AMAZING News 3-23-14

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PRESS RELEASES AND NEWSLETTERS (See below for full text)

Planetary Resources Opens Asteroid Hunting Up To the Public
eFanzines Releases TAFF Newsletter #2 and Orpheum #6

SOCIAL (Note: this section used to be titled “Causes” but we’re concerned about the individual’s ability to separate message from messenger and, perhaps the title ‘Causes’ may be just a tad too provocative for some.)

FDR’s Second New Deal Resonating Today
Seems Someone Ain’t Too Happy With SFWA….(Some language may be offensive)
The Celts Conquer RomeCould Greed Be the Root Cause Of Imperial Collapses? (Hmmm. An elite class insulated from the world and incapable of hearing the barbarians knocking at the gates?  Naaa – that’ll never happen!) (More of the same)
deGrasse Tyson:  “I am NOT a witch atheist!”.  Let’s see if he floats…. (video)
Women In Science Fiction (Profiles of some of the greats)
Racebending In Firefly
What Color Is The Phantom Under That Mask?
Creationists Demand Equal Time In Response To Cosmos
Why So Few Women Science Popularizers?

 ENTERTAINMENT

Pop Up Books Are Back – for Game of Thrones (when will the bed sheet and curtain set be out?)
More Giving From Guardians of the Galaxy
The Singularity, Now in 32/4 Time (video)
Have Space Suit, Will Travel -Audiobook Review (Podcast)
06 FRANK R. PAUL - THE MAN FROM MARSWhat We Thought Martians Would Look Like (and They Forgot F.R. Paul’s Rendition – But We Didn’t
2001 Goes Back To the Big Screen
TangentOnline OTR:  Exploring Tomorrow Episode Space Baby (with John W. Campbell Jr.)

FANDOM

Fans are not “your people”
The Book Smugglers Offer Up a Joint Review of Heinlein’s The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress and Find It Distressingly Unrealistic, Mysoginistic and Improbable (So do most of the comments)
Who Decides What’s Classic?
Forget Whether It’s Classic Or Not – Read More SF!
SF Concatenation Provides Travel Tips For Loncon 3
Mike Glyer On The Best Fan Writer Hugo Award
NASFiC Rates To Rise
Michael Sinclair Passes

grandpa_zps3f33c6b4AWARDS

Spectrum Fantastic Art  (Videos)
Ursula K. Le Guin Wins Kesey Award
Rondo Horror Award Voting Begins
Hans Christian Andersen Award Short List

INDUSTRY

Lucius Shepherd 1947 – 2014
John Klima To Edit SFWA Bulletin (Can’t Wait For His First Cover)
Is Pirating Orphaned Texts OK If You Simply Can’t Find Them Anywhere Else?
Ellison Sighting

SCIENCE

What took place a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after a 13.8 billion year old event? (video)
In the future, advances in engineering will be mundane – and vitally necessary (video) (toilet of the future)
New Gully Seen On Mars (Hey, that wasn’t there last year!)
n-LADEE-MOON-DUST-large570New Advance In Nightvision May Soon Be Coming To Contact Lenses
Multiverse, Here We Come!
Interactive Lunar Recon (via SF Signal)
LADEE Confirms It:  The Moon Has A Dusty Halo (Does That Mean the Jade Rabbit Is A Dust Bunny?)

PRESS RELEASES AND NEWSLETTERS

Want to be an Asteroid Hunter? Join the challenge!

Dear Steve,

Last week, NASA and Planetary Resources announced the Asteroid Data Hunter Challenge. Today, the competition officially begins and you have the chance to sign up, use your coding skills, and become #AsteroidHunters with us!

Hosted by TopCoder and the Harvard-NASA Tournament Lab, this challenge asks YOU, coder extraordinaire (or if you are like me, my friend who is a “coder extraordinaire” that I will forward this to) to develop significantly improved algorithms to identify near-Earth asteroids within imagery data from ground-based telescopes.

Your work can help identify potentially hazardous asteroids and resource targets by creating an algorithm that…

  • Increases detection sensitivity

  • Minimizes the number of false positives

  • Ignores imperfections in the data

The winners will also be competing for $35,000.00 in awards!

Click to enter the challenge on TopCoder and good luck! We are counting on YOU!

Join the challenge!

-Caitlin O’Keefe
Community Foreman
Planetary Resources

***

2014 TAFF Newsletter #2

Jacq Monahan sends TAFFtastic #2, with candidate platforms and voting

instructions for the 2014 race.

Direct link to TAFF page: https://efanzines.com/TAFF/

Orpheum #6

New today at https://efanzines.com is Alan White’s Orpheum #6
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