A Sandbox I Wish I had as a Kid

When I think about the XBox Kinect, I think about gaming and hours lost in another world. However these days, it is being used as a tool in medical imaging, robotics, and even aids for the visually impaired. When I saw this image on Pinterest, I wasn't quite sure what this was all about, but the more I read on it, the more impressed I became. And can you imagine the muse crack? All of these uses are no longer a thing of sci-fi. They're becoming reality.

So what is this picture all about? Well, it's a sandbox, or what is being called the SandyStation. this realistic ecosystem was created by two students (Peter Altman and Robert Eckstein) in the Czech Republic. Using a Kinect, a data projector, a program of their own design and an ordinary box of sand, they can create stunning geographical models. Prepping the Kinect above the sandbox, it monitors the varying heights and depths of the area and then relays the information through a program to the projector. The projector then displays the topographical information on top of the sandbox in different colours that represent different heights or depths (i.e. dark blues for water, greens for hills, etc). Not only that but it can respond to any immediate changes as well! So if you decide you want a river and start to dig in the sand, you can water the "water" flow into the new channel.

Check out the lava when he digs a hole in the hill! Apparently if it mixes with the water it looks like it "extinguishes". Very cool.

If the Dead Could Speak



Photo by: AP

 This article isn't new, but I found it recently and the musecrack just sparkles in it. It's about an archaeological site in the walled port of Acre, where the alleys of an Ottoman-era town is being rediscovered after it was found uniquely intact underground.

"Etched in plaster on one wall was a coat of arms — graffiti left by a medieval traveler. Nearby was a main street of cobblestones and a row of shops that once sold clay figurines and ampules for holy water, popular souvenirs for pilgrims."

Used by residents in 1291, (the year a Muslim army from Egypt defeated Acre's Christian garrison) these items and more were preserved in this town, under an existing city built by the Ottoman Turks around 1750.

Under Christian rule, the city became an unruly trading hub to combative orders of soldier-monks, European factions that distrusted each other, and competing merchants, all sharing an enclosed area that was barely the size of two football fields. In 1216, a french bishop went to the town and wrote about the murders that took place constantly, the prostitutes and all the residents he believed to be outlaws who'd fled their own lands.

He described Acre “like a monster or a beast having nine heads, each fighting the other.”

In the 1990s, Israeli excavations got under way. They found the Hospitaller knights, with its pillared dining hall and storerooms, an orderly latrine and a dungeon with stone walls that still had holes for shackles. Also found was a passage constructed by the knights of the rival Templar order, leading from their own fortress to the port. Underwater digs in Acre's harbor revealed sunken fortifications and more than 20 lost ships, some armed with cannons and special weapons to shred enemy sails that dated to Napoleon Bonaparte's failed siege of the city in 1799. 

It’s like Pompeii of Roman times — it’s a complete city,” said Eliezer Stern, the Israeli archaeologist in charge of Acre.
Can you just imagine the stories that must have come out of a place like this? What was life like to be there? We have some idea from the french bishop, but what about when the city fell?

If Atlantis was a Resort

Underwater hotel in Dubai.

When I think about Atlantis, I think of these following images and how cool it'd be if it was found today. If it was turned into a resort/or even just a hotel, I think it'd look similar to those in these pictures. And how cool would that be?
 
Atlantis was a legendary island mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC. He wrote about the naval power, located in front of the Pillars of Hercules, conquering many parts of Western Europe and Africa. Then in a single day and night, the island sank into the ocean.

Scholars have disputed Plato's story and how much of it may have been inspired by older traditions. In Critias, Plato claims that his accounts of Atlantis come from a visit to Egypt by an Athenian named Solon in the 6th century BC. There in Egypt Solon supposedly met a priest of Sais, who translated the history of Atlantis, recorded on papyri. There's some debate however that Plato could have drawn upon the Thera eruption and the Trojan War, or the destruction of Helike in 373 BC.

Nautilus Undersea Suite at The Poseidon Resort, Fiji

Many treasure hunters have sought the legendary civilization but to this day, it's location is still a mystery. There are some theories out there (not only of Santorini, Sardinia, Cyprus, the Azores, Thera & Crete, but also the Sahara, Malta, Bimini, South America, Antarctica, the Canarys, North Sea and the Middle East), but as of yet, no evidence has truly been found.

One of the latest theories is that a US-led research team believe they have found Atlantis off Spain, swamped by a tsunami. The team analyzed satellite imagery of a submerged city north of Cadiz, Spain and found what they believe is the ancient civilization. They found a series of "memorial cities", built in Atlantis' image, possibly built by refugees after the city's destruction.

Using Plato's accounts of Atlantis being in front of the straits of the Pillar of Hercules, the researchers focused on the Mediterranean and Atlantic as possible sites.

Whether they did find it or not, more investigations need to be done. Do you think Atlantis will ever be found? Or do you think it was just a made up story? What are some of your favourite aspects of the tale of the ancient Atlanteans and their mysterious world?

First step at Star Trek's Replicator

I would be the first to admit that having a replicator like that on Star Trek would be awesome. Can you just imagine? You wouldn't have to cook or bake (yes, there's freezer already made meals and delivery, but that still takes time). All you'd have to do is press on the button for what you want and voila, instant meal delivered straight to you. Granted, right now, it'd probably taste like cardboard but still.


One of the coolest things in development right now (there are some already out there and have been for the last decade), is 3D printing. So you'd take a 3D image on the computer and send it to this device and it'd 'print' it in 3D before your eyes like magic. The ones that are available right now apparently cost over $15,000, mostly used by companies (automotive, aerospace, footwear, jewelery), that need to develop a 3D version of their product out of plastics and other material.


It's even foreseen that in the future, 3D printing will reproduce replacement organs. Currently, tissues such as skin, muscles and short stretches of blood vessels can be made. Even bones have been printed. With more research, however, it should be possible to create bigger and more complex body parts. These printers work by depositing droplets of polymer which fuse together to form a structure. Voids in the structure and complex shapes are supported by printing a scaffold of water-soluble material and then once the product is complete, the scaffold is washed away. Researchers found that when small clusters of cells are placed next to each other, they fuse together and organize themselves. Various techniques are also being explored to condition the cells to mature into functioning body parts (for example, exercising muscles using small machines).


Though printing organs is new, growing them from scratch on scaffolds has already been done in 2006 in which new bladders were created for some patients and are still working. Some researchers think machines like this may one day be capable of printing tissues and organs directly into the body.

This, as far as I'm concerned, is the tip of the iceberg. If they can already accomplish some of these things, anything can be done in the future with one of these printers. As an author, I see the musecrack there, but also, the marketing potential. What would you do with one?

What You Don't Know...the Over-Active Imagination

Have you ever gone out on the water and looked down to see only but black? Ever wonder what could be under there that you just don't see?

My imagination has always run away with me. We have a lake on my parents' property and because it's clay bottom, you can't see anything. I've been out in a canoe and whatnot and yeah, it's scary to wonder what could be there. Realistically, you know there's no lake monster or whatever else your mind may conjure but that doesn't always matter. It's also why I will never swim in that lake. Blood suckers... I can deal with. It's the unknown that gets to me every time.

Or what about late at night...when the room is pitch black and you're all alone. You KNOW you're safe. That there are no monsters under the bed and yet, you make sure your feet aren't dangling off the edge and that all the corners of the blankets are tucked in beneath you. Or making sure the closet door is completely closed.

What inspires your nightmares? Where does your imagination run away with you?

Thursday 13: Round up of Science /Humanities

1. Mimicking the brain -- in silicon: new computer chip models how neurons communicate
2. Fossilized skin reveals ancient predator's sharklike move
3. Toyota introduces robots that helps patients walk again
4. Hubble discovers tiny galaxies bursting with starbirth in early universe
5. A rare survivor from the birth of Earth
6. A realistic look at the promises and perils of nanomedicine
7. New "smart" material could help tap medical potential of tissue-penetrating light
8. Archeologists discover huge ancient Greek commercial area on island of Sicily
9. Why your hips don't lie
10. Reading the brain: Mind-boggling
11. Real-Life Inception: Army looks to 'counteract nightmares' with digital dreams
12. Antarctica's "Ghost" Mountains Explained
13. "Great Lakes" discovered on Jupiter Moon?

Thursday 13: Round up of Science /Humanities

1. Water shifting to a new kind of liquid
2. What the brain sees when the eye looks away
3. Which way you lean (physically) affects your decision making
4. We all experience fantasy differently
5. Brain parasite directly alters brain chemistry
6. Re-programmable cells could be key to creating new life forms
7. Cyborgs may be sci-fi but brain-computer interfacing is real
8. New procedure to turn brown eyes blue
9. Skin sees sunlight to trigger tanning
10. Periodic table adds three new elements
11. 66 leg predator roamed ancient BC sea floor
12. First brain image of a dream created
13. Humans' entry into Europe pushed earlier

How I Write-- Writer's Block (or how I fight the monster in the shadows)

This week, my Accountability group are going to answer the following questions: This week's topic is writer's block? Fact or myth? How do you deal with it?

I think writer's block can definitely happen. It's the monster in the shadows, feeding on muse crack. I'm always envious of those who can claim they don't believe in it, those who force themselves to keep moving, despite the block. That is the most disciplined writer, those who can stand up to the monster and look it in the face and then reach into its throat and pull out that half-devoured muse crack back out.

Me? I'm still working on it.

There are ways to hold off that monster, by having a file of ideas, but sometimes, that's not as easy as it sounds. Sometimes the words is what's blocked... a writer block's mutation version of mental constipation. For me, this is the worse. It's when the ideas are all there and I KNOW what I want to write but it just won't come out.

Or what about writer's block's bad boy cousin, procrastination? Now that one... he's one slick beast, luring me with the sparkly pictures and ideas on Pinterest or my TBR pile. I'd like to say that procrastination helps with the writer's block (my excuse), but no, it doesn't. I've fallen victim to this dirty scheme way too many times to know better. And the thing with procrastination, is that it's addicting. It's a drug. I can't just read one chapter. One chapter becomes three and then I find myself having wasted all day and the book done. But oh, there's always more books, procrastination whispers, 'not like you wasted the time. You were studying writing'.

Yeah, that excuse doesn't fly when you have deadlines and books to write.

So what DOES work? What will beat back the dreaded writer's block and stop it in its track before it inhales your musecrack and causes word-constipation? BICHOK--butt in chair, hands on keyboard-- is something a lot of people say works. By showing up, you should be able to write. Not really. Not when that monster is on your shoulder and devouring the words before they even form in your mind. How can showing up help if you are just staring at a screen, fighting tooth and nail for every word? It doesn't.

For me, keeping busy helps the most. I'll clean the apartment and do the dishes. Go shower. I'm not sure what it is about water but somehow, this helps. I read somewhere once that it had to do with re-energizing ions in the body or something, but whatever the reason, things come easier when I'm being busy. I don't mean busy in the -I-Need-To-Concentrate-Or-I-May-Hurt-Myself, like chopping up veggies or something, but, mindless chores. I said once that I'm a daydreamer. I daydream the scenes I'm having trouble with. I put myself in the shoes of the characters and play the scene out. I note the dialogue and what happens.

When that doesn't help, I listen to music. Loud. And yes, I give in to procrastination and play games... and while I play these games, daydream those scenes that are giving me fits. As much as I'd like to blame procrastination for everything, it does help at times. Pinterest is good at giving me ideas because you can create collages of ideas for characters and scenes and whatnot and that can help to fight off writer's block.

I don't know if there will ever be a surefire way of fighting it off, but for me, these things help. In small doses, that is.

For more on what my friends have learned while writing, click on their links!

Danie Ford
Emma G. Delaney
Kimberly Farris
Kristen Koster

Six Sentence Sundays

This bit of muse crack inspired a particular scene of mine in BOOK1 (title to change) where the heroine and hero are having a conversation about the hero's favourite memory. For me, it's a touching scene, one that reminds the reader that J.C. can feel and be vulnerable.

J.C. was silent a moment. “It was beautiful. I don’t recall the reason we went, just that we ended up on this wooden platform, high up into the trees. It was so black you had to watch your step. The mountains aren’t exactly all that safe to walk through in the dark. We had our flashlights and that was all.”