A Proposition For Our Town

As we all know, tourists and locals alike who walk through our town of Crimson Rose, North Carolina, see bleak buildings of grey cement or repetitive brick and are disgusted by the lack of character and emotion in our architecture. The constant monotony of mindless architectural patterns is soporific to our populace and creates a form of distain in the minds of residents and passer-bys that must be stopped. I myself have been guilty of such thoughts and therefore, after much consideration, have come up with a creative art project that will breathe life into our downtown culture and resurrect our tourist industry.

I propose that a grant be obtained consisting of $100,000 in order to redefine Crimson Rose's downtown main street by creating and displaying inspiring architectural masterpieces supplied by the local master of modern multimedia art, Frederick Chauffer. $30,000 of the requested funds will be used to pay for Mr. Chauffer's services in painting the Town Hall's westward facing cement wall with a symbolic and modern mural. The mural will contain four squares of color, with each square gradually decreasing in symmetry and rigidness from left to right so that the last square is an irregular blob. This proposed mural will represent our liberation from monotony in Crimson Rose and ever-flowing effervescence of chromatic expression.

In addition to this doubtless masterpiece, Mr. Chauffer will also be provided with the funds from this grant to create a three-dimensional display in the center of Town Square. The current and outdated art form that now occupies the rotunda in the middle of the square, a bland iron statue of Crimson Rose's founder, will be replaced with one of Mr. Chauffer's sculptures. The sculpture, made with hot melt adhesive and over 6,000 six-inch stick planks, will be constructed in the shape of a rose standing about fifteen feet tall. The irregular texture will represent the complexity and history of our town, and the fragile structure will symbolize the mortality of man.
Another $40,000 of the requested funds will go towards a community art project hosted near town square, which will be called "Revamp the Rose." Residents as well as visitors will be invited on May 12th to a free buffet catered by the local Deep Vat Fryer's restaurant, who's services will be paid for with the $3,000. After the meal, participants will be provided with hammers, chisels, paint brushes, and paint and encouraged to create heart-felt illustrations on any blank wall within walking distance. Other participants will also be recommended to selectively chisel out bricks in walls and sidewalks as well as randomly remove windows in some of our store fronts in order to break up the repetition of the cityscape. "Revamp the Rose" will not only benefit our residents by instilling in them a new found love for the town as they connect with it, but also create beautiful works of art and overthrow the tyranny of building codes, forging a unique atmosphere tourists will find attractive and artsy.

The remainder of the funds will be used for a most singular project, whose design was originated by Chauffer, called "The Crimson Castle." The project will take place in the building currently occupied by the art gallery The Perfect Stroke. We've chosen this location because the building suits the project's needs, and The Perfect Stroke sells art that is antiquated and tasteless and therefore needs to be replaced with a more thrilling and eccentric display. Chauffer proposes to gut the building and remove the roof and windows. The wooden implements and art pieces left over will be used to fuel a gigantic fire that will burn inside the building. The building is located far enough away from other structures to insure the flames do not spread. "The Crimson Castle" will be the most poignant project we've yet proposed. It will represent the death of our old, rigid culture, using it to fuel a new growth in modern architecture and art. The remaining outside and inflammable walls with ensure that our good old town remains behind, to be filled with the new inspiration of generations to come. After the initial fuel is burned, residents will be encouraged to donate fuel and the remain funds from the grant will be used to keep "The Crimson Castle" burning as long as possible. It will be an inspiration to tourists and locals as well as provide a lovely spot for cold pedestrians to warm themselves during the winter months.

As you can see, my proposal is very economic and can be achieved with only $100,000. That money will fund a beautiful mural, a community art project that will benefit the populace and the city, and create a sculpture that will symbolize our community. It's time to take a stand against lifeless monotony and archaic art. It's time to put some life into this town of ours. It's time to appeal to emotion in our architecture and enthrall tourists will our unique culture. It's time to redecorate our Crimson Rose.

Writing Wednesday: The Rule Breaker

Here is a short story I wrote recently. Most of the scientific principles discussed are actually based in fact, specifically the part about low-temp superconductors and monopole magnets. The story gets kinda technical, and some of it isn't even supposed to make sense, but I hope you enjoy it anyway.

The Rule Breaker

          He flipped on the power. He was shocked! For the first time, something actually worked! Before him a chunk of wires, metal, and electrical circuits was breaking every law of physics he had ever been taught, levitating eerily about five inches above a metal plate. What he was seeing could only be explained trough quantum-mechanics and positron-reversal-theory. The boy prodded at the contraption and it rolled onto its side, still suspended in mid-air. This was fantastic! Glancing over at a holographic interface, he was thrilled to note that the readings indicated what he had hoped for. He did understand he was merely doing what other people had been doing for decades: operating a simple electromagnet. The only difference was that Leon had created, for the first time in recorded history, an electromagnet with only one pole. On paper, it didn't seem like much, but in application, it was revolutionary. And he was only sixteen! What could he produce within the next decade? For the first time in his life he had created something entirely new, different, and phenomenal.

            Leon had always been interested in physics and electromagnetism. When he was eight, his parents got him his first "Electricity for Kids Kit", with which he made his own 3-D printer. When he was ten, he was banned from using his homemade carbon-nano-tube elevator to get up to his treehouse because it was too dangerous. When he turned twelve, his was gifted with a "Zero-G Speed Racers" racetrack. The super-cooled super-conductors, magnets with extremely low temperatures that levitated around a racetrack at a fixed altitude, utterly astonished him. Leon began to search for other "black-magic" stunts that could be produced with the magic of electromagnetism. He didn't get very far with the super-conductors, however; their special properties deteriorated after they warmed up, and besides, they had to be reoriented manually. This had been during the summer break of 2119. While experimenting with the super-conductors, Leon did manage to come up with an idea. What if he could make a magnetic device that could levitate anywhere, at any temperature, even in the absence of magnetized metal?

            And that's how Leon discovered monopole magnets. No one had ever seen them before. Scientists of the previous century didn't even believe they existed. But now, right in front of him, was a magnet without a south pole: only a north pole. The young genius hoped the other residents of the neighborhood weren't bothered by the power shortage while he had been "charging-up" the magnets in his Aeon Crucible.

            Leon continued to poke at the levitated metal, which rolled about while it floated in the air. Underneath it was a flat metal slab-magnet that only had a north pole. The floating device was also a north-pole. Since opposite charges repel each other, the machine was pushed away from the magnet on the table and floated in the air. When this stunt was performed with two normal magnets, the north poles of each had to be kept facing each other, or else the floating magnet would flip around and become attracted to the other. But the two monopoles could be oriented in any way and would still repel each other. 

            By now Leon had encapsulated the invention in a clear, 3-D printed plastic casing to protect it. He heaved it over to the iron floor. Letting it go with a slight push, he gazed at it as it glided over the floor. Suddenly, it clanged to the ground. Leon had to switch off the magnet in order to pry it from the iron. The monopole had realigned the iron and become attracted to the south pole of the floor. The new properties of the monopole were intriguing. And to think! He was the first person to even observe the behavior of this scientific anomaly in real life!

            The next day, Leon was again in his basement laboratory. He had barely been able to contain his excitement during school. The morning classes: grammar, math, and history and philosophy, had been dull as usual, but the second period was much more entertaining. Every student of Titan Young People Educational Academy got to pick what subject they wanted to study for after lunch period. This allowed them to pick a subject that interested them and they would like to excel in for their future occupation. Leon had obviously picked the physics class. Today  they had learned about nuclear fusion and dual-dimensional quantum singularities for the third time and accidently turned a table in the lab into hypermatter.

            In fact, this incident was the only thing that distracted Leon the entire day, for he had been thinking about his invention. Amazingly, he had refrained from telling anyone. He wanted to make his creation perfect before revealing what he had been working on. He had also come a step closer to making his universal levitation theory a reality. Leon opened his backpack and withdrew a cylinder of metal. Placing it inside his Aeon Crucible, a personal particle accelerator, he clamped it down and pulled up its holographic display. The accelerator began bombarding the cylinder with beta particles, all with a topspin of 8 degrees. Or, wait? Wouldn't that need be square root of negative 64? After about thirty minutes and 18 more steps, he had a south-pole-only magnet. Within another hour, a soldering iron, circuit board , snack break, quick nap, and electromagnetic detector, his monopole levitation device was ready to test again.

            The invention now hovered over the iron floor for much longer. He had rigged it to switch between the south- and north-pole magnets to compensate for the realignment of the metal floor. However, it wobbled up and down widely until it finally couldn't keep up. Plus, the magnets affected the sensor's readings. Leon would need some sort of sensor that wasn't affected by the monopoles, and maybe even an onboard computer to handle the adjustments.  

           

-----

            A few months later, Leon was in his basement lab again, this time with his classmate, Arc.

            "This is so amazing! I wonder how many physicists roll over in their graves when you turn this thing on," he exclaimed while Leon watched him play with the invention. There were about 20 dipole magnets covering the basement floor, each one had either its north or south pole facing up. The monopole contraption was able to glide over the grid, thanks to the simple processor Leon had installed. Whenever the north monopole came near a south pole, the device switched to the south monopole in order to stay levitated.

            "Have you tried it with ferrofluid yet?" asked Arc. The two boys gave each other looks of curiosity looks and dashed over to the desk. Leon picked up a big jar of ferrofluid and poured it into a large tub away from the other magnets while Arc brought the monopole invention over. After turning it on, Leon held his contraption over the tub and let go. It fell, but the magnetic fluid parted and jumped out of the container, blasted away from the magnet and all over the room.

            "That was interesting."

            It took them the rest of the day to clean up the lab.

            Each time Arc came over to Leon's house, he had improved his invention. Leon had been trying to think of a way to make the monopole stay levitated anywhere, but he couldn't come up with a proper answer. He tried to get the levitated monopole to drag the magnet under it with it, but the two chunks of metal only flopped around in a very unwieldy and frightening manner. Leon had even tried using magnetic silicone polymers, but that was way to slow and sticky. The only thing that had worked so far was the ferrofluid Arc had suggested. So Leon had been using that.

            Finally, after many months and countless hours, Leon had a creation bordering on super-natural. His family and a few friends watched as a glowing sphere danced seamlessly with a puddle of magnetic liquid. The magnetic sphere wrapped the black, shimmering liquid around itself, and then contorted it into exotic and surreal patterns and shapes. By quantum-entangling his monopole magnets, the young inventor was able to use them to transfer the magnetic fields created by the machine to points other than where the magnet really was. He pushed and prodded the sphere, but it stayed in the air by creating "out-of-bound" magnetic fields to push the fluid under it and then repelling itself away from it into the air. At the end of the performance, Leon's audience was dead-silent with awe. Only Leon's grandmother could be heard. She was snoring softly.

            "Leon, I didn't even know this was physically possible!" cried his mother. Grandmother jerked awake and began clapping. Leon's mom had seen the magnetic device do some minor levitation tricks before, but she was a history teacher and didn't quite understand how amazing it was. Until now. His father was a nova-mechanic, and understood a little better what was going on, but hadn't known how far Leon had already gotten in programming.

            "Son, you really should try and present this to some sort of science group. Maybe they could help you apply this type of technology in a way that could make money or save lives." Visions of fame and fortune flashed before the boy's eyes. But then the device's entanglement field straightened out and a bolt of orange light accompanied the explosion of ferrofluid all over the room. It still needed adjustments. But Leon wasn't done breaking the rules of reality yet. Not even he knew how far he would go.

-----

            The spotlight hit the stage. The curtains withdrew. A glowing blue sphere hovered ethereally into view, surrounded by an ever-flowing mass of liquid. An onlooker fainted at the sight of this "black-magic". The monopole device halted and began twisting the ferrofluid around itself to form a spiral staircase. Leon strode to the top of the tower and began to speak nervously, facing over 2,000 nova-physicists, scientists, quantum-mechanists, astronomers, and chemists.

            "My name is Leon Polaris, and I'm eighteen. I believe what I'm about to demonstrate for you will break every law of physics you have ever been taught."

Pepper Jack?

If you guys remember, I started a short story series several months ago detailing the adventures of the detective Pepper Jack, but half way through the story it trailed off. Hmm. Yeah, about that. Well, I totally forgot to mention this, but "Pepper Jack", at least in that form, is no longer with us. Over the past few months I've been plotting out a new story, coming up with characters, worlds, creatures, finding bad guys, assembling a side kick and much more.

In the end, 210 Words is getting scrapped and replaced with the Adventures of Pepper Jack. He'll be a character that is used in various short stories throughout time. The first installment will be a mystery story involving an ancient artifact heist, but he'll also pop up in the Middle Ages, Ancient Egypt, and the far future.

But there's also going to be WAY more to the story than just that. Duplicates. Time travel. Lost artifacts. Lost memories. Hi-Tech weaponry. Of course humor, because his name is Pepper Jack. And probably tossing in Whistlethrush Isle and some of the people from that world.

Coming early-mid 2015 to Curious Robots near you.

To Kill a Mocking Bird

This is the essay I wrote after reading "To Kill a Mocking Bird" by Harper Lee. Personally, I thought the book was funny and enjoyable, even though everyone knows about it.


You should definitely read the book before you read this

The High Road

            As the reader knows, the final chapters of Harper Lee's world renowned To Kill a Mocking Bird, left Atticus Finch and Heck Tate with a perplexing decision between legal justice and moral empathy. Providentially for Arthur Radley (Boo), the two men made the right choice. Rather that following classic protocol, they concluded that the reclusive Radley brothers should be left to live out their days in undisturbed tranquility.

            The book so profoundly and concisely states that Arthur was not brought to court because it would be like killing a mocking bird to do so. Arthur had never hurt anyone, lied, stolen, or for that matter, interacted with any human besides his brother in decades.  To drag him into court for defending the children he had watched grow up, seemed harsh to the two men. Mr. Finch and the sheriff didn't want Arthur's welcome into Maycomb's culture to be a unsettling court case full of staring eyes,  pointing fingers, and deranged assumptions. Considering Arthur's rather odd behavior on the night of the incident, perhaps the two men thought it would be a shock to his system.  if was nearly afraid of a little girl.

            This is where another important aspect of the scenario comes into play. An illation can be drawn that Boo was mentally challenged or disabled. His abnormal behavior was, no doubt, one of the reasons for his lifelong seclusion. Atticus and Heck realized that such an straining occurrence of enduring a courtroom trial would destroy Arthur's carefully balanced and calm routine of life. This would have caused him severe trauma and possibly mental destabilization. Undoubtedly it was better to let the Radley's remain as they had been: quiet and solitary.

            One final reason proving that two men were correct in their decision is the most convincing. On several occasions in the Bible, God has not condemned lying, but only in rare circumstances where an individual risked their lives by lying to save someone else's life. In the book of Joshua, Rahab risked her life for the Israelite spies by saying, "Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they had come from... When it was time to close the gate, the men left. I don't know which way they went," (Joshua 2:4,5). Because she lied and spared God's servants, she was spared in Jericho's destruction. In the situation of Arthur Radley, Mr. Finch, and Heck Tate, the sheriff and lawyer decided to cloak Arthur's involvement in the crime scene in order to prevent him from becoming the central point of Maycomb's attention and public exposure. 

            Although many more conclusions can be drawn and ideas created from the thrilling novel To Kill a Mocking Bird, it is obvious that Finch and Tate compassionately swept Arthur under the rug on that fateful night, right where he was most content. This is because Arthur was mentally handicapped and couldn't handle a county full of eyes upon his back, because he had never been involved in public or private affairs before, and because it is sometimes right to lie if it is not a selfish lie and protects someone else. In conclusion, Atticus and Heck made a difficult decision, but chose the high road of moral empathy for a gentle soul in the community.

Summary of the US Constitution

This week I summarized the US Constitution, not including the Amendments. It has been really intriguing to see how our country used to function and all the changes that have been made for the good (or the bad).

1.     Article I

a.      Section 1: All law making power is given to a Congress consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives

b.      Section 2: The House of Representatives will be made of people selected every second year by the US citizens. Elected persons must be old enough and a true American. Taxes shall be collected from each state in a fair manor. The House of Representatives shall choose their officers and be the only body with the power of impeachment.

c.      Section 3: The Senate will be made of two senators from every state, serving for six years with one vote. Senators most also be mature adults with a nine year residency in the US. The Vice President will be head of the Senate, but not allowed to vote unless to break a tie. The Senate will also try impeachment cases. Impeachment will only remove the president from office and any other honorable position on the government.

d.      Section 4: States will dictate when and where elections for senators.

e.      Section 5: each house shall determine various trivial rules and punishments

f.       Section 6: The Senators and Representatives shall receive payment for their services. They shall not be arrested or bothered while they are serving, excepting treason, felony, or breach of peace.

g.      Section 7: Various laws shall be made concerning collection of taxes a other paraphernalia

h.      Section 8: Congress will have power to collect taxes and other things for the welfare of the US. They will borrow money on US credit, regulate commerce with foreign countries, establish a uniform law of naturalization, coin money, provide punishment for counterfeiting, establish post offices, and other imported infrastructural processes.

i.       Section 9: Various laws about immigration with be established.

j.       Section 10: States will not have as high a powers as the national government

2.     Article II

a.      Section 1: The president will hold executive power and serve in office for a term of 4 years. A voting system where the people vote for voters will be established to elect the president and vice president. Only a person born in the US may serve as president

b.      Section 2: The president will be the commander in chief of the US Army and Navy. He will have power to make treaties and other things with the consent of the Senate.

c.      Section 3: The president will give information to congress on the state of the Union from time to time.

d.      Section 4: The president, vice president, and all civil officers shall be removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes.

3.     Article III

a.      Section 1: The judicial power of the country will be held by one supreme court, and in lesser courts as Congress establishes. The judges will only hold their offices when they behave and shall receive small compensation for their services.

b.      Section 2: The judicial power of the courts will extend to all persons, whether native or only visiting. The supreme court shall judge cases involving foreign ambassadors. Trials of any crimes except impeachment will be judged by a jury in the state where the crime was committed.

c.      Section 3: Treason to the United States shall consist only of making war against them or helping its enemies. No one can be convicted of treason unless the two witness testify to an overt act of treason or an admission from the defendant.

4.     Article IV

a.      Section 1: Many abilities will be given to each state to arrange its own proceedings, and congress may also make certain laws in that area.

b.      Section 2: Every citizen in every state will have the same privileges of every other citizen. Any felon that runs to another state will be returned to the state in which he committed the crime upon request from the mother state.

c.      Section 3: New states can be added to the Union, but not inside of another state. Congress can regulate state borders.

d.      Section 4: The US will guarantee to the States a republican form of government and will protect them from invasion and domestic violence.

5.    Article V

a.      Section 1: When both houses agree, amendments can be made to this constitution.

6.     Article VI

a.      Section 1: Any debts or contracts made before the adoption of the constitution will carry over into the new regime. These laws are the supreme laws of the land. Religion will never be a deciding factor in the qualification or election to public office of individuals.

7.     Article VII

a.      Section 1: Everyone agrees to adopt this Constitution in the nine states.