Have you ever been looking forward to watching a great movie, or reading a book, only to have some jerk tell you the ending? I have, lots of times. Most recently, I was looking on the internet for a free PDF of the book, The Last of the Crazy People. I thought I had found one, so I clicked on it only to find that it was not the book at all, but a response to certain themes in the author's books. I didn't realize this right away, so I scrolled down and down until I got to chapter one of the book. The first line gave away the ending. The very first line. And it's not just a regular ending, this one is supposed to be shocking to the reader.
Being that this is a school project, I am going to read the book anyways, but holy crap does this make me angry. The main plot point of the story, which is supposed to be hidden until the end, was spoiled for me before I even know who the characters are. Blast! I will have to slog on through the book, hopefully as fast as I can just to get it over with. Maybe the revealing of the ending at the start of the novel will serve me well as I make an inquiry into how is it that perfectly functional families can become dysfunctional, and why people are driven to commit insane acts of violence.
Tuesday, 12 February 2013
Thursday, 7 February 2013
Group Project, Optionally a Group Mark, We choose Idiocy
Ms. Kwan gave us two options for a marking scheme for this novel study. Each week, one person does the social media marketing for our blog and project, and each week everyone gets their own mark. Basically a week by week individual mark for each person. You only get marked for the weeks you are active. The other option is for everyone's mark to be dependant on everyone else's work and mark for each week. If one person slacks then everyone gets screwed.
OBVIOUSLY students should not want to be dependant on other students work habits. Obviously, it's a bad idea to be tethered to a 1000 pound man, whose thrown into the ocean with a pair of concrete shoes. Yet when given the option my classmates chose that option. I can't see the benefit. AT ALL. There is nothing better about being dependant on other people for them to do their work when you could get a much better mark just by doing well yourself. What the hell is wrong with these guys. Out of 30 kids only 4 or so voted for the individual marking system. This is why we need a meritocracy.
OBVIOUSLY students should not want to be dependant on other students work habits. Obviously, it's a bad idea to be tethered to a 1000 pound man, whose thrown into the ocean with a pair of concrete shoes. Yet when given the option my classmates chose that option. I can't see the benefit. AT ALL. There is nothing better about being dependant on other people for them to do their work when you could get a much better mark just by doing well yourself. What the hell is wrong with these guys. Out of 30 kids only 4 or so voted for the individual marking system. This is why we need a meritocracy.
Tuesday, 5 February 2013
Last of the Meheecans (I mean crazy people)
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen! My name is Daniel and I will be taking you on a journey today (and for a while yet!) through the land of crazy people. It's not so inhabited any more, there are only a few left here, they're the last of them and there seems not to be any coming after them. This place is in a book I'm going to read and tell you about, during these coming weeks. It will be amazing and I shall have lots to say about what I'm learning from the novel. Would you believe that the last novel I read was no good? Cause it was (good).
I chose this book cause I was told to, plain and simple. SWIM decided that this book was the bee's knees and that since he was reading it, I should too. The story sounded interesting and I hope to learn what the novel is about, that's pretty much it. I was told there is a revelation in the middle of it, I'm looking forward to reading that very much.
I'm making an inquiry into how this story relates to things I am interested in, such as science, politics and current events.
Saturday, 17 November 2012
Penguins
The mass of penguins occupied the entire flight deck of the ship. Jonathan had counted nearly two thousand of them, but it seemed now there were more. So how the hell had the captain managed to leave the ship without alarming the horde? He knew for a fact that anyone walking along the deck would set the penguins off. Even at night, they would start honking wildly, expecting raw fish to be thrown to them. But then, the method of escape was not the real problem. The problem was that the captain was gone, and all the knowledge of how to run the ship and contact help was gone with him. Along with the penguins, a crew of twenty-six animal activists was all that remained on board, none of whom were qualified to captain any kind of boat, let alone a thousand foot long aircraft carrier.
Jonathan took off his thick purple tuque and used it to wipe his glasses. They had gotten so close to finishing the job, he thought. He was positive it would only have been a few days before they reached the coastal ice, but with no way to safely get there and back, what could they do? He was sure they would be able to get to their destination, but with the captain gone, and the satellite code with him, they had no easy way back and no safe way of running the ship. The retired 2020's carrier wasn't an easy to use canoe, or even a speedboat. With a control room as complicated as the space shuttle's, they had no way to figure it out. We have to get these penguins there. There isn't another way.
Fifty three years into the 21st century, the global temperature was still rising. Unlike Antarctica, the arctic still held onto some of its sea and coastal ice. Though mostly melted, the ice there would hopefully be enough for the gentoo penguins to survive. The gentoos, or gents as they had taken to calling them, crucially needed the ice to find enough food for a sustainable population. Their destination was Davis Strait, in between Greenland and Baffin Island. Bringing the two thousand penguins up there was their only hope, even if doing so violated international invasive species laws.
Jonathan went back inside the crew's quarters to talk with his friend Sal and the other activists about their situation. The series of rooms were more than large enough for the crew of twenty six. The walls were made of metal panels with steel rivets, with bunk beds lining the sides. Above, the pot lights were shining cold LEDs. Inside, he found the activists heatedly arguing over the team's next step.
"Turning back now is the only way", someone yelled from the back. "We don't have the skill to anchor the ship and get going again, and we are running out time!"
"You know that if we start south, all of the penguins will die," shouted another.
"If we get into trouble, we'll have no way to contact for help," the first one shouted back. "No code means no radio!"
Both of them were right, Jonathan thought sadly. He looked around for Sal, and found him drinking his coffee in the corner of the room, frowning at the others. Sal was twenty-nine, like Jonathan. He had dark skin and wore rectangular glasses and a baseball cap. Jonathan's friend normally enjoyed conflicts, but this time was different. Jonathan knew Sal's opinion on their next step.
"John, you're still planning on takin' us north, right?" Sal asked. Jonathan leaned against the wall next to Sal and looked at the others arguing.
"We can't go back at this point," Jonathan said. "We've got more than half the world's population of gents up on the flight deck. We can't get them back to Antarctica, so I really only see one option."
"You gonna tell them that?" Sal pointed at the growing group of activists on the starboard side of the room, which was where those in favour of returning home were walking over to, to join in the argument.
Jonathan had become the unofficial leader of the activists back when they were still gathering the gentoos from Antarctica. He had taken charge of the party that went down from the ship and got the penguins. From then on most of the activists casually considered him the guy in charge. He hoped that the activists would listen to what he had to say.
"Might as well join in," Jonathan said, starting towards the others. "Hey!" he said loudly. "There are two thousand gents up there," he said pointing towards the flight deck. "We have more than enough fuel to get to the ice, and back. But we don't have nearly enough to get these penguins back to Antarctica. So unless one of you wants to shell out another hundred thousand dollars for fuel, going back means the penguins die."
"We know that, Jonathan," one of the activists said. "But don't pretend to us that getting back will be easy. We don't even know how to run this thing!"
"Don't you understand how dangerous of a situation this is for us?" another yelled.
"You're here to save a species of animal from extinction," Jonathan said, with a firm, disappointed tone. "Instead you want to ruin the gents' last chance of survival just so that you can go home. And that risk? We're on a boat, guys. A boat is controlled with a wheel, like a car. Just because there are thousands of buttons and dials in there doesn't mean we have to use them." The activists on the opposing side looked at him, silently thinking. It made Jonathan feel nervous, he knew what he just said wasn't entirely true.
"I agree," Sal said, walking over.
"I do too," said another activist who had previously opposed continuing on. Most of the rest soon agreed, they would keep going north.
"Good," Jonathan said, smiling. "And thanks."
The atmosphere on the ship was tense over the next two days. Most were confident and felt good about their chances of success. Others sensed they would soon be giving more for the penguins than they would ever want to. Not everyone onboard was as firm in their resolve to see the job to the end as Jonathan, and he knew that some might cause trouble if things went bad.
Sal was the first one to see the ice. The aircraft carrier was near two kilometers from the coast, where the water was starting to freeze. They turned slightly towards the shore, and continued forward. Before sundown, they were in sight of the point where the open water ended completely and all that could be seen was a slightly broken cover of ice and snow. Penguin habitat, Jonathan thought, grinning.
"I bet you we need to turn the ship into reverse right now, if we don't want to risk hitting it," Sal mentioned, almost lazily. One of the other activists ran up to the bridge to make the change in direction.
"How many days of food we got left, John?" Sal asked.
"If we get back to Halifax on time, we're still going to be one day short of it." Jonathan said. "We need to be finished unloading the gents by tomorrow or we are going to go a bit hungry."
"I don't think that will be an issue. A day is more than enough time," Sal concluded and began walking down to the mess hall. Jonathan wasn't worried about their food supply, either. A little bit of hunger never hurt, and he was confident they wouldn't run into any major time wasting impediment.
It looked to him like they had time to spare before they reached the ice, so he decided to go up to the bridge and check on the progress they were having on figuring out the controls.
"How's the boat slowing down, guys?" Jonathan asked the activists in the control bridge.
"Right now we're using the artificial intelligence system to slow the ship automatically," the activist in charge of the controls said.
"You mean like an auto piolet?" Jonathan asked. He wasn't entirely sure what the activist meant. An AI system should be able to do all the work for them, he thought. They wouldn't need to worry about starting up the ship again.
"It's like that, yeah. But they don't call them that anymore,"
"Will it be able to get us going again after we anchor? Why doesn't anyone else know about this?" Jonathan asked quickly. He didn't want to get his hopes up. If the ship had a system capable of such things he was sure he would have heard about it.
"As long as it keeps working, it should be able to," the activist said. "We only just figured out that the ship's AI was functional, this morning. Maybe two or three hours ago."
Jonathan felt a weight lift off him. "Thats great! So there's not much to worry about, now."
"No, things are looking good," the activist said. "And it looks like we're just about to come to a full stop, Jonathan. You should go get the others ready,"
No longer at risk of capsizing the boat, starving, drowning or getting lost, Jonathan was almost completely at ease. All that was left was to finish what they started, to get the penguins off the boat and onto the ice.
Jonathan went down to the flight deck and called everyone together. He told reminded them of the different jobs that needed doing and had everyone pick what they were going to help with. They would need people to herd the penguins down the ramp and people to lure them down with fish. They would also take a few penguins down onto the ice before they crammed the others down the ramp. The idea being that the first few would encourage the others onto the ice, speeding things up.
"Before we start unloading gents, I have some good news," Jonathan said. "As it turns out, this ship has an AI system, an auto piolet. We don't have to worry about knowing how to get the ship going anymore. That's all gonna be taken care of by the AI." A few people sighed with relief, and everyone was all smiles. "Let's get these penguins off the ship, guys!" He said enthusiastically.
Getting the penguins down the ramp and onto the ice was no easy task. By its self, a gentoo walked incredibly slowly. Together, the two thousand of them created an even slower moving jam. They worked tirelessly all day and only stopped when the light was all but gone. By then, only a little more than half the penguins had made it off the ship. The second day was much like the first. The penguins went slowly and the activists started to grumble about their food supply.
The job was done before sundown, and the activists were celebrating their accomplishment down in the crew quarters with some alcohol. All of them knew the importance of what they did. They had potentially saved an entire species from extinction, and would hopefully inspire more people into similar action. The activists had some time to rest before they set sail again in the morning, and it wasn't until then that anyone took notice of what happened. Jonathan was reading in his bunk when he heard Sal.
"Jonathan," Sal called into the crew quarters. "Come over here." Jonathan got out of bed and put on his coat.
"What is it?" Jonathan asked, emerging from the doorway. Sal pointed over the edge of the ship and at the ocean below.
"Look down there, and tell me what you see." Jonathan was unsettled by the tone of Sal's voice. He tentatively stepped up to the rail and looked over the edge of the ship. What he saw scared him. The temperature outside was fifteen degrees below zero. Even during the day, the seawater was steadily freezing. Where Jonathan looked, there had once been a safe five metres of open water between the ship and the ice. Now their was only ice. The ship hadn't moved, the ice had grown. It came right up to the ship's side, and cornered around the bow and stern. The ice was thick, and the boat long. There was no way for it to break free.
"We're locked in place?" Jonathan asked in disbelief.
"It looks to me like we aren't going anywhere," Sal replied.
Jonathan took off his thick purple tuque and used it to wipe his glasses. They had gotten so close to finishing the job, he thought. He was positive it would only have been a few days before they reached the coastal ice, but with no way to safely get there and back, what could they do? He was sure they would be able to get to their destination, but with the captain gone, and the satellite code with him, they had no easy way back and no safe way of running the ship. The retired 2020's carrier wasn't an easy to use canoe, or even a speedboat. With a control room as complicated as the space shuttle's, they had no way to figure it out. We have to get these penguins there. There isn't another way.
Fifty three years into the 21st century, the global temperature was still rising. Unlike Antarctica, the arctic still held onto some of its sea and coastal ice. Though mostly melted, the ice there would hopefully be enough for the gentoo penguins to survive. The gentoos, or gents as they had taken to calling them, crucially needed the ice to find enough food for a sustainable population. Their destination was Davis Strait, in between Greenland and Baffin Island. Bringing the two thousand penguins up there was their only hope, even if doing so violated international invasive species laws.
Jonathan went back inside the crew's quarters to talk with his friend Sal and the other activists about their situation. The series of rooms were more than large enough for the crew of twenty six. The walls were made of metal panels with steel rivets, with bunk beds lining the sides. Above, the pot lights were shining cold LEDs. Inside, he found the activists heatedly arguing over the team's next step.
"Turning back now is the only way", someone yelled from the back. "We don't have the skill to anchor the ship and get going again, and we are running out time!"
"You know that if we start south, all of the penguins will die," shouted another.
"If we get into trouble, we'll have no way to contact for help," the first one shouted back. "No code means no radio!"
Both of them were right, Jonathan thought sadly. He looked around for Sal, and found him drinking his coffee in the corner of the room, frowning at the others. Sal was twenty-nine, like Jonathan. He had dark skin and wore rectangular glasses and a baseball cap. Jonathan's friend normally enjoyed conflicts, but this time was different. Jonathan knew Sal's opinion on their next step.
"John, you're still planning on takin' us north, right?" Sal asked. Jonathan leaned against the wall next to Sal and looked at the others arguing.
"We can't go back at this point," Jonathan said. "We've got more than half the world's population of gents up on the flight deck. We can't get them back to Antarctica, so I really only see one option."
"You gonna tell them that?" Sal pointed at the growing group of activists on the starboard side of the room, which was where those in favour of returning home were walking over to, to join in the argument.
Jonathan had become the unofficial leader of the activists back when they were still gathering the gentoos from Antarctica. He had taken charge of the party that went down from the ship and got the penguins. From then on most of the activists casually considered him the guy in charge. He hoped that the activists would listen to what he had to say.
"Might as well join in," Jonathan said, starting towards the others. "Hey!" he said loudly. "There are two thousand gents up there," he said pointing towards the flight deck. "We have more than enough fuel to get to the ice, and back. But we don't have nearly enough to get these penguins back to Antarctica. So unless one of you wants to shell out another hundred thousand dollars for fuel, going back means the penguins die."
"We know that, Jonathan," one of the activists said. "But don't pretend to us that getting back will be easy. We don't even know how to run this thing!"
"Don't you understand how dangerous of a situation this is for us?" another yelled.
"You're here to save a species of animal from extinction," Jonathan said, with a firm, disappointed tone. "Instead you want to ruin the gents' last chance of survival just so that you can go home. And that risk? We're on a boat, guys. A boat is controlled with a wheel, like a car. Just because there are thousands of buttons and dials in there doesn't mean we have to use them." The activists on the opposing side looked at him, silently thinking. It made Jonathan feel nervous, he knew what he just said wasn't entirely true.
"I agree," Sal said, walking over.
"I do too," said another activist who had previously opposed continuing on. Most of the rest soon agreed, they would keep going north.
"Good," Jonathan said, smiling. "And thanks."
The atmosphere on the ship was tense over the next two days. Most were confident and felt good about their chances of success. Others sensed they would soon be giving more for the penguins than they would ever want to. Not everyone onboard was as firm in their resolve to see the job to the end as Jonathan, and he knew that some might cause trouble if things went bad.
Sal was the first one to see the ice. The aircraft carrier was near two kilometers from the coast, where the water was starting to freeze. They turned slightly towards the shore, and continued forward. Before sundown, they were in sight of the point where the open water ended completely and all that could be seen was a slightly broken cover of ice and snow. Penguin habitat, Jonathan thought, grinning.
"I bet you we need to turn the ship into reverse right now, if we don't want to risk hitting it," Sal mentioned, almost lazily. One of the other activists ran up to the bridge to make the change in direction.
"How many days of food we got left, John?" Sal asked.
"If we get back to Halifax on time, we're still going to be one day short of it." Jonathan said. "We need to be finished unloading the gents by tomorrow or we are going to go a bit hungry."
"I don't think that will be an issue. A day is more than enough time," Sal concluded and began walking down to the mess hall. Jonathan wasn't worried about their food supply, either. A little bit of hunger never hurt, and he was confident they wouldn't run into any major time wasting impediment.
It looked to him like they had time to spare before they reached the ice, so he decided to go up to the bridge and check on the progress they were having on figuring out the controls.
"How's the boat slowing down, guys?" Jonathan asked the activists in the control bridge.
"Right now we're using the artificial intelligence system to slow the ship automatically," the activist in charge of the controls said.
"You mean like an auto piolet?" Jonathan asked. He wasn't entirely sure what the activist meant. An AI system should be able to do all the work for them, he thought. They wouldn't need to worry about starting up the ship again.
"It's like that, yeah. But they don't call them that anymore,"
"Will it be able to get us going again after we anchor? Why doesn't anyone else know about this?" Jonathan asked quickly. He didn't want to get his hopes up. If the ship had a system capable of such things he was sure he would have heard about it.
"As long as it keeps working, it should be able to," the activist said. "We only just figured out that the ship's AI was functional, this morning. Maybe two or three hours ago."
Jonathan felt a weight lift off him. "Thats great! So there's not much to worry about, now."
"No, things are looking good," the activist said. "And it looks like we're just about to come to a full stop, Jonathan. You should go get the others ready,"
No longer at risk of capsizing the boat, starving, drowning or getting lost, Jonathan was almost completely at ease. All that was left was to finish what they started, to get the penguins off the boat and onto the ice.
Jonathan went down to the flight deck and called everyone together. He told reminded them of the different jobs that needed doing and had everyone pick what they were going to help with. They would need people to herd the penguins down the ramp and people to lure them down with fish. They would also take a few penguins down onto the ice before they crammed the others down the ramp. The idea being that the first few would encourage the others onto the ice, speeding things up.
"Before we start unloading gents, I have some good news," Jonathan said. "As it turns out, this ship has an AI system, an auto piolet. We don't have to worry about knowing how to get the ship going anymore. That's all gonna be taken care of by the AI." A few people sighed with relief, and everyone was all smiles. "Let's get these penguins off the ship, guys!" He said enthusiastically.
Getting the penguins down the ramp and onto the ice was no easy task. By its self, a gentoo walked incredibly slowly. Together, the two thousand of them created an even slower moving jam. They worked tirelessly all day and only stopped when the light was all but gone. By then, only a little more than half the penguins had made it off the ship. The second day was much like the first. The penguins went slowly and the activists started to grumble about their food supply.
The job was done before sundown, and the activists were celebrating their accomplishment down in the crew quarters with some alcohol. All of them knew the importance of what they did. They had potentially saved an entire species from extinction, and would hopefully inspire more people into similar action. The activists had some time to rest before they set sail again in the morning, and it wasn't until then that anyone took notice of what happened. Jonathan was reading in his bunk when he heard Sal.
"Jonathan," Sal called into the crew quarters. "Come over here." Jonathan got out of bed and put on his coat.
"What is it?" Jonathan asked, emerging from the doorway. Sal pointed over the edge of the ship and at the ocean below.
"Look down there, and tell me what you see." Jonathan was unsettled by the tone of Sal's voice. He tentatively stepped up to the rail and looked over the edge of the ship. What he saw scared him. The temperature outside was fifteen degrees below zero. Even during the day, the seawater was steadily freezing. Where Jonathan looked, there had once been a safe five metres of open water between the ship and the ice. Now their was only ice. The ship hadn't moved, the ice had grown. It came right up to the ship's side, and cornered around the bow and stern. The ice was thick, and the boat long. There was no way for it to break free.
"We're locked in place?" Jonathan asked in disbelief.
"It looks to me like we aren't going anywhere," Sal replied.
Tuesday, 6 November 2012
Poem on Love
Love is unimportant and all you need is love.
When the band sings in one direction to the 12 year old girl
she does not need their love, but she wants it and she's wrong
because thats not love.
People tend to think romantically about romance.
Where's the science behind it?
They don't care. They are too busy caring about their love to actually think.
About love.
But to each their own and that's allright. Love is all you need. But it matters so little.
What matters? Something can only matter to humans. There is no other who would think one more important than another without them being part of the social group. If the universe looked down on us with an unbiased eye, it would not know what love was until is peered over at evolution. It can't be another way, because we owe natural selection for everything we are.
But science actually makes it less meaningful!
No, science is meaning. One hundred percent of it.
But love is magic!
It's better than magic.
How can you look at love and not see importance?
I do.
I now pronounce you...
Also science. And in love, because of science.
When the band sings in one direction to the 12 year old girl
she does not need their love, but she wants it and she's wrong
because thats not love.
People tend to think romantically about romance.
Where's the science behind it?
They don't care. They are too busy caring about their love to actually think.
About love.
But to each their own and that's allright. Love is all you need. But it matters so little.
What matters? Something can only matter to humans. There is no other who would think one more important than another without them being part of the social group. If the universe looked down on us with an unbiased eye, it would not know what love was until is peered over at evolution. It can't be another way, because we owe natural selection for everything we are.
But science actually makes it less meaningful!
No, science is meaning. One hundred percent of it.
But love is magic!
It's better than magic.
How can you look at love and not see importance?
I do.
I now pronounce you...
Also science. And in love, because of science.
Saturday, 13 October 2012
North Pole Penguin Disaster Outline
SETTING:
-2053 CE
-Davis Strait (right in-between Greenland and Baffin Island)
-Small, retired 2020s military aircraft carrier (with 2000 endangered Gentoo penguins, Pygoscelis papua)
Backstory:
In the year 2053, the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica has had devastating effects on the Southern hemisphere's weather, especially at the South Pole. The coldest temperature recorded this decade, the 2050s, is -14.8 °C. This is compared to -89.2 °C in 1983.
As a result of this massive temperature change, Antarctica's icy coast has receded many kilometers. So much melting has occurred that the coast is no longer characterized by the gigantic cliffs of ice it once was. Instead the coast is largely made up of barren rocky beaches, with the ice cliffs beginning just south. With the melting of the ice, many species that depended on it have begun to decline in population size, the penguins included. Most effected by the change is the Gentoo Penguin (Pygoscelis papua). Their population is down from 300,000 mating pairs in 2000, to 8000 pairs in 2049 and still declining. The species is predicted not to last past the end of the century.
Now their is a team of 26 animal conservation activists from around Europe and North America who are willing to do anything to stop the Gentoo penguin from going extinct. They have acquired an old 2020s British military aircraft carrier and have gone south to Antarctica. At the end of the southern hemisphere's winter, the activists collect just under 2000 Gentoos. Against strict international invasive species laws, they plan to bring the penguins to the north pole, where coastal ice is still relatively plentiful.
On the ship, the penguins are kept out in the open on the massive runway deck, fenced in so they don't jump overboard. With enough frozen fish for the whole trip, the activists and their experienced ship captain, along with the penguins, start their transport north. It is late September, and they are expected to arrive at their destination in December.
The story starts in mid November, the ship cruising through the Davis Strait, in between Greenland and Baffin Island, Nunavut.
Plot Summary:
When their captain disappears from the ship in a lifeboat, the penguin conservation activists are left stranded in the north pole's cold winter ice fields, unable to call for help and almost out of food. The main character, the only real scientist onboard, decides to abandon ship with the rest of the activists, in hopes of getting out of the cold and finding food. They all die when the ice suddenly cracks and they fall into the cold water. Meanwhile the penguins start leaving the ship and venture into their new habitat as happy as can be.
Activating Circumstance:
The Captain, and only person onboard with any experience steering a ship and leading a crew, disappears, presumably having left in a lifeboat during the long night. The crew does not know how to continue, but they decide to keep going.
Rising Action:
The crew floats on for a day before they realise they can not continue through the ice. They turn off the engine for the night and start planning their course south. Over night, the ice creeps in around them and they are stuck. After the next three days, the ice has crept over 100 meters south. With no hope of leaving the North Pole on the ship, the activists and crew abandon it. Unfortunately for them, they find the ice to thin to walk on. Almost out of food, they choose to keep going on their stomaches. With as even distribution of their weight as possible (at the suggestion of the main character), they crawl hopefully along the ice and toward land.
Climax:
The ice breaks and they all tragically die.
Denouement:
Back at the ship, the unfed penguins start to funnel down the ramp onto the ice. With plenty of food underneath the ice, they happily begin life in their new habitat.
Conflict:
Man vs. Nature
The activists have failed. They are stuck in the North Pole with none of their electronics working. They have no way to go back, and they need to escape while coming to terms with the fact that they may have doomed the Gentoo Penguin to extinction in one foolish blow.
Atmosphere:
The activists are scared by the disappearance of the only experienced crew member onboard. The atmosphere reflects their stress at having no where to go, nothing to eat, no heat, and to top it off, 2000 penguins to worry about. A feeling of failure is prominent.
Theme:
Personal sacrifices are required in order to best undo the damage we have done during our sacrifice of the planet.
Point of View:
3rd Person, Limited Omniscient Narrative.
Characters:
Protagonist - Jonathan, a zoologist from the United States. He is one of the more prominent of the activists, caring deeply about getting the penguins to their destination, and caring less about the well being of the people onboard. He is extremely disappointed and pessimistic about their chances of success.
Others- random activists, their personalities are unimportant to the story
-Penguins, they are crazy
-2053 CE
-Davis Strait (right in-between Greenland and Baffin Island)
-Small, retired 2020s military aircraft carrier (with 2000 endangered Gentoo penguins, Pygoscelis papua)
Backstory:
In the year 2053, the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica has had devastating effects on the Southern hemisphere's weather, especially at the South Pole. The coldest temperature recorded this decade, the 2050s, is -14.8 °C. This is compared to -89.2 °C in 1983.
As a result of this massive temperature change, Antarctica's icy coast has receded many kilometers. So much melting has occurred that the coast is no longer characterized by the gigantic cliffs of ice it once was. Instead the coast is largely made up of barren rocky beaches, with the ice cliffs beginning just south. With the melting of the ice, many species that depended on it have begun to decline in population size, the penguins included. Most effected by the change is the Gentoo Penguin (Pygoscelis papua). Their population is down from 300,000 mating pairs in 2000, to 8000 pairs in 2049 and still declining. The species is predicted not to last past the end of the century.
Now their is a team of 26 animal conservation activists from around Europe and North America who are willing to do anything to stop the Gentoo penguin from going extinct. They have acquired an old 2020s British military aircraft carrier and have gone south to Antarctica. At the end of the southern hemisphere's winter, the activists collect just under 2000 Gentoos. Against strict international invasive species laws, they plan to bring the penguins to the north pole, where coastal ice is still relatively plentiful.
On the ship, the penguins are kept out in the open on the massive runway deck, fenced in so they don't jump overboard. With enough frozen fish for the whole trip, the activists and their experienced ship captain, along with the penguins, start their transport north. It is late September, and they are expected to arrive at their destination in December.
The story starts in mid November, the ship cruising through the Davis Strait, in between Greenland and Baffin Island, Nunavut.
Plot Summary:
When their captain disappears from the ship in a lifeboat, the penguin conservation activists are left stranded in the north pole's cold winter ice fields, unable to call for help and almost out of food. The main character, the only real scientist onboard, decides to abandon ship with the rest of the activists, in hopes of getting out of the cold and finding food. They all die when the ice suddenly cracks and they fall into the cold water. Meanwhile the penguins start leaving the ship and venture into their new habitat as happy as can be.
Activating Circumstance:
The Captain, and only person onboard with any experience steering a ship and leading a crew, disappears, presumably having left in a lifeboat during the long night. The crew does not know how to continue, but they decide to keep going.
Rising Action:
The crew floats on for a day before they realise they can not continue through the ice. They turn off the engine for the night and start planning their course south. Over night, the ice creeps in around them and they are stuck. After the next three days, the ice has crept over 100 meters south. With no hope of leaving the North Pole on the ship, the activists and crew abandon it. Unfortunately for them, they find the ice to thin to walk on. Almost out of food, they choose to keep going on their stomaches. With as even distribution of their weight as possible (at the suggestion of the main character), they crawl hopefully along the ice and toward land.
Climax:
The ice breaks and they all tragically die.
Denouement:
Back at the ship, the unfed penguins start to funnel down the ramp onto the ice. With plenty of food underneath the ice, they happily begin life in their new habitat.
Conflict:
Man vs. Nature
The activists have failed. They are stuck in the North Pole with none of their electronics working. They have no way to go back, and they need to escape while coming to terms with the fact that they may have doomed the Gentoo Penguin to extinction in one foolish blow.
Atmosphere:
The activists are scared by the disappearance of the only experienced crew member onboard. The atmosphere reflects their stress at having no where to go, nothing to eat, no heat, and to top it off, 2000 penguins to worry about. A feeling of failure is prominent.
Theme:
Personal sacrifices are required in order to best undo the damage we have done during our sacrifice of the planet.
Point of View:
3rd Person, Limited Omniscient Narrative.
Characters:
Protagonist - Jonathan, a zoologist from the United States. He is one of the more prominent of the activists, caring deeply about getting the penguins to their destination, and caring less about the well being of the people onboard. He is extremely disappointed and pessimistic about their chances of success.
Others- random activists, their personalities are unimportant to the story
-Penguins, they are crazy
Friday, 28 September 2012
Physedencaltary: It doesn't matter, sir!
There is not an able bodied person in the world who would choose to live their life free from all physical activity. People tend to be somewhere in the middle, and almost never at the ends, of the physical activity spectrum. If I were to compare myself to elite athletes, I would obviously find myself on the sedentary side of things. But compared to most North Americans, my 15 minutes of bike riding to school, up and down steep hills, would seem like a lot of work. Would I rather take a form of automatic transit? Sure, sometimes, but overall I pride myself on working hard to get to school every morning. Would I rather walk up the stairs or stand idly on the escalator? As it turns out, I like to walk up the escalator, if only to be faster. So where does that leave me?
In my age group, I've notice a growing trend of "working out". Some people are quite modest and do it to take care of themselves, but they are few and far between. I find most guys just want to look good. For them it's not about getting exercise, it's about being attractive. So I don't think I'll be in the gym anytime soon, if only to distance my character from these sillies. The same thing happens with women, though I feel like there is more pressure on girls to stay underweight, so I don't blame them for giving in. Plus, girls don't act all cocky like muscle men do.
As simple as it sounds, I prefer doing what I like to do: science, mostly, and having fun in other ways (I wont turn this into a list). I'm not a great athlete, so playing sports often ends in unhappiness, which is never fun. I have no ideas on how to involve science into physical activity, so I don't. I play video games, but I also play sudoku, which I consider better for me than doing bench presses. I honestly couldn't care less about categorization of activities. My priorities aren't to be physical or to be sedentary, I have other interests and I don't think they fall into either category. If they did, it wouldn't matter to me.
In my age group, I've notice a growing trend of "working out". Some people are quite modest and do it to take care of themselves, but they are few and far between. I find most guys just want to look good. For them it's not about getting exercise, it's about being attractive. So I don't think I'll be in the gym anytime soon, if only to distance my character from these sillies. The same thing happens with women, though I feel like there is more pressure on girls to stay underweight, so I don't blame them for giving in. Plus, girls don't act all cocky like muscle men do.
As simple as it sounds, I prefer doing what I like to do: science, mostly, and having fun in other ways (I wont turn this into a list). I'm not a great athlete, so playing sports often ends in unhappiness, which is never fun. I have no ideas on how to involve science into physical activity, so I don't. I play video games, but I also play sudoku, which I consider better for me than doing bench presses. I honestly couldn't care less about categorization of activities. My priorities aren't to be physical or to be sedentary, I have other interests and I don't think they fall into either category. If they did, it wouldn't matter to me.
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