Mind Uploading – YouTube

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Use my link http://www.audible.com/isaac or text "ISAAC" to 500-500 to get a free book including a copy of "The Singularity Trap" and a 30-day free trial of Audible. The ability to be able to copy or upload the mind has been discussed much in science fiction, and increasingly in science in recent years. Today we will examine many additional uses of Mind Uploading, along with how it works and some of its implications for concepts like Consciousness, Identity, and Individuality. We will also explore how these themes appear in Dennis E. Taylor's newest novel, The Singularity Trap, our Book of the Month.

Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmap https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/brain-emulat...

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Credits:

Writers:Isaac Arthur

Editors: Dennis E. Taylor http://dennisetaylor.orgJerry GuernKeith BlockusMark WarburtonSigmund Kopperud

Producer:Isaac Arthur

Cover Artist:Jakub Grygier https://www.artstation.com/jakub_grygier

Graphics Team: Jarred EagleyJeremy JozwikKen YorkKristijan TavarLegionTech Studios https://hades9.com

NarratorIsaac ArthurDennis E. Taylor

Music Manager:Luca De Rosa - lucaderosa2@live.com

Music:Denny Shneidemesser, "Imminence" https://soundcloud.com/denny-schneide...Chris Zabriskie, "Candlepower" http://chriszabriskie.comLombus, "Time Slip" https://lombus.bandcamp.comA.J. Prasad, "Staring Through (Part I)" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA8-7...Stellardrone, "Maia Nebula" https://stellardrone.bandcamp.comAerium, "Parks" https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRnU...Epic Mountain, "Space Travel" https://soundcloud.com/epicmountain

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Mind Uploading - YouTube

Project Censored – The News that Didn’t Make the News and Why

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Project Censored interrogates the present in the same way that Oliver Stone and I tried to interrogate the past in our Untold History of the United States. It not only shines a penetrating light on the American Empire and all its deadly, destructive, and deceitful actions, it does so at a time when the Obama administration is mounting a fierce effort to silence truth-tellers and whistleblowers. Project Censored provides the kind of fearless and honest journalism we so desperately need in these dangerous times.Peter Kuznick, professor of history, American University, and coauthor, with Oliver Stone, of The Untold History of the United States

Project Censored brings to light some of the most important stories of the year that you never saw or heard about. This is your chance to find out what got buried.Diane Ravitch, author of The Death and Life of the Great American School System.

Hot news, cold truths, utterly uncensored.Greg Palast

Project Censored continues to be an invaluable resource in exposing and highlighting shocking stories that are routinely minimized or ignored by the corporate media. The vital nature of this work is underscored by this years NSA leaks. The world needs more brave whistle blowers and independent journalists in the service of reclaiming democracy and challenging the abuse of power. Project Censored stands out for its commitment to such work.Deepa Kumar, author of Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire and associate professor of Media Studies and Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers University

The staff of Project Censored presents their annual compilation of the previous years 25 stories most overlooked by the mainstream media along with essays about censorship and its consequences. The stories include an 813% rise in hate and anti-government groups since 2008, human rights violations by the US Border Patrol, and Israeli doctors injecting Ethiopian immigrants with birth control without their consent. Other stories focus on the environment, like the effects of fracking and Monsantos GMO seeds. The writers point out misinformation and outright deception in the media, including CNN relegating factual accounts to the opinion section and the whitewashing of Margaret Thatchers career following her death in 2013, unlike Hugo Chavez, who was routinely disparaged in the coverage following his death. One essay deals with the proliferation of Junk Food News, in which CNN and Fox News devoted more time to Gangnam Style than the renewal of Ugandas Kill the Gays law. Another explains common media manipulation tactics and outlines practices to becoming a more engaged, free-thinking news consumer or even citizen journalist. Rob Williams remarks on Hollywoods deep and abiding role as a popular propaganda provider via Argo and Zero Dark Thirty. An expose on working conditions in Chinese Apple factories is brutal yet essential reading. This book is evident of Project Censoreds profoundly important work in educating readers on current events and the skills needed to be a critical thinker.-Publishers Weekly said about Censored 2014 (Oct.)

For ages, Ive dreamed of a United States where Project Censored isnt necessary, where these crucial stories and defining issues are on the front page of the New York Times, the cover of Time, and in heavy rotation on CNN. That world still doesnt exist, but we always have Project Censoreds yearly book to pull together the most important things the corporate media ignored, missed, or botched.Russ Kick, author of You Are Being Lied To, Everything You Know Is Wrong, and the New York Times bestselling series The Graphic Canon.

[Censored] should be affixed to the bulletin boards in every newsroom in America. And, perhaps read aloud to a few publishers and television executives.Ralph Nader

Buy it, read it, act on it. Our future depends on the knowledge this col-lection of suppressed stories allows us.San Diego Review

Those who read and support Project Censored are in the know.Cynthia McKinney

At a time when the need for independent journalism and for media outlets unaffiliated with and untainted by the government and corporate sponsors is greater than ever, Project Censored has created a context for reporting the complete truths in all matters that matter.... It is therefore left to us to find sources for information we can trust.... It is in this task that we are fortunate to have an ally like Project Cen-sored.Dahr Jamail

Project Censored is one of the organizations that we should listen to, to be assured that our newspapers and our broadcasting outlets are practicing thorough and ethical journalism.Walter Cronkite

One of the most significant media research projects in the country.I. F. Stone

In another home run for Project Censored, Censored 2013 shows how the American public has been bamboozled, snookered, and dumbed down by the corporate media. It is chock-full of ah-ha moments where we understand just how weve been fleeced by banksters, stripped of our civil liberties, and blindly led down a path of never-ending war.Medea Benjamin, author of Drone Warfare, cofounder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK.

Most journalists in the United States believe the press here is free. That grand illusion only helps obscure the fact that, by and large, the US corporate press does not report whats really going on, while tuning out, or laughing off, all those who try to do just that. Americansnow more than everneed those outlets that do labor to report some truth. Project Censored is not just among the bravest, smartest, and most rigorous of those outlets, but the only one thats wholly focused on those stories that the corporate press ignores, downplays, and/or distorts. This latest book is therefore a must read for anyone who cares about this country, its tottering economy, andmost important whats now left of its democracy.Mark Crispin Miller, author, professor of media ecology, New York University.

Project Censored shines a spotlight on news that an informed public must have... a vital contribution to our democratic process.Rhoda H. Karpatkin, president, Consumers Union

Censored 2014 is a clarion call for truth telling. Not only does this volume highlight fearless speech in fateful times, it connect the dots between the key issues we face, lauds our whistleblowers and amplifies their voices, and shines light in the dark places of our government that most need exposure.Daniel Ellsberg, The Pentagon Papers

Activist groups like Project Censored... are helping to build the media democracy movement. We have to challenge the powers that be and rebuild media from the bottom up.Amy Goodman

[Censored] offers devastating evidence of the dumbing-down of main-stream news in America.... Required reading for broadcasters, journalists, and well-informed citizens.Los Angeles Times

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Project Censored - The News that Didn't Make the News and Why

Immortality (novel) – Wikipedia

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Immortality (Czech: Nesmrtelnost) is a novel in seven parts, written by Milan Kundera in 1988 in Czech. First published 1990 in French. English edition 345 p., translation by Peter Kussi.[1] This novel springs from a casual gesture of a woman, seemingly to her swimming instructor. Immortality is the last of a trilogy that includes The Book Of Laughter And Forgetting, and The Unbearable Lightness Of Being.

Divided into seven parts, Immortality centers on Agnes, her husband Paul and her sister Laura. Part One: the Face establishes these characters. Part Two: Immortality depicts Goethe's fraught relationship with Bettina, a young woman who aspires to create a place for herself in the pantheon of history by controlling Goethe's legacy after his death. Part Three: Agnes and Laura fight, while focusing on the deteriorating state of Laura's relationship with Bernard Bertrand. Part Four: Homo Sentimentalis chronicles Goethe's afterlife and postmortem friendship with Ernest Hemingway. Part Five: Chance sees Agnes' death, and intersects these fictional events with Kundera's seemingly autobiographical account of a conversation with Professor Avenarius. Part Six: the Dial introduces a new character, Rubens, who had an affair with Agnes years prior to the onset of the main events in the plot. Part Seven: the Celebration concludes the novel in the same health club where Kundera first observed the inspirational wave gesture.

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Immortality (novel) - Wikipedia

What is cryonics?

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Cryonics is an effort to save lives by using temperatures so cold that a person beyond help by today's medicine might be preserved for decades or centuries until a future medical technology can restore that person to full health. Cryonics is a second chance at life. It is the reasoned belief in the advancement of future medicinal technologies being able to cure things we cant today.

Many biological specimens, including whole insects, many types of human tissue including brain tissue, and human embryos have been cryogenically preserved, stored at liquid nitrogen temperature where all decay ceases, and revived. This leads scientists to believe that the same can be done with whole human bodies, and that any minimal harm can be reversed with future advancements in medicine.

Neurosurgeons often cool patients bodies so they can operate on aneurysms without damaging or rupturing the nearby blood vessels. Human embryos that are frozen in fertility clinics, defrosted, and implanted in a mothers uterus grow into perfectly normal human beings. This method isnt new or groundbreaking- successful cryopreservation of human embryos was first reported in 1983 by Trounson and Mohr with multicellular embryos that had been slow-cooled using dimethyl sulphoxide (DMSO).

And just in Feb. of 2016, there was a cryonics breakthrough when for the first time, scientists vitrified a rabbits brain and, after warming it back up, showed that it was in near perfect condition. This was the first time a cryopreservation was provably able to protect everything associated with learning and memory.

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What is cryonics?

Genetic engineering in science fiction – Wikipedia

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In literature and especially in science fiction, genetic engineering has been used as a theme or a plot device in many stories.[1][2]

In his 1924 essay Daedalus, or Science and the Future, J. B. S. Haldane predicted a day when biologists would invent new algae to feed the world and ectogenetic children would be created and modified using eugenic selection. Aldous Huxley developed these ideas in a satirical direction for his 1932 novel Brave New World, in which ectogenetic embryos were developed in selected environments to create children of an 'Alpha', 'Beta', or 'Gamma' type.[3]

The advent of large-scale genetic engineering has increased its presence in fiction.[4][5] Genetics research consortia, such as the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, have felt the need to distinguish genetic engineering fact from fiction in explaining their work to the public,[1] and have explored the role that genetic engineering has played in the public perception of programs, such as the Human Genome Project.[6]

Beyond the usual library catalog classifications,[7] the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute[1] and the NHGRI[6] have compiled catalogs of literature in various media with genetics and genetic engineering as a theme or plot device. Such compilations are also available at fan sites.[8]

In the 2000 television series Andromeda, the Nietzscheans (Homo sapiens invictus in Latin) are a race of genetically engineered humans who religiously follow the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, social Darwinism and Dawkinite genetic competitiveness. They claim to be physically perfect and are distinguished by bone blades protruding outwards from the wrist area.

In the book 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson, genetic engineering of humans, plants and animals and how that affects a society spread over the solar system is explored.

In the Animorphs book series, race of aliens known as the Hork-Bajir were engineered by a race known as the Arns. Another race, the Iskhoots, are another example of genetic engineering. The outer body, the Isk, was created by the Yoort, who also modify themselves to be symbotic to the Isk. Also, a being known as the Ellimist has made species such as the Pemalites by this method.

In the 1983 film Anna to the Infinite Power, the main character was one of seven genetically cloned humans created by Anna Zimmerman as a way to groom a perfect person in her image. After her death, her work was carried on by her successor Dr. Henry Jelliff, who had other plans for the project. But in the end we learn that her original genetic creation, Michaela Dupont, has already acquired her creator's abilities, including how to build a genetic replicator from scratch.

The 1996 video game series Resident Evil involves the creation of genetically engineered viruses which turn humans and animals into organisms such as zombies, the Tyrants or Hunters by a worldwide pharmaceutical company called the Umbrella Corporation.

In the video game series BioShock, most of the enemies in both BioShock and BioShock 2, referred to as "splicers", as well as the player, gain superpowers and enhance their physical and mental capabilities by means of genetically engineered plasmids, created by use of ADAM stem cells secreted by a species of sea slug.[9]

The novel Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress and its sequels are widely recognized by science fiction critics as among the most sophisticated fictional treatments of genetic engineering. They portray genetically-engineered characters whose abilities are far greater than those of ordinary humans (e.g. they are effectively immortal and they function without needing to sleep). At issue is what responsibility they have to use their abilities to help "normal" human beings. Kress explores libertarian and more collectivist philosophies, attempting to define the extent of people's mutual responsibility for each other's welfare.

In the Battletech science fiction series, the Clans have developed a genetic engineering program for their warriors, consisting of eugenics and the use of artificial wombs.

In The Champion Maker, a novel by Kevin Joseph, a track coach and a teenage phenom stumble upon a dark conspiracy involving genetic engineering while pursuing Olympic gold.

In the CoDominium series, the planet Sauron develops a supersoldier program. The result were the Sauron Cyborgs, and soldiers. The Cyborgs, who made up only a very small part of the population of Sauron, were part highly genetically engineered human, and part machine. Cyborgs held very high status in Sauron society.

Sauron soldiers, who made up the balance of the population, were the result of generations of genetic engineering. The Sauron soldiers had a variety of physical characteristics and abilities that made the soldiers the best in combat and survival in many hostile environments. For instance, their bones were stronger than unmodified humans. Their lungs extract oxygen more efficiently than normal unmodified humans, allowing them to exert themselves without getting short of breath, or function at high altitudes. Sauron soldiers also have the ability to change the focal length of their eyes, so that they can "zoom" in on a distant object, much like an eagle.

The alien Moties also have used genetic engineering.

In the science fiction series Crest of the Stars, the Abh are a race of genetically engineered humans, who continue to practice the technology. All Abh have been adapted to live in zero-gravity environments, with the same features such as beauty, long life, lifelong youthful appearance, blue hair, and a "space sensory organ".

In the 2000 TV series Dark Angel, the main character Max is one of a group of genetically engineered supersoldiers spliced with feline DNA.

In military science fiction 1993 television series Exosquad, the plot revolves around the conflict between Terrans (baseline humans) and Neosapiens, a race of genetically engineered sentient (and sterile) humanoids, who were originally bred for slave labour but revolted under the leadership of Phaeton and captured the Homeworlds (Earth, Venus and Mars). During the war, various sub-broods of Neosapiens were invented, such as, Neo Megas (intellectually superior to almost any being in the Solar System), Neo Warriors (cross-breeds with various animals) and Neo Lords (the ultimate supersoldiers).

Genetic modification is also found in the 2002 anime series Gundam SEED. It features enhanced humans called Coordinators who were created from ordinary humans through genetic modification.

In Marvel Comics, the 31st century adventurers called the Guardians of the Galaxy are genetically engineered residents of Mercury, Jupiter, and Pluto.

The 1997 film Gattaca deals with the idea of genetic engineering and eugenics as it projects what class relations would look like in a future society after a few generations of the possibility of genetic engineering.

In Marvel Comics, the Inhumans are the result of genetic engineering of early humans by the Kree alien race.

Rather than deliberate engineering, this 2017 novel by British author Steve Turnbull features a plague that carries genetic material across species, causing a wide variety of mutations. Human attempts to control this plague have resulted in a fascist dystopia.

In the Leviathan universe, a group known as the Darwinists use genetically engineered animals as weapons.

The 2000AD strip, Lobster Random features a former soldier-turned-torturer, who has been modified to not feel pain or need to sleep and has a pair of lobster claws grafted to his hips. This state has left him somewhat grouchy.

In Metal Gear Solid, the Genome Army were given gene therapy enhancements.

Also in the series, the Les Enfants Terribles project involved genetic engineering.

The Moreau series by S. Andrew Swann has as the central premise the proliferation of humanoid genetically-engineered animals. The name of the series (and of the creatures themselves) comes from the H. G. Wells novel The Island of Dr. Moreau. In the Wells novel, humanoid animals were created surgically, though this detail has been changed to be genetic manipulation in most film adaptations.

The Neanderthal Parallax novel by Robert J. Sawyer depicts a eugenic society that has benefitted immensely from the sterilization of dangerous criminals as well as preventing the 5% least intelligent from procreating for ten generations.

In the Neon Genesis Evangelion anime series, the character Rei Ayanami is implied to be a lab-created being combining human and angelic DNA. (compare to the Biblical Nephilim)

Genetic engineering (or something very like it) features prominently in Last and First Men, a 1930 novel by Olaf Stapledon.

Genetic engineering is depicted as widespread in the civilized world of Oryx and Crake. Prior to the apocalypse, though, its use among humans is not mentioned. Author Margaret Atwood describes many transgenic creatures such as Pigoons (though originally designed to be harvested for organs, post-apocalyptic-plague, they become more intelligent and vicious, traveling in packs), Snats (snake-rat hybrids who may or may not be extinct), wolvogs (wolf-dog hybrids), and the relatively harmless "rakunks" (skunk-raccoon hybrids, originally designed as pets with no scent glands).

In Plague, a 1979 film, a bacterium in an agricultural experiment accidentally escapes from a research laboratory in Canada, reaching the American Northeast and Great Britain.

Using a method similar to the DNA Resequencer from Stargate SG-1, and even called DNA Resequencing, the Operation Overdrive Power Rangers were given powers of superhuman strength, enhanced hearing, enhanced eyesight, super bouncing, super speed, and invisibility.

Quake II and Quake 4, released in 1997 and 2005, contain genetically-engineered Stroggs.

In the long-running 2006 series Rogue Trooper, the eponymous hero is a Genetic Infantryman, one of an elite group of supersoldiers genetically modified to resist the poisons left in the Nu-Earth atmosphere by decades of war. The original concept from the pages of 80s cult sci-fi comic 2000 AD (of Judge Dredd fame).

James Blish's The Seedling Stars (1956) is the classic story of controlled mutation for adaptability. In this novel (originally a series of short stories) the Adapted Men are reshaped human beings, designed for life on a variety of other planets. This is one of science fiction's most unreservedly optimistic accounts to date of technological efforts to reshape human beings.

In "The Man Who Grew Too Much" episode (2014), Sideshow Bob steals DNA from a GMO company, thus making himself the very first genetically engineered human, and attempts to combine his DNA with that of the smartest people ever to exist on Earth.

In Sleeper, a 1973 parody of many science fiction tropes, genetically modified crops are shown to grow gigantic.

The short-lived 1990s television series Space: Above and Beyond includes a race of genetically engineered and artificially gestated humans who are born at the physical age of 18, and are collectively known as In Vitros or sometimes, derogatorily, "tanks" or "nipple-necks". At the time of the series storyline, this artificial human race was integrated with the parent species, but significant discrimination still occurred.

The Ultimate Life Form project that produced Shadow the Hedgehog and Biolizard in the Sonic the Hedgehog series was a genetic engineering project.

In the Star Trek universe, genetic engineering has featured in a couple of films, and a number of television episodes.

The Breen, the Dominion, Species 8472, the Xindi, and the Federation use technology with organic components.

Khan Noonien Singh, who appeared in Space Seed and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, was a product of genetic engineering. His physical structure was modified to make him stronger and to give him greater stamina than a regular human. His mind was also enhanced. However, the creation of Khan would have serious consequences because the superior abilities given to him created superior ambition. Along with other enhanced individuals, they tried to take over the planet. When they were reawakened by the Enterprise, Khan set himself to taking over the universe. Later, he became consumed by grief and rage, and set himself on the goal of destroying Kirk.

Others of these genetically enhanced augments wreaked havoc in the 22nd century, and eventually some of their enhanced DNA was blended with Klingon DNA, creating the human-looking Klingons of the early 23rd century (See Star Trek: Enterprise episodes "Affliction" and "Divergence").

Because of the experiences with genetic engineering, the Federation had banned it except to correct genetic birth defects, but a number of parents still illegally subjected their children to genetic engineering for a variety of reasons. This often created brilliant but unstable individuals. Such children are not allowed to serve in Starfleet or practice medicine, though Julian Bashir is a notable exception to this. Despite the ban, the Federation allowed the Darwin station to conduct human genetic engineering, which resulted in a telepathic, telekentic humans with a very effective immune system.

In Attack of the Clones, the Kamino cloners who created the clone army for the Galactic Republic had used engineering to enhance their clones. They modified the genetic structure of all but one to accelerate their growth rate, make them less independent, and make them better suited to combat operations.

Later, the Yuuzhan Vong are a race who exclusively use organic technology and regard mechanical technology as heresy. Everything from starships to communications devices to weapons are bred and grown to suit their needs.

In the show Stargate SG-1, the DNA Resequencer was a device built by the Ancients, designed to make extreme upgrades to humans by realigning their DNA and upgrading their brain activity. The machine gave them superhuman abilities, such as telekensis, telepathy, precognition, superhuman senses, strength, and intellect, the power to heal at an incredible rate, and the power to heal others by touch.

In the futuristic tabletop and video game series, Warhammer 40,000, the Imperium of Man uses genetic engineering to enhance the abilities of various militant factions such as the Space Marines, the Thunder Warriors, and the Adeptus Custodes. In the case of Space Marines, a series of synthesized, metamorphosis-inducing organs, known as gene seed, is made from the genome of the twenty original Primarchs and used to start the transformation of these superhuman warriors.

At the same time, the Tau Empire uses a form of eugenic breeding to improve the physical and mental condition of its various castes.

In the e-book, Methuselah's Virus, an ageing pharmaceutical billionaire accidentally creates a contagious virus capable of infecting people with extreme longevity when his genetic engineering experiment goes wrong. The novel then examines the problem of what happens if Methuselah's Virus is at risk of spreading to everyone on the entire planet.

In World Hunger, author Brian Kenneth Swain paints the harrowing picture of a life sciences company that field tests a new strain of genetically modified crop, the unexpected side effect of which is the creation of several new species of large and very aggressive insects.

Genetic engineering is an essential theme of the illustrated book Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future by Dougal Dixon, where it is used to colonize other star systems and save the humans of Earth from extinction.

The Survival Gene e-book contains the author Artsun Akopyan's idea that people can't preserve nature as it is forever, so they'll have to change their own genetics in the future or die. In the novel, wave genetics is used to save humankind and all life on Earth.

A series of books by David Brin in which humans have encountered the Five Galazies, a multitude of sentient species which all practice Uplift raising species to sapience through genetic engineering. Humans, believing they have risen to sapience through evolution alone, are seen as heretics. But they have some status because at the time of contact humans had already Uplifted two species chimpanzees and bottlenose dolphins.

Eugenics is a recurrent theme in science fiction, often with both dystopian and utopian elements. The two giant contributions in this field are the novel Brave New World (1932) by Aldous Huxley, which describes a society where control of human biology by the state results in permanent social stratification.

There tends to be a eugenic undercurrent in the science fiction concept of the supersoldier. Several depictions of these supersoldiers usually have them bred for combat or genetically selected for attributes that are beneficial to modern or future combat.

The Brave New World theme also plays a role in the 1997 film Gattaca, whose plot turns around reprogenetics, genetic testing, and the social consequences of eugenics. Boris Vian (under the pseudonym Vernon Sullivan) takes a more light-hearted approach in his novel Et on tuera tous les affreux ("And we'll kill all the ugly ones").

Other novels touching upon the subject include The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S. Tepper and That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis. The Eugenics Wars are a significant part of the background story of the Star Trek universe (episodes "Space Seed", "Borderland", "Cold Station 12", "The Augments" and the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan). Eugenics also plays a significant role in the Neanderthal Parallax trilogy where eugenics-practicing Neanderthals from a near-utopian parallel world create a gateway to earth. Cowl by Neal Asher describes the collapse of western civilization due to dysgenics. Also Eugenics is the name for the medical company in La Foire aux immortels book by Enki Bilal and on the Immortel (Ad Vitam) movie by the same author.

In Frank Herbert's Dune series of novels, selective breeding programs form a significant theme. Early in the series, the Bene Gesserit religious order manipulates breeding patterns over many generations in order to create the Kwisatz Haderach. In God Emperor of Dune, the emperor Leto II again manipulates human breeding in order to achieve his own ends. The Bene Tleilaxu also employed genetic engineering to create human beings with specific genetic attributes. The Dune series ended with causal determinism playing a large role in the development of behavior, but the eugenics theme remained a crucial part of the story.

In Orson Scott Card's novel Ender's Game, Ender is only allowed to be conceived because of a special government exception due to his parent's high intelligence and the extraordinary performance of his siblings. In Ender's Shadow, Bean is a test-tube baby and the result of a failed eugenics experiment aimed at creating child geniuses.

In the novels Methuselah's Children and Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein, a large trust fund is created to give financial encouragement to marriage among people (the Howard Families) whose parents and grandparents were long lived. The result is a subset of Earth's population who has significantly above-average life spans. Members of this group appear in many of the works by the same author.

In the 1982 Robert Heinlein novel Friday, the main character has been genetically engineered from multiple sets of donors, including, as she finds out later her boss. These enhancements give her superior strength, speed, eyesight in addition to healing and other advanced attributes. Creations like her are considered to be AP's (Artificial Person).

In Eoin Colfer's book The Supernaturalist, Ditto is a Bartoli Baby, which is the name for a failed experiment of the famed Dr. Bartoli. Bartoli tried to create a superior race of humans, but they ended in arrested development, with mutations including extrasensory perception and healing hands.

In Larry Niven's Ringworld series, the character Teela Brown is a result of several generations of winners of the "Birthright Lottery", a system which attempts to encourage lucky people to breed, treating good luck as a genetic trait.

In season 2 of Dark Angel, the main 'bad guy' Ames White is a member of a cult known as the Conclave which has infiltrated various levels of society to breed super-humans. They are trying to exterminate all the Transgenics, including the main character Max Guevara, whom they view as being genetically unclean for having some animal DNA spliced with human.

In the movie Immortel (Ad Vitam), Director/Writer Enki Bilal titled the name of the evil corrupt organization specializing in genetic manipulation, and some very disturbing genetic "enhancement" eugenics. Eugenics has come to be a powerful organization and uses people and mutants of "lesser" genetic stock as guinea pigs. The movie is based on the Nikopol trilogy in Heavy Metal comic books.

In the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, a fictional character called Pastor Richards, a caricature of an extreme and insane televangelist, is featured as a guest on a discussion radio show about morality. On this show, he describes shooting people who do not agree with him and who are not "morally correct", which the show's host describes as "amateur eugenics".

In the 2006 Mike Judge film Idiocracy, a fictional character, pvt. Joe Bauers, aka Not Sure (played by Luke Wilson), awakens from a cryogenic stasis in the year 2505 into a world devastated by dysgenic degeneration. Bauers, who was chosen for his averageness, is discovered to be the smartest human alive and eventually becomes president of the United States.

The manga series Battle Angel Alita and its sequel Battle Angel Alita: Last Order (Gunnm and Gunnm: Last Order as it is known in Japan) by Yukito Kishiro, contains multiple references to the theme of eugenics. The most obvious is the sky city Tiphares (Salem in Japanese edition). Dr. Desty Nova, in the first series in Volume 9, reveals the eugenical nature of the city to Alita (Gally or Yoko) and it is further explored in the sequel series. A James Cameron movie based on the series is due for release on 2018.[10]

In the French 2000 police drama Crimson Rivers, inspectors Pierre Niemans (played by Jean Reno) and his colleague Max Kerkerian (Vincent Cassel) attempt to solve series of murders triggered by eugenics experiment that was going on for years in university town of Guernon.

In the Cosmic Era universe of the Gundam anime series (Mobile Suit Gundam SEED), war is fought between the normal human beings without genetic enhancements, also known as the Naturals, and the Coordinators, who are genetically enhanced. It explores the pros and cons as well as possible repercussions from Eugenics

The Khommites of planet Khomm practice this through the method of self-cloning, believing they are perfect.

The book Uglies, part of a four-book series by Scott Westerfeld, revolves around a girl named Tally who lives in a world where everyone at the age of sixteen receives extensive cosmetic surgery to turn into "Pretties" and join society. Although it deals with extreme cosmetic surgery, the utopian (or dystopian, depending on one's interpretation) ideals in the book are similar to those present in the books mentioned above.

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Genetic engineering in science fiction - Wikipedia

The History of Gambling – Complete Gambling History Timeline

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The history of humanity is inextricably linked with the history of gambling, as it seems that no matter how far back in time you go there are signs that where groups of people gathered together gambling was sure to have been taking place. Now we are not going to attempt to track every single twist and turn in the evolution of gambling in this article, but what we are going to do is to pick out some of the most important dates to act as milestones on the road to todays gambling experience.

2300bc

2300bc

While it is almost certain that some forms of betting have been taking place since the dawn of human history, the earliest concrete evidence comes from Ancient China where tiles were unearthed which appeared to have been used for a rudimentary game of chance. The Chinese Book of Songs makes reference to the drawing of wood which suggests that the tiles may have formed part of a lottery type game. We have evidence in the form of keno slips which were used in about 200bc as some sort of lottery to fund state works possibly including construction of the Great Wall of China. Lotteries continued to be used for civic purposes throughout history Harvard and Yale were both established using lottery funds and continue to do so until the present day.

c.500bc

The Greek poet Sophocles claimed that dice were invented by a mythological hero during the siege of Troy, and while this may have somewhat dubious basis in fact, his writings around 500bc were the first mention of dice in Greek history. We know that dice existed far earlier than this, since a pair had been uncovered from an Egyptian tomb from 3000bc, but what is certain is that the Ancient Greeks and Romans loved to gamble on all manner of things, seemingly at any given opportunity. In fact all forms of gambling including dice games were forbidden within the ancient city of Rome and a penalty imposed on those caught which was worth four times the stake being bet. As a result of this, ingenious Roman citizens invented the first gambling chips, so if they were nabbed by the guards they could claim to be playing only for chips and not for real money. (Note that this ruse will not work if attempted at a Vegas casino).

c.800ad

c.800ad

Most scholars agree that the first playing cards appeared in China in the 9th century, although the exact rules of the games they were used for have been lost to history. Some suggest that the cards were both the game and the stake, like trading card games played by children today, while other sources believe the first packs of cards to have been paper forms of Chinese domino. Certainly the cards used at this time bore very little relation to the standard 52 card decks we know today.

1400s

The earliest game still played in casinos today is the two player card game of Baccarat, a version of which was first mentioned as long ago as the 1400s when it migrated from Italy to France. Despite its early genesis, it took hundreds of years and various evolutions to arrive at the game we know today. Although different incarnations of the game have come and gone, the standard version played in casinos all over the world came from Cuba via Britain to the US, with a few alterations to the rules along the way. Although baccarat is effectively more of a spectator sport than a game, it is a feature of just about every casino due to its popularity with high rolling gamblers.

c.1600

c.1600

Some suggest that the earliest forms of blackjack came from a Spanish game called ventiuna (21) as this game appeared in a book written by the author of Don Quixote in 1601. Or was it the game of trente-un (31) from 1570? Or even quinze (15) from France decades earlier? As with all of these origin stories, the inventors of games of chance were rarely noted in the historical annals. The French game of vingt-et-un in the seventeenth century is certainly a direct forefather of the modern game, and this is the game that arrived in the US along with early settlers from France. The name blackjack was an American innovation, and linked to special promotions in Nevada casinos in the 1930s. To attract extra customers, 10 to 1 odds were paid out if the player won with a black Jack of Clubs or Spades together with an Ace of Spades. The special odds didnt last long, but the name is still with us today.

1638

The earliest gambling houses which could reasonably be compared to casinos started to appear in the early 17th century in Italy. For example, in 1638, the Ridotto was established in Venice to provide a controlled gambling environment amidst the chaos of the annual carnival season. Casinos started to spring up all over continental Europe during the 19th century, while at the same time in the US much more informal gambling houses were in vogue. In fact steam boats taking prosperous farmers and traders up and down the Mississippi provided the venue for a lot of informal gambling stateside. Now when we think of casinos we tend to picture the Las Vegas Strip, which grew out of the ashes of the Depression in America.

1796

1796

Roulette as we know it today originated in the gaming houses of Paris, where players would have been familiar with the wheel we now refer to (ironically enough) as the American Roulette wheel. It took another 50 years until the European version came along with just one green zero, and generations of roulette players can be grateful for that. During the course of the 19th century roulette grew in popularity, and when the famous Monte Carlo casino adopted the single zero form of the game this spread throughout Europe and most of the world, although the Americans stuck to the original double zero wheels.

1829

Its hard to pin down the precise origin of poker as with a lot of the games mentioned here, poker seems to have grown organically over decades and possibly centuries from various different card games. Some have pokers antecedents coming from seventeenth century Persia, while others say that the game we know today was inspired by a French game called Poque. What we do know for sure is that an English actor by the name of Joseph Crowell reported that a recognizable form of the game was being played in New Orleans in 1829, so that is as good a date as any for the birth of poker. The growth of the games popularity was fairly sluggish up until world poker tournaments started being played in Vegas in the 1970s. However poker really exploded with the advent of online poker and televised events allowing spectators to see the players hands. When amateur player Chris Moneymaker qualified for and won the 2003 world poker championship after qualifying through online play, it allowed everyone to picture themselves as online poker millionaires.

1891

1891

The first gambling machine which resembled the slots we know today was one developed by Messrs Sittman and Pitt in New York, which used the 52 cards on drum reels to make a sort of poker game. Around the same time the Liberty Bell machine was invented by a Charles Fey in San Francisco. This machine proved much more practical in the sense that winnings could be precisely regulated, and marked the beginning of the real slot game revolution. The fact that some new video slot games still feature bell symbols dates back to this early invention. While early machines spewed out cigars and gum instead of money, the money dispensing versions soon became a staple in bars and casinos around the globe, and when the first video slot was invented in 1976 this paved the way for the online video slots which were to follow.

1910

1910

The United States has always had an up and down relationship with gambling, dating back to when the very first European settlers arrived. Whereas Puritan bands of settlers banned gambling outright in their new settlements, those emigrating from England had a more lenient view of gambling and were more than happy to tolerate it. This dichotomous relationship has continued until now, and in 1910 public pressure led to a nationwide prohibition on gambling. Just like the alcohol prohibition of the same era, this proved somewhat difficult to enforce and gambling continued on in an only slightly discreet manner. The Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression that this spawned in the early 1930s led to gambling being legalized again, as for many this was the only prospect of alleviating the grinding poverty which they suffered through. Although gambling is legal in a number of States today most famously in Las Vegas, Nevada - online gambling is still something of a grey area in the United States. Right now, many international internet casinos are unable to accept American clients, although the signs are that this will change in the near future.

1994

Microgaming is one of the largest casino and slot game developers in the world today, and they are also considered to be pioneers of online gambling. The leap into the world of virtual casinos was taken all the way back in 1994, which in internet terms is kind of like 2300bc! Online gaming was worth over a billion dollars within 5 years, and today is a multibillion dollar industry with over a thousand online casinos and growing. The first live dealer casinos appeared in 2003 courtesy of Playtech, bringing us closer to a hybrid between brick and mortar casinos and the virtual world.

2018

2018

Since New Jersey legalized online gambling in 2011, there has been a boom in the interest people have in it. America has seen a move towards legalizing it state by state, as well as experiencing the rapid rise in mobile gambling. Across the globe, internet users are gradually veering away from their desktops and towards their handheld devices. This is true of online gamblers too, wanting to be able to enjoy their favorite games whilst on the go. The top gambling sites out there have recognized a market and have stepped up to deliver. With a wave of impressive mobile focused online gambling destinations taking the world by storm, it's safe to say that desktops are being left far behind in favour of more mobile alternatives.

What Comes Next?

It is just about as difficult to predict the future for gambling as it is to uncover some of the origins of the gambling games we know so well today. Much of the focus at the moment is on the mobile gaming market, with online casinos scrambling to make more content compatible with the latest hand held devices. Virtual reality technology is just taking its first steps as a commercial proposition, and you can be sure that there will be gambling applications down the road. How would you like to sit around a virtual poker table with a bunch of your friends from all over the world, share a few laughs, try to tell if you can spot a tell-tale facial tick; and all this from the comfort of your home? VR Headsets can make it happen maybe not today, but certainly just a few years down the track if technology continues to advance in bounds and leaps.

And after that? Well who knows, but when it comes to gambling all things are possible.

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The History of Gambling - Complete Gambling History Timeline

Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM)

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What is complementary medicine?

Complementary medicine is a group of diagnostic and therapeutic disciplines that are used together with conventional medicine. An example of a complementary therapy is using aromatherapy to help lessen a patient's discomfort following surgery.

Complementary medicine is usually not taught or used in Western medical schools or hospitals. Complementary medicine includes a large number of practices and systems of health care that, for a variety of cultural, social, economic, or scientific reasons, have not been adopted by mainstream Western medicine.

Complementary medicine is different from alternative medicine. Whereas complementary medicine is used together with conventional medicine, alternative medicine is used in place of conventional medicine. An example of an alternative therapy is using a special diet to treat cancer instead of undergoing surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy that has been recommended by a physician.

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) can include the following:

Complementary and alternative cancer treatments are often lumped together. But to a cancer specialist, there is a big difference. Complementary therapy is used in addition to mainstream medical treatment. Alternative therapy is used instead of proven treatment. Another term you may hear is integrative medicine. This means combining CAM and standard care to try to treat cancer in a way that involves your body, mind and spirit. Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) includes:

What is alternative medicine?

Alternative medicine includes dietary supplements, megadose vitamins, herbal preparations, special teas, massage therapy, magnet therapy, and spiritual healing.

What are complementary and alternative medicine therapies?

Complementary and alternative medicine therapies fall into five major categories, or domains:

Alternative medical systems are built upon complete systems of theory and practice. Often, these systems have evolved apart from and earlier than the conventional medical approach used in the United States. Examples of alternative medical systems that have developed in Western cultures include homeopathic medicine and naturopathic medicine. Examples of systems that have developed in non-Western cultures include traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda.

Mind-body medicine uses a variety of techniques designed to enhance the mind's capacity to affect bodily function and symptoms. Some techniques that were considered CAM in the past have become mainstream (for example, patient support groups and cognitive-behavioral therapy). Other mind-body techniques are still considered CAM, including meditation, prayer, mental healing, and therapies that use creative outlets such as art, music, or dance.

Biologically based therapies in CAM use substances found in nature, such as herbs, foods, and vitamins. Some examples include dietary supplements,3 herbal products, and the use of other so-called natural but as yet scientifically unproven therapies (for example, using shark cartilage to treat cancer).

Manipulative and body-based methods in CAM are based on manipulation and/or movement of one or more parts of the body. Some examples include chiropractic or osteopathic manipulation, and massage.

Energy therapies involve the use of energy fields. They are of two types:

Questions to ask your doctor when considering complimentary or alternative medicine therapies

Cancer patients using or considering complementary or alternative therapy should discuss this decision with their doctor or nurse, as they would any therapeutic approach. Some complementary and alternative therapies may interfere with standard treatment or may be harmful when used with conventional treatment. It is also a good idea to become informed about the therapy, including whether the results of scientific studies support the claims that are made for it. 1

Choosing a CAM practitioner 1

For additional information, please read"Consumer Financial Issues in CAM."

SOURCES: 1 National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, National Institutes of Health

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Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM)

What is Bitcoin Cash | Learn about Bitcoin Cash

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Bitcoin Cash is a cryptocurrency, or digital money. A revolutionary invention as important as the internet. Bitcoin Cash can be used to buy/sell anything just like the USD. Bitcoin Cash is a global trusted computing network to transfer money/value.

Mining is how Bitcoin Cash (out of the possible 21 million) come into existence on a set schedule. People run specialized hardware that solves very difficult calculations that keep the network secure.

This process is required so that no one can cheat like trying to spend the same funds twice. All miners race to try to "solve" the equation so that they can win the reward, which is currently 12.5 Bitcoin Cash. There is a random winner awarded roughly every 10 minutes. All the transactions that took place in those 10 minutes get cemented into the Bitcoin Cash database, or more commonly referred to as the Blockchain.

We know this is safe because it is very very expensive to try to attack the Bitcoin network. The incentives have proven to work since 2009 and demonstrate it is more profitable to play by the rules than to try to attack the network.

It is the combination of scarcity and utility that makes crypto valuable. There will only ever be 21 million coins total and the user experience for sending cryptocurrency instantly is much better than dealing with banks. Crypto is to banking as Email is to the post office. Disruptive technologies are too important to ignore.

Finance is not taught, but it's super important to understand. Bitcoin Cash promotes savings over spending, which causes people to become a bit more disciplined and financially conscious. There are going to be many use-cases that were not possible before with old money. Owning some Bitcoin Cash acts as your ticket into this future economy. Many industries will be disrupted and long term holders are likely to see healthy gains in their wealth.

It's important to know you can own a fraction of Bitcoin Cash . They are divisible down to 8 digits and it is not a requirement to buy 1 full coin.

In the white paper, it is described as a "free open source peer-to-peer electroniccash system that is completely decentralized". This means being able to send money to anyone for cheap without a middleman being able to tell you no.

We have a permissionless way of accessing data called the internet. We needed a form of money that cannot be corrupted or controlled by bankers and politicians. By removing human manipulation from the equation, we have money that makes sense, is fair, censorship resistant, and reliable.

As it is still relatively early, the ecosystem is not as mature yet and arguably not mainstream ready.

The everyday user may still be overwhelmed or intimidated by this technology, but this continually improves over time.

Merchant adoption is increasing all the time, but there is a limited number of places to spend your crypto in retail locations at the moment.

The market value is likely to fluctuate in price very often until the ecosystem is much more mature. This may take years, but the overall trend is upwards in the long term compared to inflationary fiat currencies.

There are some people who are very threatened by Bitcoin Cash and seek to discredit it as much as possible.

Satoshi Nakamoto is the pseudonym for the creator of bitcoin. Satoshi was likely a small group of individuals who each brought something to the table in order to make Bitcoin work. The original Bitcoin reached capacity many years ago and stopped functioning as originally intended. The situation was like google saying we have served X amount of searches today, sorry you can't use google. Except instead of google, it was a small group of well funded developers who wanted bitcoin to go in a different direction than Satoshi did.

Years of debate went by and no progress was made towards fixing Bitcoin. Many people began to lose hope that things would ever get better. A lot of developer talent and startup potential moved onto altcoins instead. Transactions were backlogged and fees rose to several dollars and priced many people out of using Bitcoin. The same developer team introduced the most radical change to Bitcoin to date which would fundamentally change the code forever. In order to preserve the proven track record of the way Satoshi envisioned Bitcoin to be, Bitcoin Cash was created. You can read the longer history here.

This site contains a Bitcoin Cash Faucet which can send you a small amount of Bitcoin Cash for free. No strings attached. All you need is a wallet to start receiving cryptocurrency.

The more common methods of obtaining Bitcoin Cash involve exchanges like Shapeshift, or Kraken. An exchange is a company that provides a platform to trade one currency for cryptocurrency, or vice versa. Read more on theResources page.

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What is Bitcoin Cash | Learn about Bitcoin Cash

What are the strengths and weaknesses of ethical egoism?

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The Sui Dynasty, founded by Sui Wendi, or Yang Jian, held its capital at Luoyang. Despite having a short lifetime, the Sui Dynasty accomplished many things. The Grand Canal was extended north from Hangzhou across the Yangzi to Yangzhou and then northwest to the region of Louyang. The internal administration also improved during this time, which is evident by several things; the building of granaries around the capitals, the fortification of the Great Wall along the northern borders, the reconstruction of the two capitals near the Yellow River, and building of another capital in Yangchow. Confucianism also began to regain popularity, as the nobles gained importance. The Sui rulers were interested in expanding their borders and, along with their public works projects, they began costly military campaigns. They were largely successful with their efforts at territorial expansion into the south. However, to the north, in Korea, they did not achieve much. They attacked Korea four times, and each time were met with defeat. These defeats in Korea led to an attack by the Khan of the eastern Turks who surrounded the emperor. Independent governments arose and for five years, China was again split into smaller states.

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What are the strengths and weaknesses of ethical egoism?

How Long Would It Take To Travel To The Nearest Star …

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Weve all asked this question at some point in our lives: How long would it take to travel to the stars? Could it be within a persons own lifetime, and could this kind of travel become the norm someday? There are many possible answers to this question some very simple, others in the realms of science fiction. But coming up with a comprehensive answer means taking a lot of things into consideration.

Unfortunately, any realistic assessment is likely to produce answers that would totally discourage futurists and enthusiasts of interstellar travel. Like it or not, space is very large, and our technology is still very limited. But should we ever contemplate leaving the nest, we will have a range of options for getting to the nearest Solar Systems in our galaxy.

The nearest star to Earth is our Sun, which is a fairly average star in the Hertzsprung Russell Diagrams Main Sequence. This means that it is highly stable, providing Earth with just the right type of sunlight for life to evolve on our planet. We know there are planets orbiting other stars near to our Solar System, and many of these stars are similar to our own.

In the future, should mankind wish to leave the Solar System, well have a huge choice of stars we could travel to, and many could have the right conditions for life to thrive. But where would we go and how long would it take for us to get there? Just remember, this is all speculative and there is currently no benchmark for interstellar trips. That being said, here we go!

Over 2000 exoplanets have been identified, many of which are believed to be habitable. Credit: phl.upl.edu

As already noted, the closest star to our Solar System is Proxima Centauri, which is why it makes the most sense to plot an interstellar mission to this system first. As part of a triple star system called Alpha Centauri, Proxima is about 4.24 light years (or 1.3 parsecs) from Earth. Alpha Centauri is actually the brightest star of the three in the system part of a closely orbiting binary 4.37 light years from Earth whereas Proxima Centauri (the dimmest of the three) is an isolated red dwarf about 0.13 light years from the binary.

And while interstellar travel conjures up all kinds of visions of Faster-Than-Light (FTL) travel, ranging from warp speed and wormholes to jump drives, such theories are either highly speculative (such as the Alcubierre Drive) or entirely the province of science fiction. In all likelihood, any deep space mission will likely take generations to get there, rather than a few days or in an instantaneous flash.

So, starting with one of the slowest forms of space travel, how long will it take to get to Proxima Centauri?

The question of how long would it take to get somewhere in space is somewhat easier when dealing with existing technology and bodies within our Solar System. For instance, using the technology that powered the New Horizons mission which consisted of 16 thrusters fueled with hydrazine monopropellant reaching the Moon would take a mere 8 hours and 35 minutes.

On the other hand, there is the European Space Agencys (ESA) SMART-1 mission, which took its time traveling to the Moon using the method of ionic propulsion. With this revolutionary technology, a variation of which has since been used by the Dawn spacecraft to reach Vesta, the SMART-1 mission took one year, one month and two weeks to reach the Moon.

So, from the speedy rocket-propelled spacecraft to the economical ion drive, we have a few options for getting around local space plus we could use Jupiter or Saturn for a hefty gravitational slingshot. However, if we were to contemplate missions to somewhere a little more out of the way, we would have to scale up our technology and look at whats really possible.

When we say possible methods, we are talking about those that involve existing technology, or those that do not yet exist, but are technically feasible. Some, as you will see, are time-honored and proven, while others are emerging or still on the board. In just about all cases though, they present a possible, but extremely time-consuming or expensive, scenario for getting to even the closest stars

Ionic Propulsion:Currently, the slowest form of propulsion, and the most fuel-efficient, is the ion engine. A few decades ago, ionic propulsion was considered to be the subject of science fiction. However, in recent years, the technology to support ion engines has moved from theory to practice in a big way. The ESAs SMART-1 mission for example successfully completed its mission to the Moon after taking a 13 month spiral path from the Earth.

SMART-1 used solar powered ion thrusters, where electrical energy was harvested from its solar panels and used to power its Hall-effect thrusters. Only 82 kg of xenon propellant was used to propel SMART-1 to the Moon. 1 kg of xenon propellant provided a delta-v of 45 m/s. This is a highly efficient form of propulsion, but it is by no means fast.

Artists concept of Dawn mission above Ceres. Since its arrival, the spacecraft turned around to point the blue glow of its ion engine in the opposite direction. Image credit: NASA/JPL

One of the first missions to use ion drive technology was the Deep Space 1 mission to Comet Borrelly that took place in 1998. DS1 also used a xenon-powered ion drive, consuming 81.5 kg of propellant. Over 20 months of thrusting, DS1 was managed to reach a velocity of 56,000 km/hr (35,000 miles/hr) during its flyby of the comet.

Ion thrusters are therefore more economical than rocket technology, as the thrust per unit mass of propellant (a.k.a. specific impulse) is far higher. But it takes a long time for ion thrusters to accelerate spacecraft to any great speeds, and the maximum velocity it can achieve is dependent on its fuel supply and how much electrical energy it can generate.

So if ionic propulsion were to be used for a mission to Proxima Centauri, the thrusters would need a huge source of energy production (i.e. nuclear power) and a large quantity of propellant (although still less than conventional rockets). But based on the assumption that a supply of 81.5 kg of xenon propellant translates into a maximum velocity of 56,000 km/hr (and that there are no other forms of propulsion available, such as a gravitational slingshot to accelerate it further), some calculations can be made.

In short, at a maximum velocity of 56,000 km/h, Deep Space 1 would take over 81,000 years to traverse the 4.24 light years between Earth and Proxima Centauri. To put that time-scale into perspective, that would be over 2,700 human generations. So it is safe to say that an interplanetary ion engine mission would be far too slow to be considered for a manned interstellar mission.

Ionic propulsion is currently the slowest, but most fuel-efficient, form of space travel. Credit: NASA/JPL

But, should ion thrusters be made larger and more powerful (i.e. ion exhaust velocity would need to be significantly higher), and enough propellant could be hauled to keep the spacecrafts going for the entire 4.243 light-year trip, that travel time could be greatly reduced. Still not enough to happen in someones lifetime though.

Gravity Assist Method:The fastest existing means of space travel is known the Gravity Assist method, which involves a spacecraft using the relative movement (i.e. orbit) and gravity of a planet to alter is path and speed. Gravitational assists are a very useful spaceflight technique, especially when using the Earth or another massive planet (like a gas giant) for a boost in velocity.

The Mariner 10 spacecraft was the first to use this method, using Venus gravitational pull to slingshot it towards Mercury in February of 1974. In the 1980s, the Voyager 1 probe used Saturn and Jupiter for gravitational slingshots to attain its current velocity of 60,000 km/hr (38,000 miles/hr) and make it into interstellar space.

However, it was the Helios 2 mission which was launched in 1976 to study the interplanetary medium from 0.3 AU to 1 AU to the Sun that holds the record for highest speed achieved with a gravity assist. At the time, Helios 1 (which launched in 1974) and Helios 2 held the record for closest approach to the Sun. Helios 2 was launched by a conventional NASA Titan/Centaur launch vehicle and placed in a highly elliptical orbit.

A Helios probe being encapsulated for launch. Credit: Public Domain

Due to the large eccentricity (0.54) of the 190 day solar orbit, at perihelion Helios 2 was able to reach a maximum velocity of over 240,000 km/hr (150,000 miles/hr). This orbital speed was attained by the gravitational pull of the Sun alone. Technically, the Helios 2 perihelion velocity was not a gravitational slingshot, it was a maximum orbital velocity, but it still holds the record for being the fastest man-made object regardless.

So, if Voyager 1 was traveling in the direction of the red dwarf Proxima Centauri at a constant velocity of 60,000 km/hr, it would take 76,000 years (or over 2,500 generations) to travel that distance. But if it could attain the record-breaking speed of Helios 2s close approach of the Sun a constant speed of 240,000 km/hr it would take 19,000 years (or over 600 generations) to travel 4.243 light years. Significantly better, but still not in the ream of practicality.

Electromagnetic (EM) Drive:Another proposed method of interstellar travel comes in the form of the Radio Frequency (RF) Resonant Cavity Thruster, also known as the EM Drive. Originally proposed in 2001 by Roger K. Shawyer, a UK scientist who started Satellite Propulsion Research Ltd (SPR) to bring it to fruition, this drive is built around the idea that electromagnetic microwave cavities can allow for the direct conversion of electrical energy to thrust.

Whereas conventional electromagnetic thrusters are designed to propel a certain type of mass (such as ionized particles), this particular drive system relies on no reaction mass and emits no directional radiation. Such a proposal has met with a great deal of skepticism, mainly because it violates the law of Conservation of Momentum which states that within a system, the amount of momentum remains constant and is neither created nor destroyed, but only changes through the action of forces.

The EM Drive prototype produced by NASA/Eagleworks. Credit: NASA Spaceflight Forum

However, recent experiments with the technology have apparently yielded positive results. In July of 2014, at the 50th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference in Cleveland, Ohio, researchers from NASAs advanced propulsion research claimed that they had successfully tested a new design for an electromagnetic propulsion drive.

This was followed up in April of 2015 when researchers at NASA Eagleworks (part of the Johnson Space Center) claimed that they had successfully tested the drive in a vacuum, an indication that it might actually work in space. In July of that same year, a research team from the Dresden University of Technologys Space System department built their own version of the engine and observed a detectable thrust.

And in 2010, Prof. Juan Yang of the Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xian, China, began publishing a series of papers about her research into EM Drive technology. This culminated in her 2012 paper where she reported higher input power (2.5kW) and tested thrust (720mN) levels. In 2014, she further reported extensive tests involving internal temperature measurements with embedded thermocouples, which seemed to confirm that the system worked.

Artists concept of an interstellar craft equipped with an EM Drive. Credit: NASA Spaceflight Center

According to calculations based on the NASA prototype (which yielded a power estimate of 0.4 N/kilowatt), a spacecraft equipped with the EM drive could make the trip to Pluto in less than 18 months. Thats one-sixth the time it took for the New Horizons probe to get there, which was traveling at speeds of close to 58,000 km/h (36,000 mph).

Sounds impressive. But even at that rate, it would take a ship equipped with EM engines over 13,000 years for the vessel to make it to Proxima Centauri. Getting closer, but not quickly enough! and until such time that technology can be definitively proven to work, it doesnt make much sense to put our eggs into this basket.

Nuclear Thermal and Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NTP/NEP):Another possibility for interstellar space flight is to use spacecraft equipped with nuclear engines, a concept which NASA has been exploring for decades. In a Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) rocket, uranium or deuterium reactions are used to heat liquid hydrogen inside a reactor, turning it into ionized hydrogen gas (plasma), which is then channeled through a rocket nozzle to generate thrust.

A Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP) rocket involves the same basic reactor converting its heat and energy into electrical energy, which would then power an electrical engine. In both cases, the rocket would rely on nuclear fission or fusion to generates propulsion rather than chemical propellants, which has been the mainstay of NASA and all other space agencies to date.

Artists impression of a Crew Transfer Vehicle (CTV) using its nuclear-thermal rocket engines to slow down and establish orbit around Mars. Credit: NASA

Compared to chemical propulsion, both NTP and NEC offers a number of advantages. The first and most obvious is the virtually unlimited energy density it offers compared to rocket fuel. In addition, a nuclear-powered engine could also provide superior thrust relative to the amount of propellant used. This would cut the total amount of propellant needed, thus cutting launch weight and the cost of individual missions.

Although no nuclear-thermal engines have ever flown, several design concepts have been built and tested over the past few decades, and numerous concepts have been proposed. These have ranged from the traditional solid-core design such as the Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application (NERVA) to more advanced and efficient concepts that rely on either a liquid or a gas core.

However, despite these advantages in fuel-efficiency and specific impulse, the most sophisticated NTP concept has a maximum specific impulse of 5000 seconds (50 kNs/kg). Using nuclear engines driven by fission or fusion, NASA scientists estimate it would could take a spaceship only 90 days to get to Mars when the planet was at opposition i.e. as close as 55,000,000 km from Earth.

But adjusted for a one-way journey to Proxima Centauri, a nuclear rocket would still take centuries to accelerate to the point where it was flying a fraction of the speed of light. It would then require several decades of travel time, followed by many more centuries of deceleration before reaching it destination. All told, were still talking about 1000 years before it reaches its destination. Good for interplanetary missions, not so good for interstellar ones.

Using existing technology, the time it would take to send scientists and astronauts on an interstellar mission would be prohibitively slow. If we want to make that journey within a single lifetime, or even a generation, something a bit more radical (aka. highly theoretical) will be needed. And while wormholes and jump engines may still be pure fiction at this point, there are some rather advanced ideas that have been considered over the years.

Nuclear Pulse Propulsion:Nuclear pulse propulsion is a theoretically possible form of fast space travel. The concept was originally proposed in 1946 by Stanislaw Ulam, a Polish-American mathematician who participated in the Manhattan Project, and preliminary calculations were then made by F. Reines and Ulam in 1947. The actual project known as Project Orion was initiated in 1958 and lasted until 1963.

The Project Orion concept for a nuclear-powered spacecraft. Credit: silodrome.co

Led by Ted Taylor at General Atomics and physicist Freeman Dyson from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, Orion hoped to harness the power of pulsed nuclear explosions to provide a huge thrust with very high specific impulse (i.e. the amount of thrust compared to weight or the amount of seconds the rocket can continually fire).

In a nutshell, the Orion design involves a large spacecraft with a high supply of thermonuclear warheads achieving propulsion by releasing a bomb behind it and then riding the detonation wave with the help of a rear-mounted pad called a pusher. After each blast, the explosive force would be absorbed by this pusher pad, which then translates the thrust into forward momentum.

Though hardly elegant by modern standards, the advantage of the design is that it achieves a high specific impulse meaning it extracts the maximum amount of energy from its fuel source (in this case, nuclear bombs) at minimal cost. In addition, the concept could theoretically achieve very high speeds, with some estimates suggesting a ballpark figure as high as 5% the speed of light (or 5.4107 km/hr).

But of course, there the inevitable downsides to the design. For one, a ship of this size would be incredibly expensive to build. According to estimates produced by Dyson in 1968, an Orion spacecraft that used hydrogen bombs to generate propulsion would weight 400,000 to 4,000,000 metric tons. And at least three quarters of that weight consists of nuclear bombs, where each warhead weights approximately 1 metric ton.

Artists concept of Orion spacecraft leaving Earth. Credit: bisbos.com/Adrian Mann

All told, Dysons most conservative estimates placed the total cost of building an Orion craft at 367 billion dollars. Adjusted for inflation, that works out to roughly $2.5 trillion dollars which accounts for over two thirds of the US governments current annual revenue. Hence, even at its lightest, the craft would be extremely expensive to manufacture.

Theres also the slight problem of all the radiation it generates, not to mention nuclear waste. In fact, it is for this reason that the Project is believed to have been terminated, owing to the passage of the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963 which sought to limit nuclear testing and stop the excessive release of nuclear fallout into the planets atmosphere.

Fusion Rockets:Another possibility within the realm of harnessed nuclear power involves rockets that rely on thermonuclear reactions to generate thrust. For this concept, energy is created when pellets of a deuterium/helium-3 mix are ignited in a reaction chamber by inertial confinement using electron beams (similar to what is done at the National Ignition Facility in California). This fusion reactor would detonate 250 pellets per second to create high-energy plasma, which would then be directed by a magnetic nozzle to create thrust.

Like a rocket that relies on a nuclear reactor, this concept offers advantages as far as fuel efficiency and specific impulse are concerned. Exhaust velocities of up to 10,600km/s are estimated, which is far beyond the speed of conventional rockets. Whats more, the technology has been studied extensively over the past few decades, and many proposals have been made.

Artists concept of the Daedalus spacecraft, a two-stage fusion rocket that would achieve up to 12% he speed of light. Credit: Adrian Mann

For example, between 1973 and 1978, the British Interplanetary Society conducted feasibility study known as Project Daedalus. Relying on current knowledge of fusion technology and existing methods, the study called for the creation of a two-stage unmanned scientific probe making a trip to Barnards Star (5.9 light years from Earth) in a single lifetime.

The first stage, the larger of the two, would operate for 2.05 years and accelerate the spacecraft to 7.1% the speed of light (o.071 c). This stage would then be jettisoned, at which point, the second stage would ignite its engine and accelerate the spacecraft up to about 12% of light speed (0.12 c) over the course of 1.8 years. The second-stage engine would then be shut down and the ship would enter into a 46-year cruise period.

According to the Projects estimates, the mission would take 50 years to reach Barnards Star. Adjusted for Proxima Centauri, the same craft could make the trip in 36 years. But of course, the project also identified numerous stumbling blocks that made it unfeasible using then-current technology most of which are still unresolved.

For instance, there is the fact that helium-3 is scare on Earth, which means it would have to be mined elsewhere (most likely on the Moon). Second, the reaction that drives the spacecraft requires that the energy released vastly exceed the energy used to trigger the reaction. And while experiments here on Earth have surpassed the break-even goal, we are still a long way away from the kinds of energy needed to power an interstellar spaceship.

Artists concept of the Project Daedalus spacecraft, with a Saturn V rocket standing next to it for scale. Credit: Adrian Mann

Third, there is the cost factor of constructing such a ship. Even by the modest standard of Project Daedalus unmanned craft, a fully-fueled craft would weight as much as 60,000 Mt. To put that in perspective, the gross weight of NASAs SLS is just over 30 Mt, and a single launch comes with a price tag of $5 billion (based on estimates made in 2013).

In short, a fusion rocket would not only be prohibitively expensive to build, it would require a level of fusion reactor technology that is currently beyond our means. Icarus Interstellar, an international organization of volunteer citizen scientists (some of whom worked for NASA or the ESA) have since attempted to revitalize the concept with Project Icarus. Founded in 2009, the group hopes to make fusion propulsion (among other things) feasible by the near future.

Fusion Ramjet:Also known as the Bussard Ramjet, this theoretical form of propulsion was first proposed by physicist Robert W. Bussard in 1960. Basically, it is an improvement over the standard nuclear fusion rocket, which uses magnetic fields to compress hydrogen fuel to the point that fusion occurs. But in the Ramjets case, an enormous electromagnetic funnel scoops hydrogen from the interstellar medium and dumps it into the reactor as fuel.

Artists concept of the Bussard Ramjet, which would harness hydrogen from the interstellar medium to power its fusion engines. Credit: futurespacetransportation.weebly.com

As the ship picks up speed, the reactive mass is forced into a progressively constricted magnetic field, compressing it until thermonuclear fusion occurs. The magnetic field then directs the energy as rocket exhaust through an engine nozzle, thereby accelerating the vessel. Without any fuel tanks to weigh it down, a fusion ramjet could achieve speeds approaching 4% of the speed of light and travel anywhere in the galaxy.

However, the potential drawbacks of this design are numerous. For instance, there is the problem of drag. The ship relies on increased speed to accumulate fuel, but as it collides with more and more interstellar hydrogen, it may also lose speed especially in denser regions of the galaxy. Second, deuterium and tritium (used in fusion reactors here on Earth) are rare in space, whereas fusing regular hydrogen (which is plentiful in space) is beyond our current methods.

This concept has been popularized extensively in science fiction. Perhaps the best known example of this is in the franchise of Star Trek, where Bussard collectors are the glowing nacelles on warp engines. But in reality, our knowledge of fusion reactions need to progress considerably before a ramjet is possible. We would also have to figure out that pesky drag problem before we began to consider building such a ship!

Laser Sail:Solar sails have long been considered to be a cost-effective way of exploring the Solar System. In addition to being relatively easy and cheap to manufacture, theres the added bonus of solar sails requiring no fuel. Rather than using rockets that require propellant, the sail uses the radiation pressure from stars to push large ultra-thin mirrors to high speeds.

IKAROS spaceprobe with solar sail in flight (artists depiction) showing a typical square sail configuration. Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Andrzej Mirecki

However, for the sake of interstellar flight, such a sail would need to be driven by focused energy beams (i.e. lasers or microwaves) to push it to a velocity approaching the speed of light. The concept was originally proposed by Robert Forward in 1984, who was a physicist at the Hughes Aircrafts research laboratories at the time.

The concept retains the benefits of a solar sail, in that it requires no on-board fuel, but also from the fact that laser energy does not dissipate with distance nearly as much as solar radiation. So while a laser-driven sail would take some time to accelerate to near-luminous speeds, it would be limited only to the speed of light itself.

According to a 2000 study produced by Robert Frisbee, a director of advanced propulsion concept studies at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a laser sail could be accelerated to half the speed of light in less than a decade. He also calculated that a sail measuring about 320 km (200 miles) in diameter could reach Proxima Centauri in just over 12 years. Meanwhile, a sail measuring about 965 km (600 miles) in diameter would arrive in just under 9 years.

However, such a sail would have to be built from advanced composites to avoid melting. Combined with its size, this would add up to a pretty penny! Even worse is the sheer expense incurred from building a laser large and powerful enough to drive a sail to half the speed of light. According to Frisbees own study, the lasers would require a steady flow of 17,000 terawatts of power close to what the entire world consumes in a single day.

Antimatter Engine:Fans of science fiction are sure to have heard of antimatter. But in case you havent, antimatter is essentially material composed of antiparticles, which have the same mass but opposite charge as regular particles. An antimatter engine, meanwhile, is a form of propulsion that uses interactions between matter and antimatter to generate power, or to create thrust.

Artists concept of an antimatter-powered spacecraft for missions to Mars, as part of the Mars Reference Mission. Credit: NASA

In short, an antimatter engine involves particles of hydrogen and antihydrogen being slammed together. This reaction unleashes as much as energy as a thermonuclear bomb, along with a shower of subatomic particles called pions and muons. These particles, which would travel at one-third the speed of light, are then be channeled by a magnetic nozzle to generate thrust.

The advantage to this class of rocket is that a large fraction of the rest mass of a matter/antimatter mixture may be converted to energy, allowing antimatter rockets to have a far higher energy density and specific impulse than any other proposed class of rocket. Whats more, controlling this kind of reaction could conceivably push a rocket up to half the speed of light.

Pound for pound, this class of ship would be the fastest and most fuel-efficient ever conceived. Whereas conventional rockets require tons of chemical fuel to propel a spaceship to its destination, an antimatter engine could do the same job with just a few milligrams of fuel. In fact, the mutual annihilation of a half pound of hydrogen and antihydrogen particles would unleash more energy than a 10-megaton hydrogen bomb.

It is for this exact reason that NASAs Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) has investigated the technology as a possible means for future Mars missions. Unfortunately, when contemplating missions to nearby star systems, the amount if fuel needs to make the trip is multiplied exponentially, and the cost involved in producing it would be astronomical (no pun!).

What matter and antimatter might look like annihilating one another. Credit: NASA/CXC/M. Weiss

According to report prepared for the 39th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference and Exhibit (also by Robert Frisbee), a two-stage antimatter rocket would need over 815,000 metric tons (900,000 US tons) of fuel to make the journey to Proxima Centauri in approximately 40 years. Thats not bad, as far as timelines go. But again, the cost

Whereas a single gram of antimatter would produce an incredible amount of energy, it is estimated that producing just one gram would require approximately 25 million billion kilowatt-hours of energy and cost over a trillion dollars. At present, the total amount of antimatter that has been created by humans is less 20 nanograms.

And even if we could produce antimatter for cheap, you would need a massive ship to hold the amount of fuel needed. According to a report by Dr. Darrel Smith & Jonathan Webby of the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Arizona, an interstellar craft equipped with an antimatter engine could reach 0.5 the speed of light and reach Proxima Centauri in a little over 8 years. However, the ship itself would weigh 400 Mt, and would need 170 MT of antimatter fuel to make the journey.

A possible way around this is to create a vessel that can create antimatter which it could then store as fuel. This concept, known as the Vacuum to Antimatter Rocket Interstellar Explorer System (VARIES), was proposed by Richard Obousy of Icarus Interstellar. Based on the idea of in-situ refueling, a VARIES ship would rely on large lasers (powered by enormous solar arrays) which would create particles of antimatter when fired at empty space.

Artists concept of the Vacuum to Antimatter Rocket Interstellar Explorer System (VARIES), a concept that would use solar arrays to power lasers that create particles of antimatter to be used as fuel. Credit: Adrian Mann

Much like the Ramjet concept, this proposal solves the problem of carrying fuel by harnessing it from space. But once again, the sheer cost of such a ship would be prohibitively expensive using current technology. In addition, the ability to create dark matter in large volumes is not something we currently have the power to do. Theres also the matter of radiation, as matter-antimatter annihilation can produce blasts of high-energy gamma rays.

This not only presents a danger to the crew, requiring significant radiations shielding, but requires the engines be shielded as well to ensure they dont undergo atomic degradation from all the radiation they are exposed to. So bottom line, the antimatter engine is completely impractical with our current technology and in the current budget environment.

Alcubierre Warp Drive:Fans of science fiction are also no doubt familiar with the concept of an Alcubierre (or Warp) Drive. Proposed by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre in 1994, this proposed method was an attempt to make FTL travel possible without violating Einsteins theory of Special Relativity. In short, the concept involves stretching the fabric of space-time in a wave, which would theoretically cause the space ahead of an object to contract and the space behind it to expand.

An object inside this wave (i.e. a spaceship) would then be able to ride this wave, known as a warp bubble, beyond relativistic speeds. Since the ship is not moving within this bubble, but is being carried along as it moves, the rules of space-time and relativity would cease to apply. The reason being, this method does not rely on moving faster than light in the local sense.

Artist Mark Rademakers concept for the IXS Enterprise, a theoretical interstellar warp spacecraft. Credit: Mark Rademaker/flickr.com

It is only faster than light in the sense that the ship could reach its destination faster than a beam of light that was traveling outside the warp bubble. So assuming that a spacecraft could be outfitted with an Alcubierre Drive system, it would be able to make the trip to Proxima Centauri in less than 4 years. So when it comes to theoretical interstellar space travel, this is by far the most promising technology, at least in terms of speed.

Naturally, the concept has been received its share of counter-arguments over the years. Chief amongst them are the fact that it does not take quantum mechanics into account, and could be invalidated by a Theory of Everything (such as loop quantum gravity). Calculations on the amount of energy required have also indicated that a warp drive would require a prohibitive amount of power to work. Other uncertainties include the safety of such a system, the effects on space-time at the destination, and violations of causality.

However, in 2012, NASA scientist Harold Sonny White announced that he and his colleagues had begun researching the possibility of an Alcubierre Drive. In a paper titled Warp Field Mechanics 101, White claimed that they had constructed an interferometer that will detect the spatial distortions produced by the expanding and contracting spacetime of the Alcubierre metric.

In 2013, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory published results of a warp field test which was conducted under vacuum conditions. Unfortunately, the results were reported as inconclusive. Long term, we may find that Alcubierres metric may violate one or more fundamental laws of nature. And even if the physics should prove to be sound, there is no guarantee it can be harnessed for the sake of FTL flight.

In conclusion, if you were hoping to travel to the nearest star within your lifetime, the outlook isnt very good. However, if mankind felt the incentive to build an interstellar ark filled with a self-sustaining community of space-faring humans, it might be possible to travel there in a little under a century if we were willing to invest in the requisite technology.

But all the available methods are still very limited when it comes to transit time. And while taking hundreds or thousands of years to reach the nearest star may matter less to us if our very survival was at stake, it is simply not practical as far as space exploration and travel goes. By the time a mission reached even the closest stars in our galaxy, the technology employed would be obsolete and humanity might not even exist back home anymore.

So unless we make a major breakthrough in the realms of fusion, antimatter, or laser technology, we will either have to be content with exploring our own Solar System, or be forced to accept a very long-term transit strategy

We have written many interesting articles about space travel here at Universe Today. Heres Will We Ever Reach Another Star?, Warp Drives May Come With a Killer Downside, The Alcubierre Warp Drive, How Far Is A Light Year?, When Light Just Isnt Fast Enough, When Will We Become Interstellar?, and Can We Travel Faster Than the Speed of Light?

For more information, be sure to consult NASAs pages on Propulsion Systems of the Future, and Is Warp Drive Real?

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How Evolution works – YouTube

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The mechanisms of evolution explained in one video.

The theory of evolution explains how the enormous variety of life could come into existence. How it is possible for primitive life forms to spawn the millions of different creatures, that exist today. Unfortunately, evolution is often misunderstood, because it's mechanisms seem counter intuitive. By using visualizations, infographics and appealing characters, the viewer is more likely to understand it the complex information. More than that, by presenting the information in an entertaining way, the information is more likely to sink in.

Short videos, explaining things. For example Evolution, the Universe, Stock Market or controversial topics like Fracking. Because we love science.

We would love to interact more with you, our viewers to figure out what topics you want to see. If you have a suggestion for future videos or feedback, drop us a line! 🙂

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How Evolution Works

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Ethereum Mining Guide for AMD and NVidia GPUs – Windows …

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Im mining ethereum for quite some time now. I have a collection of lots of RX 4xx/5xx GPUs and many Nvidia Gtx 1060/1070 Gpus and I have helped people on various forums, and had a lot of customers from which Ive gained all of this knowledge. I have written this guide to help you setup your own gpu for mining purposes.

If my guide helped you please send a donation to:

Ethereum Address: 0xC3935595660f16A6549EFd3263673C6a2fb25327

If you need help in setting up your bios for your GPU, send me your original bios through Skype, my ID is: bijac666, but try to check the GPU Bios Guide first, it will teach you how to bios mod with just 1 click, and yes it will 99% mod your bios the proper way, if not contact me.

Please follow all the steps described in this guide by their order! This is a collection of my experiences with fixing various mining problems. I have helped over 500 people with their problems and this guide should have an answer to most or probably all of them

IMPORTANT: You MUST have the latest motherboard bios installed. (you can check your motherboard bios update history, to see what was changed from your bios version till the latest available one. If there are no major changes, then you can skip this step.(Chipset, PCI-E, GPU support changes are the most important ones and you NEED to upgrade your Motherboard BIOS if they came out).

IMPORTANT never use WiFi to connect your mining rigs, from my experiences that can cause big trouble. Higher ping, random disconnects, Wifi freezing at start of mining, shares rejected and so on. For example my Wifi adapter would stop working if it was directly connected to the mining rig, but if I was using an usb extender so I can place Wifi Adapter away from the rig (1-2m) then it would work, as if the rig itself disrupted the Wifi signal, as strange as it sounds. If you want to use Wifi, use the 5G. The more mining rigs you have, the more trouble with Wifi you will get.

RAM

CPU

PSU

Risers

Disk

You can get Windows 10 Pro for FREE at their official website. You can download their Windows tool for making a bootable USB stick(If you are doing this on a PC that has Original Windows already on it) or download the Windows 10 ISO from their site and make yourself a bootable USB, install Windows on your SSD and , you will never have to pay for the license if you dont want to. Still dont have any GPUs connected to your Mining rig! Because the first thing we want is to optimize Windows for our own mining purposes. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART THAT PEOPLE DO WRONG!If you want to have original Windows 10, buy them at Kinguin. The only difference from OEM version instead of Retail version is that you can have the Windows activated on only 1 PC (you cant reactivate the key on another PC), this version is used by most miners.

Most people think that Linux is a more stable operating system or because its so lightweight, that it runs better, it can have more GPU support (Windows 10 supports 12 GPU now) and should be a better option for 24/7 mining. It would seem logical, but it isnt:

Because Linux has various problems, such as:

If you have downloaded Windows 10 from the official Microsoft website (never use torrents for this) then your Windows 10 pro is almost up to date.

Download latest.NET Framework 3.5 Offline Installer it is required to run Polaris 1.6 and OverdriveNtool. Windows 10 Comes with 4.x Framework, but that one will not work with Polaris and OverdriveNtool. You need to install the .NET 3.5 manually. Insert the Windows 10 USB stick into the PC (the one you used to install Windows) and set the USB Disc Drive as the Source for installing the .NET 3.5. Here is the Guide how to do it, its very simple.

Download LATEST Drivers for your motherboard, especially latest Chipset driver. This is very important.

Now after Windows is setup properly, download a tool called DDU,That tool will uninstall your current driver (even your integrated GPU) and block Windows from automatically installing GPU drivers. Thats important so that Windows does not install an outdated driver! It will ask you to run in safe mode but that is not necessary. When you run the program just click on Clean and restart. We want to manually download and install the right drivers.

Now turn off your PC and connect onlyONEGPU.

IMPORTANT From AMD Crimson 17.10 driver (and all drivers released after that) they have added the mining mode in the driver and enabled up to 12 AMD GPUs to be able to run on Windows 10.

AMD released Radeon Software Adrenaline Edition, download latest version of it. It will improve hashrate on some cards and in general give you best possible hashrate on all RX 4xx and 5xx cards.

Very rare its possible that you will get better results with the Beta Blockchain Driver , but that driver only supports 8 AMD GPUs and please try first the Adrenaline edition (In the Blockchain driver you will not need to change GPUs to Compute mode, they are there on default).

If Adrenaline or Blockchain driver is not working, your last hope is latest Crimson ReLive Driver release (you need to change in Radeon Settings to compute mode each GPU)

At the beginning of the install process go toCUSTOMinstead of Express and ONLY select AMD Display Driver and AMD Settings. During installSKIP theinstalling of ReLive, because we wont need it.

After you have installed the driver restart your PC. If youve already modified your GPUs before, there might be a possibility that you wont be able to see them anymore. That is most likely a problem with the RX 570 series and its very rare with some RX 580 models. The problem comes from the bios mod, because it changes how the GPUs work and you will need to Patch your drivers to make them work properly or the driver will just end up disabling or hiding the GPUs (Error 43). This is only needed if you cant see your bios modified GPUs in the Windows Device Manager. Download the Pixel Clock Patcher. Run the program, it should give you a message that the values were patched. After that restart your PC and you should have proper working modified GPUs.

Once you successfully installed the driver with just one GPU, shut down your PC and plug in all of the other GPUs. After that, when you turn the PC back on it should automatically detect each of them and it will install the drivers for all of them. Just remember that it will take some time (about 5-10 minutes) for all of the GPUs to be detected properly. You can open up the Device manager, to see if all of the GPUs are listed there. Just turn the PC on and wait 5-10 minutes before doing anything, Windows will do its job.

Now after you have all of your GPUs under the right driver, there is one more important step to make.

Radeon Settings

Radeon Settings Gaming

Radeon Settings Global Settings

Each GPU has its own bios, that tells it how it should work. There are four different memory types that you will encounter on your GPU : Hynix, Elpida, Micron, Samsung

During the mining of ethereum, you will only be using memory of the GPU, that means that the higher quality of the memory is, the better hashrate you can get. While testing all of the memory types, Ive found out that Samsung and Hynix are a little bit better than Elpida and Micron, but the difference is very subtle.

Download a tool called GPU-Z.

This tool allows you to see what memory type your card has as you can see in this picture.

On the Green selection you can see the Memory Type. In this example its Elpida. If you bought your GPUs all at once, and they are the same card type and if you see that they all have the same Memory Type, that means that they allCANUSE THE SAME BIOS.ExportingGPU BIOScan be done with clicking on the Red circle as displayed in the picture above, under the BIOS Version. Now you have your original bios exported, make a backup before going to the next step.

Go to my guide: GPU Bios Mod

IMPORTANT Always work with the original BIOS of your cards, dont download random BIOS online cause you cant be sure they are made for your card type, even if they are the same model that does not mean they have the same bios.Its very important to work with the original card BIOS to reduce the unnecessary risk to the minimum.

First you will need to download a tool for flashing the bios called ATIFlash.

With this tool you can put the custom bios over your current one. Always make a backup for your current bios and store it somewhere safe, you can never know when you are going to need it.

IMPORTANT be very careful what bios you are going to flash on what GPU, I would recommend you to never have different card types plugged in when you are going to flash, so you dont flash by accident a wrong bios to a wrong card (even if this is almost impossible, because if you use the AtiFlash properly (as explained in this guide) it should give you a warning that you cant flash the specific bios, because its a different type than your original card)

Upgraded BIOS

Copy File Path

Run CMD as Admininstrator

Change Directory to AtiWinFlash

Now after all your GPUs are flashed with the right upgraded bios we can move on to the most important step, the mining software part. There are a couple of different popular mining programs, depending on the algorithm they are working with, the most popular are:

This guide is focused on theEthashalgorithm mining, so the settings and the tutorials from this guide are not optimized for the other mining algorithms likeCryptoNight.For this I plan to make another guide or expand this one so that you will understand how to optimize your GPUs for the other algorithms.

Claymore 11.8 is currently the best miner for Ethereum, and it comes with a nice option of dual mining with some other altcoins (Decred, Sia ) that can boost your profit by around 20-30% for 20% more power draw. Even if you have expensive electricity the bonus profit is probably worth it.

Claymore software has a fixed fee of 1% when you are mining ethereum or 2% fee when you are mining decred. There are various problems that can happen due to the way the Fee is working. The fee works in a way that each hour you will be disconnected from your mining process and for about 1-2 minutes, you will mine for the Claymore developers. After that it will connect you again to your pool and start the mining again. By constant disconnecting and reconnecting each hour your GPU cools down and then heats up again, and by doing that you are risking the life of your GPUs. I heard from many people that after some time one of the GPUs would reset to the default clock settings because of the constant disconnecting/reconnecting or it would hang and crash the miner or cause it to recreate the DAG file, and you end up losing valuable time with that. Claymore is a really cool software and I think there could be a better way to support the developers, rather than risking our own miner stability. By using the official Claymore I lost about 3% of my shares compared to using the Claymore without the Developer Fee, everyone can try it for themselves and see the difference.

Recently there is a good source for the NoFee version that is constantly uploaded to the newest version, and from my testing I get exact 1.1% higher hashrate compared to the official Claymore release (calculated by 24hour comparison of found shares on the mining pool Im using nanopool)

Latest Claymore version brings a straight 0.3-0.5% performance increase compared to the previous Claymore versions. This is only for AMD gpus, there is no effect on the hashrate for Nvidia Gpus.

The comparison tested on 12 RX 570 4GB GPU rig (1-2 MH/s more total hashrate):

You can download the Claymore with the developer fee removed:Claymore Ethereum Miner 11.8 No Fee Download Thanks tod33z0r upload.

The Claymore miner software source code is encrypted (if someone would have the source code he could make his own miner and would be much easier to remove the developer fee. Thats why Windows Defender is going mad when he encounters Claymore miner, because it does not know what the Claymore software is doing it will try to remove it and warn you about dangerous file.

The best way to disable Windows Defender (its good in general to disable it cause it can disrupt mining performance or even crash the rig, especially the real-time protection) is to follow those steps:

Opening Local Group Security Policy

Windows Defender Antivirus Disable Option

Turning On the Disable of Windows Defender

Claymore runs through its start.bat file. In the start.bat (you can open it with the notepad) youJUST NEED TO WRITE THE FOLLOWING (NO SETX COMMANDS BEFORE THAT):

EthDcrMiner64.exe -epool yourMiningPool -ewal yourEthAddress -epsw x -dcri 6

-epool is the mining pool you are mining on, its just a persona preference, some people like to use nanopool, some like dwarfpool, ethermine, you can use whatever pool you like. Be careful what pool you are using, it should be based on your location, it would make no sense to mine on an European pool if you are in America because of the high ping. Always use the pool that is close to you (nanopool,dwarfpool,ethermine and others have mostly location specific pools, you cant miss them, they mostly start with eu, us or asia. After that you can write your own ethereum address which is used to collect your ethereum shares. You can view statistics on the mining pool by searching it with your address, for example if you are using the nanopool pool you can see your current active statistics with:https://eth.nanopool.org/yourEthereumAddress.For example using Nanopool:

EthDcrMiner64.exe -epool eth-eu1.nanopool.org:9999 -ewal yourEthAddress -epsw x -dcri 6

Do not add SETX commands at start, they are not needed.

I use nanopool to mine Ethereum, you can use ethermine or dwarfpool also, but ethermine gives most reliable statistics. Go to Chapter 11 to see why I use nanopool.

-ewall is your ethereum address, be careful because you will always need to write only an ETHEREUM wallet address, not a bitcoin or any other address. Most easy way to create an ethereum wallet and keep it safe is to use the exchange sites like Bitfinex or Bittrex. They will offer you high security and you can use the Two Factor Authentication which makes it very secure. For big amounts I would recommend to use offline wallets like Trezor Bitcoin Wallet.

Ethereum is mined just by using the memory of your GPU, so the GPUs core is almost not affected by the ethereum mining at all. This gives a possibility to utilize the GPU core for mining some other coins in the same time as you mine ethereum without affecting its hashrate. Of course if you would mine the dual coin at full potency, it would affect the ethereum hashrate, thats why we will need to optimize the intensity of the dual coin, lowering it at such degree that its not affecting the ethereum hashrate.

DUAL MINING CLAYMORE START.BAT CONFIG:

EthDcrMiner64.exe -epool yourMiningPool -ewal yourEthAddress -epsw x -dpool dualCoinMiningPool -dwal dualCoinWalletAddress -dpsw x -dcri 25

The part before the -dwal is the same as for the solo ethereum mining described above. The -dwal has the same representation as -ewal, it just is the mining pool of the dual coin. I would recommend to mineONLYDecred as a dual coin, because it has the highest efficiency of all of them . As described above the Dual coin uses the GPUs core for mining and not all dual coins give the same results. For RX 5xx cards the best way would be to go with Decred. I use the Supernovadecred mining pool. You need to create an account there, and the account name will serve you as a decred mining pool address. This way it gives you one more security improvement, because you dont show people your address, instead just your account name. On your account you will need to create a worker and give it a name for example: worker1, and leave its password as it is (password). Now to connect properly to the decred mining pool you would need to put -dwal supernovaAccountName.supernovaWorkerName

You can create a decred wallet at Bittrex.Its a very good trading site featuring a lot of altcoins including decred. You can cash out your decred at your account page in supernova, under My Account -> Edit Account -> Payment Address and you need to type your bittrex address there. And now you just need to set Automatic Payout Threshold to your desired value, I use 0.5 as my payout cap. I convert my mined decred to ethereum at a bittrex exchange site, and store my value like that. Its safe if you use a 2FA (authenticator).

IMPORTANT DUAL MINING INFORMATION

As you can see in the dual mining configuration, the last part is -dcri 25. That means that the dual coin is set to mine intensively , and it shows how much GPU core is assigned for that task.Yes its needed for solo mining too, and needs to be set to 6!This is a very important part because itsDEPENDANT ON THE GPU SERIES. The only noticeable difference between theRX 570andRX 580series is theirGPU Core. The memory (used for ethereum mining) is almost the same on those cards, so there is basically no difference in the ethereum hashrate, but the big difference comes in the GPU Core. The RX 580 series can handle around -dcri 25, dont go above that because it can reduce your ethereum hashrate. For RX 570 series the optimal -dcri is around 19-22. For some cards even lower as 13, this needs to be tested by yourself. The proper way would be to start with -dcri 10. Then using your keyboard press + or -, that way you can increase or decrease -dcri by 1, as you will see on the claymore miner. By going up you will see the dual coin hash rate going up, repeat that until you can start to see the ethereum hashrate decrease, then, after you find that spot reduce -dcri by 3, so you are not pushing the GPU to the limit.On the RX 570 series its possible to get a higher hashrate on ethereum with dual mining rather than just solo mining.Optimal for RX 570 is around -dcri 19 , optimal for RX 580 series is around -dcri 25. For some cards its possible to go even further, but its not worth it to stress the GPU too much.

This is the most important part of this guide, its very important for you to learn the right way of overclocking and undervolting to optimize the GPU as much as possible.

Now after your GPUs are at their default settings, well be using OverdriveNtool to handle the overclocking,target the GPUs temperature and its undervolting. There is no other tool where you can have full control of your GPU and the ability to quickly optimize the GPUs. You cant be 100% sure the overclock/undervolt settings are working properly. This is a special software that gives you FULL access to your AMD GPUs and its very easy to use once you know the basics.

This software may seem confusing or complicated at first, but its very easy to understand. I will explain it through the following picture:

GREEN this is the target temperature of your GPU. OverdriveNtool will automatically keep your GPUs at their desired temperature by increasing/decreasing the fan speed, as its needed to stay at those temperatures. The optimal value would be60C. You can check this during the mining in Claymore, by seeing how much the current fan speed is in percentage. If the fans speed goes over70%increase the target temperature to65C, but that can only happen if you have a high room temperature, probably because of no cooling or a weak air flow.

PROFILES This serves to save current overclock settings for further use. For example after you turn on your PC, you can automatically load all the overclock settings to the desired GPUs.We will have1 profile per GPU on your mining rig. First make a new .txt file in the folder in which you have the OverdriveNtool.

After that go to Save As and change the Save as type to All Files and then name the script overclock.bat. That way you will create a Batch file the same type as Claymores start.bat and it will work in very similar way.

Now after that open the overclock.bat file with notepad and write in the following:

OverdriveNTool.exe -r1 -p1gpu1 -r2 -p2gpu2 -r3 -p3gpu3 -r4 -p4gpu4 -r5 -p5gpu5 -r6 -p6gpu6

As you can see in the following picture:

This will make a batch script that will run the OverdriveNtool.exe and set the each gpu (-p) to a predefined profile (profileName)

If you have 10 or more GPUs you need to have double digits to numerize them (-p01,-p02,,-p11,-p12 and -r01,-r02,.,-r11,-r12) or else the 10-12 GPU wont be recognized.

Carefull,as you can see in the displayed image in my case, I have on this mining rig 7 GPUs enabled. The first one is anINTEGRATED GPUand its ID is -p0 , all others are mining gpus (p1,p6). So if you have your integrated GPU disabled or for some reason you use a motherboard that does not have it, then your mining GPU ids start from p0, but you can see the GPUs order as displayed in the picture below. The GPUs order in OverdriveNtool is thesameas in the GPU-Z and Claymore 11.8.

Now make6 Newprofiles and name themgpu1, gpu2 gpu6and each profile will represent the GPU its attached to, so for example, we are using the -p1 GPU to the profile gpu1 and so on. You need to make so many profiles as you have mining GPUs (all GPUs except the Integrated one)

RED this part shows you the real GPUs core clock rates and its voltages. In other overclocking tools you will only see the last one, in this case 1340 Mhz. Asyou noticed there are 8 of them (P0,P1.P7) and that are the GPUs core states. This means the GPU switches automatically to default between those states, depending on how much you use the GPU. From all those 8 states, we dont want the GPU to switch between them, we want it to run stable at the fixed clock rates we put it on. To do that we will need toDISABLEall the GPUs states except the last one (P7). You can disable every state from P0 till P7 simply by double clicking on its name (just go with the mouse over P0 and doubleclick), you will know if you are successful if that state changes colour.

GPU CORE OVERCLOCK/UNDERVOLT we need to do two things to the GPU core. First, we will need to set P7 clock rate and its voltage. You need to remember that the GPUs core is not used to mine ethereum a lot, it just helps the memory to do the hashrate. The GPUs core generates the most heat on the GPU and uses the most power, so our intention is to push the GPUs core down as much as possible to save power and lower the temperature on the GPU without losing ethereum hashrate, or lose some hashrate because we save more on the power cost reduction than the small ethereum hashrate drop. It would be very recommended to haveWattmeterto make your own calculations to see whats more worth for you. In general most optimal clock rates for ALL GPUs is around1150mhz. Some RX 570 can even work at around 1100mhz without losing any, or very low hashrate reduction on ethereum and that will reduce the power draw drastically. Some RX 580 need 1200mhz to have the optimum hashrate, but most of them work best at 1150mhz. In general never go above 1200mhz because it will start to use much more power, and you can will that with your Wattmeter. For the Voltage part, its best to keep them at850mV. You can try to reduce the voltage to 825mV or 800mV if you are going to keep the GPUs at 1100mhz, but it is possible to get a freeze or crash. The best way for you is to test your hashrate with those values described and see what effect it has for your GPU to run it at 1100mhz, 1150mhz, 1200mhz with 850mV voltage in all cases. Then compare the power draw with the hashrate and calculate whats more profitable for you. In most cases1150mhz/ 850mVis optimal.

MEMORY This works identically as the GPU core, except its for the memory. This is the holy grail, this is the most important part of GPU mining and its veryRANDOM. There is no fixed values from which you can know that it will work 100% on your GPU. There is just one proper way of doing it without risking any problems. We will need to disable P0 and P1 by double clicking on them.

HOW TO SET OVERDRIVENTool PROPERLY?

We will need to repeat the process for each GPU individually, its very important to test it that way so if you end up getting a crash or reset, you will know exactly at what part that happened so that you can reverse the crashing settings.

First we will need to test thefirst mining GPUonly, not all at once:

As you can see in the picture, you will need to have values set exactly like that. Apply settings first, then click on the Save button near the profile or else the profile settings wont be applied properly. You have your first GPU all set and ready to make theFINAL STEP

This is the most important question people want to have an answer for and its the most tricky one. There are no optimal or universal values, because on the identical GPUs the same Overclock/Undervolt settings dont work the same way. Each GPU is unique and requires individual testing to optimize it properly.

Download a tool called HWinfo64.

Install it and run it in Sensors only mode as displayed in this picture:

After that scroll all the way down till you see your GPUs, they are located at the end. Now after you found the GPUs, select all sensors except Memory Errors and HIDE them (right click on the sensors and press hide). Ater that, you will have something as in the image below:

In my case there are 6 AMD GPUs and I have disabled all other sensors because they dont interest me.We only want to have GPU Memory Errors displayed, this will tell you if your GPU is overclocked too much.Now this is the way we will test your GPUs optimal settings.

Now after you found the optimal value for your GPU you can do the following:

After you done all that for the FIRST GPU, you can repeat the process for each other GPU, always keep an eye in HWinfo64 for memory errors, so that you dont have an unstable rig. The rig can work with a bunch of memory errors but that can cause:

If all of your GPUs on the RIG are the same, you can try to apply the profile settings that worked for the first GPU to the next GPU and test if it works, then try to adjust the small settings to reduce memory errors if you get them. Its possible that the same GPU with the same settings will crash the PC or cause a freeze, thats why you testone GPU at a time.

Read more here:

Ethereum Mining Guide for AMD and NVidia GPUs - Windows ...

What is Ethereum? | The Ultimate Beginners’ Guide

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With the second largest market cap in the cryptocurrency world, Ethereum has drawn a lot of attention from investors and crypto enthusiasts alike.

This relatively new cryptocurrency not only presents a significant change to the status quo, it also allows for the quick development and deployment of new applications. Ethereum essentially enables dozens of new and extremely innovative cryptocurrencies to exist.

While Ethereums utility is obvious to programmers and the tech world at large, many people who are less tech-savvy have trouble understanding it. Weve designed this guide to appeal to both crowds and expose anyone from complete crypto beginners and intermediates to this potentially game-changing cryptocurrency.

If youre interested in Ethereum, chances are you have some sort of foundational knowledge of Bitcoin.

All cryptocurrencies inevitably get compared to Bitcoin, and it frankly makes understanding them much easier.

Bitcoin launched in 2009 as the worlds first cryptocurrency, with the single goal of creating a decentralized universal currency. This currency would not require any intermediary financial institutions, but would still ensure safe and valid transactions. This was made possible by a revolutionary technology called the blockchain.

The blockchain is a digital ledger, continuously recording and verifying records. Its used to track and verify Bitcoin transactions. Since the global network of communicating nodes maintains the blockchain, its pretty much incorruptible. As new blocks are added to the network, they are constantly validated.

Similar to Bitcoin, Ethereum is a distributed public blockchain network. While both Ethereum and Bitcoin are cryptocurrencies that can be traded among users, there are many substantial differences between the two.

Bitcoin, for example, utilizes blockchain to track ownership of the digital currency, making it an extremely effective peer to peer electronic cash system. Ethereum, on the other hand, focuses on running the programming code of an application. Application developers largely use it to pay for services and transaction fees on the Ethereum network.

Both Bitcoin and Ethereum are decentralized, meaning they have no central control or issuing authority. Respective miners run each network by validating transactions to earn either bitcoin (for Bitcoin) or ether (for Ethereum).

If youre still having trouble making the distinction, the words of Dr. Gavin Woodone of Ethereums Co-Foundersmight help:

Bitcoin is first and foremost a currency; this is one particular application of a blockchain. However, it is far from the only application. To take a past example of a similar situation, e-mail is one particular use of the internet, and for sure helped popularise it, but there are many others.

Ethereum is simply the application of blockchain for a completely different purpose.

Simply put, Ethereum is a blockchain-based decentralized platform on which decentralized applications (Dapps) can be built.

Ethereums appeal is that it is built in a way that enables developers to create smart contracts. Smart contracts are scripts that automatically execute tasks when certain conditions are met. For example, a smart contract could technically say, pay Jane $10 if she submits a 1000 word article on goats by September 15, 2018, and it would pay Jane once the conditions are met.

These smart contracts are executed by the Turing-complete Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), run by an international public network of nodes.

The cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network is called ether. Ether serves two different functions:

If youre still a little confused, dont worry. The underlying technology is complicated even at a surface level.

By the end of this guide, youll have a better understanding of Ethereum than 99.999% of people out there and thats a pretty good start!

Well go over things such as how Ethereum functions, Ethereums history, and some of the exciting dapps running on the Ethereum platform.

In 2011, a 17 year old Russian-Canadian boy named Vitalik Buterin learned about Bitcoin from his father.

In 2013, after visiting developers across the world who shared an enthusiasm for programming, Buterin published a white-paper proposing Ethereum.

In 2014, Buterin dropped out of the University of Waterloo after receiving the Thiel Fellowship of $100,000 to work on Ethereum full-time.

In 2015, the Ethereum system went live.

In 2017, Ethereum hit a cap rate of $36 billion dollars.

Whether youre looking at this from an investment standpoint, tech perspective, or witness to history; Ethereum is extremely exciting.

Buterins goal was to bring the same decentralization from Bitcoin to more than just currency. This could be accomplished by building a fully-fledged Turing-complete programming language into the Ethereum blockchain.

The Ethereum white paper goes into detail for some of the potential use cases, all of which could be built through decentralized apps on the Ethereum network. The list goes on and on:

By building these apps on the Ethereum network, these dapps can utilize Ethereums blockchain instead of having to create their own.

Early blockchain applications like Bitcoin only allowed users a set of predefined operations. For example, Bitcoin was created exclusively to operate as a cryptocurrency.

Unlike these early blockchain projects, Ethereum allows users to create their own operations. The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) makes this possible. As Ethereums runtime environment, the EVM executes smart contracts. Since every Ethereum node runs the EVM, applications built on it reap the benefits of being decentralized without having to build their own blockchain.

Smart contracts are strings of computer code capable of automatically executing when certain predetermined conditions are met.

Instead of requiring a single central authority to say yay or nay, these contracts are self-operated. This not only makes the entire process more effective, it also makes it more fair and objective.

For example, a simple smart contract use case would be:

Using the smart contract, theres no need for Jim and Sarah to trust each other. They just have to trust the data feed.

Keep in mind that this is only a very simple example. Many smart contracts are extremely complex and can work wonders.

The takeaway: Smart contracts can automate a variety of tasks, without requiring intermediaries. All a smart contract needs is the arbitrary rules written into it.

Now, lets move on to the Dapps.

Most of us have a pretty good understanding of what an application (app) is. An application is formally defined as a program or piece of software designed and written to fulfill a particular purpose of the user. We use apps every day: Apps allow us to check our bank balance, scroll through a live feed of pictures, or even launch a Flappy Bird into oblivion.

Now take this definition and ~*~decentralize~*~ it. Dapps serve similar functions, but run on an entire network of nodes rather than a central source. The fact that they are decentralized gives dapps an enormous advantage over traditional apps.

You know when Instagram is down because the server is down? This doesnt happen with dapps. How about when Zomato got hacked and exposed the information of 17 million people? This doesnt happen either.

Moreover, Dapps are:

In many cases, front-end users cant even distinguish dapps from regular apps. Dapps typically use HTML/JavaScript web applications to communicate with the blockchain, appearing the same to users as many applications youre already using today.

Fasten your seatbelts and get your Twitter-fingers ready, its finally time for the most exciting part of this guide.

Ethereums intersection with the real world is paved with innovation and disruption. There are already a huge number of projects, both live and in development, built on the Ethereum network. Here are just some of the most successful and promising of these dapps.

Golem: The Golem project aims to make a global supercomputer easily accessible to anyone. Its essentially the first decentralized sharing economy of computing power. As a global market, users would be able to make money by renting out their idle computing power, or spend money to have access to a supercomputer. Hold up, have you ever used a supercomputer? Supercomputers cost between a million dollars and a good fraction of a billion dollars. The modern Tianhe-2 Supercomputer has the power of roughly 18,400 Playstation 4s. Golems goal is to make this sort of power easily accessible anywhere in the world at an infinitesimal cost.

Augur: Augurs goal is to utilize a decentralized network to create a powerful forecasting tool using prediction markets. Augur would reward users for correctly predicting future events. While at a surface level it may just seem like a decentralized betting platform (which is still worth a lot), Augur could potentially provide provide powerful predictive data for virtually any industry. Prediction markets are more accurate at forecasting than individual experts, traditional opinion polling, and surveys.

Civic: Civic aims to protect users identities and provide blockchain-based, secure, low-cost, on-demand access to identity verification. This would not only prevent and provide users with assistance for identity fraud, but it would also remove the need for constant personal information and background verification checks. Think about how many times youve left your social security number with someones assistant and you can see the benefits of Civic.

OmiseGO: OmiseGO vision is to solve the problems and inefficiencies of financial institutions, processors, and gateways by enabling decentralized exchange on a public blockchain at a lower cost and high volume. This means anyone will be able to conduct financial transactions such as payments, payroll deposits, B2B commerce, supply-chain finance, asset management, and loyalty programs without having to rely on a single server and without exorbitant fees! The system is built in a way that allows the best currency (whether fiat or decentralized) to win.

Storj: Storjs aim is to make it possible for users to rent out their excess hard drive space in exchange for the crypto STORJ. Users could therefore also use Storj to rent additional hard drive space.

These are only a handful of different dapps all running on the Ethereum platform. What really stands out with dapps is how their founder are able to raise real capital by selling tokens. Whereas traditional apps have to seek outside investment or IPO, a dapp can simply ICO and raise the capital they need to build their company. While this removes friction from the financing processes, it has unfortunately also made it possible for many sub-par dapps to ICO and take advantage of eager speculators.

For more dapps, check out the State of the Dapps. You find some upcoming ICOs here.

Now that you have a decent understanding of what Ethereum is and how it functions, its useful to revisit how it compares to Bitcoin at a technical level.

While the two cryptocurrencies serve different purposes, Ethereum provides a number of benefits over Bitcoin:

Ethereum arguably currently functions better than Bitcoin as a currency. With Ethereum, you can reliably send transactions faster, pay lower transaction fees, and mine at a more profitable rate (although it still has its downfalls for miners).

Read: Is Ethereum Mining Profitable?

However, Bitcoin does have a relatively more stable priceand therefore functions as a better value storage optionfrom a trading and value storage perspective. Ethereum is much younger but has covered a substantial amount of ground in recent years. Although Ethereum certainly shows promise as a currency, its true potential lies in features nonexistent in Bitcoins code.

The most famous DAO was simply known as The DAO. The nearly identical name causes a lot of confusion for people and gives DAOs a bad reputation.

The DAO was a decentralized autonomous organization primarily functioning as its own investor-directed venture capital fund. It didnt have the conventional management structure or board of directors, was not tied to any particular government, and instead ran on open source code. The DAO was set up to give funders the power to vote for which dapps deserved investment through DAO tokens.

Dapps had somewhat of an approval process:

The DAO is most famous for the largest crowdfunding campaign in history, raising over $150 million in ether from more than 11,000 investors. The DAO is also most infamous for getting hacked for $50 million. This hack inevitably caused a split in the Ethereum community, creating what we now know as Ethereum (ETH) and Ethereum Classic (ETC).

The hack happened because of The DAOs Split Function. Funders who wanted to exit The DAO could use its Split Function, which would give them back the ether they had invested. The only stipulation was that existing funders had to hold their ether for 28 days before they could withdraw them.

On June 17th 2016, an unknown person or group of people took advantage of a lapse in the Split Functions security with a simple recursive function. This frustratingly easy hack allowed the hacker(s) to repeat their request to withdraw the same DAO tokens multiple times before the system registered it as $50 million.

The news of this hack created chaos in the Ethereum community. While this hack had nothing to do with the Ethereum platform and everything to do with The DAO platform, many members of the Ethereum community were invested in The DAO. The community as a whole had 28 days to come up with a solution, which ended up being to forkstop the current blockchain entirely and create something new from scratch.

The new Ethereum (ETH) is the result of the fork, and is essentially the blockchain before the hack. The old Ethereum (Ethereum Classic ETC) is still running the original blockchain with the hack included.

The vast majority of the Ethereum community including the Ethereum founders pivoted along with ETH, with a small minority staying loyal to the original blockchain.

The future for Ethereum is bright, but it is not without its potential uncertainty.

A notable event on the horizon is the Metropolis hard fork that is set to occur in late September. This hard fork indicates some major upgrades for the platform including:

We wont know how this hard fork will affect the price of Ethereum as markets could adjust in a variety of ways. If the upgrades attract more users, the price could rise. However, if mining becomes more difficult and slows, the price could fall.

The next upgrade after Metropolis is referred to as Serenity, which should increase stability and encourage more investment.

While there is a lot of speculative interest around Ethereum, its important to note that the Ethereum and dapp communities are very much focused on building a tangible future.

Ethereum is a phenomenal application of the blockchain and has made it possible for hundreds of projects to exist.

Blockchain solves the problem of manipulation. When I speak about it in the West, people say they trust Google, Facebook, or their banks. But the rest of the world doesnt trust organizations and corporations that much I mean Africa, India, the Eastern Europe, or Russia. Its not about the places where people are really rich. Blockchains opportunities are the highest in the countries that havent reached that level yet.

The primary goal of Ethereums founders isnt to create a cryptocurrency that makes speculators a ton of money; its to change the world. The Ethereum community attracts ideological supporters in the same way Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies do, but its use cases give it life far beyond that of other coins.

The easiest way to invest in Ethereum is by using a cryptocurrency exchange. Weve compiled a list of the best exchanges where you can buy Ethereum. On this page you can find key details of these exchanges, as well as links to their individual reviews and user guides.

If youre new to the world of cryptocurrency, Coinbase offers one of the simplest ways to buy, sell, and store Ethereum.

For those interested in regular trading, the following exchanges may be more suited to your needs:

How to Buy Ethereum

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What is Ethereum? | The Ultimate Beginners' Guide

Ancient Lies & Shiny New Tech: Transhumanists Posthuman Plan

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Ancient Lies & Shiny New Tech: Transhumanists Posthuman Plan

Cyberpunk 2077: Full details from 50-minute gameplay demo …

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YouTube/Cyberpunk 2077 "Cyberpunk 2077," from CD Projekt Red, is one of the most anticipated video games in the world right now.

Fans finally got to see the latest trailer for "Cyberpunk 2077" at Microsoft's E3 press conference on Sunday after a 5-year wait since the last trailer and it was one of the highlights of the whole multi-day expo.

But unless you were physically in Los Angeles and attending E3, you didn't get to witness CD Projekt Red's apparently jaw-dropping 50-minute uncut gameplay demo of "Cyberpunk 2077" that was held behind closed doors and away from cameras. According to those who were there, the demo revealed several major aspects of the mysterious game and journalists from Eurogamer, Gamespot, and other outlets were there to take notes on what they saw. Here, we've gathered the most important details from those reports.

Here's what we learned from the "Cyberpunk 2077" gameplay demo held at E3 behind closed doors:

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Cyberpunk 2077: Full details from 50-minute gameplay demo ...

Everything we know about Cyberpunk 2077 – PC Gamer

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Cyberpunk 2077 was announced all the way back in 2012, but with The Witcher 3, its expansions, and Gwent at the top of the order back then, we only heard scraps about CD Projekt REDs next open world RPG. All combined, though, the past six years of interview snippets paint Cyberpunk 2077 as a behemoth of a game, even bigger that The Witcher 3 and with possible multiplayer features on top of hundreds of hours of single-player roleplaying. And, as we've learned, first-person shooting.

The time has finally come for Cyberpunk to take the spotlight, beginning with a big cinematic trailer revealed at E3 2018 (scroll down a bit for that). We'll be updating this post with new details throughout E3 and beyond.

CD Projekt has mostly stuck with the "when its done" line, but we know that it plans to release Cyberpunk 2077 between 2017 and 2021, along with another, still unannounced RPG. Weve been hearing about Cyberpunk since 2012, so the expectation is that itll be the first of the two to release. Our guess, then, is that Cyberpunk 2077 will release in 2019.

This is backed up by comments from a March 2017 financial results conference during which CD Projekt developers said that progress on Cyberpunk is "quite advanced." That said, the "when it's done" motto is something CD Projekt is serious about (recall it delaying The Witcher 3). If it isn't ready in 2019, it could be 2020, or 2021. We'd be really surprised if it released this year, but anything's possible.

It's more playful than we expected, but also just as violent as we expected.

Yes, so long as you understand 'FPS' literally: first-person shooter. Cyberpunk 2077 is an RPG, as CD Projekt has been saying, but it is an RPG played from a first-person perspective with guns. There's cover, there's sliding, there's wall-runninglots of things we associate with, say, Titanfall 2. So while it's a big open world RPG with stats and dialogue, it's an FPS, too.

You will have a third-person view in vehicles and cutscenes, but other than that, this is a first-person game. That's a surprise!

Yep. You can play as a woman or a man, and also customize your look a bit, such as by choosing a hairstyle, tattoos, makeup, and clothing. There are also stats: strength, constitution, intelligence, reflexes, tech, and "cool," which as we understand it from the tabletop game is how you perform under pressure.

This is another departure from The Witcher seriesof course, those games were based on books, while this is based on a tabletop roleplaying game with its own rules and ideas.

However you customize your character, you're still one specific person: V. Not 'Vee.' Just V. You're a mercenary, and that's most of what we know so far.

While guns seem to be your primary weapons, we saw lots of cool abilities in the E3 gameplay demonstration we saw.

It shouldn't come as a big surprise that a giant open world shooter-RPG has cars. You can indeed drive in Cyberpunk 2077, from either a first or third-person perspective. There's vehicular combat, tooin the demonstration we saw, the player leaned out a window to shoot.

We haven't. But we did get to see a jam-packed gameplay demonstration at E3. The footage hasn't been made public yet, but you can read all about it here.

Back in September 2016, we learned that CD Projekt applied for grants which suggest Cyberpunk 2077 could feature a huge living city and seamless multiplayer.

Thats backed up by this story from 2015, in which we learn that Cyberpunk 2077 will be far bigger than anything else that CD Projekt Red has done before, including The Witcher 3. So, if we take CD Projekt RED at its word, Cyberpunk 2077 will be exceptionally large and, hopefully, full of sidequests.

We first heard about multiplayer features back in 2013, but CD Projekt RED clearly knew the word could agitate its fans. "It will be a story-based RPG experience with amazing single-player playthroughs," reassured managing director Adam Badowski in a 2013 talk with Eurogamer, "but we're going to add multiplayer features."

In 2017, CD Projekt CEO Adam Kiciski said that the multiplayer features would ensure Cyberpunk's "long-term success," which caused some concerns given the current kerfuffle over microtransactions, especially with Star Wars Battlefront 2's loot box progression system going over so poorly.

CD Projekt responded to the concerns with a tweet meant to reassure fans that they'll still be getting a Witcher 3-style singleplayer epic. "Worry not," it said. "When thinking CP2077, think nothing less than TW3huge single player, open world, story-driven RPG. No hidden catch, you get what you pay forno bullshit, just honest gaming like with Wild Hunt. We leave greed to others."

As of March of this year, they still weren't keen to talk much about it.

No. The E3 2018 trailer contains a little Easter egg which confirms that there will be no microtransactions in Cyberpunk 2077. (Enlarge the image and read the red text, in which CD Projekt responds to the question: "In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?")

The cover of the Night City sourcebook. Click here to enlarge.

Cyberpunk 2077 takes place in the year 2077which you probably didnt need us to tell youin the sandbox environment of Night City, a fictional city between San Francisco and LA (as described here, although if it's really in Del Coronado Bay it would be well south of LA) that already exists in the Cyberpunk pen and paper RPG created by Mike Pondsmith. Heres an except from the Night City sourcebook, describing Night City as it exists in Cyberpunk 2020:

"A planned urban community founded in 1994 by the late entrepreneur Richard Alix Night (1954 - 1998). Established at the head of the Del Coronado Bay (dredged to current capacity in 1999), and facing the Pacific Ocean to the west, Night City is a modern city of the twenty-first century. Its wide streets and ultra-modern towers are home to over a million people, with another four-and-a-half million living in the greater Night City areas of Westbrook, North Oak, Heywood, Pacifica, South Night City and Rancho Coronado.

An exciting and vibrant place to live, Night City is even more fun to visit; world famous for its slogan "The City on the Edge of Tomorrow," the area hosts almost nine million tourists, conventioneers and corporate travellers every year. A planned community with an advanced rapid transit system, its own Net LDL, and a Corporate Center boasting representatives from over a dozen of the world's most powerful megacorps, Night City is a shining example of Technology Triumphant over the Trouble of the Past."

Thats an optimistic description, of course, leaving out the mucky, nasty parts of Night City, as Pondsmith puts it in the video above. Punks and corporate stooges of all varieties wander these foggy, once Mob-ruled streets, and by 2023, corporations are openly warring for them. Cyberpunk 2077 will show us what happened to the city in the aftermath of that war.

People have wondered whats going to happen, there are clues and hintsif we told you more wed have to kill you, as usual, said Pondsmith during Cyberpunk 2077s reveal in 2012, which you can watch below. One of them is a big hint I left for everybody at the end of the fourth Corporate War, when I dropped a small pocket tactical nuke in the middle of the Arasaka Towers, and that left kind of a really large real estate space that were gonna be playing around with.

The event hes referring to happened in 2024 on the Cyberpunk timeline, which means we step into Night City a little over 50 years after part of the downtown was destroyed and, presumably, rebuilt.

The announcement video doesnt reveal much more, except that CD Projekt RED and Pondsmith are using Cyberpunks pen and paper combat systemthough exactly how thatll be implemented is unclearand inventing new weapons and technology for the year 2077.

In a 2017 interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, Pondsmith said that the CD Projekt developers "get it," which is why he's happy to work with them on the game, and explained a little about his approach to cyberpunk themes.

We expect to hear more as 2019 approaches, so drop by our hub of all things Cyberpunk anytime you're curious about the latest updates. There's also a newsletter signup on the official site.

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Everything we know about Cyberpunk 2077 - PC Gamer

Aaron Paul, Ron Cephas Jones Round Out Cast of Apples …

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Apple has finished filling up the cast of its upcoming thriller series Are You Sleeping with big names like Aaron Paul and This Is Us star Ron Cephas Jones, an individual with knowledge of the casting tells TheWrap.

Elizabeth Perkins (Weeds),Mekhi Phifer(ER, 8 Mile),Tracie Thoms(Rent, UnReal), Michael Beach (Aquaman) andHaneefah Wood(Baskets, One Day at a Time) have also been added to the line-up of the tech giants new project one of several they are doing in collaboration with Reese Witherspoons Hello Sunshine banner. The two previously announced leads are Octavia Spencer and Lizzy Caplan.

Are You Sleeping is created and written by Nichelle Tramble Spellman (who will serve as showrunner) and based on the true-crime novel by Kathleen Barber, which focuses on Americas obsession with true-crime podcasts.

Also Read: Lizzy Caplan to Star Opposite Octavia Spencer in Apple Drama 'Are You Sleeping'

Spencer stars as Poppy Parnell, a relentless investigative reporter who looks to uncover the truth behind a decades-old questionable murder verdict through her new podcast. Paul plays convicted murderer Warren Cave whose guilt or innocence has remained a question in many peoples minds for the past 20 years. Jones is in as Leander Shreve Scoville, Poppys father. Caplan plays twin sisters Josie and Lanie, whose lives have taken very different paths.

Perkins plays Melanie Cave mother of Cave and the subject of Poppys podcast. Phifer is Markus Knox, a former detective and longtime friend of Parnell. Beach plays Ingram Rhoades, a successful attorney and Poppys husband. Thoms is Desiree Scoville, Poppys older opinionated sister. Wood plays Cydie Scoville, Poppys fiercely loyal sister.

The series is executive produced by Spencer under her Orit Entertainment banner, Tramble Spellman, Witherspoon and her Hello Sunshine partner Lauren Neustadter, as well as Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping and Kristen Campo for Chernin Entertainment.The premiere episode will be directed by Anna Foerster (Outlander).

Also Read: JJ Abrams, Sara Bareilles Dramedy Gets Series Order at Apple

Are You Sleeping is one of three series Apple has ordered from Witherspoons Hello Sunshine, including the actress morning show drama with Jennifer Aniston and the Kristen Wiig-led comedy, You Think It, Ill Say It.

Dead is dead is dead. Unless you're on TV. Whether it was planned out carefully over several seasons by writers or thrown in without a solid explanation, small-screen deaths don't always stick. It's not uncommon for a TV character to be resurrected after you were sure, so sure, that they were gone for good. Seriously, the trope has been done to death at this point. Click through TheWrap's gallery to see the best examples. And, it really should go without saying, but spoiler alert.

Buffy Summers, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" -- Here lies Buffy Summers. She saved the world. A lot. Yes, the titular heroine of Joss Whedon's OG supernatural series died at the end of Season 5, just before the show jumped to UPN. She sacrificed herself as a "gift" to the world. But not to worry, her super powerful witch BFF Willow was able to resurrecther by the Season 6 premiere.

Also Read: Joss Whedon Female Detective Comedy Series in Development at Freeform

Taylor Hayes, "The Bold and the Beautiful" -- Taylor died and came back to life twice and both incidents involved the sameMoroccan prince. Look, we get that it's a soap opera, but even that was a bit much.

Also Read: 11 Highest-Rated TV Shows of 2017-18 Season (Photos)

Michael Cordero, "Jane the Virgin" -- Jane's husband Michael died halfway through Season 3 of The CW series, collapsing suddenly after recovering from a gunshot wound to the chest months earlier. The show immediately jumped ahead a few years, where Jane was finally able to find love again with Rafael. However, in the final moments of the recent Season 4 finale, we discovered Michael is still alive, but we have no idea how. Fans should find out when the fifth season premieres this fall and that reveal can't come fast enough.

Also Read: The CW to Program Original Shows on Sunday Nights for First Time in 9 Years

Dan Conner, "Roseanne" -- The ABC sitcom's revival explained away Dan's death on the original series' depressing finale as a joke in the first few minutes of its return. Of course, then the comedy itself was killed off last month after just one new season, thanks to star Roseanne Barr's tweeting habits.

Also Read: Roseanne Barr Says She Begged ABC Not to Cancel Roseanne Show

Tasha Yar, "Star Trek the Next Generation" -- This was a case of an actor wanting out, then back in, and a show obliging by way of death.Denise Crosby didn't like the direction "TNG" was going in, so they killed off Tasha. But then, they had to find a way to bring her back for a few episodes, so when Crosby was on board with returning, the writers created a new timeline where she didn't die. But she was only alive in that timeline. Problem solved.

Also Read: All 39 Star Trek Main Characters Ranked, From Spock to Wesley (Photos)

Sherlock Holmes, "Sherlock" -- Fans had to wait two long years to find out how Benedict Cumberbatch's character could have possibly survived leaping from a hospital roof to his death. In the end, "Sherlock" decided to tease you for eternity by suggesting a few possibilities, but ultimately never revealing what happened.

Sydney Andrews, "Melrose Place" --In 1997, viewers of this primetime Fox soap were crushed when a car struck and killed Sydney Andrews on her wedding day in the original series. But in the pilot of the short-lived remake, Sydney is alive -- for about 10 minutes. She's soon found floating in the apartment complex's pool. Sorry, Syd.

Jon Snows case is really just the tip of the undoing-on-screen-demises iceberg

Dead is dead is dead. Unless you're on TV. Whether it was planned out carefully over several seasons by writers or thrown in without a solid explanation, small-screen deaths don't always stick. It's not uncommon for a TV character to be resurrected after you were sure, so sure, that they were gone for good. Seriously, the trope has been done to death at this point. Click through TheWrap's gallery to see the best examples. And, it really should go without saying, but spoiler alert.

Read more:

Aaron Paul, Ron Cephas Jones Round Out Cast of Apples ...

Political Correctness = Language and Thought Control

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Makia Freeman, ContributorWaking Times

Political correctness is a Rothschild invention of language control. Like Orwellian Newspeak in 1984, its ultimateaim is to reduce the scope of free thought.

Political correctness is language control. And language control is thought control. Period. The rise of modern political correctness (PC) is a great example of the cunning way in which social engineers such as the New World Order manipulators operate.Political correctness is soft censorship.It is intolerance disguised as tolerance. As George Carlin said, it is fascism pretending to be manners. It is running amok not just in Universities but now almost everywhere in society. Just as Orwell laid out so precisely in 1984,political correctness is the Newspeakwhich is threatening tolimit our ability to freely speak and think, by reducing the number of available words in our vocabulary.

Truth is stranger than fiction. When you look at the twisted contortions the PC crowd is insisting people go through to rid their language of anything offensive, it has entered the theater of the absurd. Political correctnessdictates what you can and cant say, based on how offensive aword is. Right off the bat there are severalproblems with this. Firstly, who are the commissars,officials or authorities who are granting themselves massive power by getting to decide what ranks as offensive? Secondly, since when did feeling offended or having your feelings hurt become such an important issue that it legally justifies restricting everyones freedom? Last time I checked, freedom of speech was a genuine and legitimate human right (enshrined in the legal documents of many countries), whereas the right to not feel offended is imaginary and non-existent.Thirdly and most importantly just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so too is feeling offended in the realm of thebeholder. Words are words; each person is in charge of their own emotions; choose to ignore, respond or react to words how you want, but dont blame someone else for your emotional state. You are in control of your own state of consciousness. To blame someone else because you feel angry, offended or upsetshows an abandonment of responsibility and an utter lack of emotional and spiritual maturity.Since when did we humans become such crybabies that wecouldnt stand hearing or being called a word, a name, a label or a phrase? Grow up, please!

As always, theres more to the story here.Political correctness has roots in marxism and communism. Wikipedia notes that In the early-to-mid 20th century, the phrase politically correct was associated with thedogmaticapplication ofStalinistdoctrine, debated betweenCommunistParty members andSocialists. However, it goes back further to theFrankfurt School (Institute for Social Research) in Germany, which was set up in 1923. TheFrankfurt school was a think tank for social engineering, aiming tospread collectivism (or its offshoots of socialism, marxism and communism) around the world. Asthis article from theSchiller Institute states:

The task of the Frankfurt School, then, was first, to undermine the Judeo-Christian legacy through an abolition of culture (Aufhebung der Kulturin Lukacs German); and, second, to determine new cultural forms which wouldincrease the alienation of the population,thus creating a new barbarism.

It goes on to point out those funding the Frankfurt School:

although the Institute for Social Research started with Comintern [CommunismInternational] support, over the next three decades its sources of funds included various German and American universities, the Rockefeller Foundation, Columbia Broadcasting System, the American Jewish Committee, several American intelligence services, the Office of the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany, the International Labour Organization, and the Hacker Institute, a posh psychiatric clinic in Beverly Hills.

Sowe have reference to the Rockefellers funding the Frankfurt School, and it is well known that the Rothschilds funded the rise of Marxism:

Nathan Rothschild had given Marx two checks for several thousand pounds to finance the cause of Socialism. The checks were put on display in the British Museum, after Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild, a trustee, had willed his museum and library to them.

Both of these key New World Order families are thus implicated in marxism, the Frankfurt School and political correctness. Interestingly, many researches have pointed out that political correctness is part of a broader movement ofcultural marxism,which is the subversion of a countrys culture with collectivist ideology, as opposed to the more direct political version.

Yuri Bezmenov, a former SovietKGB agent, said that ideological subversion would change the perception of reality of every American. He outlined how there was a slow brainwashing process taking place to change the individualistic culture of the West, consisting of:

1. Demoralization (covert, 15-50 years) (basically completed);

2. Destabilization (overt, 2-5 years);

3. Crisis (6 weeks);

4. Violent Change and Normalization (can take years, goes on forever).

All this was with the aim of making the West collectivist. The question is: how much has it worked?

Whatever good intentions political correctness may have had in trying to stop homophobia, racism, sexism and discrimination of any kind, it is long passed the threshold of absurdity. Consider the following examples of what the PC crowd is trying to make people say with their bias-free language:

seniors, elders, elderly => people of advanced age

overweight, obese => people of size

rich => people of material wealth

American => US citizen

This last one is especially interesting, given that the US Government is a corporation which lays claim to the entire United States of America, whereas American denotes a natural-born individual of the Republic. The PC police also want to eliminate the following words:

male, female, father, mother, too, hard worker, third world,crazy, insane, retarded, gay, tyranny, gypped, illegal alien, fag, ghetto, raghead

and phrases such as I want to die and that test raped me.

Donald Trump recently got heckled for using the termanchor baby by a PC journalist, who wanted him to say the American born child of an undocumented immigrant. What a mouthful. Funnily, enough that PC journalist was breaking his own inane rules, since now were been told that American is disallowed.Remember theban bossy campaign? Grown adults indulging in utter stupidity. More political correctness and languagecontrol. How can you ban a word anyway?

Its not just specific words or phrases that the PC crowd want to obliterate. At some universities, they are banning entire ways ofbehaving. Check out these ridiculous university rules (taken from the book Choosing the Right College2012-2013), which have moved beyond speech control into total behavior control:

Brown University: banned any speech making people feel angry, impotent and disenfranchised

Colby College: banned any speech leading to loss of self esteem

Bryn Mawr College: banned suggestive looks

Haverford College: banned unwelcome flirtation

University of Connecticut: banned inappropriate laughter

West Virginia University: banned theuse of words boyfriend or girlfriend but instead told students they haveto use the words lover or partner.

Look what the Grand Valley State University recommends we do:

Avoiding Racism and Ageism

Mention a persons race or age only if it is relevant to the story.Biased: A strange Black man spoke to me at the grocery store.Better: A strange man spoke to me at the grocery store.

Disability and Disease

Focus on people rather than conditions.Biased: I met an epileptic on the bus today.Better: I met a person with epilepsy on the bus today.

Since when is becoming less descriptive equivalent to less discriminatory?Talk about a perversion of straight and ordinary speech! Political correctness is standing reality on its head. Here is a chilling quote from 1984:

You havent a real appreciation of Newspeak, Winston, he said almost sadlyIn your heart youd prefer to stick to Oldspeak, with all its vagueness and its useless shades of meaning. You dont grasp the beauty of the destruction of words. Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year?

Dont you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it

All words are potentially offensive. Everywordcould potentially be associated with something bad, so every wordcould come under the scrutiny of the PCpolice.Slurs, insults and derogatory language have always existed ever since humans could speak. You cant just annihilate them. Even the concepts ofmicroaggression andhate speech are failed notions, trying to make havingyour feelings hurt or getting offended morally orlegally equivalentwith harassment. There is no equivalence! Stick and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me

I encourage anyone whohas even a mild interest in a free humanity with complete freedom of speech, and total freedom of thought, to resist political correctness with every fiber of your being.If you are concerned about hurting peoples feelings unnecessarily, you can always find ways to express something in the right way. In those kind of situations, what really matters is the way you say words, not what you say.

We dont need speech police to tell us what we can and cant say or can and cant think. We dont need to go through convoluted verbal gymnastics and masturbation just to say what we think or express ourselves.

Its time for those hiding behind feeling offended to grow up. Stop demanding those around you change because of your lack of maturity. Stop trying to hijack everyones else freedom because of your timidity. Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, offense in the mind, attitude and reaction of the beholder.

Itstime to call a spade a spade. We need the spirit of straight talking. Weneed the courage to speak truth to power, not to go in the opposite direction and become afraid of saying anything.The real agenda of political correctness is to stifle objective investigation and free speech. Ultimately, it is to eliminate criticism of the NWO manipulatorsunder the guise of stopping hate speech and making everything fair and equal.

Makia Freeman is the editor ofThe Freedom Articlesand senior researcher atToolsForFreedom.com(FaceBookhere), writing on many aspects of truth and freedom, from exposing aspects of the worldwideconspiracy to suggesting solutions for how humanity can create a new system of peace and abundance

**Sources embedded throughout article.

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Political Correctness = Language and Thought Control was last modified: June 18th, 2016 by WakingTimes

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Political Correctness = Language and Thought Control

Political Correctness Gone Mad – TV Tropes

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That is so offensive! Don't you know that only the Northern Hemisphere has Winter in December! note (they also forgot that some religions DO celebrate the Winter Solstice as such, as well as forgetting that Christmas takes place a few days AFTER the Winter Solstice)"And in a gutless act of political correctness, 'Pizza Day' will now be known as 'Italian-American Sauced Bread Day.'"This title, taken from an infamous Catch-Phrase of the Daily Mail, a British tabloid newspaper, can refer to one of two things.In some cases, this might be literally about political correctness taken too far, presented through a Granola Girl or Soapbox Sadie who embodies the negative aspects of the PC movement. It may also involve Moral Guardians attempting to Bowdlerize a work in order to remove anything, no matter how trivial, that might be considered "offensive". However, in other cases, the accusations of political correctness are baseless.Along the same lines, a governmental authority (often a local council or Media Watchdog) is accused of being over-zealous to the point of parody in trying to avoid offense to minority groups - not unlike the Culture Police but in the other direction. Certain words or phrases are said to have been "banned", as if, say, Chipping Sodbury Borough Council has any effective power over the English language or, indeed, anything. Often, the body in question is not only being overly cautious, they're actually oppressing the group that is the target of their actions, and are shocked should their targets explain that a patronizing, paternalistic attitude can be just as offensive as the perceived slight. On the other hand, since this is often a satire we're dealing with, it's just as likely that the mere hint of the word "offense" will indeed result in the offending work being Banned In Chipping Sodbury.Politically Correct History is a specific variant where Common Knowledge historical accounts are treated as Fanon to avoid Unfortunate Implications such as Values Dissonance or having to explain Aluminum Christmas Trees.Usually, a range of urban myths are presented as examples of Political Correctness Gone Mad, such as ...

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"I know what youre thinking now. Youre thinking 'Oh my god, thats treating other people with respect gone mad!'"

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Everyone: Whose faith is the right one, it's anybody's guess. Man in turban and Santa suit holding up a phone: What matter most is camera phone for twenty dollar less!

Announcer: It's Asian American Doll, we made her from a place of fear! (gong sound effect) I specifically said no gong!

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[On his Nan abusing the term to confusion] "In the old days, you could get your head and you could submerge it in a vat of boiling acid, and now they're going 'Oh, don't do that, what if Jews see it? It'll annoy the Jews'."

Jeff: So, Walter, Happy Holidays!

Walter: *beat* You're really going to do this, huh?

Jeff: So, Walter, Happy Holidays!

Walter: Screw you, it's Merry Christmas!

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Lance: Always trying to shut the white man down. Conspiracy Brother: THAT'S RIGHT! That's Right!... Oh, that ain't right.

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Wesley: Apparently she felt I'd disrespected the Hacklar's culture by killing it.

JD: It's so great because the residents are practically our slaves. In JD's head: Ah! I just said "slave" to my new, black girlfriend!

JD: We should, like, make him be our personal slave.

Turk's Brother: Our personal what now?

JD: Uh, I didn't mean-

Turk's Brother: How about this? How about he be the house slave, and I be the field slave. That sound like fun to you?

JD: No, that doesn't sound fun at all.

Turk: What's going on?

Turk's Brother: I forgot how much fun it was messing with Alfalfa here!

Liz: Can't one human being not like another human being? Can't we all just not get along? Steven: Liz, I wish it could be like that. And maybe someday our children or our children's children will hate each other like that, but it just doesn't work that way today. Liz: So what you're saying is that any woman that doesn't like you is a racist. Steven: No, no, no, no, no. Some women are gay.

Paul: I just blacked out.

Mike: Uhh, excuse me, you African-Americaned out.

Music

One greeting card to cover everything

Confusing yes, no one will guess

We left out Kwanzaa!

We felt so guilty when he was all through It seemed there was one of two things we could do Live without food in the nude in a cave Or next year have someone say grace besides Dave

One of the many fine things one has to admit is the way that the Army has carried the American democratic ideal to its logical conclusion, in the sense that not only do they prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creed, and color, but also on the grounds of ability.

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Ellis: Wouldn't it be easier to call them by stuff that makes sense, like "High Elves," "Wood Elves," "Sea Elves," "Cave Elves"... Sarine: ... What? Ellis: No... "cave elves" sounds kinda stupid. How about "Dark Elves"? "Night Elves"? "Black Elves"? "Angry, Disenfranchised Minority Elves"? On second thought, go back to calling them by unpronounceable crap.

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Dog: *barks* Guys: THAT'S OFFENSIVE!

[BlizzardRep]: Phylumism, were it an actual thing, would go against everything we stand for as a corporation.

[An00barak]: yes thats what ive been saying thank you thank you

[An00barak]: >8< >8> <8< <8> >8< spider priiiiiide

Fafa: Then what do I call them?!

Mario: Gentlemen or women of the country music persuasion.

Lelouch: NOT IF HER HEAD EXPLODES!!!

Dan: I don't like the way you said "black."

Pat: [talking to the game] Get away, you bouncing monkeys! D.K. Junior: Again with the hate speech! Pat: What did I say? D.K. Junior: Do you know how offensive it is to use the "M word"? Pat: The "M word"...what, monkey? Butbut that is a monkey! A green monkey! D.K. Junior: Specieist! The "M word" is no longer acceptable to say. "Evolutionary challenged simian" is the preferred nomenclature. Pat: When did that change? D.K. Junior: A few days ago.

Western Animation

Principal Skinner: When I look in my closet, I don't see male clothes or female clothes. They're all the same.

Edna Krabappel: Are you saying that men and women are identical?

Skinner: Oh, no, of course not! Women are unique in every way.

Lindsey Naegle: Now he's saying men and women aren't equal!

Skinner: No, no, no! It's the differences of which there are none that makes the sameness exceptional. Just tell me what to say!

Dr. Hibbert: Yes, I remember Bart's birth well. You don't forget a thing like Siamese Twins!

Lisa: I believe they prefer to be called "conjoined twins".

Dr. Hibbert: And Hillbillies prefer to be called "sons of the soil". But it ain't gonna happen.

Doctor Orpheus: Wow.

Iggy: So this medical caregiver of indeterminate gender, because nurses can be male or female, says to his or her disabled, or should I say differently-abled patient, "Why do you have a penguin on your head? They're endangered!" Haaa!

Rick: Well, that's retarded.

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71-Hour Ahmed: Be generous, Sir Samuel. Truly treat all men equally. Allow Klatchians the right to be scheming bastards.

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Shakespeare: Who are you, exactly, and, more to the point, who is this gorgeous blackamoor lady? Martha: (British, of Ghanaian and Iranian descent) What did you say? Shakespeare: (apologizing) Oops. Isn't that a word we use nowadays? An Ethiop girl, a swarth, a Queen of Afric? Martha: (angry) I can't believe I'm hearing this. The Doctor: It's political correctness gone mad.

Jeff: Well, Walter, you look very festive. Happy Holidays! Walter: You know, there's something I've been wanting to say for a while: Screw you, it's Merry Christmas!

Ricky: [laughing] Leprechauns don't exist!

Karl: It's the same thing, though. If they did, they'd go, "Don't call 'em that"

Karl: [beat] Gnomes, or... [Ricky and Steve burst out laughing]

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Brian: Ladies and gentlemen, I'm here today to apologize- Man: Why did you say "Ladies" first? That's sexist. Brian: It's just, it's just a-a standard greeting. Let-let me start over. Gentlemen and ladies- Woman: Ooh, says the man. Brian: Okay, sorry, I-I... Um, humans in the audience- Man 2: I identify as a basketball. Brian: Humans and basketballs- Man 3: I'm a parrot who mimics words but doesn't comprehend them. Brian: Humans, basketballs, talking parrots, and-and whatever else is out there... Woman 2: "Whatever"? It's whoever. Woman 3: Actually, it's whomever. Woman 2: No one likes you, Mary. Brian: All right, all right, just-just calm down, okay? Woman 4: Now you're tone policing us! Man 4: That makes me uncomfortable. Anything that makes me uncomfortable in 2017 should be illegal.

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Political Correctness Gone Mad - TV Tropes

UPDATED: 12 private islands for sale in Florida

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Want to live a life of luxury? Take a tour of 12 private islands that are for sale right now in Florida.

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1. Ballast Key, Key West: $15,800,000

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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The island is a short boat trip from Key West Harbor.

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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The two homes on the island offer spectacular views of the ocean.

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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It has served as a retreat for the rich and famous.

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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2. Black's Island, St. Joseph Bay: Price upon request

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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Black's Island is 8.20 acres.

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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The island includes 26 luxury bungalows connected by a boardwalk to a four-story, 6,500-square-foot community Big Game Club.

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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There is an 18-hole golf course and lighted tennis courts available for guests.

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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It is surrounded by a 73,000-acre aquatic preserve.

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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3. Crescent Island, San Carlos Bay: Online auction

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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Crescent Island is four acres.

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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The island is located a short distance off the southern tip of Pine Island, with a close proximity to St. James Citys restaurants, marinas, and shops.

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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It includes a fully furnished custom Florida-style two-bedroom pool home.

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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The last listing price was $1.95 million.

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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4. Little Bokeelia Island, Boca Grande: $29,500,000

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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Little Bokeelia Island is 104.00 acres.

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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The island features a Spanish-style estate with a private guest wing and tennis court.

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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The home was built for well-known inventor Charles Burgess.

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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The island is surrounded by land that can never be developed.

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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5. Charlie's Island, Marathon Florida Keys: $995,000

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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Charlie's Island is .32 acres.

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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The island is located just off the shore of Marathon.

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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Enjoy exploring native species along paths that weave through mangrove trees.

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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Relax in the hammock or be adventurous and snorkel in the clear waters.

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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6. Tom's Harbor Keys, Florida Keys: $1,900,000

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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Tom's Harbor Keys is 46.00 acres.

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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Tom's Harbor Keys is actually two separate islands situated 300 yard from shore Duck Key.

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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A sandy deep water channel separates the two.

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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It offers a rare combination of natural beaches and deep water ocean access.

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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7. Fanny Key, Marathon: Price Upon Request

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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Fanny Key is 1.70 acres.

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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The island is 750 feet from shore.

PHOTO: Private Islands Online

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UPDATED: 12 private islands for sale in Florida