Hello Troops,
The start of summer vacation demands some kind of celebration. So tonight, The Troubadour gives you The Imaginarium first, and a few interesting pieces of science news last.
The town's new Burger King burned down last night.....
Summer Vacation starts in Japan
If only people read
What a deal!
An ambulance in 3, 2, 1.....
He wears it every Wednesday. People hate him.
Is this how it works? Not in Utah
3rd World Imagination
Life demands in at times.
There's a dog for every dog lover out there
Just a bit of turbulence?
Were are numbers 55 to 71?
There they are
A Master Waiter. Ultimate Creativity
To go in all our Starships
How you feel at the start of summer
An add for a funeral home
Great Inventive ideas!
Awesome Halloween Costume
The World is Waiting for You
I think I'll have a 32 ounce Out of Control!
Space and Science News
13-Year-Old Designs Super-Efficient Solar Array Based on the Fibonacci Sequence
Plenty of us head into the woods to find inspiration. Aidan Dwyer,
13, went to the woods and had a eureka moment that could be a major
breakthrough in solar panel design.
On a bleak winter hiking trip to the Catskill Mountains, the
7th-grader from New York noticed a pattern among tree branches, and
determined (as naturalist Charles Bonnet did in 1754) that the pattern
represented the Fibonacci sequence of numbers. Aidan wondered why, and
figured it had something to do with photosynthesis. Read More
The Potential for Radically Amplified Human Intelligence (IA)
With much of our attention focused the rise of advanced artificial intelligence, few consider the potential for radically amplified human intelligence
(IA). It’s an open question as to which will come first, but a
technologically boosted brain could be just as powerful — and just as
dangerous – as AI. Read More
Without the moon, humans wouldn’t exist. Life, if it had started at
all, would be in the earliest stages of evolution. Days would last four
hours, winds would blow at hurricane force and there would be a dense
and toxic atmosphere resembling that of Venus. Earth’s rotation around
the sun will become faster that the seasons would entirely change! Read and Watch More
Hello Troops,
My assignment this summer, create a new universe for the soon to be built Farpoint Station at Renaissance Academy in Lehi. Farpoint will be the next generation Space Center.
My challenge is to follow my own advice and make the ordinary, extraordinary. To answer the challenge, I decided to write the universe as a story instead of a manual. The first two installments have been posted - this is the third.
Are you following this episodic introduction to the Farpoint Universe? I'm hoping the answer is yes, because this is what you'll be dealing with when you board the new simulators at Renaissance's Farpoint Station. Your missions will be evaluated and scored. The more you know, the better your scores.
Mr. W.
The Universe of Farpoint Installation 3, continued from yesterday's second installment.
I
stepped out of the Lift into a two level, U shaped ship's bridge. The Lift was
on the top level. The Vanguard’s main viewscreen was directly opposite. The viewscreen was almost as wide as the Bridge itself. Doors were located on either end of the
viewscreen. The door on the left was the Captain’s Office. The door on
the right led to the toilets, staff room and conference room. The
bridge stations were two steps above the lower command level. The work
stations followed the U shape of the room.
The Captain, First
Officer, and Commonwealth Commissioner’s stations were located on the
lower level facing the viewscreen and the Tactical Display (TAC). The
TAC was a 7 foot long holographic 3D image generator. The TAC was displaying a high
definition image of Kepler 62e. Text streamed around the planet’s image, giving information about possible landing sites.
The
MEPCOMM station was immediately to my right. The Vanguard, like all
other SpaceGuard ships, uses a Marconi Entangled Particle Communicator
for direct communications to Fleet Command and all other SpaceGuard and
Colonial Ships. The Marconi officer was scanning the light spectrum for
Genie or Hephaesti signals.
“No signals detected.” The Marconi officer interrupted a
discussion between Captain Villano and the Commonwealth Commissioner. She continued with an explanation, “That
doesn’t mean they’re not out here. They may have a MEP system of their
own.”
Villano looked up toward the Marconi station. “Keep scanning. They know we’re here. I’m sure of it.”
Villano
saw me. “Ladies and Gentleman, we have a Troubadour reporter with us,”
Villano turned toward his senior staff. “Answer his questions. We’re
making history today and Fleet Command wants to share it with the
taxpayers.” He stopped and faced me. “Feel free to walk around and ask
questions. We’re about to launch our first probes to 62e.”
Villano
returned to his discussion with the Commissioner. The TAC
had changed. It was displaying an atmospheric scan of 62e. I noticed
the oxygen levels were high, a good sign for colonization.
I stood next to the Marconi officer. She was scanning the spectrum with her flashscreen. “You said something
about the Hephaesti," I asked. "I didn't think they were interested in the Outlands.”
“New intell,” she spoke softly, not sure exactly what the Captain meant when he said to answer all her questions. “Could be a real problem for the Genies and for us.”
“The Hephaesti are androids. They can live almost anywhere, so why Kepler 62e?”
The Marconi officer's hands moved rapidly across her screen as she spoke. “If the Genies are interested in Kepler 62, they are interested in Kepler 62. They'll follow the Genies anywhere."
She tapped her screen
to zoom in on a suspected signal, pausing only long enough to examine
the spectrum before swiping the information away with a wave of her
hand.
“Listen, the Hephaesti are a bigger pain in the butt to the
Genies than to us. We annoy them, the Olympians threaten their survival.”
A yellow flash from the TAC caught my eye. Yellow probe trajectories were moving across the holographic image of planet 62e, occupying the captain and first officer’s attention.
“This
isn’t right.” The Marconi officer’s voice was focused. I looked down at her flashscreen. Her hand hovered above two red wave patterns. “Captain, I
found what I think is a Genie signal coming from Kepler 62f.”
“Entangled?”
Villano asked as he moved his hand over his controls. The TAC image of Kepler 62e transitioned into the ice world of Kepler 62f. The red communication wave skimmed across the planet's north pole towards the Vanguard.
The Marconi officer answered. “No Sir. It’s a standard Geni radio signal. Scrambled and directed towards us.”
“But not for us?”
“No sir. Not for us.”
Villano looked at his first officer. “Opinion?”
“Fighters,” Commander O’Connor’s response could have been interrupted as either a question or a statement.
“Alert Stations!” Villano tapped his screen. The Vanguard’s Klaxons rang as the Bridge lights changed from pleasant to bright red.
To Be Continued.....
Dream Flight Adventures, our Sister Center in Pennsylvania, did a Write Up on My Retirement
Thirty years ago something happened that would ultimately change
thousands upon thousands of lives: Victor Williamson took a job at
Central Elementary School in Pleasant Grove, Utah.
Out of Victor’s vision and imagination, the Christa McAuliffe Space
Education Center emerged and uplifted more than 300,000 students. I was
one of those students, and my experiences at the Space Center had such a
profound effect on me that I’ve spent most of my life since then
carrying on the Space Center’s magical legacy through Dream Flight
Adventures. Read More
Dream Flight Adventures is in the News
In Pittsburgh, with its legacy of “Rust Belt” manufacturing, the options
are even more inventive. At Shaler Area Elementary School, students get
to travel back in time, through space, or under the sea as part of Dream Flight Adventures,
“an immersive learning environment that challenges students to use all
of their right- and left-brain skills, plus lots of team work, to solve
complex problems.” Read the Article
Memorial Day is to Honor Those Who Served
Ronald Reagan
McKinsey report: 12 disruptive technologies that will transform life, business, and the global economy
1. Mobile Internet
2. Automation of Knowledge Work
3. The Internet of Things
4. Cloud technology
5. Advanced robotics
6. Autonomous and Near-Autonomous Vehicles
7. Next-generation genomics
8. Energy storage
9. 3-D printing
10. Advanced materials
11. Advanced oil and gas exploration and recovery
12. Renewable energy
Another big Asteroid Will Come Uncomfortably Close
A big asteroid will cruise by Earth at the end of the month, making its
closest approach to our planet for at least the next two centuries.
The May 31 flyby of asteroid 1998 QE2,
which is about 1.7 miles (2.7 kilometers) long, poses no threat to
Earth. The space rock will come within 3.6 million miles (5.8 million
km) of our planet — about 15 times the distance separating Earth and the
moon, researchers say.
The Space Center's Very Own Wyatt Lenhart and Megan Warner Star in "Star Trek Continues"
Megan was in Arizona filming a new episode for this online fan series. The first episode went online yesterday. Wyatt plays Chekov. Watch and enjoy a new classic Trek episode.
Wyatt Lenhart plays Chekov (right)
Something to remind people of whenever they accuse you of sitting around doing nothing......
New Discovery. Why we Can't Remember Anything Earlier than 3 Years Old.
Scientists -- and parents -- have long wondered why we don’t remember
anything that happened before age 3. As all parents know, no matter how
momentous an event is in a toddler’s life, the memory soon drifts away
and within months there isn’t even a wisp of it left.
Now a new
study shows that “infantile amnesia” may be due to the rapid growth of
nerve cells in the hippocampus, the brain region responsible for filing
new experiences into long-term memory. The study was presented Friday at
the annual meeting of the Canadian Association for Neuroscience. Read More
