Ce livre, écrit par Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, est une petite histoire avec le célèbre Sherlock Holmes. La jeune Helen Stoner consulte Holmes à propos d’étranges choses qui se passent dans son château. Elle raconte le meurtre étrange de sa soeur, et les évènements avant et après. Sa soeur se plaignait de pouvoir entendre un sifflement tous les soirs vers trois heures du matin et de sentir la fumée de leur beau père. Helen a été forcée d’emménager dans la chambre de sa soeur par son beau-père abusif, après que des travaux ont commencé dans sa chambre. Maintenant qu’elle aussi entant les sifflements, elle s’inquiète. Sa soeur avait été demandé en marriage juste avant sa mort, et maintenant qu’Helen aussi va se marier, elle a peur de partager le même sort que sa soeur. Holmes passe une nuit dans le château pour trouver le meurtrier, mais arrivera-t-il à l’attraper ?

J’ai bien aimé cette histoire. Il y a de l’intrigue, mais elle est un peu courte, et ceci a un peu gaché le suspense. Étant la première fois que je lis une histoire de Doyle, je ne savais pas trop à quoi m’attendre. J’ai été surprise par la longueur de l’histoire, et un peu déçue aussi, même si l’histoire est bien pensée. Par contre, un peu plus de détails et un peu plus de longueurs aurait rendu cette histoire encore plus intéressante.

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Ecology is the study of the interaction between living things and their environment. The environment of an organism includes the living and non-living factors. For example, a frog’s environment would include the living parts: the flies it eats, the plants it uses as shelter, it’s fellow frogs, etc, and the non-living parts: the water temperature, the amount of minerals, the sun, the humidity. An ecosystem is a group organisms and their environment, i.e. ecology is the study of ecosystems. The earth itself is a great big ecosystem, although not all of it can sustain life. The parts of the earth where life can grow is called the biosphere. The living part of an ecosystem is called the biotic component. The different organisms within that group can then be organised in an other subsection group. There are
1. Producers, which make their own food, e.g. plants
2. Consumers, they feed on other plants and animals, e.g. fox
3. Decomposers, they feed on dead and decaying plants and animals, e.g. fungi
The term abiotic refers to the non living in an ecosystem.

Example of Grazing Food Chain (taken from New Senior Biology)

Example of Detritus Food Chain (taken from New Senior Biology)

The primary source of energy is the sun. All organisms need energy to live. Organisms pass down energy using feeding relationships. The producers absorbe the sun’s energy to make their food. These producers are then eaten by the primary consumers (herbivores), who in turn are eaten by the secondary consumers (carnivores), who are then eaten by the tertiary consumers (top carnivores). We use food chains to describe the feeding relationship and passing down of energy from one organism to the next. An example of a food chain would be: (Sun–>) Grass–> Rabbit–> Fox . The sun is always the beginning of the food chain, but since it always where the producer gets it’s energy, it is not noted when food chains are written.  There are two types of food chains, a grazing food chain and a detritus food chain. The grazing food chain is when a primary consumer eats a live plant, and a detritus food chain is when the primary consumer eats detritus (dead organisms). In nature, food chains can interconnect, and two or more interconnecting food chains are then called food webs.

When the plant (producer) takes in energy from the sun, it is used for food and new cells. However, most of the energy escapes as heat. This means that the primary consumer does not get all the energy, and after a while, the sun’s energy has been completely used. Out of all the energy absorbed by the plant, only 10% is used for growth and food. And when the plant gets eaten, only 10% of the plant’s absorbed energy gets taken in, i.e. animal gets 10% of the 10% of the sun’s energy the plant used for growth and food. This continues, each animal passing down less energy than what they received, until eventually, no more energy can be passed down. This means that food chains cannot contain more than four or five levels. This flow of energy is called trophic levels. In food chains, the further you get, the less organisms there are in the species. There are less animals as you go up because the energy available to the tertiary consumer is less than that available to the producers, i.e. the tertiary consumer doesn’t have enough energy available to produce more of its species, to sustain it’s self it has to eat a lot of secondary consumers, who ate a lot of primary consumers, who as well ate a lot of producers.

References: New Senior Biology, Wikipedia

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Peggy Sue got Married official movie poster.

‘Peggy Sue got Married’ is a movie directed by Francis Ford Coppola in 1986. It stars Kathleen Turner as Peggy Sue, and Nicolas Cage (Coppola’s nephew) as Charlie Bodell. It is the story of 43 year old Peggy Sue, who is in the middle of a divorce with her infidel high school sweetheart, Charlie Bodell. On going to an organised high school reunion, she meets up with her old friends and recalls lots of memories. When Charlie appears at the party, she gets anxious and when she gets elected Queen for the night, she just cannot take any more and she faints. When she wakes up she finds herself in a blood donating infirmary, with a poster stating 1960. She is confused and see’s all her friends and people she knows from high school. After a while she comes to terms with the fact that she may have travelled back in time, and she realises this is a chance for her to start her life over, and to avoid marrying Charlie. However, she finds herself falling in love with him all over again, even with the problems she faces as a teenager.

This movie has a mixed morale of ‘second chances’, and ‘you can’t really change the future’. Peggy Sue tries to help others around her, and most of all, she tries changing her future. I like it firstly because of the late 50′s setting and music, but also because of the actual story. There isn’t much of a plot, just Peggy Sue trying to alter the future using what she knows, but it is still a heartfelt story of love, betrayal, jealousy, music, and a teenager’s problems. There also are many references to Dion and the Belmonts, a group popular during the late 50′s, the main setting for the film. At one point, we are even shown clips of the actual footage of the group performing ‘A Teenager in Love’. There are also some inconsistencies. During the reunion, we are shown a woman in a wheel chair called Rosalie, who doesn’t seem to have a counterpart. This is very confusing, and it may ruin the movie if you are trying to figure where her 1960 counterpart is all through out the movie. In the original script, Rosalie was meant to be a gymnast who was in an accident, putting her in a wheel chair. Peggy Sue was originally meant to try and stop the accident from becoming to help Rosalie. Although when the movie was edited, it left a loose end in the movie that was never explained, which is kind of a shame.

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On an ongoing project of building a Kitchen Timer, there are many things that I do not know what they are or what they are for. Here is a an explanation for four of these things:

My Capacitors

• Capacitor: a capacitor is in a way like a battery. It stores passing energy on a circuit. Unlike a battery, which creates new electrons to store them, a capacitor just stores already existing electrons. Also unlike a battery, a capacitor can completely empty itself within milliseconds. A battery would take at least a few minutes. Capacitors are used in camera flashes because of their ability to charge and decharge quickly. For the flash to be effective, the capacitor gets full, and when the picture gets taken, the capacitor lets all it’s electricity out to create that sudden bright light. A capacitor’s storage can vary and it also depends on the number of volts on the current: a low storage capacitor would be much more efective on a low voltage current, and a high storage capacitor would be better on a high voltage current.
  

  My Integrated Circuit

• Integrated Circuit: an integrated circuit, or most commonly known as a chip, or microchip, is a mini electronic circuit built on a wafer of pure silicon crystals. On top of the wafers are millions or thousands of tiny resistors, transistors and capacitors. They are used in almost all electronic devices and are also in some cars.


My Resistors

• Resistor: resistors restrict the amount of current flowing through a circuit. This could be used for a light, to make the bulb shine brightly, and then to make it dim. Resistors can only ‘resist’ up until a certain number of ohms (SI unit of resistance). To know how much the resistor can stop, colour codes are used. There are bands of colour around the resistors which are used to know each digit in the amount of ohms able to resist. For example, one of the resistors in my kit has the colours: ‘orange’ ‘orange’ ‘brown’ ‘gold’. This should turn out as 3.3 ohms using the colour code here.


My Transistor

• Transistor: a transistor is a device used to 1) amplify or 2) switch electronic currents. 1, when it amplifies, it takes in a feeble, or small, current on one side and transforms it into a stronger, bigger current and it goes out the opposite way it came. It basically boosts up the input current to create a larger output current. 2, when it switches, the small current entering has the ability to allow or deny a larger current from entering the transistor. Basically, the smaller current can turn the bigger current on or off, like a switch.

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Dion and the Belmonts is an American vocal group formed in the late 1950′s. The group consisted of Dion DiMucci, Carlo Mastrangelo, Freddie Milano, and Angelo D’Aleo.
Dion DiMucci is from an Italian-American family in the Bronx. He would gather local singers to sing and he also sang in local clubs. In early 1957, he auditioned for Bob and Gene Schwartz, from Mohawk Records. They recorded him with the Timberlanes and the single ‘The Chosen Few’ was released.

Left to right: Carlo Mastrangelo, Freddie Milano, Dion DiMucci, Angelo D'Aleo

It was a minor regional hit. The Belmonts was a group of doo-wop vocalists. They got their name from Belmont Avenue in the Bronx. The Belmonts first recorded with Mohawk Records, where singer Dion was also recording. Dion joined the group as lead singer and it was then known as ‘Dion and the Belmonts’ in 1957. The new group signed to Laurie Records and their first real breakthrough was from their single: ‘I Wonder Why’, and for the first time, they appeared on American Bandstand. Their success won them their first major tour in 1958. This tour was followed by ‘The Winter Dance Party’, with Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper. There was a special plane for the performers of The Winter Dance Party, but there was a fee of $36, and Dion couldn’t and wouldn’t pay it. After a first show in Clear Lake Iowa, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper headed to the airport and took their special plane to Fargo, North Dakota. Unfortunately, their plane crashed and all three singers, including the pilot, were killed. The tour still continued with replacements. In March 1959, a next single was released by Dion and the Belmonts. ‘A Teenager in Love‘ made #5 in the Billboard Hot 100 and #28 in the UK Singles Chart. This was followed by their first album, ‘Presenting Dion and the Belmonts‘ as well as their biggest hit, ‘Where or When‘, which was #3 on the Billboard Hot 100. In early 1960, Dion was administered to hospital for heroin addiction, apparently since his mid teens. He also had musical and financial disputes with the Belmonts. In October 1960, Dion quit and started a solo career. The Belmonts continued recording, but with less success. The group tried reuniting in 1966, but separated again when their album, ‘Together Again’, was unsuccessful. They sang together again in 1972, for a once-off show, which was recorded and released as a live album. In 2000, Dion and the Belmonts were integrated into The Vocal Group Hall of Fame.

In ‘Peggy Sue got Married‘, there are many references to Dion and the Belmonts. It shows actual footage of Dion and the Belmonts performing ‘A Teenager in Love’, while two characters watch part of the live show on television. There is also a girl saying “Wow! Charlie can really sing! (other girl) Yeah, Maybe he’s gonna be the next Dion and the Belmonts!”, and during that same scene, Charlie sings ‘I Wonder Why’ with his friends, reenacting almost the same performance that the actual group did.

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The ‘Columbus Monument’, or the ‘Monument a Colom’ in Catalan, or the ‘Mirador de
Colón’ in Spanish, is a monument to Christopher Columbus (Christopher Colón in Spanish) in Barcelona. This 60m (197 ft) tall monument was constructed in Barcelona for the Exposición Universal de Barcelona (1888). It was placed in Barcelona as a reminder that it was where Columbus first reported back to Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand after his first trip to new found continent.

The idea to build a big monument came from Antoni Fages i Ferrer, who thought it would be cool if the entire thing was built by Catalans. For sixteen years no one liked his idea, until finally, in 1872, it was accepted by the mayor of Barcelona, Francesc Rius i Taulet, and after nine years, the city finally began plans for the construction, in 1881. For the design of the monument, a big contest exclusively for Spaniards was held and the design submitted by Gaietà Buigas i Monravà (a Catalan) was chosen. All of the funding was from Spanish sources, and most of it was privately raised. Also, the entire construction, labor and materials, was done by Catalans, just as the original person who had the idea wanted it to be. The construction began in 1882 and finished six years later in 1888.

This monument has a statue of Columbus on the top. This statue, 7.2m tall (24 ft), was sculpted from bronze by Rafael Atché. Columbus was meant to be pointing towards the New World, while holding a

scroll in the other hand, but when it was placed on top of a big column to make the monument, he was placed in a different way. He is said to be either pointing out to the sea where he landed to report to Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, or it could be pointing further out towards his home town, Genoa.

There are many other smaller statues representing people related to Columbus, and there are stairs at the base, with four sort of ‘indents’ or entrances, each one flanked by two lions, some standing, others in some sort of crouching/sitting position. There is supposed to be a lift inside the monument which can take up into a viewing platform

just underneath Christopher Columbus, but when I went to see this monument, I didn’t see any open entrances that would lead to a lift. And the column seems pretty thin for an elevator.

Reference:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Monument,_Barcelona,

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Park Güell is in Barcelona, Spain. At first, the plot of land belonged to Count Eusebi Güell, who decided to make an urban park residential area. Güell hired Antoni Gaudí to design the park and the houses were assigned to someone else. Gaudi planned and constructed the park from 1900 until 1914. At first a plan of sixty lots for houses was planned, but Gaudi’s architecture was not appreciated at the time and only two houses were built, one where the Count lived and the other originally a showroom. The showroom was then converted to a house and put on sale, and on the suggestion of Count Güell, Gaudi bought it with his savings and he moved in with his family and father. His house is now a museum on Gaudi’s life. The entrance to the park is free, but the museum demands an entry fee. After the housing estate idea went down the drain, the Barcelona City Council bought the park and converted it to a public park in 1922.

Antoni Gaudi used a technic called trencadis. This is using irregular pieces of broken ceramics, glass, and sometimes bottles, to make a pattern or design. He also used different other unusual techniques using opportunities, such as for the creation of the long serpentine bench on the platform. To make the curves in this bench, Gaudi used the naked posterior of one of his workmen. The workman would sit onto the wet clay, and the curves would be created. In February 2007, a group of adults publicly vandalised the famous ceramic lizard guarding the park entrance. Using a metre long piece of metal, they managed to severely damage the lizard’s head and torso. The group of ‘punks’ were arrested and their intentions have never been known. The lizard was restored back to normal, and a security guard was posted near it to prevent further vandalism.

Unlike most of the pictures available on wikipedia and tourist sites, the park was packed when I visited it. And that was in the middle of February, on a cold cloudy day. Imagine the amount of people in summer on a hot, sunny day. It was hard to get a picture of the world famous lizard. And even the one we managed to get has the elbow of some stranger in it. In certain areas, where there is nothing to see I must add, there was practically no one. In the more famous parts of the park, however, where most of the people went, there were a number of artists playing and performing in hope of a few bucks, some homeless people who settled in the crevices in the walls of the park, and there were also people setting up shop on the floor, selling necklaces and gadgets. But it was still a very interesting and culturally nurturing visit, and it is one of Barcelona’s main tourist attractions, and I couldn’t leave with seeing it.

One thing I enjoyed in the park, were the green parrots hanging around the palm trees. I learned that they are called Monk Parakeets. They are originally from South America, and were probably imported into the park to add to the already overflowing rush of colours. Or they may have escaped from captivity. Since then, they have spread and can be seen everywhere where there is a bunch of palm trees in Barcelona. They have become almost as abundant as pigeons.

Reference: [wiki] [monica's travel blog] [barcelona, spain] [typicallyspanish] Photos all from my voyage, except the vandalised lizard.

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Sagrada Família is a church in Barcelona. It is the world’s most famous unfinished church. It is still being built, and the completion is estimated to be near 2026. The Spiritual Association of the Devotees of St Joseph first promoted the construction of a church dedicated to the holy family in 1874. After receiving generous donations, the Spiritual Association of the Devotees of St Joseph decided to buy a plot of land (surface area of 12,800 m²) for their church project in 1881. The project first went to architect Francisco de Paula del Villar y Lozano. He and his promoters disagreed on many things and he finally resigned. The project was then passed down to Antoni Gaudí. The construction stayed with the original plans, a neo-Gothic style architecture. Things went by steadily due to constant donations, and when Gaudí received a very big anonymous donation, he decided to change the plans a little. First, he changed the size. The newer plans were now huge, and with more themes and statues and towers. Construction continued until Gaudí’s death on the 10 June 1926 (run over by a tram). The church was then passed down from architect to architect, each one continuing Gaudí’s ideas. During the Spanish Civil War, some of the church and the workshop, which had all the plans and papers, were destroyed. After the civil war was over, construction restarted and the church rose again slowly. Ever since then the church has continued to expand and progress. It is known as an expiatory church, meaning it was founded solely on donations. Once certain parts of the church opened for public viewing, and a Gaudí museum was set up inside, entry fees were installed to continue the regular income for the construction of the church. It has become Barcelona’s landmark and finished miniatures of it are sold everywhere in Barcelona. The church is meant to represent the human life of Jesus and the sayings of the gospels. The facades tell each part of Jesus’ life and the ‘soon-to-be’ 18 towers represent Jesus, the Virgin, the 4 Evangelists, and the 12 apostles.

Reference: http://www.sagradafamilia.cat/sf-eng/index.php, http://www.roughguides.com/website/shop/products/Barcelona-DIRECTIONS.aspx

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is a mathematical ratio. It is the ratio between the circumference (length around) of a circle, and it’s diameter. No matter what circumference or diameter a circle has, the ratio will always be Pi. Pi is an irrational number. It never repeats i.e. it has no apparent pattern. It is indefinite, meaning it can never end. Even today some of it’s numbers are not known. As an analogy to see how big and indefinte Pi is, think, that if all the ink in the universe was put together, it still wouldn’t be enough to write down Pi in numerical form.

is the sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, and it literally means ‘p’ (the letter p). Pi has been known since the early egyptians. They did not know everything about Pi, but they knew it was a little more than 3. Archimedes was the first mathematician to really rigorously study Pi. He came up with an approximate value of 3.14185. All through the ages, different versions of Pi appeared but none contained more than ten digits. After the 2nd Millenium AD, Pi got changed and as much as over 200 new digits were found. During the 20th century, Pi calculations became even more precise with the help from computers. In 1949, John von Neumann used ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Intergrator And Computer) to compute 2037 digits, a calculation which lasted 70hrs.

Did you know: The current Guinness World Record of the most digits of Pi remembered belongs to Lu Chao, from China. He recited 67,890 digits in 24hrs and 4 minutes. The rules were no breaks or pauses and with no little more than 15 seconds in between each digit, and no mistakes. In an interview, he claimed he knew 90,000, but he made a mistake on the 67,891st digit, stopping short his record.

Here is a very nice video I found on youtube concerning Pi:

References: [...][...]

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As a sort of experiment, I decided to see how much certain appliances in my house cost my parents. At first, as a control, I unplugged everything and I even switched off the fridge. This is to prevent another thing consuming electricity and compromising the results. On my list of appliances was: 1) the electric kettle, 2) the toaster, 3) all the integrated lights turned on, 4) the projector, sound system, and blu-ray player, (everything needed to watch a movie). I tried each one individually, switching them off as I was finished with them to make sure the next appliance was the only thing consuming. The way I got my results was that I timed myself for one minute and counted how many times I saw the red line (black in my case) on the rotating piece of metal under the numbers indicating the watts consumed. I tried each appliance three times to make sure I got an average and here is what the results looked like:

Here is an average of the rotations:

On the electric meter, it was indicated that 187.5 revolutions (rotations of the line) was equal to 1 kilo watt. This means that if the line revolved 187 and a half times, the numbers on top would be bigger by one unit. To find out how many watts were used in only one turn, I did a simple 3 rule. 1000 watts is equal to 1 kilo watt.

per turn

And then, I calculated how much each appliance used in watts by multiplying the number of watts per rotation with the number of turns I counted for the appliances..

Kettle=

Toaster=

Lights=

Projector and Co.=

I then went on to find out how much it cost money-wise. On a recent electricity bill, I saw the price at:

14.10 cents per kilo watt.

The problem was that my previous calculations weren’t in kilo watts but in watts. Once I had the watts, I had to simply divide by 1000 to convert them to kilo watts, and multiply by the price (14.10 cents) and then convert the price to euros (divide by 100).
Here is a table with the appliance, the number of watts consumed, and the price:

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