1st Draft of Story for Science Class

Max Nadeau

12/3/13

Science 7

Otto Harson bounced up in his seatbelt as the buggy ran over a small stone. The year was 2067, and Otto was on his second Exploration and Discovery excursion. Sitting beside him was fellow astronaut Henry Lofenger, a more experienced driver and explorer. The reason the pair was on the lunar surface was to search for deposits of platinum group metals (which only come from meteors) and other possibly useful resources. They were cruising in the moon buggy across the barren wastelands of our Earth’s only moon. The car they were sitting in was state-of-the-art. It had insulation against the brutal heat from the outside, and the car was was made out of super-light material. It had the latest photosynthetic technology; enabling the CO2 they exhaled to be turned back into oxygen using only sunlight. “Can’t you slow down a bit?” Otto complained, “You’re going to flip the buggy over.”

“It’s fine,” Henry said offhandedly, “You worry too much.”

They continued, both a little tired from the flight in. The GPS was leading them to  a few sights that had been identified from Earth as possibly containing resources. They had just left one of the sights, in which the had scanned the ground and found nothing. The next one was close, only 20 minutes away or so.

They were both bored and tired, so Otto tried a joke.

“What was the astronaut’s favorite candy bar?” Otto asked.

“Huh?”

“A Milky Way.” Otto said, smiling a little.

They both laughed a little. Henry groaned.

“How did the spaceman stay attached during a spacewalk?” Henry asked back.

“How?”

“He tied on with a astro-knot!”

They both cracked up.

“When is the moon not hungry?” Otto said seriously.

“Uh… I don’t know.”

“When it’s full!”

Otto and Henry laughed hysterically. While he was laughing, Henry accidentally pressed the gas pedal. The car zoomed forward. Right as Henry regained focus, the car bumped off a rock, and jumped into a small crater, landing on its side.

“Are you okay?!?” Otto blurted, his heart beating rapidly.

“Yeah, I’m fine, thanks to these seat belts,” Henry grumbled.

“What happened?” Otto asked

“I think I just hit a rock and we fell into this crater,” Henry answered, “We’ll be fine, though.” Otto looked around. Both the car and the photosynthesizing panels seemed to be intact. They tried rocking the car up, but could not. Henry reached behind him and opened up a little drawer. He pulled out a radio transmitter and tuned it to the ISS’s frequency.

“Come in, International Space Station, can you hear us?” Henry declared.

After a little pause, a response came back.

“Yes, we can hear you. This is the ISS. Who is speaking?”

“Otto Harson and Henry Lofenger, of the US Exploration Team. Could you transfer us to Sara Gornel?”

“One second, I’ll transfer you…”

“Sara Gornel speaking.”

“Hi Sara, it’s Henry. The mission isn’t going perfectly. Our car has flipped. Otto and I are both fine, but we’d like it if someone could come and pick us up, as we are far from our ship and I’m not sure if we have enough food and water, and I don’t think we could get it through our suits anyway.”

“That isn’t good. I would try to send someone, but we are on the other side of Earth, and dusk is coming soon. You could try … FZZTBZZT” The communications suddenly disappeared.

“Whoa!” said Otto, “What happened?”

“I think that was the Earth getting between us and them.”

Otto turned to Henry.

“Also, why is dusk a problem?” he asked.

“The only reason we’re breathing right now is that our car is using our CO2 and the sun’s light to photosynthesize oxygen for us. We get about two weeks of sunlight followed by two weeks of darkness, If there is no sun…”

“Then there’s no oxygen,” Otto finished solemnly.

For a little bit, the only sound was the panels humming.

“What now?” Otto asked.

“Now we do everything we can to survive.”

There was enough space in the back of the car for them to sit on the wall of the car and talk. The space in the back also doubled as an airlock so they could put on their spacesuits and go outside. The first thing they did was inventory anything of use. They had enough food and water to last them a few days, communications systems, and not much else. Then they went out side the car (in the space suits) and tried everything to right the buggy. They could lift it a little bit off the ground, but couldn’t get it vertical again. They walked to the top of the crater and looked around, seeing nothing but a tan, rocky wasteland. A little while off they could see a pile of something. When they walked over to it, they saw that it looked like pieces from sort sort of spacecraft. Some of the pieces had writing in what looked like Chinese. While they were looked through it, Otto suddenly had an idea.

“Wait!” he blurted enthusiastically, “You see that lander leg over there, and that big fuel canister right there! We could use them as a lever and fulcrum!”

“Hmm,” murmured Henry, thinking, “You’re right. I bet with the decreased gravity we could. Here, you carry the lander leg and I’ll carry the canister and we’ll see if we can do it.”

When they got back, they put the container on the ground and shoved one end of the leg under the car while one of them held it up. Then Otto went over to the other side of the pole while Henry prepared to help lift the car.

“Ready, set, push!” barked Henry.

The car leaned, and wobbled, and Otto and Henry pushed as hard as they could. Finally, thanks to the decreased gravity, Thunk!  the car landed back on its wheels.

“Whoo!” Otto hooted, “Yeah! We did it!”

“Yup,” said Henry, acting as if he rescued himself from sure death every day.

They got back in the car. Henry started it up and they cruised right back to their ship.

As they were going, Otto took out the transmitter and spoke, “ISS, ISS. You will be pleased to know that Otto Harson and Henry Lofenger have returned from our trip to the Moon completely alive and uninjured.”

Reasons I May Yet Again Quit (or Stay At) School

     Every week, I spend 30 hours in school. I'm not totally happy with my school, and I'm not sure that this 30 hours + transportation + homework is really the best way to be learning. Although I like all of my teachers and have a reasonable amount of friends, if the purpose of school is for me to learn than I don't really think I'm doing it in the best way. There are also good qualities of school that I would miss if I went back to where I was last year. Here are my current thoughts on school:

     The school I am at definitely has good aspects. My school has a greater diversity of kids in the 100-ish than in the 20-ish at CSCL. The importance of this is arguable. Also, I have a good amount of friends at my school whom I would miss if I left. From an academic point of view, at my school we have a daily Spanish class, where I have a great teacher and am usually challenged. At CSCL they have once-weekly Spanish classes. I also am part of a math team, where I get to see other math-smart kids and compete against the other schools in the city.

     The most important problem is that most of the time, the things I learn in school are either not new to me or if they are new, then they are practiced way too much. This is especially true in both of my math classes. The way I am learning just isn't efficient. For example, we had learned earlier in the year about volume and surface area of cylinders. I could have learned the two formulas in 10 minutes instead of the at least one week that we spent on them. I understand that the time spent on this was useful for many of the other kids in my class, but I could have been learning other topics.

Feel free to give me advice,
Max

Social Studies: South America

Most of South America is not far from sea level. There are some peaks, though. Along the Chilean and Peruvian coast, the Andes Mountains skyrocket to to over 10,000 feet. On the eastern side of the continent, the Brazilian Highlands are between 2,000 and 5,000 feet up. Between the Andes Mountains and The Brazilian Basin, there is the Amazon Basin, which is right near sea level, between 0 and 1,000 feet. Most of South America’s southern tip has fairly low elevation, with a band of area between 2,000 and 5,000 feet. The Amazon river, as well as all of its various tributaries, snake through much of the continent. The highest spot in South America is atop Chile’s Mt. Aconcagua, whose peak is a dazzling 22,834 ft above sea level.

Most of northern South America (northern Brazil, Peru, and pieces of Venezuela and Colombia) is covered by the Amazon Rainforest, which is mainly broadleaf evergreen forest.

The very southern part of Brazil’s coast also has broadleaf evergreen. The central section of the continent (southern Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, and bits of Bolivia), is tropical grassland. Much of Argentina (the southern part) is temperate grassland. On the southern coast of Chile, there is a thin band of deciduous forest. The Atacama Desert is slightly farther north, at northern Chile and Peru, which is basically desert and highlands.

The largest cities in South America are Buenos Aires, São Paulo, and Río de Janero, each with over 8,000,000 people. Santiago, Lima, Bogota, and Belo Horizonte are all slightly smaller cities, each having between 4,000,000 and 8,000,000 people living in them.The most dense areas on the continent are in and right around big cities (like the three mentioned in the first sentence) as well as around a few smaller cities, like Caracas, Recife, and Bogota.The majority of people live on the continent’s coast, especially on the coasts of Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, and Colombia. In most of the Amazon rainforest, in the center of the South America, there is a very low population density, with under 2 people per square mile. A good amount of the southern tip of the country also has a population density of under two people per square mile.

There is a large area of tropical wet that covers northern Brazil and parts of Peru and Colombia. A plot of tropical wet and dry is spread over most of Brazil and Bolivia. In Uruguay, Paraguay, and northern Argentina, there is a section of humid subtropical.  There is also a small piece of arid climate on the eastern tip of Brazil. Most of Argentina, Chile, and Peru are made up of patches of arid, semiarid, highlands, and marine west coast. Given that South America is 6.888 million square miles, it makes sense that the climate would vary from hot, rainy tropical wet to cool, not-too-much-rain humid subtropical.

On all the maps, I see six different regions. They are: The Andes Mountains, Patagonia, The Amazon, The Brazilian Highlands, Pampas/Gran Chico, and The Guyana Highlands. First of all, the Andes Mountains are located all the way up the west coast. Both the vegetation and climate maps describe the Andes as “highlands”, with a strip of “Desert”/”Arid” going down the coast. On the Physical Features map they are very high up, reaching over 10,000 feet. Patagonia is located on the tip of the continent, and is not very populated, with <2 people per square mile. Its vegetation is deciduous forests and temperate grassland, and it’s mostly marine west coast and arid. The Amazon is located in the center of South America, and is also (mostly) not very populated, at <2 people per square mile, with strips of between 2 and 25. It’s a Tropical Wet, Broadleaf Evergreen Forest, which is not very far above sea level. The Brazilian Highlands cover southern Brazil and Bolivia. They are Tropical Wet and Dry, with Temperate Grassland, and range from near sea level to between 2,000 and 5,000 feet up. Pampas/Gran Chico is a region I’ve placed covering Paraguay, Uruguay and northern Argentina, Right around Buenos Aires.  Pampas/Gran Chico is low, between 0 and 1,000 feet above sea level. It has a Humid Subtropical climate, and has Temperate Grassland and Tropical Grassland for its vegetation. Finally, Guyana Highlands is a small region in the northern part of South America, mostly elevated to a height of between 2,000 and 5,00 feet. Like The Brazilian Highlands, it has Tropical Wet and Dry climate and temperate grassland. It has a slightly larger population density, between 2 and 250 people per square mile, with more dense areas around Bogota and Caracas. As you can see by comparing my regions with the maps, each region is different enough from the others and has enough similarities among it.

South America is an amazing place to visit, offering beautiful wilderness and wildlife, as well as culture and cuisine. The Andes Mountains offer amazing scenery and a wonderful hike, or an intense journey to the 15,000 foot peaks. The spectacular Amazon Rainforest, the biggest and most biodiverse rainforest on Earth, offers dazzling flora and fauna, and no people, boasting less than two people per square mile. Visit Patagonia, with its deciduous forests and see the immense glaciers, slabs of ice thousands of years old. If you prefer civilization, go to Buenos Aires, a fascinating center of food, society and history. Río de Janeiro is a busy, culture-heavy, amazing city, packed with over 8 million people. In conclusion, South America offers a variety of experiences, both natural and anthropological.

How To Set Up a Blog (using blogger)

     On request, I am making a post about how to set up a blog. I will be instructing in how to use Blogger, the blogging platform that I use, but note that Blogger is not the only way. To make a successful blog, there are a few steps:

1. Create a Google Account

This is the part where you fill out the information.

      If you already have a use Gmail, Google Drive, or any other google product that requires an account, feel free to skip this step. If not, the first thing to do is to go to Google. in the top-right corner, you should see a "Sign In" button. Even if you don't already have an account, click it. In the upper-right corner of the page you were just brought to, you should see a "Sign Up" button. Click it. You should go to a page titled "Create a Google Account". Fill in the info, and if you're under 13 tell the the computer you're actually not. You can, if you want, use your current email address, in which case you should click the "I prefer to use my current email address" link below the "Choose your username slot". Once you've filled it all in, click "Next Step" at the bottom, then click the next "Next Step" button. Then hit "Get Started". You should be back at Google. You now have a google account.

2. Create a Blog

The pop-up window for used to create your blog

    

      Once you have a google account, go to http://www.blogger.com. On the far left hand side of this page, you should see a "New Blog" button. You should get a pop-up where you fill in the name, address and theme of your blog (it should look like the one on the left). Fill in the info, select your theme, and press "Create Blog!". Great. Now on your blogger home page, you should see a little rectangle with the name of your blog, an orange button with a pencil, a button with a piece of paper, and a "view blog" button. To start typing your first post, hit the orange pencil. To see your blog, hit "view blog". To see your blogs info (comments, views, and other things, hit the piece of paper. You now have a blog.

3. Add the Email Subscription Gadget (and Other Gadgets You Like)

     In order to build an audience, you need people to be able to subscribe, so your posts go straight to their inbox. To do this, you need to add the email subscription gadget. I have a few others, but the email subscription is the most important one. To install it, first click the pieces of paper on the blogger home screen. There should be a list of things on the left side. Click "layout". Here you will see how your blog is laid out, as well as where you can add gadgets (it should look like the picture on the left). I suggest you put your subscription link on the right  side of your blog, but click any of the "Add a Gadget" links. This should open up a smaller window with a list of all the gadgets you can chose from. Find "Follow by Email", and click the plus sign next to it. This should instal the gadget wherever you chose.

4. Subscribe Family & Friends

     For anyone to get your posts in their email, they have to be subscribed. There are two ways that this could happen. One of them is that you could keep asking them to do it until they finally get around to it. The other option is to do it yourself, then just notify them. I suggest doing the second one. To subscribe someone, first you must view your blog. You can search for it on the internet, or you can go to your blogger home page and press "View Blog". Either way, You are looking at your blog. Find where the email subscription box is (it's wherever you put it in step 3), and enter the person you want to get your post's email address. This will send them a conformation email. At this point, you should probably call them up and tell them it's not junk mail, and that all they have to do is click the link in the "Feedburner" email they have just received. When they do this, they are registered, and will get your posts every time you write them.

Feel free to comment if you have an issue.

Ready for more limericks,
Max

Fantasy Story First Draft

     I have to do a creative writing assignment for my English class in school. The assignment is to write a 4-page-minimum short story. I have written a sci-fi/fantasy story. This is my first draft, and I will post my final when it's done. Please comment so I can improve it, especially title ideas. Enjoy!

Max Nadeau

October 2013

“I, Senator Martinez, do solemnly swear…”

“I, Senator Martinez, do solemnly swear…”

“That I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States…”

“That I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States…”

    

Josh was glad he was in sitting his cozy basement apartment rather than standing outside in the not-quite-sticking snow. He had never been a cold person. Even though he lived only five miles from where the inauguration was happening, Josh was much happier where he was. He had always liked the inaugurations. Often, the speeches were about thought-provoking things, and he had always liked watching them. More importantly, the inauguration of 2036 wasn’t swearing in just any president. This was the first gay president ever to be elected, so tons of people were out watching. Josh set his smart glasses to transparent and glanced over his shoulder as he heard the collar of his dog clicking as Fido walked over to him and sat down on his foot.

Josh liked to tell people about his dog’s name, because he thought he was clever for thinking of it. “Fido” is the sort of generic term for dog, probable because it was at one point common. It was no longer at all common, making it unique without being strange.

Later, after the whole thing was over, Josh took off his smart glasses and took out his banjo. He had always liked the old, non-electric instruments, even though the finger-sensing ones were more popular. He started playing the strange, off-tune but on-tune song he was composing, but moved on to another piece. He skimmed the internet a little and found that that week there were supposed to be some very big solar flares, releasing tons of UV rays, some of which were headed for Earth.  The first one had happened the day before. Of course, that wasn’t as dangerous for the skin as it used to be, due to the natural, organic sunscreen/lotion/cleansing cream that was very popular. The cream was only one of the marvels genetic engineering had yielded in the recent years, one the reasons Josh had made biology a small hobby of his in recent years. The do-it-yourself modification kits never yielded anything potentially useful, but they were fun.

Josh suddenly felt a little bit of rumbling. He wondered what is was, but dismissed it as something heavy falling in the house above him. He continued searching the web. Josh took out his smart glasses and read for a long time, then, being bored, went to sleep.

The next morning, Josh got up and fed Fido. He pulled up the New York Times on his display, being one of the few people who still read the paper, and stopped in shock. On the full front page, there was an image of a huge, green, dome, titled, “Washington Covered By Plant Mutation” Josh quickly learned that overnight, “a quickly growing plant mass of vines and tendrils had burst of of the ground all over Washington D.C.” Thinking it was a joke, Josh called for Fido and dashed outside.

He stopped in awe. Going from the edge of his vision all the way up as high as the clouds, a wall of green punctured with holes that let in sunlight completely obscured the sky. From what seemed to be the middle, a pillar a thick as a city block at its base connected the dome to the ground. In shock, he stood and stared for a couple minutes.

He dashed inside and turned his glasses to the news. A message was scrolling in many different languages, and being read in english.

“All of any residents inside the city are being instructed by the government remain in their houses and stay calm while we are opening the dome.”

It repeated over and over. Josh immediately decided that he would find out what this impossible seeming thing was and how it happened. He dashed inside and threw on his glasses. He pulled up all the news websites, and quickly learned that the it was indeed made of plant matter, and that scientists had already (Josh was surprised they had worked so fast) determined that the entire thing was one organism using DNA tests. One organism! Josh double-checked some other trustworthy sites and found they were reporting this too. Josh wondered where this plant came from. It must be inside the city somewhere, Josh thought. But why and how did it get so huge? What has happened last night that caused this to grow? he thought.

Suddenly he remembered that solar flares. A quick check showed that yes, there was a large flare overnight, which according to the New York times, should have hit earth around the time this thing burst from the ground. But what came from the sun that could have caused this? X-rays and UV rays were the main things released during a flare. On a hunch, he did a quick search for “plant + x-rays + washington dc” yielded nothing. So Josh tried “ plant + ultraviolet + washington dc”. The only thing that appeared was an article in a science magazine about a plant-based sunscreen created by a company based in Washington. Josh decided this probably wasn’t relevant. Then he remembered his friend, Alex, who worked at a government-funded lab, telling him about a project he was doing a few years back. The lab had created a vine-like plant that fed off tiny bits of ultraviolet light and air. It had only been given tiny bits. Josh remembered that Alex had told him that Alex had seen what he was pretty sure was the plant’s seedpods scattering seeds around the plant, which wouldn’t have been an issue if other plants hadn’t been been temporarily housed in the same room as the UV-feeding one while the lab was under construction. This meant that other plants could have seeds of the original UV-feeding plant in them, which could mean that there could be a plant with access to the sun that feeds off UV rays.

Suddenly Josh realized something. If one solar flare caused the dome to grow, and there was supposed to be more big ones coming up, what would the next flares do? He checked the internet again and found that another large flare was scheduled to come up tomorrow night. He had to stop the plant.

Josh thought, and decided that he should travel to the lab and see if his hunch about the project Alex had worked on was correct. So he took Fido, who was eager to go outside, and started walking to the lab, which lucky enough for him was only a few minutes from his house. As Josh exited his house, he looked up and stared again. Wow. he thought.

On his way to the lab, Josh noticed flowers on top of stems the size of lampposts coming up from the ground. They were only every block or so, but when Josh went over to the and inhaled, he immediately felt very drowsy. Oh, he thought, this must be why there aren’t more people running around. When these were blooming I assume they made a whole lot of the sleep-inducing  pollen.

When the building came into view, Josh started to feel more confidant about his hunch. The pillar that connected to the dome seemed to come straight from the lab. Strangely enough, a passageway through the base of the pillar into the building seemed to have been already formed by the plant. Josh followed the tunnel in, and found a dimly lit entry room. The center of the pillar being fairly obvious from the direction the vines were coming from, Josh had no issue finding the middle of it in a room marked “Experimental Fragrance Plants”. Interesting, Josh thought, Obviously seeds from the mutated plant were spread by accident, because this plant is definitely not being bred for fragrance. Josh continued into the room and saw a pod the size of a room inside the enormous space meant for creating new smells. He entered the pod through a hole in the side and found another shell, this one only the size of a basketball.

The brain of the entire plant must be housed in that shell,  Josh thought. He walked to it and tried to pry it open with just his bare hands, while Fido cowered behind him, obviously very frightened by the enormous plant. This yielded nothing, with the plant seeming to close even more. So he went home and back, this time bring a saw, a crowbar, and a water bottle (he hoped maybe water would open it). The saw didn’t even make a scratch, the crowbar couldn’t find a strong enough purchase, and the water just made the shell wet. So he went home again, and checked the news. he learned that that nobody was able to break the vines of the dome; They just were harder than anything anyone could throw at them. Josh started playing his banjo, hoping this would help him think. He couldn’t come up with anything, until just as he was putting his banjo away.  Could music of some sort ease open the shell?, he thought.

He picked up his banjo and a knife, and walked to the lab, again. He walked through the tunnel, through the door the the experimental plants room, and into the large pod.He took out his banjo and started playing the first few bars of one of his favorite songs. The plant’s shell slowly creaked open, revealing a flower, with a glowing blue mass of tiny cords running through it. Josh kept playing until it was all the way open, and then stopped. He took out his knife, ready to cut the inside into tiny pieces, then hesitated. here was an amazing work of art. It was able to quickly build a structure taller than all the buildings, with a huge length between edges. This has so much potential, he thought. So he retreated home, with a plan to tell the outside word.

Josh quick took out a video camera,  walked outside, and started recording himself.

“Hello, my name is Josh Brehnem And I am inside the dome, he said, then panned around for an inside view. “I have found out how to destroy the dome”, he said. He walked the the lab while explaining to the camera how he thought it happened. When he got there, he elaborated on how amazing the plant was while entering the tunnel and the pod. Then he stopped, and explained how he’d gotten it open. Then he told the entire world what he was going to do.

“I am not going to kill this plant,” he said, “ But I will let people watching this inside.”

Josh took out the scissors from his pocket and snipped the blue sphere from its position. He ran home and in a dark room, put it in a bowl of water. He then took out a black light he had once used for a concert and plugged it in over the plant to give it some UV light, while still recording.

“I will give this up to the government if they agree not to kill it and dissect it, but to carefully study it and keep it alive. Think of the potential this has!”, Josh said, “What if we could use this to grow bridges and structures, not build them. It could be huge.” Josh quickly posted it on as many video sites as he could, and watched the views come in. Within 5 minutes I was starting, with one website giving his video 1,000,000 views. Within 15 minutes, they were showing it on CNN, NBC, and all the other news networks. Soon it was reported that the tendrils were breaking, and that people were inside.

It took a while to take down the dome, but the some tendrils were studied, and some were even used in reconstruction. A new lab was working hard on the blue sphere, and they reported they were close to a major breakthrough.  The pollen from the flowers was studied too. Josh became semi-famous, and had a lot less trouble being hired for gigs after the president complimented him on national television. He moved out of a basement, and decided he liked having windows.

Magic: The Gathering - My Favorite Board/Card Game

A creature

     For a while now, I have been avidly playing a game called Magic: the Gathering. It was the first trading card game, beating pokemon (I hate it) and yu-gi-oh (hate this one too), making it the best. It is a strategy/creativity/a-little-luck centered game, and I love it. I play with my friends, I play with my brother, I play with my dad (sometimes). Basically, you (and everyone else playing) have 20 life points. the goal is to beat everyone else, usually by putting their life total down to 0. The simplest way to do this is to attack them with creatures, like the one to the left. To do this, you must first cast spells. Each spell has a "mana" cost to play it. Mana is magical energy (more on that later). There are five different colors of cards, which need a different color of mana to play. There is green (which is sort of nature-y), blue (which is about confusing/annoying your opponent and changing the rules of the game), red (which is about doing quick, direct, unblockable damage to your opponent), black (which is about evil, infection, and resurrection), and finally, white (protection, life-gaining, and justice). To get each color of mana, in order to play your cards, you have to "tap" land cards. Forests give green, islands give blue, mountains give red, swamps give black, and plains give white. So if I was playing the card above, which costs two mana, one of which needs to be white, I can tap one plain and one of any of the lands.
   

This makes one blue mana.
Not all island look like this.

     There are a few types of cards: there are lands, which supply mana; then there are creatures, which attack, block, have a power and toughness, and have nifty abilities. There are enchantments, which either alter the game rules or alter the abilities of another card. Then there are sorceries, which are like one-time, cast-then-goes-away spells. They can only be played on your turn, and often say, "Until end of turn, insert-whatever-the-card-does-here." There are instants, which can be played anytime, even on your opponents' turn. There are artifacts, with are like gadgets that have some purpose. Finally, there are planeswalkers, which are sort of like another player, except existing on a card. As a side note, to tap something, you rotate the card 90 degrees. Once something is tapped, you can't untap it until next turn.

     Creatures, like the Silvercoat Lion above, have a power and a toughness. The "2/2" in the bottom corner is the power and the toughness. Power on the left, toughness on the right. This matters when creatures attack and block each other. If I attack with a 2/2, and my opponent blocks with a 2/2, they both do damage to the other one's toughness equal to their power. So each of their toughnesses equals 0, so they both die. On the other hand, if I attack with a 1/3, and it's blocked with a 1/3, neither would die. But, if my opponent doesn't block, then my creature deals damage to my opponent equal  to my creature's toughness. If my opponent has 20 life, and I attack with my silvercoat lion (above), my opponent then has 18 life. Now this sounds simple, but creatures often have abilities. For example,  a creature with flying cannot be blocked by creatures with out flying. For another example, a creature with vigilance doesn't tap when it attacks.

     The main reason I like this game is because there are cards that have abilities that interact with each other in different ways, which prompts creative and strategic card interaction ideas.

I-never-know-what-to-write-here-so-usually-I-don't-write-anything-other-than-

Max

Braces!

   


     This morning, I went to the orthodontist and had braces attached. I'm sort of unhappy, but it's for the best, so I'm glad I have them. Currently, I have a small, dull pain in my gums, which gets really bad when I bite down or touch my tongue to certain teeth. I will have to get them tightened every four weeks, which I hear is the most painful part. On the list of some of the things I can't have are caramel, popcorn, and meat on the bone. Oh well. Judging by that I've had to have 10 teeth pulled (that's right, double digits), I think I can say that I don't have good teeth. I'm hoping I will have straight teeth by the time I get the torture devise off. The process of getting the braces on was fascinating, though.

     First, when we entered the building, I got in very fast. This surprised me, because at previous times I have been there, I have had to wait half an hour. So, I walked into the special braces room and sat down. The chair lowed to a bed-like thingy, and I opened my mouth. I had to bite down on the big rubber thing that stretched my mouth and was sort of uncomfortable. The first thing that happened was the woman who was putting on the braces cleaned my teeth with some sort of fancy toothpaste and suction-thingy. Then, over a while, she put glue on each brace and stuck it on my tooth. Then I got to pick what color I wanted for my braces. Because of the upcoming holidays (halloween and thanksgiving) I went with orange. She somehow put the orange thing on my brace, and then she attached the wire on my teeth. She then called in the the doctor, who is in charge of everything, and had him check the braces. He okayed it and I was off.

     The weirdest part about it is that to close my mouth I have to sort of curl my lip around them, but I assume I'll get over that. Also, they sometimes scrape the inside of my mouth.

Uncomfortably,
Max

   

Homework and Classes Overview from the First Week of School

   My dad requested that I do a blog post with some information on my homework from the first week of school. I got homework in math, english, science, and social studies. Every day, I have two math classes, a science class, a social studies class, an english class, and a spanish class. I like all of my teachers,some more than others. Some of the classes have been interesting, although most of them were meh. I think the homework we have done has been okay. Overall, I still am rating my school as 6.5 out of 10.

     In math class, we have been working with pieces of the 6th grade textbook, supposedly to help remind us about last year. Because I am ahead of my grade, I don't feel like doing sixth-grade work is really helpful for me. Maybe it's helpful for some of the other kids, though. We have been watching some vi hart videos, which I've really enjoyed. I also learned how to use a protractor,  which is a skill I think is very useful.

     In science, we've had some pretty cool homework. In class, we've done two experiments. In one, we put a plank of wood half on a table, half off, half on. We then laid down ten (all the way unfolded) pieces of newspaper on top of the table. When my teacher donned a thick glove and whacked the wood very hard, the wood broke instead of launching the paper.  The other experiment we did involved my teacher filling a cup with water, putting a piece of paper on top of it, and then flipping the cup upside-down. The paper does no fall. For both experiments, we were instructed to write why it happened, as well as later (after variations of the experiment were done) to write, based on more facts, why we think it happened. I think this homework was very good.

     In English, we've have written a persuasive letter over a few days. We read an anti-television persuasive essay in a textbook, and have either written a letter to the author of the article (saying that he's wrong) or a letter to the CEO of NBC (saying that he's wrong). I think that this assignment was interesting, and I definitely liked it more than the standard reflecting on some aspect of some character in some boring book we were forced to read essay. Although I don't love writing in general, I am hoping that the writing we do in this class will be more compelling than that of previous years.

     In social studies, we have been doing some homework which I assume has been to warm us up for the work we'll be doing all year. I've done some text-marking, I've done some connections homework, I've done some writing what pieces of text mean. So far, we've pretty much covered the basics. No prediction on how social studies will be. It being one of the few subjects we didn't have at CSCL, I'm hoping it will be good.

     Spanish is one of the few classes where I'm with a different group of people. There  are 30 kids, which is a bit chaotic. I really like my spanish teacher, and I like a larger percent of the kids in the class. I also like learning spanish. Also, we don't get much homework, which is definitely a plus. Spanish is a class I look forward to.

My class still has a few friends, a few really irritating kids, and mostly people I don't connect with. Still okay in general. I mostly like my teachers. My classes are okay.

Hopeful for the best,
Max

First Week of School

     Last week, from Wednesday to Friday, I went back to public school. I was not excited to go back, and the three days I was there I rate a 6 1/2 out of 10. Overall, the teachers are better than I expected, but I don't love my class. Although I have a few (few meaning 2 1/2) friends, the majority of my class I just don't connect with, with a few people that I dislike. I don't like having a rigid schedule, and would rather have the looseness I had last year. We haven't really done any classwork yet, doing mostly rules and forms and other start-of-year stuff. Next week, I'll see what I think about the actual subjects.

A Quick Overview of my Summer

     I have had a great summer since my last post. I have done all sorts of exciting things. In my first two weeks, I interned at The Boston Harbor Association, where I took video and pictures of me and other people having fun at Boston's waterfront attractions. It was sort of fun, but the day was two long for me. Then, for all of July, I went to Maine. For one week I stayed with my family on the island of Vinalhaven. For three weeks after that, I stayed on Dog Island Point, very close by to some of my family's friends. After I got back from Maine, I stayed at my grandmother's house for a week, with my cousins. Also staying there were close family friends. After the week I spent at my grandmother's house, I did a week of boating camp t the Arlington Boys & Girls Club. It was mostly kayaking and not enough sailing, so I don't think I will go back next year. after boating, I did a week of sleep-away camp at Camp Wildwood, a Mass Audubon camp in New Hampshire. That was fun, and I will go for two weeks next year. All last week, I did fencing camp. That was tiring. this week I will go back to public school.

Blience Tuesday #6: Amphibians

     This is the six of the my blience (blog/science) series. Today's topic is amphibians, the class of animals that live on land as well as in the water. Amphibians start their life in the water, and finish their life on land. This post will be divided into three sections, like the last five posts. The first of the three sections will be ab
out the evolution of amphibians, as well as extinct spices of amphibians. The second section will interesting amphibian information. The third section will be about caecilians, an order of amphibians that are so obscure that blogger is putting a nasty red line under it. So, enjoy!

     Amphibians were the first vertebrates on land, using their lungs and nostrils to let them breath. They evolved from legged fish that let them crawl along the sea floor. To live on land, they had to evolve their muscles, spine, and limbs had to grow stronger to hold them up. Their skin had to thicken to protect them from harmful UV rays. The amphibians, once evolved to live on land, still had to return to the water to lay their eggs. Reptiles could lay their eggs on land, which enabled them to eventually dominate over amphibians. About 250 million years ago, the three orders of amphibians are thought to have diverged from each other. Eventually, because reptiles became dominant, amphibians grew smaller.

     The class amphibia contains some diverse and fascinating species. For example, Wallace's flying frog can jump from trees when threatened and glide with it's large webbed feet for up to 50 feet. The poison dart frogs of central and south america have poison on their skins, with some species being so poisonous they could kill ten to twenty humans. Their is one species of salamanders that live only in a small part of Mexico that live only in the water, even though they have lungs. The largest species of amphibians is the Chinese giant salamander, reaching up to 6 feet long.

    Caecilians are an order of amphibians who resemble earthworms. They live mainly underground, in Central America, South America, Africa, and South Asia. They have no limbs. Their vision is limited to light-or-dark. Most caecilians have lungs. Mature adults eat mostly insects. Not much is known about their behavior.


Thanks for reading, and any ideas can go in the comments!

My Opinion about Good and Bad User Interface

   

     For anything electronic, a visually nice-looking user interface is key. I have encountered many websites, games etc. that are targeted to children. Some of them do fine, and make me want to look at them, whereas others, while trying to appeal to kids, are cheesy and seem to think we are idiots. The latter of those two ends up irritating me and making me not want to use the webpage, game, or whatever else it is.  So for every one making something fun-looking for kids, here are some tips.

     First of all, Kids can read fonts other than comic sans! It drives me crazy when comic sans is used to make something look appealing, fun or friendly. Sure, maybe comic sans was the most appealing font for children at some point, but all "fun!" webpages use it. Another tip, which I think applies to any UI, youth directed or otherwise, is that white backgrounds are not always the best. light text on a dark background is fine, so is a light colored (but not necessarily white) background with dark text. A third tip, when designing for kids, don't use buttons that look like "bubbles" or cartoony round-cornered rectangles. I, at least, don't like clip art (cartoony pictures) scattered across a website, but that's just me. To sum up, I would like to show a User Interface that I like, and one that I don't. Here's the link for the good one: click here!. And, here's the bad one: other link here!



Thanks for reading, and ideas can go in the comments!