Menu Close

WorD Halloween Reading Event

You’re Invited!

Come on out for a great evening of spooky, Halloween readings by members of the Write or Die writing and critique group and the special guest author, Jamie Lackey!

Dress up if you like but costumes are optional.

Door prizes!

Date: Tuesday Oct 22, 2024 
Time: 7-9 pm
Location: Hop Farm Brewing Company. 5601 Butler St. Pittsburgh

Write or Die (WorD) recently became part of the workshop program under the Parsec 501(c)(3) organization. Show your support for this important Parsec program by attending!

Jamie Lackey lives in Pittsburgh with her husband and their cats. She has had over 200 short stories published in places like Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Apex Magazine, and Escape Pod. In addition to writing, she spends her time reading, playing tabletop RPGs, and hiking.
Jamie is also an attending member of the Write or Die, writing and critique group.

2024 October Parsec Meeting

The Saturday, October 19th Parsec meeting will be held via ZOOM and IN PERSON at the Squirrel Hill Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.
Rooms open at 12:30pm for social time.
Meeting starts at 1pm.
Parsec Monthly Meetings are open to the public.

REGISTER for ZOOM

Our guest will be Day Al-Mohamed, author, filmmaker, and disability policy advisor.

Day Al-Mohamed is an author, filmmaker, and disability policy advisor. Day has written two novels, “Baba Ali and the Clockwork Djinn” and more recently, “The Labyrinth’s Archivist” as well as multiple short stories and articles.

She is a regular host on Idobi Radio’s Geek Girl Riot with a weekly audience of 100k+ listeners and a Founding Member of FWD-Doc (Documentary Filmmakers with Disabilities).

Her documentary, THE INVALID CORPS, about disabled Civil War soldiers, was licensed to Alaska Airlines and had its broadcast premiere on public television in 2020.

Day is currently working on a docu-series, RENEGADES, of role-breaking disabled leaders in history for American Masters/PBS digital (October 2024) and is a proud producer of feature documentary UNSEEN (POV, 2024).

Day was named a DOC NYC 2021 Documentary New Leader, was part of the NBC 2022 Original Voices Fellowship class, and awarded a Disability Futures Fellow grant in 2024.

Outside of her creative work, Day is a policy expert with over 15 years of experience. The former White House Director of Disability Policy, she is a proven leader in inclusion and accessibility, policy development, organizational transformation, and innovative program design. Day lives in Washington DC with her wife, N.R. Brown, daughter Octavia, and guide dog, Gamma.

You can learn about the RENEGADES docu-series: https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/shorts/renegades/

Visit Day Al-Mohamed’s website: https://www.dayalmohamed.com/



2024 Sept Parsec Meeting

On Saturday, September 21, 2024 Timons Esaias will be our Guest as he leads a discussion on “Finding the Future in the Past.

PARSEC, Pittsburgh’s premier Science Fiction & Fantasy Organization meets
via ZOOM and IN PERSON at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh – Squirrel Hill. Meeting 1:00 pm to 3:30 pm. Open to the public

Timons will discuss his technique of “Finding the Future in the Past” for science fiction story ideas. This involves mining 19th century Scientific American articles, Sunday supplement newspaper feature articles, old catalogs, The illustrated London News, and other rich veins of inspiration. Old photographs will come in for special scrutiny. These artifacts raise interesting questions about the expectations of the past, our views today, and the possible surprises laying in ambush in the future. Tim will discuss how this technique has worked for him. He most likely will go on and on about the fundamental question behind most good fiction: What, exactly, is wrong with this picture? He also teaches workshops.

Call for Artwork

Parsec Ink is putting out a call for cover art for the hardcover edition of Triangulation: Hospitium, an anthology of fantasy, science fiction, and horror short stories and poems.

This is Triangulations’ 21st anthology and our first hardcover edition. We’d love for you to be a part of Parsec Ink history.

Deadline for submissions is September 30, 2024. Decisions will be made shortly thereafter.

Hospitium is a Greco-Roman concept of hospitality, where both the guest and host have an obligation to treat the other with kindness and respect, regardless of external quarrels.
Infuriate the gods with a poorly timed joke.
Interrupt a demon’s day off by summoning them for a spot of tea.
Bring your botfriend home to meet your embarrassing parents.
These three stories are a sample of those contained with the pages of Triangulation: Hospitium. You can view the paperback cover on our Kickstarter and Amazon.


Payment upon acceptance is $250 plus a copy of the hardcover edition of the anthology upon completion.

Parsec Ink rights are restricted to the hardcover edition for the 2024 Triangulation: Hospitium anthology only, and any marketing materials related to Triangulation: Hospitium. All other rights remain with the artist.

No AI generated art, please.
Repeat: No AI generated artwork!

Preferred format is 1292 × 925 PNG. We may be able to utilize other formats if necessary. We will work with the chosen artist to fine tune the sizing for the cover.

Please send questions and submissions to: parsecink.editor@gmail.com

Parsec Picnic 2024

Mark the date! Saturday Aug 17, 2024
Location: Dormont Park large pavillion: 1801 Dormont Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15216
Time: Noon – Dusk

PLEASE RSVP to help us plan accordingly:

  • Bring a dish to share!
  • Burgers, hot dogs, buns, ice, some beverages and other assorted picnic necessities will be provided by Parsec.
  • Plenty of room for gaming, readings and more!
  • The pavilion is wheelchair accessible.
  • Friends of Parsec are welcome! All Parsec meetings are free to attend & open to the public.

This is a potluck event. It is suggested that everyone bring a dish to share: salad, side dish, dessert or snacks/chips & dip. You can indicate what you will be bringing in the Parsec Picnic RSVP form.

Parsec will supply charcoal, meats (burgers & hot dogs) buns, condiments, ice, some non-alcohol beverages (a mix of diet, sugared and teas). tortilla chips & salsa, candy & nuts, and paper products (plates, napkins, flatware).

This event is free to attend and open to friends of Parsec and those wishing to learn more about Parsec. Donations will be gratefully accepted during the event.

1801 Dormont Ave. Pittsburgh, PA 15216 (Click on address for Google map)

The driving route to the large pavilion is to take Mcfarland road to Annapolis Ave. Right before the elementary school there is a small road, make the left on to Memorial Ave. On the right you might see a very small access road, make the right on to that road and follow it up to the pavillion. Parking at the pavilion site is limited. Please use the parking lot and walk the short distance to the pavilion if possible.
To park in the lot and walk to the pavillion. From Annapolis Ave, go past the elementary school. On the left there is a small parking lot and a small, one way roadway that comes out of the park from the pavilion. You can walk that roadway to reach the pavillion.

*Media notice: PARSEC staff may choose to record, live-stream, or otherwise capture or record images and comments during in-person meetings or the Zoom event. By attending or registering for any event, you agree that Parsec may use your likeness and recordings to publicize, reproduce, exhibit, distribute, broadcast, or digitize the resulting content for use in marketing, promotion, and advancement efforts. This may include publications, marketing videos, advertising, websites and/or other public marketing for any purpose consistent with the Parsec status as a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization. If you prefer that your likeness not be used, please turn off your camera during Zoom recordings.
Announcements will be made prior to the start of recordings and/or image captures and/or photography.

2024 July Parsec meeting

Our speaker this month is the Confluence 2024 Featured Artist, Christine Hutson!

Seen through the proper lens, the natural world is a truly horrifying place. Earth is teeming with frightening, unexpected, occasionally gruesome, but invariably beautiful organisms. Many of Chris’s creatures begin here. Boundless fascination with the freakishly mundane provides a constant stream of inspiration for her fantastical illustrations. A broad base of knowledge from fields as diverse as anthropology, mythology, biology, religion, and ancient manuscript illustration further guides her hand. Likewise, a degree of medical training has furnished her with a keen eye for anatomy. This lends her work stunning detail when applied to bones, horns, teeth, wings, the odd tentacle here and there, and (as you’ll often see staring back at you) eyeballs. Many eyeballs. You will not be able to miss them. The result is a lavish cabinet of curiosities bloated with the fruits of a delightfully dark imagination.

Chris lives in Pittsburgh where she worked for years as a trained tattoo artist, and as a passionate artisan in the lofty world of tea. She has also worked as an archaeologist, and a professional calligrapher for a variety of clients including the National Baseball Hall of Fame. She currently teaches botanical art for the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Pittsburgh.

In 2024, Christine Hutson is the Featured Artist at the Confluence Conference, held July 26, 27 & 28 at the Sheraton Pittsburgh Airport Hotel. Christine will talk about her experience creating the artwork for the program book, badges, and T-shirt, as well as her own freelance illustration and graphic art business and career.

You can visit her Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/christine.hutson.1  

2024 June Monthly Parsec Meeting

Date: Saturday, June 15th, 2024
Time: 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm
Place: IN PERSON at the Squirrel Hill Carnegie Library
Zoom option is available. [Register for the Zoom meeting]

Author Elizabeth Eve King (E.E. King) is our guest!

Elizabeth Eve King, aka E.E. King, is an award-winning painter, performer, writer, and naturalist. She’ll do anything that won’t pay the bills, especially if it involves animals. Ray Bradbury called Elizabeth’s stories, “marvelously inventive, wildly funny, and deeply thought-provoking.”

E.E. King has been published in over 100 magazines and anthologies, including Clarkesworld, Daily Science Fiction, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Short Edition, and Flametree.  Her novels include Dirk Quigby’s Guide to the Afterlife: All you need to know to choose the right heaven, and several story collections. Her short story The Lost Village appeared in DreamForge in 2023.

Author Elizabeth Eve King's (E.E. King) Book, Gods and monsters

Her art has been collected internationally.  Elizabeth has painted murals in California, Mexico, Spain, and Italy, and shown her paintings at the LA Contemporary Museum of Art. 

Elizabeth also co-hosts The Long-Lost Friends Show on Metastellar YouTube and spends summers doing bird rescue and winters planting coral.

Elizabeth will talk with us about her new novel “Gods and Monsters,” being serialized at Metastellar Magazine.  

We’ll learn about the novel, Metastellar magazine, and E.E, King’s readings of each chapter on YouTube

Master Book Page

E. E. King and Metastellar editor Sophie Gorjance interview

2024 May Monthly Parsec Meeting

Our Program: An Interactive Discussion on A.I. and Large Language Models. Facilitated by Scot Noel.

A.I. and especially Large Language Models have broken into the public consciousness over the last couple of years. Some absolutely hate them as apocalyptic, while others tout them as the greatest thing since the harnessing of fire. Saying that the truth is somewhere in between, while likely true, can obscure the level at which LLMs are indeed highly disruptive, world-wide technological shift.

We’ll take a look at benefits, issues, and the future of A.I. and Large Language models, from medicine to the military, from baked in bias to accelerated research, and how everything from the computer chip industry to the power grid is already being transformed by a technology that is only getting started.

This meeting is designed not as a presentation, but a series of interactive questions where attendees are encouraged to express their own experience, hopes, fears, and feelings about A.I. Let’s engage with humility, courtesy, curiosity, and most importantly a willingness to hear one another’s points of view.

Some A.I. Benefits:

  • Adaptive Personalized Learning (ex: personalized reading and math instruction for K-8 students)
  • Improved Translation Software (ex: aiding in language translation in scientific publishing)
  • Accelerated Industrial Research (ex: finding sustainable replacements for lithium in batteries)
  • LLMs in Medicine (ex: prediction of cancer metastasis and devising clinical treatment responses.)

Some A.I. Issues:

  • Copyright and Creative Concerns (ex: the uncertain future of content creation and graphic design)
  • The A.I. Cold War (ex: the Loyal Wingman autonomous jet fighter squadron escorts)
  • Bias in Large Language Models (ex: training models have biases and stereotypes baked in.)
  • Model Collapse  (ex: degrading results through A.I.’s own “success” and model pollution by “resisters.” )

Some Changes That Might Go Either Way:

  • Macrochips (ex: the Cerebras WSE-3 chips features 4 million transistors and 900,000 cores.)
  • Power Grid (ex: A.I. is restructuring the power grid, power hungry and energy efficient.)
  • A.I. is a Platform Shift (i.e. a change in the dominant layer that applications are built on.)
  • Just getting started (ex: ChatGPT 5 better reasoning, improved accuracy and video support.)

If you missed the March Parsec meeting with guest speaker and 2024 Confluence guest of honor, Richard Kadrey, you can now watch it on our YouTube channel!

2024 April Monthly Meeting

Parsec, Pittsburgh’s premier Science Fiction & Fantasy Organization meets
on Saturday, April 20, 2024 via ZOOM.
Social start time 12:30pm ET
Meeting start time 1:00pm ET

Our guest this month is John J. Ventre, a former multi state Director for the Mutual UFO
Network (MUFON), actor, and author of “They Are Us: The Time Travel False Flag.”

John Ventre was a 10-year multi-State Director for the Mutual UFO Network. It was John’s research into end time prophecy and cultures that got him interested in UFOs in 1996. He is an occasional columnist for many different UFO magazines.
John is the retired PA-WV-VA State Security and Public Affairs Director for UPS. He was a candidate for PA Governor in 2022. John has made numerous televised appearances, including the Anderson Cooper show in 2012, 33 episodes on 7 TV series including 20 episodes on History Channels “Hangar 1”, 116 episodes on PCTV21’s “UFOs over Pittsburgh” and YouTube’s “String Theory of the Unexplained”. He has had 5 movie roles and lectured at numerous UFO conferences including the Wizard World Comicon and MUFON Symposium. John is conference coordinator for 42 PA UFO Conferences and has managed the 2014 & 2018 MUFON Symposium. He is the author of 10 books on 5 topics and gives 20 different PPT conference lectures.

Fear, The Future, and Perception Bias

By Scot Noel

Imagine if you will, today’s world without automobiles. Or rather, a world in which news of their invention has only recently hit the public consciousness.

The media is filled with visions of a future where individuals and families can travel independently, free of transit schedules and crowded buses and trains. Robust rovers are promised that will get you and your family to secluded beaches and mountain hideaways. Tourism will explode. Teenagers can already feel the keys in their hands and look forward to date night taking on whole new possibilities!

But would these heralded symbols of freedom ever find acceptance in a world where the Internet and its doom scrollers enthusiastically predict the end of civilization? No doubt the obvious insanity of the auto would be trolled at every opportunity.

  • Gasoline is flammable! Every emergency room will be filled with burn victims.
  • You’ll have to bury tanks of toxic fuel on every street corner to keep these things going. Without experts to handle the pumping, people would spill gas everywhere.
  • In the US alone, crash deaths might rise to 40,000 to 50,000 fatalities per year. The cost to the economy in injuries, death, and property damage will bankrupt the country!
  • It’s not possible to build enough roads for all these things, and if it were, people would constantly be getting lost. There would have to be signs, and road lights, and traffic control systems. It would bankrupt every state, the US, the world!
  • To keep people safe, you’d have to strap them down, explode air cushions in front of during collisions, and there’s no way to make an automobile safe for young children to ride in!
  • What are you going to do with the worn-out ones? Imagine the wastelands of metal; the endless storage yards of old auto junk; the unsightly graveyards of rusting metal. Not in my backyard!

You get the idea. And I didn’t even go into the enormous health and environmental impact of leaded gasoline. Ethyl, as it was commonly known, was highly dangerous due to its toxic effects on human health and the environment. Tetraethyl lead, the additive used to improve engine performance for over three quarters of a century, caused a range of serious health issues, including neurological and cognitive damage, especially in children, as well as cardiovascular and kidney problems in adults. Its widespread use contributed to environmental pollution, including air, water, and food. It raised lead levels in the atmosphere to dangerous levels, leading to widespread public health concerns.

Yet, in our real world, we not only accepted these risks, problems, and disadvantages, we developed entire industries around mitigating them. Because once automobiles made their way into the culture, nay, into civilization itself, there was no way they were going to be banned, even at the risk of our own lives.

In fact, learning to drive and getting your own vehicle became a rite of passage into adulthood.

I know this social pressure firsthand. As a bookish nerd, I made it all the way through college without getting my driver’s license. (While I’m nowhere near as smart as Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory, there are parallels.)

When I got my physical for a learner’s permit at the age of 22, the doctor looked at me a little incredulously and asked “so, what the hell’s wrong with you?” Owning and driving cars was not only normalized, but it had also become conventional and expected behavior, regardless of all dangers.

Risk Perception Bias

Humans are bad at evaluating risk. In fact, the average person is pretty darned delusional about it. We tend to see that which is new or which has changed as risky and accept that which we encounter every day as either safe or of minimal consequence to our wellbeing.

Our brains are wired so that familiarity breeds complacency. The more we’re exposed to something, the less we perceive it as dangerous. This leads to an underestimation of everyday risks, while at the same time we vastly overestimate risks when the new and unfamiliar comes our way. This is especially true when we perceive that there is nothing we can do and forces beyond our control are moving us in directions we cannot forestall.

This perceptual bias skews our ability to rationally evaluate the dangers inherent in hurtling down highways in metal boxes powered by superheated explosions. The irony? We buckle up, turn the key, and merge onto the freeway without a second thought, all while fretting over threats which are statistically rarer or even occupy the status of theoretical future events.

(Yes, in our history there was early moral panic about the advent of automobiles, including the effect on the well-being of horses, the economic downturn due to the loss of the carriage industry, and that excessive noise would cause widespread nervous disorders.)

Should We Live in Existential Dread of the Future?

Climate change is here today. Artificial Intelligence and robotic systems are changing everyday life as I write this. We live in a world of gene-editing, nuclear power, genetically modified food, and programmable vaccines.

How much should we be living in fear over these things? After all, something is bound to go wrong and affect the lives of billions of humans!

Or, when it comes down to it, will we get past these new developments the way we got past leaded gasoline and “Unsafe (to drive) at Any Speed”?

Facing fear, dread, and existential threats requires a balanced perspective. Much like society adapted to the cultural and civilizational changes represented by automobiles, we have the capacity for resilience and innovation in all things.

The real challenges of today—environmental, technological, political—are formidable, yet history shows we can navigate perilous waters. Awareness, preparedness, and action are key, not succumbing to paralyzing dread and nihilistic daydreams.

Collaborative efforts, scientific and industrial advancements, and global initiatives offer paths forward, demonstrating our ability to tackle and mitigate existential risks, as we adapt and overcome on our way to a livable future.

AI May Help!

One of our fears, the coming of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), may turn out to be one of our best opportunities for distinguishing between unreasonable fears and real risks, as well as developing the tools and approaches to keep us safe.

AGI, by its nature, could enhance our ability to analyze vast datasets and complex systems, providing insights to help distinguish real risks from exaggerated fears.

It could offer predictive models to help us see the consequences of our actions and policies, thereby guiding us toward safer, more informed decisions.

Furthermore, AGI could assist in designing advanced safety protocols, emergency response strategies, and in mitigating the effects of climate change, pandemics, and other global challenges. Thus, while the coming reality of AGI introduces new considerations, it also holds the potential to become an invaluable ally in securing a safer future.

And that would be a far different vision than the awakening of Skynet and the arrival of the Terminator.

After all, in the world of the automobiles, the fatality rate per distance driven has only decreased, falling dramatically from the 1960s to present day. Restraint systems, crashworthiness, active safety features, and advanced driver assistance all contribute to a level of vehicle safety unknown to previous generations.

Today there are over 100 vehicles on this year’s Top Safety picks Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) awards! You can drive safely! And hopefully, while maintaining a little caution, you can also welcome the future with open arms.

END

Reference Links for Further Study:
A Moment in Time: Highway Safety Breakthrough
How the World Eliminated Lead from Gasoline
Why are Humans Bad at Calculating Risk
Risk Perception and Decision making
How Artificial Intelligence Can Inform Decision Making
How AI could power the climate breakthrough the world