"As, in the serious style, Homer is pre-eminent among poets. . ." --Aristotle's Poetics
"Homer, the sovereign poet." --Dante Alighieri, Divina Commedia.
Nikon D810 Sunrise Photos of 
Toroweap (Tuweep) Overlook Grand Canyon Arizona! Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Landscape & Nature 
Photography for Los Angeles Gallery Show !
"Follow your own star." --Dante

". . they all fall off, one by one, until we are left with Virgil and Homer, and perhaps Homer alone." -Thomas Jefferson

"The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of tiny pushes of each honest worker." --Helen Keller (And so often it is that those tiny pushes become the heroic act, as Neo, the honest cubicle worker, rises to take on The Matrix.)

"If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values - that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control." --Martin Luther King Jr.

"The greatest scriptwriter of Westerns was Homer. The Archetypes of yesterday's cowboys were Achilles, Ajax, Agamemnon, and Hector." --Sergio Leone, who chiseled the young Clint Eastwood into an international star in A Fistful of Dollars and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

"I want to thank . . . Elliot McGucken, Ph.D. . . whose course The Hero's Odyssey in Artistic Entrepreneurship and Technology is an inspiring tribute to the relevance of classical ideals in our modern lives." --Jack Bogle, founder and former CEO of Wall Street's Vanguard Group. Washington Speakers reports, "Named by Fortune Magazine as one of the investment industry four giants of the 20th century, John Bogle is a titan of the investment world and a hero to independent investors."

"Many thanks for the impressive work that you are doing. I look forward to keeping in touch and commend you on the innovative teaching you do." -William Ferriss, former Chair of the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA)

"Recommend virtue to your children; it alone, not money, can make them happy." --Beethoven.

Enjoy Dr. E's Hero's Odyssey Mythology Photography!
The Hero's Odyssey in Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology 101
Listen to the Talking Portraits Interview with Tom Parrish

"Tired of being a starving artist? Dr. Elliot McGucken's "The Hero's Odyssey in Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology 101" puts together a new approach to entrepreneurship and the arts through a fascinating application of the classic odyssey of mythological heroes. McGucken, a physicist, has taught the class at both UNC Chapel Hill and Pepperdine, and has expanded the concept through blogs, a festival, and an upcoming book.

In this interview McGucken describes how the course applies the structure of the monomyth, the fundamental pattern of the great hero narratives throughout history, from Odysseus, Jesus, and Buddha to Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and The Matrix. Also called the Hero's Odyssey, Joseph Campbell identified this pattern in his book The Hero With A Thousand Faces. McGucken even takes it a step beyond, using examples from modern real-life success stories like Richard Branson and Kid Rock.

McGucken explains why the web's democratization of both the means of production and distribution can be used by the big companies to continue to exploit artists, or instead used by indie artists themselves who preserve their own rights in their successful odyssey. It's your choice, if you take it." - Listen to the Talking Portraits Interview with Tom Parrish


DR. E'S HERO's ODYSSEY MYTHOLOGY PHOTOGRAPHY
Some photos from Dr. Elliot McGucken's Los Angeles Gallery Show .

Enjoy the Epic Hero's Odyssey Mythology Landscape Photography and some of the resplendent Goddesses I met along the way! May the HJM photography help inspire you along a odyssey of your own making!

A couple of my photos have made Flickr's Explore! :)

Nikon D800E Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art 
Photography for Los Angeles Gallery Show!
Some photos from Dr. Elliot McGucken's Los Angeles Gallery Show . Enjoy! :)


Dr. E's award-winning The Legend of McCoy Mountain & The Gold 45 Revolver
Epic Hero's Odyssey Mythology Rendered Real


Nikon D800E Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art 
Photography for Los Angeles Gallery Show!

Nikon D800E Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art 
Photography for Los Angeles Gallery Show!
Nikon D3X Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art 
Photography for Los Angeles Gallery Show!
HDR Photo of Sunset over the Magical El Matador Beach in Malibu! Shot with the Nikon D3X and the 14-24 mm wide-angle Nikkor lens. Five-Seven exposures @ 1 EV intervals combined in Photomatix.
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HDR shots of a Nikon D3X shooting HDR 
Landscapes
Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story
of that man skilled in all ways of contending...
He saw the townlands,
and learned the minds of many distant men...
and weathered many bitter nights and days
in his deep heart at sea . . .
--Homer's Odyssey


"But before mankind could be ripe for a science which takes in the whole of reality, a second fundamental truth was needed, which only became common property among philosophers with the advent of Kepler and Galileo. Pure logical thinking cannot yield us any knowledge of the empirical world; all knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it. Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty as regards reality. Because Galileo saw this, and particularly because he drummed it into the scientific world, he is the father of modern physics--indeed, of modern science altogether." -Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions. MDT's dx4/dt=ic honors Galileo and Einstein, as it both "starts and ends" in experience!
"Once it was recognised that the earth was not the center of the world, but only one of the smaller planets, the illusion of the central significance of man himself became untenable. Hence, Nicolaus Copernicus, through his work and the greatness of his personality, taught man to be honest." -Albert Einstein, Message on the 410th Anniversary of the Death of Copernicus, 1953
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Become a fan of Dr. E & Hero's Odyssey Mythology!

Dr. E's video of ten-time World Surfing Champ Kelly Slater winning the US Open, shot with the patent-pending 9shooter.

Dr. E's stills photography & The Hero's Odyssey Mythology Code of Honor set to Beethoven's Eroica -- The Heroic Symphony
The New York Times: McGucken's course (The Hero's Odyssey in Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology) rests on the principle that those who create art should have the skills to own it, profit from it, and protect it. It's about how to make your passion your profession, your avocation your vocation, and to make this long-term sustainable...
Business Week reports: The classics inspired America's Declaration of Independence, which McGucken sees as an entrepreneurial document. Life has a way of "calling us to adventure. . ." McGucken points out that that one lesson of the classics is, "Chance favors the prepared mind. Instead of viewing risk as a bad thing, we can also view it as a good thing."
The Wall Street Journal: After winning (the Merrill Lynch Innovations Grant Contest for an artificial retina for the blind titled Multiple unit artificial retina chipset to aid the visually impaired and enhanced holed-emitter CMOS phototransistors), he got to tour the New York Stock Exchange. Dr. McGucken caught the entrepreneurial bug. Eventually, he launched an internet company devoted to his longtime passions: writing and classical literature. . .The Web site is filled with Dr. McGucken's poetry and commentary and discussion groups on classic literature. "It's all written in a classical context with a Generation X attitude," he says. He sells ads to online vendors in fields ranging from life insurance to pantyhose and has a deal with Amazon.com that gives him a cut of sales generated by his site. . . HE HAS RESISTED the siren call of big business, although he has talked to venture capitalists and he almost sold out to a larger company before that company was taken over. Dr. McGucken wouldn't mind being part of a larger site, but he doesn't want to be a larger company. "If I was to try to squeeze huge profits out of it to please venture capitalists, it would ruin the spirit of it," he says. . .
I.D.E.A. to Exit: An Entrepreneurial Odyssey: Author and Professor Elliot McGucken, Ph.D. describes the entrepreneurial process to his arts students through an analogy to ancient literature. He describes the first stage of the entrepreneur and that of the classic "hero" story as a odyssey in which the hero, or entrepreneur, "embarks on a quest that requires separation and departure from the familiar world.. . . The entrepreneur moves into the unknown and the unproven. . ." Departure from the familiar is what keeps many from not exploring their entrepreneurial world at all. --Jeffrey Weber: I.D.E.A. to Exit: An Entrepreneurial Odyssey, p. 3, (Published 2010 by Mill City Press)
While writing the opening and closing numbers of the 100th anniversary Triangle Show his senior year (which had once featured F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jimmy Stewart), Dr. E graduated Cum Laude in physics from Princeton University, receiving straight A's on all his independent research ranging from General Relativity to Quantum Mechanics to Time Reversal Asymmetry conducted with John Archibald Wheeler and Nobel Laureate Jospeh Taylor. Dr. E received his Masters and Ph.D. in physics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where his dissertation on an artificial retina for the blind and enhanced holed-emitter CMOS phototransistors won several Fight for Sight grants, NSF grants, and a Merrill Lynch Innovations Award. Technology from the dissertation titled Multiple Unit Artificial Retina Chipset and Enhanced Holed-Emitter CMOS Phototransistors is now helping the blind see. Dr. E received the Bausch & Lomb Science Award and William Tenney Scholar-Athlete Award at Firestone High, while earning seven varsity letters on the championship swimming and tennis teams. Alongside the money he earned while working as a tennis pro each summer, The Judith Resnik Memorial Scholarship (given to the top science student in Akron, Ohio in honor of astronaut Judith Resnik who passed on in the tragic Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster) helped Dr. E attend Princeton University, where he studied physics and creative writing, while working with the late physics great Dr. John Archibald Wheeler--Princeton's Joseph Henry Professor of Physics. Dr. Wheeler had the following to say about Dr. E: "More intellectual curiosity, versatility and yen for physics than Elliot McGucken's I have never seen in any senior or graduate student. . . Originality, powerful motivation, and a can-do spirit make me think that McGucken is a top bet for graduate school in physics. . . I say this on the basis of close contacts with him over the past year and a half. . . I gave him as an independent task to figure out the time factor in the standard Schwarzchild expression around a spherically-symmetric center of attraction. I gave him the proofs of my new general-audience, calculus-free book on general relativity, A Odyssey Into Gravity and Space Time. There the space part of the Schwarzchild geometric is worked out by purely geometric methods. "Can you, by poor-man's reasoning, derive what I never have, the time part?" He could and did, and wrote it all up in a beautifully clear account. . . .his second junior paper . . . entitled Within a Context, was done with another advisor, and dealt with an entirely different part of physics, the Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky experiment and delayed choice experiments in general. . . this paper was so outstanding. . . I am absolutely delighted that this semester McGucken is doing a project with the cyclotron group on time reversal asymmetry. Electronics, machine-shop work and making equipment function are things in which he now revels. But he revels in Shakespeare, too. Acting the part of Prospero in The Tempest. . ." --J.A. Wheeler, Princteon's Jospeh Henry Professor of Physics on Dr. E
Dr. E's mentor--John Archibald Wheeler (far right)--walking with Einstein and Nobel laureate Hidekei Yukawa (center). It was at Princeton that Dr. E's Moving Dimensions Theory was born, while studying relativity and quantum mechanics with J.A. Wheeler, P.J.E. Peebles, and Nobel Laureate Joseph Taylor, but it wasn't until some years later that Dr. E arrived at MDT's fundamental equation in California while studying Einstein's 1912 Manuscript on Relativity: dx4/dt=ic. The equation is now on all the 45SURF shirts and hoodies, as it represents the universe's fundamental motion, upon which all other waves are born.

One autumn afternoon at Princeton, Dr. E walked into J.A. Wheeler's office on the third floor of Jadwin Hall to find him staring out the window at the fall's burning leaves. Wheeler slowly turned, his fist lightly clenched, and said, "Today we lack the Noble. . . and it's your generation's duty to bring it on back." Wheeler had a Homeric, Shakespearean soul--a humble, noble humanity he shared most generously with all. As Hamlet said, "He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again." Read more here!


Dr. E setting up his Nikon D3X and 14-24 mm wide-ange 2.8 lens for some scenic HDR sunset landscape photography in Malibu, California. The Nikon captures seven photographs at varying exposures, which are combined in post so as to capture the full dynamic range of the scene.
"Follow your own star!" -Dante
Dr. E (looking through binoculars) teaching astronomy. "In Science the authority embodied in the opinion of thousands is not worth a spark of reason in one man." -Galileo Galilei
Jack Bogle: Founder and Former CEO of Vanguard: (Dr. E's) course The Hero's Odyssey in Artistic Entrepreneurship and Technology is an inspiring tribute to the relevance of classical ideals in our modern lives. --Jack Bogle in his book Enough True Measures of Business, Money, and Life, Wiley 2008
Artistic Entrepreneurship - An Interview You Want to Make Time to Hear. As you know, I love my show TalkingPortraits where I get to interview people about all kinds of fascinating topics. . . I just completed editing a show with Dr. Elliot McGucken. This award-winning physicist teaches a course called Artistic Entrepreneurship, and this unique course is a study of Joseph Cambell's Hero's Odyssey applied to an artist's quest to be not only creatively successful but financially successful too. And to approach your success with integrity. So if you've ever hit that wall of "how do I make money doing what I love and do it with passion and integrity," then heed what Elliot has to say. Re-listening to and editing this conversation has brought me new inspiration about my life and my creative goals. This interview is nearly an hour long, so allow yourself some time. Plop it in your iPod or MP3 player and make the time. Trust me on this - you'll feel transformed and uplifted all the way to the end of the talk. http://artsentrepreneurship.com/ Best to you, my friends. Tom
Dr. E's research and patent applications on social networks, ecommerce, and digital rights management for artists, musicians, and creators are referenced in patents issued to Google (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN), IBM (IBM), Sony (SONE), Ebay (EBAY), and other leading entities in the realm of digital media and social networking. Dr. E has open-sourced most of his patent applications, giving them freely as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin did with their inventions. Thomas Jefferson wrote, "If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me." Benjamin Franklin wrote, "In order of time, I should have mentioned before, that having, in 1742, invented an open stove for the better warming of rooms, and at the same time saving fuel, as the fresh air admitted was warmed in entering, I made a present of the model to Mr. Robert Grace, one of my early friends, who, having an iron-furnace, found the casting of the plates for these stoves a profitable thing, as they were growing in demand. To promote that demand, I wrote and published a pamphlet, entitled ."n Account of the new-invented Pennsylvania Fireplaces; wherein their Construction and Manner of Operation is particularly explained; their Advantages above every other Method of warming Rooms demonstrated; and all Objections that have been raised against the Use of them answered and obviated," etc. This pamphlet had a good effect. Gov'r. Thomas was so pleas'd with the construction of this stove, as described in it, that he offered to give me a patent for the sole vending of them for a term of years; but I declin'd it from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions, viz., That, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously. "

Dr. E's research in Sensors Magazine.

Popular Science: A microchip studded with tiny sensors may give sight to the blind. . . Such a device must be small and have a constant power supply. The solution: a microchip the size of a match head, embedded with photosensors and electrodes that translate light patterns into electrical currents to stimulate the ganglion cells. . . Scientists Wentai Liu and Elliot McGucken are evaluating the microchip in the lab before human testing begins. (the retina technology is now helping people see)
Dr. E's Ph.D. dissertation was titled, Multiple unit artificial retina chipset to aid the visually impaired and enhanced holed-emitter CMOS phototransistors
2010 Webster's Technology Quotations, Facts, and Phrases: Artistic Entrepreneurship & Technology 101 is an open-source course being offered by Dr. Elliot McGucken.
Students Line Up for New Artistic Entrepreneurship Course based on Hero's Odyssey Mythology: When UNC Professor Elliot McGucken put out the call to adventure to "make your passion your profession" with a pilot course for artistic entrepreneurs, students answered. More than 110 students applied for the new course, The Hero's Odyssey in Arts Entrepreneurship and Technology 101. The course, geared towards students with an interest in the intersection between the arts, entrepreneurial ventures and cutting-edge technology, was originally slated for 40 spots, but the overwhelming response triggered an increase in class size. Nearly 50 students are enrolled for the spring semester. Students from a range of creative disciplines--from painting to film production--will develop their artistic vision over the course of the semester. McGucken hopes the course will both inspire artists to pursue their creative passions and give them the practical tools necessary to launch and develop their ventures. "Every artist is an entrepreneur, and every entrepreneur is an artist," explains McGucken. --Univeristy of North Carolina, Chapel Hill News

Dr. E's book (& Batman) at San Diego's Comic Con!

THE LINUX GAZETTE: Homer's Open Source Odyssey 2001: Classical Computing and a Brief History of Open Source

by Elliot McGucken

Today we are continuing along on the same open-source odyssey Homer set out upon three thousand years ago, when he shared the words of The Odyssey with an audience and enriched them with the knowledge of a classic's ineffable truths. The story was passed along from generation to generation as part of an oral tradition for a few hundred of years, before it was transcribed around 700 BC. The invention of the printing press and movable type by Gutenberg circa 1445 aided in the sharing of classical information, and suddenly the Bible, as well as works such as The Odyssey, found a far greater audience.

With the advent of the Internet the content and the audience have augmented vastly. And of even greater significance, with the new paradigms afforded by information technology, classical computing has joined the ranks of immortal art, science, and literature. In the past few years, we have played witness to a revolutionary era of humanity's cultural odyssey, wherein technology and ideas have merged in a brave new digital world, rendering knowledge as affordable as it is eternal.

Software is labor immortalized, as a programmer's algorithm, once written, may continue to function for eternity. Thus now, in addition to inheriting the cultural riches of our predecessors, we may also inherit the functionality of their programs. In a world where commerce is defined by the movement of information, that machinery--the hardware and software--which moves the information embodies work, and thus the innovations of one's predecessors will not only bestow aesthetic riches, but they shall also provide a wellspring of eternal labor. A hundred years from now Hamlet shall still be contemplating the correct course of action, and the Linux kernel, along with Apache, shall still be providing the fundamental labor which transports Hamlet all about the watery globe. . . . read more


Dr. E interviewing renaissance men/videogame designers Flint Dille and John Zuur Platten at the Hero's Odyssey Entrepreneurship Festival. Dillios--the storytelling Spartan in Frank Miller's graphic novel and Zack Snyder's film 300 was named after Flint Dille. Flint & John are pioneering videogame developers, writers, and producers, spearheading the transmedia renaissance. Check out their highly-rated book--a book for all writers--The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design [ULTIMATE GT VIDEO GAME WRI -OS]
The Linux Gazzette: Dr. Elliot McGucken leads UNC Chapel Hill's Artistic Entrepreneurship Initiative, where he teaches New Media Arts, Technology, and Entrepreneurship 101. Born in Ohio, Dr. E grew up outdoors except for when he was sitting in front of a computer. He received a B.A. in physics from Princeton and a Ph.D. in physics from UNC Chapel Hill where his dissertation on an artifical retina for the blind received several NSF grants and a Merrill Lynch Innovations Award. The retina-chip research appeared in publications including Popular Science and Business Week, and the project continues to this day. In 1995 Elliot founded Classicals & jollyroger.com LLC as a technological tribute to the Great Books, and he recently spoke at the Harvard Law School concerning his authena.org project for Open Source software for managing digital rights for artists. Elliot, known as "Dr. E" to his students, has taught physics and programming at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and has published a poetry book, a novel, a collection of essays, several scientific articles, and poetry in The Wall Street Journal. The New York Times deemed jollyroger.com "simply unprecedented," adding that the site "teems with discussion, the kind that goes well beyond freshman lit 101." The Los Angeles Times referred to the classical portal as "a lavish virtual community known as The Jolly Roger." His two latest projects, authena.org and 22surf.org, seek to empower indy artists, authors, musicians, and creators with Open Source Content Management Systems. Dr. E harbors a vast respect for the indy author and artist, for the entrepreneur and visionary, for the giants of yesteryear whose shoulders we all stand upon. He hopes that authena and 22surf might be of some use to fellow artists and hackers alike. His latest novel, Autumn Rangers, is being developed as a book, screenplay, and video game at autumnrangers.com.

Dr. E's retina research in Business Week

Dr. E received the Tanner Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at UNC Chapel Hill, as well as an honorary membership in the American Association of Physics Teachers.

An early version of Dr. E's set of books for
The Hero's Odyssey in Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology.
Courtesy of UNC's Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative

The University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business: The art of entrepreneurship: There is an increasing attention on the concept of artists as entrepreneurs emerging globally -- artists are becoming more business savvy and finding new ways of sustaining their artistic livelihood. Artists of all kinds are applying their creativity in new ways as businesspeople, and proving that it is possible to leave the "starving artist" notion behind in favour of the "business savvy artist." In the US, the New York Times recently picked up on this trend, and in a feature presented some successful artists changing the game. According to Elliot McGucken who teaches the course Artist Entrepreneurs at the University of North Carolina, the advancement of business skills "rests on the principle that those who create art should have the skills to own it, profit from it and protect it. . . It's about how to make your passion your profession, your avocation your vocation, and to make this long-term sustainable," he says. This business imperative to the world of the arts has become all the more important in the past year, as the recession has not left the art world unscathed . while most of the media attention is on corporates, the plight of the arts is an important issue that needs addressing as well.
The Graphic: Hero's Odyssey Entrepreneurship Festival to Promote Business Creativity: Dr. Elliot McGucken organized the (Hero's Odyssey Entrepreneurship Festival). McGucken teaches a class in artistic entrepreneurship in which Jack Bogle's 2005 book, The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism, is required reading alongside Homer's Odyssey. The theme of a hero's odyssey, therefore, permeated Bogle's presentation. "Classical precepts are the most useful tools throughout life," McGucken said. "Ideals are a great a long-term investment, because they never change." Bogle reached out to students, urging them to pursue an education and to become a citizen characterized by ethics and ideals.

Dr. E setting up a photoshoot in Malibu for
45surf Hero's Odyssey Mythology Photography
.

CharlesLaurenFilms.com: The Purpose of Myth: It seems hard to remember, especially when people are feeling down in times like these, but our myths aren't just there so stories can be written using their framework and convention. They aren't there just for entertainment and movies like Star Wars, but they exist in all of our minds and are archetypes because we are supposed to use their ideas to live our lives. . . . Not surprisingly, the heroes in our own world follow the exact same chronology of life events as Frodo or Luke Skywalker. Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Mark Cuban, my buddy Lakshmi Mittal, just about everyone follows the same path. As I thought about this I found a great website (Dr. E's herosodysseyentrepreneurship.org) which outlines the events in an entrepreneur's life and how it relates to the ordeals that the hero must go through on his odyssey, which is in Campbell's book Hero With a Thousand Faces. It was pretty cool to see this structured and in writing! Starting a business in a recession might be the perfect option for a lot of people. Companies aren't expanding into new markets, thus leaving room if you want to sneak into a niche somewhere. In fact, most are retreating into little protective shells so they can stay in business. If you have lost your job, have some savings and have an idea about what you can do to improve the world, maybe you should consider taking the Left Hand Path and starting your own company! If you do, here is what you can expect! The site: HerosOdysseyEntrepreneurship.org --Charles Lauren Films
Dr. E wrote the introduction to the 2010 book Disciplining the Arts: Teaching Entrepreneurship in Context by Dr. Gary D. Beckman, published by Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2010

The Hero's Odyssey in Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology seeks to give students, artists, and entrepreneurs the tools to make their passions their professions--to protect and profit from their ideas--to take ownership in their careers and creations. For Adam Smith's invisible hand enriches all when happiness is pursued by artists and innovators--society's natural founts of wealth. Thomas Jefferson eloquently expressed the entrepreneurial premise:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. --The Declaration of Independence

The only clause in the main body of the United States Constitution that mentions "Rights" states the following:

The Congress shall have power to . . . promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries; --The United States Constitution

Couple these two passages together, and one has the moral premise of Artistic Entrepreneurship & Technology. Every student ought be given the tools to create new ventures--to protect their intellectual property, and to pursue and profit from their dreams on their "Hero's Odyssey" into entrepreneurship. For it is along that odyssey that the long-term "wealth of nations" is generated.


UNC TV: UNC Symposium: Intellectual Property, Creativity and the Innovation Process: Panel Discussion at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Law The Law School panel is chaired by Laura Gasaway of UNC Law with John Whealan Deputy General Counsel for Intellectual Property Law & Solicitor USPTO, Marybeth Peters U.S. Register of Copyrights, Arti Rai Duke Law School, and Dr. Elliot McGucken ArtsEntrepreneurship.com.
A Vision to Bring Back Sight: The Raleigh News & Observer: . . . and Elliot McGucken, who commutes from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to work with Liu. Their lab in Daniels Hall at NCSU seems to be a storehouse for decades worth of oscilloscopes and other electrical measuring equipment. A work bench in one corner houses the wire cutters and needle-nosed pliers needed to actually build prototypes. The progress here has not always been steady, McGucken said. "It's gone by bumps and jumps over the years," he said. And now that the team is having some success, they're also facing some stiff competition. At the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston, researchers from the Harvard University Medical School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are working on basically the same device and facing many of the same challenges.

Dr. E in the lab, wearing the artificial retina glasses with wire coils.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Daily Tar Heel: Students find dream jobs in class, passions fuel business plans: For many, childhood and adolescence pass in a blur of hobbies and passionate adventures, activities seeped in a deep-seated excitement and love inherent in a particular pastime. In UNC professor Elliot McGucken's "Artistic Entrepreneurship and Technology" class, students and teachers work to "make your passion your profession," transforming students' dreams and interests into potential paths for the future. The unique course allows students interested in fields such as photography, video games, painting, classical music and film production to explore commercial and social ventures in the arts. They search for and create a plan based in entrepreneurship, which supports and nurtures their individual visions. "A lot of times school tells you that your dreams aren't important," says McGucken, a physics professor. "But in reality passions and dreams are oft the best investment you can make, as they are the one sure, long-term thing." The class consists of an independent project that includes three presentations, guest lectures and small-group collaboration. Sophomore Phil Gennett's project is a clothing line, and he is trying to find a manufacturer for his creations. He also intends to set up a talent agency. "I want to blow it up into a new sort of entertainment, like American Idol, but also as a social network for opportunities," Gennett says. Sophomore Ryan Dean is working on multiple projects. He runs a graphic design company called Cellar Door Design. He also has joined with a photographer in the class to create CD booklet artwork for the second album by his band, The Anchor Comes Home. "What's most helpful is meeting like-minded people," Dean says. "The best thing about this class is establishing relationships with the other students and collaborating with each other." Stefan Estrada, graduate student and teaching assistant for the class, shares a similar view. "The people in this class have ambition and a vision of things they want to accomplish," Estrada says. "This isn't a class where you get something done and forget about it. It continues to maybe become your career."
Dr. E's screenplay The Legend of McCoy Mountain & The Gold 45 Revolver has been honored with the following screenwriting awards:

*Hollywood's PGA Producers Guild of America Producers' Showcase Semifinalist: Hosted by Walt Disney & ABC Entertainment Group
*Top-5 Finalist at the Dixie Film Festival in Athens, Georgia
*Top-4 Finalist in the Los Angeles Sunset Film Festival
*Beverly Hills Film Festival Official Selection
*Columbia Gorge International Film Festival Official Selection
*Movie Script Golden Brad Winner (1st-6th rounds & still contending)
*2011 California Film Awards Honorable Mention
*Finalist / Winner in the Yosemite International Film Festival Screenplay Competition
*Semi-Finalist and Official Selection of New York's 2011 Independent Film Quarterly Film & New Media Festival
*Los Angeles Art House Film Festival Honorable Mention
*The Colorado Film Festival Honorable Mention
*WriteMovies Quarter-Finalist
*Filmmakers International First Round



Dr. E's film Moby Dick in Charlotte Magazine

Don't Count on It! Reflections on Investment Illusions, Capitalism, "Mutual" Funds, Indexing, Entrepreneurship, Idealism, and Heroes : "Vanguard: Saga of Heroes (Chapter 23) presents a very different interpretation than you might expect from its title. This chapter is based on a lecture I presented to Pepperdine University (CA) studnets, at the request of Professor Elliot McGucken, as part of his course The Hero's Odyssey in Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology 101. "Dr. E" relies heavily upon such classics as Homer's Odyssey and Dante's Inferno, and honors me by including with these classics my own The Battle for The Soul of Capitalism. This essay focuses on Vanguard's odyssey, a voayge punctuated with challenges, narrow escapes, and ultimate fulfillment. I conlude by urging introspection upon our financial leaders, an idea that failed to get much traction back in 2007 when it might have helped. But these leaders were simply making too much money, taking too much risk, and showing too little concern about the crises tehn building. . . -p. 436: "It's no mean task to measure up to the high appraisal of my career that has been so generously expressed by Dr. Elliot McGucken. That he has, remarkably, placed my 2005 book, The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism, on the same reading list as The Odyssey--let alone the same planet!--adds even more to my burden in meeting the expectations of those who are aware of this background. . ." --Vanguard, Saga of Heroes, p. 469, Don't Count on It published 2010 by John Wiley & Sons

Dr. E's artificial retina dissertation.

Princeton Club of Southern California: Hero's Odyssey Renaissance Festival: Ideals in Innovation: The Hero's Odyssey Entrepreneurship Festival with Dr. E aims to provide students, artists, and entrepreneurs with the inspiration and tools to make their passions their professions--to protect and profit from their ideas--to take ownership in their careers and creations. This entreprenuership event celebrates the ultimate Renaissance Man--Leonardo da Vinci--while saluting "hero's odyssey mythology" in the realms of screenwriting, videogames, film, academia, and robotics--robots inspired by da Vinci's designs.


Dr. E shooting in Hollywood.
CharlesFrith.com: Once in a while a gem of a podcast comes my way, and this is fresh off the feeds from IT Conversations (where it is a top archive favorite after three years!). It would be wrong to pigeonhole this from its title "Artistic Entrepreneurship & Technology," a University course that the interviewee Dr. Elliot McGucken, a physicist, teaches. It doesn't even come close to covering the ground that is completed in this heartwarming and contemporary podcast. . . If you love the story form, from The Matrix, Star Wars, The Godfather, Lord of the Rings to classics like The Odyssey or want to tap into your artistic value, however that articulates itself, listen to this. Should you feel that there is more depth to this life than just making money and instead want to see why it is so much more important than the futility of the greedy then take time out for this podcast. Personally I need to get hold of a copy of John Bogle's: Battle For The Soul Of Capitalism after listening to this ace find. --We Make Art, Not Money
Wake Forest University SEA: Dr. Elliot McGucken is a trend-setter in "artistic entrepreneurship" and entrepreneurial applications with new internet technologies.

How's Dr. E gonna make it out of this one?

Got Profit?--The Triangle Tech Journal: McGucken's business philosophy can be summarized by a handful of quotations from famous philosophers and authors, including "A great fortune is a great slavery (the stoic Seneca)," and "We do not commonly find men of superior sense amongst those of the highest fortune. (the Roman Poet Juvenal)"

A CMOS computer chip for Dr. E's artificial retina dissertation.

POPULAR SCIENCE
Dr. E's award-winning artificial retina physics Ph.D. dissertation in Popular Science.

MERRILL LYNCH "INNOVATION GRANTS" AWARDED TO FIVE DOCTORAL STUDENTS: NEW YORK, Sept.16 -- The Merrill Lynch Forum today announced the first winners of the Innovation Grants Competition -- its global competition challenging doctoral students to craft commercial applications of their dissertation research. The winners were recognized at an awards dinner at Merrill Lynch headquarters last night (Sept. 15), hosted by Merrill Lynch Chairman and CEO David H. Komansky. . . Multiple-Unit Artificial Retina Chipset (MARC). Dr. Elliot McGucken, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill/NC State University. A computer-chip based device that can provide limited-resolution vision for people with retinal-based blindness. This device could benefit the more than 10,000,000 people worldwide suffering from blindness originating from various causes. . . . A total of 213 proposals from 16 countries were submitted to the competition, which was open to new Ph.D. recipients in the sciences, liberal arts, and engineering disciplines. Entries were judged by a distinguished panel of nine entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, journalists, and innovators and were considered without knowledge of the applicants' identity or academic affiliation. "Academic research is a significant and often untapped source of intellectual capital in our society, and a tremendous economic resource," said Merrill Lynch Chairman and CEO David H. Komansky. "The winning proposals from this competition are all excellent examples of how new knowledge can be transformed into new value simply by encouraging researchers to look at their research from a different perspective. We hope that these Innovation Grants will help foster a closer interaction between world-class science and the world of commerce," Mr. Komansky added. The judging panel consisted of: John Seely Brown, Chief Scientist, Xerox Corporation, and Director, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center Edgar W. K. Cheng, former Chairman, The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong John Doerr, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Esther Dyson, Chairman, EDventure Holdings, Inc. Peter C. Goldmark, Chairman and Chief Executive, The International Herald Tribune William Haseltine, Chairman & CEO, Human Genome Sciences, Inc. John Markoff, Technology Correspondent, The New York Times Edward McKinley, President, E.M. Warburg, Pincus & Company International, Ltd. Arati Prabhakar, former Chief Technology Officer, Raychem Corporation In evaluating the applications, the judges sought to identify proposals with the potential to affect real change in industries and in the way people live their lives. "The Innovation Grants Competition is a terrific idea," said judge John Doerr, of venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. "I was impressed with many of the proposals and thought that several of the ideas would merit a venture-capital follow-up."
"The excitement of the epic of the past can be utilized to promote creativity and entreprneurship, accprding to the organizers of the first Hero's Odyssey Entrepreneurship Festival. . ."

Dr. E's Hero's Odyssey EntrepreneurshipTM Festival


Dr. E in Malibu

Princeton University in the News: The Charlotte Observer: Literature Wins Over Physics: A year ago, Elliot McGucken appeared on his way to a successful academic career. His 1998 doctoral dissertation at UNC Chapel Hill, a design for a computer chip that someday could help blind people see, won a national prize. He landed a job at Davidson College and began teaching physics last fall. Then another of McGucken's passions -- an Internet literature site called jollyroger.com -- interrupted everything, transforming the professor into an Internet entrepreneur. "Teaching is really fun; I've really enjoyed it. But I wasn't sleeping too much anymore," said McGucken, 30. So he decided not to teach the spring semester, concentrating instead on the fledgling Web business, which he runs from his Davidson apartment. Since he created it in 1995, jollyroger.com and a series of related literary discussion sites with names like killdevilhill.com, Starbuck.com Classical Poetry Port and Businessphilosphy.com, have drawn a global following. As his Web traffic increased, the checks grew in size. Advertisers pay $6 to $30 per thousand "impressions" (the number of times an ad banner is downloaded onto users' screens), and he splits ad revenues with Flycast -- 70 percent for him, 30 for Flycast. Despite the growth of his online literary empire, McGucken remains the lone employee. He pays others to host and maintain his computer servers. And he has about two dozen volunteer moderators who manage hundreds of online discussions. Education: Princeton University, bachelor's degree in physics, 1991; UNC Chapel Hill, Ph.D. in physics and engineering, 1998; post-doctoral study at N.C. State.

Dr. E introducing William Fay at the Hero's Odyssey Entrepreneurship Festival. Mr. Fay is the President of Production at Legendary Pictures, whose credits include 300, Superman, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Patriot, Independence Day, The Hangover, Where the Wild Things Are, and the in-production World of Warcraft (based on the videogame!) and Paradise Lost, and it was great to hear his epic stories of the production of today's epic blockbusters.

Dr. E applying Faraday's Law in his Ph.D. physics dissertation.

THE JOLLY ROGER-- sighted in the Los Angeles Times:: The (Euripides) site is only a tiny part of a lavish virtual community known as the Jolly Roger, which was created by Elliott McGucken, a physics professor and researcher who lives in Chapel Hill, NC. An aspiring writer himself, he built a richly detailed maze of discussion boards and chat rooms devoted to the classic works of Western culture. McGucken envisioned the site purely as a gathering place for literature lovers, not corner-cutting college kids, and he's been forced to create some password-protected parallel rooms for the true aficionados. Yet he's stoic about the invasion of the term-paper trollers. On one hand, the trafficking at least shows that teachers are still assigning the Western works he holds dear. On the other? "Not everyone is reading them," he says, ("but we do get a lot of emails from sailors upon our sites thanking us for introducing them to Moby Dick and other Great Books. And that's what it's all about.")

Small Business Trends: The Trend of the Artist Entrepreneur: The New York Times article mentions Dr. Elliot McGucken's course in artist entrepreneurship, which teaches artists that they should have the skills to profit from their creations. This is a welcome development. It's great to see artists who figure out how to cost-effectively produce and sell their artwork, and otherwise are able to combine entrepreneurship with their creative sides.

Early iteraton of Dr. E's award-winning Ph.D. dissertation computer chip the enhanced holed-emitter phototransistors he invented.
Pepperdine Univeristy Awarded Grant to Develop Curriculum for Artistic Entrepreneurship and Technology: Describing his work, Dr. McGucken said, "I want to emphasize how classic storytelling pervades every field in artistic entrepreneurship -- law derives from epic myths; brands strive towards representing eternal elements ultimately embodied in action, and epic storytelling can revive the Hollywood box office and foster video games that achieve higher art." Dr. McGucken's class this fall bases its syllabus on Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Says McGucken, "Every step of the way students are reminded that it's all about some greater odyssey -- some higher goal -- that entrepreneurship is all about, serving the higher ideals over the bottom line, and that all lasting value ultimately derives from value." Dr. McGucken, who launched the ArtsEntrepreneurship.com program at UNC Chapel Hill, received his bachelor.s of arts degree in physics from Princeton and his Ph.D. in physics from UNC Chapel Hill. His dissertation on an artificial retina for the blind received several National Science Foundation (NSF) grants and a Merrill Lynch Innovations Award. The retina-chip research appeared in publications including Popular Science and Business Week, and the project continues today. He launched the Web site, jollyroger.com in 1995, and now runs over 30 sites. The New York Times deemed jollyroger.com "simply unprecedented," adding that the site "teems with discussion, the kind that goes well beyond freshman lit 101."

Dr. E in the New York Times in the early days of the WWW.


Dr. E & Tricia Jo with Gold 45 Revolver, self portrait Nikon D300


New Book on "Hero's Odyssey Entrepreneurship" by UNC's Artistic Entrepreneurship Professor Highlights the Spirit of Entrepreneurs: UNC CEI, Chapel Hill, N.C. Dr. Elliot McGucken, who developed and taught an artistic entrepreneurship course at UNC this spring, is the author of a new book that discusses the spirit of entrepreneurs in the context of epic storytelling and the hero's odyssey. "Whether you're an MBA, MFA, JD or DJ, the book is there to show you how the business of art and the art of business are united in the realm of higher ideals in epic storytelling," said McGucken, five-time author and adjunct professor of Physics and Programming. His new book is called The Hero's Odyssey in Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology 101: Ideals Are Real. The book was inspired by McGucken's pilot course at UNC, The Hero's odyssey in Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology 101. It includes topics discussed in class, including McGucken's experience running profitable Internet companies and his vision that an entrepreneur's ideas found through technology, law, business or art can lead to their passion, profession or vocation. "The book, which unites art and entrepreneurship in a maverick way by treating entrepreneurs as hero storytellers, was shaped around Joseph Campbell's book, Hero with a Thousand Faces," said McGucken. "This classic 12-stage odyssey includes a mythological hero or heroine, the call to adventure (an entrepreneurial vision), and the return to home (the exit strategy)." Campbell's book influenced Hollywood films like Star Wars, The Matrix and The Lord of the Rings. McGucken hopes his new book can help inspire blockbuster ventures in both art and entrepreneurship. "Using the hero's odyssey is a most efficient way to combine art, law, business, technology and entrepreneurship in the classroom," McGucken said. "The book presents the odyssey of entrepreneurs in a classical context and their encounter with mentors, rescues, irony and survival in its epic form. The purpose is to inspire students to make the world a better place via artistic entrepreneurship." McGucken's class at UNC attracts students who are interested in the arts, entrepreneurial ventures and cutting-edge technologies. "Everyone needs mentors to help guide you down whatever path you choose," McGucken said. "For some people, a hero character from a book or movie can also be a mentor."

Dr. E's enhanced-efficiency Holed-Emitter Phototransistor.

The dot-coms that can: The News & Observer Business: Elliot McGucken, who runs jollyroger.com, a Chapel Hill-based Web site devoted to classic books, doesn't sweat the competition much. He gets about half a million unique visitors a month to his site and makes most of his money on Web ads. A one-man shop, McGucken jokes that he makes money - a rarity for a content-based site - because all of his "employees" (the authors) are dead. "The disappearance of banner ads was over-hyped," says McGucken, who says he makes enough to live comfortably on the income from his site. He does some e-commerce, selling T-shirts, books and the like, and he does all his own programming. Recently, jollyroger.com worked with local wireless company WindWire to launch wireless Shakespeare greetings. "I'm kind of a one-trick pony," says McGucken, who started the site in 1995 and quit his job as a Davidson College professor in 1999. "Any new technology that comes along, I just apply it to the classics."
Dr. E selling books at Austin's SXSW after his Heros' Odyssey Entrepreneurship lecture.

The Kauffman Foundation's Thoughtbook: Elliot McGucken has an artful way of teaching entrepreneurship to artists. He explains the entrepreneurial process, for instance, by comparing it to the classic "hero's odyssey" in myths and epics. Typically, in the first stage of the story, the hero embarks on a quest that requires "separation" or "departure" from the familiar world (here McGucken finds strong parallels to the decision to start a company) -- and after many twists, the odyssey ends with the hero's "return" (exit strategy). "Every aspect of classical story, including antagonists, mentors, reversals of fortune, and the seizing of the sword from the stone, may be found in the realm of entrepreneurship," McGucken claims. And there's more. The college course he designed -- open to students in any major, working in any of the visual, literary or performing arts -- mixes classical concepts with cutting-edge practical advice, such as how to use open-source DRM (digital rights management) to keep the ogres from snatching your profits.

Testing an early Multiple-Unit Artificial Retina Chipset in Dr. E's lab.

THE JOLLY ROGER-- As reviewed by AOL, the Global Online Directory, and Excite. The Jolly Roger: Go here. Do not pass go. Whatever your tastes or politics, it's tough not to enjoy this smart-alecky, skillfully written and provocative online magazine. Literary, generational and plain-old politics take it on the chin from this threesome.

Dr. E teaching astronomy--his first love. "Follow your own star." --Dante


Dr. E @ work "after hours." :)

From Melville to Frost, the greats thrive on Outer Banks: THE OUTER BANKS SENTINEL by Hart Mathews Sentinel Staff Have the Outer Banks left you in a literary wasteland? Do you get the cold shoulder when you try to talk Aristotle with the local bartender? Do you stride the beaches flinging verse at the sea because there's no one else to listen? Although this area teems with writers and artists, their company can sometimes be hard to find. But if you have access to the Internet, there's a link you should try out: killdevilhill.com. As municipal as the name might sound, this web site is really one of 10 different Internet sites that offer literary discussions, chats, classic book sales and merchandise to thousands of visitors a day. And the Kill Devil Hill site (headlined "Conserving Great Literature and the Great Outdoors") isn't the only one that borrows the name of a local landmark. Dr. Elliot McGucken, the site's creator, has nine other Internet domains, including jollyroger.com ("The World's Largest Literary Cafe") and hatteraslight.com ("Live Literary Lighthouse Chats"). "The same sublime romanticism which is found in so much great literature also resounds through names like 'Kill Devil Hill,'" says McGucken, "and the same majestic sentiments expressed in so many classic books can be felt all up and down the Outer Banks. From the country's tallest lighthouses, to the legends and lore of pirates and shipwrecks, to the world's first powered flight, the ribbon of sand off the coast of North Carolina has always spurred my imagination."

Dr. E in Book Magazine


The Pittsburg Tribune: Navigating Literary Seas on The Jolly Roger: The irony of being a scientist who loves poetry is not lost on McGucken. "Poetry and physics don't have too much in common," he admitted. "There's no way to write down a physical equation that explains love or laughter or tears." . . . There is a relationship, hhowever tenuous, between science and literature in the end products. McGucken said Einstein attempted to quantify the theories of physical science in a deterministic fashion, but all he found were that the deeper laws were governed by probability-a deterministic theory eluded him; from there, he said, it isn't that far a leap to Captain Ahab's search for the great white whale in Moby Dick.

The Chapel Hill Herald: The class is the first of its kind to incorporate art, technology and business. Student Feedback.
Engineering News at NCSU: Research at NC State Receives Innovation Grants from Merrill Lynch: NC State University and Dr. Elliot McGucken, assistant professor of physics at Elon College and post-doctoral research assistant in the College of Engineering at NC State, have received grants as part of the Merrill Lynch Forums Innovation Grants Competition. Open to doctoral degree recipients, the international awards recognize innovative research that has commercial applications. McGucken, who entered his dissertation on developing an artificial retina system that combines microchips, miniature cameras and tiny electrodes, was selected as one of two second place winners from the competition field of 213 entries from 16 countries. . . McGucken's research, conducted with Dr. Wentai Liu, professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State University, involves the development of a microchip that can be implanted into the eye to restore limited visibility to patients with retinal degeneration. Estimations are that, once the device is tested and made available to the public, it could restore limited sight to more than 10,000,000 people. McGucken received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. McGucken received his award at a dinner ceremony held at the Windows on the World Restaurant atopthe World Trade Center in New York, NY, in September. David Komansky, Merrill Lynch chairman and chief operating officer, hosted the event.
IT Conversations: Artistic Entrepreneurship & Technology 101: Tired of being a starving artist? Dr. Elliot McGucken's Artistic Entrepreneurship & Technology 101 puts together a new approach to entrepreneurship and the arts through a fascinating application of the classic odyssey of mythological heroes. McGucken, a physicist, has taught the class at both UNC Chapel Hill and Pepperdine, and has expanded the concept through blogs, a festival, and an upcoming book. In this interview McGucken describes how the course applies the structure of the monomyth, the fundamental pattern of the great hero narratives throughout history, from Odysseus, Jesus, and Buddha to Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and The Matrix. Also called the Hero's Odyssey, Joseph Campbell identified this pattern in his book The Hero With A Thousand Faces. McGucken even takes it a step beyond, using examples from modern real-life success stories like Richard Branson and Kid Rock. McGucken explains why the web's democratization of both the means of production and distribution can be used by the big companies to continue to exploit artists, or instead used by indie artists themselves who preserve their own rights in their successful odyssey. It's your choice, if you take it. (Archive favorite after three years!)

@ AUSTIN'S SXSW INTERACTIVE: Web 2.0 / 3.0 ArtsEntrepreneurship.com: Make Your Passion Your Profession: Dr. E @ SXSW: Don't need no VC when you've got a PC." Not only has technology revolutionized the production and distribution of content, but it has also allowed indie creators to bypass traditional MBAs to define the rights fortheir creations and reap maximum profits. The Constitution states thatcreators own their creations--so now what's the best way for creators to share, sell, and profit? From Open Source CMS to online incorporation to web 2.0/3.0 to the registering of patents, trademarks, and copyrights, this is a panel for the indie creator. Lecturer: Elliot McGucken Pres, 45 Surf

Artificial Retina Computer Chips


An early CMOS computer chip from Dr. E's artificial retina dissertation. The white squares are enhanced-efficiency holed-emitter phototransistors which detect the photons, while the circuitry around the phototransistors interprets and processes the photocurrent, converting it into an electrical signal. The National Science Foundation reported, "Last spring, NSF-funded electrical engineering professor Wentai Liu and doctoral student Elliot McGucken created a microchip that will be used by the surgeons." --NSF's Frontiers
Dr. E's Physics & Moving Dimensions Theory: dx4/dt=ic:
Papers on Time, Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and MDT
On the Emergence of QM, Relativity, Entropy, Time, ihbar, and ic from the Foundational, Physical Reality of a Fourth Dimension x4 Expanding with a Discrete (Digital) Wavelength lp at c Relative to Three Continuous (Analog) Spatial Dimensions

The photon is used to physically probe and trace the discrete, digital, dynamic nature of x4 as the quantum nature of physical measurement is examined, while the foundational papers of Planck, Bohr, Heisenberg, et al. are exalted, lead by Einstein's statement that physics "starts from experience and ends in it." In its simplest case, a photon oscillates while propagating at c as a probabilistic wave-front expanding through the three spatial dimensions in a spherically-symmetric manner, as demonstrated by the classic double-slit experiment, leading to the natural conclusion that x4, in which the photon remains stationary according to relativity, must thusly be oscillating and propagating at c as a spherically-symmetric expanding wavefront. Relativity informs us that all of a photon's motion is through the three spatial dimensions, thusly dictating that the timeless, ageless photon remains stationary in the fourth dimension x4. As electromagnetic radiation (the photon) is quantized, while there is no evidence for quantum gravity, we may conclude that x4 is quantized and digital in nature, while the three spatial dimensions are continuous and analog in nature. qp-pq=ihbar. (Born & Heisenberg) and x4=ict or dx4/dt=ic (Einstein & Minkowski) are fundamental relationships of QM and relativity. Both equations have differentials on the left and an i on the right, as Bohr noted, suggesting that a foundational change is occurring in a "perpendicular" manner, implying a fourth moving dimension. qp-pq = ihbar. reflects the discrete increment and quantum action.. .that emerges from the dynamic, discretely parceled space-time geometry born by the discrete wavelength of x4's expansion; while dx4/dt=ic, from which relativity and its postulates derive, sets the velocity of the expansion of x4 to c. A physical model encompassing both Einstein's "elementary foundations" of relativity and Schrodinger's "characteristic trait" of QM--entanglement--is presented.

Author Bio: In high school, theoretical physicist Dr. Elliot McGucken received the Bausch & Lomb Science Award, the William Tenney Scholar-Athlete Award, and the Judith Resnik Memorial Scholarship which helped him attend Princeton University. Dr. E.s Ph.D. research titled "Multiple unit artificial retina chipset to aid the visually impaired and enhanced holed-emitter CMOS phototransistors" received several Fight for Sight and NSF grants, as well as a Merrill Lynch Innovations award. The late J.A. Wheeler wrote, "More intellectual curiosity, versatility and yen for physics than Elliot McGucken's I have never seen in any senior or graduate student."



Dr. E's award-winning physics Ph.D. artificial retina dissertation.

What is Ultimately Possible in Physics? Physics! A Hero's Odyssey with Galileo, Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Planck, Einstein, Schrodinger, Bohr, and the Greats towards Moving Dimensions Theory. E pur si muove!
by Dr. Elliot McGucken
ABSTRACT: Over the past few decades prominent physicists have noted that physics has diverged away from its heroic odyssey defined by boldly describing, fathoming, and characterizing foundational truths of physical reality via simple, elegant, logically-consistent postulates and equations humbling themselves before empirical reality. Herein the spirit of physics is again exalted by the heroic words of the Greats by Galileo, Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Planck, Einstein, Bohr, and Schrodinger--the Founding Fathers upon whose shoulders physics stands. And from that pinnacle, a novel physical theory is proposed, complete with a novel physical model celebrating a hitherto unsung universal invariant and an equation reflecting the foundational physical reality of a fourth dimension expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions at the rate of c, or dx4/dt=ic, providing both the "elementary foundations" for relativity and QM's "characteristic trait"--entanglement, and its nonlocal, probabilistic nature. From MDT's experimentally verified equation relativity is derived while time is unfrozen and free will exalted, while a physical model accounting for quantum nonlocality is presented. Entropy, Huygens' Principle; the wave/particle, energy/mass, space/time, and E/B dualities; and time and all its arrows and asymmetries emerge from a common, foundational physical model. MDT exalts Einstein's "empirical facts," "naturalness," and "logical simplicity." For the first time in the history of relativity, change is woven into the fabric of space-time, and the timeless, ageless, nonlocal photon of Galileo's/Einstein's "empirical world" is explained via a foundational physical model, alongside the fact that c is both constant and the maximum velocity in the universe. The empirical GPS clocks' time dilation/twins paradox is resolved by proposing a frame of absolute rest--the three spatial dimensions, and a frame of absolute motion--the fourth expanding dimension upon which ageless photons of zero rest mass surf; which underlie and give rise to Einstein's Principle of Relativity.
When the solution is simple, God is answering. -Einstein
Time as an Emergent Phenomenon: Traveling Back to the Heroic Age of Physics
by Elliot McGucken
In his 1912 Manuscript on Relativity, Einstein never stated that time is the fourth dimension, but rather he wrote x4 = ict. The fourth dimension is not time, but ict. Despite this, prominent physicists have oft equated time and the fourth dimension, leading to un-resolvable paradoxes and confusion regarding time's physical nature, as physicists mistakenly projected properties of the three spatial dimensions onto a time dimension, resulting in curious concepts including frozen time and block universes in which the past and future are omni-present, thusly denying free will, while implying the possibility of time travel into the past, which visitors from the future have yet to verify. Beginning with the postulate that time is an emergent phenomenon resulting from a fourth dimension expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions at the rate of c, diverse phenomena from relativity, quantum mechanics, and statistical mechanics are accounted for. Time dilation, the equivalence of mass and energy, nonlocality, wave-particle duality, and entropy are shown to arise from a common, deeper physical reality expressed with dx4/dt=ic. This postulate and equation, from which Einstein's relativity is derived, presents a fundamental model accounting for the emergence of time, the constant velocity of light, the fact that the maximum velocity is c, and the fact that c is independent of the velocity of the source, as photons are but matter surfing a fourth expanding dimension. In general relativity, Einstein showed that the dimensions themselves could bend, curve, and move. The present theory extends this principle, postulating that the fourth dimension is moving independently of the three spatial dimensions, distributing locality and fathering time. This physical model underlies and accounts for time in quantum mechanics, relativity, and statistical mechanics, as well as entropy, the universe's expansion, and time's arrows.

Dr. Elliot McGucken's Biography: "Dr. E" received a B.A. in physics from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in physics from UNC Chapel Hill, where his research on an artificial retina, which is now helping the blind see, appeared in Business Week, the NSF's Frontiers, and Popular Science and was awarded a Merrill Lynch Innovations Grant. While at Princeton, McGucken worked on projects concerning quantum mechanics and general relativity with the late John A. Wheeler, and the projects combined to form an appendix treating time as an emergent phenomenon in his dissertation. McGucken is writing a book for the Artistic Entrepreneurship & Technology (artsentrepreneurship.com) curriculum he created.






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Local author writes to inspire a renaissance: Dr. Elliot McGucken in the Pendulum: His book is about U.S. Marine Ranger McCoy who invented APRIL, an advanced computer with artificial intelligence. While he is serving overseas as a fighter pilot, Silicon Virtue Inc. steals APRIL from his MIT lab. He is shot down over Afghanistan, escapes his captors, and takes a wild odyssey on home. He meets Autumn, a mysterious folk singer with knowledge ranging from classical art to the martial arts. They fall in love and hope to save his invention. McGucken explains that there are very important lessons established in the novel. "Truth is beauty and beauty truth. People might try to tell you otherwise, but call their bluff," McGucken said. "Become that Autumn Ranger, win Autumn's heart, and save April's soul." "Autumn Rangers" is meant to inspire students to create a Hollywood renaissance. "Head west and become a director, a producer, or screenwriter and revive the classic myths in the living language. Or odyssey up to New York and become an editor, agent, writer, or publisher," McGucken said. This is McGucken's fourth book. He has previously published a novel, a poetry book and a collection of essays. McGucken attended Princeton and later received his Ph.D. from UNC-Chapel Hill. "I majored in physics but took a creative writing class each semester," McGucken said. " I had Joyce Carol Oates, Russell Banks and Toni Morrison as professors." He now teaches physics and programming at UNC-Chapel Hill. His books can be found at any bookstore.
THE TRIANGLE TECH JOURNAL

Dr. E & The Jolly Roger in the Triangle Tech Journal

UNC Chapel Hill Student: The Hero's Odyssey in Arts Entrepreneurship inspired me to finally incorporate my own business, and I will be reading more of the Great Books & Classics this summer! Ideals are real! Rock on Dr. E! MBA/Business Class feedback for The Hero's Odyssey in Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology
The Hero's Odyssey Entrepreneurship Festival Returns to Pepperdine:Five panels are planned throughout the day including one titled Leonardo Da Vinci and the New Frontiers of Robotic Technologies . . . The Italian Cultural Institute and Mentorography are proud to present the Da Vinci panel with Mark Rosheim, an American robotics expert. Festival participants will gather again for an interview between Brooks Ferguson, producer of films such as Titanic and Little Women, and Craig Titley, writer of Cheaper by the Dozen and Scooby Doo. The discussion will focus on how a screenwriter utilizes the "trickster spirit" in contributing to the creative process "to bring meaningful, impactful motion pictures to the world culture." Participants will join Flint Dille and John Zuur of the award-winning Chronicles of Riddick and Transformers video games as they discuss their new book, The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing & Design, and the future of the industry. Not only are Dille and Zuur defining the merging of film and video games, they are also well-known throughout Hollywood for mentoring upcoming talent. Elliot McGucken, visiting assistant professor of business will moderate the Dille and Zuur discussion. McGucken created the Hero's Odyssey Entrepreneurship Festival to raise appreciation for the role that classical literature and the arts play among future generations of entrepreneurs.

Dr. E in Carolina

William Ferriss, former Chair of the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA): Many thanks for the impressive work that you are doing. I look forward to keeping in touch and commend you on the innovative teaching you do.
Jack Bogle: Your message to our nation's young students--a message of idealism and enlightenment--is a breath of fresh air that must--and will--find its way into the musty corridors of our colleges and business schools. Perhaps your happy acronym--CREATE (Center for Renaissance Entrepreneurship, Art, Technology, and Economics).will help. Keep up the good work! --John C. Bogle, Founder & Former CEO of the Vanguard Group
Bill Fay: It was my pleasure to join you and keynote the Hero's Odyssey Entrepreneurship Festival. The enthusiasm of the students was great to see. --William Fay, Founder/President of Production at Legendary Pictures (Batman, Superman, Inception, The Hangover, 300, The Patriot)

Dr. E's award-winning artificial retina physics Ph.D. dissertation.

The Triangle Business Journal: What do you get when you combine an interest in the arts with an interest in entrepreneurial ventures and an interest in cutting-edge technology? Dr. Elliot McGucken at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill says the result is someone he calls an artistic entrepreneur. Thus, he's received a grant from the Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative to launch a class called Artistic Entrepreneurship. Known as "Dr. E" to his students, McGucken teaches physics and programming and has published a poetry book, a novel, a collection of essays, several scientific articles and - huh? - poetry in The Wall Street Journal. Since 1995, he's run an online site called jollyroger.com that pays homage to the "Great Books" and serves as a forum for those who worship excellence in literature. As for the new class, McGucken says it "will invite writers, artists, directors, producers, musicians, business majors, and computer programmers to work together in building artistic ventures." "It'd be great to build a couple hip artistic ventures in our own backyard," McGucken tells Biz. "Why let New York and L.A. have all the fun?"

Dr. E & The Jolly Roger in the Outer Banks Sentinel

UNC CEI (Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative): Dr. Elliot McGucken, who developed and taught an artistic entrepreneurship course at UNC this spring, is the author of a new book that discusses the spirit of entrepreneurship in the context of epic storytelling and the hero's odyssey. "Whether you're an MBA, MFA, JD or DJ, the book is there to show you how the business of art and the art of business are united in the realm of higher ideals in epic storytelling," said McGucken, five-time author and adjunct professor of Physics and Programming. His new book is called The Hero's Odyssey in Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology."
The Triangle Business Journal: Each month, (The Jolly Roger) draws between 100,000 and 150,000 unique visitors interested in contributing poetry or taking part in literary discussions about the great books and such authors as Melville, Shakespeare and Robert Frost. Income springs from advertising, which McGucken outsources in partnerships with San Francisco-based NBCI, the Internet division of the NBC network, and with another partner. NBC solicits ads, then splits revenue from those ads with jollyroger 50-50, and for McGucken -- who runs his one-man company out of his Southern Village neighborhood home -- it's more than enough to get by. "It's more than I'd make as a college professor," he explains. Since the NBC partnership two years ago, jollyroger has captured more than its share of attention, from the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and Popular Science, down to Home Office Computing. Those publications retold the tale of an Akron, Ohio-born son of college professors who graduated from Princeton and then headed to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to study physics, graduating with a Ph.D. in 1998. Meanwhile, in his spare time he was burning the midnight oil on the Web developing his "classical portal." Last year, he took a teaching job at Davidson College near Charlotte, but gave it up this summer to go full time into jollyroger. Thus far, McGucken says, he's resisted looking for venture capital investments because he wants to continue controlling both his own and his portal's destiny. But what's his long-term exit strategy? "I don't know that I have one." he says. "I wouldn't mind selling it at some point to a larger portal. But right now I'm comfortable and I like doing what I do."

Dr. E's portrait of a former Ms. South Carolina

Business Week: The Gift of Silicon Sight: To the blind, retsoring even a modicum of sight would be a miraculous gift. . . scientists in North Carolina are working on a tiny chip to be implanted in the eye . . . Their chip is just 2 millimeters square--yet will eventually have a 250-by-250 grid of electrodes. . . And the electrodes--"phototransistors" developed by graduate student Elliot Mcgucken at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill--will be triggered by ordinary light coming through the eye's pupil. . .
The Charlotte Business Journal: The High Seas of Literary Conversation: The Jolly Roger, an online literary magazine and chatroom, is considering adding a new feature to its Web site-- live gatherings at pubs and coffeeshops across the country with people connected via the Internet. The website and the pubs would work together to stage the live chats, where groups would be connected via the Internet. Elliot McGucken, a former Davidson College professor who started the site in 1995, has had preliminary conversations with pub owners across the country about offering a face-to-face component to mirror the online chats. The talks are just one idea from the energetic McGucken. His JollyRoger.com, billed as the world's largest literary caf., allows literature lovers a portal to chat about favorite works. "It's always better to let your imagination go as far as it can," he says. . . The site, which takes its name from the pirate flag, is co-hosted by NBC.
Dr. John Archibald Wheeler (Princeton's Joseph Henry Professor of Physics): More intellectual curiosity, versatility and yen for physics than Elliot McGucken's I have never seen in any senior or graduate student. . . Originality, powerful motivation, and a can-do spirit make me think that McGucken is a top bet for graduate school in physics. . . I say this on the basis of close contacts with him over the past year and a half. . . I gave him as an independent task to figure out the time factor in the standard Schwarzchild expression around a spherically-symmetric center of attraction. I gave him the proofs of my new general-audience, calculus-free book on general relativity, A Odyssey Into Gravity and Space Time. There the space part of the Schwarzchild geometric is worked out by purely geometric methods. "Can you, by poor-man's reasoning, derive what I never have, the time part?" He could and did, and wrote it all up in a beautifully clear account. . . .his second junior paper . . .entitled Within a Context, was done with another advisor, and dealt with an entirely different part of physics, the Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky experiment and delayed choice experiments in general. . . this paper was so outstanding. . . I am absolutely delighted that this semester McGucken is doing a project with the cyclotron group on time reversal asymmetry. Electronics, machine-shop work and making equipment function are things in which he now revels. But he revels in Shakespeare, too. Acting the part of Prospero in The Tempest. . .

syracuse 018.3.34.
Dr. E keynoting the Syracuse University Entrepreneurship Classroom: Note that most everyone is still awake!


Lulu Staff Tweaks, Sweats Details Before Tour The News & Observer : It was the first Lulu Technology Circus -- the latest business venture by Bob Young, the co-founder and former chairman of Red Hat Linux, the Triangle's best-known software company. The event celebrated and explored the wonders of technology, including robotics, digital music, video games and high-powered clustered computing. . . The Lulu team, which recently added Elliot McGucken, founder and chief executive of JollyRoger.com, an online community for folks obsessed by classic books, met last week to further flesh out the ideas.
Elon Magazine: Visionary Research: Elon Professor Wins Award for Work on Restoring Sight to the Blind: At first glance, assiistant physics professor Elliot McGucken doesn't fit the image of an award-winning scientist. With his youthful expression and rumpled, casual clothing. . . But when McGucken talks about his work, a different picture begins to emerge. Beneath the low-key exterior is an experienced, cutting-edge researcher. To McGucken, scientific inquiry is as much art as it is science. "You have to keep an open mind and a broad persepective," he says. "The best insights you get happen outside the lab. . . McGucken's insights recently won him a $20,000 innovation grant from the Merrill Lynch Forum in New York. His contributions towards a design for a computer chip-based implant aimed at helping millions of people with retinal blindness won second place in a compettion that drew more than two-hundred proposals from sixty countries. . . People using the device woul wear a special set of eyeglasses, McGucken says. The chip set, weighing only a few grams, would enable them to see simple shapes and movements and read large print.
The Charlotte Business Journal: If we're short of geniuses, Dr. Elliot McGucken can likely help. McGucken is a newly recruited physics prof at Davidson College, but that's just half the story -- literally. For fun, he has another hobby: a modestly successful literary and classics Web page . . . It's successful enough that The Wall Street Journal highlighted McGucken's dual roles . . . He's also shopping a recently completed novel ("it has a lot of classic literary references") and wrapped up a stint playing in a grunge band in Chapel Hill. With some understatement, McGucken, who has a doctoral degree in physics/electrical engineering, says the range of activities ensures a career no matter how perilous the academic world becomes.
Dr. E presented his Authena Open Source Digital Rights Management research for indie artists at the Harvard Berkman Center's OSCOM: The News & Observer: THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG HACKER Elliot McGucken, a physics professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is just back from an open-source software conference -- the conference on Open Source Content Management, or OSCOM -- at Harvard. While there, McGucken and his colleague Blake Waters discussed Authena, an open-source program for artists, musicians, photographers and authors. Authena allows creative types to sell their work online while controlling their rights to the material. Connect's Christina Dyrness caught up with McGucken -- who also started the Web site www.jollyroger.com, which is devoted to classic books -- on the Chapel Hill campus and tried to get him to talk about Authena, which is a project sponsored by the Durham-based Center for the Public Domain. Q. Let's start at the beginning. What is Authena? A. It's about the application of open-source to the arts. And it also kind of ties into the rise of the artist hacker. Because when you look at the Linux operating system, it's all created by hackers.

Dr. E presented Authena--"a philosophy of creator's rights"--at Harvard's OSCOM (Open SOurce Content Management Conference) @ The Berkman Center for Internet & Society

Page from Dr. E's physics Ph.D. dissertation on an artificial retina for the blind. The project is grateful to NSF and the Fight for Sight Foundation for funding.
WWW RENAISSANCE MAN: Lake Norman's Neighbor of the Month: A Princeton University graduate, Dr. E also has Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Physics from UNC-Chapel Hill. The physics professor has what at first glance seems to be an alter ego, as well. His career and education background both in science, McGucken is also a poet and lover of classical literature. He carries that passion to the extreme, however, circulating it to the world in general via his successful Internet site titled jollyroger.com, which boasts 2 million page views per month to over 150,000 unique monthly visitors, says McGucken. The New York Times called it "simply unprecedented," and said it "teems with discussion, the kind that goes well beyond freshman lit 101." AOL advertises McGucken's site as "smart-alecky, skillfully written and provocative." It further states, "Literary, generational and plain-old politics take it on the chin from (jollyroger.com)." "They're both similar pursuits," says McGucken of his dichotomous interests - physics and literature. "Both try to describe something. It's how you think about things." The prof says most of his physics students probably are unaware of his literary side. "I pretty much only talk about physics in class, as there's so much to be learned. A couple of students saw me wearing a jollyroger.com t-shirt in the gym one day and said they'd heard about it before. One of them said that her high school English teacher had mentioned the site," says McGucken. The site reflects aura of N.C. coast. "Oak planks of reason, riveted with rhyme, designed to voyage across all time" greets the visitor to the jollyroger.com site. --Lake Norman Magazine
The Graphic: New business class connects student passion with capital: "Looks like McGucken's found a way to inspire a new generation of artistically minded entrepreneurs to follow their passion, and make a living," wrote Teresea Ciulla in Entrepreneur Magazine. Matt Llewellyn, a senior advertising and marketing major who is enrolled in the class, said McGucken's youth and experience make him an effective professor. "I think he relates to students, because he's fresh and new," Llewellyn said. McGucken himself is an entrepreneur, with patents pending and his award-winning Ph.D. research on an artificial retina that can be implanted in the eye to restore sight to those blinded by illness or injury. Artie Calhoun, a senior economics major, said McGucken's experience brought an extra dimension to the class. "Dr. McGucken seems to be very experienced in the field of entrepreneurship and quite possibly has a lot to offer to students like myself," Calhoun said. Llewellyn started a company which sells bottled water in downtown Los Angeles, with packaging written in Spanish. He said he wishes he had taken the class before he started his venture. . . Llewellyn and Calhoun agreed students should take the class, regardless of their major. "This class teaches about the advantages of thinking outside the box and keeping an open mind about the world around you," Calhoun said. "Entrepreneurship can be found in every profession."
Book Magazine: Ex-prof takes love of literature online: After earning a Ph.D. in physics from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and getting a teaching post at nearby Davidson College, McGucken quit to devote all his time to--what else--his Web site. . . a "classical portal," a huge index of chat-rooms, essays and poetry--each with a literary theme. A quick tour reveals a number of McGucken's own poems as well as live discussions for fans of everyone from Daniel Quinn to Herman Melville to Sylvia Plath to Joseph Heller. "I want to bring the classics to life for my generation. . ." It all ties in nicely with North Carolina's Outer Banks, one of McGucken's favorite haunts...
Business Week: "From Beethoven to Bob Dylan:: "Every artist is an entrepreneur." So argues Dr. Elliot McGucken, a visiting professor at Pepperdine University, in an online video introduction to his course, Art Entrepreneurship & Technology 101, which has the professor lecturing from the shore of a small lake. Among his suggestions for artists who want to be more entrepreneurial: "launch a blog." --from Business Week: "From Beethoven to Bob Dylan:
Entrepreneur Magazine: "Can you actually make your passion your profession? According to Dr. Elliot McGucken, a professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (and now Pepperdine University), who's teaching the university's first "Artistic Entrepreneurship & Technology 101" class, the answer just may be yes. McGucken's class, which is comprised of a group of 45 students majoring in law, business, art, computer science, journalism and music, focuses on teaching students about creating value over just making money, about letting their higher ideals guide the bottom line. After all, as McGucken says, "Successful companies aren't successful because they make money--they're successful because they create value." Class projects range from a classical music video to a hip hop curriculum and textbook to an online art gallery to a freshman's record label that's signed more than ten bands to a social network being programmed by three computer science majors. Students are seeing that to the degree they succeed in creating useful art and ventures, they'll be able to support their passions with a profitable business. And isn't that what we're all really striving for? To find an excitement in our work in order to beat back the dullness of the typical 9-to-5 routine? Looks like McGucken's found a way to inspire a new generation of artistically minded entrepreneurs to follow their passions--and make a living." --Teresea Ciulla, Entrepreneur Magazine.
"Everything they don't teach in business, law, and film school. Nor on the liberal arts campus anymore, come to think of it." --MBA in Dr. E's Hero's Odyssey in Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology Course
Festival to Promote Business Creativity: The Graphic: The excitement of the epics of the past can be utilized to promote creativity and entrepeneurship, according to the organizers of the first Hero's Odyssey Entrepreneurship Festival. . . The festival will include several professionals in the arts and humanities field including Flint Dille and John Zuur of the award winning--Chronicles of Riddick. and David Whatley, the CEO of Simutronics. The festival will also include a keynote speech by William Fay, who is the executive producer of films such as The Patriot, Superman Returns and the current blockbuster movie 300. "The Hero's Odyssey Entrepreneurship Festival" seeks to give students, artists and entrepreneurs the tools to make their passions their professions, said Dr. Elliot McGucken, visiting professor of business. "The rising generation is longing for epic story across all mediums." McGucken's growing popularity is clearly visible not only in his students, but also fellow members of the Pepperdine staff and faculty. Vice Chancellor Michael Warder, for example, said the concept of spreading entrepreneurship and business to artists of all types is part of McGucken's genius. "I think he speaks to creative students who are steeped in the digital revolution in a very powerful and responsible way," Warder said.

Dr. E's award-winning artificial retina dissertation.

The National Science Foundation's "The Best of Frontiers": In the surgery suites of Johns Hopkins University Hospital and the laboratories of North Carolina State University, artificial vision is moving out of the realm of science fiction and into reality. During a videotaped procedure in 1994, surgeons put an electrode array into the eye of a blind patient, and while delivering small, controlled electrical pulses, asked what he could see. "Well," replied the volunteer patient, "it was a black dot with a yellow ring around it." Last spring, NSF-funded electrical engineering professor Wentai Liu and doctoral student Elliot McGucken created a microchip that will be used by the surgeons. Limited laboratory experiments have shown that this implant can expand artificial sight from the single dot in space to an array of pixels, like that of a television set. So far, the artificial retinal component chip (ARCC) has an array of 5 by 5 pixels--just enough to identify individual letters. However, Liu, of North Carolina State University, and McGucken, of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, say that in the next five years the chip will grow to a 20 by 20 array, and may eventually hold a 250 by 250 array--enough to read a newspaper. --NSF's Frontiers (The retina is now helping people see.)
Go Into the Story: The Web's #1 Screenwriting Blog: The Hero's Odyssey as entrepreneurial model? GITS reader and long-time friend Richard Rumble sourced this interesting site that uses Joseph Campbell's theories re The Hero's Odyssey as the basis for teaching entrepreneurship. At first, that might leave you scratching your head, but check out this outline from the website: Artistic Entrepreneurship 101 Outline: (Based on Joseph Campbell's classic Hero With a Thousand Faces) # 1 Structure (based on wikipedia's monomyth): The executive summary of your artistic business venture.
Dr. E's The Hero's Odyssey in Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology
* 1.1 Departure (or Separation): Taking that first step--blog your vision.
o 1.1.1 The Call to Adventure: Artistic passions & dreams
o 1.1.2 Refusal of the Call: Is it practical?
o 1.1.3 Supernatural Aid: Use the force, Luke. The harder you work, the luckier you get.
o 1.1.4 The Crossing of the First Threshold: Business structures / market research
o 1.1.5 The Belly of the Whale: The business plan, raising funds, intellectual property
* 1.2 Initiation: Building the team, incorporating
o 1.2.1 The Road of Trials: Striving toward profitablitity
o 1.2.2 The Meeting with the Goddess: First customers! Early success!
o 1.2.3 Temptation: Seeking short-term profits over long-term wealth.
o 1.2.4 Atonement with the Father: Competing or collaborating with the big guys--the Microsofts and Apples, the Hollywood studios
o 1.2.5 Realizing the core business Apotheosis
o 1.2.6 The Ultimate Boon: Newfound business acumen!
* 1.3 Return: It is all for naught without the road back!
o 1.3.1 Refusal of the Return: Don't lose site of the core business!
o 1.3.2 The Magic Flight: Exit strategy! IPO or selling the company!
o 1.3.3 Rescue from Without: When business competition is your best friend.
o 1.3.4 The Crossing of the Return Threshold: The venture is a success!
o 1.3.5 Master of Two Worlds: You know what it takes--like Richard Branson you can do it again.
o 1.3.6 Freedom to Live: Financial freedom to pursue your dreams!!
With my students, I make the point that when we conceive of a story, in effect we become a Protagonist in our own story: The writing process. Stumbling upon that initial story concept is like The Call To Adventure. When we type FADE IN, we Cross The First Threshold. As we write, we confront Trials (lose our way, lose our confidence) and Temptations (to quit). And eventually as we get to FADE OUT, we emerge 'victorious' on our own hero's odyssey. Given that, I guess I shouldn't be surprised to find outfits like this using Campbell's theories as business models. --Go Into the Story: The Web's #1 Screenwriting Blog

Dr. E's Award-Winning Artificial Retina Dissertation

The New York Times: Literary Criticism Pulled Down From Ivory Towers: And whether the academics accept it or not doesn't matter; because the dialogue that's developed online on the subject of Joyce and the likes of Melville, Fitzgerald, Camus, Shakespeare, and Hemingway adds instantly to the understanding of literature simply because of the depth of the online debate. It is simply unprecedented. In addition to discussing literature, you can preview and e-mail a Great Thoughts Greeting(TM) Shakespearean sonnet on the Jolly Roger site. "While it has often been tough to find good conversation in the bars and cafes around Chapel Hill, it has never been so on our Web sites," says Elliot McGucken, president of the North Carolina-based Kill Devil Hill site, named for a hill on Cape Hatteras and billing itself as "The World's Largest Literary Cafe." "We are now serving over 1,000,000 page views a month, and the day has long ago passed when we were able to keep up with all the interesting posts and cool conversations." That's certainly an understatement. KillDevilHill.Com and two related sites -- Western Canon University and The Jolly Roger, two avowed pro-Western canon communities that make little room for modern literature -- teem with discussion, the kind that goes well beyond freshman lit 101. On the Mark Twain discussion board, a visitor wonders aloud about the "aspects of nature" in the Royal Nonesuch performance in Huckleberry Finn. There are arguments over William Shakespeare's childhood in the Shakespearean section. Over on the Herman Melville board, posters discuss Ahab's use of the sea chart as a controlling mechanism and Ishmael's artistic nature. Some of the posts are simplistic, others amazingly complex. Of course, there are dozens of students looking for insight for their high school and college papers. The experience is almost entirely text-based (on the message boards, the only graphics are advertisements) and that's part of the aim, says McGucken, who calls the Web "the only technological medium that's rooted primarily in the printed word." The sites pointedly concentrate on what he calls the permanence of the Great Books over the transience of pop culture.
UCLA MBA Student: Dr. E--your lecture really stayed with me, and I've thought about it long after class. I am a recording artist so it resonated with me--that the entrepreneur's odyssey is similar to that of the mythic hero -- I've had a Billboard charting single and music placements on TLC and VH1 but I'd been reluctant to really put myself completely into it because of the uncertainty involved--the refusal of the call.. . . Now I see it as a natural process--as going into my own "departure" into the woods. Your lecture renewed my focus and energy. . . as it associated structure with what often feels like a chaotic odyssey. Sometimes failure, enemies, and refusal are part of the odyssey when one sets off to live by ideals and art--they don't teach this in other classes, where failure to fit in to the corporate structure, which itself is so foten corrupt, is failure. The way you apply mythology to entrepreneurship is innovative, inspiring, energizing and enlightening. There should be more classes like this in every MBA program, as it appealed to me as an artist and as an MBA. The mythological blueprint brings new meaning to the entrepreneurial/MBA experience, as one feels like a mythic hero on their own professional odyssey, where it's OK to be fired as long as one has the truth on their side; as long as one never fires their own idealism. This stayed with me long after the class, as I started to see my life and professional progress as a great odyssey. I was energized with excitement for every part of the process.for like you said, although the The Lord of The Rings was about getting the ring to Mordor, what would have the nine-hour odyssey been without the "tests, allies, and enemies;" without friends and epic battles? Would love a copy of The Gold 45 Revolver when it comes out. I feel like sharing some music with you.
Sensors: The Journal of Applied Sensing Technology: Funded by the National Science foundation and the Fight for Sight Foundation, Liu and Mcgucken developed an artificial retina component chip (ARCC) that can be implanted in the eyeball just in front of the retina. . . Measuring 2 mm2 and <0.02 mm thick, the microchip is embedded with photosensor cells and electrodes. Powered by an exterior laser mounted on a pair of spectacles and aimed at a photovoltaic cell, the photosensor cells receive light and images through the pulses that stimulate the nerve ganglia behind the retina. The brain processes the message from the ganglia and interprets the signal.

Dr. E's Artificial Retina Physics Ph.D. Research

Poet's Latest Effort Evolved From Diary: Arts & Features, The Daily Tar Heel: A group of college students gather, cramped, in a makeshift treehouse. One student stands facing the group and begins to recite poetry. Another stands and sings a comical rhyme. Gradually, others work up the nerve to join in, and the air reosunds with the rising and falling of human voices. The scene, vaguely reminiscent of "Dead Poets Society," became the basis for a newly-published book of poetry by a UNC first-year graduate student. . .. Timbre, a freshman from Statesville at Duke University, was introduced to the poems by her roommate. "I was surprised by his consistent sonnet form. It kind of shocked me that someone would still demand the sonnet," she said. . . The poet appeals to the student population in many of his poems, urging them to beomce indivdiuals instead of beocming a faceless part of society. He believes television plays a vital role in what he terms "the unconscious generation." "Words can't really compete with images. But you can't ever feel frustrated because it's the way things are--it's technology," the Poet says. But he does allow some hope for the younger, visually-oriented generation. "There's a part of a person that only words can touch. Our soul is wedged inside of words--words form the center and circumference of our spirits--and science can't touch words." . . Jennifer, a Duke freshamn from California, said she met the Poet when he was selling The After Dark Field Book at Duke. She said she was convinced to buy his latest book after reading a few poems. "I read them nightly to my roommate--it's really kind of fun. And I send some to my best friend out-of-state."
Feedback from Dr. E's Hero's Odyssey in Arts Entrepreneuership & Technology Keynote @ the Syracuse University Entrepreneurship Classroom: Dear Elliot (Dr E), I just wanted to tell you again how enjoyable and inspiring meeting you was. . . discovering your research was like Christmas for my brain. I have gone over these same old stories many times from the perspective of mythology, theology, and even anthropology and etymology, but applying the classics to business gives me yet another reason to revisit these works and see them as new again. Engaging art students in business classes is challenging, and I am excited to try this new method in the fall. You have changed the way I will approach teaching entrepreneurship.
Computer-Age Author to Visit Cannon School: by Monee Dwiggins: CONCORD--students at Cannon School will get close to celebrity this week when a best-selling author comes to talk with studnets about his book. Dr. Elliot McGucken, author of The Tragedy of Drake Raft will be speaking with students from an honors English class who have been reading his book this semester. "The teach got word from his brother about my website jollyroger.com where my book is listed. He bought a copy of it and decided to let his studnets read it," McGucken said. . . In The Tragedy of Drake Raft, the best-seller in North Carolina on amazon.com, Cliff and his friend Timber set out from Chapel Hill for Princeton to investigate the mysterious death of Cliff's brother, Drake Raft, who went insane after his favorite professor and Great Books mentor died. McGucken describes the story as a modern day Hamlet.
Bogle spoke on how businesses have abandoned true ethics and the importance of classical values and a liberal education in the today's world and attested to his humble beginnings and how they shaped his life to come. . . Dr. Elliot McGucken organized the event. McGucken teaches a class in artistic entrepreneurship in which Bogle.s 2005 book, The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism, is required reading alongside Homer's Odyssey.

Dr. E's novel & graphic novel Autumn Rangers @ San Diego's Comic Com

POD: A Jolly Good Idea: The News and Observer: Have you heard about this Elliot McGucken guy who moved to Chapel Hill in January and runs www.jollyroger.com? He quit his day job as a physics professor at Davidson College when he realized he could support himself with money coming in from the banner ads and book sales on his website, which is dedicated to reviving a love of classical literature in the dreary, postmodern world. As he puts it, "It was easier to put teaching on hold than put the web on hold." . . . Last week The Tragedy of Drake Raft became the No. 1 book among North Carolinians shopping on Amazon.com. Some 11th and 12th graders at Cannon Charter School in Concord are studying the tome for a lit class.
FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL'S BLUEPRINTS: Three Mouseketeers Internet startup captains put their daring-do to the test by Beth McNichol '95: A man dies before his wealth finds him, before his success spoils him, before the gifts within his mind could be left to turn gray and stale, touched by literary editors with hermetically sealed imaginations. He dies before his work is talked about on the street and in pubs, before his product's name becomes a metaphor for greatness, before he poses for any photo shoots for book jackets. He dies before there are Internet chat rooms dedicated to his very soul, before cookies aren't a type of food. And Elliot McGucken '98 (PhD) loves Herman Melville all the more for it. "He said, 'I know I'm writing words that won't sell, but write any other words I cannot,'" says McGucken. "That's what makes them so valuable. The fact that they weren't done for money; they were done for some kind of greater cause, a greater aesthetic. I mean, how much money did Herman Melville have to raise to write Moby Dick?" The answer is none, of course. The author died penniless and 50 years passed before his classic literature became classic, before anyone noticed. In a world where everyone wants to be noticed yesterday, McGucken, a 30-year-old already-former college professor, fancies himself a modern-day Ahab. He is, as he has been since 1995, the sole employee of the classical literary Web site Jollyroger.com , which might best be termed the anti-Internet startup. Unlike today's youth-fired, risk-filled Web company minefield, McGucken didn't christen Jollyroger to make a living; all he hoped to do was marry his love of English with technology and provide a forum for people his age to rediscover and talk about Great Books. But two and a half years after its birth, his little hobby was turning a profit. By the time he was teaching at Davidson College, McGucken's site was hosted by Snap.com , enjoyed partnerships with NBC Interactive, The Gap, Dell Computers, Engage media and Amazon.com and was recording upward of 3 million page views per month. He takes a 5 to 15 percent commission on every book his visitors buy from Amazon, and similar sales from other companies that advertise on his site. Through his affiliation with Engage, which sells most of the banner ads, he earns as much as $15 each time someone clicks on an ad-more if they buy from the advertiser. Although McGucken-using his three degrees in physics-also developed a computer chip that helps restore vision to blind people, he didn't need any of those sheepskins to grasp what he'd stumbled upon with the Web. "Whenever you create something, you want other people to see it," says McGucken, who now runs Jollyroger full time out of his home in Chapel Hill. "But I wasn't thinking of millions of people seeing it." McGucken was a Web guy before Web guys were cool, before Wired became Gen-X's Time, in the good ol' days when twentysomethings were still joining the payrolls of someone else's company. Now, it seems everyone has an idea for an e-venture but few have the pluck and pliancy to see it to fruition.


The Wall Street Journal published Dr. E's poetry, writing: And here's "In the Name of Freedom" by Elliot McGuken:

The night fell fast, I found myself alone,
A D.C. summer storm was blowing in,
I stood at the tomb, these soldiers unknown,
and knelt and prayed for the rain to begin.

Not for the monuments nor any money,
nor pomp, circumstance, nor the pedant's pride,
the politician's smile, nor lawyer's fee,
for these present treasures, none of them died.

I ran to Jefferson to read the wall,
to make sure that God was still written there,
then to Washington, and across the Mall,
where Lincoln invoked his immortal prayer.

Winded and ragged, lightning everywhere,
I slowed to a walk, pondered what would be,
if God's great Enlightenment weren't there,
we could still be brave but never be free.

I found comfort in the Mall's mud and rain,
without mines nor cannons nor raining shells,
so free from fear, iniquity, and pain,
because thousands had endured a thousand hells.

And I found myself back before the tomb,
humbled by the humbled, with naught for name,
shivering, though they had the colder room,
sans light, nor sound, nor tomorrow, nor fame.

I thought for a moment, what it could be,
the center and circumference of their dreaming,
it must have been the prophet's poetry,
that granted their souls eternal meaning.

So judges and congressmen, please don't forget,
the reason these patriots picked up swords,
not for perks nor power were their deaths met,
but for honor and duty--for mere words.

So do take pause before telling a lie,
for there's one more thing I saw on that night,
as the wind and the rain began to die,
I walked away, turned, and beheld a light.

Will 'o' wisp, reddish light, sailor's delight,
It hovered there--just above the tomb's stone,
As fading thunder whispered to the night,
"Freedom's the name of all soldiers unknown."


Dr. E directed & shot the music video for Vaughan Penn's Ready to Rise. The song was heard on Gray's Anatomy and Laguna Beach, and it was the theme song for A&E's Roller Girls.

The Arts Entrepreneurs Educator's Network: Elliot launched the ArtsEntrepreneurship.com program at UNC Chapel Hill and he is bringing it to Pepperdine University this fall. He received a B.A. in physics from Princeton and a Ph.D. in physics from UNC Chapel Hill where his dissertation on an artificial retina for the blind received several NSF grants and a Merrill Lynch Innovations Award. The retina-chip research appeared in publications including Popular Science and Business Week, and the project continues to this day. Elliot presented Authena Open Source DRM/CMS at the Harvard Law School OSCOM, and 22surf was accepted to the Zurich OSCOM. Both Authena and 22surf are aimed at helping indie artists/creators. He has published four books including two novels and a poetry collection, and blogs on Artistic Entrepreneurship for the Kauffman Foundation. . . Your Spring 2006 course, The 45 Revolver: Artistic Entrepreneurship & Technology 101, is somewhat iconoclastic when compared to other Arts Entrepreneurship courses across the country. Can you briefly describe the class, your course philosophy and the design process?

THE ART OF BUSINESS & BUSINESS OF ART:
Make Your Passion Your Profession via Hero's Odyssey Entrepreneurship
in Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology 101
Hero's Odyssey Entrepreneurship is all about taking classical, epic action in rendering your ideals and dreams real on a hero's odyssey of your own making. --Dr. E (Join Dr. E on facebook!)

The 2010 Webster's Technology Quotations, Facts, and Phrases writes, "Artistic Entrepreneurship & Technology 101 is an open-source course being offered by Dr. Elliot McGucken."

Dr. E teaching astronomy.

Dr. E wsindsurfing.
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Dr. E's Hero's Odyssey Entrepreneurship Podcast (based on his SXSW lecture & Syracuse University Entreprneurship Classroom Keynote "Sometimes you've got to think like a surfer--lie low, go with the flow, and ride the wave. And sometimes you've got to cowboy up--ride into town, call the bluff, and face the music in the showdown." Dr. Elliot McGucken explains how artists can find financial success by seeing their quest as a classic Hero's Odyssey. By keeping the hero's goal of staying true to his art and passionately following the odyssey, the artist can turn his creative wealth into financial wealth.
The Hero's Odyssey in Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology seeks to give students, artists, and entrepreneurs the tools to make their passions their professions--to protect and profit from their ideas--to take ownership in their careers and creations. For Adam Smith's invisible hand enriches all when happiness is pursued by artists and innovators--society's natural founts of wealth. Thomas Jefferson eloquently expressed the entrepreneurial premise:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. --The Declaration of Independence
The only clause in the main body of the United States Constitution that mentions "Rights" states the following:
The Congress shall have power to . . . promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries; --The United States Constitution
Couple these two passages together, and one has the moral premise of Artistic Entrepreneurship & Technology. Every student ought be given the tools to create new ventures--to protect their intellectual property, and to pursue and profit from their dreams on their "Hero's Odyssey" into entrepreneurship. For it is along that odyssey that the long-term "wealth of nations" is generated. --Dr. E from The Hero's Odyssey in Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology 101
Entrepreneurship MBA/Business Class feedback for The Hero's Odyssey in Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology

BusinessWeek Online reports on The Hero's Odyssey in Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology: Where Entrepreneurship Connects to the Classics:
"Elliot McGucken, a professor of entrepreneurship, bemoans that "a lot of schools have dismissed the idea of teaching the great books." In a recent lecture, McGucken points out that that one lesson of the classics is, "Chance favors the prepared mind. Instead of viewing risk as a bad thing, we can also view it as a good thing."

The classics inspired America's Declaration of Independence, which McGucken sees as an entrepreneurial document. Life has a way of "calling us to adventure," he concludes." --from BusinessWeek Online


The New York Times reported, "McGucken's course (Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology 101). . . rests on the principle that those who create art should have the skills to own it, profit from it and protect it. "It's about how to make your passion your profession, your avocation your vocation, and to make this long-term sustainable," he said. --New York Times Small Business
Students Line Up for New Artistic Entrepreneurship Course

When UNC Professor Elliot McGucken put out the call to "make your passion your profession" with a pilot course for artistic entrepreneurs, students answered. More than 110 students applied for the new course, Artistic Entrepreneurship and Technology 101.

The course, geared towards students with an interest in the intersection between the arts, entrepreneurial ventures and cutting- edge technology, was originally slated for 40 spots, but the overwhelming response triggered an increase in class size. Nearly 50 students are enrolled for the spring semester.

Students from a range of creative disciplines--from painting to film production--will develop their artistic vision over the course of the semester. McGucken hopes the course will both inspire artists to pursue their creative passions and give them the practical tools necessary to launch and develop their ventures.

"Every artist is an entrepreneur, and every entrepreneur is an artist," explains McGucken. --Univeristy of North Carolina, Chapel Hill News


syracuse 018.3.34.
Dr. E keynoting the Syracuse University Entrepreneurship Classroom: Note that most everyone is still awake!

Professor's Upcoming Book on Hero's Odyssey Entrepreneurship UNC Chapel Hill, N.C. -- Dr. Elliot McGucken, who developed and taught an artistic entrepreneurship course at UNC this spring, is the author of a new book that discusses the spirit of entrepreneurs in the context of epic storytelling and the hero's odyssey.

"Whether you're an MBA, MFA, JD or DJ, the book is there to show you how the business of art and the art of business are united in the realm of higher ideals in epic storytelling," said McGucken, five- time author and adjunct professor of Physics and Programming. His new book is called The Hero's Odyssey in Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology.

The book, to be released in July, was inspired by McGucken's pilot course at UNC, Artistic Entrepreneurship & Technology 101. It includes topics discussed in class, including McGucken's experience running profitable Internet companies and his vision that an entrepreneur's ideas found through technology, law, business or art can lead to their passion, profession or vocation.

"The book, which unites art and entrepreneurship in a maverick way by treating entrepreneurs as hero storytellers, was shaped around Joseph Campbell's book, Hero with a Thousand Faces," said McGucken. "This classic 12-stage odyssey includes a mythological hero or heroine, the call to adventure (an entrepreneurial vision), and the return to home (the exit strategy)."

Campbell's book influenced Hollywood films like Star Wars, Matrix and Lord of the Rings. McGucken hopes his new book can inspire blockbuster ventures.

"Using the hero's odyssey is a most efficient way to combine art, law, business, technology and entrepreneurship in the classroom," McGucken said. "The book presents the odyssey of entrepreneurs in a classical context and their encounter with mentors, rescues, irony and survival in its epic form. The purpose is to inspire students to make the world a better place via artistic entrepreneurship."

McGucken's class at UNC attracts students who are interested in the arts, entrepreneurial ventures and cutting-edge technologies.

"Everyone needs mentors to help guide you down whatever path you choose," McGucken said. "For some people, a hero character from a book or movie can also be a mentor."


Former Investment CEO Discusses Moral Capitalism @ Dr. E's Hero's Odyssey Entrepreneurship Festival, JAIMIE FRANKLIN, Assistant News Editor, The Graphic

Pepperdine welcomed investment giant John C. Bogle to campus Tuesday evening as the keynote speaker for National Entrepreneurship Week USA. Bogle spoke on how businesses have abandoned true ethics and the importance of classical values and a liberal education in the today's world and attested to his humble beginnings and how they shaped his life to come.

As founder and former CEO of the Vanguard Group, the second largest mutual fund company in the world, Bogle was recognized as one of the world.s 100 most powerful and influential people by TIME Magazine in 2004. He was also hailed as one of the investment industry's four .Giants of the 20th Century. by Fortune magazine in 1999.

Dr. Elliot McGucken organized the event. McGucken teaches a class in artistic entrepreneurship in which Bogle's 2005 book, The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism, is required reading alongside Homer's Odyssey.

The theme of a hero's odyssey, therefore, permeated Bogle's presentation.

"Classical precepts are the most useful tools throughout life," McGucken said. "Ideals are a great a long-term investment, because they never change."

Bogle reached out to students, urging them to pursue an education and to become a citizen characterized by ethics and ideals.

"Dream, but act too," Bogle said. "You have nearly all of your own odyssey before you--if you are truly strong in will to strive, seek, find, and not to yield."

Many students found the presentation to be valuable and could relate to Bogle's assessment of the business world.

"I thought it was pretty interesting, especially with the moral aspect to see such a wealthy man and how he founded his business," said freshman Maurice Collins.



The Wall Street Journal wrote:

Elliot McGucken decided to straddle the two worlds. After he earned a doctoral degree in physics/electrical engineering, Dr. McGucken considered himself "fortunate" to get a teaching job at Davidson College in Davidson, N.C., and to continue his engineering research.

But then, last year, he won the Innovation Grants Competition sponsored by Merrill Lynch Forum (for an artificial retina chipset for the blind), the virtual think tank of the financial-services company. The contest, now in its second year, gives out $150,000 in prizes for Ph.D.s, and their institutions, who find commercial applications for their research.

After winning the contest, he got to tour the New York Stock Exchange. Dr. McGucken caught the entrepreneurial bug. Eventually, he launched jollyroger.com, an Internet company devoted to his longtime passions: writing and classical literature. --The Wall Street Journal


The Chapel Hill Herald reported, "The class is the first of its kind to incorporate art, technology and business. ... The new curriculum would help artistically inclined students create sustainable social and commercial ventures, McGucken said.... McGucken envisions a program that focuses on the intersection between art and technology.... "More than anything [the class is] a sign of the times," he said. "The digital revolution has collapsed all the boundaries. Law, technology, art and business are intertwined. The second you create a photo it's art, it's digital and you can sell it. Things that used to take years, now take moments." ... Because of the digital revolution, McGucken explained, the costs of production and distribution are lowered. .... McGucken will release a textbook on the subject and hopes to continue the goals of this class as he goes on to teach the course in Los Angeles .... "The class," he said, "was a chance to chance to keep the higher ideals above the bottom line." --The Chapel Hill Herald, 2006
Pepperdine University Awarded Grant to Develop Curriculum for Artistic Entrepreneurship and Technology

The prestigious Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation has named Pepperdine University the recipient of a $125,000 grant to support curriculum development for Artistic Entrepreneurship and Technology. The grant supports the leading edge work of Dr. Elliot McGucken, a visiting assistant professor of business at Pepperdine's Seaver College. Funds will also go toward a Spring 2007 conference at the University's Malibu campus called "Artistic Entrepreneurship, Epic Storytelling, and Digital Rights Management" which Dr. McGucken will lead.

Describing his work, Dr. McGucken said, "I want to emphasize how classic storytelling pervades every field in artistic entrepreneurship -- law derives from epic myths; brands strive towards representing eternal elements ultimately embodied in action, and epic storytelling can revive the Hollywood box office and foster video games that achieve higher art."

Keith Hinkle, vice president for advancement and public affairs at Pepperdine underscored the importance of the foundation's grant. "The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation's support of Dr. McGucken's work is already having an impact on Pepperdine students. Elliot is among, if not the leading scholar in America on the subject of artistic entrepreneurship and technology and we are fortunate he is leading the dialogue here at Pepperdine."

Dr. McGucken's class this fall bases its syllabus on Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Odyssey. Says McGucken, "Every step of the way students are reminded that it's all about some greater odyssey -- some higher goal -- that entrepreneurship is all about, serving the higher ideals over the bottom line, and that all lasting value ultimately derives from value."

Dr. McGucken, who launched the ArtsEntrepreneurship.com program at UNC Chapel Hill, received his bachelors of arts degree in physics from Princeton and his Ph.D. in physics from UNC Chapel Hill. His dissertation on an artificial retina for the blind received several National Science Foundation (NSF) grants and a Merrill Lynch Innovations Award. The retina-chip research appeared in publications including Popular Science and Business Week, and the project continues today. He launched the Web site, jollyroger.com in 1995, and now runs over 30 sites. The New York Times deemed jollyroger.com "simply unprecedented," adding that the site "teems with discussion, the kind that goes well beyond freshman lit 101."

His two latest projects, authena.org and 22surf.org, seek to empower indie artists, authors, musicians, and creators with Open Source Content Management (OSCM) systems. Dr. E, as he.s known to his students, harbors a vast respect for the indie author and artist, for the entrepreneur and visionary, and for who he calls .the giants of yesteryear whose shoulders we all stand upon..

Born in Ohio, Dr. McGucken developed a love of the outdoors and also spent time sitting in front of a computer and forming early impressions of the significance of the impact of computers on the world. In 1995, he founded Classicals and jollyroger.com LLC as a technological tribute to the Great Books. He recently spoke at the Harvard Law School concerning his authena.org project for Open Source software and managing digital rights for artists.

McGucken has published a book of poetry, a novel, a collection of essays, and several scientific articles. Recently, the Wall Street Journal (on-line) published one of his many poems titled, In the Name of Freedom. He regularly blogs on the subject of artistic entrepreneurship for the Kauffman Foundation. --The Hero's Odyssey in Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology

Technology
The Autumn Rangers video game is anticipating the revolutionary Kismet scripting system being developed as part of Epic's next-generation Unreal Technology. A draft of the game is currently being built as a mod for the Epic Games' rockin' Unreal Engine. The UT2004 editor is being used along with 3DS/gamespace for graphics design, postnuke with phpbb and gallery for community management, Subversion with Tortoise for code/mod/graphics versioning, and RedHat ES Linux on a Dell 2650 Server for hosting. We're looking forward to using the next generationUnreal Tournament 3 Game Engine, which will also be used in creating special effects for the movie, thereby lowering production costs while providing the next-generation Unreal reality.
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The Life & Times of Dr. Elliot McGucken:
The Hero's Odyssey in Arts Entrepreneurship, Technology, and Business

The New York Times reported, "McGucken's course (Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology 101). . . rests on the principle that those who create art should have the skills to own it, profit from it and protect it. "It's about how to make your passion your profession, your avocation your vocation, and to make this long-term sustainable," he said. --New York Times Small Business
Dr. E was a mentor at hiphop entrepreneur Russell Simmons' The Race to Be. Mentor Elliot McGucken references that young entrepreneurs have just the same problems as the big studios re: piracy.

Dr. E's book coming soon!
THE GOLD 45 REVOLVER
The Hero's Odyssey
in Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology

A must read for every MBA, JD & DJ!
How to generate true wealth by keeping the higher ideals over the bottom line in books, music, art, entertainment, video games, Hollywood, business, and life.
Available @ major bookstores in late March!

Dr. E's AE&T 101 class appears in Vaughan Penn's music video for Ready to Rise--song from MTV's Laguna Beach, Grey's Anatomy, and theme song for A&E's Roller Girls. Directed by Dr. E :) & check out Artistic Entrepreneurship @ cincom and on market wire.

Check out Dr. E's new class at UNCCH! Artistic Entrepreneurship & Technology 101

Doc Elliot's Dissertation

MARC Artificial Retina Video
Doc Elliot's Dissertation

Dr. E hails from small-town Ohio where he grew up playing in various metal bands, lifeguarding, and readin' the Great Books. He attended Princeton and received a Ph.D. in physics from UNC Chapel Hill, and today, like Benjamin Franklin, Dr. E is a Constitutional Scholar. He currently attends the same law school as Jefferson, Lincoln, Madison, and Hamilton--Shakespeare, the Bible, and the Classics--the law school where the only way to graduate is to write a Great Book.

THE JOLLY ROGER: FLAGSHIP OF THE RENAISSANCE:
The jollyroger.com network represents the world's largest literary endeavor by a single author, drawing in over 500,000 people each month to participate in Great Books forums and read Dr. E's poetry, prose, and fiction. The New York Times deemed jollyroger.com "simply unprecedented," adding that the site "teems with discussion, the kind that goes well beyond freshman lit 101." The Los Angeles Times referred to the classical portal as "a lavish virtual community known as The Jolly Roger."

THE PRESS:
Jollyroger.com has appeared in publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Book Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, The Raleigh News and Observer, The Charlotte Observer, Home Office Computing, The Triangle Business Journal, The Triangle Tech Journal, The Daily Tar Heel, The Lake Norman Times, The Charlotte Business Journal, The Industry Standard, The Pittsburgh Tribune, The Outer Banks Sentinel and more. Read excerpts here: http://www.jollyroger.com/beaconway/reviews.html.

PHYSICS, POETRY, SCREENWRITING, NOVELS, & VIDEO GAMES:
Dr. E doesn't really blog as he'd rather rock eternity. He's always been drawn to those things bigger than us--the mountains and the ocean, Shakespeare and Einstein. They set him free. And they'll set you free to, if you hang out with Dr. E. Cruise his websites and buy his books, and for a few bucks you'll get the classical education that's essential in making all deeper dreams a reality.

A varsity athlete in swimming and tennis, Dr. E lives for the highest of high adventures--those accomplished with the mind. Rockin' an artificial retina for the blind as a physics dissertation garnered him a Merrill Lynch Innovations grant, writing novels, poetry, and essays has been building the renaissance, and developing software that empowers indy artists and entrepreneurs had him speaking at the Harvard Law School.

Dr. E rocks out in teaching physics, and he's picked up a couple awards along the way, including the Tanner Award for Excellence in Undergraduate teaching at UNC.

His latest project, which has greeted him every morning for the past two years and kept him up past midnight, alone with the Carolina moon, is Autumn Rangers--a salue to America's better angels, noble heroes, and rugged spirit of the lone creators, inventors, visionairies, and entrepreneurs who pushed ever westward, and who keep us free. Autumn Rangers is a novel, screenplay, video game, and field guide to the rising Renaissance.

THE MOST PERFECT SILENCE
I know where the most perfect silence is,
Seen it in the wild blue off Hatteras,
A mile out, rainbowed sails in silent bliss,
Looked like they'd collide, but they safely passed.
I know when the most perfect silence is,
Down a dusty Ohio road, high noon,
No shirt on, being burned by the sun's kiss,
Sixteen, takin' my time-- it was still June.
I know what the most perfect silence is,
It's what we say when falling out of love,
It roars and thunders right through the kiss,
Says all that no words can ever speak of.
I know why the most perfect silence is,
It is there for the whisper to be born,
The whisper in her ear became the kiss,
Just a dream in DC early one morn.
I know who the perfect silence is for,
It is for the ones whom we love the best,
It is there to protect them from our core,
By the silent trust we all seek to rest.
And I know how rare that silence can be,
With everyone talkin', it's hard to hear,
But I know I felt it, on the streets of DC,
The sound in her eyes-- it was crystal clear.
And it brought back to mind the rainbowed sails,
And the way it looked like they would collide,
Like two souls set upon fate's iron rails,
But the most perfect silence never died.
--Dr. E
The Books of Dr. Elliot McGucken
Entrepreneurship MBA/Business Class feedback for Dr. E's Hero's Odyssey in Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology Class
IN THE NAME OF FREEDOM
The night fell fast, I found myself alone,
A DC summer storm was blowing in,
I stood at the tomb, these soldiers unknown,
and knelt and prayed for the rain to begin.
Not for the monuments nor any money,
nor pomp, circumstance, nor the pedant's pride,
the politician's smile, nor lawyer's fee,
for these present treasures, none of them died.
I ran to Jefferson to read the wall,
to make sure that God was still written there,
then to Washington, and across the Mall,
where Lincoln invoked his immortal prayer,
Winded and ragged, lightning everywhere,
I slowed to a walk, pondered what would be,
if God's great Enlightenment weren't there,
we could still be brave but never be free.
I found comfort in the Mall's mud and rain,
without mines nor cannons nor raining shells,
so free from fear, iniquity, and pain,
because thousands had endured a thousand hells.
And I found myself back before the tomb,
humbled by the humbled, with naught for name,
shivering, though they had the colder room,
sans light, nor sound, nor tomorrow, nor fame.
I thought for a moment, what it could be,
the center and circumference of their dreaming,
it must have been the prophet's poetry,
that granted their souls eternal meaning.
So judges and Congressmen, please don't forget,
the reason these patriots picked up swords,
not for perks nor power were their deaths met,
but for honor and duty-- for mere words.
So do take pause before telling a lie,
for there's one more thing I saw on that night,
as the wind and the rain began to die,
I walked away, turned, and beheld a light.
Wil'O'wisp, reddish light, sailor's delight,
It hovered there-- just above the tomb's stone,
As fading thunder whispered to the night,
"Freedom's the name of all soldiers unknown."
--Dr. E
Dr. E's Photography
malibu_paramount_ranch_model_cowgirl 762.aaa.gold45





Some of Dr. E's Life in Pictures


ARTS ENTREPRENEURSHIP: HOW TO BE A HERO
by Mike Vargo

From The Kauffman Foundation's Thoughtbook

Elliot McGucken has an artful way of teaching entrepreneurship to artists. He explains the entrepreneurial process, for instance, by comparing it to the classic "hero's odyssey" in myths and epics. Typically, in the first stage of the story, the hero embarks on a quest that requires "separation" or "departure" from the familiar world (here McGucken finds strong parallels to the decision to start a company) -- and after many twists, the odyssey ends with the hero's "return" (exit strategy).

"Every aspect of classical story, including antagonists, mentors, reversals of fortune, and the seizing of the sword from the stone, may be found in the realm of entrepreneurship," McGucken claims. And there's more. The college course he designed -- open to students in any major, working in any of the visual, literary or performing arts -- mixes classical concepts with cutting-edge practical advice, such as how to use open-source DRM (digital rights management) to keep the ogres from snatching your profits.

The course is called Artistic Entrepreneurship and Technology 101. First offered this past spring at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, with support from the Kauffman Campuses Initiative, it has drawn rave reviews from students. The core message of AE&T 101 is that "ideals are real," and in fact are practical: that you don't have to choose between being a starving artist or selling out. By starting a venture of your own that combines high artistic standards with sound business principles, you can "rock your dreams," McGucken tells students; he says that in the arts as in business, pursuing "fundamental value" pays off.


McGucken began his career in science. In the late 1990s he was a promising young physics researcher with a faculty position at Davidson College. But he wrote on the side and had long loved classical literature, from the Greeks to the great novelists. Feeling that these got too little attention nowadays he had launched a Web site, jollyroger.com, to host online forums about the Great Books and to offer his own commentary. And lo, the quest drew eyeballs. Before long, he says, "the advertising income from jollyroger was more than I was making from my professorship."

By the 2005-06 academic year McGucken was involved with several more arts-related Internet ventures while teaching physics part-time at UNC in Chapel Hill. There the Kauffman Campuses mission to teach entrepreneurship in all fields inspired his creation of the AE&T course, which immediately had the look of an idea whose time had come: more than 110 students applied for 40 seats.

Those chosen included undergrads from the liberal and fine arts, plus artistically oriented computer-science students, MBAs, and a law student. They combined their skills on projects, actually starting arts ventures or moving them along. Some showed up with ventures well under way, like Will Hackney, a freshman with over a dozen local bands signed to a record label he'd started in high school. Pierce Freelon, an African-American Studies major and member of a hip-hop duo called Language Arts, was branching into ventures ranging from a Web site on "blackademics" to the design of a hip-hop curriculum for K-12 schools.

And some were talented artists who hadn't yet turned entrepreneurial. Hannah Sink, a student filmmaker who had shot two documentaries in Thailand with grant funding, recalls: "I just had the idea that one day, maybe in fifteen or twenty years, I'd like to start my own production company. What I learned is that I can start taking the steps now. So for me this course was about homing in on a desire I already had, and learning the tangible things: forming an L.L.C., protecting your rights, using technology." During the course Sink and a colleague, Hope Blaylock, started Continuous Take Productions. The firm is still embryonic but the main thing, says Sink, is that "this is real. We know where we are in the process. If and when we take the next steps, we know what we have to do."

Elliot McGucken, meanwhile, has carried AE&T 101 over to Pepperdine University, where he's a visiting professor for 2006-07. Replication and expansion of the course has thus begun, and McGucken has a larger reason for hoping the effort will grow. He sees much of today's cultural industry as being in a "decadent state," with big media firms giving us low-grade movies, books and other product even in the face of declining revenues: "When you put the bottom line above high ideals, both suffer," he says. But a new wave of artist/entrepreneurs -- armed with the skills to assert artistic control by starting and controlling businesses -- could help turn things around. "There's an opportunity," McGucken says, "for a cultural renaissance."




The Wall Street Journal wrote:

Elliot McGucken decided to straddle the two worlds. After he earned a doctoral degree in physics/electrical engineering, Dr. McGucken considered himself "fortunate" to get a teaching job at Davidson College in Davidson, N.C., and to continue his engineering research.

But then, last year, he won the Innovation Grants Competition sponsored by Merrill Lynch Forum (for an artificial retina chipset for the blind), the virtual think tank of the financial-services company. The contest, now in its second year, gives out $150,000 in prizes for Ph.D.s, and their institutions, who find commercial applications for their research.

After winning the contest, he got to tour the New York Stock Exchange. Dr. McGucken caught the entrepreneurial bug. Eventually, he launched jollyroger.com, an Internet company devoted to his longtime passions: writing and classical literature. --The Wall Street Journal


The Graphic writes: Former investment CEO discusses moral capitalism

Pepperdine welcomed investment giant John C. Bogle to campus Tuesday evening as the keynote speaker for National Entrepreneurship Week USA. Bogle spoke on how businesses have abandoned true ethics and the importance of classical values and a liberal education in the today’s world and attested to his humble beginnings and how they shaped his life to come.

As founder and former CEO of the Vanguard Group, the second largest mutual fund company in the world, Bogle was recognized as one of the world's 100 most powerful and influential people by TIME Magazine in 2004. He was also hailed as one of the investment industry’s four "Giants of the 20th Century" by Fortune magazine in 1999.

Dr. Elliot McGucken organized the event. McGucken teaches a class in artistic entrepreneurship in which Bogle’s 2005 book, “The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism,” is required reading alongside Homer's Odyssey

The theme of a hero’s odyssey, therefore, permeated Bogle’s presentation.

“Classical precepts are the most useful tools throughout life,” McGucken said. “Ideals are a great a long-term investment, because they never change.”

Bogle reached out to students, urging them to pursue an education and to become a citizen characterized by ethics and ideals.

“Dream, but act too,” Bogle said. “You have nearly all of your own odyssey before you… if you are truly strong in will to strive, seek, find, and not to yield.”

Many students found the presentation to be valuable and could relate to Bogle’s assessment of the business world.

“I thought it was pretty interesting, especially with the moral aspect to see such a wealthy man and how he founded his business,” said freshman Maurice Collins.

Freshman Kamron King agreed.

“To see his humble beginnings makes acquiring that much wealth seem tangible,” King said.




Pages from Dr. E's upcoming
The Legend of The Gold 45 Revolver: The Hero's Odyssey in Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology
Dr. E's Artificial Retina Dissertation:
An early treatment of Moving Dimensions Theory (dx4/dt=ic) appeared in the appendix.

AE&T
Great Books Games
Dante's Inferno Game

With its classic story, fierce demons, rich imagery, and a cornucopia of pre-existing classical art depicting a descent through nine levels of Hell on towards the three-headed Satan himself, The Inferno naturally implies a video game.

Gameplay: In the Great Books Games version, Dante must save the sinners from their demons--demons that have overtaken their bodies and transformed them into monsters. In each level of Hell, Dante battles the ever-more-sinister monsters, and upon defeating them, the original sinner is separated from the demon and allowed to escape to purgatory. Dante must separate the sinners from their sins to descend to the next level, en route to battling Satan.

Design Team: Great Books Games is currently recruiting artists and level designers to help realize a version of Dante's Inferno that's as close as possible to Dante's original version. The official development will start in 2006, with the release of Unreal 2007.

Blending Public Domain & Proprietary: The game will utilize public domain art, music, art, and architecture, and it will release both educational and commercial versions of the game.

Design Philosophy: Modders may donate art and artwork utilizing Creative Commons licenses, or GBG may pay for the design/development of certain aspects of the game. GBG will develop an archive of artwork for Dante's Inferno as well as other Great Books including the Iliad and Odyssey, both public domain and proprietary, allowing the artists to define their rights and the price of their work.

Soundtrack: As Beethoven wrote nine symphonies and the Inferno has nine levels, Beethoven.s symphonies will accompany Dante during his descent through Hell. Imagine battling Satan to Beethoven.s ninth!!!

Join Us! Come one, come all, to greatbooks games.com and dantes infernogame.com. Whether you're a modder, gamer, teacher, or fan of classical literature, come join us on this Great Books Games odyssey!

Autumn Rangers FPS
Ranger places his left hand on an old, worn Bible, raises his right hand, and says, "I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same. That I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God." --United States Marine Corps Enlistment Oath
Poll
What role will storytelling play in video games?

· A bigger role.
· A smaller role.
· It never has and never will play any role.
· Story doens't matter in Hollywood.

[ Results | Polls ]

Votes: 1
Comments: 0

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