Alphabet Soup - Naming Names

This word puzzle is brought to you by Nicole at The Madlab Post...

It’s time for Alphabet Soup - The Word Scramble Puzzle of A to Z Wizards! 

Since no one won the Movie Monster Alphabet Soup game a few weeks ago, Marta Szemik is still the current Alphabet Wizard. At this time, it looks like she did not select a letter for the new game so I'm going to go with the next one that follows her previous choice, in the alphabet -- Letter N. Today, N is for Names...

Unscramble the following movie characters' names that start with the letter N. The first commenter who is able to correctly unscramble all or most of these movie character names, at best, wins this weeks’ Alphabet Soup game. Answers and the name of the winner will be posted here at the A to Z blog during next week’s “Friday Fun Time - Alphabet Remix.”

1. iobrNt _____________
2. iNkyc _____________
3. aoNl ______________
4. Nnia ______________
5. eoNm _____________

Have a Fantastically Fun Friday Everybody!

Sign up for the Monday Movie Meme, a weekly group blogging series that inspires discussion about entertainment in a whole new light and provides recommendations for your DVD, on-demand or theater fix. New topics are posted every Monday at The Madlab Post!

NICOLE
Also @MadlabPost on Twitter

Tech Billionaires Plan Audacious Mission to Mine Asteroids

You can visit guest blogger Stephen Tremp at Breakthrough Blogs 

After spending a year gazing at Vesta , NASA's Dawn spacecraft was set to cruise toward the most massive space rock in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter — a voyage that will take nearly three years. 

Dawn slipped into orbit last year around Vesta — about the size of Arizona — and beamed back stunning close-ups of the lumpy surface. Its next destination is the Texas-size Ceres, also known as a dwarf planet (folks, these are some very large pieces of rock!!!). 

Vesta and Ceres are the largest bodies in the asteroid belt littered with chunks of rocks that never quite bloomed into full-fledged planets. As cosmic time capsules, they're ideal for scientists trying to piece together how Earth and the other planets formed and evolved. 

This Being Said: A group of wealthy, adventurous entrepreneurs announced a new venture called Planetary Resources, Inc., which plans to send swarms of robots to space to scout asteroids for precious metals and set up mines to bring resources back to Earth, in the process adding trillions of dollars to the global GDP, helping ensure humanity’s prosperity and paving the way for the human settlement in space. 

“The resources of Earth pale in comparison to the wealth of the solar system,” said Eric Anderson, who founded the commercial space tourism company Space Adventures. 

Nearly 9,000 asteroids larger than 150 feet in diameter orbit near the Earth. Some could contain as much platinum as is mined in an entire year on Earth, making them potentially worth several billion dollars each. 

The new company is backed by Google’s CEO Larry Page and executive chairman Eric Schmidt, former Microsoft chief architect Charles Simonyi, and Ross Perot Jr. The venture also counts on filmmaker James Cameron, former astronaut Tom Jones, former JPL engineer Chris Lewicki, and planetary scientist Sara Seager as advisors.

Platinum Alone Is Worth:  around $23,000 a pound — nearly the same as gold. Mining the top few feet of a single modestly sized, half-mile-diameter asteroid could yield around 130 tons of platinum, worth roughly $6 billion. One possibility might be to find a useful asteroid and push it closer to Earth. A fairly low-power solar-electric ion engine could nudge a hunk of rock into orbit around the Earth, effectively creating a small second moon that could be easily accessed. 

Asteroids contain water that can be used for drinking and broken into its constituents. Oxygen is valuable for life support in space-based habitats, while liquid oxygen and hydrogen are both used to produce rocket fuel. Having a “gas station” in space could help enable missions to Mars and beyond. Such a refueling depot might allow people to permanently live and work in space, another goal of Planetary Resources. 

Question: Do you think its a good idea to mine asteroids by pulling these monstrosities into our orbit? Better speak up now or forever hold your peace because it's probably going to happen. 

 Reference

Special Challenge Participant Feature - Michael Di Gesu

Today is a very special feature! I have the honor of interviewing a writer I admire very much and have enjoyed getting to know over the past two years. Michael Di Gesu is an incredibly talented writer, one who will hit it big time in the very near future. His theme for the Challenge was flash fiction mysteries, and since today is also the post day for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, I thought it would tie in very well. So please welcome once of the most amazing people you will ever meeting in the blogging world, Michael!


Your theme was a series of flash fiction/riddle pieces – what made you chose that theme?

I just love to write Flash Fiction. To be able to tell a whole story in 3-500 words is quite the challenge, THEN, to add a riddle on top of it .... we are talking MAJOR challenge. And isn’t that one of the focus points of the A-Z challenge? To stretch or writing skills and to do it daily? And let me say that I had to be a rubber band for this feat.

Did any of them completely stump your followers?

Yes, several did. Many of my posts needed research, so that enabled me to really come up with some difficult ones.

Did you write these in advance or fly by the seat of your pants?

Man, did I fly by the seat! I had actually began the research the afternoon before I had to post. Some took almost 8-10 hours to put together. By midnight I usually had them ready for the 6:00am scheduled time.

Did you select a word and then write the prose, like it was a word prompt?

Yes, I tailored each post to the specific word I wished to focus on. Many of the posts had a fantasy element, so I would think of a wonderful mystical/magical character to focus on. One of my favorites was my “P” post for PAN.

Which one was your favorite piece? (My favorite was the letter Q. And ironically I got it wrong!)

Now Alex, that’s a tough one. But, if I have to choose, I would say my “S” post. The Salamander. I loved writing this particular piece because I wrote it in the Salamander’s POV. And what an attitude this little guy has. Geez. Too funny.

Harry Potter figured into your writing as well. You’re a big fan, aren’t you?

A HUGE fan. I must have read the series at least ten times. J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter came into my life the year my father died from pancreatic cancer. I had spent three LONG months taking care of him and literally watching him disappear. It was a very stressful time, and by December of 2001 the first film, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’’s Stone, had just hit the theaters. It was the day after my father’s service my brother and I went to see it.

For the first time in months I had escaped the sadness and forgot for over two glorious hours of magic. The film was the ultimate escape and started me on my passion for the books. I still go back to read them on occasion when I need an escape. The world J.K. Rowling created is very special to me. Harry, Ron, and Hermione, in my opinion, have the best chemistry of all the literary characters I have read.

J. K. Rowling also influenced me greatly as a writer. From her I learned how to create lush, vivid, and descriptive scenes. And I tried and hopefully succeeded in creating wonderful chemistry between my three mc’s in my first m/g fantasy novel.

Your birthday was in April – what did you do that day? Did you write?

The “Y” post was on my birthday. First, I wrote my post ... early. I am usually in Florida for this month, and I reserve my time share in Orlando my birthday week. This year I had spent it at Epcot. I am a HUGE Disney fan as well, not surprising since I love fantasy and magic so much. I had decided to do something I had never done before and that was to have my picture taken with every Disney character that happen to be there that day. Not easy to do believe me. The lines and all the kids.... Of course, I was the BIGGEST kid and did get a few strange looks, but I didn’t care, it was my birthday after all.

Do you have a theme in mind for next year’s A to Z Challenge?

Well, I hadn’t really thought about it yet, we do have some time before April. But, for the last two challenges I did the Flash Fiction/riddle theme and everyone seem to really enjoy it. So, I might just have to stick with it again, unless, something else more incredible comes to mind. Anything is possible with me, especially when it comes to my writing.

Thank you Alex for featuring me today. I am honored to be here and I’m definitely looking forward to the next A-Z. If last year is any indication, you might just peak at three thousand bloggers this year. Anything is possible in the A-Z Challenge.

Thank YOU, Michael!!

Co-host Ninja Captain Alex is the author of CassaStar and CassaFire and his blog can be found HERE