This week’s topic is going to be fun, because it can be about anything I want. So I decided to write about two of my favorite topics right now, an odd combo – Photography and Coding.

Actually, in a way they’re related.  I mean, unless you happen to be using film, your camera (whether you’re using a high quality DSLR, a point-and-shoot, or even your phone) is a computer. And for a computer to work, it has to have code. I’m not going to go into a whole lot of detail, because I don’t want to scare anyone off with crazy code and text.  Instead I’m going to talk about why I love to do these things, and why they interest me.

To start off, I want to talk about photography. I first became interested in photography when my mom registered me for an online photography class.  At first, I thought I wouldn’t be any good at it. But once I started turning in my assignments, I realized that I actually have some skill in this area. Soon I began to take better and more intricate pictures.  Believe it or not, taking a picture is only one half of the process I had to do before I presented my photographs in class.  I also had to edit them.  As time went on, I became better and better in this area too.  Eventually, I was no longer taking pictures of blurry or unknown subjects.  I was taking something that looked good and, combined with my skills in photo editing, my pictures were becoming great.  I wasn’t quite the best in my class, not by far.  But I finally knew how to take good pictures.

After I finished my year in photography class, I spent the summer helping my mom take pictures for stuff she was selling, and helped her edit photos.  When the school year started back, I decided to take a course on Photoshop, because I didn’t feel my photo-editing skills were at their finest. I’m still taking that class to this day, and I still love it.  Now I can not only edit photographs, I can actually create them, using some of the powerful tools provided by Photoshop.  It even comes with a 3D file editor.  But I’m beginning to sound like a used car salesman, so I’m going to move on.

The other thing that fascinates me is coding.  Unlike photography, this term could be a bit confusing, so here’s a good definition I stumbled upon.

“Computer programming (often shortened to programming) is a process that leads from an original formulation of a computing problem to executable programs.” ~ Wikipedia

So basically, I like being able to tell a computer what to do, and for it to listen to my commands. The first computer language I started to learn was HTML, a basic website building language.  I learned to edit strings (sentences, words, letters, etc.) and get images, but I never actually learned how to write code in detail, mostly just editing.

But after a year or so, I began to explore a new type of code. This new language, known as Lua (pronounced “Loo-uh”), is oriented around a three dimensional area, aka not just a flat web page, but a virtual reality. This language came easily to me because I knew what objects I was trying to change and move, and I could “see” it with my eyes.

Now, I’ve decided to move on to something more difficult.  To learn this language, I’m taking another class on Lynda.com. Mom calls this hackschooling… 

Hackschooling is a term coined by the homeschooling family of 13-year-old Logan LaPlante and explained in Logan’s speech at a TEDx event in February 2013.  The concept is that education, like everything else, is open to being hacked or improved, not just by working within the current system, but by going outside the educational establishment to find better ways to accomplish the same goals

With this language you can’t see your progress with your eyes, you can only code and see the results when running the program. This language, called Python, is more practical than all other languages I’ve studied, and can be used across multiple platforms. An example of something that uses Python would be a smart phone app. If you’re viewing this on your phone, you may actually be running Python as you read this. Now, I won’t be using it to makes apps just yet, but I’m going to use it to make my Raspberry Pi work. A Raspberry Pi is a miniature computer that can be programmed to do a variety of things, from managing messages to lighting your house, it can do it all.  I’m not quite sure what I’m going to program my Pi to do, but when I do decide I know I’ll make it something great.  And, chances are, mom will make me write an article about it!

I hope you enjoyed learning a bit more about me, and that I’ve gotten you interested in coding and photography too!  Until next week.

~ Chase

The future is always something that people think about, whether it’s what’s for dinner tonight or how the world will look in a thousand years.  So today, I’m going to write about what the future will be like in twenty years.  I might go a little crazy with my imagination, so everything in here might be a BIT far-fetched.  But that’s what I like about this subject, I can take it anywhere I want. To start off, I’ll give a quick overview of what’s happened in the last twenty years, then how life is now. Finally what I think life will be like after twenty years. Oh and one more thing, I will be writing this like a story so keep that in mind while reading.

April 5, 2034

Dear Chase 

“Today, the community of the town La Junange decided to host a community project. Any citizen twenty years or over is eligible to write a letter to themselves, twenty years in the past.  Just a few weeks ago, a scientist on the outskirts of our little town invented the tool that man has dreamed about for years: The Time Machine. The Scientist decided to hold off announcing to the world the news of his discovery, until he had tested it. Hence, the town’s community event. I personally think the idea is absurd, but I thought I might as well give it a try. So, I guess a bit of a history lesson is in order. Since I decided that I’m going to send this to the date 3/23/14, I’ll start my lesson there.  

Nothing of scientific importance happened for the rest of the years 2014 through 2016, but during the year 2017 something extraordinary occurred.  Someone had harnessed a new form of energy, known as Zero Point Energy. This energy was clean, long-lasting, and cost efficient to make. The brilliant scientist who discovered this new energy was Brazilian. The scientist wanted to share this energy with the world so everyone could benefit, but the Brazilian government thought it was a threat, so they kept it a secret.

2018 passed without anyone discovering their little secret, but in 2019, America noticed something was up, and dispatched spies to Brazil. They finally discovered the energy plant there, but not the energy itself. America, eager and curious about this new energy, spent the rest of 2019 trying to negotiate for its recipe, but the Brazilian government wouldn’t negotiate. In the year 2020, America officially declared war on Brazil, saying they were a threat and must be stopped. Word spread to the rest of the world, and soon 130 of the 200 or so countries were declaring war on Brazil. 

In 2022, the war really kicked off. At first, each country took turns fighting for the energy, but eventually nations allied, merged land, and within a year the world had changed its form completely. There were now 10 “Regions” as they were called. Brazil, now a part of the Peruvian Region, encompassed all of South America, Central America, and parts of the US. The fighting continued for three years, and ravished most of the world. 

In 2025, the Peruvian Region now controlled nearly half of the world, and the remaining Regions had merged into one huge Region, known as the Eastern Republic.  The Peruvian Region had merged with several other regions to form the Western Republic. The Western Republic, which controlled all of the Zero Point Energy, was winning the war, when a new power from within arose. At first it was a small group, simply known as The Order, but it grew and eventually managed to get a firm hold in the Western Republic’s government.  On July 21, 2026, The Order took control of the Western Republic entirely. Right after this, on August 2, 2026, the Western Republic halted their attacks and in exchange for peace agreed to give the Eastern Republic the Zero Point Energy recipe.

Eventually, the last remaining countries on the planet merged into one, solid republic, known as Paxia.  It was named from the Latin word for peace.  

Now that the world was finally at peace, science began to move forward, and progress. Soon Paxia was distributing food across the world and rebuilding civilization. Due to the advances in science this process was a lot faster than it would have been, but it still took years. By the year 2028, the world was finally back on track.

But in late 2028, Paxia split back into several of its original forms, but this time peacefully. It split into America, Europe, Africa, East Asia, West Asia, Ocstrailia, the last constituting all islands and countries at sea. Although the names of these countries may seem familiar to you, they are now located in completely different places than they originally were. Science continued to climb in the next six years, and the world prospered.”

I stopped writing for a minute to reflect where I was in my story now. What else would I want myself to know about the future?  I sat in my home in La Junange, thinking about this. During the war, two small cities known as La Grange and Grand Junction had combined to form La Junange. In the background, I heard the Meal Manager beeping, telling me my pre-cooked dinner was ready. You could call the Meal Manager a refrigerator, stove, and oven all compiled into one thing that cooked your meals for you. But that gave me an idea. I then reached for my old fashion writing tool, known as a pencil, and began writing again. 

“That was probably more of a history lesson then you wanted, but it was necessary to tell you about what life’s like now. Today, everything is run off ZPE, or Zero Point Energy. Anyone in the world can use this energy for a small amount of the modern-day currency. It’s similar to what you might call an electric bill, only a lot cheaper. I believe in your time it totals up to about $1.78 a month, but now we use a different form of currency know as Pax, in honor of the former union of countries. But back to the subject at hand… anyone can use ZPE for a few Pax a month. And since everything now runs on ZPE, you can live off about 10 Pax a month. Here are a few of the many new utilities that run off ZPE. The Meal Manager, for one, makes all your meals for you and can replicate all the materials needed. Of course, the traditional way is preferred by a lot of people, but mostly only fancy restaurants can cook food that way. The Mindnet is a new device that allows a user to interface with the internet, but it’s still in the beta testing stage.

As far as life itself goes, not a lot has changed there. I’m sorry to say that people are still people, and are still just as greedy as they were twenty years ago. Although now, we do have better education techniques, more job opportunities, and more safety. The crime rate of the world has been decreased by 50%, and is still dropping.  

So in the end, not much has changed, except the bad things have gone down, and the good things have gone up. But one thing cannot be changed over time, and that’s people. We’re still greedy, we still get angry, we still have bad days, etc. Although this is the case now, I personally hope that one day things will get better.  But I know no matter how advanced we become on the science side, we can’t take the human out of us.“

The next day, I went to the city hall, and turned in my small diary. I waited all day, when finally they called me up to the stand where the Time Machine sat. I carefully sat my book on the stand, and stood back. There was a growing hum, which continued to grow by the second. The Diary began to glow brighter, and brighter, until finally there was a loud pop and a blinding light. When I looked back, the diary was gone.

It was a cold, spring morning in early 2014, and I had just finished my chores.  I was just about to go inside, when I heard a hum, and it began to grow. I turned around, and noticed a light growing on the ground. It grew, and grew, and grew, until there was a loud pop. I looked back, and noticed a book on the ground. I cautiously picked up the book, and opened its cover.  I began reading, it started as follows:

“April 5, 2034

Dear Chase …”

I’m sharing this article with the Middle and High School Blogging Linkup

This one might be a tough question: What would I do if I were an insect? I imagine a lot of people haven’t even thought about it, and neither had I. It took a bit of time to come up with an insect like myself. How does someone liken themselves to an insect in the first place? After thinking about it, I decided I would probably be an ant. I know this sounds a little weird, but in an odd way, I have a lot in common with an ant… all of which I will cover in the paragraphs to come.

First of all, ants are just kinda cool. They have big, vicious, mandibles which sometimes contain certain chemicals that irritates our skin and body. Okay, maybe that part isn’t like me… But this part is… They build highly intricate colonies commonly known as “ant hills”, and I myself love to build stuff as well. I’m not claustrophobic, and actually like small, dim places. This pretty much sums up an ant hill, and I don’t think i would mind living in one much.

A fun fact that I found intriguing about ants is they learn differently from other insects. Most insects learn via imitation, but ants actually possess the ability to “Tutor” younger and less experienced ants, similar to how I tutor my brothers in our American History course, Paths of Exploration. They can also sense when the student ant needs a break, and slows down to let them catch up. On the other hand, when an ant is speeding up behind the tutor ant, they speeds up as well. They also possess the ability to choose what job they do in the colony, so long as it’s the one they’re best at. If a large group of ants are cut off from a food supply for some amount of time, they will actually stop searching and strictly guard and tend the nest.

Here’s another quick and fun fact.  One ant, known as the Pharaoh Ant, actually makes it’s nest inside of a sheet of paper. Believe it or not, It’s about the size of the head of a pen!

On the scientific side, my taxonomy would be completely different from that of a human. My new taxonomy would be as follows: Kingdom Animalia, Phylum Arthropoda, Class Insecta, Order Hymenoptera, and Family Formicidae. All organisms within this taxonomy are classified as ants. This is very different from that of a normal human, which ends up in Family Hominidae.  

Although ants can be very interesting, they’re more often than not, considered pests. This is mostly because of their painful sting, but there are other things about them that are undesirable. Something I suspect almost everyone knows about is that ants are attracted to food. If you have a lot of ants in your area then you’re very familiar with this.  To prevent ants from getting your food, simply put it in a plastic bag when your done with it.

I hope you enjoyed reading this somewhat odd post, and in the process learned a little bit more about ants, how they think, and that in general they’re worth the trouble they sometimes cause.

If you are a tween / teen and like to write, join us for the Middle / High School Creative Writing linkup each Monday!