#Greg Spitzer

[artparks-sculpture]

A sculpture titled 'Lover of Dreams (Abstract Black Carved marble sculpture)' by sculptor Greg Spitzer. In a medium of Marble.

#artist #sculpture #sculptor #art #fineart #Greg Spitzer #Marble #stone #limited edition

[fantomcomics]

What’s Out This Week? 6/8

Sorry for the delay, but here’s all the new hotness out today!

Fortnite/Marvel: Zero War #1 (of 5) - Christos Gage, Sergio Davila & Leinil Yu

The inhabitants on the Island are locked in what seems like a never-ending war, and only one thing has the potential to turn the tide - a crystallized fragment of the Zero Point that was cast into the Marvel Universe. Spider-Man and Wolverine team up with several Fornite fighters and new recruit Shuri to hunt down the elusive Zero Shard. Will these allies be able to find it in time and avert catastrophe? And can the heroes of the Marvel and Fortnite realities hold off the Imagined Order long enough to give them a fighting chance?

Epic Games' Chief Creative Officer, Donald Mustard, teams up with veteran Marvel writer Christos Gage (SPIDER-GEDDON, AVENGERS ACADEMY) and artist Sergio Dávila (CAPTAIN MARVEL) for a five-part crossover event with enormous ramifications for both universes! Each first print issue contains a redeemable code to unlock a bonus digital cosmetic in Fortnite!

LIMIT 1 COVER PER CUSTOMER!

Where Starships Go To Die #1 - Mark Sable, Alberto Locati & Jeremy Haun

Point Nemo - the farthest oceanic point on earth from any landmass. A spacecraft graveyard where rockets and satellites can be safely ditched on the ocean floor. In a near future ravaged by climate change, an African astronaut teams with an Indian shipping magnate to mount a dangerous salvage mission to recover the wreck of humanity's first interstellar starship. But what they find is beyond their worst nightmares.

Skybound Presents Afterschool #1 (of 4) - Justin Benson, Aaron Morehead, Greg Hinkle, Giovanna Niro & Veronica Fish

Morals have eroded. Your kids are out of control. Skybound's new horror anthology is going to teach those teens a lesson. In the debut issue, JUSTIN BENSON & AARON MOREHEAD (Marvel Studios' Moon Knight) and GREG HINKLE present a standalone cautionary tale soaked in blood and tears. Nora's anxiety prevented her from approaching high school with any degree of confidence-that is, until she adopted Janie, an emotional support dog with a winning smile and a killer secret. But just how far will Nora go to keep her new life?

Astronaut Down #1 - James Patrick & Rubine

Douglas Spitzer wants to be one of the "astronauts" selected for the crucial Mission Politzer. And just like astronauts like Buzz Aldrin and Sally Ride, Douglas is brave, adaptable, and self-sacrificing. He's one of the program's best candidates.

But if he qualifies, Douglas won't be traveling through space; he'll be launched into alternate realities on a desperate mission to save Earth from a horrific crisis that has our world on the brink of extinction. Unfortunately, it's a mission where everything will go wrong, where Doug-las's training and very humanity will be put to the test, and where a deep-seeded secret could sabotage everything.

Potions Inc #1 (of 5) - Erik Burnham, Stelladia & Natasha Alterici

The call of adventure always seems to hang up whenever Randelgast Jones tries to answer it, leaving him facing the dull future of working in his family's successful potion shop. But when a powerful artifact is stolen from his parents and puts them under a terrible curse, Ran finally gets the quest he's been after his whole life. He and his siblings set off to find the missing artifact - and its trail leads them from their homeland of Primaterra to the very strange realm of... Earth.

Orcs! The Curse #1 (of 4) - Christine Larsen

The fun and fantastical ORCS! series from creator Christine Larsen (Adventure Time) returns with a new installment featuring our favorite underdog heroes: Bog, Pez, Zep, Utzu, and Gurh! After returning from their travels and celebrating with a dance party, a prank gone wrong inadvertently unleashes something ancient and evil. Even worse, in a tower in the middle of a dark forest, a wizard with grand, sinister plans needs a real army, and his sight turns toward the Orcish tribe...

Namekawa-san Won’t Take A Licking! GN Vol 1 - Rie Ato

A hilarious and adversarial yuri series where a newbie delinquent faces off against the head of the disciplinary committee! After putting up with years of bullying in junior high, Namekawa-san decides to make a preemptive strike when she starts high school. Her plan? Become a delinquent! At first, everything seems to be going great-her classmates are terrified. However, the head of the disciplinary committee is unfazed. She's got her eye on Namekawa-san, and she refuses to look away in this explosive yuri comedy!

The Ward #1 (of 4) - Cavan Scott & Andres Ponce

From the writer of Star Wars: The High Republic comes an intense medical drama brimming with fairies, trolls, and real human pathos. St. Lilith's is a secret hospital for supernatural creatures. The personnel are overworked and the facility is underfunded. It's a place, and a life, Dr. Nat Reeves thought she left behind. Until a wounded woman (with a tail) appears on her doorstep.

Whatcha scooping up this week, Fantomites?

#WOTW #What's Out This Week? #comic #comics #comic book #comic books #The Ward #Namekawa-San Won't Take A Licking! #Orcs! The Curse #Potions Inc #Astronaut Down #Skybound Presents Afterschool #Where Starships Go To Die #Fortnite #Zero War

[corruptedcaps]

Demon in the sack

Rolling on with post three of five from follower submitted pictures is this one from @spitzers. Hope everyone likes it :)

Liz was a good Christian girl who believed strongly in no sex before marriage. So much so in fact that she would expose those who broke what she considered the most holy of rules.

One of those that she exposed was an art teacher, Wanda, at her school. Wanda was a goth who loved to tease the male students with her hot little body. Liz never liked the art teacher much in the first place so it gave her some pleasure exposing her.

However the person Liz caught her with was another student and as a result Wanda was fired from her job. When leaving the school Wanda cursed Liz. She told her that a great urge would build in her pussy until she was craving a cock to put in it and when she would eventually succumb she would turn into a sex crazed creature just like her, a succubus. Liz had snorted at the ludicrous threat but Wanda smiled darkly at her all the same.

However as the weeks went by Liz did find herself becoming more and more aroused. She found her mind wandering and thinking about all the boys cocks in her class. It reached a breaking point one day when she stayed late in the library to study and she spotted Greg the student that had fucked Wanda.

She found herself unable to think about anything else other than when she caught the two of them fucking. When she had seen them at the time going at it she could only think about how wrong it was but now the the images in her mind were turning her on.

She couldn’t help it anymore and she got up from her desk and rushed over to Greg. She kissed him without warning and for his part he didn’t struggle, he embraced her. She quickly got to work undoing his belt and letting his erect cock pop out.

She knew what she was about to do was wrong but she didn’t care. In fact it only turned her on more to know how little of a shit she gave. She pulled off her panties under her skirt and slid her wet pussy onto his dick. As soon as she did the changes began.

Her blonde hair turned jet black. Her uniform similarly lost all its colour as it turned black as night. Her skin turned pale and white while dark makeup covered her face. Her mind raced with depraved sexual acts she ached to do as she bounced on Greg’s cock.

“Oh fuck yes, fuck my tight bad little pussy baby. It’s wants you to cum in it.” She moaned as Greg increased his speed.

As it continued Liz could feel something she knew was unusual from happening. She could feel herself pulling something out of his body, something powerful. She was taking his soul. It made her feel incredible.

“That’s it baby just a little more and you’re soul will be mine forever.” She whispered into his ear as he eagerly finished. As soon as he did she felt his soul enter her body and give strength and pleasure. Two horns grew from the top of her head completing her transformation into a succubus.

She got off Greg’s lap and smirked at the pathetic trance he was in. She commanded him to stand and he did so obediently. She was going to enjoy turning all the boys into her playthings. Maybe even some of the girls too she wickedly thought.

#f2f #corruption #evil bitch #magic #CC200

[thinkveganworld]

This is an article I wrote years ago, but pretty much all the substance still applies.  Interesting how little we’ve changed in the meantime.  

Dave Johnson, a concerned blogger, has written, "We are a country of broken systems...Everything is broken. Every thinking person knows it. Democracy is broken. The media is broken. The health care system is broken. The budget is broken. They say Social Security is broken. They say the schools are broken. The economy is broken. The system of international law is broken. We don't even have a reason to trust that the election tomorrow - sorry today - is legitimate because the machines that record the votes are broken by design." Dave expresses what many of us know about America. We've lost the republic of Jefferson and replaced it with a sort of banana republic wherein we don't have elections. Our elections have become just for show. Our institutions - the ones that used to support democracy - are now crippled. The various corporate media outlets gaslight the public by failing to report vital facts, instead telling us fairy tale versions of national events. The national delusion continues. To borrow an old-but-good Paul Simon line, we're still crazy after all these years (and growing crazier by the minute.)

On various Internet sites, evidence mounts to indicate votes weren't accurately counted in election 2004. Meanwhile, the talking heads of Fantasyland TV news keep telling the public George W. Bush won, no questions asked. They say to the public, "move on, move on, nothing to see here," while hundreds of blogs expose likely vote fraud right before our truth-seeking eyes. An example is a Greg Palast article, "Kerry won," at the TomPaine.com site.

Millions of Americans know George W. Bush is deeply corrupt and has arguably committed crimes of an impeachable nature. However, our broken corporate media outlets virtually ignore this fact.

Around 100 prominent Americans and over forty family members of September 11 victims have petitioned New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to open an investigation into possible Bush administration misconduct regarding 9/11. This is an important story, but we hear nothing about it on TV news.

Our broken news outlets also fail to adequately cover the fact that the Bush administration has repeatedly trampled on the people's constitutional rights, including the right of the people to freely assemble. In The Progressive, November 2004, editor Matthew Rothschild talks about the Bush administration's arresting protesters at rallies and penning them in "free speech zones."

Rothschild points out this suppression of free speech and assembly is "distinctly un-American." He says the ACLU's executive director, Anthony Romero, calls the behavior "completely antithetical to an open society."

A handful of wealthy individuals own most corporate media outlets. By and large these media owners support Bush's views and do not support the rights of the American people. If that weren't the case, the mainstream media would operate very differently. TV news programs would report the above-mentioned issues in ways that expose Bush's misconduct, support the people and bolster our constitutional rights.

Some Democratic Party leaders also fail to put the people and our civil liberties ahead of political expediency. After millions of citizens were disenfranchised and lost their voting rights in the 2000 presidential election, Democratic Senators refused to stand with courageous House members and insist the people's voting rights be protected.

Democratic leaders have had four years to repair the voting system, yet the same questions have been raised about the 2004 vote. Just as they did in 2000, certain party leaders quickly caved and refused to fight for the people.

Journalist William Greider in his 1992 best seller, WHO WILL TELL THE PEOPLE, provides explanations for the failure of our political institutions. What Greider said in '92 is particularly appropriate to the discussion of our broken political system and election 2004.

Greider says, "The empty space at the center of American democracy is defined ultimately by its failed political institutions. At the highest level of politics, there is no one who now speaks reliably for the people, no one who listens patiently to their concerns or teaches them the hard facts involved in governing decisions."

Since Kerry's alleged loss of the 2004 election, we've all heard countless Democrats on television lamenting the "loss" and asking how the party must change in order to appeal to conservative as well as liberal Americans. I haven't heard one Democrat say what the party needs most is to once again connect with and speak on behalf of the people instead of doing only what's expedient.

Greider discusses the Democratic party's beginnings and refers to a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to George Washington in May, 1792. Greider says the text is "uncannily appropriate" to today's political dilemma and goes on to say, "Jefferson described the political divisions - North and South, agrarian and rural - developing around Washington. He lamented that the Federalist financial interests, led by his rival Alexander Hamilton, were steadily corrupting the Congress. Once they succeeded in seizing control, Jefferson warned, they would install a monarchical form of government centered in the presidency, and the people's right to govern themselves would be effectively extinguished."

Jefferson's fears are being realized today, with corrupt financial interests seizing control, installing a virtual monarchy centered in the presidency of George W. Bush. Bush is similar to a monarch in that he hasn't been democratically elected, and he brazenly tramples on the people's civil liberties and tries to diminish our right to self-govern at every turn.

Greider points out that it wasn't until Andrew Jackson's presidency that the nation first had the political party officially known as the Democrats. He says the party today no longer acts "as a faithful mediator between citizens and government" and adds that members of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) make the party's rules. He suggests if the DNC did more to connect with voters and their concerns, "it would probably be more reform-minded (and liberal) than the Democratic party reflected in Congress."

Greider explains the DNC doesn't try to connect meaningfully with the people, so it's "utterly dependent on the politics of money." The DNC doesn't have a reliable independent base, so it has no choice but to be more concerned with the reaction of the congressional leadership than with the concerns of the people.

Influential Democratic party members include corporate lobbyists, former policy advisors and chiefs of staff, and long-time insider-statesmen. As Bill Clinton's former press secretary and Kerry campaign advisor Mike McCurry told Greider, "Those guys really are the establishment, and the establishment argument is: Don't rock the boat, stay in the mainstream where everything flows smoothly."

The problem is, repairing our broken political system and protecting the American people's interests require rocking the boat, moving outside the mainstream and riding the turbulent waves that always accompany change.

The Democratic party should advance its own interests by providing support for its base; by continually educating the public about important issues and by working to build up labor unions, environmental groups, teacher's organizations, minorities and various citizens' groups between and during elections.

Democratic party leaders should also strengthen the party by speaking out more forcefully against the political corruption of the Bush administration and acting as champions of the people. We need Democrats to serve as the opposition party, not as lapdogs to George W. Bush and enablers and partners-in-crime to corrupt Republicans.

We need people in positions of influence, including those in the media and Democratic party, to find the courage and basic human decency to help the people repair our broken political system. Otherwise, we'll perpetually be a nation that's gone from Jefferson's Republic to virtual banana republic. In that case, the America our founders struggled and bled to create will have died.

[jennymanrique]

Broad coalition of Americans fights against voter suppression laws

Advocates put faith in broad public support to pass federal voting rights laws

The dramatic image of Texas Democrats leaving the legislature before midnight to block a voter restriction bill spotlights a surge of activism to secure access to the polls. Voting rights advocates believe this growing activism can still win passage of federal legislation to counter measures like SB7 which Texas Governor Greg Abbott has vowed to pass.

“SB7 will make it harder for everyone to vote in Texas, but particularly for people of color, people with disabilities, and people who use English as a second language,” said Mimi Marziani, president of the Texas Civil Rights Project, during a press briefing hosted by Ethnic Media Services.

“But there is growing opposition to this bill from people of all different ethnic backgrounds, business leaders like the American Airlines CEO, faith leaders talking to their congregations, economists, and even Republicans who are saying this just doesn’t make sense,” Marziani added.

In essence, SB7 seeks to drastically reduce early voting hours, Sunday morning voting that is particularly popular with parishioners in black churches, and NGO efforts to get out the vote. It also attempts to prohibit local election officials from distributing vote-by-mail applications and to make it easier for politicians alleging fraud to have an election overturned with very limited proof.

“The people who are currently in power in the state of Texas want to insulate their own power by changing the rules of the game. But the fact of the matter is Texas has changed (demographically),” Marziani said.

Two federal bills, For the People Act (S1), and the John L. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, both with strong bipartisan support, aim to counterbalance voter suppression initiatives like SB7.

In North Carolina, a bill in the state Senate to reduce the time to request and return an absentee ballot directly affects the African-American community. North Dakota has been pushing a voter identification law that requires residence, something impossible for Native Americans in a state that does not assign residential addresses to reservations. In Georgia, a new voting law that takes effect July 1 prevents proactive ballot requests by mail and even prohibits giving food or water to people who stand in long lines to vote in person.

“The People’s Act (S1) is advancing the work this country has been doing since the civil rights movement,” said Elizabeth Hira, Spitzer Fellow and Policy Counsel at the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program. “Invidious discrimination, often race-based, is very much still alive in American law.”

S1 will be voted on shortly in the Senate. It includes automatic voter registration, online voter registration that is not yet operational in ten states across the country, and two weeks of early voting, which would favor mothers and workers who do not have the flexibility to line up exclusively on a Tuesday, election day.

Other provisions include increasing the penalties for intimidation at the polls and restoring the right to vote for Americans who have been to jail, which could benefit four million people, 1.7 of whom are Black and Latino. The bill wants to ease identification requirements that would protect 378,000 transgender Americans who are eligible to vote but do not have an ID that matches their gender identity.

It also bans partisan gerrymandering and provides grants for election security and election administration.

Hira highlighted S1’s campaign finance reform limiting large-dollar contributions to politicians as “transformative.”

“The current Congress is the most diverse in history and yet 77% of legislators are white and 73% are men … In the entire history of the United States there have been 1994 senators and only 58 of them have been women,” Hira said.

“When you look at those statistics, you begin to realize why the policies that matter to everyday Americans have not been prioritized…because the majority of Congressmen are millionaires.”

For Alex Gulotta, National Interim Director of the “All Voting Is Local” Campaign in Arizona, what happens in the fight for the right to vote is not a partisan divide but “a divide over values.”

“It is a struggle between people who believe in democracy over authoritarianism, between people who believe in facts, data and science over lies and conspiracy theories, between people who believe in justice and fairness over pure political power and greed.”

Gulotta highlighted the historic turnout in the 2020 elections, despite the worst health crisis the world has faced in a century with the COVID-19 pandemic. In Arizona, for example, the participation of Asian Americans increased by 17%, African Americans by 11%, Native Americans by 8%, and Latinos by 5%. All these communities have the highest rates of coronavirus infections. But thanks to their pressure, of nearly 50 bills with ballot restrictions, only three of them passed the Arizona legislature.

“This is a huge national fight financed by a lot of dark money,” Gulotta said, referring to organizations like Heritage Action which defines itself as “a grassroots army of committed conservative activists on the front line against the liberal agenda.”

The activist nonetheless believes that the education and mobilization of communities that increasingly understand that “voting is the last act in a civic engagement process” will make the 2022 elections even “more successful” than the 2020 elections.

Originally published here

Want to read this piece in Spanish? Click here

#English #Voting Rights #Voting suppresion #COVID-19 #2020 elections #democracy #Heritage Action #communities of color #Texas #ballot restrictions #Vote #John Lewis #Native Americans #African Americans

[itunesbooks]

Evil Twins - John Glatt

Evil Twins Chilling True Stories of Twins, Killing and Insanity John Glatt Genre: True Crime Price: $7.99 Publish Date: May 15, 1999 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Seller: Macmillan They give a whole new meaning to the phrase "Dead Ringers" Identical twins, with the exact same genetic information, are a fascinating study in human behavior. It is a known fact that when separated at birth, they will often end up with very similar lives, without ever having met one another. So it seems to follow that if one twins turns out to be a "bad seed," the other will also go to the dark side. the shocking stories in Evil Twins prove this to be the case time and time again. And even more astounding are stories of twins turning upon each other in furious rivalries that may date back to the womb. Her is just a sampling of the compelling true stories about evil twins: Sins of the mothers: Harvard-educated chemical engineer Jane Hopkins stabbed her two young children to death before killing herself-six years after her twin sister Jean had tried to poison her own two children... My brother's killer: Identical twins Jeff and Greg Henry were close as brothers could be, inventing their own language and often exchanging identities. But they grew up to become violent alcoholics, and on one fateful binge, Jeff turned on his own twin brother and shot him in the heart with a shotgun... Loathsome Lotharios: Handsome, charming twin brothers George and Stefan Spitzer went to Hollywood to become famous actors. But their movie-star good looks never landed them any parts-except in the lurid home movies they shot of themselves raping the unconscious women they doped up on "Roofies"... Evil twins: Double the deadliness...with eight pages of shocking photos! http://dlvr.it/R6j5Sf

#True Crime

[redshift-13]

“Now, a new study set to appear in Astrophysical Journal Letters by Darryl Seligman and Greg Laughlin of Yale along with Konstantin Batygin of Caltech is seeking to resurrect the comet hypothesis. After revisiting all the available observations and constructing new models of ‘Oumuamua, they argue that the object’s acceleration can be explained if it is indeed a roughly cigar-shaped comet that outgassed perhaps 10 percent of its total mass as a nozzle-like jet of relatively pure water vapor that migrated across the surface in lockstep with the warmth of the sun. Such a jet would have been invisible in the Spitzer telescope’s observations, and the jet’s movement, they argue, would stabilize ‘Oumuamua against the wild spinning predicted by Rafikov’s models. This would imply, among other things, that ‘Oumuamua has not passed close to any other stars since leaving its home system, since otherwise it would have likely evaporated long before arriving here.

“We found that if the cometary jet continuously tracks the sun's direction, ‘Oumuamua rocks back and forth like a pendulum instead of spinning up,” says Seligman. That motion, in turn, would independently peg ‘Oumuamua at some 250 meters long—consistent with earlier size estimates derived from the object’s brightness. “I cannot say that we have ruled out a more sensationalist claim,” Seligman says, noting even so that their “more physically motivated outgassing model” would eliminate the “need to rely on less likely explanations.”

...

“less likely explanations”?  What’s the statistical basis for this probability assessment?  

...

“Others are less accepting. Implicit in the “comet” hypothesis, says Loeb, is the assumption that ‘Oumuamua should be a fairly typical object—or that our solar system and its retinue of comets should somehow be an outlier. Yet Seligman, Laughlin and Batygin’s model reinforces ‘Oumumua’s distinctiveness from native objects around our sun. “It does not look like at least 99.999 percent of the solar system’s comets,” Loeb says, suggesting that our a priori chances of having detected it in the first place with present-day telescopes are no better than a million to one. “Note that one in a million is a small probability,” he adds. “When I thought my wife is that special, I married her.” All of which could mean that either we are extremely lucky to have discovered ‘Oumuamua—or that there are deep flaws in our interpretation of it as a comet.

Rafikov, the author of the study that initially dismissed cometary outgassing as a plausible explanation for ‘Oumuamua’s acceleration, still stands by his result. “In a nutshell, [the authors’] explanation is that ‘Oumuamua is a rare unicorn, which is not new,” he says. “If ‘Oumuamua is not an ideally symmetric object, then the claimed non-gravitational force will cause its rapid spin-up…. I just don’t believe in ideally shaped comets; we have to consider the implications of deviations from perfect assumptions.” (Seligman and his co-authors insist their models have accounted for deviations from the ideal, which do not meaningfully change their results).”

#we'll probably never know #oumuamua #astronomy #scientific american

[workplacepod]

Episode 37 - 416-417 “Did I Stutter?”/”Job Fair”

In Episode 37 of An American Workplace, Katie and Chad talk about Season 4 Episodes 16 and 17 of The Office, “Did I Stutter?” and “Job Fair”!

OUR NEW PATREON PAGE! Bonus content for as little as $1 per month!

An American Workplace on iTunes

Check out the latest episode of An American Workplace!

#bj novak #brent forrester #cinescope #david brent #did i stutter #dwight schrute #gene stupnitsky #greg daniels #jenna fischer #jim halpert #job fair #john krasinski #justin spitzer #lee eisenberg #pam beesly #paul lieberstein #podcast #rainn wilson #randall einhorn #ricky gervais #ryan howard #season 4 #stephene merchant #steve carell #the office #toby flenderson #tucker gates

[artparks-sculpture]

A sculpture titled 'Air Guitar (Carved Stone Musical Instrument sculpture)' by sculptor Greg Spitzer. In a medium of Marble.

#artist #sculpture #sculptor #art #fineart #Greg Spitzer #Marble #stone #limited edition

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

NASA’s Roman Space Telescope Selects 24 Flight-Quality Heat-Vision ‘Eyes’ NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team recently flight-certified all 24 of the detectors the mission needs. When Roman launches in the mid-2020s, these devices will convert starlight into electrical signals, which will then be decoded into 300-megapixel images of large patches of the sky. These images will allow astronomers to explore a vast array of celestial objects and phenomena, bringing us closer to solving many pressing cosmic mysteries. “As the telescope’s eyes, Roman’s detectors will enable all of the mission’s science,” said John Gygax, the focal plane system manager for the Roman Space Telescope at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Now, based on our testing results, our team can confirm these infrared detectors meet all the requirements for Roman’s purposes.” Each detector has 16 million tiny pixels, providing the mission with exquisite image resolution. While 18 detectors will be incorporated into Roman’s camera, another six will be reserved as flight-qualified spares. “The heart of Roman’s detectors are millions of mercury-cadmium-telluride photodiodes, which are sensors that convert light into an electrical current – one for each pixel,” said Greg Mosby, a research astrophysicist at Goddard who is helping assess the performance of Roman’s detectors. “One of the reasons we chose this material is because by varying the amount of cadmium, we can tune the detector to have a specific cutoff wavelength. That allows us to focus more precisely on the wavelengths of light we’re trying to see.” To make the detectors, technicians at Teledyne Imaging Sensors in Camarillo, California built up the photodiodes on the base of the detector layer by layer. Then, they secured the detector to a silicon electronics board that will help process the light signals using indium – a soft metal that has roughly the same consistency as chewing gum. The pixels were glued down using a tiny drop of indium for each one. The drops were meticulously placed just 10 microns apart – about the width of a typical cotton fiber. If we scaled one of Roman’s detectors up to be as long as an Olympic-size swimming pool, the indium blobs would be less than half an inch apart. This precise alignment ensures that each of the sensors will operate independently. “The Roman team has spent years identifying an optimal recipe for the mission’s detectors,” Mosby said. “It’s gratifying to see the team’s hard work pay off on this crucial technical aspect of the mission. We can’t wait to see how the images from these detectors transform our understanding of the universe.” Hubble’s wide-eyed cousin Combining so many detectors and pixels gives Roman its wide field of view, enabling the mission to create infrared images that will be around 200 times larger than Hubble can provide while revealing the same level of rich detail. The spacecraft is expected to collect far more data than any other NASA astrophysics mission before it. Scientists had to develop new processes that will compress and digitize the mission’s downpour of data. Goddard engineers also pioneered novel testing methods to ensure the detectors will meet the mission’s needs. Roman requires extremely sensitive detectors to see faint signals from far across the cosmos. But it isn’t easy to create detectors that meet the mission’s strict quality requirements. The team knew that not all of the detectors would pass their stringent tests, so they ordered more than the mission requires and will use the best ones. But the extra detectors won’t go to waste – some are destined to serve as the eyes of other telescopes that have more lenient requirements, while others will be used for additional testing on the ground. Staying cool Roman will create enormous, high-resolution panoramas of the infrared universe, building on the Spitzer Space Telescope’s groundbreaking observations and complementing the James Webb Space Telescope. Viewing space in infrared light is like using heat-vision goggles, helping us spot things we wouldn’t be able to see otherwise. But doing so requires precise and extremely cold detectors. “Space is very dark, and everything gives off infrared light according to its temperature,” said Dominic Benford, the Roman program scientist at NASA Headquarters. “Roman’s telescope, camera, and detectors all have to be cooled so that they are darker than the universe they’ll be looking at.” Since we can detect infrared light as heat, Roman’s detectors will have to be supercooled to a frigid -288 degrees Fahrenheit (-178 degrees Celsius). Otherwise heat from the spacecraft’s own components would saturate the detectors, effectively blinding the telescope. A radiator will redirect waste heat from the spacecraft components away from the detectors out into cold space, ensuring that Roman will be sensitive to faint signals from distant galaxies and other cosmic objects. The combination of Roman’s fine resolution and enormous images has never been possible on a space-based telescope before and will make the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope an indispensable tool in the future. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is managed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, with participation by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech/IPAC in Southern California, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and a science team comprising scientists from various research institutions. The primary industrial partners are Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corporation in Boulder, Colorado; L3Harris Technologies in Melbourne, Florida; and Teledyne Imaging Sensors in Camarillo, California. IMAGE....This photo shows 18 of Roman's detectors mounted in an engineering test unit of the mission's focal plane array. The focal plane array will be incorporated into Roman's Wide Field Instrument – a 300-megapixel camera that will capture enormous images of the cosmos. Credits: NASA/Chris Gunn

#space #science #Astronomy #physics #news #nancy grace roman #NASA

[rolandfontana]

Creuzot Elected Dallas DA on Justice Reform Platform

John Creuzot, the Democratic candidate for Dallas County district attorney, handily defeated the GOP-appointed incumbent Tuesday, the Dallas Morning News reports. Creuzot had captured more than 60 percent of the votes against incumbent Faith Johnson by late Tuesday night. Creuzot had predicted that Dallas County voters would opt for the reform-minded former judge over the Republican appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott last year. She most recently won praise for successfully prosecuting a white police officer for the on-duty shooting of an unarmed black teenager. Even Creuzot has praised Johnson for bringing stability to an office that weathered controversy during the end of Craig Watkins’ tenure and long absences by his successor, Susan Hawk. Hawk stepped down in 2016. Creuzot said Johnson didn’t prove that she would do much to dramatically reform the office of Dallas County’s top prosecutor and reduce mass incarceration.

Creuzot established one of the state’s first drug courts and takes credit for helping to reduce statewide prison populations. He has pledged to dismiss all first-time cases for possessing small amounts of marijuana, which he thinks will keep people who need drug treatment out of prison. He aims to treat drug use cases “more as a public health problem rather than a criminal justice problem.” In another major district attorney race, Orange County, Ca., Supervisor Todd Spitzer was leading incumbent Tony Rackauckas in a bitter race that centered on years of scandal in the office, reports the Los Angeles Times. In Bexar County, Tx., Democrat Joe Gonzales, a defense attorney who advocated for criminal justice and bail reform, won his bid for district attorney, soundly defeating Republican Tylden Shaeffer, reports the San Antonio Express-News. Democrat Rachael Rollins easily beat independent Michael Maloney for the job of Suffolk County district attorney in Boston, reports WBUR. Rollins ran as a progressive, promising the kinds of reforms seen in Chicago’s Cook County and Philadelphia. She listed 15 low-level crimes her office generally wouldn’t prosecute. They include trespassing, shoplifting and drug possession with intent to distribute.

Creuzot Elected Dallas DA on Justice Reform Platform syndicated from https://immigrationattorneyto.wordpress.com/

[ustribunenews-blog]

NASA Flashback, 2017: NASA's Hubble Universe in 3-D

NASA Flashback, 2017: NASA’s Hubble Universe in 3-D

This image was taken in 2017. It still blows our mind.

NASA’s Hubble Universe in 3-D

This image depicts a vast canyon of dust and gas in the Orion Nebula from a 3-D computer model based on observations by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and created by science visualization specialists at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Md.  Credit: NASA, G. Bacon, L. Frattare, Z. Levay,…

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#astronomy #goddard #goddardspaceflightcenter #gsfc #HST #Hubble #hubble3d #NASA #NASA&039;s Hubble Universe in 3-D #orionnebula #space

[mrmichaelmbarnes]

Happy Archtober

It's that time of year again, when architecture- and design-related events and exhibitions converge on New York City at such a density that it's nearly impossible to see everything of note. For instance, one great aspect of Archtober are the Buildings of the Day; but unless you already bought tickets to see such buildings as Herzog & de Meuron's 56 Leonard Street, LOT-EK's Carroll House, or Diller Scofidio + Renfro's Vagelos Center, you're out of luck. So what's left? Below are a baker's dozen of standout exhibitions and events that shouldn't disappoint. October 2 Opening of Scaffolding at the Center for Architecture Although the idea of an exhibition that "examines the extraordinary applications of scaffolding as a kit-of-parts technology to provide novel forms of inhabitation and access" is intriguing, I'm mostly looking forward to the exhibition design by OMA's Shohei Shigematsu. (Until January 14, 2018)

Ongoing Never Built New York at the Queens Museum of Art Co-authors Sam Lubell and Greg Goldin take their popular book into the space of the museum with an exhibition designed by Christian Wassmann. Photos that show illuminated never-built buildings inserted into the museum's famous NYC panorama make me really want to make the trip out to Flushing Meadows. (Until February 18, 2018) October 20 Opening of Hiroshi Sugimoto: Gates of Paradise at the Japan Society In addition to "a new monumental black-and-white photo series by Sugimoto," the artist will celebrate the Japan Society's 110th anniversary with "a newly designed lobby garden in the Society's landmarked building." (Until January 7, 2018) Ongoing Souvenirs: New New York Icons at the Storefront for Art and Architecture Storefront commissioned more than 59 artists, architects, and designers to develop "objects that redefine New York’s iconic imagery." As part of their exhibition design, MOS Architects manipulates the Storefront's own iconic facade, "bringing it into conversation with its urban and architectural context." (Until November 18, 2017) October 24, 26-28 Swedish Design Moves New York at the Center for Architecture and the Van Alen Institute This four-day program under the theme Democratic Architecture features panel discussions about "how democratic architecture gives our communities a voice in the architectural process, ... what democratic space can be and how to create it, [and] what tools are available and how to develop them even further." Ongoing Harry Seidler: Painting Toward Architecture at Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture, City College of New York Curator Vladimir Belogolovsky brings his traveling exhibition on the work of Harry Seidler, "Australia’s most prominent architect of the 20th century," to City College. The exhibition examines Seidler's "distinctive place and hand within and beyond modernist design methodology" through a dozen featured projects. (Until November 22, 2017) from A Daily Dose of Architecture http://ift.tt/2yRQeqh

[itunesbooks]

2012 Coach of the Year Clinic Notes: Lectures by Premier High School Coaches - Earl Browning

2012 Coach of the Year Clinic Notes: Lectures by Premier High School Coaches Earl Browning Genre: Football Price: $9.99 Publish Date: December 7, 2012 Publisher: Coaches Choice Seller: Monterey Bay Productions, LLC The Coach of the Year Clinic Notes is a unique collection of lectures from America’s premier high school football coaches selected from the Coach of the Year Clinics. Among an impressive collection of lectures on practice organization, offense, defense, the passing game, and more, the 2012 edition includes a relevant lecture on the NCAA Eligibility Center.  Included in this edition are lecture from: • Clint Ashcraft, Conway High School, AR • Harry Bellucci, Hartford Public High School, CT • Joe Bernard, Stroudsburg High School, PA • Neil Blankenship, Swain County High School, NC • Rob Blount, Oceanside High School, NY • Andrew Coverdale, Trinity High School, KY • Robert Craft, North Florida Christian High School, FL • Tim Cromer, Christiansburg High School, VA • Mark DelPercio, Middletown High School, DE • Matt Dennison, New Philadelphia High School, OH • Rance Gillespie, Valdosta High School, GA • Andy Guyon, Xavier High School, CT • Brian Hales, Butler High School, NC • Rich Hargitt, Nation Ford High School, SC • Anthony Hart, Lafayette High School, MS • Jesse Hoskins, Milan High School, MI • Rob Hoss, Sayville High School, NY • Lane Johnson, Sheldon High School, OR • Michael Lalli, Chantilly High School, VA • Jason McIntyre, Mt. Pleasant High School, MI • Chris Miller, James F. Byrnes High School, SC • Josh Niblett, Hoover High School, AL • Doug Pearson, St. John’s Jesuit High School & Academy, OH • Jeremy Plaa, Thomas Downey High School, CA • Ricky Ross, Calhoun High School, GA • Steve Shaughnessy, Butler High School, NC • Devin Spitzer, Shawnee High School, OH • Craig Swabek, Trinity High School, KY • Greg Toal, Don Bosco Prep, NJ • Steve Tutsie, Warren Central High School, IN • Jared Van Acker, Grafton High School, VA • James Vint, Coronado High School, TX • Dave Walker, Martinsburg High School, WV • Brian Weinrich, Highlands High School, KY • Jeff Williams, Southside High School, AR • Kevin Wright, Carmel High School, IN http://bit.ly/2EJCKSE

#Football