Thursday night (Nov 9) Roberta Bondar, Canada’s first woman in space, will be speaking at Festival Place. https://festivalplace.ab.ca/view/shows/id/1004#showtimes
Tomorrow the Alberta/Canada Fusion Technology Alliance is hosting a public forum on fusion energy, 9am-4pm at U of A. Fusion energy is extremely clean, with bountiful fuel that releases a MASSIVE amount of energy (1 truckload of fuel would last a whole year at a power plant). But it’s very difficult to do. If we can make it viable in a reactor form, it would go a massive way toward addressing the world’s energy needs. Registration for the Forum is free and includes a free lunch…
It starts with a look, a passing glance between strangers: one blazing through the cosmos at the speed of light, the other drifting slowly with its head in the clouds. The collision is unexpected but somehow inevitable, a union that promises some of the sweetness that lay beyond the rainbow. The heavier partner is excited beyond measure, active and hopeful. It never occurs to them that their marriage is borne of chance, of probability, of particle calculations drawn up on a chalkboard in a dusty old professor’s office….
Category: Art, Blog, Event, Psychology, Science, What If, Writing Tags: atomic, beta-decay, calculations, captain, carbon, carbon-12, carbon-14, constant, cosmic ray, dating, dead, decay, defeat, despair, electron, energy, evolution, fear, friends, hatred, higher purpose, hopeless, ignoramus, isolation, living, longing, love, matter, meaning, negative, neutrino, neutron, nitrogen, organic, organism, pain, particles, partners, physics, polyamorous, positive, proton, radioactive, rage, relationships, Science, sexy, society, solution, soul, subatomic, undead, union, universe, what if
One of video games’ most famed princesses, Princess Peach has been kidnapped at least 12 times and has likely developed Stockholm syndrome along with bipolar disorder (based on her emotion-focused/mood-swing attacks in Super Princess Peach). While the Toad security force’s efficiency as a protective agency is questionable, Peach’s ability to float has been unwavering, present in every single Mario game where she is a playable character. How does she do it? Peach is not alone in her hovering abilities. There are many female characters in popular media who…
Category: Art, Blog, Featured, Science, What If, Writing Tags: agueda, art, artists, beautiful, beauty, bipolar, blonde, bowser, calculations, casimir, castle, copter, dainty, ditzy, drift, engineering, entity, equation, eric roner, estimations, family, fantasy, float, force, friesen, future, glide, helicopter, hover, kidnapped, lift, luigi, maglev, mario, mythbusters, pale, parasol, photo, physics, pink, platformers, poem, poetry, portugal, princess, princess peach, quadcopter, reality, rotor, royalty, Sarah Ann Henley, sci-fi, Science, security, sidescroller, stockholm, toad, umbrella, underskirt, van der waals, velocity, video games, what if, white, writing
We all know the lovable green dinosaur from the Mario series — so lovable she was the 3rd favourite video game character in all of Japan in 2008, and voted #1 sidekick by several sites. But is Yoshi just a pipe dream, as unfeasible as dinosaur cloning from Jurassic Park? This is not a simple question, and there is no simple answer. The road to resolution takes us through the cutie’s most notable traits: 1. Yoshi reproduces asexually. Yoshi never mates with anyone, yet lays eggs regularly within…
Category: Art, Blog, Event, What If, Writing Tags: adaptation, african, amphibians, animal kingdom, animals, apple, apples, art, asexual, australian, baby, balloon, betrayal, biology, blocks, bullfrog, bullfrogs, chameleons, chromosomes, cocoon, console, constrictors, cooking, costume, croc, crocodile, crush, cues, cute, deviantart, dino, dinobot, dinobots, dinosaur, domestication, dragon, dreams, ds, eggs, environment, evolution, fandom, fantasy, fantasy-turned-reality, fantasy-turned-science, fantendo, female, fiction, fire-breathing, flowers, flutter, flying, food, frog, frogs, fungi, future, gamecube, genetically-modified, giraffe, giraffes, girl, horses, hybrid, inflation, jurassic park, laser, leaping, leaping frogs, lizards, luigi, mario, mexican, milk, monotremes, mushroom, nintendo, offspring, ovaries, peach, physical, pipe, plants, plumber, prehensile, prehensile tongue, real-life, realistic, reality, reproduction, reptile, reptiles, ride, rideable, robot, robots, RPG, salamanders, sci-fi, Science, science fiction, shells, simulated, smash bros, snakes, stimuli, super mario, tails, toad, tongue, turtles, unresolved, vertebrates, video games, whiptail, wii, wings, writing, yoshi
I spent a good chunk of my Master’s research on fusion, so I have to share this. Nuclear fusion milestone passed at US lab. Wow. This is AWESOME news. Why? At the end of a very expensive research campaign that made big promises, there was great potential for fusion research to be shunned and pushed to the fringes indefinitely, to the great detriment of humanity. This milestone means more legitimacy in scientific communities around the world, with more effort toward this ultimate source of green energy. We’re not…
Category: Event, Science Tags: amazing, asimov, belts, breakeven, breakthrough, clean energy, community, crisis, Earth, energy, expensive, fusion, global, global warming, green, international, laser, livermore, LLNL, massive, national lab, planets, research, researchers, Science, science is sexy, scientists, stars, sun, universe, US, world
Does believing in the disappearing cat from Alice in Wonderland qualify you as a crazy-cat-person? Let’s take a gander through the looking glass and find out. Vexing Riddles & Mannerisms Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? The Cheshire Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to. Alice: I don’t much care where. The Cheshire Cat: Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go. Alice: …So long as I get somewhere. The Cheshire Cat: Oh,…
Category: What If, Writing Tags: absurdism, Alice, animals, article, bending, blog, carroll, caterpillar, Cats, change, cheshire, cloaking, colour, crazy, creative, creativity, distortion, drugs, experiment, fantasy-turned-science, feline, fiction, fiction-turned-reality, fisheye, fur, future, genetic, grin, hatter, hearts, hole, hypnosis, ideas, imagination, inspiring, interpreting, language, lens, lewis, mad, make-believe, metamaterials, modification, nanotechnology, nutrition, opiate, opium, optics, playful, queen, rabbit, reality, review, reviews, sci-fi, Science, science fiction, science is fun, speech, structures, sun, switch, technology, teeth, temperature, thought, thought experiment, weekly, what if, wonderland, writer, writing
I probably don’t need to tell you who lives in a pineapple under the sea, but for those interested in selecting the ideal underwater dwelling, I’ve put together this helpful flow chart to get you on the right track. And here are some good reasons why you’d want to live under the sea. For the record, yes, this flowchart implies that Aqua Man would live in an aquarium. Okay, so maybe you’re not a sponge, and maybe your pants don’t happen to be square (or rectangular, as the…
Category: Event, Featured, What If, Writing Tags: absurdism, amphibian, anemone, animation, aqua, aquaman, aquarium, aqueous, ark, article, blog, bob, breathe, cartoon, children, citrus, CO2, coconut, communal, compression, concrete, construction, cooking, crab, creative, creativity, cylinder, delicious, depth, drinking, engineering, environment, estuary, experiment, fantasy-turned-science, fibonacci, fiction, fiction-turned-reality, fish, floor, flowchart, fluids, foam, fruit, future, genetic engineering, genetic modification, gills, green materials, hotel, husk, ideas, imagination, inspiring, juice, juicy, lagoon, leakage, make-believe, mammal, mangrove, mariana, marsh, migratory, mother nature, nature, ocean, organic, osmosis, oxygen, pants, peduncle, penetrometer, picker, pineapple, playful, poor, pressure, protective, reality, reptile, rest, review, reviews, rich, robot, rubber, salad, salt, sci-fi, Science, science fiction, science is fun, sea, shell, ship, size, sleep, small, sponge, Spongebob, square, squarepants, squid, star, starfish, structural, supportive, technology, temperature, thought, thought experiment, translucent, trench, tropical, under, underwater, water, weekly, whale, what if, wrecked, writer, writing, young
As an explorer, beloved Dora is often found in the business of travel, and even more often, she is going where no one has gone before. Well, at least she’s going somewhere she hasn’t gone before. And what better tool to help her in her explorer duties than a map? She has no ordinary run-of-the-mill map, however. Would you expect anything else, really? She’s Dora the Freakin’ Explorer. The map, once Dora gives it the destination, sings a repetitive song as though it must continually reassure itself of its identity. It…
Category: Blog, Psychology, Science, What If, Writing Tags: algorithms, article, batteries, bendable electronics, bendable speaker, bilingual, blog, cellular, child, child development, children, computation, creative, creativity, data storage, demands, development, Diego, directions, Dora, Earth, electronics, England, experiment, exploration, explorer, fantasy-turned-science, fiction, fiction-turned-reality, flexible batteries, flexible electronics, flexible RAM, flexible speaker, future, Google, GPS, hiker, hiking, ideas, imagination, inspiring, Institute, Korea, landmarks, loops, make-believe, Map, mapping, navigation, no swiping, offline storage, organic, organic field-effect transistors, parsing, playful, psychology, queries, query, reality, repetition, requirements, review, reviews, sci-fi, Science, science fiction, science is fun, song, South Korea, spanish, speed, storage capacity, study, swiper, swiping, technological demands, technology, thin-film transistors, thought, thought experiment, travel, traveling, UK, unpopulated areas, visual, voice recognition, weekly, what if, whysomuchhateonswiping, WiFi, wilderness, writer, writing, zinc oxide, ZnO
So it’s been a little while since the movie came out, and by far I’m not the first person to say it, and I won’t be the last. The latest Batman movie was awful. I am a huge Batman fan, yet was frothing at the mouth in the theatre. The reasons I mention below have not been discussed yet, as far as I could see. 1. Social commentary at the expense of story. I’ll try to forget for a few minutes the terrible social commentary and associations that…
Category: Blog, Movies, Science, Writing Tags: bad science, bane, batman, blog, bomb, Christopher Nolan, dark knight, dark knight rises, fusion, gillette, invisible hand, joker, occupy, politics, propaganda, razor, reactor, review, reviews, Science, superhero, superheroes, terrorist, thermonuclear, threat, wallstreet, writing
Joseph Halden
