neil deGrasse Tyson is a household name). But that's science-fact and in Hollywood science-fiction the future remains so white you’ve gotta wear shades.

Most space operas depict a universe populated by aliens with prosthetic alterations to their eyes and ears and in all shades of skin tone… almost invariably played by white people. If one tries to think of an alien played by a Latino, I can think of Edward James Olmos (in blue contacts) in Battlestar Galactica as Caprican (of Tauron descent) Commander Bill Adama and that’s it (OK, and Tahnee Welch in the Cocoon movies). Ricardo Montalban as Khan doesn’t count because firstly, Khan Noonien Singh was apparently supposed to be South Asian, given his title “Singh,” and a native of earth -- not an extraterrestrial. Speaking of Asian aliens – are there any besides Flash Gordon’s Ming the Merciless, emperor of the planet Mongo (obviously meant to be the face of yellow peril and who was also always played by white actors)?

Continued...

Was watching morning news show, saw a couple of guys riding elongated skate boards carrying poles for balance and momentum. They looked like gondoliers in Venice..........

A skateboard city? Pedestrian sidewalks for walkers, wide streets and long skateboards with one driver and four passengers. It is a striking sight, how folks get on board, get in sync together and ride with a sort of mindless ease. Carrying stuff, reading their ePads and chattering back and forth with effortlessness. There is an apparent laid back attitude as if this mode of transport is preferred, even for the aged.  Wide skateboards carrying goods, delivering food, the precision of the riders to navigate is uncanny. The poles they carry to balance and propel are mostly plain but some are ornate and some are high-tek concealing lights, weaponry and safety items.

There are solitary blade skaters zooming about who often link shoulder to shoulder resembling a centipede to share power and aerodynamics for long trips in high speed lanes.

There is an ultra speed lane that has a unique feature, a crew of pushers. They patrol the byways looking for a flag signal from linked groups to speed-assist. The pusher has motorized wheels and emergency clearance to break riding rules. Pushers keep things moving, quick to point out or teach "good form" which is the law.

As with any city an element that skirts "good form" exists. They are slightly to overtly out of sync, somewhat arrogant and always dress the part. Shorts and tees and the fake tattoos they change like chameleons to hide and allude. They inhabit the skate parks and are all about extending their "terror-tory". They shout "remember the old school when skating was free and off grid?". They hate that boarding has become normalized, yet they don't prefer to walk.

There is always talk of the gliders of the future, no more wheels. Sure water gliders are as old as boats but land gliders? That is the holy grail of boarding. Come on, you got to believe the Silver Surfer is god. Ok, he's a herald of a galaxy eater. Not to worry, NASA has the TUMS project to protect us. So SS can once again be Harold the skateboard rider.   

Mark G. Raizen, Professor of Physics

Topics: Atomic Physics, Optical Physics, Laser Cooling, Nanotechnology, Nobel Prize, Research

UT News:
Keck Foundation Awards $1.5 Million for New Method to Cool Atoms and Student Research

CERN: An illustration of the possible layout of quarks in a pentaquark (Time)

Topics: Large Hadron Collider, LHC, Particle Physics, Quarks, Quantum Mechanics, Theoretical Physics

Physics arXiv:
Observation of J/ψp resonances consistent with pentaquark states in Λ0b→J/ψK−p decays
LHCb collaboration