Which came first, lack of infrastructure to handle a pandemic like COVID-19, or the COVID-19 pandemic? I can't think of a more cogent question today. Virtually everything today that isn't "working" well is being blamed on COVID-19, and, well, maybe to some extent that's true. COVID-19 is the spark that ignited interest in all the failings of our current infrastructures from politics, to government, economics, transportation, education, social services (my furloughed partner has been waiting f...

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Many would say that a computational "bit" is a single unit of information. It might, however, be more correct to say that a contemporary computational "bit" can represent a single datum, while a combination of bits can represent a single unit of information. For example, consider the number "1" (as opposed to the number "0"). In essence, it represents a numerical datum that can be mathematically manipulated, but doesn't, as such, represent anything beyond that. However, by adding "car," it be...

It's here at last, the previous one in 1948 just after the Second Great War, and the next one scheduled for 2034 (the supermoon, not another Great War), assuming we humans are still present on the Earth to view it. Taking its photo, however, was a bit trickier than I'd imagined. 

First, I had trouble catching it rising just above the horizon, as the Koolau Mountains were in the way, meaning that our first view in Honolulu would be at least 45 degrees above horizon, causing Supermoon to optic...

In the past, antagonists in thrillers typically wore black hats and shot everyone, while protagonists wore white (or at least not-black) hats and, when pressured, shot reluctantly back. For many years this demarcation seemed inviolate. Why? The world up to the recent has been one of guns and bullets, where the white hats in one clever way or another stopped the bullets and saved the day. 

Today, neither antagonists nor protagonists even wear hats, making them initially indecipherable from each...

The new breed of dictatorial politicians represent more than another adventure for special agents Tripler and Clarke — TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2005) — or Koski and Falk — QUANTUM DEATH (Savant 2016). They represent what's going awry in a world that is increasingly losing its core humanity. In a phrase, that's what's at the very heart of many contemporary thrillers. Not dystopia. Not violence. Not abuse. Not sex, money, power or arrogance. Without what makes humans human -- joy, m...

In physics (there's that "P" word that often causes young students to shudder), the unending search continues for the "fundamental building blocks" of everything that exists. At present, there are twelve such building blocks called quarks. In an "aha" moment, I experienced the world in two apple pies I handmade last night and a beach photo sitting not far from them. 

 

Quarks come in six "flavors," up, down, top, bottom, strange and charmed. These come in two forms referred to as matter and a...

In QUANTUM DEATH (Savant 2016), A. G. Hayes and I introduce the Quantum Death Machine, a theoretical weapon not so much of mass destruction (WMD) as of mass infrastructure interference (WMII). In this new scenario, the objective isn't to destroy an enemy so much as paralyze it, allowing the aggressor to acquire all its resources intact. Our Quantum Death Machine is based on some of the emerging characteristics of theoretical #quantum physics and it's overarching #M-Superstring Theory. in the ...

In QUANTUM DEATH (Savant 2016), Cerebrus Agents Koski and Falk are challenged with facing and defeating a kvantovaya mashina smerti or Quantum Death Machine (QDM) being used to bring the United States and all of the Americas to their knees. But is the alleged QDM a simple writer's MacGuffin or is it more substantial? Could it really happen? 

I believe the answer is "yes," which, I hope, makes this techno-thriller even more intensely gripping.