(And he didn't even get killed.)
Glowgems for Profit by Bruce Davis.
I WISH I could find more books like this for my website!! If you have a teen/young adult book, please, please, please shoot it my way, I love featuring new books and authors!
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| Technology Review |
IBM says it has made technical progress on a solar technology that researchers hope will yield efficient thin-film solar cells made from abundant materials.
IBM photovoltaic scientists Teodor Todorov and David Mitzi on Friday detailed the findings of a paper that showed the highest efficiency to date for solar cells made from a combination of copper, zinc, tin, and selenium (CZTS). Published in Advanced Energy Materials, the technical paper described a CZTS solar cell able to convert 11.1 percent of solar energy to electricity.
Technology Review: IBM Breaks Efficiency Mark with Novel Solar Material
Young Little Fish now come of age, encounters the Dark God Qatula. Knowing the young man's youthful frustrations, Qatula makes a tempting offer to show Little Fish all the things the Priestess will not! Now standing at the crossroads of his young life, will Little Fish take his 'God-Father's' offer? All will be revealed in 'The Priestess: A Time For Finding One's Place!'
Monarch butterflies travel thousands of miles before seeding forward, and...dying.
Perhaps the first starships will be one-way, a beneficial self-insurance of survival.
Sadly, the conundrum would be "who," birthing an interstellar caste system...I can see the lottery/survival/reality show. Joy...
Of course, any sentient inhabitants may not meet our new "Mayflower" with a welcome party, nor assist us through the harshness of a new world. Or, landing during the planet's Jurassic period could be kind of...dicey!
Related site: 100 Year Starship
This is an update on what I've been up to.
As a writer for the Peabody Award-winning Art21 blog I've been covering the Afrofuturist influence on contemporary art, including artists Sanford Biggers, Cauleen Smith and Kara Walker. Here are a few links:
Cauleen Smith: A Star is a Seed, A Seed is a Star
Sanford Biggers’ Conundrum: The Mothership Lands at Mass MoCA
Sanford Biggers: Contemporary Mandala and the Hip-Hop Ethos
Sanford Biggers’ Codex Navigates the Past, Present and Future
Recently President Obama signed an Executive Order establishing a White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans. Acknowledging the significant racial disparity present in our educational system, the president's order is a significant game changer for millions of black students, their families and communities suffering from the impact of inadequate opportunities. The same is true for other underrepresented minorities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. My contribution as an artist, educator and researcher is to merge art, culture and STEM-related topics to engage youth from underrepresented minority groups, including from Indigenous cultures.
My summer artist residency for ISEA2012 Machine Wilderness merged art with science, technology and math:
Augmented Reality in Open Spaces (AROS) explores culture and creative technologies in the open spaces of Albuquerque by working with local youth to create a mural that links to content on the web via Argon, an Augmented Reality browser developed at Georgia Tech. Participants use Culturally Situated Design Tools (CSDTs) developed at RPI to learn standards-based math and computing as they simulate designs that are combined to produce an outdoor mural. The experience of interacting with the mural through touchscreen, camera-enabled mobile devices blends virtual and physical spaces and results in a greater appreciation for STEM learning, culture and art.
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nettiebeatrice/sets/72157631086639226
Ethnomathematician Dr. Ron Eglash is one of my PhD advisors and is known for his research on African Fractals and he has featured AROS on his RPI website: http://csdt.rpi.edu/subcult/grafitti/curriculum.html
Other links to check out (not written by me) that explore art, Afrofuturism and STEM-related topics:
The Visual as a Quickening Sound Vibration: An Interview with Musician Oluyemi Thomas, Part I
The Visual as a Quickening Sound Vibration: An Interview with Musician Oluyemi Thomas, Part II
The Visual as a Quickening Sound Vibration: An Interview with Musician Oluyemi Thomas, Part III
From: http://www.insidespelman.com/?p=4589
What would happen if the societal issues affecting women put other planets at risk? Well, of course, HER, a Black female superhero, would swoop in with a plan to save the universe. HER is central to HERadventure, a science fiction-based, multimedia platform project that interweaves virtual worlds, digital and social media to create a gaming and storytelling experience. HERadventure not only entertains but tackles social issues that permeate the daily reality of many women.
HERadventure is the brainchild of filmmaker and digital media artist Ayoka Chenzira, Ph.D., founder and director of the Digital Moving Image Salon. Spelman College was recently awarded a $100,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to implement HERadventure, developed by Chenzira. The award is the first NEA grant for Spelman, and the College is one of nine award recipients (among a total of 79) to receive the NEA’s funding cap of $100K in the Arts in Media category.
...
Alien Bodies: Race, Space, and Sex in the African Diaspora
The African-American Studies Collective
contact email:
alienbodies@gmail.com
Emory University, Atlanta, GA
February 8-9, 2013
Was it why I sometimes felt as weary of America as if I too had landed in what was now South Carolina in 1526 or in Jamestown in 1619? Was it the tug of all the lost mothers and orphaned children? Or was it that each generation felt anew the yoke of a damaged life and the distress of being a native stranger, an eternal alien?
--Saidiya Hartman, Lose Your Mother
We are not the same. I am an alien.
--Lil’ Wayne, “Phone Home”
Born out of a desire to articulate the position of Black bodies in the Americas as well as the African Diaspora writ large, “Alien Bodies: Race, Space, and Sex in the African Diaspora” continues conversations initiated among members of the African American Studies Collective at Emory University. Of particular concern are the ways in which the African Diaspora--as climactic environments, biological/zoological/botanical/geographical subjectivities, or colonized economies--has been made alien from within as well as without, and the ways that the major discursive trajectories of race, space, and sex have contributed to this mapping. The conference explores such questions as: how do we begin to understand the ways in which race, space, and sex configure “the alien” within spaces allegedly “beyond” markers of difference? What are some ways in which the “alien from within as well as without” can be overcome, and how do we make them sustainable? In doing so, this conference also seeks to provide a forum for discussion on what Afro-Diaspora Studies as a field and as a network of analytical approaches can further contribute to the examination of the positions of Blacks around the world.
The AASC is accepting proposals for individual papers, posters, panels, sessions, roundtable discussions, workshops, and visual and artistic representations that explore the Black experience locally, nationally, and/or globally across interdisciplinary boundaries. We are especially interested in work that broadens and reimagines current configurations of African-American Studies. We welcome participation from senior and junior faculty, graduate students, and voices outside the academy such as activists, DJs, artists, and independent scholars.
Possible topics/areas of inquiry may consist of but are not limited to:
Film, Photography, and Visual Culture
Music, Soundscapes and Social noise
Incarceration, Law, and Governmentality
Performance and Performativity
Geography and Space
Environmental Justice
Critical Race Theory
Gender and Sexuality
Class
Disability Justice
Ethnicity and National Identity
Digital Humanities and New Media
Afrofuturism
Black Nihilism
Queer Theory
Film, Photography, and Visual Culture
Speculative Fiction
Please send 250-300 word abstracts to alienbodies@gmail.com by October 7, 2012. Send a 150-400 word abstract for a panel (one for the panel subject and one for each panelist), and/or individual paper and poster presentations. For roundtable discussions, submit a 500 word abstract that explores the discussion topic.
For more information and updates, follow us on Facebook (Alien Bodies Conference), on Twitter (@AlienBodies), and on Tumblr (alienbodies.tumblr.com).
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| Robot ready: Robots made by Kiva Systems move product shelves on a warehouse floor. Amazon bought the company earlier this year in a step toward automating its distribution system and reducing labor costs. |
Technology Review: In Automate This, a book due out next month, author and entrepreneur Christopher Steiner tells the story of stockbroker Thomas Peterffy, the creator of the first automated Wall Street trading system. Using a computer to execute trades, without humans entering them manually on a keyboard, was controversial in 1987—so controversial that Nasdaq pressured him to unplug from its network. Then, with a wink, Peterffy built an automated machine that could tap out the trades on a traditional keyboard—technically obeying Nasdaq rules. Peterffy made $25 million in 1987 and is now a billionaire.
* * * * *
Chapter 1: The Rise and Fall of the Union
In the last twenty years an industrial revolution has been taking place in the United States at a pace faster than that of any country in the world, transforming social layers of this country on a scale never before dreamed of. So fast has this industrial revolution been developing that 60 percent of the jobs held by the working population today did not even exist during the First World War, while 70 percent of the jobs that existed in this country in 1900 don't exist today. Not only have work classifications been fundamentally altered, but the work force has multiplied from 20 million in 1900 to 40 million in 1944 to 68 million today. The change is not only in numbers. Over 20 million of those working today are women, and by 1970 it is expected that women workers will have increased to 30,000,000—a work force of women which will be one-and-a-half times the entire work force of 1900.
The United States has transformed itself so rapidly from an agricultural country to an industrial country, and as an industrial country has undergone such rapid industrial revolutions that the question of who is in what class becomes an ever-wider and more complicated question. Today's member of the middle class is the son or daughter of yesterday's worker.
History is a Weapon:
The American Revolution - Pages From a Negro Worker's Notebook
Technology Review: Automate or Perish
#P4TC: Rosie Took Your Job
Strange events are brewing in the Valley Realm! The Priestess receives a visit from a powerful unwanted guest and her husband the Valley Knight gets questionable council from the dark god Qatula! What will be the outcomes of these dangerous encounters? All will be revealed in 'The Priestess: A Time for Finding One's Place" part 2!
The Priestess is back! A disturbing vision visits the Priestess. Is it a warning of things to come or an expression of her own concerns? Whatever the visions mean, it will have to wait. There is a new goddess among those living in the Valley Realm and the Priestess must attend to how she will fit in between the people and the great powers. If that wasn't enough, her Mortal-Son Little Fish has come of age and his growing power creates the possibility for conflict. Adding fuel to the fire is the presence of the unpredictable dark god, Qatula! Will the Priestess be able to keep these conflicting elements in check without waking the Elder Gods? All will be revealed in 'The Priestess: A Time For Finding One's Place!'
MarkIII(k) Planetary Gear
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| Source: Molecular Machines Gallery |
Scientists using a novel printing method have managed to make a color image whose resolution approaches the maximum theoretical limit. The Singapore team published their work in Nature Nanotechnology earlier this week.
Wired breaks down the science pretty well: the team created pixels using “nanoscale posts, with silver and gold nanodiscs on top.” How far apart these posts are, as well as their diameter, determines what color light they reflect. The pillars are all of a nanometer tall. The image’s resolution, in the end, is 100,000 DPI (dots per inch).
The last curious element of this story is the image the scientists chose to reproduce: an image of Lena Soderberg, a Swedish model who posed in 1972 for Playboy. This image (from the neck up, mind you) is actually canonical in computer imaging circles. It all started in 1973, when an imaging scientist at USC was looking for good image to scan for a conference paper. Reported Jamie Hutchinson in 2001: “They had tired of their stock of usual test images, dull stuff dating back to television standards work in the early 1960s. They wanted something glossy to ensure good output dynamic range, and they wanted a human face. Just then, somebody happened to walk in with a recent issue of Playboy.”
From that point on, use of the Lena picture in imaging circles grew, until it simply became standard.
[Charitable] Public Service Announcement
Please date nerds: for the ones that are single, they obviously don't get out of the lab much!
You have until Friday to find/rescue one...
Technology Review: A Playboy Model and Nanoscale Printing
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| Source: Decoded Science |
DNA can be used to store information at a density about a million times greater than your hard drive, report researchers in Science today. George Church of Harvard Medical School and colleagues report that they have written an entire book in DNA, a feat that highlights the recent advances in DNA synthesis and sequencing.
The team encoded a draft HTML version of a book co-written by Church called Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves. In addition to the text, the biological bits included the information for modern formatting, images and Javascript, to show that “DNA (like other digital media) can encode executable directives for digital machines,” they write.
Technology Review: An Entire Book Written in DNA
Now, in Fisherman’s Alley at the Salty Dog, Citizens sat in booths lining the walls or perched on bar stools. Among the laughing crowd were Mark and Layla, sharing
a drink at the bar.
Mark was thin with short, unruly blond hair and green eyes. His companion Layla had skin the color of cocoa beans, with full lips. Her kinky, brown hair was twisted into two braids.
He smiled into her eyes. “How’s your Mum doing?”
“Alright…tired of working double shifts.”
“What time’s she going in tonight?”
“Midnight.“
“Want me to come over?”
Layla grinned over her beer. “Yeah.”
“I’ll be there about 12:30.”
Layla was a skin popper -- a placid addict. She shot up between her thighs, so that she didn’t have to wear long sleeve shirts. She thought Mark didn’t know.
Beside them sat Joan, a woman with burnt sienna skin and slanted, brown eyes, staring morosely into her glass of juice.
Across the room her lover Toki grinned up at Keith, another activist, then cut her eyes over at Joan to see if her flirting was making Joan angry. It wasn’t.
Sitting in a booth behind them was José, slender and tan, with hazel colored eyes. Beside him was his mate Consuela, a buxom, sepia colored woman, with a heart shaped face and curly, shoulder length hair. Petite Estella and her heavily muscled lover, Parco, shared their booth.
Two enforcers walked into the bar and the crowd tensed. Both were Fuchsia. The older officer had a reddish complexion, his ample stomach hanging over the waistband of his trousers. But his companion had the scrubbed, fresh face look of a rookie.
“Take the back,” the beefy officer said to his partner, “I’ll start up here.”
“Ok, searg.” The rookie approached Toki and Keith’s table. “Papers!” he ordered.
Keith and Toki reached into their pockets and handed him two black booklets.
These identity papers listed their personal history, including their legal right to live and work in Topaz. Yet Keith’s ID had something that Toki’s didn’t. His draft status.
Every male citizen, sixteen and older, was required to carry a copy of their military record. This record always listed a citizen as ready for service, ready but declined, because of mental or physical handicap or discharged.
If a man’s ID didn’t list one of these categories, he was, in the eyes of planet law: “a draft dodger.” A man hiding from his required duties as a soldier.
The peacekeeper glanced through the booklets and handed them back, moving to the female Citizen at the next table over.
His partner had already inspected The Salty Dog’s first booth, and was now standing before José and Consuela’s table. “Papers!” the enforcer barked. They hastily complied. “Papers!” he said again to Estella and Parco.
Estella handed the man her ID. But her burly man hesitated. “I don’t have mine with me.” Parco grinned, exposing a missing front tooth. “I -- I left ‘em at home.”
“Then you might as well come with me now!” The enforcer flashed a nasty grin. “It’s illegal not to carry identity papers -- and you know it!”
Reluctantly, Parco handed over his ID. The officer flipped back to the service record section. It was blank.
“Just like I thought!“ he exclaimed. “Alright, let’s go!…I said, let’s go!” As Parco stood, the beefy man hit him in the mouth with his fist, drawing blood, “Stinkin’ draft dodger!” and Parco staggered back against the table.
“Parco!” Estelle cried. “You ain’t got to do that!”
“Shut up! Or I’ll take you in too! Come on Cecil!” he called to the younger officer.
They strutted out, their prisoner walking stiffly in front of them. “Try to run,” the older man said, “and I’ll shoot you in the back!”
They left the grill and the crowd followed.
“Pigs!” Estelle spat. “You’re not takin’ my man!”
As they stepped out into the street, Keith called out: “That far enough!”
The enforcers whirled around to face the mob. “Who you talking to, boy?” The older one snarled.
“He’s talking to you!” a redheaded, Fuchsia man shouted.
“You should know better!”
“And you should know better than to come down here, and try to drag one of us outta here to send to that rich man’s war!”
“It’s a noble cause!” the younger enforcer yelled.
“And you’re a damn fool!” Keith shot back. “You’re not takin’ him!”
“I can have a van here in under a minute!” the older man bellowed, his face turning a deeper shade of red. “I can identify all of you!” But he was trembling.
Estelle stepped forward, pulling a metal box from her dress. At the touch of her thumb, a knife popped out. It was six inches long and very sharp.
“Not if we cut your stinkin’ hearts out!”
Mark stood behind the crowd, his hand resting on the small of Layla’s back. This is about to get real ugly. They’re gonna kill ‘em, and there’s gonna to be hell to pay -- for all of us.
He glanced over at José and Consuela. They stood to his right, at the edge of the crowd…out of the enforcers’ line of vision. Mark locked eyes with José, then Consuela. The Bronze man nodded, and they inched away from the group.
José blurred behind the older enforcer. There were gasps from the crowd as -- in one smooth motion -- he snatched the enforcer’s taser from his belt, and struck him between the neck and shoulder blades. The officer collapsed in a boneless heap.
At the same time, Consuela wrapped her arm about the younger man’s throat, and the other about his forehead, holding his head immobile.
They had to change to do this. It took superhuman control to let only a little of their power come forth -- to stop hair from covering their bodies, their muscles from
swelling.
Both were sweating from the effort. José kept his head down until his eyes were hazel again. Until he could speak without growling. Consuela ducked her head behind the enforcer’s.
But not before she looked into Parco’s face. Not before his jaw dropped, when he gazed into her yellow eyes.
Estelle pushed through the crowd and wrapped her arms about her lover.
“Popi --!”
Parco stood frozen unable to believe what he’d just seen.
José inclined his head to the right. “Go!”
Hands clasped, they took off running up the street. By nightfall, the enforcers would be searching for Parco. The lovers would have to go into hiding now, melting into the homeless underground of draft dodgers, and homeless squatting in Topaz’s castoff buildings.
“I’m going to let you go,” Consuela whispered into the young officer’s ear. “Don’t turn around for fifteen minutes. If you do, I’ll kill you!” She released him…and released her gift.
José took her hand. They turned their backs to the crowd and raced away.
Behind them, their warriors whistled and applauded.
She felt herself traveling at a great speed, into a wide tunnel, bombarded with colors, textures, images… She was seated upon a throne…Dancing in a lush jungle…
…Chased by fanged dogs through a snow covered wood…Girded for battle, axe in hand…Then, in a plume of smoke, the images faded…
They stood before a heavy oak door, exquisitely carved with the shapes of wolves, cats and other beasts. Karla opened it and they stepped out...
Behind them, the doorway vanished.
The two gazed up at the black and gray buildings towering over them. In the distance, smoke escaped from the tops of rounded towers. Vehicles rode past them, belching fumes from their tailpipes.
To their right, an entire block had been flattened into debris. The air had a foul odor, and both recognized the stench of pollution that was illegal in their own time. They’d traveled 400 years into the past. To the most violent era Tundra had ever known.
The Time of Legend...
Copyright 2008, 2009, 2012 Valjeanne Jeffers all rights reserved
Why did I vote for President Barack Hussein Obama II? It wasn’t because he knew how to read well and sounded eloquent on the stage, though this was a very proud change from the last eight years. It wasn’t because he had written two books, though this too was something to be proud of, his words in Audacity of Hope truly resonated with me. I didn’t vote for him because of his ethnicity, or how he was perceived by the Pop-Life crowd. I voted for Barack Obama in 2008 because I read his platform, and found it to be in common with his book, and his words, which were … well, truly very eloquent.
However, as an aspiring critical thinker I follow no party or ideology without reservation. My vote must be earned, again, and again, and again. For every vote I consider the past actions of the candidate and what the candidate intends for myself, my family, my community, my state, my nation, and yes the world.
Over the course of Barack Obama’s Presidency I have been truly astounded by what he has been able to achieve, despite the abject obstruction of today’s GOP, which actively wages a social war on America, shameless and arrogant in their position and perspective. I am proud of this President and his record. This book is at times raw and unvarnished, a personal perspective and journey. It is also a legacy for my family, a commemoration of my trip to President Obama’s Inauguration.
However, it also serves as a clear and concise explanation of why I, an everyday common American who aspires daily to be better than he was before, voted for this President, and why now, at this moment in 2012, President Barack Hussein Obama II continues to earn my vote without equivocation.
We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say that we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.
There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
President John F. Kennedy
I was a year and almost a month old when these words were spoken. They stir emotion, excitement and vision; hope and direction. As I read them for this post, I wept quietly.
"...not because they are easy, but because they are hard..."
It was not advanced robotics and transistorized super computers that allowed Mercury, Gemini and Apollo: it was grit, sweat, and knowledge of how to compute with a slide rule. It was during a time of social upheaval, physical and brutal de facto segregation and the struggle for Civil Rights. It was during an era a short-lived cancelled show - Star Trek - which later became a cult phenomenon in that we might actually survive the dark corollary of the Drake Equation. It was before our politicians became more concerned with job security than problem-solving; speaking-to-the-base in soundbite talking points versus reaching consensus. It was before a cottage industry of standardized testing gave us fifty inane yardsticks without a national standard but a nebulous goal birthed of sloganeering: No Child Left Behind (or, No Child's Behind Left).
It was before our answers had "Google" in the lexicon; post "Sputnik moment" of fear turned inspiration, when we plunged head long with only one driving directive:
"First star on the right, and straight on until morning!" Peter Pan
Site: Mars-One.com
NASA: JFK Rice Moon Speech
Guardian: America Remembers the Moon Landing
...it's Friday!
At this posting: my youngest son is on a plane to Texas back to school. My oldest son is married, stationed in Oklahoma.
A career in science allowed me to see this wonder, show it to my wife and child. The chart I saw said its volumetric rate was 3,160 tons per second. That's all the physics I want to mention.
In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite. Paul Dirac
Some things in life don't require facts: just appreciation.
Enjoy this...as did I.
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| LHC: Phys.org |
Apparently discovering a Higgs-like particle isn’t enough for the physicists working at the CERN facility, now another team working with the LHC has broken the record for the hottest manmade material ever.
Old record: four trillion degrees Celsius: 4,000,000,000,000 = 4 x 1012 oC
New record: ~ in the range of five and a half trillion degrees Celsius, a bump up of some thirty eight percent.
The three teams working at CERN, ATLAS, CMS and ALICE are all working on the same basic problem, figuring out what existed just after the Big Bang so as to better understand how matter works at the subatomic level. ATLAS and CMS were recently in the news of course for finding evidence of particles that strongly resemble the notorious Higgs boson. Meanwhile the ALICE team has been hard at work smashing lead ions into one another creating quark-gluon plasma, material that is being described as a primordial soup, because it is believed to be similar to the stuff that came about right after the Big Bang, and because unlike protons and neutrons, they are believed to move around freely, rather than existing as a bound material.
Phys.org: CERN physicists break record for hottest manmade material
I may be somewhat repeating myself here, but here's one of my more recent blogs.
I've just finished reading Valjeanne Jeffers' IMMORTAL IV: COLLISION OF WORLDS. And what a great time I had!
The world of Tundra has been altered, changed, and reshaped in the demon Tehotep's image. Oh, yes, he's back and badder than ever. This sucker is one mean dude, and he has a nasty agenda, too. We again meet up with Sonya, Joseph, Opal, Consuela, Joan and the whole gang. Karla and Joseph have been transported to a steam-powered world. Did I mention that Karla has become Tehotep's reluctant concubine? And then there's the Guardian William, who's cut off from the life he once led and imprisoned in a strange mansion, where he stares into a mirror that is his only contact with the outside world. He can see people, see The Others, and sometimes swears they can see him, too. And the front door seems to move closer at certain times, and then recedes at others. As usual, there are plenty of wonderful vampires roaming the streets, preying on anyone unlucky enough to cross their path. Demons rule and android enforcers make sure the laws of Tundra are upheld. Like the first three books in the series -- IMMORTAL, IMMORTAL II: TIME OF LEGEND, and IMMORTAL III: STEALER OF SOULS, Jeffers once again offers up another fun and yet terrifying world of werewolves and demons, and various shape shifters. Her splendid 4-book series has more than you could imagine, more than you could hope for: street gangs and drug addicts, drug rehab, political and social upheaval, revolution, corporate overlords, and vampires who drink blood and steal time from their victims. And before I forget, let me mention her cast of demons, centaurs, mermen, merwomen, folks who "walk between the raindrops," and mirrors that are actually portals into other realities . . . well, you have more imagination, more characters, more plot, more theme, and more to offer in these 4 novels than most door-stop novels of 1000 pages. Jeffers' prose in lean and mean, with the poetic rhythm that is her unique voice. She uses no more words than are needed to describe her world, letting the story and the characters bring it all to life and invoke the images in your mind. Her narration moves like a speeding steam-powered train, and her dialogue breathes life into her characters as well as propels the story -- and transports the reader inside the magic of her writing. This is my introduction to steampunk, and this series ROCKS!!!!! It has a definite street flavor and a 1960s feel with an ultra modern as well as futuristic sensibility. Valjeanne Jeffers is the real deal, and these novels are the real thing. Four-star rating for the whole quadrilogy. Excellent stuff you can get totally lost in, a world you would like to visit, but will surely walk its streets looking over your shoulder.
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| USA Science and Engineering - Facebook |
My first experiment was with a chemistry set.
I wasn't successful, because my impatience at ten-years-old did not allow me to take the time to "read" the manual instructions on what chemicals NOT to mix. The result was an impressive explosion that stained the roof of my room (and luckily, didn't kill me). My parents, though concerned, did not discourage my pursuit of knowledge. They did even more so, closely supervise all my future experiments.
There is a delicate balance between engineering and science. Engineering by definition is: "the art or science of making practical application of the knowledge of pure sciences, as physics or chemistry, as in the construction of engines, bridges, buildings, mines, ships, and chemical plants." Dictionary.com
There is an "art" to taking data and working it into something that translates into a product. I'm not belittling that at all.
By definition, engineering is kind of a bottom-line profession. You may have the STEM background to think like an scientist: but as an engineer, you have deadlines, deliverables, timelines and a budget. Engineers move from project-to-project; scientists may work on one or two, each with a genuine interest, an "assigned curiousity" (Ref: Disciplined Minds). Rarely do engineers win the Nobel Prize. One profession moves mankinds' overall knowledge of nature; the other the next generation of I-Pad.
Thus, the lense we judge science through is becoming the same as the Hedge Fund manager or stock investor's: that would be wrong-headed. This is unfortunately the impact of corporate research dollars swiftly replacing academic grants. It would reduce scientists to bottom-line university engineers, and devoid us all of the youthful joy of the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge's sake - hopefully minus any explosions.
"Throughout history, artists and poets, lovers and mystics, have known and written about the 'knowing' that comes from the loss of self - from the state of subjective fusion with the object of knowledge." Evelyn Fox Keller
"The state of feeling which makes one capable of such achievements is akin to that of the religious worshipper or one who is in love." Albert Einstein
Physics Today: A crisis of perception
