Brony Musicians Join Forces to Raise Funds For Ugandan Medical Services
Story updated May 12, 2012 – Official Music Video Released for Project.
Over 150 professional and amateur musicians alike from around the world who are fans of the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic television show, have united to help raise funds to build a medical clinic in Uganda. Using their talents and creating music inspired by the wildly popular children’s show, the musicians are putting together an album named Seeds of Kindness which is being sold to raise the much needed money. Their rallying point is a character called Pinkie Pie, who in the show is an eternal optimist and always working tirelessly to bring smiles and friendship to all she meets. The song Smile (Come on Everypony Smile, Smile, Smile) sung by the character, is being recreated by the fans and sung in a We are the world style arrangement, made famous by the late Michael Jackson who along with other world famous musical talents, put together an album in 1985 to raise funds to benefit charities in Africa.
The Smile Song as it’s commonly known, was created by composer Daniel Ingram who was recently nominated for two Emmys for his work on the My Little Pony show, which has embraced Broadway style musical segments in many of its episodes. Seeds of Kindness features 41 tracks created by fans and is on sale now, with all proceeds going to the charity. To-date the impressive fan collaboration has raised well over $5,000 USD and is climbing as they seek to aid Mawanda John Bosco, the founder of Childneed Africa who is working to establish a self-sustaining medical clinic with a full time doctor and other aide workers who will be able to drive to more remote areas of Uganda to provide medical care.
Mela Hoyt Hadyn, Costume Guest of Honor for the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society's 39th LOSCON
Save the date – it’s LOSCON in November!
Los Angeles, California – The Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society (LASFS) will present Loscon 39, taking place at the LAX Marriott Hotel from November 23 – November 25, 2012 featuring Author Guest of Honor: Vernor Vinge, Artist Guest of Honor: Alan White, Fan Guests of Honor: Lloyd & Yvonne Penney, Costume Guest of Honor: Mela Hoyt-Heydon. This is the 39th year in a row this convention is being held.
Our Friday theme is zombies and other undead. Amongst other things, we will have panels about zombie makeup, a zombie survival lecture and a Friday night zombie dance. Bring your best shuffle.
Our Saturday theme is Steampunk, complete with a lecture on the Reality of Steampunk, and workshops on how to Steampunk your costume. Saturday night please join us in our annual costume contest followed by our first ever Steampunk Masquerade Ball.
Our Sunday Theme is the battle for supremacy: Steampunk vs. zombies. Join the Cosplay Chess Game or the Assassin style live game or just relax with Sunday afternoon tea.
All weekend, we will have panels highlighting the guests of honor, Star Trek, Star Wars, Dr. Who and Hard Science. There will be an anime room, a movie screening, Make Room, LARPs, table top and electronic gaming.
The Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society is proud to bring Loscon 39 to Los Angeles for the thirty-ninth year in a row. Loscon 39 takes place over Thanksgiving weekend, November 23 – 25, 2012. It opens at noon on Friday, and keeps going until closing ceremonies Sunday afternoon.
Filming for “Star Trek 2″ has ended after nearly four months of shooting, according to TrekMovie. Zachary Quinto tweeted “Picture wrap. holy s**t,” last Tuesday.
The film is set for release in May of 2013, which gives them about a year to coordinate and complete all the computer animated visuals for the film – so while we wait, we can piece together a few things from the various news outlets on exactly who’s going to be in the film and what’s going to be in it.
It’s been confirmed that Benedict Cumberbatch, most recently seen in the BBC’s new Sherlock Holmes series, plays Kirk’s arch nemesis, Kahn. This story won’t be a retelling of the old Kahn storyline, though widely reported rumours are telling us that Cumberbatch is indeed playing the genetically-enhanced human, with even IMDb crediting him as Khan. However, Abrams’s timeline begins too far back for it to be a reboot of William Shatner’s movie encounter with Ricardo Montalban. Chris Pine and Benedict Cumberbatch are clearly going to be playing a younger Kirk and Khan – so will the new movie cover Khan’s original exile by Kirk, as charted in the TV episode Space Seed? We’re guessing no.
Abrams is taking things in a different direction. He says he deliberately used time travel to create an alternative Star Trek reality so that he wasn’t forced to re-hash old stories. “The idea, now that we are in an independent timeline, allows us to use any of the ingredients from the past – or come up with brand-new ones – to make potential stories,” says the director.
All the main characters and actors from the original reboot return: Chris Pine as Captain James Tiberius Kirk, Zachary Quinto as first officer Spock, Zoe Saldana as communications officer Uhura, Simon Pegg as ship’s engineer Scotty, Karl Urban as Doctor Leonard McCoy, John Cho as helmsman Hikaru Sulu and Anton Yelchin as navigator Pavel Chekov. Peter Weller is involved in an as yet unspecified role, as are Noel Clarke (currently best known to sci-fi fans as Rose Tyler’s boyfriend Mickey in Doctor Who) and Alice Eve who previously starred alongside Benedict Cumberbatch in Starter for 10. Bruce Greenwood returns as former Enterpise captain Christopher Pike and Leonard Nimoy is also set to reappear as “Spock Prime”, the elderly original incarnation of the Enterprise first officer, who traveled back in time in the 2009 movie.
Your adventure begins on May 18. Your objective: to cram as much merriment into one weekend as possible. You arrive at the 2012 Steampunk World’s Fair and are instantly thrust into a festival abundant with entertainers and members of “the friendliest subculture”. A delightful chap in a top hat greets you while accordion music can be heard in the distance. No longer tentative you join the joyful congregation. Come Sunday victory is yours.
Steampunk is widely known as the “friendliest subculture” where all are invited to participate and exercise their imaginations. Appropriately the main goal of the 2012 Steampunk World’s Fair is to incorporate this value into the festival itself to provide the most fun for all. Ergo the label of “convention” has been released and replaced with “festival”.
The co-creator and chief organizer of Steampunk World’s Fair, Jeff Mach, is the driving force behind this “fun” initiative, “We chose to identify Steampunk World’s Fair as a festival for 2012 because this year is well…more festive!” says Mach. “This year we have made it our priority to provide more fun and entertainment for steampunks and steam-families than any other steampunk event in the world.” With the extensive lists of performers, guests, and attendees, this year will certainly be a joyous occasion for all.
Steampunk World’s Fair will run May 18-20 in Piscataway, NJ. Tickets and VIP passes are on sale now; get yours before they sell out!
About Steampunk
Steampunk is a subculture whose members celebrate the beauty of yesterday alongside the technology of tomorrow. Fanciful Victorian aesthetics blend seamlessly with ray guns and time machines to create a world where anything is possible. There are no rules, just your imagination, and all are welcome on this great adventure.
About Steampunk World’s Fair
Steampunk World’s Fair, currently in its third year, is the largest Steampunk event in the world hosting thousands of attendees, guests, and performers annually. This year will include new, fully immersive and interactive events to stir the imagination. The festival will run May 18-20 in Piscataway, NJ.
Quiring Monuments wants to put QR codes on headstones. This is the one on David Quiring's grave marker.
by Jennifer Sawyer
Are we ready for QR codes on our gravestones?
Death and the procedure in which we choose to bury our loved ones have not changed much over the years. For those people who decide on a burial rather than a cremation purchase a headstone or grave marker. Grave markers contain basic information about the deceased; name, birth and death year and perhaps a short message, that is until now.
A Seattle-based company, Quiring Monuments is creating burial markers that include a scannable, stamp-like image called a “quick read” — or QR code. Smartphone users can scan the code where they will be directed to a website about the departed. The website contains videos, his or her obituary, recorded dialogue messages, and still photographs. Families can add new content as they see fit. Initially this service is included for free with the purchase of a marker and updates to the site range from $50-$60. Anyone with a smart phone can scan the image and time warp with the dead. “QR codes are a wonderful way for loved ones to keep the memories alive for those they have lost”.
As with anything there is a flip side to the coin or code in this case. Adding QR codes to grave markers creates an endless playground for identity thieves and imposters. More than 2,000 identities are stolen from the dead every day; nearly 1 million every year. Identity thieves use key pieces of information in their attack on the dead such as birthdates and obituary notices. Both of which are freely available to those families who have decided to implement the QR code. No more having to wade through microfilm or spend countless hours on the internet; thieves just scan and go.
Social engineering – the art of manipulating people into performing actions or divulging confidential information plays a large part in identity theft both for the living and the dead. With free access to the deceased personal information such as personal likes and interests, favorite hangouts, close friends names, former employer and so on, thieves now have even more necessary data in which to hijack an identity and at a bargain rate too; you as the family or spouse have now tripled your chances for thieves to steal your identity while they are at it.
You have to ask yourself this if you find yourself in the position to make a decision about adding QR codes to the grave marker of a loved one or are making plans for your own departure: Is the ability to share with the world memories worth the risk? Are memories best left to the head and to the heart of those who will respect them the most?
The SpaceX Dragon, mounted to a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle at Cape Canaveral
All eyes have been on the now-retired fleet of NASA space shuttles, most recently on the arrival of the Enterprise in New York City as previously reported on Krypton Radio. However, while we were all looking at that and wondering what we could possibly be replacing them with, a company called SpaceX has been quietly and relatively without fanfare, solving the problem.
What you’re looking at is the first privately constructed orbital vehicle capable of carrying astronauts and supplies into space for extended missions. It’s fully capable of docking with the International Space Station using an automatic docking sequence, and has a manual override in case that doesn’t work and they need an actual human pilot to make the final approach. The photograph doesn’t really give a good impression of its size – that cylindrical section just behind the nose cone is big enough to hold up to seven crew members plus their life support gear and all the propellant they’ll need for the attitude thrusters once they’re in orbit. Alternatively, the ship can use a cargo module in that position instead, and they can pack it with up to about 7.5 tons of cargo going up, and it can hold about half that for the return trip (we’re guessing it’s because rockets are a lot stronger than parachutes – the Dragon is designed to splash down in the ocean like other American capsules have in the past).
They test flew the thing in December of 2010 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, and achieved a perfect orbital insertion and even restarted the second stage engines as one of the tests. That marked the first time a private company had ever achieved such a thing. Normally these sorts of projects are something countries do, not private companies.
For now, SpaceX has to use the facilities at Cape Canaveral, since efforts to build a spaceport in Texas have thus far been stymied by local politicians who don’t seem to understand the importance of bringing commercial space aeronautics to the state as a permanent part of the local economy. The Dragon is currently scheduled May 19 launch for its first voyage to the International Space Station, with a backup date of May 22 in case things don’t go well. Launch of the Falcon 9 rocket on May 19 would occur at approximately 4:55 a.m. EDT (0855 GMT).
Wicked Lasers has taken its insanely powerful Spyder III series of lasers and applied them to fannish pursuits - they’ve made a lightsaber that uses a real laser. We can’t really recommend you buy one, though. Special protective eyewear is required just to use it, and any actual swordplay may land you in the hospital. These lasers can set your skin on fire, or more problematically, your retinae – of which most people only get two to last their entire lives, and so far those aren’t replaceable.
What they’ve created is a US$100 addon to their $US300 Spyder light sword. It’s a 32-inch polycarbonate blade with an aircraft-grade aluminium hilt and a magnetic piston that travels the length of the tube when activated, growing and shrinking the sword blade just like the “real thing”. According to the promotional materials, the LaserSaber features “an ultrasmooth magnetic gravity system that can ‘power up’ and ‘power down’ the blade”.
This may sound like a Star Wars fan’s wet dream, but there are some serious, serious caveats involved. One is the following warning, which it annoyingly does not heed in its stuntman-enacted promo video: “Do not participate in any form of fencing or swordplay. Fencing or swordplay will cause serious damage to people, pets or property”, not to mention the standing warnings about wearing protective eyewear. The other problem is that it’s silent, it doesn’t make the signature “vhoom-kRSH!” noises a light saber is supposed to make.
But still, check out this video. Then imagine yourself in an epic battle with Darth Maul and add the sound effects yourself. If you can do that, you don’t actually need a laser that has the potential to blind you instantly. In fact, there’sa much, much less expensive model that features the blade light growth effect that you can get for under $40 from Amazon. At that price, much less lethal and replaceable in case you break it. If you somehow manage to break the LaserSaber, you’re now potentially looking down the business end of a real retina-punching energy beam.
WARNING: Do not look directly into laser beam with remaining eye.
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