An Interview with Author and Musician Mike Van Horn
By Tamara Wilhite
Mike Van Horn is a small business advisor who writes science fiction on the side. What makes him notable is that he’s also a science fiction composer. For example, you can find half a dozen songs on SoundCloud tied to his novel Aliens Crashed in My Back Yard.
Methods for Getting Around Facial Recognition Systems
By Tamara Wilhite
Facial recognition systems threaten our privacy. They can track where you go and add that information to the massive amount of information already saved about each of us. Big Brother is watching you and enabled by AI. And when it makes a mistake reading your face, you could end up with criminal charges far worse than when the toll tag system misreads your license plate. Here are several methods for fooling and interfering with facial recognition systems.
The Coronavirus as Left-Wing Theatre
By Robert Cooperman
I need you to stick with me on this one. I promise it will be worth your time.
We are now in the age of the coronavirus and we shall soon see the mettle of our country based on our response to this pandemic. I have no doubt that a play will be written about it soon and it will either be a “Trump didn’t do enough and people died and he has blood on his hands” play, which will have a limited shelf life but will be all the rage for a good month or two; or a heart-rendering, mind-numbing tragedy about all the truly good people who lost their battle with COVID-19 and the one survivor who must live on in a world that’s done him or her wrong. Both will be terrible plays but will be considered “deep” and “thought-provoking,” no doubt spawning a musical by Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitt (the perpetrators of next to normal and If/Then). If the pandemic doesn’t doom us, the dramatic response to it will.
An Interview with Teresa Patterson
By Tamara Wilhite
The Wheel of Time is a best-selling fantasy series by Robert Jordan. While Mr. Jordan passed away in 2007, his work remains popular. A TV show based on his series is slated to hit Amazon Prime as a TV series in 2020 or 2021. And I had the privilege of interviewing author Teresa Patterson about her collaborations with Robert Jordan and her other projects.
Mountain Dew Energized Doritos: Only in Australia. You Don’t Want Them Anywhere Else.
By Tom Weiss
Every time I stroll through the soft drink aisle and see the brand names Coke and Pepsi lining the shelves on either side – even now, nearing the end of my fifth decade on the planet – I think about my parents. Coke, when I was a child (and still, to some degree, today) was an adult beverage. “You can’t have it,” I hear my mother’s voice echo in my head. “It has caffeine.”
Back then, I didn’t know what caffeine was. But, I knew I wanted it. So much of my youth was consumed by a longing to be older, to do what grown-ups did, to drink what they drank. And, as a result, I was primed to fall for the marketing strategy Mountain Dew employed in the 1980s.
An Interview with Jeffrey Fortney, Veteran and Author
By Tamara Wilhite
Jeffrey Fortney is a U.S. Air Force and fire service veteran. He’s published several science fiction and action-thriller novels in the past decade. And I had the opportunity to interview him.
