No Bezel

Annie J. Easley: Why she kicks ass

When people have their biases and prejudices, yes, I am aware. My head is not in the sand. But my thing is, if I can’t work with you, I will work around you. I was not about to be so discouraged that I’d walk away. That may be a solution for some people, but it’s not mine.

She was an computer scientist, mathematician and rocket scientist, who worked for the Lewis Research Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). She was a leading member of the team which developed software for the Centaur rocket stage and one of the first African-Americans in her field.

 As part of the Jim Crow laws that established and maintained racial inequality, African Americans were required to pass an onerous literacy test and pay a poll tax in order to vote. She remembers the test giver looking at her application and saying only, “You went to Xavier University. Two dollars.” Subsequently, she helped other African Americans prepare for the test.

She began her career in as a Mathematician and Computer Engineer at the NACA Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory (which became NASA Lewis Research Center, 1958–1999, and subsequently the John H. Glenn Research Center) in Cleveland, Ohio. She continued her education while working for the agency and in 1977, she obtained a Bachelor of Sciencein Mathematics from Cleveland State University. As part of a continuing education, Easley worked through specialization courses offered by NASA.

Her 34-year career included developing and implementing computer code that analyzed alternative power technologies, supported Centaur, determined solar, wind and energy projects, identified energy conversion systems and alternative systems to solve energy problems. Her energy assignments included studies to determine the life use of storage batteries, such as those used in electric utility vehicles. Her computer applications have been used to identify energy conversion systems that offer the improvement over commercially available technologies. She retired in 1989 (some sources say 1991).

Easley’s work with the Centaur project helped as technological foundations for the space shuttle launches and launches of communication, military and weather satellites. Her work contributed to the 1997 flight to Saturn of the Cassini probe, which was launched by the Centaur.

derek is from a huuuuge very loud proud werewolf family and all they want is for him to marry a nice werewolf girl and settle down in the house next door to his parents and across the street from where his sister and her husband and their equally enormous family live and around the block from where all the cousins and their families live and talia loves to feed everybody and never seems to get over the big bad wolf/little lamb jokes and their front yard is decorated with tons of woodland creature statuary (some of which have strange dents or missing pieces that look like bite marks but nobody brings that up cause wolfsbane does things to a person) but then one day derek meets stiles a human from a tiny family who is a vegetarian and derek falls head over heels but his family doesn’t quite know what to do with themselves when they meet stiles but they try to work it out and family hijinks ensue

he refuses to put grandma hale in a nursing home even when she starts to think that every day is the full moon so she’s prone to strip and shift at all hours of the day in any situation no matter who is around and chasing a half-shifted old werewolf lady through the neighborhood becomes a sport for the kids

derek hides behind his huge dorky glasses but can’t stop staring at stiles and his fingers playing with the sugar packets and his laughter at the restaurant when he meets his friends there and it’s horribly awkward and he tries to hide under the counter until laura’s oldest son finds him and calls him out in front of everybody

C’MON STILES DOING THE DUMB DANCE IN FRONT OF THE WINDOW TO GET DEREK’S ATTENTION and tripping into somebody on the street and having to explain to his dad where the giant bruise on his face came from and why some woman threatened to press charges against the sheriff’s son

And I don’t mean that as in it’s a Science Officer or Medical personnel either, but like a rookie navigator or intern weapons operative who’s making their first inter-planetary trip and going to work WITH HUMANS not just via telecommunications or stuff but like IN THE FLESH and is so stoked.

They get this feeling a few weeks into their mission or what-have you that they’re missing a big piece of the puzzle like, there are a LOT of humans on this ship, but xe didn’t realize it before because “all humans look alike” but hey no that’s definitely not the same maintenance officer who was handling the proton cores six hours ago what the fuck. Xe gets time off to rest and eat and be social (which is so hard with humans because they’re pheromone detectors are so weak and nnnngh) and then goes back to work in time to see them switching??? why do you have two people do the same job what???

Why do you keep opening your mouth like that at me is this a dominance stance are you insulting me I’m so confused oh my gosh

It’s not in the fucking manual holy shit Xe is so screwed coffee and laughter and hygiene are all included what the fuck

but it’s gotta be simple and easy and not hard but how do you ask your superiors you’re the rookie gosh this is not working out.

Finally little Rookie Alien makes a human “friend”, and knows then they go off duty for food and such so knowing that human is off work Xe waits until they’re off work too and goes to their compartment number and the computer lets them in

"I apologize for disturbing you, Ensign, but I… Ensign?"

Ensign is sitting at their computer, lights blipping, there’s a half-finished maintenance report flashing on the screen and a communication device is tossed on the floor and the Rookie says their name again softly and NO RESPONSE AND

OH

MY

I made these as a way to compile all the geographical vocabulary that I thought was useful and interesting for writers. Some descriptors share categories, and some are simplified, but for the most part everything is in its proper place. Not all the words are as useable as others, and some might take tricky wording to pull off, but I hope these prove useful to all you writers out there!

Since her death in 1979, the woman who discovered what the universe is made of has not so much as received a memorial plaque. Her newspaper obituaries do not mention her greatest discovery. […] Every high school student knows that Isaac Newton discovered gravity, that Charles Darwin discovered evolution, and that Albert Einstein discovered the relativity of time. But when it comes to the composition of our universe, the textbooks simply say that the most abundant atom in the universe is hydrogen. And no one ever wonders how we know.