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Of Primates and Propaganda...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on August 31, 2018 at 5:30am

Topics: African Americans, Civics, Civil Rights, History, Human Rights, Politics

Definition of MONKEY WITH

informal : to handle or play with (something) in a careless way : to monkey around with (something) I told you not to monkey with the lawn mower.

Definition of MONKEY

: a nonhuman primate mammal with the exception usually of the lemurs and tarsiers : a person resembling a monkey : a ludicrous figure : dupe

: mimic, mock : to act in a grotesque or mischievous manner Merriam-Webster

Definition of PROPAGANDA

1 : capitalized : a congregation of the Roman curia having jurisdiction over missionary territories and related institutions 2 : the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person 3 : ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause; also : a public action having such an effect Merriam-Webster

Only hours after their primary election victories, DeSantis appeared on Fox News and called Gillum an “articulate” candidate, adding: “The last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda with huge tax increases and bankrupting this state. That is not going to work. It’s not going to be good for Florida.”

The Florida Democratic party immediately decried DeSantis’s comment as racist. “It’s disgusting that Ron DeSantis is launching his general election campaign with racist dog whistles,” said the party chairwoman, Terry Rizzo, in a statement emailed to reporters. The Guardian

*****

It has to be exhausting to his staff that have to spin every inane tweet sent after morning bowel movements.

It has to be exhausting to his lawyers who probably give adequate advice to a guy who's more used to "winging it" and going from his pretentious, expansive gut.

It IS exhaustive to turn on the news for coverage of his latest insane stream-of-consciousness riff in 140 misspelled characters; endless lies, slurred speech and rude behavior. His predecessor was barred from giving a "back-to-school" pep talk in predominately red, decidedly racist districts (I had a back-and-forth with the Texas superintendent of the high school my youngest son attended - he eventually blocked my emails and ignored my calls). The biggest fear now from the orange Satan would be the number of "F-bombs" he'd likely drop veering off the teleprompter.

He's the poster-child of WAS[P] privilege that exasperates "the other" more qualified women, minorities that prepare for promotion and see the rug snatched from under them from ignoramus nincompoops. I enclose the "P" as White Anglo Saxon is physically evident: he's as marginally Protestant as his mastery of "Two Corinthians." His ascendancy has only revealed the evangelical community's callous hypocrisy. "Family values" is a pejorative, as 81% of them voted for the p---y grabber, and follow someone more in line with Damien in "The Omen" series than Yeshua of Nazareth.

DeSantis decries any charges of racism, post appearances on a network that has a viewer demographic of 94% white, 3% Hispanic/Latino; 2% Asian, 1% African American and that he personally made appearances on with 93 million dollars of free airtime to appeal to that almost exclusively home to the white anxiety demographic and one powerful conspiracy theorist.

We are well past "depending on what the meaning of the word is 'is'" into the realm of fantasy; the land of make believe. A recorded interview with Lester Holt (a republican, I might add) is suddenly "fudging" because the Dear Leader says so, and his ditto heads nod, mumbling something about the "deep state." Truth and reality are under daily assault, and it IS exhausting because we're dealing with a person with serious mental health issues, the most blatant being bigotry, demonstrated from the days he was a registered democrat. There is equal-opportunity to being an asshole.

Calling African Americans monkeys has recent examples in the Obama family depicted as chimpanzees (especially in Russia); Wulf D. Hund, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Department of Socioeconomics, University of Hamburg, and Charles W Mills, John Evans Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy, Northwestern University wrote an essay in The Conversation (published on Huffington Post, South Africa): "Comparing Black People To Monkeys Has A Long, Dark Simian History." It goes back to the cringe-worthy observations by news reporters regarding the diction of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell. How EXACTLY is a general supposed to speak other than with perfect diction? The point was so racist, Chris Rock made it a part of his stand up.

Stacey Abrams in Georgia, Andrew Gilliam in Florida and Ben Jealous (my fraternity brother) in Maryland represent the changing demographics of the nation, its inexorable diversification. This is occurring after centuries of genocide (Native Americans); kidnapping and miscegenation of African Americans, multicultural relationships and marriages both gay and straight since Loving and immigration - both legal and illegal - that have some decrying the "melting pot" and looking backwards: to a time that "never was," when the nation had the "purity" of a blanched broth. Entropy and "times arrow" points forward, and forward typically denotes progress, and change.

We do this...together, all cultures; genders, republicans, democrats, independents as a NATION, without an outside hostile force selecting our leaders like "useful idiot" pawns on a grand chessboard - where the jester is only conversant in tick-tack-toe.

Fandango movie trailer: Active Measures

"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Read more…

Alien Climate Change Scenarios...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on August 30, 2018 at 5:30am
University of Rochester illustration / Michael Osadciw

Topics: Astrobiology, Climate Change, Mathematical Models, Planetary Science, SETI

Researchers developed a mathematical model to determine how alien civilizations might cope with climate change. The research was led by astrophysicist Adam Frank, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester. The researchers looked at the problem of civilized planets facing climate change from an astrobiological perspective.

Frank says in a statement, "If we're not the universe's first civilization, that means there are likely to be rules for how the fate of a young civilization like our own progresses. The point is to recognize that driving climate change may be something generic. The laws of physics demand that any young population, building an energy-intensive civilization like ours, is going to have feedback on its planet. Seeing climate change in this cosmic context may give us better insight into what’s happening to us now and how to deal with it."

The Four Scenarios:

1. Die off
2. Sustainability
3. Collapse without resources
4. Collapse with resources

My vote is #2.

Researchers Envision Four Climate Change Scenarios for Civilization-Planet Systems

Science, Space and Robots

#P4TC: ET and Climate Change...June 25, 2014

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Evidence of Things Unseen...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on August 29, 2018 at 5:30am
Schematic illustration of charge carriers confined within a TMD flake comprising different thicknesses. Charge carriers in the ground state (blue) can be excited upon resonant light excitation to a higher state (pink). Credit: ICFO/Fabien Vialla
Topics: Laser, Nanotechnology, Optical Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Semiconductor Technology

All deference to the Apostle Paul. It seemed an apropos title to the post.

Semiconducting heterostructures are key to the development of electronics and opto-electronics. Many applications in the infrared and terahertz frequency range exploit transitions, called intersubband transitions, between quantized states in semiconductor quantum wells. These intraband transitions exhibit very large oscillator strengths, close to unity. Their discovery in III-V semiconductor heterostructures depicted a huge impact within the condensed matter physics community and triggered the development of quantum well infrared photodetectors as well as quantum cascade lasers.

Quantum wells of the highest quality are typically fabricated by molecular beam epitaxy (sequential growth of crystalline layers), which is a well-established technique. However, it poses two major limitations: Lattice-matching is required, restricting the freedom in materials to choose from, and the thermal growth causes atomic diffusion and increases interface roughness.

2-D materials can overcome these limitations since they naturally form a quantum well with atomically sharp interfaces. They provide defect-free and atomically sharp interfaces, enabling the formation of ideal QWs, free of diffusive inhomogeneities. They do not require epitaxial growth on a matching substrate and can therefore be easily isolated and coupled to other electronic systems such as Si CMOS or optical systems such as cavities and waveguides.

Surprisingly enough, intersubband transitions in few-layer 2-D materials had never been studied before, neither experimentally nor theoretically. Thus, in a recent study published in Nature Nanotechnology, ICFO researchers Peter Schmidt, Fabien Vialla, Mathieu Massicotte, Klaas-Jan Tielrooij, Gabriele Navickaite, led by ICREA Prof at ICFO Frank Koppens, in collaboration with the Institut Lumière Matière—CNRS, Technical University of Denmark, Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, CIC nanoGUNE, and the National Graphene Institute, report on the first theoretical calculations and first experimental observation of inter-sub-band transitions in quantum wells of few-layer semiconducting 2-D materials (TMDs).

Nano-imaging of intersubband transitions in few-layer 2-D materials, Phys dot org

More information: Peter Schmidt et al. Nano-imaging of intersubband transitions in van der Waals quantum wells, Nature Nanotechnology (2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41565-018-0233-9

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Hobbits, Bots and Vaxxers...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on August 28, 2018 at 5:30am
Russian agents exploit anti-vax messaging to stir up discord. PETER DAZELEY/GETTY IMAGES

Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Computer Science, Computing, Human Rights, Internet, Politics

From Friday's post: “Putin’s thesis is that the American constitution is an experiment that will fail if it is challenged in the right way from within,” Mitchell continued. “Putin wants to break apart the American republic not by influencing an election or two, but by systematically inflaming the fault lines within our society. Accepting this fact is absolutely essential for developing a long-term response to the problem.”

Russian online users known as trolls are taking to social media to sow public conflict about vaccination, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health.

In what sounds like a hybrid story joining Star Trek and The Hobbit, US researchers from George Washington University, the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University found that bots, trolls, cyborgs, content polluters and other actors stimulate distrust in the efficacy of vaccination to prevent diseases.

Many of these actors spread false or misleading information, but sources identified as Russian in origin produce messages that argue on both sides of the discussion, with the aim, the researchers suggest, of “promoting discord”.

“Accounts masquerading as legitimate users create false equivalency, eroding public consensus on vaccination,” the report finds.

“These trolls seem to be using vaccination as a wedge issue, promoting discord in American society,” says Mark Dredze, one of the authors of the study.

If you are among the few that don't think our elections were compromised in a directed assault, this is more personal. Vaccinations impact what the CDC refers to as herd immunity. That has helped to eliminate diseases - mostly to children - that used to prove fatal to them.

This is Russia literally trying...to kill us.

Research finds Russian trolls, bots, stoke US vaxxer conflict, Jeff Glorfeld, Cosmos Magazine

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Trump Madness- A Fistful of Treason

Posted by Winston Blakely on August 27, 2018 at 12:41pm

    Here's something to tickle your fancy. A trump parody t-shirt.

    Yes, the commander in thief gets his due... on 100% cotton, that

    is.

     Please feel free to wear it at the upcoming Impeachment Party

    or anytime you choose.  Link is below for you to enjoy.

     

      Get yours today and support your local artist...

              https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/3035612-fistful-of-trump?store_id=152428

    

           thank you

Read more…

Admiration and Gratitude...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on August 27, 2018 at 5:30am
Image Source: NASA link below

Topics: African Americans, History, Diversity, Diversity in Science, NASA, Women in Science

When Jasmine Byrd started her job at NASA about two years ago, she knew nothing about Katherine Johnson, the mathematician and “human computer” whose achievements helped inspire the book and movie “Hidden Figures.”

At that point, the release of the film was still months away. But excitement was building — particularly at Byrd’s new workplace. She’d arrived at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, where Johnson spent her entire, 33-year NACA and NASA career.

Soon, Byrd felt a strong connection to a woman she’d never met, nearly 70 years her senior.

“I was just enthralled with her story,” said Byrd, a project coordinator for NASA’s Convergent Aeronautics Solutions Project. Today, she works inside Langley’s Building 1244, the same hangar-side location where Johnson crunched numbers for the Flight Research Division in the 1950s.

“I am thankful for the bridge that Katherine built for someone like myself to easily walk across,” Byrd said. “It helps me to not take this opportunity for granted. I know there were people before me who put in a lot of work and went through a lot of turmoil at times to make sure it was easier for people like myself.”

Jasmine Byrd, who works as a project coordinator at NASA's Langley Research Center, looks at an image of Katherine G. Johnson in the lobby of the building named in Johnson's honor. "I was just enthralled with her story," Byrd said. Credits: NASA/David C. Bowman

As Katherine G. Johnson’s 100th birthday — Aug. 26 — approached, many Langley employees expressed admiration for the woman whose math powered some of America’s first triumphs in human space exploration.

Johnson did trajectory analysis for Alan Shepard’s May 1961 mission Freedom 7, America’s first human spaceflight. At a time when digital computers were relatively new and untested, she famously checked the computer’s math for John Glenn’s historic first orbital spaceflight by an American in February of 1962.

Those are just two bullet points in a brilliant career that stretched from 1953 to 1986.

Her 100th birthday was recognized throughout NASA and around the world. But at Langley, the milestone created an extra measure of pride and joy.

NASA:

At Langley, Admiration and Gratitude Multiply on Katherine Johnson’s 100th Birthday

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The Mendacity of Dopes...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on August 24, 2018 at 5:30am
MAXIM SHEMETOV / REUTERS

Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Existentialism, Human Rights, Politics

“Putin’s thesis is that the American constitution is an experiment that will fail if it is challenged in the right way from within,” Mitchell continued. “Putin wants to break apart the American republic not by influencing an election or two, but by systematically inflaming the fault lines within our society. Accepting this fact is absolutely essential for developing a long-term response to the problem.” The problem Mitchell was describing has a kind of heads-I-win-tails-you-lose quality to it as far as Putin is concerned: Not only has the Russian leader tried to exploit political polarization over issues like race and guns, his attempts to do so have themselves become deeply divisive—to the point where even Trump’s advisers frequently find themselves at odds with the man they serve.

Part of Mitchell’s argument—which might be viewed favorably by a president who has taken particular umbrage at the notion that Putin sought to help him defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race—was that the Russian government isn't necessarily interested in supporting a specific politician, party, or ideology. Instead, it simply wants to sow chaos in the United States to advance its own goals, which it sees as threatened by America’s preeminent position in the world. Mitchell cited the revelations on Tuesday that suspected Russian government hackers have been targeting conservative U.S. think tanks and promoting “fringe voices” on both the left and the right on social-media sites like Facebook.

Fascism (noun):
often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition Merriam-Webster

Racism (noun):
1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to dominate others or that a particular racial group is inferior to the others.
2. a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3. hatred or intolerance of another race or other races. Dictionary.com

White supremacy (noun):
The belief that white people are superior to those of all other races, especially the black race, and should therefore dominate society. Oxford Dictionaries

The radical and religious right had long ago convinced themselves that Vladimir Putin and Russia were their friends. Whereas I and more sane members of the human species look upon "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood as a fanciful dystopian novel, and highly imaginative rendition on Netflix (I'll reserve my commentary on the end of season 2). Other elements of our human family, more familiar with the fearful, reptilian portion of our evolved brains, look upon it, "1984" by George Orwell and "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley and Russia's methods...as blueprints.

The election of the first and only African American in the history of the republic, to that point 232 years in 2008, set up revulsion on the "white" right that culminated in racist birtherism, witch doctor bone-in-nose bigotry with respect to the Affordable Care Act; effigies of the 44th president either burned, hung (or, both) and the memorable "pray for the president" bumper stickers from a bizarre verse application of Psalms 109:8 - 10 (shortened to verse 8, but understood in total):

"8 May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership. 9 May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. 10 May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes."

Excerpt from "Black Labor, White Wealth: The Search for Power and Economic Justice," (August 1, 1994) Claude Anderson, Ed. D., Chapter 2: Power and Black Progress:

Chapter 2, page 33, subsection titled:
Numerical Population Power
     In a democratic society, the numerical majority wins, rules and decides. The theoretical rights of a minority, may or may not be respected, especially if they are a planned minority. Numerical population power is the power that comes to those groups that acquire power through their sheer size. The black population peaked in the 1750s when slaves and free blacks accounted for approximately 33 percent of the total population. The high numerical strength of blacks caused fear and concern among whites. They feared the loss of their own numerical power. Word of black Haitians successful slave revolt in the 1790s had spread across America and reportedly ignited several slave revolts in Southern states.

     The First U.S. Congress enacted the first naturalization law that declared American to be a nation for "whites only." The naturalization act and other income incentives attracted a mass influx of legal and illegal European ethnics, followed by Asian and Hispanic immigrants a century later. The immigration quota for blacks remained zero until their total percentage of the population declined to nine percent. By making blacks a planned numerical minority, white society assured its dominance in a democratic society where the majority always wins. Source: Sample chapter

This is the metastasis of "The Southern Strategy" a rancid, racist tactic that was birthed on the heels of the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy. It was and is a desperate bid for power. It predates itself as the definition of "white" changed from excluding everyone except "Nordic stock" Europeans (the English, mostly) to eventually including the previously excluded: Italians, Jews [and ironically] Russians all had tiny quotas. The resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and the nascent eugenics movement in the United States fueled and influenced immigration policy in the earlier part of the last century. Admittedly, despite its reprehensible aims, it worked remarkably well for quite a while.

A president with decidedly African features, he and his wife both educated at Ivy League schools and a pitch-perfect family did not personify the fictional "Huxtables" before the fall of Mr. Cosby to their many detractors. The continual reminder that the country is becoming browner only ignited more fear and resolve to fight a demographic shift not in their favor of continual predominance circa 2042 - 2045. Their resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue transmitted a well-worn, white supremacist trope regarding farmland in South Africa (it's returning the farmland to their original, African owners), but he needs a distraction since his  former campaign manager and former personal lawyer were both found guilty on a total of 16 felony counts in a matter of minutes. Their visceral reaction to them was an existential crisis, a call to arms; a "white genocide," ironically feared by the descendants of those that caused it well before the "Trail of Tears" for Native Americans. It caused Roger Ailes to see the power of televised propaganda and cater to an audience that were well past facts post the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine and the rise of listening to Rush Limbaugh on AM Talk Radio and his "ditto head" clones; well past reasoned discourse before Twitter came online. What facts can be revealed are rebuffed by an avalanche of lies, there are no "gotchas" for a party that with the help of Karl Rove started "creating their own realities" a long time ago. A sizable chunk of the electorate has been in this "post-truth" Twilight Zone for decades.

All they needed was a useful idiot avatar, and a master spy to push the republic over the precipice. Ironically, if successful, the 2nd Amendment along with all others in a theoretical fall of our republic would become meaningless as in Russia, there is no right to bear arms that "former Americans" would recognize or appreciate. The imagined confiscation by government "jackbooted thugs" may be under the flag of a foreign power that duped the gullible:

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”

For the sake of all liberal democracies and humanity on the PLANET, they...MUST...fail.

Read more…

Tip of the Iceberg...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on August 23, 2018 at 5:30am
An artist’s impression of the Indian Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter, which operated at Earth’s moon from 2008 to 2009. A new analysis of data from NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument aboard the spacecraft has found evidence of exposed water ice in dark craters around the moon’s poles. Credit: NASA/Indian Space Research Organization

Topics: Astrophysics, Moon, NASA, Planetary Science

Deposited in perpetually dark craters around the poles, the ice could be a boon for future crewed lunar outposts

The view that Earth’s moon is a dried out, desolate world may be all wet.

A new analysis of data from the Indian Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan 1 orbiter, which operated at the moon from 2008 to 2009, has revealed what researchers say is definitive proof of water ice exposed on the lunar surface. Gathered by NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) spectrometer onboard the Indian probe, the data all but confirm extensive-but-tentative evidence from earlier missions hinting at water ice deposits lurking in permanently shadowed craters at the moon’s poles. Such deposits could someday support crewed lunar outposts while also revealing previously hidden chapters of the moon’s history. The results appeared in a study published August 20 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Based on M3’s measurements of water ice’s near-infrared absorption features at and around the lunar poles, the study’s authors concluded the ice is only exposed in around 3.5 percent of the craters’ shadowed area, and is intermixed with large volumes of lunar dust. Such sparse coverage and heterogeneity suggests this lunar ice has a substantially different history than similar deposits found on other airless rocky worlds, such as Mercury and the dwarf planet Ceres, where water ice in permanently shadowed craters is more abundant and of greater purity.

Beyond the Shadow of a Doubt, Water Ice Exists on the Moon, Leonard David, Scientific American

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Aura, The Art of Winston Blakely- Afrofuturistic Art Book

Posted by Winston Blakely on August 21, 2018 at 4:57pm

       Hello... before I get back on the t-shirt campaign trail, here's a reminder that Sir Jarvis  Sheffield

      did an introduction for my first art book... a gesture that I truly appreciate. 

       Aura, is definitely an Afrofuturistic adventure.

       Please follow the link below and check it out.

             

        By the way... I have been working taking the above image available as t-shirt.

         Here's the link...      amazon.com/author/winstonblakely

                  Talk to you soon.

Read more…

Neither the Forests Nor the Trees...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on August 21, 2018 at 5:30am
Over Population Nightmare from 1960s - Star Trek's Mark of Gideon

Topics: Climate Change, Ecology, Economy, Politics, Star Trek

It's rare I do a "twofer." However, in the absence of a Starfleet/"Space Farce" or warp drive, we have to start thinking about how we're going to feed, clothe and employ the yet-to-be-born since we've yet to establish interplanetary colonies, let alone interstellar ones. Our "leaders" won't discuss the coming conundrum, hence I can only assume they've got nothing but slogans, jingoism and empty rhetoric bandied to stoke our fears and keep them in their comfortable seats.

"The world is expected to add another billion people within the next 15 years, bringing the total global population from 7.3 billion in mid-2015 to 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050, and 11.2 billion by 2100, according to new estimates from the UN." Source: 5 ways the world will look dramatically different in 2100, Ana Swanson, Washington Post

Current assessments of climate change could overestimate the amount of carbon that plants remove from the atmosphere. That’s because models of photosynthesis often leave out a poorly-understood limit on the process. Now US researchers have calculated that if its representation is doubled, climate models predict an additional 9 Gigatonnes of carbon will still be in the atmosphere by 2100, instead of being locked away inside plants.

“Photosynthesis is the largest flux of carbon into terrestrial ecosystems, yet there is still uncertainty in our understanding of its physiological and environmental controls,” says Danica Lombardozzi from the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research. “Our findings suggest that TPU [triose phosphate utilisation] currently limits photosynthesis, and TPU limitation may become even more limiting to photosynthesis in the future. Yet TPU-limited photosynthesis is … poorly constrained by observations and is therefore not always included in photosynthesis models.”

Plants may absorb less carbon under climate change, Environmental Research Letters, reported on Physics World

Overpopulation facts - the problem no one will discuss: Alexandra Paul at TEDxTopanga
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The Least of These...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on August 20, 2018 at 5:30am
Falling harvests and rising prices are in prospect. (Courtesy Morteza Rafikhah, via Wikimedia Commons)

Topics: Climate Change, Ecology, Economy, Politics

One of Mother Teresa's favorite texts in the Bible, which she often quoted to support her ministry to the poor, is "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me" (Matthew 25:40, 45, NIV). Source: Timothy Lent, LinkedIn

An effective climate strategy to protect everyone on Earth, and the natural world as well, is what the planet needs. But Austrian-based scientists have now confirmed something all climate scientists have suspected for more than a decade: there can be no simple, one-size-fits-all solution to the twin challenges of climate change and human poverty.

That catastrophic climate change driven by “business as usual” fossil fuel energy reliance will by 2100 impose devastating costs worldwide, and drive millions from their homes and even homelands, has been repeatedly established.

So has the need to shift from fossil fuels to renewable resources, almost certainly by imposing some kind of “carbon tax” worldwide.

But a new study from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis warns that if agriculture is included in stringent climate mitigation schemes, there will be higher costs in the short term.

If humans don’t act, then climate change driven by global warming will create conditions that will put an extra 24 million people, or perhaps 50 million extra, at risk of hunger and malnutrition.

Sadly, I think with the exacerbation of inequality; the Russian-installed occupant of the American Executive Mansion and the general disposition of self-absorbed humanity, these quotes by the author Fyodor Dostoyevsky encapsulates our current, pitiful state:

“The world says: "You have needs -- satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don't hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more." This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground

Climate strategy needs tailoring to poorest, Tim Radford, Physics World

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3D printing the future

Posted by ARCELIUS SCOTT on August 15, 2018 at 11:30am

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/114240903/drawns-3d-printed-range-of-design-furniture?ref=discovery&ref=discovery&term=3d%20printed

As of today Spacefans, the link above shows my new goal for my future in the 3D printing industry. 3D print farms are on the agenda for us to build our own, create our own, and own our own manufacturing methods and processes. After we meet the goal of 3D print farms, we should most definitely set our sights on using industrial articulating robots to "scale up" the manufacturing capability within the community.

A robot can cost anywhere between $25,000 and $100,000 but the industrious entrepreneur should be able to find one on the lower end of the spectrum. I'm not here to sell robots, just here to share vision with the visionaries. Stay tuned.

With that, can someone link a black owned robot manufacturer? There are a couple in the US and abroad.

Read more…

3D printing the future

Posted by ARCELIUS SCOTT on August 15, 2018 at 11:30am

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/114240903/drawns-3d-printed-range-of-design-furniture?ref=discovery&ref=discovery&term=3d%20printed

As of today Spacefans, the link above shows my new goal for my future in the 3D printing industry. 3D print farms are on the agenda for us to build our own, create our own, and own our own manufacturing methods and processes. After we meet the goal of 3D print farms, we should most definitely set our sights on using industrial articulating robots to "scale up" the manufacturing capability within the community.

A robot can cost anywhere between $25,000 and $100,000 but the industrious entrepreneur should be able to find one on the lower end of the spectrum. I'm not here to sell robots, just here to share vision with the visionaries. Stay tuned.

With that, can someone link a black owned robot manufacturer? There are a couple in the US and abroad.

Read more…

Finding your favorite indie Black Age products?

Posted by Turtel Onli on August 14, 2018 at 7:52am

At a time when the indie Black Age of Comics movement is now nation wide with indie conventions in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, New York and San Francisco, a question emerges.  Where do you find a dedicated spinning rack of indie produced / published Black Age products?  Hmmmm?  No where except Chicago at the Du Sable Museum and the urban internet cafe' Copy Cat.  In each of the other markets listed, no rack.  Not even where there is a Black owned comic book store.  The internet alone will not reach the under served market.

This is a great opportunity & challenge foe legal honest industrious folks.  To market and distribute the Black Age of Comics indie products.

OK..... you say were the regular stores contacted?  Of course. ONLI STUDIOS even offered them spinning racks.  They each said No!  Every genre has its dedicated space......  Why not the Black Age?  By the way, we have been selling well at the Du Sable Museum since 2009, this includes a wide range of products from various indie publishers.

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Afrofuturism Lives . pt.3

Posted by Winston Blakely on August 10, 2018 at 10:52am

   It's time for a  3rd installment of Afro futurism Lives... Hopefully this       one will be well received.

   I also have books available at amazon.com featuring these heroes 

   invisoned in these ads.

   Today, you are looking at the Warrior Mysterian, he is a combo

    of Conan and Dr.Strange.  I seem to be fond of both genres

    and put forth the effort to create something unique.  

     Here is the ad for this week.

  

        

   

      check the link below for t shirts and posters...

        https://www.teepublic.com/user/winston5

         and for books,check this link..

     amazon.com/author/winstonblakely

             Have a great weekend.

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Afrofuturism Lives . pt.2

Posted by Winston Blakely on August 3, 2018 at 2:58pm

        Hello, Afrofuturistic enthusiastic fans... time for a new ad promoting this subject.

        This hero is an upcoming self published  character in an anthology that I will revealed in a

         future blog.

          But his name is on the t-shirt attributed to the genre that he is a part of.

          So go ahead and take a look and see what you like.

           My storefront is rapidly growing with images of great interest.

             

                   Here is the link for you to explore my archives of art images.

                       https://www.teepublic.com/user/winston5

                          Take Care and have a great weekend.

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They Are Q...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on August 3, 2018 at 5:30am
Image Source: DC Villains/Anarchy Wiki page 

Topics: Civics, Existentialism, Philosophy, Politics

I'm taking two weeks off before the fall semester and my sophomore year in graduate school. Tomorrow (Saturday, August 4th), I'll be giving a presentation on "How To Study" by Ron Fry, a book in its 25th edition that I still use to this day on how I get information in my brain "to stick." I'll apparently be speaking to two groups of millennials, and get a free lunch. 

Definition of anarchy (Merriam-Webster) 1 a : absence of government b : a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority the city's descent into anarchy c : a Utopian society of individuals who enjoy complete freedom without government 2 a : absence or denial of any authority or established order b : absence of order : disorder

Tampa, Fla. (AP) -- Amid the "Trump 2020" placards, the "Women for Trump" signs and the "CNN SUCKS" T-shirts, the most inscrutable message that came out of Donald Trump's Tampa rally on Tuesday evening was a letter.

Q.

People wore T-shirts with the letter emblazoned on the front. Others carried signs containing the letter: "Q WWG1WGA Trump 2020 Keep America Great! MSM is the enemy." Another held a dog-eared and slightly crumpled piece of paper in the air. It said, simply, "We are Q."

Q who?

The entire, loose movement has been called everything from "a deranged conspiracy cult" (The Washington Post) to a grassroots movement "about the covert battles being waged between the deep state and President Trump" (according to Tyler, a guy at the Tampa rally who held a metal coin emblazoned with the letter and showed it to WPLG, a TV station from Miami).

Here's a look at the trend that's sweeping certain dark corners of the Internet:

WHO IS Q?

In late October 2017, an anonymous user posted on 4chan, a shadowy site known for, among other things, cruel hoaxes and political extremism. Under the title "The Calm Before the Storm," the poster claimed to have a high-level government security clearance — Q clearance to be exact — and referred to Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, George Soros, political parties and former President Barack Obama.

Q gives readers "breadcrumbs" so they can ferret out details on their own. There's other lingo as well. Bakers are amateur sleuths who follow the crumbs. Anyone who tries to debunk Q is "a clown." (This includes CIA agents, shadowy operatives and most likely reporters, although there's separate terminology for them). Tamara Lush, Associated Press for Bloomberg News

Coincidentally, five years ago on August 1st, I posted Ab Absurdo. It was more about science denial in general, but two "tech" people fully convinced the moon landing was faked - which, I had the benefit of actually being on the planet to witness all of them, and they did not. I found it exhausting to discuss facts with them since like most cult members and social anarchists, facts are anathema to what amounts to their belief system.

"Q" is simply a continuum of anarchists that have a notion that the current situation we call governance is nonfunctional (in its current K-street lobbyist form, I would agree with that). Their action towards remedying that is to vote for and support of a conspiracy theory, barely literate or tethered to reality, tweeting nincompoop. An anarchist's general solution to anything is to tear the whole thing down, and then "magically" the plucky individual will work everything out - including, I assume food, labor, education, technology and infrastructure. Their *knowledge* amounts to a belief system cherry-picked from bits and pieces of information they have formed in dark corners of the Internet laced with bigotry, misogyny and antisemitism from like-minded addled individuals to reinforce their already ossified political beliefs. This is the same realm as abstinence-only vs. birth control and education; climate denial, "deep state" (replacing the previous "fill-in-the-blank" cabals, coined by the superior, perfect human specimen Steve Bannon); gun control opposition (but, not 3-D printed guns); science denial and ultimately, opposition to the continued, effective governance of a republic.

I will agree on ONE thing: it will be anarchy. And there is scant historical evidence anarchists have held together republics or sway in world order.
Image Source: Odin's Ravens: Give Trump a Shave with Occam's Razor
I will return 20 August. Be well.
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TESS...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on August 2, 2018 at 9:58am
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite will search more than 85% of the sky.Credit: Leif Heimbold/NASA

Topics: Exoplanets, NASA, Planetary Science, Space Exploration, Star Trek

"Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Her five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before." (Star Trek: Into Darkness)

Filling the shoes of NASA’s Kepler spacecraft won’t be easy. Since its launch in 2009, Kepler has discovered nearly three-quarters of the 3,700-plus known exoplanets. And there are thousands more candidates waiting to be confirmed.

So NASA is taking a different approach with its next planet-hunting mission. On 16 April, the agency plans to launch the US$337-million Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which will scrutinize 200,000 nearby bright stars for signs of orbiting planets. TESS will probably find fewer worlds than Kepler did, but they will arguably be more important ones.

“It’s not so much the numbers of planets that we care about, but the fact that they are orbiting nearby stars,” says Sara Seager, an astrophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge and deputy science director for TESS.

TESS is meant to identify planets that are close enough to Earth for astronomers to explore them in detail. Team scientists estimate that the spacecraft will discover more than 500 planets that are no more than twice the size of Earth. These worlds will form the basis for decades of further studies, including searches for signs of life. “We’ll see a whole new opening of exoplanet studies,” Seager says.

NASA’s next exoplanet hunter will seek worlds close to home, Alexandra Witze, Nature

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Aura, The Art of Winston Blakely

Posted by Winston Blakely on August 2, 2018 at 6:55am

           Hello, Afrofuturistic fans... We are one day away from my continued campaign for Afrofuturistic

           images at tee.public.com

           Yes, a new ad exploring this culturally esteem event.

            But I would like to present to you a book full of such art.

           Aura, The Art of Winston Blakely, by yours truly is an personal adventure

          into my studio archives.

          I am doubled bless to have a special introduction by the main man himself

         who has dedicated himself to this site.

          Oh, yes...  Your commander in Chief and Prime Administrator Jarvis Sheffield

           wrote an complementary foreword to my artbook.

                  Thank You... Good Sir.

                   

             

                 And now here is the link to see this and other wonders... Enjoy.

                  amazon.com/author/winstonblakely

         

        

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