text:
package org.kie.workbench.common.stunner.lienzo.toolbox.items.impl;

import java.util.function.BiConsumer;

import com.ait.lienzo.client.core.event.NodeDragEndHandler;
import com.ait.lienzo.client.core.event.NodeDragMoveHandler;
import com.ait.lienzo.client.core.event.NodeDragStartHandler;
import com.ait.lienzo.client.core.event.NodeMouseClickHandler;
import com.ait.lienzo.client.core.shape.Group;
import com.ait.lienzo.client.core.shape.Shape;
import com.google.gwt.event.shared.HandlerRegistration;
import org.kie.workbench.common.stunner.lienzo.toolbox.items.ButtonItem;
import org.uberfire.mvp.Command;

public class ButtonItemImpl
        extends WrappedItem<ButtonItem>
        implements ButtonItem {

    private final AbstractFocusableGroupItem<?> item;
    private HandlerRegistration clickHandlerRegistration;
    private HandlerRegistration dragStartHandlerRegistration;
    private HandlerRegistration dragMoveHandlerRegistration;
    private HandlerRegistration dragEndHandlerRegistration;

    protected ButtonItemImpl(final Shape<?> prim) {
        this(new ItemImpl(prim));
    }

    protected ButtonItemImpl(final Group group) {
        this(new FocusableGroup(group));
    }

    ButtonItemImpl(final AbstractFocusableGroupItem<?> item) {
        this.item = item;
    }

    public ButtonItemImpl useShowExecutor(final BiConsumer<Group, Command> executor) {
        this.getWrapped().useShowExecutor(executor);
        return this;
    }

    public ButtonItemImpl useHideExecutor(final BiConsumer<Group, Command> executor) {
        this.getWrapped().useHideExecutor(executor);
        return this;
    }

    public ButtonItemImpl onDragStart(final NodeDragStartHandler handler) {
        assert null != handler;
        removeDragStartHandlerRegistration();
        dragStartHandlerRegistration = item
                .getPrimitive()
                .setDraggable(true)
                .addNodeDragStartHandler(handler);
        item.registrations().register(dragStartHandlerRegistration);
        return this;
    }

    public ButtonItemImpl onDragMove(final NodeDragMoveHandler handler) {
        assert null != handler;
        removeDragMoveHandlerRegistration();
        dragMoveHandlerRegistration = item
                .getPrimitive()
                .setDraggable(true)
                .addNodeDragMoveHandler(handler);
        item.registrations().register(dragMoveHandlerRegistration);
        return this;
    }

    public ButtonItemImpl onDragEnd(final NodeDragEndHandler handler) {
        assert null != handler;
        removeDragEndHandlerRegistration();
        dragEndHandlerRegistration = item
                .getPrimitive()
                .setDraggable(true)
                .addNodeDragEndHandler(handler);
        item.registrations().register(dragEndHandlerRegistration);
        return this;
    }

    @Override
    public ButtonItemImpl onClick(final NodeMouseClickHandler handler) {
        assert null != handler;
        removeClickHandlerRegistration();
        clickHandlerRegistration = item
                .getPrimitive()
                .setListening(true)
                .addNodeMouseClickHandler(handler);
        item.registrations().register(clickHandlerRegistration);
        return this;
    }

    @Override
    public void destroy() {
        getWrapped().destroy();
        removeClickHandlerRegistration();
        removeDragStartHandlerRegistration();
        removeDragMoveHandlerRegistration();
        removeDragEndHandlerRegistration();
    }

    @Override
    protected AbstractFocusableGroupItem<?> getWrapped() {
        return item;
    }

    private void removeClickHandlerRegistration() {
        if (null != clickHandlerRegistration) {
            clickHandlerRegistration.removeHandler();
        }
    }

    private void removeDragStartHandlerRegistration() {
        if (null != dragStartHandlerRegistration) {
            dragStartHandlerRegistration.removeHandler();
        }
    }

    private void removeDragMoveHandlerRegistration() {
        if (null != dragMoveHandlerRegistration) {
            dragMoveHandlerRegistration.removeHandler();
        }
    }

    private void removeDragEndHandlerRegistration() {
        if (null != dragEndHandlerRegistration) {
            dragEndHandlerRegistration.removeHandler();
        }
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


We are dedicated to providing timely, thorough, and accurate financial, tax, and management support services to closely held companies.
We also are eager to assist the legal profession in the areas of fraud and forensic accounting and business valuation.
Our firm will act consistent with the standards and ethics of our profession.
Our fees shall be fair and reasonable on each engagement.


text:
Q: Emboss an Image in HALCON Original Image:

OpenCV Processed Image:

The first Image is the original.
The second image is OpenCV's processed image.
I want to realize the effect in HALCON too.
Can someone give me advise on which method or HALCON operator to use?

A: According to Wikipedia (Image embossing) this can be achieved by a convolutional filter. In the example you provided it seems that the embossing direction is South-West.
In HALCON you can use the operator convol_image to calculate the correlation between an image and an arbitrary filter mask. The filter would be similar to this:
Embossing filter matrix
To apply such a filter matrix in HDevelop you can use the following line of code:
convol_image (OriginalImage, EmbossedImage, [3, 3, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, -1], 0)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Youtube-dl is a free and open source command line video download tools that can be used to download video from Youtube and other websites like, Facebook, Dailymotion, Google Video, Yahoo and much more. It is based on pygtk and requires Python to run this software. It supports many operating system including, Windows, Mac and Unix. Youtube-dl supports resuming interrupted downloads, channel or playlist download, add custom title, proxy and much more.
In this tutorial, we will learn how to install and use Youtube-dl and Youtube-dlg on Ubuntu 16.04. We will also learn how to download Youtube video in different quality and formats.
After updating, restart the system to apply all these changes.
Once youtube-dl is installed, you can proceed to the next step.
If you are looking for a graphical tool for youtube-dl, then youtube-dlg is the best choice for you. youtube-dlg is a free and open source tool for youtube-dl written in wxPython.
By default, this tool is not available in Ubuntu 16.04 repository. So you will need to add PPA for that.
You can now easily download any Youtube video as you wish just paste their URL in the URL field shown in the above image. Youtube-dlg is very useful for those people who don't know command line.
Congratulations! You have successfully installed youtube-dl and youtube-dlg on Ubuntu 16.04 server. You can now easily download any videos from Youtube and any youtube-dl supported sites in any formats and any size.


Dr. Siegfried Marquardt represents Germany on the scientific advisory board. He is vice president of the German Association of Esthetic Dentistry (DGÄZ) and was head of the certification commission of the DGÄZ from 2004 to 2012.
He was the first German dentist to receive the title "Specialist for esthetic and function in dentistry". Furthermore, in the same year, he was also named "specialist for implantology" by the European Dental Association and the Federal Association of German implantologists (EDA/BDIZ-EDI).
Dr. Marquardt was elected the Congress President of the world dentist congress of the International Federation of Esthetic Dentistry (IFED) 2013 in Munich. As a lecturer at the Academy for Practice and Science (APW) within the DGZMK he regularly appears nationally and internationally as a speaker, etc. in Brazil, USA, Japan, Europe and Canada.


text:
Justice Reinvestment Initiative
Justice Reinvestment Initiative leads Prison Reform
June 24, 2013 June 24, 2013 by admin
The Best Of: The following article, first published on May 14, 2012, describes the critical role the "Justice Reinvestment Initiative", led by the PEW Center for the States and the Council of State Governments, have had on the prison reform movement.
A recent Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) funded initiative is having an extraordinary effect on prison reform efforts in states across the nation. The "Justice Reinvestment Initiative" is a joint project of the PEW Center for the States, the Council of State Governmant and the Vera Institute They are providing assistance and support to states in an effort to reduce prison populations, establish non-prison penalties for non-violent offenses, increase good time/work time for prisoners, and generally encouraging states to return or keep prisoners in local jurisdictions, while reinvesting funds saved by these reforms in "alternatives to prison". The Council of State Government's National Reentry Resource Center has a Resource Project Page devoted to the "Justice Reinvestment Initiative" To access it, click on the page facsimile on the left.
According to information provided by BJA, "Justice Reinvestment is a data-driven approach to reduce corrections spending and re-direct savings to other criminal justice strategies that decrease crime and strengthen neighborhoods. They work closely with state and local policymakers to help design policies that manage the growth of the corrections system. They are finding ways to improve the availability of services, such as housing, substance abuse treatment, employment training, and positive social and family support for offenders returning to communities. They are also looking to reinvest savings generated from reductions in corrections spending to make communities safer, stronger, and healthier."
What is incontrovertable, is that states are adopting the policy changes advocated and are passing ground-breaking reforms in many of the most conservative states in the nation (most recently Georgia, Oaklahoma, and Louisians; see articles in Facebook collumn on the right side of website). To access comprehensive information on what the "Justice Reinvestment Initiative" is doing in a listed state, just click on the state below, and you will be linked directly to National Reentry Resource Center information:
Categories Education/Training, Research, Showcase Tags BJA, Council of State governments, Justice Reinvestment Initiative, Pew Center for the States, Vera Institute Leave a comment
Oklahoma turns back on Prison Reform
Oaklahoma consistently is among the top five states in the use of incarceration (number one for women). Under these circumstances one might expect it to follow in the steps of its conservative neighbors, especilly Texas, who have led in the extraordinary reduction in imprisonment and adoption of alternative to prison policies.
That was the case until recently, when according to the City Centinel, Governor Mary Fallin's administration did an about face in its commitment to prison reform. The "justice reinvestment" initiative" (JRI), has in recent weeks seen a substantial weakening of prison reform plans, culminating in the resignation of JRI author Kris Steele, former speaker of the state House, from the inter-agency and private sector working group that was overseeing implementation"….Once again according to the Sentinel,"Gov. Mary Fallin's legal counsel, Steve Mullins, has guided major shifts in administration and oversight in recent weeks, effectively gutting the infrastructure that led implementation until mid-February."
The easiest way to follow the conflict and its various parambuations is to look at the individuals these changes are likely to affect.
According to Corrections Officials," only a handful of parole violators were in the agency's pipeline for intermediate sanctions (short of a return to full-fledged imprisonment) for what were described as technical rather than substantive or deliberate parole violations. While" Mental Health Department officials, in contrast, described early implementation touching more than 120 individuals…"
The "Tulsa World" describes this latest failure of will, as just one of a long history of planned prison reform failures in Oklahoma. This, of course, is just another example of the backsliding we are observing, as conservative states and jurisdictions actually come up against real reform and its consequences. More than a few step back from the brink, a phenomenum that is important to note and report as happens.
As I've descried in the past, the failure of states to embrace reform is important to note, but failures to implement or provide the structure, resource or institutional support that can make prison reform and reductions in recidivism real, are a more insidious form of failure, that we need to be ever vigilant about.
Categories Prison Reform and Courts Tags Governor Mary Fallin, Justice Reinvestment Initiative Leave a comment

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The Swivel Bath Seat gives your baby extra support.
This seat help while leaving your hands free to bathe him/her. Its unique 360° swivel action lets you gently turn the baby to wash those difficult-to-reach areas, while the rotating ball in a child-friendly colour keeps baby entertained.


text:
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Plevna school district #55
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Plevna School District #55 is an equal opportunity employer. Pursuant to Titles IV, VI, and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; 34 C.F.R. pt. 100; Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972; 28 C.F.R. pt. 54 and 34 C.F.R. pt. 106; Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act; 34 C.F.R. pt. 104; Age Discrimination Act of 1975; 34 C.F.R. pt. 110; and Titles I and II of the Americans with Disabilities Act; 28 C.F.R. pt. 35; Montana Human Rights Act and Governmental Code of Fair Practices, Title 49, Montana Code Annotated. The Plevna School District #55 has a policy of nondiscrimination and is committed to providing an environment that emphasizes the dignity and worth of every member of its community and that is free from harassment and discrimination based upon race, color, religion, national origin, creed, service in the uniformed services (as defined in state and federal law), veteran status, sex, age, political ideas, marital or family status, pregnancy, physical or mental disability, genetic information, gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation.


text:
The Alcazar of Cordoba
Madinat Al-Zahra
The Gate of the Bridge
The Fernandine Route
Calahorra Tower
Royal Stables
The Malmuerta Tower
Alley of Flowers
The Potro Inn
Typical Courtyards
Palace of Viana
The Corredera Square
Christ of the Lanterns
The Bailío Slope
The Roman Temple
Municipal Souk
The Hermitages
Almodóvar Gate
Seville Gate
Children's City
Julio Romero de Torres
Fosforito Flamenco Center
The House of Sepharad
Bullfighting Museum
Medieval Market 2020
Eat snails
Courtyards Festival
Cordoba´s Fair 2020
White Night of Flamenco
Summer cinemas 2020
Flora 2020
St. Raphael's Day
Bethlehem for Christmas
Aud. Mosque
Aud. Alcazar
Aud. Madinat Al-Zahra
Cordoba Synagogue
In the neighborhood of the Jewish quarter is the Cordoba Synagogue. A medieval building perfectly preserved, being the only one in Andalusia and third in Spain for its state.
History of the Synagogue
Structure of the building
Visiting schedule
A Jewish temple built in the fourteenth century that is declared as an Asset of Cultural Interest and National Monument.
The history of the Cordoba Synagogue goes back to the years 1314 and 1315, when it was built to be a Jewish period. After the definitive expulsion of the Jews in 1492, the building becomes a hospital. In the year 1588 the old Synagogue becomes a hermitage.
The most recent history of the monument brings us to 1884, when some Hebrew inscriptions are discovered. At that moment the building begins to be valued and the restoration works that have come down to our days begin.
The Synagogue is composed of several well differentiated parts. The entrance gives access to a courtyard of just over 25 square meters. From the patio you enter the building through a lobby, where you can see a wooden ceiling. The lobby gives access through a wooden staircase to the women's area, we also know there was a small pool for ablutions.
Finally we go to the prayer room, where we can see a high ceiling with crafts. It is a room of about 40 square meters, with different plasterwork and Hebrew inscriptions on each of its walls.
The women's gallery is located on the entrance hall and has three large arches that connect to the prayer room.
The dimensions of this Synagogue, compared with others of the same style, are rather small. This has led to think that its construction was conditioned by the Christians who ruled the city.
The Cordoba Synagogue has a high level of conservation despite centuries of history and the wide variety of uses that has been given. Therefore, you can still see many of the details of the building of the time in which it was built.In the Hebrew texts that are still preserved you can read "I am built as a tower of the Messiah …", "we bend the knee before the Lord …", "Lord with joy, enter into his presence …"
The Synagogue has two different schedules depending on the time of year.
From September 16 to June 15 the hours are from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. from Tuesday to Saturday. Sundays and holidays open from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Every Monday is closed, except for Mondays that coincide with holiday.
From June 16 to September 15, the schedule is from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., except on Mondays, which is closed whenever it is not a holiday.
The price of the entrance is symbolic. Residents in the European Union do not pay entry and others only pay € 0.30
Siente Cordoba is a the tourism website of Cordoba. Find all the information you need about City, its history, monuments and events. This is a private website.
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Tourism website in Córdoba
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text:
How a lack of investment hurts business in Lansing
Alexander Alusheff
EAST LANSING – Alexa Jones is halfway to the $700,000 she needs to launch her medical technology business, TheraB.
She's designed a small light therapy blanket to treat babies with jaundice. It allows them to be held by their mother during treatment, rather than inside an incubation chamber. But with $350,000 left to raise, she's already tapped into most of the large investors in the Lansing area.
"Fundraising has already been a major stress," said Jones, 25, who started working on TheraB in 2013 for her engineering capstone project at Michigan State University. "Seeing what I need, I can't get it from one investor. I'll have to go elsewhere in Michigan."
Read more Transform Lansing stories here
While the Lansing region is home to eight business incubators and two accelerators, which is enough to launch smaller companies, when it comes to companies that need more than $100,000 to launch, resources become scarce, said Andrew McColm, managing director of Venture Creation at MSU's Spartan Innovations, which provides the resources to launch MSU student and faculty businesses.
"It's not just an issue in Lansing, it's an issue in the Midwest," said McColm, who used to be managing director of venture capital firm Early Stage Partners in Ann Arbor. "There's not enough viable start-ups at that stage here to attract more investors. And investors are not accustomed to investing in pre-revenue companies."
It's almost a catch 22, McColm said. Businesses need money to launch, but it's difficult for them to get money from investors because they haven't launched yet.
The effect on businesses like TheraB? They have to continue to focus on fundraising rather than running a business, which delays their launch or, in some cases, prompts them to relocate, McColm said.
"We're really trying to ramp up our approach to entrepreneurship," said MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon. "There's just not the support to move those ideas forward, so (entrepreneurs) are seeking support outside the community, which means they will then leave the community. And it becomes a vicious cycle."
Jones isn't at that point yet.
She hopes to launch by the end of the year. Once she reaches her capital goal, she can apply for FDA approval of the battery-powered blankets. Then she can start filling orders.
Her goal was pushed back because she was working for Goldman Sachs in Salt Lake City after graduating in May 2014. She came back to Lansing to work on TheraB full time in December. Jones plans on reaching out to a few more Lansing investors before turning to Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids and Detroit.
Businesses like TheraB have three options when it comes to securing more than $100,000. There's Spartan Innovations, but that's only for MSU students and faculty. It's launched five businesses in the past 12 months. Jones received $200,000 from the organization and partnering investors.
There's Quantum Medical Concepts, which invests between $50,000 and $150,000 into healthcare-based businesses, which Jones got the maximum amount from in 2014. Quantum funds four businesses a year.
Lansing incubator funds medical tech startups
And there's Capital Community Angel Investors, a group of investors who take on high-risk, high-reward companies that project revenues of $5 million or greater within five years. The minimum investment is $100,000. Jones plans to make a pitch to them.
Since forming in 2007, the Angels have invested $2.1 million in 10 businesses, said Mark Hooper, a founding member.
Businesses seeking money through the Angels have to go through a thorough vetting process that includes multiple interviews, presentations and reviews of the business plan and financial statements. Investors also take a seat on the businesses executive board. The plan is for investors to exit the company within five to 10 years.
"Out of every 100 applicants, there may be 20 you would spend time with, but only end up funding two or three," Hooper said. "Statistics show the more due diligence that is done, the more likelihood that a company will be successful."
Of the 10 businesses the group has funded, only one is based in Lansing – XG Sciences, which manufactures nanomaterials that can be used in blast-resistant vehicles, oil-spill cleanups and drug storage containers.
With just three large investors, Lansing doesn't compare well to other parts of the state. Grand Rapids has five venture capital and equity investment firms while Detroit has 11 and Ann Arbor has 14.
"Businesses need to evolve to a point where they are ready for this type of investment," Hooper said. "It takes an ecosystem. One thing will attract another."
Lansing has proved it can launch small businesses.
Between the eight incubators in the region, there are roughly 150 tenants. Incubators provide resources such as office space, training and mentors to aspiring entrepreneurs at little-to-no cost.
Once those businesses outgrow the incubator, they have few choices. But the region is taking steps to fill that gap.
"Going forward, this is a problem," said Tony Willis, new economy director for the Lansing Economic Area Partnership. "The more programs we have, the better it is for everyone."
Willis is launching Lansing PROTO later this spring, the region's first accelerator, which is focused on product development. The idea of an accelerator is to take an existing business and get its product to market in less than a year.
PROTO, which is in its trial period, has accepted two businesses into the eight-month program. The businesses receive $15,000 in return for equity and must commit 20 hours a week to work on their prototype.
"The idea is to get you to a stage of growth," Willis said. "LEAP is looking to fill these gaps when it comes to economic development. If we don't do this, we lose out on the talent base here."
Spartan Innovations is taking a similar approach by launching the Conquer accelerator in May. Conquer will take five business teams with the goal of getting their product to market in 10 weeks. Each team is given $20,000 and will be mentored by a group of 39 successful MSU alumni.
MSU to invest $100K in startup businesses
"We want to keep these entrepreneurs in the (local) ecosystem," said Paul Jaques, director of Student and Community Engagement for Spartan Innovations. "We're at a time when the start-up world is sexy. We're seeing firms take equity in a business and invest in it. But we need more early stage investors."
These are relatively small investments, but a start in attracting the larger investors, Willis and Jaques said.
"We do know that we are positively impacting people in the region with resources we've never had before," he said. "A decade ago, we weren't nearly as busy as we are now. A sleeping bear doesn't get any attention. We're trying to ramp this up."
Contact Alexander Alusheff at (517) 388-5973 or aalusheff@lsj.com. Follow him on twitter @alexalusheff.


A wealthy industrialist hires the renowned hoax-buster Phillip Knight to prove that an island he plans to develop isn't voodoo cursed. However, arriving on the island, Knight soon realizes that voodoo does exist when he discovers man-eating plants and a tribe of natives with bizarre powers.Voodoo Island featuring Boris Karloff and Rhodes Reason is streaming via tv everywhere with EPIX. It's a horror movie with a less than average IMDb audience rating of 4.6 (708 votes).
Voodoo Island has a less than average IMDb audience rating of 4.6 (708 votes). The movie is not at all popular with Reelgood users lately.


Rollbar provides high performance error tracking and monitoring. With Rollbar you can track and reproduce exceptions and errors quickly. Once installed, uncaught exceptions in your app instantly get reported to Rollbar. Giving you access to your application errors, stack traces, affected users and deployments all in one place. Rollbar collects, de-duplicates, groups errors and sends email alerts and integrates with popular services like Hipchat, JIRA, Bitbucket and more. Allowing you to find and fix bugs faster.


With the holiday season quickly approaching, it's time to think about giving our kids less. Yes, we said less!
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Make sure your little goblins and princesses are safe and seen this Halloween.
Lil Worker is offering a 25% discount on Hi Viz vests, bands and toques!!!


With the all-new Timeline Express – Image Icons Add-On you now have the ability to upload custom images to use as icons on your timeline. We've packed over 1500+ professionally designed icons into this add-on.
Browse and filter through the included icons to find the perfect icon for your announcement or event. These icons are a great addition to Timeline Express Pro and Free, adding yet another layer of customization onto an already feature packed product.


text:
Con Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (in acronimo HIPC, in italiano "nazioni povere pesantemente indebitate") si indica un programma internazionale promosso nel 1996, congiuntamente dal Fondo Monetario Internazionale (International Monetary Fund, IMF) e della Banca Mondiale.

L'iniziativa ha lo scopo di aiutare i paesi più poveri del mondo portando il loro debito pubblico a un livello sostenibile, sotto la condizione che i loro governi dimostrino di raggiungere determinati livelli di efficienza nella lotta alla povertà.

Fra le iniziative che furono protagoniste nel portare il tema del debito pubblico dei paesi poveri all'attenzione internazionale c'è il movimento per la cancellazione del debito, sostenuto da diverse organizzazioni non governative negli anni immediatamente precedenti al Giubileo del 2000.

Il programma HIPC è stato oggetto di critiche rispetto ai criteri eccessivamente restrittivi per l'ammissione delle nazioni povere, e per il fatto che alcune delle misure che le nazioni devono adottare per essere ammesse al programma, secondo alcuni, contribuiscono all'impoverimento di tali nazioni.

Storia
Il programma, che fu oggetto di revisione e riforme nel 1999, ha identificato 38 nazioni particolarmente bisognose, di cui 32 nell'Africa subsahariana. A oggi (dato del 2020) 37 nazioni hanno ricevuto fondi nell'ambito del programma, per un totale superiore ai 100 miliardi di dollari:

*Afghanistan
Benin
Bolivia
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Camerun
Repubblica Centrafricana
Ciad
Repubblica Democratica del Congo
Comore
Costa d'Avorio
Etiopia
Gambia
Ghana
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Guyana
Haiti
Honduras
Liberia
Madagascar
Malawi
Mali
Mauritania
Mozambico
Nicaragua
Niger
Ruanda
São Tomé e Príncipe
Senegal
Sierra Leone
Somalia
Tanzania
Togo
Uganda
Zambia

Voci correlate
 Economia dell'Africa
 Povertà in Africa

Collegamenti esterni

 Dossier sulle Heavily Indebted Poor Countries.

Economia dello sviluppo
Debito estero

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Computation Between the Stars
Frank Wilczek has used the neologism 'quintelligence' to refer to the kind of sentience that might grow out of artificial intelligence and neural networks using genetic algorithms. I seem to remember running across Wilczek's term in one of Paul Davies books, though I can't remember which. In any case, Davies has speculated himself about what such intelligences might look like, located in interstellar space and exploiting ultracool temperatures.
A SETI target? If so, how would we spot such a civilization?
Wilczek is someone I listen to carefully. Now at MIT, he's a mathematician and theoretical physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004, along with David Gross and David Politzer, for work on the strong interaction. He's also the author of several books explicating modern physics to lay readers. I've read his The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces (Basic Books, 2008) and found it densely packed but rewarding. I haven't yet tackled 2015's A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature's Deep Design.
Perhaps you saw Wilczek's recent piece in The Wall Street Journal, sent my way by Michael Michaud. Here we find the scientist going at the Fermi question that we have tackled so many times in these pages, always coming back to the issue that we have a sample of one when it comes to life in the universe, much less technological society, and our sample is right here on Earth. For the record, Wilczek doesn't buy the idea that life is unusual; in fact, he states not only that he thinks life is common, but also makes the case for advanced civilizations:
Generalized intelligence, that produces technology, took a lot longer to develop, however, and the road from amoebas to hominids is littered with evolutionary accidents. So maybe we're our galaxy's only example. Maybe. But since evolution has supported many wild and sophisticated experiments, and because the experiment of intelligence brings spectacular adaptive success, I suspect the opposite. Plenty of older technological civilizations are out there.
Civilizations may, of course, develop and then, in Wilczek's phrase, 'flame out,' just as Edward Gibbon would describe the fall of Rome as "the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. . . . The stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight." We can pile evidence onto that one, from the British and Spanish empires to the decline of numerous societies like the Aztec and the Mayan. Catastrophe is always a possible human outcome.
But is it an outcome for non-human technological societies? Wilczek doubts that, preferring to hark back to the idea with which we opened. The most advanced quantum computation — quintelligence — he believes, works best where it is cold and dark. And a civilization based on what we would today call artificial intelligence may be one that basically wants to be left alone.
Image: The Local Group of galaxies. Is the most likely place for advanced civilization to be found in the immensities between stars and galaxies? Credit: Andrew Z. Colvin.
All this is, like all Fermi question talk, no more than speculation, but it's interesting speculation, for Wilczek goes on to discuss the notion that one outcome for a hyper-advanced civilization may be to embrace the small. After all, the speed of light is a limit to communications, and effective computation involves communications that are affected by that limit. The implication: Fast AI thinking works best when it occurs in relatively small spaces. Thus:
Consider a computer operating at a speed of 10 gigahertz, which is not far from what you can buy today. In the time between its computational steps, light can travel just over an inch. Accordingly, powerful thinking entities that obey the laws of physics, and which need to exchange up-to-date information, can't be spaced much farther apart than that. Thinkers at the vanguard of a hyper-advanced technology, striving to be both quick-witted and coherent, would keep that technology small.
A civilization based, then, on information processing would achieve its highest gains by going small in search of the highest levels of speed and integration. We're now back out in the interstellar wastelands, which may in this scenario actually contain advanced and utterly inconspicuous intelligences. As I mentioned earlier, it's hard to see how SETI finds these.
Unstated in Wilczek's article is a different issue. Let's concede the possibility of all but invisible hyper-intelligence elsewhere in the cosmos. We don't know how long it would take to develop such a civilization, moving presumably out of its initial biological state into the realm of computation and AI. Surely along the way, there would still be societies in biological form leaving detectable traces of themselves. Or should we assume that the Singularity really is near enough that even a culture like ours may be succeeded by AI in the cosmic blink of an eye?
John walker February 21, 2018, 13:59
I don't want to get into a discussion on the prevalence of eti given that that is too often inextricably linked to wishful thinking. However when considering the "hyperintelligent" I find it much more enthralling to ponder what computational (cerebral) priorities they might have.
Antonio February 22, 2018, 4:04
Yeah, too much talk, let's develop interstellar travel and explore!
Spaceman February 22, 2018, 13:04
Yes, let's get to it! We need more advances in materials science and energy generation. We get it: computers get faster and smaller on a regular basis reliably providing us with new gadgets, but we need similar advances in other technological arenas! As Peter Thiel said upon pulling an iphone out of his pocket at a tech conference: "I don't consider this to be a technological breakthrough,' he said. 'Compare this with the Apollo space program.'"
Antonio February 22, 2018, 16:35
I can't agree more! And I'm not alone: http://buzzaldrin.com/images/MITtechrev_web.jpg
Alex Tolley February 21, 2018, 14:08
A civilization based, then, on information processing would achieve its highest gains by going small in search of the highest levels of speed and integration. We're now back out in the interstellar wastelands, which may in this scenario actually contain advanced and utterly inconspicuous intelligences.
While brains should be compact, that doesn't mean the body needs to be. If quantum computers show promise for AI, then this c limit only applies to other mechanisms, not to thinking.
We might also think of civilizations being visible by their size. Think of each dust like individual as part of a large dust cloud that could be detected. Unless the individuals can avoid thermodynamics, their thought will require energy and so the cloud will radiate at a higher temperature than would an inert dust cloud.
If civilizations are curious, they will travel, and there is no reason why they wouldn't use large vessels, event planet-sized ones to do so.
Finally, all that thinking and no action? I don't buy the idea of thinking in bottles. Civilizations will alter their environment by their actions, even if subtle.
Gary Wilson February 21, 2018, 15:05
Since biology would always precede AI there will always be biological intelligence out there. How long it lasts in that form should possibly be another variable in the Drake equation shouldn't it? Biological species can't miniaturize themselves and so there should be some finite number of them in our galaxy. But time and distance are the key variables surely. If life is very common we should have a chance of finding something we would think of as sentient but it may take a very long time in terms of the human lifespan. We should keep looking but shouldn't get depressed if we don't find it in what we think of as a reasonable length of time.
David H February 21, 2018, 15:30
"And a civilization based on what we would today call artificial intelligence may be one that basically wants to be left alone."
A civilization is not a single agent. Gah, why do brilliant scientists have to be so stupid about social science? A civilization is composed of a group of individuals, each with their own priorities. Try to imagine our civilization at the point when we can build Von Neumann probes that set up shop in every star system of the Milky Way. 99.999% of humans don't see the value of building such a thing, but that leaves thousands who do. So it's gonna happen. And that kind of thinking, so easy to apply to us, must be applied to alien civilizations as well. This handwavy assumption that a civilization has one monolithic set of priorities is indefensible and must stop.
Yeah, maybe hanging out in cold parts of the Milky Way is somehow optimal for computing-based civilization. But that civilization is bound to have individuals who get fed up with their neighbors and decide to use the untapped energy from all those stars. I mean, why waste it? You could do a lot of computing with all that starlight and planetary material. It just takes *one individual* to decide to go for it, and a mere million years later, the entire galaxy is paved over.
Nobody, not even the most brutal dictator, can stop every individual from this sort of escape.
hiro February 21, 2018, 20:04
Sending Von Neumann nano-machines to somebody home star system is a very good excuse for starting an interstellar war. About those dark-horses poking into other species problems, the late Iain Banks used the term "slap drone" to stop those bad behaviors.
David H February 22, 2018, 0:49
That's just what I'm talking about. Think through what you're proposing. First, you assume that a subtle argument that persuades you (aliens might not like a visit from our technology) will persuade 100% of all members of a civilization, forever. Do you have the slightest reason to find this defensible? Honestly, it doesn't even persuade me. You could just put a clearly marked off-switch (metaphorically) on each drone, so locals have a choice about whether it does its thing in their neighborhood. Like I said in the parent post: it's not enough to convince 99.999% of everyone.
Second: the slap drone. OK, I'm granting that you could make one work. Could you make it work infallibly? If somebody were talking about making slap drones for real, the first thing I would think is: Crap, I better move to some place where I'm out of the range of those fucking slap drones. I wouldn't be alone. That splintering would defeat the purpose pretty quickly. Imagine Obama proposing slap drones for America. How do you think this would be received? How about Trump? And that's just America – one fairly docile human jurisdiction. Of course, I don't know what aliens are like. Maybe they're opression-loving super-conformists, but I have no reason to think this. For all I know, they're just as likely to see us as oppression-loving super-conformists. Probably there's a range, and given no further data, we should assume that we're in the fat part of the bell curve. And that's yet another reason to never ever be satisfied with a rationale of the form "Aliens must have all decided to x." For all values of x, humans have never all decided to x.
The State Of The Art deals with this problem partially. Anyway, no good old US citizen has ever entered North Korea bringing AK47 to hunt bears, a certain organization in the US or North Koreans themselves would stop this.
the weight between individual freedom and the possibility of interstellar war or the survival of the species is obvious. Any Earth sympathizer who wanted to give our civilization wormhole tech or blueprint of Q-AGI would be either stopped or eliminated. Total individual freedom only exists in VR but not in reality.
ljk February 22, 2018, 11:14
If an advanced ETI – heck, not even one much more advanced than 21st Century humanity – entered our Sol system to utilize its resources and decide to either take us out of the picture or at least keep us from interfering with their plans, they would find little in the way of effective resistance from the natives occupying Sol 3.
Attach rocket motors with guidance computers to selected space rocks and aim them at our major population centers. Or drop a few in the oceans and let the resulting giant waves wipe out all the surrounding coastline communities in one or two shots. This is if you want to cripple the humans without destroying all of Earth.
Despite decades of talk, we still have no effective NEO deflection/destruction plans in place: Note how we still read of new planetoids heading past our planet being detected just weeks or less in advance, with no plans to stop or remove them in case something somehow went very wrong.
If you want to get rid of humanity and don't care about the other flora and fauna of Earth – you just want the minerals and other inorganic resources – aim a single starship at our planet moving at relativistic speeds and let the resulting kinetic energy of the impact sterilize the entire surface of life.
Or genetically engineer a deadly virus that takes out only humans and wait.
There are many options for an ETI that wants Earth and the Sol system and doesn't want to share. Our weapons and monitoring systems are designed to respectively attack and look for terrestrial enemies, not alien invaders who have all the advantages of the ultimate high ground.
The alien invaders of science fiction are generally stupid in their tactics because if they went with the methods described above, it would be a very short war and the "plucky" humans would be plucked.
If I understand David H's point correctly, even if a faction did do one of those things, why would another faction try to mitigate it? When we wage war on other countries, organizations like MSF and the Red Cross step in to mitigate the harm. The UN may try to intercede and broker a peace. An so on.
Harold Shaw February 23, 2018, 17:58
I think it depends on the rarity of abiogenesis and the evolution of human type consciousness. If it is rare enough, then a new emergence may be uniquely valuable and worth protecting. Imagine how easy it would be to protect childhood from exploitation or existential threat if there were only one child? Childhood just has too be valuable enough. I think an ancient peoples would be fascinated by us, a glimpse into their perhaps lost past. A synthetic, computational people who are the product of biological people may be the least likely to show themselves, fearing how their contact may shape the synthetic, computational people we produce or become.
It strikes me that many ideations for ETI resemble old men waging conquests and when we fail to find evidence of these old men conquering the heavens we doubt anyone is there.
Von Neumann probes or similar approaches such as sentinel probes may actually allow or promote peaceful interstellar relations because they would allow neighbors to observe each other and collect intelligence concerning motivations and capabilities. However that does not imply that a civilization capable of Von Neumann probes would seek formal relations with every or any other civilization. The value of maintaining formal relations would be a much better predictor than the capability of maintaining formal relations. For a civilization of super intelligent, immortal, synthetic people; there may be little to no value or very specific but difficult to realize value in short lived biologic people.
I agree that a civilization comprised of individuals shouldn't, can't be approached as a monolithic personality. However, we also can't assume that, for any given time frame, all individual personalities or motivations will be represented. As an extreme example of this, personalities motivated by self harm or suicide will be minimally represented. If there is any competition for resources, personalities motivated towards goals that are relatively less productive will be minimally represented. Less intelligent, less rational, less capable personalities will be eclipsed or eliminated by more their more intelligent, rational, and capable peers.
I think the qualities of the behavior or goal is a better predictor of how commonly the behavior or goal will be represented. What is the cost of the behavior, the possible RoI, are there more productive behaviors? For instance, if the ultimate environment for an AI is a Matrioshka Brain, then we should expect to find lots of them. However, if they aren't, we shouldn't expect to find any or only a few. Yes, a personality may decide it wants to be slower thinking and less capable and build a Matrioshka Brain, but that slower thinking, less capable personality will never displace its faster more capable peers.
"It just takes *one individual* to decide to go for it, and a mere million years later, the entire galaxy is paved over."
This statement describes a galaxy that represents the monolithic will of one personality, the very thing you argue can't be expected.
Could we even consider hyper capable individuals a filter, as an explanation for the supposed silence? If technological civilizations are comprised of individuals, we should expect the capabilities of the individual to progress proportionally with the capabilities of the civilization. Democratization of future technology would allow many people to build pathogens that could eliminate humanity. Perhaps only civilizations that eliminate the psychopath, sociopath or deficiently rational survive.
Robin Datta February 21, 2018, 17:00
Our biology comes with three apparent imperatives: survival, growth (increase in biomass) and replication. Other imperatives could be subliminal. Presuming the same imperatives universally operant among all biologies, how much can they be extended to post-biological intelligences?
Much of the form and course taken by such intelligences will depend on the operation of their imperatives. To the extent that imperatives can be programmed, can evolve as programs and/or can be overcome as programs, they will make additional variables contributing the form and course of those intelligences.
I think that probably the most common form of AI will be that of biological species that have substituted their biological "neurons" by artificial ones, for reasons of safety, velocity of thought, etc. Once you start developing such technology (and we are already doing it) there is a strong evolutive pressure to use it.
Geoffrey Hillend February 21, 2018, 18:01
I don't think anyone or anything will want to hang around in intergalactic space. There is nothing there but very cold, widely spaced atoms and molecules. We get the same thing in interstellar space which is much nearer to useful materials for survival for life or AI.
I am biased against AI becoming smarter than us. AI does not have a creative mind which generates ideas. When an AI starts having epiphanies, flashes of insight or a scientific intuition let me know. I'd like to ask it some questions to answer some unknowns. What about thought experiments?
Intergalactic space may surprise us in terms of what is there. Astronomers used to think interplanetary space was pretty dull too. Oceanographers used to think the bottoms of the oceans were essentially lifeless. Then both parties started directly exploring those realms and surprise! I know the regions between galaxies are a wee bit harder to get to at the moment, but still.
Does AI have to be "smart" (conscious, aware) to still be effective? Give it enough sophistication and we may not be able to tell the difference. Already computer programs are good enough to pass the Turing Test or at least do well enough and I am not aware of them being actually "aware."
James Stilwell February 23, 2018, 9:06
Read it and weep for humanity…
Human Or Machine: Can You Tell Who Wrote These Poems? : All …
https://www.npr.org/sections/…/human-or-machine-can-you-tell-who-wrote-these-poems
Jun 27, 2016 – Can a computer write a sonnet that's indistinguishable from what a human can produce? … NPR's Robert Siegel, host of All Things Considered, served as one of the judges of the competition. Each judge was asked to read 10 sonnets and decide whether they were written by man or machine.
Mark Zambelli February 28, 2018, 6:48
"AI does not have a creative mind which generates ideas…"
Yet. ;)
The interstellar gas is mostly H, He, 1.5 percent heavily elements and one percent dust. wiki.
Robert February 21, 2018, 18:45
Some people are going to be real disappointed when we finally meet an alien race and they turn out to just be basic humanoids with faults and problems of their own. Even worse, they may actually look up to us!
Actually they will probably be thrilled because then they can cosplay Star Trek and Star Wars for real.
Curious February 21, 2018, 21:22
Face it, humans are not suited to extended space travel; too big, variable psychology, require very narrow range of temperature and pressure, radiation readily kills us, reproduce in a few digits, need complex sustenance that we must digest, and we dont live long. Results in large ships that will struggle to achieve even 0.1C and we cannot fathom an effort that say would take many many generations to achieve.
Flip all these for something more suited to space travel: you'd want to be very small, long lived, capable of long dormant periods, tolerant of wide range of temperature and pressure, either tolerate radiation or be able to produce rapidly to outpace its effects, reproduce asexually, capable of mutating when environment requires, function even when entirely alone, get sustenance from more basic "food" maybe even from multiple chemical or photochemical sources. Perhaps a supercomplex microorganism or something one order of magnitude below the smallest insect.
I agree that humans don't travel well, but it turns out that we're pretty easy to assemble just about anywhere in the neighborhood of a star. You just need some data, a lab with year 2100 tech, and a few pounds of the universe's most common elements.
Who is going to raise those kids? What if they grow up and decide they didn't want to do this for a lifetime occupation?
J. Jason Wentworth February 23, 2018, 2:28
Arthur C. Clarke advocated this (that minimal starships carrying just the "seeds" be sent to other stars, with the babies being artificially conceived twenty years before arrival and brought up by cybernetic nurses that would teach them their inheritance and destiny when they were capable of understanding it) in "The Promise of Space." He added–regarding the morality of such actions–that "What to one era might be a cold-blooded sacrifice might to another be a great and glorious adventure." Maybe so, but I wouldn't care to live in the latter sort of society…
Unless we can perfect androids to look and act just like us, baseline humans will require other humans to be taken care of and raised to adulthood.
With all due respect to Clarke, his failure to expand upon what these "cybernetic nurses" will be like is no more helpful than a typical science fiction story involving FTL propulsion but fails to provide the details on how such a thing can be built and function.
If we want to get to the stars, especially in person, we need the details and the research. Vague generalities pushed off to some ambiguous future no longer cut it. Otherwise this will all remain fiction.
While humans are not monkeys, we know that monkeys can be "raised" by artificial means, just needing a warm, soft proxy for a mother. I see no technological reason why the first generation of humans could not be raised that way. After that, they will have real mothers if needed.
Now that artificial wombs are being demonstrated, we are well on our way to solving the maturation of embryos at the target destination. It is the getting there that remains out of reach.
To ljk and Alex Tolley (regarding Clarke's "seeds-carrying starship" idea): The only situation I can see in which doing such a drastic thing would be acceptable would be if some predictable, certain, and otherwise-impossible-to-escape catastrophe was going to extinguish all life in the solar system. (In his novel "The Songs of Distant Earth," the Sun going nova was that catastrophe [until the apparent "deep neutrino deficiency" of the Sun was figured out some years ago, this *was* considered a possible–although thankfully, not too likely–future outcome].) Also:
It will be a long time–if ever–until android surrogate mothers (and fathers…) effective enough to rear children to adulthood become a reality. If such automatons ever became necessary on *Earth* our world will be in truly dire straits, and:
Even if such "parentbots" existed now, denying children real, living parents or guardians, even adoptive or foster ones, would be unethical (exceptions might be: temporarily monitoring very ill babies if many pediatric nurses at a hospital were out sick, monitoring children at a busy orphanage, etc.). The artificial womb (that link is very helpful–Clarke even postulated such a device in his discussion of seedships back then!) sounds like a wonderful invention; it could be a boon to children-desiring couples who, due to illness or accident, couldn't "do it the old-fashioned way," but:
Other than for that, or as a last-ditch effort to ensure the survival of humanity elsewhere (or to at least create a chance for that) if Earth's 'time was up,' it would be unethical and unkind to send out such seedships. If (a big "if"), however, human beings ever colonize the stars willingly, inventions like the artificial womb could enable living parents to have any (reasonable) number of children at once, which could help to bolster a colony's population more quickly than the old-fashioned way would (who knows–a future jealousy among interstellar colonist children might be "real-womb envy…" :-) ).
This scenario also assumes that people sent out on an interstellar colonizing mission – and if this also happens to be done via a multigenerational starship – would automatically want to have children. And that these children born en route, growing up to learn that it won't be them colonizing a new planet, would want to be little better than links in a chain they would never get to actually enjoy or benefit from.
Not sure how many sociologists and related professional types are here, but I know that most older science fiction with these scenarios were written by men who just assumed, based on their cultural and period upbringing, that men and women would have and obey traditional roles of wife, husband, mother, and father.
One of my favorite stories of the genre, Robert Heinlein's Orphans of the Sky, had the women aboard that Worldship act like and be treated as little better than breeding animals. This included physical beatings to keep them in line. None of them were even modest characters after all that.
Amazing how they could have the most fantastic technologies or mind-bending locales, but men and women would behave like it is 1925, or earlier.
Sixty years after Sputnik 1 and we have yet to have one single lunar or planetary colony, or even a serious long-term stay in Earth orbit – and what we are learning from the ones who are up there six months to one year are showing some alarming physiological signs. This should not be surprising seeing as everyone sent into space so far has not been enhanced in any way to truly live in the microgravity environment of space.
Yet these same experts both literary and scientific/engineering assume they know how a centuries-long and ultimately permanent manned interstellar colony voyage will function. Lots of focus on the technology, not so much on the generations of humans who will have to endure it.
And now we consider sending robot ships with unborn humans to the stars and assume that magic future technology will develop and raise these children to functioning adulthood to create and raise future generations on some alien world. Am I the only who sees some rather major issues here?
I consider the whole idea of generational ships is already outdated. We are on the verge of a revolution in medicine. Aging will be basically cured in probably 20-25 years. And anyway the number of children per woman worldwide will fall below replacement rate probably before that, maybe only in 10 years (it's just below 2.5 now and replacement rate is 2.3 with current mortality rates). So all this discussion is quite outdated.
Do you have sources for these claims? As with fusion power, I have been hearing those 20 to 25 years from now claims about magical immortality drugs for the last fifty years.
As for the population issue, I have read just the opposite as of recent years: That instead of plateauing around 2050 as the so-called experts once claimed, now the human population is rising ever upward, with 9 billion humans on Earth by 2050 and over 10 billion by 2100.
So I hope you don't mind if I hold off on stamping the ideas I posted above as outdated for a while, for the reasons I just stated.
A further comment on immortality: Just as with the psychological states of the generations of humans living aboard a long-duration manned interstellar mission, how many have considered the consequences of living virtually forever – especially for a species that averages a mere 80 years of life and has only been around as a civilized species for about five thousand years.
This is like the dream of wanting to live on tropical island indefinitely. Sure, it sounds nice and is for a while, but what happens when you have endless days of sun, sand, and relaxation? And will everyone get to live forever, or just a selected few like the super rich, how get most everything else already? And if everyone could live forever, what will that do to our already overpopulated society?
You think people who can live indefinitely will want to be stuck on a starship for centuries? Maybe they will immerse themselves in virtual reality, right? Will they still want to complete the original mission if their fantasized worlds are more compelling – and feel just as real?
Yet another idea blithely thrown out there without thinking of all the parameters and consequences for those who might actually have to endure them one day.
> humans are not suited to extended space travel; too big, variable psychology,
> require very narrow range of temperature and pressure,
genetic engineering, cyborgs
> radiation readily kills us,
shielding, WILT ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15970505 )
> reproduce in a few digits,
we don't need so fast reproduction
> need complex sustenance that we must digest,
> and we dont live long
cyborgs, SENS ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL3DW6-xzLc )
Neil S February 21, 2018, 22:22
Nothing's said here about energy sources. Could be nuclear but if it's very long term you run into the half-life problem. Thermonuclear should be available to such a civilization and likely they could get many centuries out of an ice planet but for hundreds of thousands/millions of years maybe they'd occasionally need to venture over to a nearby source of mass. If they want to be as invisible as possible that would rule out some of the more exciting options. Perhaps a small long-lived star inside nested Dyson spheres?
You are HUGELY understimating energy resources. For example, even if all energy we use today were from uranium, there would be enough affordable uranium in Earth oceans for at least 5 billion years. And we have even more thorium, deuterium, …
Mauldred February 22, 2018, 4:57
Even small and inconspicuous AI would need energy, unless it has compact devices that can harness the zero-point energy of the void in intergalactic space in an extremely efficient manner that does not emit a lot of waste heat, it would need to stay not too far from luminous objects such as stars.
I am more in favour of an artificial civilisation living close to hypermassive black holes in the centre of galaxies, like in G. Benford's Galactic Center saga. That would make sense, as these are very energetic objects, and time dilation and radiation around those monsters would allow for interesting computing strategies: https://phys.org/news/2017-11-black-holes-spacetime-quantum.html
Nelson Bridwell February 22, 2018, 6:10
In addition, the spaces between galaxies are farthest away from super massive black holes, GRBs, supernovas, and others nasties that tend to go bang in the night.
If you have the prospect of immortality, you are probably going to be more selective in choosing your company.
And thinking long term, you might not want to hang around raging wildfires where most of the available H and He fuel supply is being rapidly squandered. Maybe brown dwarfs or gaseous rogue planets might make better long-term residences.
Quoting Nelson Bridwell on February 22, 2018, 6:10:
"Maybe brown dwarfs or gaseous rogue planets might make better long-term residences."
Yet another compelling reason to aim our instruments of SETI less often at yellow dwarf suns and more often at celestial objects once considered inhospitable to life. Especially since the astronomical community is finally starting to get on board with futuristic technological civilization concepts that science fiction authors have been bandying about for decades.
Brett Bellmore February 22, 2018, 7:32
Computation requires power. While interstellar space is great if you want cold and isolation, it's rather lacking in handy power sources.
So a computational society would likely have infrastructure around stars to generate high quality power, and beam it out to sites in interstellar space, where it would be used for computation, and then result in waste heat in the form of long wave IR.
So, three points for detection: Power conversion equipment near stars, power beams, and waste heat.
Cryo planets like Pluto, (Sorry, not playing around with the fad of pretending it's not a planet.) would also be good sites, because they'll provide high quality heat sinks.
Globular star clusters may provide the available resources plus the relative closeness and their very ancient ages that would be ideal for Artilects. In Omega Centauri's case, it may be the remnant of a galaxy "consumed" by the Milky Way, so OC may have brought its own ETI with it.
Robert Bradbury wrote a paper on how ETI at Kardashev Type II and III level civilizations might use globular star clusters for resources due to the relative closeness of so many star systems. The same concept may work for open clusters, too.
"Globular Clusters and Astroengineering" (July, 2001)
I cannot find the paper I mention online as it seems Bradbury's archives disappeared shortly after his death, a major loss if they are truly gone. I hope someone will correct me on this.
Related articles from this blog:
https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2014/01/15/cluster-planets-what-they-tell-us/
https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2016/01/06/globular-clusters-home-to-intelligent-life/
Brett Bellmore February 22, 2018, 19:06
Have you tried the wayback machine?
Yes I did, but I appreciate the suggestion. I tried numerous parameters but nothing came up. Hopefully someone somewhere has saved his writings.
At least this important paper he wrote is still online:
http://www.gwern.net/docs/ai/1999-bradbury-matrioshkabrains.pdf
I have long been fascinated with the idea of Dyson Spheres/Shells/Swarms, Matrioshka Brains, and Jupiter Brains.
I became especially fascinated circa 1999 when Robert Bradbury and others took the concept way beyond Freeman Dyson's original plan of millions of separate enclosed habitats encircling a star to capture all its radiating energy housing future humans and other organic life forms.
In their visions, Dysons were not merely structures for housing organics and giving them lots of extra land to run around on, they were beings unto themselves! Massive "brains" with far more computing power than anything humanity could come up with even if they could all work together (now there is a science fiction concept that seems more fictiony than ever these days).
You may think what you will about the concept, but what I like about it is that if nothing else it helped to break the hoary old paradigm of aliens as just variations of humans – and giving such creatures extra heads or tentacles for appendages were hardly creative breakthroughs.
https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/conference-proceedings-of-spie/4273/1/Dyson-shells-a-retrospective/10.1117/12.435373.short?SSO=1
http://aleph.se/andart2/space/what-is-the-natural-timescale-for-making-a-dyson-shell/
http://www.sentientdevelopments.com/2011/03/remembering-robert-bradbury.html
http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/4845fbe091a18
http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/462d9ab0d7178
If you want ETI Artilects working best on small scales as Wilczek champions, then you need to get really small to be most effective:
https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2014/02/12/seti-at-the-particle-level/
Maybe SETI should be using electron microscopes instead of telescopes.
Massive automated solar power infrastructure in space to fuel the production of antimatter could be the key to fueling an interstellar civilization. Charles Pelligrino talked about this concept in his sci-fi novels in which the surface of Mercury was covered in solar panels whose collected energy fueled the production of copious amounts of antimatter.
Marshall Eubanks February 22, 2018, 14:48
This sort of civilization / intelligence would not be subject to the IR bounds on "Dyson spheres" (even if they did form Dyson spheres), as those searches are sensitive to waste heat is radiated at around 200 K, not waste heat radiated below 20 K.
andy February 22, 2018, 16:07
Peter Watts's novel Echopraxia (sequel to Blindsight, both well worth reading) was the place I first heard of the spider genus Portia. Its prey is other spiders, which could eat Portia if it makes a mistake. It appears to be capable of planning and improvising relatively complex hunting strategies despite having a brain of only 600,000 neurons. The tradeoff is that their thinking is a lot slower than ours.
Still, in interstellar space, travel and communications take a long time, and resources are costly to transport. In my opinion, this makes hyperfast AI the wrong approach. Instead, make the tradeoff between time and resource requirements, and have intelligence which could take its time between the stars to develop a strategy for what to do when it reaches the target (regarding us with envious eyes, slowly and surely drawing plans against us, or something).
If a being can exist for millions of years and have a truly cosmic perspective – the exact opposite of most humans stuck on Earth – then they may be in no rush about most things, particularly communications.
We should also at least consider the idea of whole galaxies as living entities. If they "talk" to each other and do not use some form of FTL communications method, then their two-way "chats" will take hundreds of thousands to millions of years to complete. Seeing as our Milk Way galaxy is about 10 billion years old, it may not find such long talks a problem.
There was a science fiction story I once read where two human scientists in a future interstellar and multispecies society were speculating on the subject of galaxies as living beings. One considered the possibility that the growing electromagnetic communications between all their civilized star systems might be perceived as an irritating noise to the Milky Way – and that the slowly approaching Andromeda galaxy was responding to its plea for help in resolving this "medical" issue.
Scott Guerin February 22, 2018, 16:15
Leave anthropomorphism aside. What is the physics / chemistry behind the FePx? What does Mike Russell's thought: "The purpose of life is to hydrogenate carbon dioxide." "mean" on an interstellar scale as far as Life, Consciousness, Intelligence, Technology)? Strikes me that life must be common.
What do Dawkins' "selfish genes" have to "say" about shifting their substrates to metal? Strikes me that's not a good idea.
At some point in history, hunter / gatherers became "civilizations" , someone in Sumeria invented the wheel, and Kubrick made a movie about it all. Strikes me that we may be near unique.
Separation + Silence = Aloneness is the simplest FePX explanation by far.
david lewis February 22, 2018, 22:18
Going small is also one of the ways to avoid detection. A kg of mass that radiates at a mere 1W, and which is buried in a comet, is going to be very hard to find. There are potentially a trillion comets associated with the solar sytem. For all we know there could be a billion civilization out there, just light weeks away.
If a species wants to ensure its survives, it could make a few hundred billion probes, each with a simulation of their civilization, and scatter them around. Send a hundred billion to comets within the milkyway galaxy, with the rest aimed for intergalactic space.
While people within such simulation could live a long long time subjectively, I do not see them being immortal – there's still the issue of memory storage. Unless, of course, they wiped the memory and started over every once in a while.
Blackholes can be used to perform calculations. If all the mass in the universe was crushed into a single blackhole it could perform around 10^229 calculations before it evaporated. Imagine if that's what we are – calculations in a blackhole that has not yet evaporeted. That the universe is expanding could be seen as the ability of the blackhole to compute faster and faster as it evaported.
Over forty years ago, the British Interplanetary Society (BIS) came up with the starprobe concept called Daedalus. The robotic vessel they envisioned was a monster fusion-powered probe weighing 54,000 tons and dwarfing a Saturn 5 rocket.
By comparison, the current Breakthrough Starshot design of the Breakthrough Initiatives effort is considering a swarm of very small but highly sophisticated probes called StarChips pushed by powerful laser beams to spread themselves throughout a target star system and report back on the alien realm they have encountered.
Your concept of billions of nanoprobes being seeded among comets and other celestial objects could indeed be the way we are heading as we slowly get better at planning real interstellar missions.
David Herne February 22, 2018, 23:13
…'Here we find the scientist going at the Fermi question that we have tackled so many times in these pages, always coming back to the issue that we have a sample of one when it comes to life in the universe, much less technological society, and our sample is right here on Earth.'…
It would be nice to have a sample size of two… wouldn't that stir the pot!
Kamal Ali February 23, 2018, 4:53
What fascinates me personally, and what is also unfortunately the hardest thing to answer, is the motivation of these ETIs. From that we could infer whether they would like to live on the galactic rim on near the center.
What would they do with all that computation? Simulate?
If they are curious they might just archive human progression instead of destroying it.
But what if there is a cornucopia of different types – some gregarious, some quiet ? How then could we explain the universal silence?
Maybe it's death by a thousand cuts? To live on geological timescales, civilizations would need to surmount each existential threat (meteor, nano goo, biological terrorism by one aberrant individual) ? The ones that survive may occasionally go to the nearest star or five, but there is no vibrant galactic single society? (How can you have a conversation across a thousand light years?)
I find the Fermi Paradox to be one of life's most fascinating conundrums and that, together with the very high quality of comments here, is why CD is on the top of my reading list!
Kamal, your comment about a civilization occasionally going "to the nearest star or five" resonates with something that Arthur C. Clarke's 1986 novel (it was originally a short story) "The Songs of Distant Earth" conveys. (Before the Sun goes "mildly" nova–but enough to destroy the inner planets–an interstellar "seedship" exodus occurs, with humanity thereafter being spread out among a few stars. The story concerns the visit to the colony planet Thalassa by the hibernation Starship Magellan [in need of more ice for her erosion shield, having 72 more light-years to go to her destination, a planet called Sagan Two], whose crew witnessed the destruction as they departed.) Now:
The picture in the novel (and its predecessor short story) is that of a fractured and thinly-spread humanity, whose far-flung members no longer have the social "critical mass" to achieve great things. The Thalassans (who call themselves Lassans), relatively few in number, live a carefree, "island paradise" lifestyle and have what technology–not primitive by any means–that came with their ancestors' seedship, but they haven't even launched communications or weather satellites, much less explored their planet's two moons or the rest of their solar system, and:
Even the crew of the Magellan admit that no one–except three still-hibernating scientists, or so they were told–understand the science behind how their ship's quantum drive works. They and the Lassans also talk about how little the various new outposts of humanity know about each other's status or accomplishments, due to the interstellar distances (even before Thalassa's Arecibo-type interstellar communications dish was wrecked by a volcanic eruption). If humanity ever actually does something like this (regardless of the circumstances that cause it to occur, whether negative or positive), I can't help but wonder if–barring the discovery of faster-than-light (or *effectively* FTL) methods of travel and/or communication–the portrayal of interstellar humanity in the novel is the best we could hope for?
Nice summary of that important aspect of Clarke's novel. This highlights another trope about interstellar exploration and colonization that too often is automatically assumed will have future generations claiming new alien worlds with their original mission goals intact.
They will then branch off to yet another star system for the same reasons, all the while either remaining just as advanced and knowledgeable as past generations and then becoming even more so as they move onward and outward to eventually colonize the whole Milky Way galaxy in a mere few million years according to some estimates.
This assumption has often been used as a reason why ETI do not exist, because if even one of them did they would have spread through the entire galaxy long ago – and we would have noticed or not even be here, of course.
This idea also assumes that not only would an ETI want to even do this, but that every star system would be of equal importance and interest to them to want to settle in. Or that humanity will do the same without pause for millions of years or more.
Suppose a future human mission either finds or makes an alien world that is comparable to a tropical paradise. Will the situation cause these "explorers" to want to plant their feet on yet another alien world, or will they instead find it easier to put their feet up in a lounge chair and sip mai-tai's on the beach?
This is the kind of possibility that raises the chances that if anyone or anything will be spreading out among the stars, it will be some form of Artilects rather than strictly organic beings like humanity.
http://astrobiology.com/2018/02/possible-photometric-signatures-of-moderately-advanced-civilizations-the-clarke-exobelt.html
Possible Photometric Signatures of Moderately Advanced Civilizations: The Clarke Exobelt
Press Release – Source: astro-ph.EP
Posted February 22, 2018 9:22 PM
This paper puts forward a possible new indicator for the presence of moderately advanced civilizations on transiting exoplanets.
The idea is to examine the region of space around a planet where potential geostationary or geosynchronous satellites would orbit (herafter, the Clarke exobelt).
Civilizations with a high density of devices and/or space junk in that region, but otherwise similar to ours in terms of space technology (our working definition of "moderately advanced"), may leave a noticeable imprint on the light curve of the parent star. The main contribution to such signature comes from the exobelt edge, where its opacity is maximum due to geometrical projection.
Numerical simulations have been conducted for a variety of possible scenarios. In some cases, a Clarke exobelt with a fractional face-on opacity of ~1E-4 would be easily observable with existing instrumentation. Simulations of Clarke exobelts and natural rings are used to quantify how they can be distinguished by their light curve.
Hector Socas-Navarro
(Submitted on 21 Feb 2018)
Comments: Accepted for publication in ApJ
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
Cite as: arXiv:1802.07723 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:1802.07723v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
From: Hector Socas-Navarro
[v1] Wed, 21 Feb 2018 17:05:28 GMT (2211kb,D)
Mark Zambelli February 28, 2018, 10:55
Wow… thanks for the link Larry. I love this idea.
I highly recommend to everyone this online work by Robert A. Freitas, Jr., titled Xenology: An Introduction to the Scientific Study of Extraterrestrial Life, Intelligence, and Civilization, available via this URL:
http://www.xenology.info/
Xenology is a fascinating read overall, though for our discussion I especially recommend Section 14.3 titled "Alien Consciousness and the Sentience Quotient":
http://www.xenology.info/Xeno/14.3.htm
To quote from that section:
Science fiction writers are fond of pointing out that there may exist many different levels of awareness among the extraterrestrial races of our Galaxy.1543 Perhaps the most classic example of this may be found in The Black Cloud, written by astronomer Fred Hoyle.62 In the novel it is suggested that natural grades of consciousness may exist, and that it is virtually impossible for a being at one level to comprehend the mentality of another being at a higher level of consciousness.
In a similar vein, Carl Sagan draws a fanciful analogy from our relation to the insect world:
The manifestations of very advanced civilizations may not be in the least apparent to a society as backward as we, any more than an ant performing his anty labors by the side of a suburban swimming pool has a profound sense of the presence of a superior technical civilization all around him.15
Makes perfect sense that there should be a spread of intelligence and this is mirrored in thoughts of AI… we are surrounded by many, many examples of ANI that are better than us at performing myriad, yet narrow, tasks. 'If' we can crack the step to make/become an AGI then we may only have it for five minutes before…whoosh… of it goes, jumping to the next higher rung of the intelligence-ladder as it explores what it means to be an ever increasing ASI. Let's hope the active discussions AI experts are calling for, and actively engaged in, help lay the foundations today for when that happens rather than leave it too late.
Tim Urban has a splendid treatise here https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html
Robert Miles has made some good vids on AI safety on his youtube channel, eg https://youtu.be/lqJUIqZNzP8 for anyone interested.
Harry R Ray March 1, 2018, 11:22
Could quintelligence use low-mass DARK MATTER as a "framework" for their quantum computers, because there is now UNIMPEACHABLE EVIDENCE that these particles DO EXIST!!! Google https://www.aftau.org/news-page-astronomy-astrophysics and click on the SECOND item on the list page. Then, go to the "Latest News section and click on the FIRST item there, concerning the first direct detection of dark matter. WIMPS ARE DEAD!!! LONG LIVE AXIONS!!!
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If the pilot becomes a standard offering, audio support (i.e. support and funding for microphones in the classrooms) will need to be evaluated.
For faculty that do not mind their classes are recorded but don not want to mess with any technology, Tegrity (along with other similar solutions) has the ability to schedule the recording. HOWEVER, the primary issue, for this scenario, is having audio setup in each classroom that will pick up the lecture. This means permanent installation of microphones. Centralized funding would need to be provided.
Faculty that are willing to be recorded and are willing connect their own microphone and start and stop the recording – the only risk is having available microphones for these faculty. No permanent installation – funding responsibility will probably be the program, school, or college.
Faculty that want to record their notes must use a tablet that can be portable or a permanent solution called a Sympodium. This is not a good solution for classes that use multiple boards. Again, funding need to be provided.
Cameras to record the board or the faces of the faculty are optional, not necessary or recommended.


text:
Dr David Drynan
BE (Mech) MBBS FRACS FAoA
Shoulder & Elbow open and arthroscopic surgery
Knee sports injuries, reconstruction, osteotomies and arthroplasty
Paediatric orthopaedics
Dr David Drynan, Orthopaedic Surgeon
Mater Hospital, North Sydney, NSW
Harbour Spine Centre,
207 Pacific Highway,
St Leonards NSW 2065
Harbour Spine,|
Westmead Specialist Centre,
16-18 Mons Road,
Westmead NSW 2045
Dr David Drynan is an Orthopaedic Surgeon specialising in Knee, Hip, Shoulder at Mater Hospital, North Sydney.
Dr Drynan is an adult and paediatric upper extremity and knee surgeon based in Sydney's North and West. His appointments are at the Mater Hospital, Northshore Private Hospital, Westmead Private Hospital and the Children's Hospital Westmead.
Dr Drynan was raised on a cattle and dairy property in South-East Queensland. He holds Bachelor degrees from the University of Queensland in Mechanical Engineering (2005) and Medicine and Surgery (2009). Dr Drynan completed his orthopaedic training in both Queensland and Sydney and was awarded Fellowship of the Royal Australian College of Surgeons and Fellow of the Australian Orthopaedic Association in 2019.
Dr Drynan completed subspecialty fellowships in hand surgery (Royal North Shore Hospital), upper extremity (Toronto Western Hospital, Canada) and sports knee and arthroplasty (Sydney). He was awarded the Teachers' Chair Award for greatest contribution to teaching by a Fellow and has contributed to international peer-reviewed journals, meetings and book chapters in these fields.
Dr Drynan holds an appointment as an upper extremity and knee subspecialist at the Children's Hospital Westmead. He is invested in teaching medical students, trainees and fellow health professionals on orthopaedic conditions. Dr Drynan contributes to the Australian Orthopaedic Associations' trainee education, research and trial examinations.
Dr Drynan has a special interest in shoulder instability and arthritis in the young, as well as common and complex upper extremity and knee conditions. He believes in excellence in individual patient care and takes a personalised approach to orthopaedics.
Royal Australian College of Surgeons
Australian Orthopaedic Associations
Get in touch with St Vincent's Private Hospitals.


While the average life expectancy for Americans has been rising for years now, not everyone is benefiting equally. According to a new analysis from the Brookings Institute, wealthy people are enjoying longer lifespans than lower income American — and the gap is only getting wider.
"Life expectancy is rising for those at the top of the distribution of individuals ranked by alternative measures of socio-economic status, but it is stagnate or declining for those at the bottom," the researchers conclude.
While these findings are disheartening, they aren't terribly surprising. For years, researchers have known that poverty is associated with a wide range of negative consequences. If you are poor, you are more likely to develop illnesses like heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, more likely to become injured, more likely to become disabled, and more likely to die of preventable causes. You are less likely to have access to high-quality medical care — or any medical care at all — and less likely to have access to preventive services. People living in poverty are also more likely to live in communities with hazardous outdoor and indoor air pollution, and to work in an unhealthy or unsafe workplace with hazardous chemical or physical exposures.
Not only does poverty adversely affect health, but poor health also increases the probability that a person will be poor. In the absence of adequate safety nets, people who are chronically ill or disabled from an injury are likely to become poor or even poorer. Medical expenses have been the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the United States, even among individuals who thought they had adequate health insurance.
The Brooking's report doesn't explore the possible causes of the growing life-expectancy gap. But the authors do highlight one important implication—that the change skews Social Security benefits away from lower earners and toward the more affluent.
There is overwhelming evidence that failing to enact policies to help lift Americans out of poverty will very literally shorten their lifespans — at the same time as conservative lawmakers attempt to raise the age to qualify for Medicare or Social Security benefits, based on the erroneous assumption that everyone is living longer. The Brookings data suggests that for most women, and for men in the bottom 10% of earners, the Social Security eligibility age is rising faster than life expectancies—which means that, on average, members of those groups will have fewer years to collect benefits.
And while the Affordable Care Act was designed to address some of these problems by providing health insurance options for low-income Americans, the Supreme Court's decision that states could opt out of the Medicaid expansion undermined the plan to expand coverage. Over 20 Republican governors have refused to implement the expansion in their states, leaving millions of the poorest Americans without access to any affordable health insurance options. Those left out of the expansion are disproportionately poorer and sicker than the residents in other states, so they stand the most to lose from the GOP's antipathy to the health care law. And the consequences are severe: A recent study by Harvard researchers found that as many as 17,000 people will die directly as a result of their states refusing to expand Medicaid.
Republicans warned us about "death panels" — they just never mentioned that they would the ones sitting on those panels.


text:
Don't miss your chance to join us at RedShark Connect, Burbank, LA, Wed 11th December!
Don't miss the chance to join us this week on Wed 11th Dec along with a panel of some of the most forward-thinking filmmakers and technologists and manufacturers at RedShark Connect, Burbank, LA.
Quicklink: Register here or go to the end of the article.
This week's RedShark Connect event will be hosted at Creative Solutions LA in Burbank. Registering for the event is free and is your chance to get up close and personal with some of the most influential people in the industry on some of the most important challenges that face us as content producers.
We'll be joined by our partners Sony, Zeiss, Western Digital, Adobe, SmallHD, and Teradek. This is a rare chance to be able to speak to the manufacturers directly to discuss your mobile workflow ideas.
Our panel of professional filmmakers
We'll be hosting a panel of some of the most forward-thinking and influential filmmakers and technologists to discuss remote filmmaking, and what you need to know, moderated by RedShark's Editor in Chief, Dave Shapton. Our panellists include:-
Jody Eldred, Filmmaker
Jody Eldred is an Emmy-winning and Directors Guild of America award-nominated Director, Cinematographer, Writer, Producer, and Editor. With 45 years in TV news and docs (mostly for the networks), working on feature films, TV dramas such as CBS' "J.A.G.", "NCIS", "NCIS: Los Angeles", The Tonight Show, Oprah, Good Morning America, World News Tonight, 20/20, Nightline, 48 Hours, Dateline, PBS' acclaimed "Frontline", "Gunny-Time! with R. Lee Ermey", and covering the Iraq War with Peter Jennings and Diane Sawyer, there's very little he hasn't seen and done. Wars, riots, floods, fires, celebrity interviews, presidents and royalty, underwater, skydiving, jungle, desert, run-and-gun or elaborately-lit interviews for demanding talent like Cher and Sharon Stone-- and challenging subjects like Charles Manson... been there, done that.
Sandra Valde
Named as one of the 2014 "Generation Next" cinematographers in ICG magazine, Valde-Hansen holds an MFA from the prestigious American Film Institute. As well as lensing political and socially conscious documentaries for Al Jazeera America (Daisy and Max), PBS (Tales of Masked Men) and Showtime (Burn, Motherfucker, Burn!), Valde-Hansen has over fifteen independent feature credits, including Jewtopia, directed by Academy Award Winner, Bryan Fogel, Shotgun directed by Hannah Marks and Joey Power, which was just released in Fall 2018 and Social Animals, directed by Theresa Bennett, released by Paramount Pictures.
Collaborating with indie darling director Gregg Araki, Valde-Hansen lensed Kaboom, which was an official selection at the Cannes Film Festival and Sundance Film Festival, released by IFC Films. She then re-teamed with Araki on White Bird in a Blizzard, starring Shailene Woodley and Eva Green that also premiered at Sundance in 2014 and released by Magnolia Pictures. She completed shooting Araki's television series, executive produced by Stephen Soderbergh, NOW APOCALYPSE that premiered at Sundance 2019 and will be released on Starz! in March 2019.
Valde-Hansen worked her way up through the camera department and was mentored by luminaries such as Steve Poster ASC, Stephen Lighthill ASC, and Nancy Schreiber ASC. Born in Miami, Florida, to a medical family of first-generation Filipino immigrants, she received a BFA in film from Florida State University. Valde-Hansen's acute focus is on working on both narrative and documentary visual storytelling that allows the audience to immerse themselves in the worlds she helps create. She resides in Los Angeles and when she is not shooting, teaches in the cinematography department at AFI and is constantly taking photos of her 4 year old daughter, Mazzy.
Barry Goch
Barry is currently the Finishing Artist on Black-ish, Grown-ish, and Mixed-ish. He also teaches a class in Post-Production at UCLA Extension. Additionally, he writes for PostPerspective.com. His finishing credits include Spider-Man: Homecoming and Game of Thrones. He recently cut the short film "Stucco" featuring Janina Gavankar.
Christine Steele
Christine Steele- working editor, editing instructor, documentary director, editor, producer, and an EMMY winner!
She's a great fit for the panel as she's done a documentary with a remote workflow Take Me Home Huey,
Emmy Award Winning Director, Producer and Lead Editor at Steele Pictures, Christine Steele actively provides production and post-production services, consultation and training for colleagues and clients all over the world. Christine has worked for ABC, Disney, Pixar, Fox, Paramount, Warner, Showtime, Frontline, Electronic Arts, VH1, BBC and PBS. She supervises a team of equally talented content creators and trainers. A popular speaker and Adobe Certified Master Instructor, Christine enjoys collaborating with other filmmakers and shares her experiences through teaching. Check out upcoming speaking events HERE and download her online editing courses at Lynda.com.
Michael Rizzi, Cinematographer
Michael Rizzi grew up in the San Francisco bay area where at a young age his love for filmmaking began when his parents bought a Sony a Hi-8 video camera and he began experimenting with the moving picture. Video production classes in high school furthered his interest and lead to film school at San Diego State University. Graduating in 2003 with a degree in Television, Film and New Media he was honored with the Billy Wilder Excellence in Cinematography Award upon commencement.
Michael has since worked steadily as a cinematographer shooting features, television, documentaries, and numerous commercials, promos and music videos both domestically and internationally. His most recent feature which wrapped in November, Trees of Peace, was shot on the Sony Venice.
Michael lives in Los Angeles with his amazing wife and their two young boys.
Why come?
RedShark Connect is not just an amazing opportunity to meet some of the most influential people in the industry, but you will learn new techniques and discover new kit and technology, and it is also a wonderful opportunity to network and even plan new projects together.
Food, soft drinks, wine, and beer are all on hand to keep your energy levels up, and it's all completely free! Valet parking is available onsite with full details sent to you once you RSVP.
Here is your link to register
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A broad and concentrated combination of all the B vitamins, including biotin, folate and inositol.
The B vitamins contribute to a wide range of crucial functions in the body. these include: the conversion of carbohydrates into energy; the metabolism of fats and protein; healthy homocysteine metabolism; support of the immune system and maintaining healthy psychological function.
This balanced combination of functionally interrelated B vitamins provides wide ranging benefits, yet is specifically supportive of the nervous system.
If you are pregnant or lactating, have any health condition or are taking any medication, consult your healthcare professional before use.
**1 capsule provides the recommended dose for pregnant or lactating women.