Austin Richards takes readers on a visual tour of the electromagnetic spectrum beyond the range of human sight, using imaging technology as the means to 'see' invisible light. Dozens of colorful images and clear, concise descriptions make this an intriguing, accessible technical book. Richards explains the light spectrum, including visible light, and describes the advanced imaging technologies that enable humans to synthesize our own version of 'alien' vision at different wavelengths, with applications ranging from fire fighting and law enforcement to botany and medicine.
There are many parallels and some revealing differences in the encounter between, on the one hand, the Americans and various Indian tribes and, on the other, the Russians and some of the peoples of the Caucasus and Siberia. The enduring cultural consequences of these encounters provide a fruitful area of inquiry for the comparative examination of national images in literatures. The major focus on this study is the perceptions and literary portrayal of the Chechens by the Russians and the Navajos by the Americans. Both the Chechen in Russian literature and the Navajo in American literature are often constructs, images derived from a potent combination of prejudices and received assumptions. In each case a relatively sizable corpus of writings produced over a century or longer exemplifies or attempts to counter persistent and influential modes of cultural stereotyping. The diachronic analysis of the portrayal of either the Chechens or the Navajos illuminates patterns of prejudice that have immense implications for both popular and high culture. The juxtaposition of the discussion of the two groups as they have been treated in Russian and American literature can deepen our understanding of the commonalities present in attempted cultural domination or ethnic idealization. Margaret Ziolkowski is Professor of Russian at Miami University, Ohio.
When remote-controlled aircraft begin behaving erratically, even crashing, there is only one logical explanation ? well, there are only two: aliens or your own government.ÿThe real shock is finding the signals are coming from people who've eaten at fast food restaurants. Of course, we've known all along the stuff in unhealthy. But this? ÿ ~~~~~ Excerpt ~~~~~ ÿ The aliens started small, buying up a few eateries in malls and some coffee shops. And then they expanded, just as the Asians had before them?but neither education nor commerce was the goal this time. They wanted knowledge, but not the kind that came from schools. ?We knew your history, but didn?t know shit about what makes you humans tick,? was what Bernie said. It didn't take long for them to recognize that we had no idea what made us tick either, so they set out to blaze new trails in understanding peoplekind. Fast food places provided them with two significant tools for this task: First, humans went there in droves. "You can't beat them away with a stick," was how Bernie put it. Once they were there, they could be observed in their natural habitat, as it were. This nicely brought the subjects needed for the aliens? field studies right to them. Secondly, we ingested, rather indiscriminately a variety of substances passing for food. The aliens developed their protein-based nanosensors and fed them to us. Who knew? The damn things moved into our bloodstreams, analyzing as they went. ?We wanted to get to the heart of the matter,? was the way Doreen put it; I think she was unaware of the implied pun, so we forgave her. Hungry for data, they continued buying up fast food places, served nanosensors and observed us. We ate the food and the sensors, which transmitted back to data collectors that did some elementary preprocessing and relayed compressed data to, as I?ve said, Omaha. Now I doubt anyone would have objected to this somewhat symbiotic turn of events. After all, the aliens had a vested interest in keeping the prices of their burgers and fries reasonable, because that kept our patronage up. Maybe once they had collected enough data they might have turned their attention to maximizing profits, but for the time being it worked for everyone. I suppose, if they'd known, the government would have a different view. In fact, after it was all over, Homeland Security was rather pissed. They were pissed at us because we hadn?t reported our conversations with the ?Alien Invaders? to the responsible authorities, whatever that term might mean. I asked who I should've reported to but didn't get a straight answer. I admit that this probably did constitute an invasion of some sort, or a precursor to one. But, as I told the stony-faced Homeland Security lady, I was hired as a consultant; my clients wanted me to help deal with whoever was causing their problem. The fact that they turned out to be aliens was just not relevant in any meaningful way. Not to me, anyway. I had neglected to insert a clause that would pay a bonus for dealing with aliens in my contract. One thing I learned in working for the model airplane folks is that messing with the geeks is folly. If you doubt me, the way the war unfolded provides a textbook case, if one is needed. Think about it. Suppose you are a person who spends some monstrous amount of time and money building a model plane that looks, say, exactly like a Sopwith Camel. You fly it for a few minutes and it is brilliant. Suddenly it turns upside down, which looks rather cool if you planned that to happen and rather spooky if you didn?t, and then it drops like a stone. Well, like a stone with wings, I suppose.
Have you ever wondered if Earth has been visited and is being visited by beings from elsewhere? In The Extraterrestrial Vision, you'll find out:• The origins of the human race,• What role extraterrestrials have played in Earth's history,• Who the Greys, Orions, Zetas, Lyrans, Pleiadians, and Sirians are,• What Walk-ins and Star People are and their involvement with Earth,• Why the abductions are occurring,• How extraterrestrials will make first contact with us,• How to discriminate between the positive and the negative extraterrestrials,• What we can do to combat evil on Earth,• What lies ahead,• What fourth density will be like.The Extraterrestrial Vision was first published in 1993.
The hilarious, genre-bending novel from bestselling author Adam rex that inspired the blockbuster feature film Home -- fully illustrated with "photos," drawings, newspaper clippings, and comics sequences. When twelve-year-old Gratuity ("Tip") Tucci is assigned to write five pages on "The True Meaning of Smekday" for the National Time Capsule contest, she's not sure where to begin; when her mom started telling everyone about the messages aliens were sending through a mole on the back of her neck? Maybe on Christmas Eve, when huge bizarre spaceships descended on Earth and the aliens -- called Boov -- abducted her mother? Or when the Boov declared Earth a colony, renamed it "Smekland" (in honor of glorious Captain Smek), and forced all Americans to relocate to Florida via rocketpod? In any case, Gratuity's story is much, much bigger than the assignment. It involves her unlikely friendship with a renegade Boov mechanic named J.Lo; a futile journey south to find Gratuity's mother at the Happy Mouse Kingdom; a cross-country road trip in a hovercar called Slushious; and an outrageous plan to save the Earth from yet another alien invasion.
Cinema is a sensuous object, but in our presence it becomes also a sensing, sensual, sense-making subject. Thus argues Vivian Sobchack as she challenges basic assumptions of current film theory that reduce film to an object of vision and the spectator to a victim of a deterministic cinematic apparatus. Maintaining that these premises ignore the material and cultural-historical situations of both the spectator and the film, the author makes the radical proposal that the cinematic experience depends on two "viewers" viewing: the spectator and the film, each existing as both subject and object of vision. Drawing on existential and semiotic phenomenology, and particularly on the work of Merleau-Ponty, Sobchack shows how the film experience provides empirical insight into the reversible, dialectical, and signifying nature of that embodied vision we each live daily as both "mine" and "another's." In this attempt to account for cinematic intelligibility and signification, the author explores the possibility of human choice and expressive freedom within the bounds of history and culture.
