The Pleasures Of Friendship

The pleasures of friendship are exquisite,
How pleasant to go to a friend on a visit!
I go to my friend, we walk on the grass,
And the hours and moments like minutes pass.

-by Stevie Smith

I Must Resent 2016

2016 made me cry, plain and simple. I know it's been a while, but I wasn't able to do this sooner. I cried for Alan Rickman, Carrie Fisher, and Anton Yelchin. I won't forget them, but they will be some of the people I mourn for in the years to come. I ran though 2017 without much trouble... Bring it 2018.

 

Plastic - Destroyer of the Earth

Plastic could be the downfall of our environment. Plastic is useful, but haven’t you ever wondered what happens to it when you throw it away? You probably think it goes to the landfill. Well it does… at first. Then it flies away and settles in the ocean.

Plastic is collected by ocean currents. It is taken to the middle of the ocean where it forms a garbage patch, or it washes up on beaches like the ones on Maldives. Maldives is an island in the Indian Ocean, and they have beaches of plastic. Plastic collects, and it doesn’t ever go away. It’s not biodegradable, it doesn’t dissolve, and it doesn’t just disappear.

You're probably wondering, “Why can’t we just recycle it?” Well here’s why: there are so many different types of plastic, that companies can’t recycle it all. It’s too confusing, because there are too many different types of plastic. Some products even contain more than one type of plastic. A few plastic making companies won’t recycle their plastics.

Doubtlessly you're wondering why plastic in the oceans is that big of a deal. The truth is that plastic attracts organic toxins. The animals, such as fish, in the ocean mistake it for food. The toxins are not good for the fish. They store the toxins in the fatty part of their bodies, then we eat the fish. Everybody gets to eat plastic and toxins, but you don’t really want to get sick from the toxins in your fish.

The average American family uses approximately one thousand five hundred plastic bags in one year. There is enough plastic on this planet, and we don’t need more. A solution to the plastic problem, would be to keep melting down all the plastic and remolding it. If you would like to help, use reusable bags for shopping, buy things that aren't individually wrapped, and stop putting plastic in the trash. Even though recycling isn’t the best, it’s better than not recycling. regulations and laws could help with this. Companies could make their products out of only one type of plastic, making it easier to reuse. If you have an idea about how to conserve plastic usage talk to state representatives or legislators. Tell the world your ideas!

By Aurora J. A. Pass

October Sky Movie Review

October Sky is a movie about a boy, Homer Hickman, and his friends, who worked to build a small working rocket. The movie is set in Coalwood, West Virginia in October 1957, when the news of the Soviet Union’s satellite, Sputnik 1, being successfully launched reaches Coalwood. Everyone watches the satellite cross the night sky, and afterwards Homer becomes inspired. Homer plans to build a rocket and enter the science fair. Everyone thinks he’s crazy when he teams up with Quentin Wilson, the school's math geek, who seems to know quite a bit about rockets. With the help of a few of his other friends they try their hand at building rockets and called themselves “The Rocket Boys”. His teacher Miss Riley is very supportive of his ambitions.

They fail several times, and later they are accused of starting a forest fire with one of their stray rockets. His father gets injured in an accident while working at the local coal mine, and Homer stops his school to work at the coal mine to support his family. Later, when his father is recovered, Homer is re-inspired by a Rocket Science book Miss Riley gave him, and he teaches himself the math needed to find a rocket’s trajectory. He then proves to the police that his rocket did not set the fire because the fire was to far away.

He returns to school, and he and his friends return to rocket making. They win the science fair, and Homer takes their rocket to the national science fair in Indianapolis. He wins the national science fair and returns home, a hero.

I liked this movie. It was very interesting, and I liked that it was based on a true story. This movie is well done and captivating. I liked Miss Riley a lot. She was a very happy and supportive character. The Rocket Boys are funny but determined. Homer is a smart, strong willed, and inspiring character.

I liked the movie because it was interesting. I find movies about science interesting, and I also like the story equality to it. I like documentaries, but I like movies that are based on true stories but are told in story form. October Sky is a story. I thought it was cool, and I would recommend it to a lot of people

If a Tree Falls in the Forest - Does it Make a Noise?

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear does it make a noise? I believe that is does because the other option is just too (there's no other word for it) weird. Galileo disagrees with me, as does the rest of the scientific world. The reason I mention Galileo is because he was the first to suggest the strange concept that trees don't make noise unless someone is there to hear it.

First off, what is noise; what is sound? Sound is a wave, a vibration of the air. This is usually known as, you guessed it, a sound wave. These waves then vibrate the ear drum, the information is sent to the brain, and the brain interprets the information. This is known as sound.

Galileo said that if there is no one there to interpret these waves, they aren't sound. In other words, when a tree falls it creates a type of wave. Galileo said that eardrums are part of the process of making sound. If ears plus waves equals sound, then waves with no ears are just waves, not sound. So, calling these waves "sound waves" is false.

Now here's my argument. Since waves are needed to make sound, if someone were there when said tree fell, they would hear the thump. Since ears are not needed to make the waves, then the waves are still made. Therefore, there is a possibility of sound being heard. So, in my eyes (or shall is say, ears), that means the falling tree does make what we call sound.

I believe my philosophy to be sensible, if not scientifically correct. I suppose, it really depends on your definition of sound. Is sound what happens when the waves collide with your eardrums, making them vibrate, or is sound the actual waves even before they hit your eardrum? This is an intriguing and puzzling subject, yet it seams so simple. What do you think? What is your definition of sound?



Sources:
Zoom: How Everything Moves: From Atoms and Galaxies to Blizzards and Bees By Bob Berman, Page 223, First Edition Hardcover, Published in 2014 by Little, Brown and Company

By Aurora J. A. Pass

The Zen of Python

This poem is can be found on Python by typing into your Python Terminal: import this

Beautiful is better than ugly.
Explicit is better than implicit.
Simple is better than complex.
Complex is better than complicated.
Flat is better than nested.
Sparse is better than dense.
Readability counts.
Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules.
Although practicality beats purity.
Errors should never pass silently.
Unless explicitly silenced.
In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess.
There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it.
Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you're Dutch.
Now is better than never.
Although never is often better than *right* now.
If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea.
If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea.
Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!

by Tim Peters

Fossils

Older than books,

than scrolls,

older

than the first

tales told

or the

first words

spoken

are the stories

in forests that

turned to

stone

in ice walls

that trapped the

mammoth

in the long

bones of

dinosaurs--

the fossil

stories that begin

Once upon a time

by Lilian Moore