Voices touch our lives in ways we may not even realize. For many of my friends, this is one of the voices of their childhood.
Gone a year. Still not forgotten.
IMAGE CREDIT: Many thanks to Sheila M. Gagne for this tribute collage. See more of her work on her Facebook Page. Thanks also to Ty's Shufflings, for alerting me to this material.
We made it to SoonerCon24 (Oklahoma City/Midwest City, OK)! The Art Show is large, and includes some wonderful artwork. Here is my display:
My Art Show display at SoonerCon 24 includes six pieces never before shown at an sf convention, three pieces never before seen anywhere, and eight never before seen at a SoonerCon.
As of this posting, most of my programming panels are yet to happen. I am scheduled to moderate all of them (which I prefer), and I've got a whole bunch of prompts and questions lined up for each. If you're at the convention, please consider attending:
2D and 3D Fantasy Creature Creation (1 pm Saturday in Ballroom B) That Would Have Been Nice to Know (4 pm Saturday in Maynard) Law and Order . . . IN SPACE! (11 am Sunday in Maynard) Who Owns Original Artwork? (Noon Sunday in Ballroom B)
We had a busy, crowded Artists Reception (complete with delicious hors d'oeuvres and champagne) on Friday night at the Art Show, showcasing a wide variety of art.
SoonerCon is always a lot of fun. If you didn't have a chance to attend this year, please consider it for next year!
IMAGE: I took the photo of my own art in the display I organized at SoonerCon 24; all rights belong to me. You my re-publish it online, if you'll include a link back to this post and an attribution to say whose art it is and where. Thanks!
The French artist known as OakOak has created a large body of work in which witty images interact with chance aspects of the street environment. Here are some of my favorites--all from OakOak's website.
Hulk, France, 2014
The Dragon, St. Etienne, France, 2013
Bruce Lee's Flying Kick, St. Etienne, France, 2014
We Push! France, 2013
The Tightrope-Walker, France, 2014
IMAGES: Many thanks, OakOak, for sharing your quirky vision with the world via the Internet. Many thanks also to WonderMika for helping me learn who was behind these images!
Voices touch our lives in ways we may not even realize. For many of my friends, this is one of the voices of their childhood.
Gone a year. Still not forgotten.
IMAGE CREDIT: Many thanks to Sheila M. Gagne for this tribute collage. See more of her work on her Facebook Page. Thanks also to Ty's Shufflings, for alerting me to this material.
You're driving down a street in Rome. You turn the corner, and see . . .
A military warehouse in Rome might cause you to do a double-take! The artist's name is Blu.
Here's a closer look at one section.
Another part of the mural.
And yet another part.
This one's my personal favorite.
And here's your street view.
IMAGE: Many thanks to DesignBoom for this image and the accompanying story it posted with the picture! See them all here. It also appeared on a Tumblr post I haven't been able to find again.
Please note! This post was updated 6/3/2015.
Indulge me for a moment, while I do what science fiction writers do: put two ideas together that don't necessarily fit.
My imagination was caught today by a video a friend posted on Facebook this morning.
At first I worried it might be a hoax, but no--this technology is real.
It, or variations much like it, is being used all over the world, scaled up in some cases to an industrial level (see PK Clean, Agilyx, and Plastic2 Oil), or on an individual-household scale.
Pretty cool, huh? wouldn't it be great to see this technology spread?
Convergence Zone in the North Pacific Gyre.
However, anytime you mention plastic waste, my mind turns inevitably to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It is a vast floating convergence of marine trash--mostly plastics--created by current action of the North Pacific Gyre and the carelessness of people.
The Garbage Patch is located near the Midway Atoll, which is US territory, near the Hawaiian Archipelago. The Patch conservatively estimated to be the size of Texas, and it is a massive source of pollution and environmental destruction.
Carcass of an albatross chick on Midway Atoll.
One of the most destructive aspects of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is that the plastics in it break down in the sunlight and are ingested by birds, sea turtles, and other wildlife. This causes all kinds of trouble, such as when the animals can't pass the plastic, it fills their stomachs, and they starve. That's not the only bad effect, but it's a dramatic and all-too-prevalent one.
So of course I went there. What if we could park ships equipped with plastic-to-oil plastic-recycling technology throughout the Great Pacific (or other) Garbage Patch? Our national policy the last few years has been focused on building energy independence; maybe this could eventually make the oil shale in North Dakota's Bakken Formation look paltry.
I'd certainly be happy about less fracking, less impact on fragile ecosystems, and more garbage removal from the ocean.
I'm not the only one who's concerned about cleaning up the ocean, of course. The Ocean Cleanup team has a system that might be adaptable to my idea--it is scheduled to deploy next year. (Thanks for this info, Suraj Mohan!)
Yes, yes, I know. I'm WAY over-simplifying. My idea is impractical for thousands of immediate reasons. But what if they can be overcome? The key to any innovation is first to think of the idea, then solve the problems that currently make it impractical. Simple? Easy? No. Worth considering? We won't know till we consider the possibilities for a while.
IMAGES: Many thanks to YouTube for the "Plastic to Oil" video, and to Wikimedia for the map of the North Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone. The photo of the albatross chick full of plastic is from EcoWatch. Wikimedia strikes again, with the photo of the North Dakotan oil rig. Thanks!
