Thoughts Aloud.

Dead Actors and the Future of Cinema The integration of virtual actors into mainstream cinema does not have to mean the collapse of the acting profession. By treating a virtual actor strictly as a licensed, post-career intellectual property asset, the industry can protect the current labor market while providing a generational asset for an actor's estate. The "Active Actor" Ban A virtual actor must be based on a real, licensed human being. However, no actor currently active in the profession can be utilized as a virtual actor. Studios are strictly banned from licensing digital replicas of living, working actors to bypass hiring them. Only when an actor officially retires from professional life—or passes away—do their digital rights unlock for production licensing. This forces studios to continuously cast, train, and promote new human talent today if they want lucrative legacy assets tomorrow. The Immutable Biometric Matrix A virtual actor is a historical simulation, not a...

The Mirror Wall — Civilian Resistance in the Age of Total Sight By the Faculty of Advanced Optics, Zen's University (Note: This is a work of fiction and not an active plan of resistance.) For generations, the orbital "High Ground" was considered the ultimate strategic advantage. An enemy in Geosynchronous Orbit (GEO) claims the power of the Panopticon: they can see every movement, track every signature, and coordinate strikes without warning. This vertical asymmetry was designed to induce paralysis. They told us we were transparent. They told us resistance was impossible because it was visible. They were wrong. The Solar Aegis Project proves that the very light they use to see us can be forged into a blindfold. We have democratized Directed Energy. We are not fighting fire with fire; we are fighting surveillance with the Sun. Imagine 100,000 one-meter square mirrors all directing a searing beam of sunlight at the same point in the sky: The geosynchronous belt where the s...

  I've been using a head mounted display for a number of years and find it useful on occasion. The unit I have is Kickstarter project that never went anywhere. It's about dead and could kick off at any time. After some internet research, I settled on the Rayneo 3S Pro. I ordered one on Amazon and it seemed pretty good when I tried it. Problem though. I have prescription lenses and need them for distance. Unlike my previous set, the Rayneo has no option to adjust the diopter to adjust for the user's prescription eyewear. The Rayneo has an option to buy a set of prescription lenses that snap into the Rayneo 3S unit nicely. But they're over $100 and have to be ordered from the UK. Figure weeks or months at least, plus I'd be out $100. Rayneo Demo Lens Mounting Point Luckily, the Rayneo 3S comes with a "demo" frame set with the all important mount that snaps into the frame oh, so nicely. I took one look at that and knew I could do something with it besides dre...

Welcome to Zen's World: A Universe of Hard Science and Human Flaws For as long as we have looked to the stars, we have asked the same question: Are we alone? Science fiction has long been fascinated with this idea, painting pictures of first contact that range from utopian encounters to terrifying invasions. But the Zen's World series starts with a more grounded, and perhaps more cynical, question: If we finally got a message from the void, could we, as a species, even handle it? What happens when a discovery of unimaginable value is dropped into a world of corporate cold wars, military paranoia, and deep-seated human flaws? This is the central question at the heart of Zen's World , a narrative-driven science fiction series that blends the meticulous detail of hard sci-fi with the high-stakes tension of a political thriller. It’s a universe built not just on advanced technology, but on the uncomfortable and often brutal realities of human nature. A Future Forged in Rivalry...

  Many moons ago, in a land far, far away. I wrote my first code when I was working my way through school as a night computer operator. I was so bad at being an operator that I thought they'd fire me, or move me into an accounting position. The reason I was so horrible was that the nightly job consisted of stacking thousands of cards into input hoppers on the computer, and placing critical control cards that had to be absolutely without error in exactly the right place in the stack. It wasn't an impossible job, but to an 18 year old with the attention span of a gnat, I made errors. When I made an error, part or all of the run was trashed and the day people had to rerun my stuff. In desperation, I started reading the manuals, all written in Spanish (Miami), to figure out how I could make the job easier to run and less prone to silly errors. The manuals, were excellently written with lots of examples and flowcharts. IBM really knew how to get the point across. It took me a few we...

  2017 Eclipse taken from 10,000 feet over northwestern Tennessee People have been asking the question since time began, and after 50 years of contemplation, I believe I have a reasonable answer. Throughout most of history, God has been regarded as a supreme being in many cultures. The similarities are striking. One aspect that I find interesting is that the supreme being is always depicted as all-knowing and all-powerful. When a child is killed and eaten by wolves, it is attributed to God's will, and the will of God remains unfathomable... Except for the organizers of religious institutions, who claim to possess a direct line to God's ear and can hear God's thoughts.  The question is often posed as "Who is God?" rather than "What is God?" I believe that anthropomorphizing the existence of a supreme intelligence unnecessarily complicates matters. The question should be "What" rather than "Who" since no one in the entire history of hum...