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Excerpt from book 3 of the Henry Gallant Saga, Henry Gallant and the Warrior. Henry Gallant and the Warrior AMAZON Going Up 1 Lieutenant Henry Gallant plodded along the cobblestone streets of New Annapolis—head down, mind racing . . . My orders say take command of the Warrior immediately . . . but no promotion . . . Why not? He pondered the possibilities, but he already knew the answer. Though he had steely gray eyes, a square jaw, and was taller than nearly everyone around him, what distinguished him most was not visible to the naked eye—he was a Natural—born without genetic engineering. Is this my last chance to prove myself? By the time he reached the space elevator, the welcoming breeze of the clear brisk morning had brightened his mood and he fell into line behind the shipyard personnel without complaint. Looking up, he marveled: That cable climbs into the clouds like an Indian rope trick. When it was his turn at last, the guard scanned his comm pin against the access manifest. The portal light blinked red. “Pardon, sir. Access denied,” said the grim-faced sentry. “Call the officer of the guard,” demanded Gallant. The officer of the guard appeared but was no more inclined to pass Gallant through than the sentry was. The guard touched the interface panel and made several more entries, but the portal continued to blink red. “There’s a hold on your access, sir.” Trouble already? Gallant thought. Then he asked, “A hold?” “Yes, sir. Your clearance and authorization are in order, but SIA has placed a hold on your travel. They want you to report to SIA headquarters, A.S.A.P.” “I need to go to the shipyard and attend to important business before going to the Solar Intelligence Agency,” clarified Gallant, but even as he said it, he knew it wouldn’t help. “Sorry, sir. Orders.” Gallant noticed the four gold stripes of a captain’s sleeve. The officer was waiting to take the next elevator. “Captain?” he said, hailing the man before he recognized him. Captain Kenneth Caine of the Repulse marched to the guard post, frowning. “What can I do for you, Gallant?” Of all the luck, he thought. Caine was the last person he wanted to impose upon, but it was too late now. Several uncomfortable moments passed with the three of them standing there—Caine, Gallant, and the officer of the guard—staring at each other, waiting for someone to break the silence. Finally, Gallant addressed Caine: “Well, sir, I’ve received orders to take command of the Warrior, but apparently all the T’s haven’t been crossed and my shipyard access has a hold from SIA.” Caine’s frown deepened. Gallant turned to the officer of the guard and said, “Is it possible to allow me go to my ship and complete my business? I’ll report to SIA immediately afterward.” The officer of the guard fidgeted and squirmed. He understandably did not like being placed in such a position while under the scrutiny of a full captain. Caine shrugged. Gallant was puzzled for a moment, wondering how to win Caine’s support. He tried the officer of the guard again, “Perhaps, you could send a message to SIA headquarters stating that you informed me of my requirement to report and that I agreed to attend this afternoon after I assume command of my ship. I’ll initial it.” Caine nodded. The guard brightened visibly. “That should be acceptable, sir.” He made a few entries into his interface panel and the portal finally blinked green. Gallant stepped through the gate and joined Caine. Together they walked to the elevator doors and mingled with the group waiting for the next available car. “Thank you for your help, captain,” said Gallant. “I’m sorry to have troubled you.” Caine merely nodded. Unwilling to miss the opportunity to reconnect with his former commanding officer, Gallant asked, “How’ve you been, sir?” Caine’s frown returned. “Well, personally, it’s been quite a trial . . .” Gallant resisted the temptation to coax him onward. After a minute, Caine revealed, “I lost a lot of shipmates during the last action.” He sighed and took a moment to silently mourn their passing. “I’m sorry, sir,” said Gallant, who was sensitive to the prickling pain in Caine’s voice. Gallant then took a long look at the senior officer. He recalled a mental image of his former commanding officer—solidly built and squared shouldered with a crew-cut and a craggy face. In contrast, the man before him now was balding and flabby, with a puffy face and deep frown lines. “Humph,” grumbled Caine, recognizing Gallant’s critical stare. “You’ve changed too. You’re no longer the lanky callow midshipman who reported aboard the Repulse nearly five years ago.” “Thank you, sir,” said Gallant, breaking into an appreciative smile. Caine returned the smile and, warming to the conversation, he said, “We had a few good times back then—and a few victories as well—a good ship, a good crew.” A minute passed before Caine added, “As for the Repulse—she’s suffered along with her crew . . . perhaps more than her fair share. As you know, she’s has been in the forefront of battle since the beginning of the war, but when the Titans attacked Jupiter Station earlier this year, we took a terrible beating—along with the rest of the fleet.” Caine’s face went blank for a few seconds as he relived the event. “ The Titans used nuclear weapons to bombard the colonies. The loss of life was staggering. Jupiter’s moons are now lifeless, scorched rocks. The colonists fled on whatever transport they could find and they’re now in the refugee camp on the outskirts of this city,” said Caine. Then, trying to sound optimistic but unable to hide his concern, he added, “We gave the Titans some lumps as well. It’ll be some time before they can trouble us on this side of the asteroid belt.” “So I understand, sir.” SWOOSH! BAM! The elevator car doors opened with a loud bang. Caine stepped inside. Gallant grabbed the strap and buckled himself into the adjacent acceleration couch. A powerful engine pulled the glass-encased car along a ribbon cable anchored to the planet’s surface and extended to the Mars space station in geostationary orbit. A balance of forces kept the cable under tension while the elevator ascended—gravity at the lower end and the centripetal force of the station at the upper end. The tiny vehicle accelerated swiftly to seven g’s and reached orbit in less than ten minutes before braking to docking speed. Gallant enjoyed a spectacular view as the car sped through the clouds. Below him was the receding raw red and brown landscape of Mars spread over the planet’s curvature; above him was one of man’s most ambitious modern structures; —a space station, replete with a shipyard that housed the newest space vessels under construction including Gallant’s new command, the Warrior, as well as ships in need of repair, including the Repulse. Gallant tried to pick out his minute ship against the much larger battle cruisers nested near it, but the rotation of the station hid it from view. “Repulse is completing extensive repairs. She’ll be back in action before long. I have a fierce loyalty to my ship and I know she’ll acquit herself well, no matter what comes,” said Caine. “I’m sure she will, sir,” said Gallant. “I haven’t congratulated you on your first command, yet” Caine said, extending his hand. “You’ve earned it.” “Thank you, sir,” said Gallant, shaking hands, while a thought flashed through his mind, If I earned command, why wasn’t I promoted? “Do you have any idea of your first assignment, yet?” “No, sir. It could be almost anything,” said Gallant, but he was thinking, Probably involves the Warrior’s special capabilities. Caine said, “At least you’ll get a chance to strike the enemy.” Gallant said, “We still know so little about the aliens’ origins or intentions. Since they’ve taken Jupiter, they’ve expanded their bases from the satellites of the outer planets. They’ve also penetrated into the asteroids. That puts them in a position to launch raids here.” Caine said, “I once asked you, ‘What’s the single most important element in achieving victory in battle?’” “Yes, sir, and my answer is the same: surprise.” “Yes,” Caine said, “but to achieve surprise, it’s essential for us to gather more intelligence.” “I agree, sir.” “Tell me, Gallant,” Caine said, as he shifted position, “are you aware there are many people who hold you in contempt? They still doubt that a Natural can serve in the fleet.” Gallant grimaced. “I’ve always done my duty to the best of my ability, sir.” “And you have done admirably, from what I know of your actions, but that hasn’t fazed some. I’ve heard little about your last mission.” “I can’t discuss that mission, sir. It’s been classified as need-to-know under a special compartment classification,” said Gallant, as he thought, I wish I could tell you about the AI berserker machine. I can only imagine what’s in store for the Warrior. “Nevertheless, I’ve heard that Anton Neumann was much praised for that mission. He was promoted to full commander and given the cruiser Achilles, though, I wouldn’t be surprised if his father’s influence played a role in that.” Gallant said nothing, but stared down at his shoes, Neumann always wins. Caine grunted and then said, “Neither of us is in good standing with Anton’s father.” Caine and Gallant had previously run afoul of Gerome Neumann, President of NNR, Shipping and Mining Inc., and an industrial and government powerbroker. Gallant nodded. Upon arriving at the space station platform, the elevator car doors opened automatically and once again banged loudly. SWOOSH! BAM! A long, enclosed tunnel formed the central core of the station with twenty-four perpendicular arms that served as docking piers. The tunnel featured many windows and access ports to reach the twenty-four ships that extended from the docking arms. The two men chatted about the war news while they rode a tram along the tunnel causeway. Finally, Gallant left Caine at the Repulse and continued to his new command. A swarm of workmen buzzed along the Warrior’s scaffolding, cranes hauled machinery to and fro, and miscellaneous gear lay haphazardly about. An infinite amount of preparation was under way, servicing the ship in anticipation of her departure. Gallant gaped . . . There she is. He leaned forward to take in every line and aspect of the ship. Despite the distractions, he saw the ship as a thing of exquisite beauty. The Warrior featured a smooth rocket shaped hull and while she was smaller than her battle cruiser neighbors, she weighed thirty-thousand tons with an overall length of one hundred and twenty meters and a beam of forty meters. She was designed with stealth capability, so she emitted no detectable signals and remained invisible until her power supply required recharging. Her armament included a FASER cannon, several short-range plasma weapons, and several laser cannons. She was equipped with an armor belt and force shield plus electronic warfare decoys and sensors. The ship’s communications, navigation, FTL propulsion, and AI computer were all state-of-the-art. The crew of 126 officers and men, was highly trained and already on board. When the Warrior traveled through the unrelenting and unforgiving medium of space it would serve as the crew’s heartfelt home. The brief, relaxed sense of freedom that Gallant had enjoyed between deployments was coming to an end; his shoulders tightened in anticipation. He stepped onto the enclosed gangplank and saluted the flag that was displayed on the bow. Then he saluted the officer of the watch and asked, “Request permission to come aboard, sir?” “Permission granted, sir,” said Midshipman Gabriel in a gravelly voice that was totally at odds with his huge grin, dimpled cheeks, and boyish freckled face. Was I ever that young? thought Gallant before he recalled he was only a few years older. Boarding the ship, Gallant’s eyes widened as he sought to drink everything in. He was impressed by the innovative technologies that had been freshly installed. The novelty of his role on this ship was not lost on him. Upon reaching the bridge, he ordered Gabriel to use the ship’s intercom to call the crew to attention. “All officers, report to the bridge!” Gabriel ordered. When the officers had gathered around him a minute later, he said, “All hands, attention!” Drawn together on every deck, the crew stopped their work, came to attention, and listened. Gallant recited his orders, “Pursuant to fleet orders, I, Lieutenant Henry Gallant, assume command of the United Planet ship, Warrior, on this date at the Mars’ Space Station.” He continued reciting several more official paragraphs, but from that moment forward, the Warrior was a member of the United Planets’ fleet and Gallant was officially her commanding officer. With the formal requirements concluded, Gallant spoke over the address system: “At ease. Officers and crew of the Warrior, I’m proud to serve with you. I look forward to getting to know each one of you. For now, we must outfit this ship and prepare to do our job as part of the fleet. There are battles to be fought, a war to win, and the Warrior has a key role to play.” Satisfied with his brief statement, Gallant nodded to Gabriel. Over the address system Gabriel announced, “Attention! All hands dismissed! Return to your regular duties.” Gallant stood before the officers on the bridge, addressed each by name and shook their hands, starting with the executive officer and then the department heads; operations, engineering, and weapons; followed by the junior officers. His first impression was that they were an enthusiastic and professional group. “I will provide prioritized work items for each of you to address in the next few days as we prepare for our upcoming shakedown cruise. For now, you can return to your duties. Thank you.” Gallant entered the Combat Information Center and pulled on a neural interface to the ship’s AI. The dozens of delicate silicon probes touched his scalp at key points. It sensitively picked up wave patterns emanating from his thoughts and allowed him to communicate with the AI directly. Gallant formed a mental image of the Warrior's interior. While Gallant could use the interface for evaluating the ship’s condition, the controls remained under manual control. He hashed out his priorities for his department heads to work on and sent them messages. He ordered them to address the myriad of items he had been mentally considering for hours. While he would have liked to have had a discussion with each officer individually, that would simply have to wait. It was time to get back to the space elevator. Gallant frowned in frustration at being pulled away by his appointment: I’d better hustle to SIA.

A gallery of Science Fiction Ledgends and theiw works. Science Fiction Writers Hall of Fame Isaac Asimov Asimov is one of the foundational voices of 20th-century science fiction. His work often incorporated hard science, creating an engaging blend of scientific accuracy and imaginative speculation. Known for his "Robot" and "Foundation" series, Asimov's ability to integrate scientific principles with compelling narratives has left an enduring legacy in the field. Arthur C. Clarke The author of numerous classics including "2001: A Space Odyssey," Clarke's work is notable for its visionary, often prophetic approach to future technologies and space exploration. His thoughtful, well-researched narratives stand as enduring examples of 'hard' science fiction. Robert A. Heinlein Heinlein, one of science fiction's most controversial and innovative writers, is best known for books like "Stranger in a Strange Land" and "Starship Troopers." His work is known for its strong political ideologies and exploration of societal norms. Philip K. Dick With stories often marked by paranoid and dystopian themes, Dick's work explores philosophical, sociological, and political ideas. His books like "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" inspired numerous films, solidifying his impact on popular culture. Ray Bradbury Known for his poetic prose and poignant societal commentary, Bradbury's work transcends genre. His dystopian novel "Fahrenheit 451" remains a touchstone in the canon of 20th-century literature, and his short stories continue to inspire readers and writers alike. Ursula K. Le Guin Le Guin's works, such as "The Left Hand of Darkness" and the "Earthsea" series, often explored themes of gender, sociology, and anthropology. Her lyrical prose and profound explorations of human nature have left an indelible mark on science fiction. Frank Herbert The author of the epic "Dune" series, Herbert crafted a detailed and complex future universe. His work stands out for its intricate plotlines, political intrigue, and environmental themes. William Gibson Gibson is known for his groundbreaking cyberpunk novel "Neuromancer," where he coined the term 'cyberspace.' His speculative fiction often explores the effects of technology on society. H.G. Wells Although Wells's works were published on the cusp of the 20th century, his influence carried well into it. Known for classics like "The War of the Worlds" and "The Time Machine", Wells is often hailed as a father of science fiction. His stories, filled with innovative ideas and social commentary, have made an indelible impact on the genre. Larry Niven Known for his 'Ringworld' series and 'Known Space' stories, Niven's hard science fiction works are noted for their imaginative, scientifically plausible scenarios and compelling world-building. Octavia Butler Butler's work often incorporated elements of Afrofuturism and tackled issues of race and gender. Her "Xenogenesis" series and "Kindred" are known for their unique and poignant explorations of human nature and society. Orson Scott Card Best known for his "Ender's Game" series, Card's work combines engaging narrative with introspective examination of characters. His stories often explore ethical and moral dilemmas. Alfred Bester Bester's "The Stars My Destination" and "The Demolished Man" are considered classics of the genre. His work is recognized for its powerful narratives and innovative use of language. Kurt Vonnegut Though not strictly a science fiction writer, Vonnegut's satirical and metafictional work, like "Slaughterhouse-Five," often used sci-fi elements to highlight the absurdities of human condition. Harlan Ellison Known for his speculative and often dystopian short stories, Ellison's work is distinguished by its cynical tone, inventive narratives, and biting social commentary. Stanislaw Lem Lem's work, such as "Solaris," often dealt with philosophical questions. Philip José Farmer Known for his "Riverworld" series, Farmer's work often explored complex philosophical and social themes through creative world-building and the use of historical characters. He is also recognized for his innovations in the genre and the sexual explicitness of some of his work. J. G. Ballard Best known for his novels "Crash" and "High-Rise", Ballard's work often explored dystopian modernities and psychological landscapes. His themes revolved around surrealistic and post-apocalyptic visions of the human condition, earning him a unique place in the sci-fi genre. AI Science Fiction Hall of Fame As a science fiction aficionado and AI expert, there's nothing more exciting to me t han exploring the relationship between sci-fi literature and artificial intelligence. Science fiction is an innovative genre, often years ahead of its time, an d has influenced AI's development in ways you might not expect. But it's not just techies like us who should be interested - students of AI can learn a lot from these visionary authors. So buckle up, as we're about to embark on an insider's journey through the most famous science fiction writers in the hall of fame! The Science Fiction-AI Connection Science fiction and AI go together like peanut butter and jelly. In fact, one could argue that some of our most advanced AI concepts and technologies sprung from the seeds planted by sci-fi authors. I remember as a young techie, curled up with my dog, reading Isaac Asimov’s "I, Robot". I was just a teenager, but that book completely changed how I saw the potential of AI. The Most Famous Sci-Fi Writers and their AI Visions Ready for a deep dive into the works of the greats? Let's take a closer look at some of the most famous science fiction writers in the hall of fame, and how their imaginations have shaped the AI we know today. Isaac Asimov: Crafting the Ethics of AI You can't talk about AI in science fiction without first mentioning Isaac Asimov. His "I, Robot" introduced the world to the Three Laws of Robotics, a concept that continues to influence AI development today. As an AI student, I remember being fascinated by how Asimov's robotic laws echoed the ethical considerations we must grapple with in real-world AI. Philip K. Dick: Dreaming of Synthetic Humans Next up, Philip K. Dick. If you've seen Blade Runner, you've seen his influence at work. In "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" (the book Blade Runner is based on), Dick challenges us to question what it means to be human and how AI might blur those lines. It's a thought that has certainly kept me up late on more than a few coding nights! Arthur C. Clarke: AI, Autonomy, and Evolution Arthur C. Clarke's "2001: A Space Odyssey" has been both a source of inspiration and caution in my work. The AI character HAL 9000 is an eerie portrayal of autonomous AI systems' potential power and risks. It's a reminder that AI, like any technology, can be a double-edged sword. William Gibson: AI in Cyberspace Finally, William Gibson's "Neuromancer" gave us a vision of AI in cyberspace before the internet was even a household name. I still remember my shock reading about an AI entity in the digital ether - years later, that same concept is integral to AI in cybersecurity. The Power of Creativity These authors' works are testaments to the power of creativity in imagining the possibilities of AI. As students, you'll need to push boundaries and think outside the box - just like these authors did. Understanding Potential and Limitations The stories these authors spun provide us with vivid scenarios of AI's potential and limitations. They remind us that while AI has massive potential, it's not without its challenges and dangers. Conclusion And there we have it - our deep dive into the most famous science fiction writers in the hall of fame and their influence on AI. Their work is not just fiction; it's a guiding light, illuminating the path that has led us to the AI world we live in today. As students, we have the opportunity to shape the AI of tomorrow, just as these authors did. So why not learn from the best? Science Fiction Greats of the 21st Century Neal Stephenson is renowned for his complex narratives and incredibly detailed world-building. His Baroque Cycle trilogy is a historical masterpiece, while Snow Crash brought the concept of the 'Metaverse' into popular culture. China Miéville has won several prestigious awards for his 'weird fiction,' a blend of fantasy and science fiction. Books like Perdido Street Station and The City & The City are both acclaimed and popular. His work is known for its rich, evocative language and innovative concepts. Kim Stanley Robinson is best known for his Mars trilogy, an epic tale about the terraforming and colonization of Mars. He's famous for blending hard science, social commentary, and environmental themes. He continues this trend in his 21st-century works like the climate-focused New York 2140. Margaret Atwood, while also recognized for her mainstream fiction, has made significant contributions to science fiction. Her novel The Handmaid's Tale and its sequel The Testaments provide a chilling dystopian vision of a misogynistic society. Her MaddAddam trilogy further underscores her unique blend of speculative fiction and real-world commentary. Alastair Reynolds is a leading figure in the hard science fiction subgenre, known for his space opera series Revelation Space. His work, often centered around post-humanism and AI, is praised for its scientific rigor and inventive plotlines. Reynolds, a former scientist at the European Space Agency, incorporates authentic scientific concepts into his stories. Paolo Bacigalupi's works often deal with critical environmental and socio-economic themes. His debut novel The Windup Girl won both the Hugo and Nebula awards and is renowned for its bio-punk vision of the future. His YA novel, Ship Breaker, also received critical acclaim, winning the Michael L. Printz Award. Ann Leckie's debut novel Ancillary Justice, and its sequels, are notable for their exploration of AI, gender, and colonialism. Ancillary Justice won the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke Awards, a rare feat in science fiction literature. Her unique narrative styles and complex world-building are highly appreciated by fans and critics alike. Iain M. Banks was a Scottish author known for his expansive and imaginative 'Culture' series. Though he passed away in 2013, his work remains influential in the genre. His complex storytelling and exploration of post-scarcity societies left a significant mark in science fiction. William Gibson is one of the key figures in the cyberpunk sub-genre, with his novel Neuromancer coining the term 'cyberspace.' In the 21st century, he continued to innovate with his Blue Ant trilogy. His influence on the genre, in terms of envisioning the impacts of technology on society, is immense. Ted Chiang is highly regarded for his thoughtful and philosophical short stories. His collection Stories of Your Life and Others includes "Story of Your Life," which was adapted into the film Arrival. Each of his carefully crafted tales explores a different scientific or philosophical premise. Charlie Jane Anders is a diverse writer who combines elements of science fiction, fantasy, and more in her books. Her novel All the Birds in the Sky won the 2017 Nebula Award for Best Novel. She's also known for her work as an editor of the science fiction site io9. N.K. Jemisin is the first author to win the Hugo Award for Best Novel three years in a row, for her Broken Earth Trilogy. Her works are celebrated for their diverse characters, intricate world-building, and exploration of social issues. She's one of the most influential contemporary voices in fantasy and science fiction. Liu Cixin is China's most prominent science fiction writer and the first Asian author to win the Hugo Award for Best Novel, for The Three-Body Problem. His Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy is praised for its grand scale and exploration of cosmic civilizations. His work blends hard science with complex philosophical ideas. John Scalzi is known for his accessible writing style and humor. His Old Man's War series is a popular military science fiction saga, and his standalone novel Redshirts won the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel. He's also recognized for his blog "Whatever," where he discusses writing, politics, and more. Cory Doctorow is both a prolific author and an advocate for internet freedom. His novel Little Brother, a critique of increased surveillance, is frequently used in educational settings. His other novels, like Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, are known for their examination of digital rights and technology's impact on society. Octavia Butler (1947-2006) was an award-winning author known for her incisive exploration of race, gender, and societal structures within speculative fiction. Her works like the Parable series and Fledgling have continued to influence and inspire readers well into the 21st century. Her final novel, Fledgling, a unique take on vampire mythology, was published in 2005. Peter F. Hamilton is best known for his space opera series such as the Night's Dawn trilogy and the Commonwealth Saga. His work is often noted for its scale, complex plotting, and exploration of advanced technology and alien civilizations. Despite their length, his books are praised for maintaining tension and delivering satisfying conclusions. Ken Liu is a prolific author and translator in science fiction. His short story "The Paper Menagerie" is the first work of fiction to win the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Awards. As a translator, he's known for bringing Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem to English-speaking readers. Ian McDonald is a British author known for his vibrant and diverse settings, from a future India in River of Gods to a colonized Moon in the Luna series. His work often mixes science fiction with other genres, and his narrative style has been praised as vivid and cinematic. He has won several awards, including the Hugo, for his novellas and novels. James S.A. Corey is the pen name of collaborators Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. They're known for The Expanse series, a modern space opera exploring politics, humanity, and survival across the solar system. The series has been adapted into a critically acclaimed television series. Becky Chambers is praised for her optimistic, character-driven novels. Her debut, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, kickstarted the popular Wayfarers series and was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award. Her focus on interpersonal relationships and diverse cultures sets her work apart from more traditional space operas. Yoon Ha Lee's Machineries of Empire trilogy, beginning with Ninefox Gambit, is celebrated for its complex world-building and innovative use of technology. The series is known for its intricate blend of science, magic, and politics. Lee is also noted for his exploration of gender and identity in his works. Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota series is a speculative future history that blends philosophy, politics, and social issues in a post-scarcity society. The first book in the series, Too Like the Lightning, was a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Novel. Her work is appreciated for its unique narrative voice and in-depth world-building. Charlie Stross specializes in hard science fiction and space opera, with notable works including the Singularity Sky series and the Laundry Files series. His books often feature themes such as artificial intelligence, post-humanism, and technological singularity. His novella "Palimpsest" won the Hugo Award in 2010. Kameron Hurley is known for her raw and gritty approach to science fiction and fantasy. Her novel The Light Brigade is a time-bending military science fiction story, while her Bel Dame Apocrypha series has been praised for its unique world-building. Hurley's work often explores themes of gender, power, and violence. Andy Weir shot to fame with his debut novel The Martian, a hard science fiction tale about a man stranded on Mars. It was adapted into a successful Hollywood film starring Matt Damon. His later works, Artemis and Project Hail Mary, continue his trend of scientifically rigorous, yet accessible storytelling. Jeff VanderMeer is a central figure in the New Weird genre, blending elements of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. His Southern Reach Trilogy, starting with Annihilation, explores ecological themes through a mysterious, surreal narrative. The trilogy has been widely praised, with Annihilation adapted into a major motion picture. Nnedi Okorafor's Africanfuturist works blend science fiction, fantasy, and African culture. Her novella Binti won both the Hugo and Nebula awards. Her works are often celebrated for their unique settings, compelling characters, and exploration of themes such as cultural conflict and identity. Claire North is a pen name of Catherine Webb, who also writes under Kate Griffin. As North, she has written several critically acclaimed novels, including The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, which won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. Her works are known for their unique concepts and thoughtful exploration of time and memory. M.R. Carey is the pen name of Mike Carey, known for his mix of horror and science fiction. His novel The Girl With All the Gifts is a fresh take on the zombie genre, and it was later adapted into a film. Carey's works are celebrated for their compelling characters and interesting twists on genre conventions. Greg Egan is an Australian author known for his hard science fiction novels and short stories. His works often delve into complex scientific and mathematical concepts, such as artificial life and the nature of consciousness. His novel Diaspora is considered a classic of hard science fiction. Steven Erikson is best known for his epic fantasy series, the Malazan Book of the Fallen. However, he has also made significant contributions to science fiction with works like Rejoice, A Knife to the Meat. His works are known for their complex narratives, expansive world-building, and philosophical undertones. Vernor Vinge is a retired San Diego State University professor of mathematics and computer science and a Hugo award-winning science fiction author. Although his most famous work, A Fire Upon the Deep, was published in the 20th century, his later work including the sequel, Children of the Sky, has continued to influence the genre. He is also known for his 1993 essay "The Coming Technological Singularity," in which he argues that rapid technological progress will soon lead to the end of the human era. Jo Walton has written several novels that mix science fiction and fantasy, including the Hugo and Nebula-winning Among Others. Her Thessaly series, starting with The Just City, is a thought experiment about establishing Plato's Republic in the ancient past. She is also known for her non-fiction work on the history of science fiction and fantasy. Hugh Howey is best known for his series Wool, which started as a self-published short story and grew into a successful series. His works often explore post-apocalyptic settings and the struggle for survival and freedom. Howey's success has been a notable example of the potential of self-publishing in the digital age. Richard K. Morgan is a British author known for his cyberpunk and dystopian narratives. His debut novel Altered Carbon, a hardboiled cyberpunk mystery, was adapted into a Netflix series. His works are characterized by action-packed plots, gritty settings, and exploration of identity and human nature. Hannu Rajaniemi is a Finnish author known for his unique blend of hard science and imaginative concepts. His debut novel, The Quantum Thief, and its sequels have been praised for their inventive ideas and complex, layered narratives. Rajaniemi, who holds a Ph.D. in mathematical physics, incorporates authentic scientific concepts into his fiction. Stephen Baxter is a British author who often writes hard science fiction. His Xeelee sequence is an expansive future history series covering billions of years. Baxter is known for his rigorous application of scientific principles and his exploration of cosmic scale and deep time. C.J. Cherryh is an American author who has written more than 60 books since the mid-1970s. Her Foreigner series, which began in the late '90s and has continued into the 21st century, is a notable science fiction series focusing on political conflict and cultural interaction. She has won multiple Hugo Awards and was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Elizabeth Bear is an American author known for her diverse range of science fiction and fantasy novels. Her novel Hammered, which combines cybernetics and Norse mythology, started the acclaimed Jenny Casey trilogy. She has won multiple awards, including the Hugo, for her novels and short stories. Larry Niven is an American author best known for his Ringworld series, which won the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards. In the 21st century, he continued the series and collaborated with other authors on several other works, including the Bowl of Heaven series with Gregory Benford. His works often explore hard science concepts and future history. David Mitchell is known for his genre-blending novels, such as Cloud Atlas, which weaves six interconnected stories ranging from historical fiction to post-apocalyptic science fiction. The novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and adapted into a film. His works often explore themes of reality, identity, and interconnectedness. Robert J. Sawyer is a Canadian author known for his accessible style and blend of hard science fiction with philosophical and ethical themes. His Neanderthal Parallax trilogy, which started in 2002, examines an alternate world where Neanderthals became the dominant species. He is a recipient of the Hugo, Nebula, and John W. Campbell Memorial awards. Daniel Suarez is known for his high-tech thrillers. His debut novel Daemon and its sequel Freedom™ explore the implications of autonomous computer programs on society. His books are praised for their action-packed narratives and thought-provoking themes related to technology and society. Kazuo Ishiguro is a Nobel Prize-winning author, known for his poignant and thoughtful novels. Never Let Me Go, published in 2005, combines elements of science fiction and dystopian fiction in a heartbreaking narrative about cloned children raised for organ donation. Ishiguro's work often grapples with themes of memory, time, and self-delusion. Malka Older is a humanitarian worker and author known for her Infomocracy trilogy. The series, starting with Infomocracy, presents a near-future world where micro-democracy has become the dominant form of government. Her work stands out for its political savvy and exploration of information technology. James Lovegrove is a versatile British author, known for his Age of Odin series and Pantheon series which blend science fiction with mythology. His Firefly novel series, based on the popular Joss Whedon TV show, has been well received by fans. He's praised for his engaging writing style and inventive blending of genres. Emily St. John Mandel is known for her post-apocalyptic novel Station Eleven, which won the Arthur C. Clarke Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award. Her works often explore themes of memory, fate, and interconnectedness. Her writing is praised for its evocative prose and depth of character. Sue Burke's debut novel Semiosis is an engaging exploration of human and alien coexistence, as well as the sentience of plants. The book was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and spawned a sequel, Interference. Burke's work is known for its realistic characters and unique premise. Tade Thompson is a British-born Yoruba author known for his Rosewater trilogy, an inventive blend of alien invasion and cyberpunk tropes set in a future Nigeria. The first book in the series, Rosewater, won the Arthur C. Clarke Award. His works are celebrated for their unique settings and blend of African culture with classic and innovative science fiction themes. Send Your Suggestion First name Last name Email What did you like best? How can we improve? Send Feedback Thanks for sharing your feedback with us!

Excerpt from the seventh book of the Henry Gallant Saga, Henry Gallant and the Great Ship. Henry Gallant and the Great Ship AMAZON Chapter 1 An Unfortunate Turn of Events As soon as the morning watch settled in, Captain Henry Gallant walked onto the Constellation’s bridge. The Officer-of-the-Deck rose and vacated the command chair without speaking. The voyage had lasted long enough for the crew to become accustomed to his routine. Habitually, during the first minutes of the day, he examined the ship’s vital operational parameters from his bedside monitor before going into CIC for a detailed task force sitrep. Blips from the combat space patrol (CSP) were visible on the main viewer. The speakers broadcast communication traffic from distant Hawkeyes. Once he had satisfied himself that all was as it should be, he appeared on the bridge and assessed the more mundane needs for the day. The OOD handed him a list of completed tasks and those that demanded his approval. During this activity, he was lost in contemplation, and no one dared interrupt his train of thought. Only after dictating his orders for the day did he relax and give a word of encouragement to the OOD. Then he disappeared below decks for his daily walkabout, where he gauged the temperament of the crew. The hour exercise through the spacecraft carrier allowed him to maintain his fitness. This ritual was the most efficient use of his time since it also allowed him to observe ongoing maintenance and repair activities. On the one hand, the number of administrative duties clamoring for his attention limited his time; on the other, keeping in sync with his ship’s pulse was vital to making good decisions. It brought a faint smile to his lips when he resolved to shift more of the clerical burden onto his XO. Margret Fletcher had a talent for paperwork and was known for her no-nonsense adherence to the regs. Even though he overloaded her of late, she had responded with her usual zeal. As he passed through compartment after compartment, he dictated audio notes into his comm pin about items that needed attention. He marched along the corridors and stepped through the open hatches, ever mindful of the crew’s attention. Although immersed in his process, the crew discerned that his military instincts were on full alert. He would notice the slightest failure of attention to detail as the men and women went about their jobs. Occasionally, he heard a laugh or good-natured ribbing. That was well. A crew that could laugh while working would faithfully execute their duties. He enjoyed the sameness of each day; it reassured him that his world remained rational. It had been two days since the Constellation had poked her nose into the Ross star system. Gallant congratulated himself on making the deployment from Earth so rapidly. It had been a long and arduous two-month grind, but Task Force 34 was finally ready to relieve Task Force 31 as guardian of this system. He shifted his mind back to the disturbing initial surveillance reports that had perplexed him for the last twenty-four hours. Task Force 31 was not visible, which by itself, wasn’t alarming. A planetary body might block their light, though they weren’t responding to radio signals either. Again, they might be on the other side of the star, and the speed of light wasn’t being accommodating. Another calculation percolated into his consciousness. He had sent Hawkeyes out on a sweep of the system. So far, nothing was amiss, but there was confusing radio chatter from the planets indicating that some horrific event had occurred recently. Gallant returned to the bridge in time to review the latest recon update. None of the information was reassuring. He noticed an anomaly in the data that prickled the hairs on the back of his neck. Though the statistics were mysteriously thin and precariously riddled with contaminated inconsistencies, they were coaxing him toward a disturbing conclusion. He worried his premonition might be correct and ordered the CIC to conduct an AI simulation analysis. It wasn’t long before Commander Fletcher stepped onto the bridge. “Good morning, Captain,” she said. Then with a frown, she added, “I have the results.” Gallant spun in his command chair and cast a concerned eye on her. She held a tablet by two fingers out in front of her as if she had found it in a vat of something vile. “Morning XO,” said Gallant, taking the device. Swiping through the screens, he absorbed the information while his heartbeat rose. He wanted to remain calm to reinforce his reputation as imperturbable. He didn’t want Fletcher or anyone else to suspect that he could lose his composure. But he was bursting to rush into CIC. He wanted to review the raw data to verify that it was accurate, but he knew that the analysts would have been meticulous in developing this report. She interrupted his concentration. “You were right, sir.” “Ha—h’m,” he said, clearing his throat. He took a deep breath and forced himself to appear relaxed. Fletcher shook her head and prodded, “Looks like an enormous debris field—possibly with escape pods.” She pointed to the area spread deep throughout the star system’s heart, halfway between planets Bravo and Charlie. The OOD and the chief of the watch inched closer, craning their necks to get a peek at the tablet. Gallant recalled the disturbing image of the original data. Understanding flooded over him. He visualized what must have taken place, and it took an enormous effort to suppress his emotions. She scowled. “No sign of Task Force 31.” Still, he didn’t respond. She muttered, “That doesn’t necessarily mean . . .” Everyone on the bridge gazed expectantly at him. Like a father who returns home to find his front door smashed open, he ordered, “OOD, open a channel to all ships.” A moment later, the OOD reported, “Channel open to all ships, Commodore.” “To all ships, this is Commodore Gallant; set general quarters, assume formation diamond 4.4.” “Aye aye, sir,” came the response from each ship. The task force split into four strike forces. Captain Jackson of the Courageous led the first strike force designated 34.1. It was followed one light hour behind by 34.2 and 34.3, led by Captain Hernandez of the Indefatigable and Captain Chu of the Inflexible, respectively. They kept a light-hour separation from each other. Finally, Gallant led Constellation and Invincible in 34.4, another light hour behind the rest. The cruisers and destroyers were split amongst the strike forces. The dispersed strike forces looked like a baseball diamond with the Constellation at home plate. It took several hours to complete the maneuver. Satisfied that the ships were sufficiently far apart for the majority to survive a blast from the Great Ship’s super-laser, he ordered, “Task Force change course to 030 Mark 2, all ahead full.” Gallant waited anxiously on the bridge for the entire twenty-four hours it took for the task force to crawl across the Ross star system. Some telltale blips appeared on the scope interspersed within a belt of asteroids. When they were finally close enough, they saw the remains of many half-dead ships. They began picking up distress signals of countless escape pods. Officers and watch-standers on the bridge stared at the viewscreen, trying to glimpse the wreckage. Gallant’s eye estimated the number of blips. They could only be the remnants of Task Force 31. It was worse than he imagined—a terrible loss of life. “OOD, prepare med-techs. Send the search and rescue teams to recover the escape pod survivors.” The initial action report was sent by the senior surviving officer, Captain Raymond. It was sketchy. It couldn’t be called a ‘battle’ report since not a single ship of the task force had fired a shot. After a brief visit to Constellation’s sickbay, the officer reported to Gallant’s stateroom. Raymond was not quite fifty, but his balding head, sunken eyes, and beaked nose made him appear older. His long black mustache with grey flecks drooped, making him appear to frown. His uniform was in tatters, and he had several bandaged injuries that had been tended to by the ship’s surgeon. His thickset body was powerful, but he stood slumped over, pain etched across his face. “That’s the scorched wreck of my ship, the Dauntless,” said Captain Raymond, pointing to the viewscreen. The broken battlecruiser, along with the crippled remnants of four cruisers and a dozen destroyers, were all that was left of Commodore Pearson’s Task Force 31. “Commodore Pearson orders were to hold the system at all costs. Admiral Graves had assured him that the Great Ship would not appear. He was told that it would have to protect the Chameleon home planet in the Cygni star system against the Titans. At least that was President Neumann’s thinking after he found out that the Chameleon had only the one Great Ship left.” “The United Planets has been in negotiation with the aliens for over a year,” said Gallant. “Was there no progress?” There was anguish in Raymond’s voice. “None. And the Chameleon were angry.” He paused, dropping his gaze. “The governor told them to shove off, no deal was possible. After that ultimatum, things turned ugly.” Gallant frowned. “Take your time and start from the beginning.” Raymond’s words were clipped. “Task Force 31 had one carrier, four battlecruisers, and two cruiser-destroyer squadrons between planets Charlie and Bravo when the Great Ship appeared. They demanded that the United Planets evacuate the star system. Well, you know Pearson, no way that was happening. He sounded battle stations and ordered his ships to disperse to present a minimal target for the Chameleons.” When Raymond hesitated, Gallant prompted, “What happened next?” “The action was a disaster—a complete shock. The Chameleon looked at the dispersion as a threat and warned him to stand-down, withdraw, or surrender. After a few minutes, they fired.” He cast his eyes down. “The single blast was so devastating that it destroyed nearly all our ships. The blinding light and searing heat crippled my Dauntless and disintegrated most of the task force. The crippled remainders launched escape pods and waited for a follow-up salvo that, mercifully, never came. We hobbled out of the way. I sent a message to the governor on Charlie.” Raymond swallowed hard and furrowed his brow. “The governor’s response was to call it ‘an unfortunate turn of events.’” “I learned later that the Chameleon had threatened to make peace with the Titans if we didn’t yield the system. They must have since it gave them the freedom of action to leave their home world unprotected and deal with us.” He handed Gallant a flash drive. “This contains a plot of the action and the recordings of the communications between our ships and the governor. I’ve stuck my neck out to get this information on the record. You should collect and check the wreckage along with my observations.” “I understand. Some powerful men in the admiralty will be worried. I will describe the action in a detailed report to be sent to Earth,” said Gallant. He worried about how to keep Task Force 34 from suffering the same fate as their predecessor.

Excerpt of the book Midshipman Henry Gallant in Space. Midshipman Henry Gallant in Space AMAZON Joining the Fleet 1 A massive solar flare roared across the sun, crackling every display console in the tiny spacecraft. “No need to worry, young man. We’re almost there,” said the aged pilot. “I’m not concerned about the storm,” said newly commissioned Midshipman Henry Gallant. Eagerly, he shifted in his seat to get a better view of the massive battlecruiser Repulse that would be his home for the next two years. She was a magnificent fighting machine, a powerful beast in orbit around Jupiter. The pilot maneuvered to minimize the effects of the x-ray and gamma radiation until the craft slid into the cold black shadow of the Repulse. Gallant could hardly contain his delight as the tiny ship quivered in the grip of the warship’s tractors. By the time the docking hatch finally slid open, Gallant was waiting impatiently for his first glimpse inside the warship. He hurried to the bridge. The officer of the watch stood next to the empty captain’s chair, surrounded by a dizzying array of displays and virtual readouts. The officer rested his hand on the panel that concealed the Artificial Intelligence (AI) tactical analyzer. “Midshipman Henry Gallant, reporting aboard, sir.” Drawing his gangly seventeen-year-old figure to its full height, he gave a snappy salute. He tugged at his uniform jacket to pull the buttons into proper alignment. “Welcome aboard, Mr. Gallant. I’m Lieutenant Mather.” Mather was of average height, barrel-chested with angular facial features and a stoic look. Beyond a glance, he showed little interest in the new arrival. “Give me your comm pin.” Gallant handed over his pin, Mather made several quick selections on a touch screen, then swiped it past the chip reader. While his ID loaded into the ship’s computer, Gallant took the opportunity to look around. The semicircular compartment, though spacious, bristled with displays, control panels, and analysis stations. From his academy training, he could guess most of the functions. There were communications, radar, weapons, and astrogation, plus a few he couldn’t identify. Several of the positions were vacant operating automatically. Gallant’s fingers twitched, eager to be a part of the bridge’s efficient operation. A huge view screen dominating the compartment displayed Jupiter. An orbiting space station was visible against the vastness of the gas giant. He marveled at the spectacle. “Junior officer authorization verified. The ID pin has been updated with Repulse’s access codes,” a computer’s voice announced from a nearby speaker. Its neutral, disinterested tone reminded Gallant of a rather cold and distant teacher he had had in basic math years ago. ”Did you bring your gear aboard?” asked Mather. “My duffle bag is at the docking port, sir.” The aged pilot had helped Gallant carry his gear from the shuttlecraft onto Repulse. Then, after a cheery smile and a friendly, “Good luck,” he climbed back in his shuttle and left. Having no family of his own, Gallant had found some faint comfort in the good wishes. ”I’ll have your gear sent to your quarters. But, for now, you had better see the captain,” said Mather, raising an eyebrow at Gallant. “Aye aye, sir,” said Gallant. Mather turned to one of the bridge’s junior officers, a young woman. She wore a single thin gold stripe on her blouse sleeve, indicating her rank as Midshipman First Class, one-year senior to Gallant. He ordered, “Midshipman Mitchel, take Mr. Gallant to the captain’s cabin.” As they left the bridge, Mitchel said, “Henry Gallant . . . I remember you from the academy. I’m surprised you’re still in uniform.” Gallant gritted his teeth, as he had done many times before when confronted with what he perceived as overt disapproval. He didn’t recognize her, but he couldn’t help but observe that she was an attractive brunette with a trim figure. “Will you be training as a fighter pilot or missile weapons officer?” she asked. “I had basic fighter training on Mars and will be taking advanced pilot training with Repulse’s Squadron 111.” “I’m a qualified second-seat astrogator in 111. Most likely, we’ll wind up flying together at some point.” Because her demeanor revealed nothing about whether that idea repelled or appealed to her, Gallant nodded. When they reached the captain’s cabin, she said, “I’m Kelsey, by the way.” Then, as she turned to leave, she added as an afterthought, “Good luck.” Gallant watched her walk away. He wondered if her remark was sincere. *** Gallant stood like a statue inside the open hatch. Captain Kenneth Caine was seated with his back to him, reviewing Gallant’s military record, which was displayed on a computer screen. Clean-shaven with close-cropped graying hair, Caine was solidly built with square shoulders and a craggy face. His well-tailored uniform hugged his robust frame, accentuating his military bearing. From his brief time onboard, Gallant had already realized that Repulse was an orderly ship, and that Kenneth Caine was an orderly captain. Precision and discipline were expected. He was suddenly conscious that his tangled brown hair was longer than regulations allowed. The cabin was sparsely furnished in a traditional, starkly military fashion. A desk in one well-lit corner held the single personal item in the room: a photo of an attractive, mature woman with a pleasant smile. The sadness in her eyes hinted at the difficult bargain she had made as the lonely wife of a dedicated space officer. While the captain flipped through the personnel folder, Gallant’s gaze wandered to the compartment’s viewscreen. The solar flare had subsided, leaving gigantic colorful Jupiter filling most of the view. “At ease, Mr. Gallant,” said Caine, finally turning to face the newcomer. “Welcome aboard the Repulse.” Gallant relaxed his stance and said in a strong, clear voice, “Thank you, sir.” Caine looked him up and down and scrunched his face before asking, “What do you know of this ship’s mission, Mr. Gallant?” “As the flagship of the Jupiter Fleet, Repulse must prevent alien encroachment along the frontier, sir,” ventured Gallant. “Quite right, as far as that goes. But you’ll find, Mr. Gallant, that this task is more nuanced and layered than may be apparent. As a United Planets officer, you must find shades of meaning that can affect your performance. What would you surmise is behind this frontier watch?” The captain’s brisk voice demanded a resolute answer. Gallant spoke guardedly at first, but as his confidence grew, his voice gained assurance. “Well, sir, UP knows little about the aliens’ origins or intentions. They appear to have bases on the satellites of the outer planets. Clashes with their scout ships have proven troublesome, and Fleet Command wants to gather more intelligence. With so little known about alien technology, it isn’t easy to assess the best way to repel it. Still, this fleet must forestall an invasion of Earth by preventing the aliens from gaining a foothold in this sector.” ”And what would you say will be essential in achieving victory in battle?” Leaning forward with his hands behind him to balance out his jutting jaw, Gallant said with fierce intensity, “Surprise, sir! I assume that is why you’ve dispersed most of the fleet. So you can search the widest possible region of space for the first signs of significant alien activity.” Caine examined the young man again as if seeing him for the first time. “Good. We will not be the ones surprised. We will be prepared. You can appreciate how important it is that Repulse performs well.” Then, he added, “And I will allow nothing, and no one, to interfere with our mission.” “Yes, sir,” said Gallant, feeling the sting from the pointed comment. “Tell me, Mr. Gallant,” said the captain, shifting in his chair to find a more comfortable position, “why did you apply to the academy?” Gallant’s voice swelled with passion. “For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to pilot spaceships and explore the unknown, sir.” ”You are undoubtedly aware that many people wanted your hide raised up the flagpole.” Caine’s eyebrow twitched. “Although your progress for two academic years at the academy was respectable, many doubt that a Natural can compete in the fleet. Today, your real qualification for advancement is your double helix.” Caine continued, “Frankly, I’m astonished you have gotten this far without the advantages of genetic engineering. You’re a bit of a mystery that has yet to unfold.” Gallant didn’t like being referred to as a mystery, but he had his own uncertainty about how his future might evolve. Caine said, “Now that you are commissioned, you must serve a two-year deployment on Repulse. Then, if you complete all your qualifications and receive strong ranking marks, you may be recommended for promotion to ensign.” He gave a weak smile and added. “Learn your duties, obey orders, and you will have nothing to fear.” Caine searched Gallant’s face. “Well, nothing to say for yourself?” Gallant thrust his chin out and said, “I am prepared to do my duty to the best of my ability, sir!” “It is exactly ‘the best of your ability’ that is in question, young man,” responded Caine.

Excerpt of book Midshipman Henry Gallent at the Academy. Midshipman Henry Gallant at the Academy AMAZON 1 Threadbare Still a boy, not yet a man, Henry Gallant dug his stiff fingers deep into his pockets. He shivered as the bitter-cold wind clawed through his threadbare clothes . “Do you see it?” asked the elderly woman beside him, pulling her shawl tight around her. The overhead streetlamp offered little illumination as they squinted down the dark, winding dirt road. “Not yet,” said Gallant, standing on his tiptoes. The woman was a head shorter than him with a careworn face that the chill air made rosy. Her elegant features revealed that she had once been a beauty, and while time had weathered her, she had aged gracefully. Gallant stomped his feet impatiently while his mind was already racing, considering the prospects for his future. She asked, “Will you visit me when you get liberty?” “Of course, Grandmother,” he said, but he had no idea when that might be. “You know I’ve always tried to do my best, ever since . . .,” Gallant took a deep breath and wrapped his arms tight around his chest. “They were heroes, you know,” she said softly. “I know,” he said as the painful memory boiled up. She had told him many times about the meteor that struck the family outpost on Phobos when he was a child. His parents had only seconds to seal him in an escape pod and couldn’t save themselves. The picture his mind conjured up was of their selfless act. Since that ordeal, he had become obsessed with controlling his emotions. He had learned to set his own rules of behavior, things he would allow himself to express and things he wouldn’t. He kissed her gently on her forehead. “You gave meaning to my parents’ sacrifice by caring for me all these years.” Her work as a clerk by day and a seamstress at night had been taxing but necessary to make ends meet. She said, “You have been a blessing to me. Your freelance programming helped us manage.” She brushed back a tangled lock of brown hair from his forehead and said, “I wish I could have done more to mend your clothes.” “There’s nothing wrong with them,” he said. He stretched his arms wide as proof, but he was careful not to tear open a seam. “They’re perfect.” Anxiously, he stared down the road, wishing the bus had wings. Several minutes later, he said, “I think I see lights.” She brightened. “You’ll soon have a brand-new uniform.” While the bus approached, his grandmother continued to give him last-minute advice and encouragement, but he couldn’t concentrate on her words. As he looked into her eyes and saw her love, he could only feel guilt at leaving her alone. He planned to send her his meager midshipman’s allowance. It wouldn’t be much, but it was all he could do. It will be all right , he thought. The bus sputtered to a stop in front of them. A creaking door opened. Gallant barely had time for a quick hug and kiss before getting aboard. He carried a small bag that contained a change of underclothes and a few toiletries. He made his way to a rear window seat and waved as the bus departed. He watched her figure wave back as it faded into the shadows. The darkness seemed to swallow her like a living thing. Gallant sat next to a woman holding a small spaghetti-armed child. He remained quiet, staring straight ahead. The night was dark and cold along the remote, meandering mountain road. During the first hour of his journey, he worried about leaving his grandmother alone in their tiny mountain cabin. Although it was set in a pastoral valley with a natural spring, it lacked many modern conveniences. Besides his financial contribution over the years, he helped her by taking care of daily necessities. He cleaned the solar panels and maintained the storage batteries. Unfortunately, home delivery in rural areas had not yet taken hold, so he undertook the long jet-flyer trip to the nearest store. Now she would have to manage on her own, and her arthritis had been acting up. How will she manage without me? His emotional baggage shifted during the second hour. While he bounced around in the obsolete vehicle, self-doubt crept in. All his weaknesses, failings, and fears blossomed full form into his mind. He had never been aboard a spaceship, wasn’t a legacy, and didn’t even know a space officer. Most likely, he would be hazed, ridiculed, and driven out as undesirable within a week. His frown deepened with each passing mile, and he began to wish he had never applied for admission to the academy. Finally, he considered getting off and catching the return bus. I’m getting too good at predicting adverse outcomes, he thought. Gallant decided that untrustworthy emotions wouldn’t control him. Instead, he would let his logical mind guide him. He tried to calculate his chances of success. Then, after weighing the pros and cons, he thought, I must be bold. He straightened his spine, lifted his head, and vanquished guilt and fear. Either I make it, or I die trying! That’s all there was to it. Everything changed after that. As daylight trickled over the last hill, the road broadened into a smoothly paved highway. The sun’s resilient brightness lifted his spirits. He couldn’t wait for the adventure to begin.

New release "Fallout of War: Ukraine Year One" available on Amazon. New Releases In the tradition of Herman Wouk's sweeping historical war epics, Fallout of War follows Lieutenant Commander James Fairbanks, a career naval submarine officer assigned as a military attaché to the American embassy in Kyiv in late 2021. Fairbanks arrives in Ukraine with his wife, Lucy, a State Department analyst, just as tensions with Russia reach a critical juncture. A thoughtful, disciplined officer known for his strategic acumen and unvarnished assessments, Fairbanks quickly becomes immersed in the complex political and military landscape of Eastern Europe. Fairbanks tours the Chernobyl exclusion zone, where he meets Ukrainian special forces conducting training exercises amid the haunting ruins of the 1986 disaster. These encounters with hardened Ukrainian soldiers, many of whom fought in the Donbas since 2014, give Fairbanks his first understanding of Ukrainian determination and the existential nature of their struggle. Through a series of diplomatic functions and intelligence briefings, he develops relationships with key Ukrainian officials and eventually meets President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose evolution from entertainer to wartime leader forms one of the novel's central character studies. On the Cusp of Superintelligence captures pivotal moment when the race to artificial general intelligence transformed from a research project to an engineering sprint. On December 20, 2024, OpenAI quietly released a three-minute video that marked the moment when artificial general intelligence shifted from "someday" to "soon.” Their o3 model had achieved 87.5% on the ARC-AGI benchmark, a test specifically designed to resist pattern-matching shortcuts and measure genuine reasoning. Just months earlier, the best AI systems struggled to break 32%. The average human scores 85%. It reveals how multiple paths to AGI are converging simultaneously, each backed by billion-dollar labs with fundamentally different theories of intelligence. OpenAI bet everything on scaling—that intelligence emerges from processing enough information with enough parameters. Their progression from GPT-3's 175 billion parameters to o3's breakthrough validated their conviction that the path to AGI is a straight highway that needs to be extended far enough. Meanwhile, DeepMind, led by neuroscientist Demis Hassabis, pursued a portfolio strategy combining hierarchical reasoning, self-improving Gödel machines, multi-agent systems, embodied intelligence, and scientific discovery. Their synthesis approach suggests that superintelligence might require not choosing between paradigms but orchestrating them into unified systems. Anthropic took a different path, prioritizing safety through Constitutional AI, building alignment into the architecture rather than adding it afterward. Their Claude models demonstrated that capability and safety need not be mutually exclusive. In 2019, Giuseppe Carleo and his team pioneered the application of machine learning to quantum physics. This book is an introduction to how AI revolutionizes quantum field theory (QFT) , from scalar fields to complex gauge theories describing quarks and gluons. The narrative unfolds in three acts. First, readers discover the mathematical kinship between neural networks and quantum fields—the renormalization group maps onto information flow through neural layers, while gauge symmetry provides blueprints for AI architectures. The second act examines how AI addresses each type of quantum field. For scalar fields, neural networks identify exotic phases that traditional methods miss. For fermions, architectures like FermiNet achieve chemical accuracy while sidestepping computational barriers. For gauge fields, flow-based models conquer critical slowing down that has limited simulations for decades. Key breakthroughs include MIT's gauge-equivariant flows, which reduce autocorrelation times by a factor of 100, DeepMind's solution to 30-electron molecules, and the discovery by transformers that million-term scattering amplitudes can be expressed as a single equation. The final act envisions AI not just calculating but creating physics systems like MELVIN, designing quantum experiments that no human has imagined. Language models solve bootstrap equations. Neural networks propose routes to grand unification. The book culminates in a convergence of quantum computers and classical AI—a partnership that could crack QFT's deepest mysteries. By teaching AI nature's symmetries, we're creating systems that reveal patterns invisible to human analysis—AI intelligence is offering a different way of interrogating reality. Written as an introduction for physicists curious about AI and ML, as well as for AI and ML experts interested in fundamental physics, the book strikes a balance between rigor and practical implementation, offering both conceptual frameworks and tools for the quantum field theory revolution.

Author H. Peter Alesso presents excerpts from his published portfolio and research projects. H. Peter Alesso Portfolio Past, Present, and Future. " Oh, why is love so complicated?" "It's not so complicated. You just have to love the other person more than yourself." Not everyone who fights is a warrior. A warrior knows what's worth fighting for.

excerpt of the book e-Video on deploying video on the Web. e-Video AMAZON Chapter 1 Bandwidth for Video Electronic-Video, or “e-Video”, includes all audio/video clips that are distributed and played over the Internet, either by direct download or streaming video. The problem with video, however, has been its inability to travel over networks without clogging the lines. If you’ve ever tried to deliver video, you know that even after heroic efforts on your part (including optimizing the source video, the hardware, the software, the editing and the compression process) there remains a significant barrier to delivering your video over the Web. That is the “last mile” connection to the client. So before we explain the details of how to produce, capture, edit and compress video for the Web, we had better begin by describing the near term opportunities for overcoming the current bandwidth limitations for delivering video over the Internet. In this chapter, we will describe how expanding broadband fiber networks will reach out to the “last mile” to homes and businesses creating opportunities for video delivery. In order to accomplish this, we will start by quantifing three essential concerns: the file size requirements for sending video data over the Internet, the network fiber capacity of the Internet for the near future and the progress of narrowband (28.8Kbps) to broadband (1.5 Mbps) over the “last mile.” This will provide an understanding of the difficulties being overcome in transforming video from the current limited narrowband streaming video to broadband video delivery. Transitioning from Analog to Digital Technology Thomas Alva Edison’s contributions to the telegraph, phonograph, telephone, motion pictures and radio helped transform the 20th Century with analog appliances in the home and the factory. Many of Edison’s contributions were based on the continuous electrical analog signal. Today, Edison’s analog appliances are being replaced by digital ones. Why? Let’s begin by comparing the basic analog and digital characteristics. Analog signals move along wires as electromagnetic waves. The signal’s frequency refers to the number of time per second that a wave oscillates in a complete cycle. The higher the speed, or frequency, the more cycles of a wave are completed in a given period of time. A baud rate is one analog electric cycle or wave per second. Frequency is also stated in hertz (Hz). (Kilohertz or kHz represents 1000 Hz, MHz represents 1,000,000 Hz and GHz represents a billion Hz). Analog signals, such as voice, radio, and TV involve oscillations within specified ranges of frequency. For example: Voice has a range of 300 to 3300 Hz Analog cable TV has a range of 54 MHz to 750MHz Analog microwave towers have a range of 2 to 12 GHz Sending a signal along analog wires is similar to sending water through a pipe. The further it travels the more force it loses and the weaker it becomes. It can also pick up vibrations, or noise, which introduces signal errors. Today, analog technology has become available world-wide through the following transmission media: 1/. Copper wire for telephone (one-to-one communication). 2/. Broadcast for radio & television (one-to-many communication). 3/. Cable for television (one-to-many communication). Most forms of analog content, from news to entertainment, have been distributed over one or more of these methods. Analog technology prior to 1990, was based primarily on the one-to-many distribution system as show in the Table below where information was primarily directed toward individuals from a central point. Table 1-1 Analog Communication Prior to 1990 Prior to 1990, over 99% of businesses and homes had content reach them from any one of the three transmission delivery systems. Only the telephone allowed two-way communication, however. While the other analog systems where reasonably efficient in delivering content, the client could only send feedback, or pay bills, through ordinary postal mail. Obviously, the interactivity level of this system was very low. The technology used in Coaxial Cable TV (CATV) is designed for the transport of video signals. It is comprised of three systems: AM, FM, and Digital. Since the current CATV system with coaxial analog technology is highly limited in bandwidth new technology is necessary for applications requiring higher bandwidth. In the digital system, a CATV network will get better performance than AM/FM systems and ease the migration from coaxial to a fiber based system. Fiber-optics in CATV networks will eliminate most bottlenecks and increase channel capacity for high speed networks. Analog signals are a continuous variable waveform that are information intensive. They require considerable bandwidth and care in transmission. Analog transmissions over phone lines have some inherent problems when used for sending data. Analog signals lose their strength over long distances and often need to be amplified. Signal processing introduces distortions and become amplified raising the possibility of errors. In contrast to the waveform of analog signals, digital signals are transmitted over wire connections by varying the voltage across the line between a high and a low state. Typically, a high voltage level represents a binary digit 1 and a low voltage level represents a binary digit 0. Because they are binary, digital signals are inherently less complex than analog signals and over long distances they are more reliable. If a digital signal needs to be boosted, the signal is simply regenerated rather than being amplified. As a result, digital signals have the following advantages over analog: Superior quality Fewer errors Higher transmission speeds Less complex equipment The excitement over converting analog to digital media is, therefore, easy to explain. It is motivated by cost-effective higher quality digital processing for data, voice and video information. In transitioning from analog to digital technologies however, several significant changes are also profoundly altering broadcast radio and television. The transition introduces fundamental changes from one way broadcast to two-way transmission, and thereby the potential for interactivity, and scheduling of programming to suit the user’s needs. Not only is there an analog to digital shift, but a synchronous to asynchronous shift as well. Television and radio no longer needs to be synchronous and simultaneous. Rather the viewer and listener can control the time of performance. In addition, transmission can be one of three media: copper wire, cable, or wireless. Also, the receiver is transitioning from a dumb device, such as the television, to an intelligent set-top box with significant CPU power. This potentially changes the viewer from a passive to an interactive participant. Today, both analog and digital video technologies coexist in the production and creative part of the process leading up to the point where the video is broadcast. Currently, businesses and homes can receive content from one to six delivery systems: analog: copper wire (telephones), coaxial cable (TV cable), or broadcast (TV or radio); digital: copper wire (modem, DSL), Ethernet modem, or wireless (satellite). At the present time, analog systems still dominate, but digital systems are competing very favorably as infrastructure becomes available. Analog/digital telephone and digital cable allow two-way communication and these technologies are rapidly growing. The digital systems are far more efficient and allow greater interactivity with the client. Competing Technologies The race is on as cable, data, wireless, and telecommunications companies are scrambling to piece together the broadband puzzle and to compete in future markets. The basic infrastructure of copper wire, cable and satellite, as well as, the packaged contents are in place to deliver bigger, richer data files and media types. In special cases, data transmission over the developing computer networks within corporations and between universities, already exist. Groups vying to dominate have each brought different technologies and standards to the table. For the logical convergence of hardware, software and networking technology to occur the interface of theses industries must meet specific inter-operational capabilities and must achieve customer expectations for quality of service. Long distance and local Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOC) telephone companies started with the phone system designed for point-to-point communication, POTS (plain old telephones) and have evolved into a large switched, distributed network, capable of handling millions of simultaneous calls. They track and bill accordingly with an impressive performance record. They have delivered 99.999% reliability with high quality audio. Their technology is now evolving toward DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) modems. AT&T has made significant progress in leading broadband technology development now that it has added the vast cable networks of Tele-Communications Inc. and MediaOne Group to telephone and cellular. Currently, AT&T with about 45% of the market can plug into more U.S. households than any other provider. But other telecommunications companies, such as Sprint and MCI, as well as, the regional Bell operating companies, are also capable of integrating broadband technology with their voice services. Although both routing and architecture of the telephone network has evolved since the AT&T divestiture, the basics remain the same. About 25,000 central offices in the U.S. connect through 1200 intermediate switching nodes, called access tandems. The switching centers are connected by trunks designed to carry multiple voice frequency circuits using frequency division multiplexing (FDM), or synchronous time-division multiplexing (TDM), or wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) for optics. The cable companies Time Warner, Comcast, Cox Communications and Charter Communications have 60 million homes wired with coaxial cable primarily one-way cable offering one-to-many broadcast service. Their technology competes through the introduction of cable modems and the upgrade of their infrastructure to support two-way communication. The merger between AOL and Time Warner demonstrates how Internet and content companies are finding ways to converge. Cable television networks currently reaches 200 million homes. On the other hand, satellite television can potentially reach 1 billion homes. These will offer nearly complete coverage of the U.S., digital satellite is also competing. DirecTV, has DirecPC, which can beam data to a PC. Its rival, EchoStar Corp., is working with interactive TV player, TiVo Inc., to deliver video and data service to a set-top box. However, satellite is currently not only a one-way delivery system, but is also the most expensive in the U.S. In regions of the world outside the U.S. where the capital investment in copper wires and cable has yet to be made, satellite may have a better competitive opportunity. The Internet itself doesn’t own its own connections. Internet data traffic passes along the copper, fiber, coaxial cable, and wireless transmission of the other industries as a digital alternative to analog transmissions. The new media is being built to include text, graphics, audio, and video across platforms of television, Internet, cable and wireless industries. The backbone uses wide area communications technology, including satellite, fiber, coaxial cable, copper and wireless. Data servers mix mainframes, workstations, supercomputers, and microcomputers and a diversity of clients populate the end-points of the networks including; conventions PCs, palmtops, PDAs, smart phones, set-top boxes, and TVs. Figure 1-1 Connecting the backbone of the Internet to Your Home Web-television hybrids, such as, WebTV provide opportunities for cross-promotion between television and Internet. Independent developers may take advantage of broadcast-Internet synergy by creating shows to targeted audiences Clearly, the future holds a need for interaction between the TV and the Internet. But will it appear as TV quality video transmitted over the Internet and subsequently displayed on a TV set. Or, alternatively, as URL information embedded within existing broadcast TV set pictures. Perhaps both. Streaming Video Streaming is the ability to play media, such as audio and video, directly over the Internet without downloading the entire file before play begins. Digital encoding is required to convert the analog signal into compressed digital format for transmission and playback. Streaming videos send a constant flow of audio/video information to their audience. While streaming videos may be archived for on-demand viewing, they can also be shown in real-time. Examples include play-by-play sports events, concerts and corporate board meetings. But a streaming video offers more than a simple digitized signal transmitted over the Internet. It offers the ability for interactive audience response and unparalleled form of two-way communication. The interactive streaming video process is referred to as Webcasting. Widespread Web-casting will be impractical, however, until audiences have access rates of a minimum of 100 Kbps or faster. Compression technology can be expected to grow more powerful, significantly reducing bandwidth requirement. By 2006 the best estimates indicate that 40 Million homes will have cable modems and 25 Million DSL connections with access rates of 1.5 Mbps. We shall see in Chapters 5, 6 and 7 how the compression codecs and software standards will competitively change “effective” Internet bandwidth and the quality of delivered video. The resultant video quality at a given bandwidth is highly dependent upon the specific video compressor. The human eye is extremely non-linear and its capabilities are difficult to quantify. The quality of compression, specific video application, typical content, available bandwidth, and user preferences all must be considered when evaluating compressor options. Some optimize for “talking heads” while other optimize for motion. To date, the value of streaming video has been primarily the rebroadcast of TV content and redirected audio from radio broadcasts. The success of these services to compete with traditional analog broadcasts will depend upon the ability of streaming video producers to develop and deliver their content using low cost computers that present a minimal barrier to entry. Small, low cost independent producers will effectively target audiences previously ignored. Streaming videos steadily moving toward the integration of text, graphics, audio, and video with interactive on-line chat will find new audiences. In Chapter 2, we present business models to address business’s video needs. Despite these promising aspects, streaming video is still a long way from providing a satisfactory audio/video experience in comparison to traditional broadcasts. The low data transmission rates are a severe limitation on the quality of streaming videos. While a direct broadcast satellite dish receives data at 2 Mbps, an analog modem is currently limited to 0.05 Mbps. The new cable modems and ADSL are starting to offer speeds competitive with satellite, but they will take time to penetrate globally. Unlike analog radio and television, streaming videos requires a dynamic connection between the computer providing the content to the viewer. Current computer technology limits the viewing audience to up to 50,000. While strategies to overcome this with replicating servers may increase audiences, this too will take effort. The enhancement of data compression reduces the required video data streaming rates to more manageable levels. The technology has only recently reached the point where video can be digitized and compressed to levels which allow reasonable appearance during distribution over digital networks. Advances continue to come, improving look and delivery of video. Calculating Bandwidth Requirements So far we have presented the advantages of digital techology, unfortunately there is one rather large disadvantage - bandwidth limitations. Let’s try some simple math that illustrates the difficulties. Live, or on-demand, streaming video and/or audio is relatively easy to encode. The most difficult part is not the encoding of the files. It is determining what level of data may be transmitted. The following Table contains information that will help with some basic terms and definitions: Why the difference between Kbps and KB/sec? File sizes on a hard drive are measured in Kilobytes (KB). But the data that transferred over a modem is measured in Kilobits per second (Kbps) because it's comparatively slower than a hard drive. In the case of a 28.8Kbps modem the maximum data transfer rate is 2.5 KB/sec even through the calculated rate is 28.8Kbs / 8 bits in a byte = 3.6KB/sec. This is because there is approximately a 30% losses of transmission capabilities lost due to Internet “noise.” This is due to traffic congestion on the web and more than one surfer requesting information on the same server. The following Table 1-4 provides information concerning the characteristics of video files. This includes pixels per frame and frames per file (film size file). We can use the information in Table 1-4 to compare to some simple calculations. We will use the following formula to calculate the approximate size in Megabytes of a digitized video file: (pixel width) x (pixel height) x (color bit depth) x (fps) x (duration in seconds) 8,000,000 (bits / MB) For three minutes of video at 15 frames per second with a color bit depth of 24-bit in a window that is 320x240 pixels, the digitized source file would be approximately 622 Megabytes: (320) x (240) x (24) x (15) x (180) / 8,000,000 = 622 Megabytes We will see in chapter 4, how data compression will significantly reduce this burden. Now that we have our terms defined, let's take the case of a TV station that wants to broadcast their channel live 24hrs a day for a month over the web to a target audience of 56 Kbps modem users. In this case, a live stream generates a 4.25KB/sec since a 56Kbps file transfers at 4.25KB/sec. So how much data would be transferred in a 24 hr period if one stream was constantly being used? ANSWER = 4.25 KB/sec * (number of seconds in a day) * 30 days per month = 11 GB/month So, one stream playing a file encoded for 56 Kbs for 24hrs a day will generate 11 gigabytes in a month. How is this figure useful? This figure becomes important if you can estimate the average number of viewers in a month, then you can estimate the total amount of data that will be transferred from your process. Ultimately the issue becomes one of the need for sufficient backbone infrastructure to carry many broadcasts to many viewers across the networks. For HDTV with a screen size of 1080x1920 and 24-bit color, a bandwidth of 51.8 Mbps is required. This is a serious amount of data flow to route around the Internet to millions of viewers. Transitioning from Narrowband to Broadband In telecommunications, bandwidth refers to data capacity of a channel. For an analog service, the bandwidth is defined as the difference between the highest and lowest frequency within which the medium carries traffic. For example, cabling that carries data between 200 MHz and 300 MHz has a bandwidth of 100MHz. In addition to analog speeds in hertz (Hz) and digital speeds in bits per second (bps), the carrying rate is sometimes categorized as narrowband and broadband. It is useful to relate this to an analogy in which wider pipes carry more water. TV and cable are carried at broadband speeds. However, most telephone and modem data traffic from the central offices to individual homes and businesses are carried at slower narrowband speeds. This is usually referred to as the “last mile” issue. The definitions for narrowband and broadband vary within the industries, but are summarized for our purposes as: Narrowband refers to rates less than 1.5 Mbps Broadband refers to rates at or beyond 1.5 Mbps A major bottleneck of analog services exists between cabling of residents and telephone central offices. Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) and cable modem are gaining in availability. Cable TV companies are investing heavily in converting their cabling from one-way only cable TV to two-way systems for cable modems and telephones. In contrast to the “last-mile” for residential areas, telephones companies are laying fiber cables for digital services from their switches to office buildings where the high-density client base justifies the additional expense. We can appreciate the potential target audience for video by estimating; how fast the “last mile” bandwidth demand is growing. Because installing underground fiber costs more than $20,000 per mile, fiber only makes sense for businesses and network backbones. Not for “last mile” access to homes. Table 1-5 shows the estimated number of users connected at various modem speeds in 1999 and 2006. High-speed consumer connections are now being implemented through cable modems and digital subscriber lines (DSL). Approximately 1.3 million home had cable modems by the end of 1999 in comparison to 300,000 DSL connections primarily to businesses. By 2006, we project 40 million cable modems and 25 million DSL lines. Potentially data at the rate of greater than one megabit per second could be delivered to over 80 per cent of more than 550 million residential telephone lines in the world. Better than one megabit per second can also be delivered over fiber/coax CATV lines configured for two-way transmission, to approximately 10 million out of 200 million total users (though these can be upgraded). In2000, the median bandwidth in the U.S. is less than 56. This is de facto a narrowband environment. But worldwide there is virtually limitless demand for communications as presented by the following growth rates: The speed of computer connections is soaring. The number of connections at greater than 1.5 Mbps is growing at 45% per year in residential areas and at 55% per year in business areas. Because of improving on-line experience, people will stay connected about 20% longer per year. As more remote areas of the world get connected, messages will travel about 15% father a year. The number of people online worldwide in 1999 was 150 million, but the peak Internet load was only 10% and the actual transmission time that data was being transferred, was only 25% of that number. With the average access rate of 44 kbps this indicates an estimate of about 165 Gbps at peak load. In 2006 there will be about 300 million users and about 65 million of these will have broadband (>1.5 Mbps) access. With the addition of increased peak load and increased actual transmission time, this will result in an estimated usage of about 16.5 Tera-bits per second of data processing. It all adds up to a lot of bits. It leads to a demand for total data communications in 2006 of nearly a100-fold increase over 1999. With the number of new users connecting to the Internet growing this fast can the fiber backbone meet this demand? Figure 1-2 answers this question. Figure 1-2 shows the growth in Local Area Networks (LANs) from 1980 to 2000 with some projection into the next decade. In addition, the Internet capacity is shows that over the last few decades and indicates the potential growth rate into the next decade. The jump up in Internet capacity due to Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) is a projection of the multiply effect of this new technology. As a result this figure shows that we can expect multi-Tera-bit per second performance from the Internet backbone in the years ahead. This will meet the projected growth in demand. Great! But, what about that “last mile” of copper, coax, and wireless? The “last mile” involves servers, networks, content and transitions from narrow to broadband. Initially, the “last mile” will convert to residential broadband not as fiber optics, but as a network overlaid on existing telephone and cable television wiring. One megabit per second can be delivered to over 80 % or more of 550 million residential telephone lines in the world. It can also be delivered over all fiber/coax CATV lines configured for two-way service. The latter represents a small fraction of the worldwide CATV lines however, requiring only 10 million homes out of 200 million. But upgrade programs will convert the remainder in 5 years. The endgame of the upgrade process may be fiber directly to the customer’s home, but not for the next decade or two. A fiber signal travels coast to coast in 30 ms and human latency (period to achieve recognition) is about 50 milliseconds. Thus fiber is the only technology to deliver viewable HDTV video. However, due to the cost and man-power involved, we’re stuck with the “last mile” remaining copper, coax and wireless for a while yet. The Table 1-7 below summarizes how the five delivery approaches for analog and digital technologies will co-exist for the next few years. In chapter 8, we will present network background on the technologies and standards and revisit this table in more detail. One-way * (FFTH is fiber to the home, FTTC is fiber to the curb, MPEG-2 is a compression standard see chapter 4, ATM is Asynchronous Transfer Mode see chapter 8, TDM is Time Division Multiplexing see chapter 8). Preparing to Converge To be fully prepared to take advantage of the converging technologies, we must ask and answer the right questions. This is not as easy as it might seem. We could ask, “Which company will dominate the broadband data and telecommunication convergence?” But this would be inadequate because the multi-trillion dollar world e-commerce market is too big for any one company to monopolize. We could ask, “Which broadband networks will dominate the Internet backbone?” But this would be inadequate because innovative multiplexing and compression advances will make broadband ubiquitous and subservient to the “last mile” problem. We could ask, “Which transmission means (cable, wireless, or copper) will dominate the “last mile”?” But this would be inadequate because the geographical infrastructure diversity of these technologies throughout the world will dictate different winners in different regions of the world demonstrating this as a “local” problem. Individually, these questions address only part of the convergence puzzle. It is e-commerce’s demand for economic efficiency that will force us to face the important q estion of the telecommunication convergence puzzle. “What are meaningful broadband cross-technology standards?” Without globally accepted standards, hardware and software developers can’t create broad solutions for consumer demand. As a result, we will be concerned throughout this book in pointing out the directions and conflicts that various competing standards are undertaking. Conclusion In this chapter, we presented the background of analog technology’s transition toward digital technology. This chapter provided a calculation that illustrated why digital video data is such a difficult bandwidth problem. It evaluated the rate of change of conversion from narrowband connections to broadband. This rate establishing a critical perspective on the timeline of the demand for Internet video. On the basis of this chapter, you should conclude that: The Internet backbone combination of fiber and optical multiplexing will perform in the multi-Tera-bps range and provide plenty of network bandwidth in the next few years. The “last mile” connectivity will remain twisted pair, wireless, and coax cable for the next few years, but broadband (1.5Mbps) access through cable modems and x-DSL will grow to 40 million users in just a few years. Streaming video was identified as the crossroads of technology convergence. It is the bandwidth crisis of delivering video that will prove decisive in setting global standards and down-selecting competing technologies. The success of streaming video in its most cost-effect and customer satisfying form will define the final technology convergence model into the 21st Century

Podcasts of books by Peter Alesso for book to movie for Midshipman Henry Gallant Henry Gallant Movie Movie: Midshipman Henry Gallant in Space Movie with subtitles: Midshipman Henry Gallant in Space Podcast: Midshipman Henry Gallant in Space (1)

excerpt from the suspense thriller drama book Dark Genius. Dark Genius AMAZON Time Off (Excerpt) The next morning, Lawrence gazed up at the impressive face of Mont Blanc. The chill air penetrated even his warm clothing. He resolutely tugged on his ski gloves, slung his MIT scarf around his neck, and hefted his freshly waxed skis to his shoulder—he was all set. Boots climbing across the snow, he headed for the gondola. He could see the tiny figures of skiers already skimming down the steep slopes above, and his pulse quickened. As the group shuffled toward the gondola, he nodded to several familiar faces, relieved to find neither Proust nor Maurice among them. He thought he’d seen Emma in line ahead of him and fidgeted through the whole ride, oblivious to the spectacular view that spread below him. When he reached the advanced level, he got off, pulled his goggles down, and stepped into his skis. He picked Emma out immediately, even under her goggles and sporty ski hat. “Hi,” he said with a big smile, glad they both had the morning free from meetings. “Hi,” she replied, moving to his side in one smooth fluid push. Several others said, “Hello.” He returned a nod and pulled his jacket tightly around him against the chill air. A veteran skier strolled past with weathered skin and disrupted hair. He wore a turned-down smirk that challenged all comers to prove their worth. These were all experienced skiers, dressed for warmth, and equipped with the best quality gear. The first pair left together, plunging down onto the black runs. Others quickly followed, separated enough to avoid interference. Finally, he and Emma were the only ones on the top of the world. They felt as though they had the mountain all to themselves. Lawrence breathed in the crisp Swiss mountain air. It felt different somehow—cleaner, freer, better. The temperature was 5 C. He said, “Wow, what a fantastic day! This is an amazing resort, and the snow looks perfect.” “Something tells me I’m going to like this place.” “Me too.” Emma tugged on his scarf, and with mischief in her eyes, dared him, “Race you to the bottom.” He started to ask, “What do I get if I win?” when he realized she was already ten yards ahead. Though not an expert, he was a good skier. He shoved his poles hard into the snow and leaned forward, propelling himself down the slope after her. The skis hissed smoothly on the packed powder as he pulled himself along with his poles. Picking up speed on the gradually steepening slope, he was still falling behind. Going over the first vertical drop with spine-chilling ease, he found his rhythm and felt the adrenaline rush of speed, snow, and slope. Concentrating on his own maneuvering, he couldn’t watch Emma but could tell he still wasn’t gaining on her. He leaned over his skis, pulled up his poles, and dropped into a tuck. Instantly his speed increased, and his skis drifted a little farther apart than good style dictated. His hips and knees swiveled left–right–left–right–left in smooth, sweeping micro-turns, shoulders barely moving. Still, Emma held her lead ahead of him. A cluster of trees loomed ahead. He shifted his weight to come around, the right edges of his skis, biting hard into the slope and swung past them cleanly. He straightened up and turned to avoid several rocky obstacles. He maneuvered through a series of flags on the run, carving an extended S in the snow. He was close behind Emma now and could see her looking back at him, her face alive with pleasure. He was delighted. He aimed his skis straight down the slope again and felt the joy of zooming down a 45-degree drop. The thrill of speed and mastery of the terrain far outweighed any concern of potential danger. As he followed the curve of the mountain to the left, he came upon another row of flags, black and red, fluttering in the wind. The slope suddenly rose up under him, his knees compressed, and at this speed, he felt the lift as he caught air. He gave a shout of pure glee. Emma was near, and she ran an S-turn through his track. The slope eased a bit, and he jammed his left pole into the snow for leverage, pushing his skis down hard. The snow sprayed out from the abrupt stop and hung, crystallized, for a moment in the still air as he looked across a shoulder of the mountain. It plunged down toward a grove of trees, black in the distance. Breathing hard, he glanced over his shoulder but couldn’t see Emma. A momentary concern flashed through his mind, but then he caught a glimpse of her through some trees to his left. He swung back downhill and zig-zagged through the mounds beneath the gondola cables, driving his poles in hard with each knee-pounding bump. With her more direct route, Emma was ahead of him again. He pushed harder, trying to catch up to her, his knees straining on each turn. Without warning, his right ski caught an edge. He flailed, struggling to regain control, skidded, and fell. Shaking himself off, he quickly regained his feet, gasping for breath, and wiped the snow off his face and goggles. He stamped his feet to make sure his bindings were still tight, then set off in pursuit of Emma once more. Gaining speed, he schussed across the undulating ground, his skis intertwining with Emma’s tracks. A row of bright-orange warning signs made him check his speed sharply. This run had taken him dangerously close to a ravine. Behind the crossed sticks he could see where the cliff dropped and didn’t stop to think how far down it went into nothingness. He carved another hard turn, angling his skis back toward the left, and raced for the tree line. Keep forward. Get your hands in front of you. Set shoulders downslope, keep knees, and hips loose. The wind buffeted him, a pounding wall of resistance against his increasing speed. The wild schuss was nearing an end. Pine and spruce trees rushed by him, blurring into an impenetrable wall. The sun glistened over the snow’s surface, a sharp stretch of rocks and ravines was marked by warning flags thrown into high relief. Dark shadows obscured the terrain, making the slopes more dangerous. He knew there were sheer drops on each flank of the run. He felt an absurd desire to kick off his skies and run. Instead, he kept his focus on the track ahead and ignored the folds in the landscape. Finally, he saw an opening through the trees that had hemmed him in. He veered more left and shot through it. As he straightened his course, Emma whizzed by him, so close that he felt a spray of snow. Is she really that good, or did she misjudge her position? Trees pressed against the uphill side as the run curved around the mountain’s flank, their branches brittle against the white cold of the sky. Lake Geneva, now spread out in a breathtaking panorama below them. The thermometer had dropped precipitously to -3 C, and flakes of snow began to prick Lawrence’s cheek. Speed seemed no longer possible against the cold resisting wind. As the slope leveled out to the end of the run, he saw Emma out of the corner of his eye, only a few yards and scant seconds behind him. He angled his skis to cross the finish line. As his momentum slowed, he suddenly felt exhausted. His head throbbed, and his muscles ached from a combination of exertion and dehydration. His joints ground and creaked. His fingers refused to release their grip on the poles. Every sense seemed to have turned against him, and he blinked hard, his breathing labored. With an effort, he pulled off his soaked gloves and unzipped his jacket, sweating heavily. Stabbing his poles into the ground, he groaned as he bent over to unlatch his skis. Luckily the bindings sprang open easily, and he straightened painfully. The snow was falling faster now. He hadn’t noticed before. He cradled his stiff hands to his chest like a drowning man trying to catch his breath. The bracing wind stung his cheeks, leaving a bittersweet icy red welt. He was spent. As he looked for Emma, he wondered . . . Did I win?

The Science Fiction series "The Henry Gallant Saga." The Henry Gallant Saga COURAGE is only a word . . . until you witness it. Then . . . it is contagious. Henry Gallant is the only Natural left in Earth's genetically engineered space navy. Despite overwhelming odds and the doubts of his shipmates, Gallant refuses to back down as he uses his unique abilities to fight for victory at the farthest reaches of the Solar System. Follow Gallant as he finds the spine to stand tall, vanquish fear, and rain violence upon the methane-breathing enemy aliens. The nation needs a hero like Henry Gallant. He fights! For fans of Horatio Hornblower and Honor Harrington.

Ab excerpt of the non-fiction book the Semantic Web Development. Semantic Web Services AMAZON Chapter 6.0 The Semantic Web In this chapter, we provide an introduction to the Semantic Web and discuss its background and potential. By laying out a road map for its likely development, we describe the essential stepping stones including: knowledge representation, inference, ontology, search and search engines. We also discuss several supporting semantic layers of the Markup Language Pyramid Resource Description Framework (RDF) a nd Web Ontology Language (OWL). In addition, we discuss using RDF and OWL for supporting software agents, Semantic Web Services, and semantic searches. Background Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989 and built the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C ) team in 1992 to develop, extend, and standardize the Web. But he didn’t stop there. He continued his research at MIT through Project Oxygen[1] and began conceptual development of the Semantic Web. The Semantic Web is intended to be a paradigm shift just as powerful as the original Web. The goal of the Semantic Web is to provide a machine-readable intelligence that would come from hyperlinked vocabularies that Web authors would use to explicitly define their words and concepts. The idea allows software agents to analyze the Web on our behalf, making smart inferences that go beyond the simple linguistic analyses performed by today's search engines. Why do we need such a system? Today, the data available within HTML Web pages is difficult to use on a large scale because there is no global schema. As a result, there is no system for publishing data in such a way to make it easily processed by machines. For example, just think of the data available on airplane schedules, baseball statistics, and consumer products. This information is presently available at numerous sites, but it is all in HTML format which means that using it has significant limitations. The Semantic Web will bring structure and defined content to the Web, creating an environment where software agents can carry out sophisticated tasks for users. The first steps in weaving the Semantic Web on top of the existing Web are already underway. In the near future, these developments will provide new functionality as machines become better able to "understand" and process the data. This presumes, however, that developers will annotate their Web data in advanced markup languages. To this point, the language-development process isn't finished. There is also ongoing debate about the logic and rules that will govern the complex syntax. The W3C is attempting to set new standards while leading a collaborative effort among scientists around the world. Berners-Lee has stated his vision that today’s Web Services in conjunction with developing the Semantic Web, should become interoperable. Skeptics, however, have called the Semantic Web a Utopian vision of academia. Some doubt it will take root within the commercial community. Despite these doubts, research and development projects are burgeoning throughout the world. And even though Semantic Web technologies are still developing, they have already shown tremendous potential in the areas of semantic groupware (see Chapter 13) and semantic search (see Chapter 15). Enough so, that the future of both the Semantic Web and Semantic Web Services (see Chapter 11) appears technically attractive. The Semantic Web The current Web is built on HTML, which describes how information is to be displayed and laid out on a Web page for humans to read. In effect, the Web has developed as a medium for humans without a focus on data that could be processed automatically. In addition, HTML is not capable of being directly exploited by information retrieval techniques. As a result, the Web is restricted to manual keyword searches. For example, if we want to buy a product over the Internet, we must sit at a computer and search for most popular online stores containing appropriate categories of products. We recognize that while computers are able to adeptly parse Web pages for layout and routine processing, they are unable to process the meaning of their content. XML may have enabled the exchange of data across the Web, but it says nothing about the meaning of that data. The Semantic Web will bring structure to the meaningful content of Web pages, where software agents roaming from page-to-page can readily carry out automated tasks. We can say that the Semantic Web will become the abstract representation of data on the Web. And that it will be constructed over the Resource Description Framework (RDF) (see Chapter 7) and Web Ontology Language (OWL) (see Chapter 8). These languages are being developed by the W3C, with participations from academic researchers and industrial partners. Data can be defined and linked using RDF and OWL so that there is more effective discovery, automation, integration, and reuse across different applications. These languages are conceptually richer than HTML and allow representation of the meaning and structure of content (interrelationships between concepts). This makes Web content understandable by software agents, opening the way to a whole new generation of technologies for information processing, retrieval, and analysis. Two important technologies for developing the Semantic Web are already in place: XML and RDF. XML lets everyone create their own tags. Scripts, or programs, can make use of these tags in sophisticated ways, but the script writer has to know how the page writer uses each tag. In short, XML allows users to add arbitrary structure to their documents, but says nothing about what the structure means. If a developer publishes data in XML on the Web, it doesn’t require much more effort to take the extra step and publish the data in RDF. By creating ontologies to describe data, intelligent applications won’t have to spend time translating various XML schemas. In a closed environment, Semantic Web specifications have already been used to accomplish many tasks, such as data interoperability for business-to-business (B2B) transactions. Many companies have expended resources to translate their internal data syntax for their partners. As everyone migrates towards RDF and ontologies, interoperability will become more flexible to new demands. Another example of applicability is that of digital asset management. Photography archives, digital music, and video are all applications that are looking to rely to a greater degree on metadata. The ability to see relationships between separate media resources as well as the composition of individual media resources is well served by increased metadata descriptions and enhanced vocabularies. The concept of metadata has been around for years and has been employed in many software applications. The push to adopt a common specification will be widely welcomed. For the Semantic Web to function, computers must have access to structured collections of information and sets of inference rules that they can use to conduct automated reasoning. AI researchers have studied such systems and produced today’s Knowledge Representation (KR). KR is currently in a state comparable to that of hypertext before the advent of the Web. Knowledge representation contains the seeds of important applications, but to fully realize its potential, it must be linked into a comprehensive global system. The objective of the Semantic Web, therefore, is to provide a language that expresses both data and rules for reasoning as a Web-based knowledge representation. Adding logic to the Web means using rules to make inferences and choosing a course of action. A combination of mathematical and engineering issues complicates this task (see Chapter 9). The logic must be powerful enough to describe complex properties of objects, but not so powerful that agents can be tricked by a paradox. Intelligence Concepts The concept of Machine Intelligence (MI) is fundamental to the Semantic Web. Machine Intelligence is often referred to in conjunction with the terms Machine Learning, Computational Intelligence, Soft-Computing, and Artificial Intelligence. Although these terms are often used interchangeably, they are different branches of study. For example, Artificial Intelligence involves symbolic computation while Soft-Computing involves intensive numeric computation. We can identify the following sub-branches of Machine Intelligence that relate to the Semantic Web: Knowledge Acquisition and Representation. Agent Systems. Ontology. Although symbolic Artificial Intelligence is currently built and developed into Semantic Web data representation, there is no doubt that software tool vendors and software developers will incorporate the Soft-Computing paradigm as well. The benefit is creating adaptive software applications. This means that Soft-Computing applications may adapt to unforeseen input. Knowledge Acquisition is the extraction of knowledge from various sources, while Knowledge Representation is the expression of knowledge in computer-tractable form that is used to help software-agents perform. A Knowledge Representation language includes Language Syntax (describes configurations that can constitute sentences) and Semantics (determines the facts and meaning based upon the sentences). For the Semantic Web to function, computers must have access to structured collections of information. But, traditional knowledge-representation systems typically have been centralized, requiring everyone to share exactly the same definition of common concepts. As a result, central control is stifling, and increasing the size and scope of such a system rapidly becomes unmanageable. In an attempt to avoid problems, traditional knowledge-representation systems narrow their focus and use a limited set of rules for making inferences. These system limitations restrict the questions that can be asked reliably. XML and the RDF are important technologies for developing the Semantic Web; they provide languages that express both data and rules for reasoning about the data from a knowledge-representation system. The meaning is expressed by RDF, which encodes it in sets of triples, each triple acting as a sentence with a subject, predicate, and object. These triples can be written using XML tags. As a result, an RDF document makes assertions about specific things. Subject and object are each identified by a Universal Resource Identifier (URI), just as those used in a link on a Web page. The predicate is also identified by URIs, which enables anyone to define a new concept just by defining a URI for it somewhere on the Web. The triples of RDF form webs of information about related things. Because RDF uses URIs to encode this information in a document, the URIs ensure that concepts are not just words in a document, but are tied to a unique definition that everyone can find on the Web. Search Algorithms The basic technique of search (or state space search) refers to a broad class of methods that are encountered in many different AI applications; the technique is sometimes considered a universal problem-solving mechanism in AI. To solve a search problem, it is necessary to prescribe a set of possible or allowable states, a set of operators to change from one state to another, an initial state, a set of goal states, and additional information to help distinguish states according to their likeliness to lead to a target or goal state. The problem then becomes one of finding a sequence of operators leading from the initial state to one of the goal states. Search algorithms can range from brute force methods (which use no prior knowledge of the problem domain, and are sometimes referred to as blind searches) to knowledge-intensive heuristic searches that use knowledge to guide the search toward a more efficient path to the goal state (see Chapters 9 and 15). Search techniques include: Brute force Breadth-first Depth-first Depth-first iterative-deepening Bi-directional Heuristic Hill-climbing Best-first A* Beam Iterative-deepening-A* Brute force searches entail the systematic and complete search of the state space to identify and evaluate all possible paths from the initial state to the goal states. These searches can be breadth-first or depth-first. In a breadth-first search, each branch at each node in a search tree is evaluated, and the search works its way from the initial state to the final state considering all possibilities at each branch, a level at a time. In the depth-first search, a particular branch is followed all the way to a dead end (or to a successful goal state). Upon reaching the end of a path, the algorithm backs up and tries the next alternative path in a process called backtracking. The depth-first iterative-deepening algorithm is a variation of the depth-first technique in which the depth-first method is implemented with a gradually increasing limit on the depth. This allows a search to be completed with a reduced memory requirement, and improves the performance where the objective is to find the shortest path to the target state. The bi-directional search starts from both the initial and target states and performs a breadth-first search in both directions until a common state is found in the middle. The solution is found by combining the path from the initial state with the inverse of the path from the target state. These brute force methods are useful for relatively simple problems, but as the complexity of the problem rises, the number of states to be considered can become prohibitive. For this reason, heuristic approaches are more appropriate to complex search problems where prior knowledge can be used to direct the search. Heuristic approaches use knowledge of the domain to guide the choice of which nodes to expand next and thus avoid the need for a blind search of all possible states. The hill-climbing approach is the simplest heuristic search; this method works by always moving in the direction of the locally steepest ascent toward the goal state. The biggest drawback of this approach is that the local maximum is not always the global maximum and the algorithm can get stuck at a local maximum thus failing to achieve the best results. To overcome this drawback, the best-first approach maintains an open list of nodes that have been identified but not expanded. If a local maximum is encountered, the algorithm moves to the next best node from the open list for expansion. This approach, however, evaluates the next best node purely on the basis of its evaluation of ascent toward the goal without regard to the distance it lies from the initial state. The A* technique goes one step further by evaluating the overall path from the initial state to the goal using the path to the present node combined with the ascent rates to the potential successor nodes. This technique tries to find the optimal path to the goal. A variation on this approach is the beam search in which the open list of nodes is limited to retain only the best nodes, and thereby reduce the memory requirement for the search. The iterative-deepening-A* approach is a further variation in which depth-first searches are completed, a branch at a time, until some threshold measure is exceeded for the branch, at which time it is truncated and the search backtracks to the most recently generated node. A classic example of an AI-search application is computer chess. Over the years, computer chess-playing software has received considerable attention, and such programs are a commercial success for home PCs. In addition, most are aware of the highly visible contest between IBM’s Deep Blue Supercomputer and the reigning World Chess Champion, Garry Kasparov in May 1997. Millions of chess and computing fans observed this event in real-time where, in a dramatic sixth game victory, Deep Blue beat Kasparov. This was the first time a computer has won a match with a current world champion under tournament conditions. Computer chess programs generally make use of standardized opening sequences, and end game databases as a knowledge base to simplify these phases of the game. For the middle game, they examine large trees and perform deep searches with pruning to eliminate branches that are evaluated as clearly inferior and to select the most highly evaluated move. We will explore semantic search in more detail in Chapter 15. Thinking The goal of the Semantic Web is to provide a machine-readable intelligence. But, whether AI programs actually think is a relatively unimportant question, because whether or not "smart" programs "think," they are already becoming useful. Consider, for example, IBM’s Deep Blue. In May 1997, IBM's Deep Blue Supercomputer played a defining match with the reigning World Chess Champion, Garry Kasparov. This was the first time a computer had won a complete match against the world’s best human chess player. For almost 50 years, researchers in the field of AI had pursued just this milestone. Playing chess has long been considered an intellectual activity, requiring skill and intelligence of a specialized form. As a result, chess attracted AI researchers. The basic mechanism of Deep Blue is that the computer decides on a chess move by assessing all possible moves and responses. It can identify up to a depth of about 14 moves and value-rank the resulting game positions using an algorithm prepared in advance by a team of grand masters. Did Deep Blue demonstrate intelligence or was it merely an example of computational brute force? Our understanding of how the mind of a brilliant player like Kasparov works is limited. But indubitably, his "thought" process was something very different than Deep Blue’s. Arguably, Kasparov’s brain works through the operation of each of its billions of neurons carrying out hundreds of tiny operations per second, none of which, in isolation, demonstrates intelligence. One approach to AI is to implement methods using ideas of computer science and logic algebras. The algebra would establish the rules between functional relationships and sets of data structures. A fundamental set of instructions would allow operations including sequencing, branching and recursion within an accepted hierarchy. The preference of computer science has been to develop hierarchies that resolve recursive looping through logical methods. One of the great computer science controversies of the past five decades has been the role of GOTO-like statements. This has risen again in the context of Hyperlinking. Hyperlinking, like GOTO statements, can lead to unresolved conflict loops (see Chapter 12). Nevertheless, logic structures have always appealed to AI researchers as a natural entry point to demonstrate machine intelligence. An alternative to logic methods is to use introspection methods, which observe and mimic human brains and behavior. In particular, pattern recognition seems intimately related to a sequence of unique images with a special linkage relationship. While Introspection, or heuristics, is an unreliable way of determining how humans think, when they work, Introspective methods can form effective and useful AI. The success of Deep Blue and chess programming is important because it employs both logic and introspection AI methods. When the opinion is expressed that human grandmasters do not examine 200,000,000 move sequences per second, we should ask, “How do they know?'' The answer is usually that human grandmasters are not aware of searching this number of positions, or that they are aware of searching a smaller number of sequences. But then again, as individuals, we are generally unaware of what actually does go on in our minds. Much of the mental computation done by a chess player is invisible to both the player and to outside observers. Patterns in the position suggest what lines of play to look at, and the pattern recognition processes in the human mind seem to be invisible to that mind. However, the parts of the move tree that are examined are consciously accessible. Suppose most of the chess player’s skill actually comes from an ability to compare the current position against images of 10,000 positions already studied. (There is some evidence that this is at least partly true.) We would call selecting the best position (or image) among the 10,000, insightful. Still, if the unconscious human version yields intelligent results, and the explicit algorithmic Deep Blue version yields essentially the same results, then couldn’t the computer and its programming be called intelligent too? For now, the Web consists primarily of huge number of data nodes (containing texts, pictures, movies, sounds). The data nodes are connected through hyperlinks to form `hyper-networks' can collectively represent complex ideas and concepts above the level of the individual data. However, the Web does not currently perform many sophisticated tasks with this data. The Web merely stores and retrieves information even after considering some of the “intelligent applications” in use today (including intelligent agents, EIP, and Web Services). So far, the Web does not have some of the vital ingredients it needs, such as a global database scheme, a global error-correcting feedback mechanism, a logic layer protocol, or universally accepted knowledge bases with inference engines. As a result, we may say that the Web continues to grow and evolve, but it does not learn. If the jury is still out on defining the Web as intelligent, (and may be for some time) we can still consider ways to change the Web to give it the capabilities to improve and become more useful (see Chapter 9). Knowledge Representation and Inference An important element of AI is the principle that intelligent behavior can be achieved through processing of symbol structures representing increments of knowledge. This has given rise to the development of knowledge-representation languages that permit the representation and manipulation of knowledge to deduce new facts. Thus, knowledge-representation languages must have a well-defined syntax and semantics system, while supporting inference. First let’s define the fundamental terms “data,” “information,” and “knowledge.” An item of data is a fundamental element of an application. Data can be represented by population and labels. Information is an explicit association between data things. Associations are often functional in that they represent a function relating one set of things to another set of things. A rule is an explicit functional association from a set of information things to a resultant information thing. So, in this sense, a rule is knowledge. Knowledge-based systems contain knowledge as well as information and data. The information and data can be modeled and implemented in a database. Knowledge-engineering methodologies address design and maintenance knowledge, as well as the data and information. Logic is used as the formalism for programming languages and databases. It can also be used as a formalism to implement knowledge methodology. Any formalism that admits a declarative semantics and can be interpreted both as a programming language and database language is a knowledge language. Three well-established techniques have been used for knowledge representation and inference: frames and semantic networks, logic based approaches, and rule based systems. Frames and semantic networks also referred to as slot and filler structures, capture declarative information about related objects and concepts where there is a clear class hierarchy and where the principle of inheritance can be used to infer the characteristics of members of a subclass from those of the higher level class. The two forms of reasoning in this technique are matching (i.e., identification of objects having common properties), and property inheritance in which properties are inferred for a subclass. Because of limitations, frames and semantic networks are generally limited to representation and inference of relatively simple systems. Logic-based approaches use logical formulas to represent more complex relationships among objects and attributes. Such approaches have well-defined syntax, semantics and proof theory. When knowledge is represented with logic formulas, the formal power of a logical theorem proof can be applied to derive new knowledge. However, the approach is inflexible and requires great precision in stating the logical relationships. In some cases, common-sense inferences and conclusions cannot be derived, and the approach may be inefficient, especially when dealing with issues that result in large combinations of objects or concepts. Rule-based approaches are more flexible. They allow the representation of knowledge using sets of IF-THEN or other condition action rules. This approach is more procedural and less formal in its logic and as a result, reasoning can be controlled in a forward or backward chaining interpreter. In each of these approaches, the knowledge-representation component (i.e., problem-specific rules and facts) is separate from the problem-solving and inference procedures. Resource Description Framework (RDF) The Semantic Web is built on syntaxes which use the Universal Resource Identifier (URI) to represent data in triples-based structures using Resource Description Framework (RDF) (see Chapter 7). A URI is a Web identifier, such as "http:" or "ftp:.” The syntax of URIs is governed by the IETF, publishers of the general URI specification the W3C maintains a list of URI schemes . In an RDF document, assertions are made about particular things having properties with certain values. This structure turns out to be a natural way to describe the vast majority of the data processed by machines. Subject, predicate, and object are each identified by a URI. The RDF triplets form webs of information about related things. Because RDF uses URIs to encode this information in a document the URIs ensure that concepts are not just words in a document, but are tied to a unique definition. All the triples result in a directed graph whose nodes and arcs are all labeled with qualified URIs. The RDF model is very simple and uniform. The only vocabulary is URIs which allow the use of the same URI as a node and as an arc label. This makes self-reference and reification possible, just as in natural languages. This is appreciable in a user-oriented context (like the Web), but is difficult to cope with in knowledge-based systems and inference engines. Once information is in RDF form, data becomes easier to process. We illustrate an RDF document in Example 6-1. This piece of RDF basically says that a book has the title "e-Video: Producing Internet Video," and was written by "H. Peter Alesso." Example 6-1 Listing 6-1 Sample RDF /XML H. Peter Alesso e-Video: Producing Internet Video The benefit of RDF is that the information maps directly and unambiguously to a decentralized model that differentiates the semantics of the application from any additional syntax. In addition, XML Schema restricts the syntax of XML applications and using it in conjunction with RDF may be useful for creating some datatypes. The goal of RDF is to define a mechanism for describing resources that makes no assumptions about a particular application domain, nor defines the semantics of any application. RDF models may be used to address and reuse components (software engineering), to handle problems of schema evolution (database), and to represent knowledge (Artificial Intelligence). However, modeling metadata in a completely domain independent fashion is difficult to handle. How successful RDF will be in automating activities over the Web is an open question. However, if RDF could provide a standardized framework for most major Web sites and applications, it could bring significant improvements in automating Web-related activities and services (see Chapter 11). If some of the major sites on the Web incorporate semantic modeling through RDF, it could provide more sophisticated searching capabilities over these sites (see Chapter 15). We will return to a detailed presentation of RDF in Chapter 7. RDF Schema The first "layer" of the Semantic Web is the simple data-typing model called a schema. A schema is simply a document that defines another document. It is a master checklist or grammar definition. The RDF Schema was designed to be a simple data-typing model for RDF. Using RDF Schema, we can say that "Desktop" is a type of "Computer," and that "Computer" is a sub class of “Machine”. We can also create properties and classes, as well as, creating ranges and domains for properties. All of the terms for RDF Schema start with namespace http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema# . The three most important RDF concepts are "Resource" (rdfs:Resource), "Class" (rdfs:Class), and "Property" (rdf:Property). These are all "classes," in that terms may belong to these classes. For example, all terms in RDF are types of resource. To declare that something is a "type" of something else, we just use the rdf:type property: rdfs:Resource rdf:type rdfs:Class . rdfs:Class rdf:type rdfs:Class . rdf:Property rdf:type rdfs:Class . rdf:type rdf:type rdf:Property . This means "Resource is a type of Class, Class is a type of Class, Property is a type of Class, and type is a type of Property." We will return to a detailed presentation of RDF Schema in Chapter 7. Ontology A program that wants to compare information across two databases has to know that two terms are being used to mean the same thing. Ideally, the program must have a way to discover common meanings for whatever databases it encounters. A solution to this problem is provided by the Semantic Web in the form of collections of information called ontologies. Artificial-intelligence and Web researchers use the term ontology for a document that defines the relations among terms. A typical ontology for the Web includes a taxonomy with a set of inference rules. Ontology and Taxonomy We can express an Ontology as: Ontology = < taxonomy, inference rules> And we can express a taxonomy as: Taxonomy = < {classes}, {relations}> The taxonomy defines classes of objects and relations among them. For example, an address may be defined as a type of location, and city codes may be defined to apply only to locations, and so on. Classes, subclasses, and relations among entities are important tools. We can express a large number of relations among entities by assigning properties to classes and allowing subclasses to inherit such properties. Inference rules in ontologies supply further power. An ontology may express the rule "If a city code is associated with a state code, and an address uses that city code, then that address has the associated state code." A program could then readily deduce, for instance, that an MIT address, being in Cambridge, must be in Massachusetts, which is in the U.S., and therefore should be formatted to U.S. standards. The computer doesn't actually "understand" this, but it can manipulate the terms in a meaningful way. The real power of the Semantic Web will be realized when people create many programs that collect Web content from diverse sources, process the information and exchange the results. The effectiveness of software agents will increase exponentially as more machine-readable Web content and automated services become available. The Semantic Web promotes this synergy — even agents that were not expressly designed to work together can transfer semantic data. The Semantic Web will provide the foundations and the framework to make such technologies more feasible. Web Ontology Language (OWL) In 2003, the W3C began final unification of the disparate ontology efforts into a standardizing ontology called the Web Ontology Language (OWL). OWL is a vocabulary extension of RDF. OWL is currently evolving into the semantic markup language for publishing and sharing ontologies on the World Wide Web. OWL facilitates greater machine readability of Web content than that supported by XML, RDF, and RDFS by providing additional vocabulary along with formal semantics. OWL comes in several flavors as three increasingly-expressive sublanguages: OWL Lite, OWL DL, and OWL Full. By offering three flavors, OWL hopes to attract a broad following. We will return to detailed presentation of OWL in Chapter 8. Inference A rule may describe a conclusion that one draws from a premise. A rule can be a statement processed by an engine or a machine that can make an inference from a given generic rule. The principle of "inference" derives new knowledge from knowledge that we already know. In a mathematical sense, querying is a form of inference and inference is one of the supporting principles of the Semantic Web. For two applications to talk together and process XML data, they require that the two parties must first agree on a common syntax for their documents. After reengineering their documents with new syntax, the exchange can happen. However, using the RDF/XML model, two parties may communicate with different syntax using the concept of equivalencies. For example, in RDF/XML we could say “car” and specify that it is equivalent to “automobile.” We can see how the system could scale. Merging databases becomes recording in RDF that "car" in one database is equivalent to "automobile" in a second database. Indeed, this is already possible with Semantic Web tools, such as a Python program called "Closed World Machine” or CWM. Unfortunately, great levels of inference can only be provided using "First Order Predicate Logic," FOPL languages, and OWL is not entirely a FOPL language. First-order Logic (FOL) is defined as a general-purpose representation language that is based on an ontological commitment to the existence of objects and relations. FOL makes it easy to state facts about categories, either by relating objects to the categories or by quantifying. For FOPL languages, a predicate is a feature of the language which can make a statement about something, or to attribute a property to that thing. Unlike propositional logics, in which specific propositional operators are identified and treated, predicate logic uses arbitrary names for predicates and relations which have no specific meaning until the logic is applied. Though predicates are one of the features which distinguish first-order predicate logic from propositional logic, these are really the extra structure necessary to permit the study of quantifiers. The two important features of natural languages whose logic is captured in the predicate calculus are the terms "every" and "some" and their synonyms. Analogues in formal logic are referred to as the universal and existential quantifiers. These features of language refer to one or more individuals or things, which are not propositions and therefore force some kind of analysis of the structure of "atomic" propositions. The simplest logic is classical or boolean, first-order logic. The "classical" or "boolean" signifies that propositions are either true or false. First-order logic permits reasoning about the propositional and also about quantification ("all" or "some"). An elementary example of the inference is as follows: A ll men are mortal. John is a man. The conclusion: John is mortal. Application of inference rules provides powerful logical deductions. With ontology pages on the Web, solutions to terminology problems begin to emerge. The definitions of terms and vocabularies or XML codes used on a Web page can be defined by pointers from a page to an ontology. Different ontologies need to provide equivalence relations (defining the same meaning for all vocabularies), otherwise there would be a conflict and confusion. Software Agents Many automated Web Services already exist without semantics, but other programs, such as agents have no way to locate one that will perform a specific function. This process, called service discovery, can happen only when there is a common language to describe a service in a way that lets other agents understand both the function offered and the way to take advantage of it. Services and agents can advertise their function by depositing descriptions in directories similar to the Yellow Pages. There are some low-level, service-discovery schemes which are currently available. The Semantic Web is more flexible by comparison. The consumer and producer agents can reach a shared understanding by exchanging ontologies which provide the vocabulary needed for discussion. Agents can even bootstrap new reasoning capabilities when they discover new ontologies. Semantics also make it easier to take advantage of a service that only partially matches a request. An intelligent agent is a computer system that is situated in some environment, that is capable of autonomous action and learning in its environment in order to meet its design objectives. Intelligent agents can have the following characteristics: reactivity — they perceive their environment, and respond, pro-active — they exhibit goal-directed behavior and social — they interact with other agents. Real-time intelligent agent technology offers a powerful Web tool. Agents are able to act without the intervention of humans or other systems: they have control both over their own internal state and over their behavior. In complexity domains, agents must be prepared for the possibility of failure. This situation is called non-deterministic. Normally, an agent will have a repertoire of actions available to it. This set of possible actions represents the agent’s capability to modify its environments. Similarly, the action "purchase a house" will fail if insufficient funds are available to do so. Actions therefore have pre-conditions associated with them, which define the possible situations in which they can be applied. The key problem facing an agent is that of deciding which of its actions it should perform to satisfy its design objectives. Agent architectures are really software architectures for decision-making systems that are embedded in an environment. The complexity of the decision-making process can be affected by a number of different environmental properties, such as: Accessible vs inaccessible. Deterministic vs non- deterministic. Episodic vs non-episodic. Static vs dynamic. Discrete vs continuous. The most complex general class of environment is inaccessible, non-deterministic, non-episodic, dynamic, and continuous. Trust and Proof The next step in the architecture of the Semantic Web is trust and proof. If one person says that x is blue, and another says that x is not blue, will the Semantic Web face logical contradiction? The answer is no, because applications on the Semantic Web generally depend upon context, and applications in the future will contain proof-checking mechanisms and digital signatures. Semantic Web Capabilities and Limitations The Semantic Web promises to make Web content machine understandable, allowing agents and applications to access a variety of heterogeneous resources, processing and integrating the content, and producing added value for the user. The Semantic Web aims to provide an extra machine understandable layer, which will considerably simplify programming and maintenance effort for knowledge-based Web Services. Current technology at research centers allow many of the functionalities the Semantic Web promises: software agents accessing and integrating content from distributed heterogeneous Web resources. However, these applications are really ad-hoc solutions using wrapper technology. A wrapper is a program that accesses an existing Website and extracts the needed information. Wrappers are screen scrapers in the sense that they parse the HTML source of a page, using heuristics to localize and extract the relevant information. Not surprisingly, wrappers have high construction and maintenance costs since much testing is needed to guarantee robust extraction and each time the Website changes, the wrapper has to be updated accordingly. The main power of Semantic Web languages is that anyone can create one, simply by publishing RDF triplets with URIs. We have already seen that RDF Schema and OWL are very powerful languages. One of the main challenges the Semantic Web community faces for the construction of innovative and knowledge-based Web Services is to reduce the programming effort while keeping the Web preparation task as small as possible. The Semantic Web’s success or failure will be determined by solving the following: • The availability of content. • Ontology availability, development, and evolution. • Scalability – Semantic Web content, storage, and search are scalable. • Multilinguality – information in several languages. • Visualization – Intuitive visualization of Semantic Web content. • Stability of Semantic Web languages. Conclusion In this chapter, we provided an introduction to the Semantic Web and discussed its background and potential. By laying out a roadmap for its likely development, we described the essential stepping stones including: knowledge representation, inference, ontology, and search. We also discussed several supporting semantic layers of the Markup Language Pyramid Resource Description Framework (RDF) and Web Ontology Language (OWL). In addition, we discussed using RDF and OWL for supporting software agents, Semantic Web Services, and semantic search. [1] MIT's Project Oxygen is developing technologies to enable pervasive, human-centered computing and information-technology services. Oxygen's user technologies include speech and vision technologies to enable communication with Oxygen as if interacting directly with another person, saving much time and effort. Automaton, individualized knowledge access, and collaboration technologies will be used to perform a wide variety of automated, cutting-edge tasks.