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John DeChancie
John DeChancie (born August 3, 1946) is an American author. A Pittsburgh native, he is most famous for his comic fantasy ''Castle'' series, and his science fiction ''Skyway'' series. He is currently engaged in writing screenplays, teleplays, and prose fiction. The ''Castle Perilous'' Series The ''Castle Perilous'' series revolves around Castle Perilous (the name is drawn from the Siege Perilous of Arthurian fable), whose lord is Incarnadine, a sorcerer. 144,000 doors (or "aspects") of the Castle each lead to another parallel universe. Some of these dimensions are magical, while others have little or no magic; one of the latter is Earth. Those who find themselves at the Castle often stay to become residents, and (to their surprise) develop a magical power of their own. This gift is apparently random, and can range from a minor telekinesis limited to lifting pencils to super-enhanced senses to teleportation to full conjuration of matter. The main character, a philosophy m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of United States cities by population, 67th-most populous city in the U.S., with a population of 302,971 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The city is located in Western Pennsylvania, southwestern Pennsylvania at the confluence of the Allegheny River and Monongahela River, which combine to form the Ohio River. It anchors the Greater Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh metropolitan area, which had a population of 2.457 million residents and is the largest metro area in both the Ohio Valley and Appalachia, the Pennsylvania metropolitan areas, second-largest in Pennsylvania, and the List of metropolitan statistical areas, 26th-largest in the U.S. Pittsburgh is the principal city of the greater Pittsburgh–New Castle–Weirton combined statistic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Artificial General Intelligence
Artificial general intelligence (AGI)—sometimes called human‑level intelligence AI—is a type of artificial intelligence that would match or surpass human capabilities across virtually all cognitive tasks. Some researchers argue that state‑of‑the‑art large language models already exhibit early signs of AGI‑level capability, while others maintain that genuine AGI has not yet been achieved. AGI is conceptually distinct from artificial superintelligence (ASI), which would outperform the best human abilities across every domain by a wide margin. AGI is considered one of the definitions of Chinese room#Strong AI vs. AI research, strong AI. Unlike artificial narrow intelligence (ANI), whose competence is confined to well‑defined tasks, an AGI system can generalise knowledge, transfer skills between domains, and solve novel problems without task‑specific reprogramming. The concept does not, in principle, require the system to be an autonomous agent; a static model— ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Living People
Purpose: Because living persons may suffer personal harm from inappropriate information, we should watch their articles carefully. By adding an article to this category, it marks them with a notice about sources whenever someone tries to edit them, to remind them of WP:BLP (biographies of living persons) policy that these articles must maintain a neutral point of view, maintain factual accuracy, and be properly sourced. Recent changes to these articles are listed on Special:RecentChangesLinked/Living people. Organization: This category should not be sub-categorized. Entries are generally sorted by family name In many societies, a surname, family name, or last name is the mostly hereditary portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family. It is typically combined with a given name to form the full name of a person, although several give .... Maintenance: Individuals of advanced age (over 90), for whom there has been no new documentation in the last ten ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1946 Births
1946 (Roman numerals, MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1946th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 946th year of the 2nd millennium, the 46th year of the 20th century, and the 7th year of the 1940s decade. Events January * January 6 – The 1946 North Vietnamese parliamentary election, first general election ever in Vietnam is held. * January 7 – The Allies of World War II recognize the Austrian republic with its 1937 borders, and divide the country into four Allied-occupied Austria, occupation zones. * January 10 ** The first meeting of the United Nations is held, at Methodist Central Hall Westminster in London. ** ''Project Diana'' bounces radar waves off the Moon, measuring the exact distance between the Earth and the Moon, and proves that communication is possible between Earth and outer space, effectively opening the Space Age. * January 11 – Enver Hoxha declares the People's Republic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Writers From Pittsburgh
A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles, genres and techniques to communicate ideas, to inspire feelings and emotions, or to entertain. Writers may develop different forms of writing such as novels, short stories, monographs, travelogues, plays, screenplays, teleplays, songs, and essays as well as reports, educational material, and news articles that may be of interest to the general public. Writers' works are nowadays published across a wide range of media. Skilled writers who are able to use language to express ideas well, often contribute significantly to the cultural content of a society. The term "writer" is also used elsewhere in the arts and music, such as songwriter or a screenwriter, but also a stand-alone "writer" typically refers to the creation of written language. Some writers work from an oral tradition. Writers can produce material across a number of genres, fictional or non-fictional. Other writers use multiple media such ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Science Fiction Writers
American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, people who self-identify their ancestry as "American" ** American English, the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States ** Native Americans in the United States, indigenous peoples of the United States * American, something of, from, or related to the Americas, also known as "America" ** Indigenous peoples of the Americas * American (word), for analysis and history of the meanings in various contexts Organizations * American Airlines, U.S.-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas * American Athletic Conference, an American college athletic conference * American Recordings (record label), a record label that was previously known as Def American * American University, in Washington, D.C. Sports teams ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of California, Riverside
The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Riverside, California, United States. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The main campus sits on in a suburban district of Riverside with a branch campus of in Palm Desert, California, Palm Desert. In 1907, the predecessor to UCR was founded as the UC Citrus Experiment Station, which conducted research in biological pest control and the use of plant hormone, growth regulators. UCR's undergraduate UCR College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, College of Letters and Science opened in 1954. The Regents of the University of California declared UCR a general campus of the system in 1959, and graduate students were admitted in 1961. To accommodate an enrollment of 21,000 students by 2015, more than $730 million has been invested in new construction projects since 1999. UCR plans to have ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
From Prussia With Love (novel)
''From Prussia With Love'' is a novel by John de Chancie published by Prima Publishing, based on the '' Castle Falkenstein'' role-playing game. Plot summary ''From Prussia With Love'' is a steampunk novel in which Castle Falkenstein is concerned about its safety as Prussia develops its own form of steam-powered intercontinental ballistic missiles. Reception Gideon Kibblewhite reviewed ''From Prussia With Love'' for ''Arcane'' magazine, rating it a 5 out of 10 overall. Kibblewhite comments that "the book generally pokes fun at its characters, with the story taking the form of a general send-up of the action-adventure format – there's even a tip of the hat made to James Bond. Those looking for deeper, darker inspiration for Steampunk sessions should look elsewhere." Reviews *Review by Don D'Ammassa (1996) in Science Fiction Chronicle ''Science Fiction Chronicle'' (later, just ''Chronicle'') was an American science fiction magazine (also called semiprozine) published from 1979 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hitchhiker
Hitchhiking (also known as thumbing, autostop or hitching) is a means of transportation that is gained by asking individuals, usually strangers, for a ride in their car or other vehicle. The ride is usually, but not always, free. Signaling methods Hitchhikers use a variety of signals to indicate they need a ride. Indicators can be physical gestures or displays including written signs. The physical gestures, e.g., hand signals, hitchhikers use differ around the world: *In some African countries, the hitchhiker's hand is held with the palm facing upwards. *In most of Europe, North America, South America and Australia, most hitchhikers stand with their back facing the direction of travel. The hitchhiker typically extends their arm towards the road with the thumb of the closed hand pointing upward or in the direction of vehicle travel. Legal status Hitchhiking is historically a common practice worldwide and hence there are very few places in the world where laws exist to res ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
