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With Lego X, you just use Lego bricks to create digital models without ever touching computer software.
If you can use Lego, you can create 3-D models and print them or share them online.
Source: Lego X
Comic book festivals and conventions are where faithful fans, creators, artists and writers meet. They are also a place where people can discover something new. Black comic book festivals carry an additional purpose — to focus on an underserved market. This Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, Blerds on both coasts will have an opportunity to geek out over the latest in offerings from creators, artists and writers of color.
In Harlem on Saturday, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture hosts the third annual Black Comic Book Festival from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. In San Francisco, the historic NorCal Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Foundation Celebration added the Black Comix Arts Festival [BCAF] to its list of activities, with events kicking off Sunday and continuing through Monday. Both festivals are free to the public.
John Jennings, co-founder of both events, will spend much of his weekend in an airplane — a sacrifice he’s happy to make to support Black comics creators and fans.
“Images are extremely important and so are the lack of them,” Jennings said. “It is very empowering to see ourselves reflected in the culture and society in which we participate. On the other hand, it is just as debilitating to not see ourselves. Our invisibility is sometimes deafening. It is vital for Black creators to have a voice and a space or resistance to this erasure. There’s a small contingent of Black creators in
the mainstream, but never as many as there should be. However, there’s an alternative, and now
with the access to various modes of publishing, there’s a movement happening.”
Jennings, an associate professor of art and visual studies at the University at Buffalo, has made comics his lifelong study, both as an academic and as a creator and artist and is quick to point out that the involvement of creators of color in comics is nothing new.
“For the last 20 years or so, there has been an independent Black comics culture brewing just beneath the surface. There’s now a loosely connected network of Afrocentric, alternative, diverse cons that are mostly situated on the East Coast, the Midwest and Southeast.” The network includes Yumy Odom (ECBACC), Joseph Wheeler III (OnyxCon), Alexander Simmons (Kids ComicCon), Andre Batts (Black Age Motor City), Maia Crown Williams (MECCA), and Preach Jacobs (ColaCon).
Jennings and colleagues Dr. Jonathan Gayles, Jerry Craft and Deirdre Hollman of the Schomburg Center pooled their resources together and created the Black Comic Book Festival at the Schomburg Center in Harlem. The festival has been very successful in bringing thousands of people from around the city to Harlem to see the work of a variety of comics creators and illustrators of color, including Mshindo Kuumba, Jennifer Crute’, Chuck Collins, N Steven Harris, Tim Fielder, Micheline Hess, Nigel Carrington, Shawn Alleyne, Stacey Robinson and Alitha Martinez.
“It’s a joyous event, however, there’s a lack of true connection with Black creators on the West Coast,” Jennings said. “That’s why we wanted to make a ‘sister’ event. We wanted to make MLK weekend a Black Comix weekend and have a bicoastal connection centered around comics and Black subjectivity. What better time to celebrate the power of dreams?”
Jennings cited San Francisco’s long history with comics, especially underground and independent comics and its longtime commitment to celebrating the legacy of King through the MLK NorCal Foundation, as important reasons why the city was perfect for the inaugural event.
“[San Francisco is] home to one of the best comics stores in the country — Isotope: The Comics Lounge, and Aaron Grizzell, director of the MLK NorCal, puts on one of the largest MLK Day celebrations in the country and brings in around 30,000 people a year to celebrate the legacy of King and the Civil Rights Movement. [The event] has a bevy of inspiring and entertaining festivals that all happen after a large commemorative march during the day.”
Jennings, Grizzell and additional co-founders Colette Rodgers, Ayize Jama-Everett, David Walker and Shawn Taylor put their 
heads together and came up with BCAF. Even though this is the festival’s first year, the stars and the comic book industry have already taken notice.
“I am so excited to see the creators of “Concrete Park” — Tony Puryear and Erika Alexander,” Jennings said. “They are just marvelous and generous artists. The amazing Kevin Grevioux, writer, producer and actor. He is the co-creator of the “Underworld” franchise and also the creator of “The Blue Marvel.” I am super excited to meet Eric Dean Seaton, the writer/creator of the high-flying adventure book “Legend of Mantamaji.” In addition to that I am stoked to meet the publisher and writer, Sebastian Jones, who is doing a new book with Amandla Stenberg, the young actor best-known as the character Rue from the Hunger Games film. I’ve never met Fred Noland. He’s a Bay Area indie artist and he’s on my panel! So, I am looking very forward to getting to know about him and his work. Nancy Cato. I’ve never met Nancy face-to-face and I can’t wait to do so. Also, the Love Brothers, Jeremy and Robert from Gettosake Entertainment. It’s always a pleasure to hang with them. Honestly, I am super excited to see everyone!”
Eric Dean Seaton, longtime television director, chose the BCAF to launch the 2015 leg of his book tour for his new graphic novel series, “Legend of the Mantamaji,” with an author conversation and book signing event at 4 p.m. Sunday at the Creativity Theater.
“The addition of the Black Comix Arts Festival to the selection of NorCal MLK events is an important one,” Seaton said. “Comics and graphic novels are touching every corner of pop culture, and while African-Americans are large consumers of the media, too often they are marginalized or left out of the story altogether. This event highlights the significant contributions creators, artists and writers are making, bringing true diversity in the medium. I’m very excited and proud to be a part of the inaugural event.”
Jennings sees the events as simply evidence of longstanding Black tradition.
“Alternative Black Speculative spaces like Afrofuturism, AfroSurrealism, EthnoSurrealism and others have been on the rise worldwide. We don’t have to beg the mainstream to represent us. We can do it ourselves and put it out there. We exist and we dream. The Black imagination is what helped our ancestors survive. What was Dr. King if not a Black Speculative creator? That mountaintop he spoke of wasn’t in this dimension, or time, or space. It was somewhere else waiting for us to find it.”
Source: Terreece M. Clarke at LifeSlice Media
Join Tiphub for the Diaspora Day of Civic Hacking. The DDC is a global day of advocacy and international hackathon that brings together technologists and community leaders in Nairobi, Kenya; Lagos, Nigeria; Accra, Ghana; Oakland, California; Atlanta and Washington, D.C., to devise innovative solutions and build prototypes in support of our 2015 featured participants: Asante Africa Foundation, the Peace Corps, BudgIT, The Dream Defenders and the United Negro College Fund. Think the hackathon during TechAfrique but on a global scale.
Founded on the notion that the Diaspora and local communities innately hold the keys to their own empowerment, the goal is to leverage technology to unlock the insights and ingenious of Africa and members of the African Diaspora to improve quality of life for all.
During the day, attendees will convene at one of eight-plus locations: Nairobi; Accra; Johannesburg, South Africa; Lagos; New York; D.C.; Atlanta; San Francisco/Oakland; London and Amsterdam. Upon arrival, participants will break out into teams and spend the duration of the event strategizing on and building solutions to overcome technical challenges that our featured organizations, like the Peace Corps, are facing.
Register now by visiting civichacking.tiphub.org
It’s 2015, and the No. 1 consumer of rap music is white teenagers. Of course, there are going to be white rappers. But we can’t group all white rappers together. Sure, there are good white rappers, and there are bad white rappers. But that’s not the only way we should sort white rappers. There are two paths a white rapper can take. They can either embrace or exploit Black culture. It’s really simple.
Black people created a lot of genres of music. But this is about rap music. Rap music or hip-hop is a special case. The word struggle is thrown around a lot, but hip-hop was truly born from the struggle. No matter how simple the early lyrics were, they all touched on the same things, dreams of wealth and the struggle that we faced as Black people. As time went on, hip-hop demonstrated the struggle of different people. Gangster rap, popularized by the West Coast in the late ’80s and early ’90s by groups like N.W.A. and Bone Thugs N’ Harmony, wasn’t about going out and shooting people. It was about being born into that lifestyle with no choice. Conscious rap popularized by artists like Common and Nas wasn’t about trying to be the smartest. It was about trying to build bridges as Black people instead of burning them down. No matter the sub-genre of hip-hop, it all encompasses some form of struggle, from Childish Gambino’s loneliness and alienation to Jay Z’s need to create a legacy and use his wealth to support his family and friends, it’s all a struggle Black people face.
There’s nothing wrong with white people wanting to rap at all. The problem is that not all white rappers are willing to understand or even recognize the struggle that Black people face. I’m not saying white rappers need to each drop a 40-minute apology for slavery. I’m just saying some white rappers have to recognize that their skin is the reason they have the success that they do. You can be a great white rapper, but the fact that you’re a white rapper will also be a great help. Recognizing it is the first step. That should be the obvious step. Then there are two ways you can go. You can take a path and embrace Black culture. You can give back or you can speak out.
Read more at Blerdsonline
As our world depends more and more on technology, STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) careers will be in high demand. This list shows the historically Black colleges and universities that awarded the most STEM degrees to students within the sample year of 2008-09. According to a 2012 study, Texas Southern professors Emiel W. Owens, Andrea J. Shelton, Collette M. Bloom and J. Kenyatta Cavil also found that the schools listed below have produced the most STEM graduates from HBCUs.
Howard University
Located in the heart of Washington D.C., this university awarded 166 different STEM degrees.
Xavier University of Louisiana
This university in New Orleans awarded 159 science, technology, engineering and math degrees.
A new study published earlier this month revealed that even a person’s closest friends and family didn’t know their personality as well as computers did.
A team of researchers from both Stanford and the University of Cambridge discovered that a computer with access to a person’s Facebook “likes” actually knew more about that individual’s personality than that person’s own friends and family.
The study focused on five key areas of a personality that are also known as the “Big Five,” the Stanford Daily reports.
Those areas are “openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.”
It wasn’t long ago that consumers were shocked to find out that algorithms online were doing more than keeping track of their favorite shopping sites or other daily activities. Today’s algorithms are also judging consumers in a sense and using assumptions made about their personalities to not only control advertisements but to completely rearrange their search engine results.
Now that computers are also proving to be accurate judges of personality, it seems like our technological companions are getting to know us all too well.
During the study, the researchers collected self-assessments from the participants about their own personalities.
Each of the 82,220 volunteers had to answer 100 key questions about their personalities before their friends, family and spouses were then given a 10-item questionnaire about their loved one’s personality.
Meanwhile, the computer used nothing more than the participants’ Facebook “likes.”
On average, the computer only had to sift through 10 likes before it could guess the person’s personality more accurately than a friend or roommate.
After about 70 likes the computer was able to guess the person’s personality better than their close friends.
It took roughly 150 likes for the computer to perform better than family members.
It took much more research for the computers to perform as well as the research participants’ spouses, however.
On average, the computer had to analyze about 300 likes before it could judge the participants’ personality as well as their spouse did with the 10-item questionnaire.
Since most people only had about 277 likes on Facebook, the computer often failed to judge the participants’ personality as well as their spouse.
While spouses still seem to understand their loved ones’ personality better than the Facebook like-reading computers, the researchers said there were still some key implications to take away from the study.
In the study’s abstract, the team of researchers wrote that “computers outpacing humans in personality judgment present significant opportunities and challenges in the areas of psychological assessment, marketing and privacy.”
Only time will tell how much privacy consumers are willing to sacrifice in exchange for advancements in psychology and marketing.
Phil LeBeau took Mercedes’ new concept car, an all-electric self-driving vehicle out for a spin.
Source: NBRbizrpt
As the tech industry continues to battle a serious diversity problem, one program has emerged as a leader in getting Black youths interested in, exposed to and engaged in STEM careers.
iUrban Teen has garnered attention on a national scale and has been a front-runner when it comes to not only exposing young people of color to STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) careers, but also getting them actively engaged in the field at a young age.
“What truly motivated me to create iUrban Teen was the fact that a lot of folks in diverse communities don’t know about the opportunities that are available in STEM careers,” said Deena Pierott, iUrban Teen founder and chief innovator. “This is powerful information to share and I wanted to create a vehicle where we not only told them, we also showed them.”
Many of today’s tech giants are dishing out millions of dollars to create diversity boards, hire new advisers and find other ways to boost diversity within their company walls, but iUrban Teen is attacking Silicon Valley’s diversity issue at its very core.
While unusually high barriers to entry have been plaguing Black people who are interested in STEM careers, there are also far fewer applicants interested in breaking through those walls.
Several studies and successful tech entrepreneurs have pointed to the fact that many Black children are not exposed to the wonders of technology due to insufficient funding in school or a lack of access to mentors.
Thanks to iUrban Teen, that problem may not persist much longer.
“We’re solving the digital divide,” Pierott, who is also the CEO of Mosaic Blueprint, continued. “We’re solving the problem of exclusion by sharing information with parents and teens about avenues of opportunities and how to get there.”
The program focuses on educating young Black males between the ages of 13 and 18 about STEM careers and giving them the skills they need to have a solid foundation to build on if they want to pursue such a career path.
The program is also unique for its integration of the arts with STEM, proving to the Black youth that the opportunities in the STEM field are far more diverse than just coding and number crunching.
It also equips the teens with “new perspectives” of the STEM field that could make them truly valuable to the biggest tech giants of the future.
From Teen Tech Summits to STEM+Art Tours, the program hosts a variety of ways to get students of color to dive head first into the tech space and take the first step toward creating a successful future.
That, Pierott says, is more rewarding than any of the major coveted awards that iUrban Teen has earned in the past.
“I could say [my greatest achievement] was the White House honor or the Rockefeller Foundation nomination, or any of the other honors,” she said, but instead there were simpler moments that truly meant the world to Pierott. “My greatest achievement was to receive an email from a mother who said, ‘Thank you for what you do, it was always so difficult trying to get my sons to talk about school, careers, etc., however, every time we attend an iUrban Teen event we talk for hours about the possibilities.’ That’s my greatest achievement — that we make a difference.”
While many Black youth can learn a lot from the programs, there is also a lot they can learn from Pierott herself.
In today’s job market and economy, only the daring, the bold and the strong have the ability to take a leap of faith to become the head of their own companies.
It’s an accomplishment that not many get to boast, but Pierott certainly has more than enough bragging rights.
Even as she stands as a successful businesswoman today, however, she reminds people that the road there wasn’t free of obstacles.
The key was to embrace those obstacles and “fail forward.”
“I’m pretty flexible and I know how to fail forward,” she said. “Meaning, I’m not afraid of failing on a project. I just try a different approach.”
The hard work paid off and Pierott achieved great things while her mother was still alive to witness it.
Pierott’s mother died just one day after she received her first major award in October of 2010.
“I was extremely close to my mother and was also her caregiver,” she said. “She was diagnosed with dementia in 2007 and that’s when I decided to leave my job and start my own business at home so that I could take care of her. It was important for me to allow her to see me be successful with my business while she still knew who I was. So I worked and worked and worked on my business model. Receiving the MED Week Minority Business of the Year for Mosaic Blueprint was a highpoint for me and for my mother who was there to see it.”
Getting into college can be a difficult and arduous journey. However, getting in is just the tip of the iceberg. Most people should know that studying is important and procrastination is a problem. Staying in and getting the most out of your education is a process in of itself. There are resources that most students don’t know about. Here are a few tips to ease the burden of getting a college education.
Learn and Harness Skills Outside of the Classroom
College will not teach you everything about life and success. You have to take the initiative and enhance skills unrelated to your major. If you like to cook, buy cookbooks. If you like photography, join your school’s photography club or start one. If you like art, buy a sketchbook and watch popular art tutorials on YouTube. Just learn more.
Paid Internships
After your sophomore year, you should know what you want to do by this point. This is the time to get an internship and a few job-shadowing experiences. Internships give you the opportunity to test the waters and gain experiences at top companies and smaller ones, too. Avoid unpaid internships. There are many paid internships that start at minimum wage and go up. If you do get an unpaid internship, make sure you can get college credit for that work. That means one less class you have to pay for. Speak to your counselors for more information.
Here is a simple truth when it comes to me: I think guns are cool. I think guns are cool in the way that I think an electric toothbrush is cool. Or a V8 engine is cool. I think guns are cool in the way I think it’s cool that my daughter looks both like my wife and I or the way that aloe seems to heal everything. To paraphrase Walter White, sometimes it really is about the science, and there is no denying the technological marvel that is the firearm for what it is capable of, regardless of intent or result. That’s a huge, unfair “regardless” there, but we’ll circle back to that. And as cool as guns are in that modern invention kind of way, it’s only half the story.
The more nefarious side is that I enjoy what guns can do in the fictional abstract. It isn’t really honest to say that I think an AK-47 with a ridiculous high rate of fire is cool and not group that the sheer violence of its bullets ripping through something with furious tenacity. So yes, that means that it isn’t honest for me say that I enjoy Rick Grimes spraying automatic vengeance without the people of Terminus being the bullet sponges. Admitting you enjoy watching violent ballistic death on TV doesn’t make me a sociopath (I don’t think) because it is so wildly enjoyed by others, but it is a bit alarming to say it out loud like that. Even then, that’s watching gun violence, that’s not the act of doing it, so that adds another level between what we would start to consider problematic, right?
Well, what about video games? I game. Hard. I’ve logged well over 100 hours of “Destiny,” a first-person shooter from developer Bungie, famous for the “Halo” franchise (yes, the game just came out in September and no, I don’t feel the least bit bad about that number). As most FPS games, you play 85 percent of your time in the game aiming down the sights, killing everything unlucky enough to be in your path and have hit points for health. Like most shooters, “Destiny” rewards you for being precise. They’re called precision shots here in lieu of “headshots” mostly because there is an enemy variant where their most vulnerable spot is in their abdomen. Still, hitting these spots rewards you with extra damage and a bit of visual flare. Shoot a Cabal enemy in the head and watch it explode into gas and toxins as its body hits the ground limply, possibly rewarding you with another weapon or more ammo for your current one. It is satisfying and only feeds your hunger to keep doing it. But to be fair, these are aliens you’re shooting, a fictional genocide to take part in. It’s not like they are human or anything. Not like you can do that …
The first time I saw a real gun was probably when I was about 12 or 13. The first person I remember knowing who lost their life to a bullet was the summer before my 14th birthday, though I expect it may have happened before that, but I just didn’t know any better and nobody bothered to sully me with the truth. I’d love to say that was the last time I lost a friend to the barrel, but it wasn’t and it didn’t necessarily slow down as I grew up either, except the number of “eligible” friends for such violence began to narrow itself.
Read more from Will Evans at Black Nerd Problems