BLOGS

All Posts (6487)

Sort by

How to Publish on Kindle, Smashwords, & Nook the Easy Way!

Posted by Gerald Dean Rice on April 12, 2013 at 9:34pm

How to Publish

I am very proud to announce my eBook, How to Publish on Kindle, Smashwords, & Nook the Easy Way! will be coming to an e-outlet to you soon.  I don't have a date yet as I'm lining up some promotions (more on that in the coming weeks), but I hope to have a few giveaways.

This is a book for new and first-time self-published authors who don't know how to negotiate the on-line aspects of publishing.  Nook just turned away from the Pubit! website and first-timers might still be trying to go there to no avail.  But the book will also cover where people can go for effective, eye-catching covers and marketing.

I'll be teaching a class on publishing at local libraries that will cover much of the same information.  Hopefully, I can cross a few state lines and do some classes too, but we'll see!

Please like my Facebook page for more information, including future dates where I'll be teaching: http://on.fb.me/14iRWPY

Read more…

If Only...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 11, 2013 at 6:53am
Levitation via superconductivity - Wikipedia

I fear ignorance and greed have tied us to fossil fuels until like the Lorax...you know the rest.

Superconductors can radically change energy management as we know it, but most are commercially unusable because they only work close to absolute zero. A research group at EPFL has now published an innovative approach that may help us understand and use superconductivity at more realistic temperatures.



Superconductors are materials that allow electrical current to flow with no energy loss, a phenomenon that can lead to a vastly energy-efficient future (imagine computers that never overheat). Although most superconductors work close to absolute zero (0°K or -273.15°C), some can operate at higher temperatures (around -135°C) – but how that happens is something of a mystery. Publishing in a recent PNAS article, Fabrizio Carbone’s Laboratory for Ultrafast Microscopy and Electron Scattering (LUMES) at EPFL has developed a method that can shed light on “high-temperature” superconductivity.

 

EPFL: Another step towards free electricity

Read more…

Sadly, Less of This...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 10, 2013 at 6:58pm
NASA Astronaut and Associate Administrator for Education, Leland Melvin, talks to children during STEM event at Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Arlington, Virginia, Jan 13, 2013. CREDIT: NASA/Bill Ingalls  

By now, I hope you've heard that NASA has put into suspended animation many of its educational and non-media public outreach, including their STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education programs. This is until it can review all of those programs.



It sounds like an April Fools' Day joke, doesn't it? Believe me, it’s real. If you hadn't heard about all this, it’s probably because the various news media haven’t covered it much. It seems to me that the American people (and the world) ought to know what's happening.



I understand that NASA was forced to make some cuts in order to abide by the sequester. But, I’d never have thought our space agency would even consider pausing or deleting so much of something so important to the future of NASA and of the United States as education and outreach.



I hope that these cuts are temporary, a way to force Congress into repealing the sequester for NASA. If it's not, and these cuts are made permanent, the world will lose something special — that NASA magic. [Petition Asks White House to Reverse NASA Outreach Sequester Cuts]

 

Space.com: Lack of NASA Outreach Is a Setback to US Science

Read more…

The PAnd0RA Ultimatum: The End has begun as the season finale starts the last week of April!

Posted by H. Wolfgang Porter on April 9, 2013 at 8:25pm

The end has begun as Pandora 001prototype personal android returns in the last week of April! HEPHESTUS CORP's premiere product finds her arrival on the 'Super Earth' AIPOTU is received with unexpected (and unwanted) fanfare. If she thought the attention from her 'fan club' aboard DROMEDARY was obnoxious, she is in for a rude awakening down on the planet! But amidst the throngs of admirer's and would be purchasers of her series, there are shocking revelations which may be more than the Galaxy's unique Manufactured Being can bear. While Pandora shows off why and android like her is worth, the PROMETHEUS GROUP Extraction team hatches a daring plan to board DROMEDARY.  Unknown to all, time is not on their side as the actions of powerful entities force Pandora into making a critical choice in the season finale of, The PAnd0RA Ultimatum EPISODE FIVE: Ultimatum!

Read more…

Survival Strategies...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 9, 2013 at 7:00am
Black Youth Project - yes, I signed the pledge (see link)

I've received permission from the author of this paper to post it on this blog. I'm  an advocate of STEM fields, particularly in underrepresented groups, especially when graduate schools are seeing a decline in enrollment from foreign students; those same foreign scholars seen as a boost to the economy. So can minority students: United States citizens. I'm not against immigration of STEM talented or labor workers, but our students are here: now.

The strategies elucidated are not just applicable for graduate school, but the struggle for education and therefore true freedom, a brighter future and self-empowerment ("knowledge is power"), which is beyond one particular subject, or group. I found it enlightening; I hope you do as well, and I sincerely hope it helps inspire action and the next leaders in science.


Survival Strategies for African American Astronomers and Astrophysicists

JC Holbrook, PhD, Astrophysics

University of California, Los Angeles

Abstract

The question of how to increase the number of women and minorities in astronomy has been approached from several directions in the United States including examination of admission policies, mentoring, and hiring practices. These point to departmental efforts to improve conditions for some of the students which has the overall benefit of improving conditions for all of the students. However, women and minority astronomers have managed to obtain doctorates even within the non-welcoming environment of certain astronomy and physics departments. I present here six strategies used by African American men and women to persevere if not thrive long enough to earn their doctorate. Embedded in this analysis is the idea of ‘astronomy culture’ and experiencing astronomy culture as a cross-cultural experience including elements of culture shock. These survival strategies are not exclusive to this small subpopulation but have been used by majority students, too.

Physics arXiv:
Survival Strategies for African American Astronomers and Astrophysicists

Kickstarter:
Black Sun: Documentary Film about the 2012 Solar Eclipses

Read more…

From One Engineer to Another...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 8, 2013 at 7:55am

 


OK, I'm a Trekkie, but not a "blind faith" Trekkie. On Star Trek: Of Gods and Men...eh. There's a reason things go "straight to video," or the movie given out free if you go to their site. Wait for the Hollywood scriptwriters/producers/etc. The above embed is an inspiring last video of Neil Armstrong and James Doohan ("Scotty") before they both "beamed up."

 

TV Movie Site: Star Trek Renegades

Read more…

NEW TITLE COMING SOON - CARESSA MOON

Posted by Rasheedah Prioleau on April 7, 2013 at 3:33pm

Caressa felt her way into the water, the coolness sweeping over her toes like a welcoming friend.  She stepped gingerly, feeling the smooth, soft squishy sand on the bottom of the lake.  The quiet of nighttime disturbed only by the gentle lapping of the water around her.   She stepped further into its deceptively gentle embrace...

Read more: http://caressamoon.blogspot.com

Read more…

The Sagan Effect...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 7, 2013 at 9:17am


“I find many adults are put off when young children pose scientific questions. Why is the Moon round? the children ask. Why is grass green? What is a dream? How deep can you dig a hole? When is the world’s birthday? Why do we have toes? Too many teachers and parents answer with irritation or ridicule, or quickly move on to something else: ‘What did you expect the Moon to be, square?’ Children soon recognize that somehow this kind of question annoys the grown-ups. A few more experiences like it, and another child has been lost to science. Why adults should pretend to omniscience before 6-year-olds, I can’t for the life of me understand. What’s wrong with admitting that we don’t know something? Is our self-esteem so fragile?”

Read more…

Avoid the Klingons...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 6, 2013 at 8:03am


...and the Daleks, Sith Lords, Romulans, etc.


Researchers at The University of Auckland have proposed a new method for finding Earth-like planets and they anticipate that the number will be in the order of 100 billion using gravitational microlensing, currently used by a Japan-New Zealand collaboration called MOA (Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics) at New Zealand's Mt John Observatory. Their work will appear in the Oxford University Press journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.



Lead author Dr Phil Yock from the University of Auckland's Department of Physics explains that the work will require a combination of data from microlensing and the NASA Kepler space telescope. *"Kepler finds Earth-sized planets that are quite close to parent stars, and it estimates that there are 17 billion such planets in the Milky Way. These planets are generally hotter than Earth, although some could be of a similar temperature (and therefore habitable) if they're orbiting a cool star called a red dwarf."

"Our proposal is to measure the number of Earth-mass planets orbiting stars at distances typically twice the Sun-Earth distance. Our planets will therefore be cooler than the Earth. By interpolating between the Kepler and MOA results, we should get a good estimate of the number of Earth-like, habitable planets in the Galaxy. We anticipate a number in the order of 100 billion."

 

Daily Galaxy: Earth-Like Planets in Universe Now Estimated at 100 Billion

Read more…

Two Cultures...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 5, 2013 at 8:00pm


The Two Cultures is the title of an influential 1959 Rede Lecture by British scientist and novelist C. P. Snow. Its thesis was that "the intellectual life of the whole of western society" was split into the titular two cultures — namely the sciences and the humanities — and that this was a major hindrance to solving the world's problems.

A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare's?

I now believe that if I had asked an even simpler question — such as, What do you mean by mass, or acceleration, which is the scientific equivalent of saying, Can you read? — not more than one in ten of the highly educated would have felt that I was speaking the same language. So the great edifice of modern physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the western world have about as much insight into it as their neolithic ancestors would have had. (Wikipedia)

I'm afraid little has changed. Our pursuit and fear to avoid the "military-industrial-complex" as warned of by President Eisenhower, has evolved into a cottage industry of conspiracy theorists (that don't have to actually prove their musings; just muse and say them), because myriad of the bewildered herd will purchase their books; attend their seminars; hit their blogs/web sites. We pontificate "Big Bang" and "Evolution" in quotes, and add "theory" as if that disqualifies anything in science (Pythagoras and your geometry teacher would be amused), adding to it machinate controversies from creative, magical thinkers. Must be quite a rush to be an official part of the "dumbing down" of a country.

Sadly, it's not just avoidance of science and/or the conclusions of science: in Snow's day, neither the twain met, and both disdained one another as being without value. His third culture: a merger of science and humanities in the human species, and an appreciation for both (pulled off quite well in Star Trek - take your pick of which version), never materialized.

 

In the chapter titled "The Rich and the Poor," he couldn't be more blunt:

 

"Nevertheless, that isn't the main issue of the scientific revolution. The main issue is that the people in the industrialized countries are getting richer, and those in the non-industrialized countries are at best standing still: so that the gap between the industrialized countries and the rest is widening every day. On the world scale this is the gap between the rich and the poor."

 

University of Colorado: The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution

Read more…

life is in the cracks

Posted by Arnold L. Johnson on April 5, 2013 at 9:28am

We call them the lucky ones. They seem to go through life without a hitch. They have perfect attendance and teeth. They do 4 years of college without diversion or perversion or depravity, get a nice job and a house and 2.5 kids, a dog and a ritzy car. How in the heck do you get a .5 kid I don't know. There is something about statistical average persons, the real super humans we all are striving to match up to.

Me, I envy them and sneer at them. I live in the cracks between dreams, with allowances, exceptions, quick fixes, rescues, interventions, set asides, and wits. I use my wits and survival skills. That is when I'm made aware by the statistical average man I'm in a rut. A crack, a crack I have slipped through to where my head is no longer visible to the general public. That is, the paper trail they use to keep tabs on us and the pedigree of the super human race the statistical average man. Oh he is real, he exists alright. When they do the numbers he stands up tall as big as life. He is the conglomerate of every positive thing in our society. He is admired by every seeking forward reaching creature on the planet. Damned be you if you diss them. 

The super ones aren't perfect or so it is said, 99.999% pure + or -.001%. I am always confronted with the plus side one who is a little more than perfect. I just have to ask why. Why are the ruts, the cracks so crowded. Why so few of us stay on top. Momentary elevation of persons become the idol of us all. So and so made it. Then in retrospect, where is so and so today? Did they become one with the super humans of the statistical average? Or did they fall back through the cracks, or into the ruts where the rest of us live?

Read more…

KEEPING UP WITH STAR TREK: RENEGADES and ITS BLACK DIRECTOR!

Posted by Penelope on April 4, 2013 at 8:00am

As a member of BSFS and a self-proclaimed Scifi fan and writer I would encourage everyone to keep their eyes focused on Star Trek: Renegades. The production is moving forward and being produced as a pilot for a web series which seeks to explore the more complex motivations of a renegade Star Fleet crew that will be compelled to take unorthodox and possibly unethical actions to preserve an under attack  Federation. (http://startrekrenegades.com/home/).

Star Trek:Renegade is directed by (one of my personal favorites) Tim Russ, who also directed Star Trek: Of Gods and Men (http://startrekofgodsandmen.com/main/) and who the viewing audience will recognize as Lt. Commander Tuvok from the Star Trek: Voyager series. Opportunities for black individuals in the director's chair don't come along as often as we would like, so when they do we should take note, and if the project appeals to us - we should give it our support, not simply in kickstarter funds but also by being as vocal as we can in sharing information about the project is as many venues as we can conceive of! 

Read more…

ATRAP for Antiprotons...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 4, 2013 at 6:17am
Figure 1: (a) The CPT symmetry can be likened to a mirror that reflects spatial coordinates, flips charge and other additive quantum numbers, and reverses time. To test for cracks in this CPT mirror, physicists check whether the magnetic moment of the proton (left) has the same magnitude as that of the antiproton (right). (Technically, the moments have opposite signs due to the way magnetic moment is defined relative to the spin.) (b) To measure the antiproton’s magnetic moment, the ATRAP Collaboration measures the cyclotron and spin-flip frequencies, fc and fs, respectively. The ratio of these frequencies gives the antiproton’s magnetic moment, μp¯=-fsfcμN, in terms of the nuclear magneton μN.

The ATRAP Collaboration has measured the magnetic moment of the antiproton more precisely than ever before, allowing a new test of CPT symmetry.



Many physical laws are indifferent to distinctions such as left or right and forwards or backwards. On rare occasions, though, a discrepancy shows up, and we say that a symmetry is broken. One symmetry that has so far avoided any signs of breaking is the so-called CPT symmetry, which equates matter and antimatter at a fundamental level. A new test of CPT symmetry involves antiprotons. Specifically, Jack DiSciacca of Harvard University and his colleagues (the ATRAP Collaboration) present the most precise measurement to date of the antiproton magnetic moment [1]. As reported in Physical Review Letters, the results match data on the proton, thus extending CPT ’s shatterproof status for the time being.



Look into a mirror and imagine the world on the other side is not just a reflection, but instead a real physical world. Should nature behave differently in this mirrored world? For decades, most physicists believed the answer was “no.” They assumed that nature was the same in a coordinate system and its mirror image, and they even gave this supposition a name: parity reversal symmetry or P symmetry. However, in 1957, the nuclear physics world was rocked when two back-to-back articles in Physical Review revealed that P symmetry was violated by nature [2, 3]. This discovery revolutionized the understanding of the weak interaction.
Read more…

Mini Supernovae...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 3, 2013 at 6:00am

This artist's concept shows the suspected progenitor of a new kind of supernova called type Iax. Material from a hot, blue helium star on the right is funnelling toward a carbon/oxygen white-dwarf star on the left, which is embedded in an accretion disc. (Courtesy: Christine Pulliam, CfA)

A new type of supernova has been defined by researchers from the US. Designated type Iax, this new class is seen to be less energetic and fainter than previously defined and similar type Ia events – and may even leave behind part of its originating star.



Previously, only two classes of supernovae were recognized – core-collapse events, the explosion of stars 10–100 times as massive as our Sun, and type Ia supernovae, which involve the complete destruction of a white dwarf. Now, a team led by Ryan Foley at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has identified 25 members of the new type Iax class based on optical spectroscopic and photometric studies. Its work has shown these stars to be less energetic and with a lower absolute magnitude than would be expected with their type Ia cousin. The team believes that the supernovae of this new class originate from a binary star system comprised of a white dwarf that gathers helium from a companion star, which has lost its outer hydrogen.
Read more…

Campbell's Law...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 2, 2013 at 7:24am
Credit: Heart of the Matter Online

"Campbell's Law: The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor."

Atlanta has been a slow-moving train wreck for a while. But it's not just Atlanta. It's the natural and national consequence of trying to run education like a business; the academic equivalent of "thieves [selling] in the temple."

New math

Not that I saw, or participated in a 'standardized testing scandal,' but I recall at my first campus a curve proposed that left me numb...seated at my desk; staring into space in my windowless room. My colleague walked into my room after school:

Him: "You know about the curve."

Me: "Curve? What curve?"

(Goes to my dry erase board): "Take the number of correct answers; divide by the total number of answers, take the square root and multiply by 100...that's the curve." He left.

I walked into the men's rest room. I stared at the toilet, contemplating the efficacy of shoving my finger down my throat. A student interrupted my dark meditations. I went home.

An actual example:



√ 13/20 x 100 = 81%



Hence, my nausea.

I heard young people exclaiming: "I'm a math beast," and I wanted to shout "no, you're NOT!" I was angry, and ashamed that I felt as though I was in some parallel universe where education didn't mean what it meant four years before my birth: it was literally a matter of national security.

The National Defense Education Act (NDEA), signed into law on September 2, 1958, provided funding to United States education institutions at all levels. It was one of a suite of science initiatives inaugurated by President Eisenhower in 1958, motivated to increase the technological sophistication and power of the US alongside, for instance DARPA and NASA. It followed a growing national sense that U.S. scientists were falling behind scientists in the Soviet Union, catalyzed, arguably, by early Soviet success in the Space Race, notably the launch of the first-ever satellite, Sputnik, the year before.

And, I felt myself - post end of the Cold War, duck-and-cover drills and Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) - missing the "Ruskies"...
National Education Association
Read more…