Post a Paper, Educate a Pavilionite!

[Starba]

Hey there! Welcome to the Post a Paper topic, designed specifically to help give other pavilionites a broader understanding of who we all are and what we're interested in outside of pop culture and current events. Think of it as something of a "Wikipedia for the Pavvy Soul." The idea is this:

1) Post a paper you wrote in high school or college (or an article for a publication) on a topic you found particularly fascinating at the time you wrote it. It doesn't have to epitomize you or your major, just be something you're proud of.

2) I'm not trying to provoke any heated arguments here, so balanced research papers (or articles) are preferable to editorials/opinion papers. Strong opinions about a topic are allowed, just make sure they're well-supported and not directed specifically at a person or person(s) who posts here.

3) There's no limit on length, but be aware that you want to post something that will hold other people's attention, or they won't read it. If it's a 20+ page final paper, make sure it's a darn good one.

4) If your paper has a lot of information that would only be understood in the context of the class you wrote it (or your major), consider making a preface to explain certain lingo.

5) Have fun! This isn't a topic about comparing egoes or wearing your intelligence on your sleeve, just sharing who we are and what we're interested in, and maybe teaching people some trivia they didn't know before.

I'm looking forward to reading what you've got!

[altoecko]

Re: Post a Paper, Educate a Pavilionite!

The Beatniks: Reason for Revolution
America just came home from fighting the war to end all wars. Good military boys who served their country received scholarship-like loans that they never had to pay back. They got the cushy jobs and everyone was happy. Jazz musicians play their music for the lower people, the down and out, the Beat. Mezz Mezzrow publishes his auto-biography, Really the Blues, in 1946 using terms such as “dead beat” or “beat-up” (Mezzrow Really the Blues). This is the first popular use of the term; it would not be the last. Beatniks, as coined by Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle as a derisive term to refer to the beats, i.e. members of the Beat Generation (this was a play off the name of the Russian satellite Sputnik), were starting to emerge into a Father-Knows-Best social scene that did not want them there. Heroes of the Beatniks decided to find their place in America’s way of life and forever planted themselves in history. Beatniks did not hate other Americans and often at times accepted the beliefs of their fellow Americans with a happy notion. Beatniks did however support radical beliefs both religiously and politically. Perhaps the most memorable thing about Beatniks was their participation in the arts. Going by stereotypes Beatniks played Jazz music, painted for a living, and read poetry to anyone willing to listen. There is truth to all stereo-types, that’s the reason they’re stereotypes. Being stereotyped seems to be what Beatniks were good at. By the middle of 1959, it seemed as though you could hardly open a magazine without encountering a photograph or a caricature - in the fashion department as much as in the feature pages - of the typical beatnik: loose-fitting hooped T-shirt, beret, goatee beard, sunglasses, poetry book in hand; for chicks, subtract the beard and add deep fringe and heavy eye make-up.
Beatniks were counter-culture, they did not want to be such, but in a Father-Knows-Best state of mind the American people could do nothing but claim them as such. Life took the anti-Americanism encrypted in the Soviet-sounding suffix more to heart than most other magazines. In September 1959, Life ran a feature entitled "Squaresville USA vs Beatsville". It was prompted by the news that three teenage girls in the Midwestern town of Hutchinson, Kansas, had sent an invitation to Lawrence Lipton, author of the recently published Holy Barbarians, an account of beatnik life in Venice, California. When word went round Hutchinson that the place was on the brink of invasion by beatniks, a parents' revolt took place, and they called in the law. A spokesman for the police department told Life that a beatnik was someone who ""doesn't like work, any man who doesn't like work is a vagrant, and a vagrant goes to jail around here"". Lipton was hastily uninvited, and the trio of girls who had innocently contacted him had their “Americanness” “protected” by being ""whisked away to seclusion by their distressed parents"". Before they disappeared, the journalist from Life elicited a quote from one of them, Luetta Peters: ""We know beatniks aren't good"", she said, ""but we thought they just dressed sloppy and talked funny. Now we know that they get married without licenses and things like that."”(Life September, 1959) The Beatnik heroes were those on the outside, from the openly homosexual novelist William S. Burrough who wrote the book Naked Lunch and other provocative novels, to the poet Allen Ginsberg who wrote the poem “Howl” which used homosexuality and a lot of 4 letter words to describe how he saw the current state of America, post-WWII. Perhaps the funniest hero of all the Beatniks is the “American Poet” Walt Whitman. Whitman wrote poetry expressing America as a glorious beacon of democracy and is/ was accepted as a very patriotic poet, even by the Father-Knows-Best social crowd. Taking time to read Whitman’s poetry will soon reveal to you that he was a Beatnik far before his time. He wrote of all the things that Beatniks wanted: equality for all colors, sexual preferences, and religious creeds. Poems such as “A Leaf for Hand In Hand” showed Whitman’s hope for equality the likes the Beatniks of the 1950’s would be proud of. Being an open homosexual, Whitman would fit into the Beatnik crowd even more. Jack Kerouac, another Beatnik hero, said the term beat meant: “poor down and out, on the bum, sad, and sleeping in subways” (Jack Kerouac The Lower East Side 1956). Over shadowed by the “glorious” state of America at the time, no wonder they were considered counter-culture.
The arts aspect of Beatnik life was widespread, perhaps even more widespread than the Beatniks themselves. Wealthy Beatnik and musician Laurence Ferlinghetti funded the magazine The Lower East Side that spread poetry, novels, and art from the place the very magazine derived its name. The Lower East Side is a neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is situated alongside the East River from about the Manhattan Bridge up to 14th Street. On the west it is roughly bounded by Broadway (Wikipedia the Lower East Side). Many Beatniks lived in community homes together where most all income came from selling artwork or perhaps selling drugs. Drugs were an integral part of most beatniks’ lives. Beatniks “were new bohemian libertines, who engaged in a spontaneous, sometimes messy, creativity.” (Wikipedia Beat Generation) creativity which they used to fund their parties and simple lifestyles. Music, also a very central part to any Beat life, was mostly characterized by Jazz music though towards the end of the Beat Generation’s time span(the 1960’s) the musical aspects of Beatniks expanded to include music in the likes of Bob Dylan and other free-form singer song writers. Beatnik paintings such as “Untitled, No Date.” By B.G. Ferguson were almost always abstract and often times made little sense. The few pieces of art that were not abstract and portrayed actual people portrayed them in very perverse manners.
Being the one of the first large popular groups of Atheism within America,
Beatniks’ religious beliefs could be described as only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Beatniks believed in self-expression in every sense of the word, this was the most important thing to any Beatnik, if something stifled the self-expression of Beatniks then they would speak of it’s evils using more self-expression. Homosexuality and Bisexuality ran rampant throughout the community, if you cared to express your love for another human of the same sex the Beatniks believed in more power to you. Beatniks did not believe in violence or confrontation of any sort, this being one of the larger signs that Beatniks were the predecessors to the Hippies. Beatniks did not perhaps believe in protesting their beliefs, if there were any large scale pickets carried out by Beatniks, they were never covered by the popular press to any great extent. Beatniks did not see a difference in color either, whether you were black, white, red, or yellow you were still a human to them and deserved to be treated equally no matter what your color. The Father-Knows-Best social scene of the time shunned sexual freedom or anything perverse from their idealistic view of the “norm” so moving in a wild manner was an outrage, often at times Beatniks expressed themselves while reading poetry by their rhythm rather than their words making them even larger enemies to popular opinion. Demystification of laws that “The Man”, an affectionate name for the Father-Knows-Best way of thought followers, had made was another hope for Beatniks, laws such as the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act which made Marijuana illegal and highly fineable.
Beatniks, being on the outside, were counter-culture for their radical beliefs at the time. Counter-culture, a culture with lifestyles and values opposed to those of the established culture (Dictionary.com Counter-culture), may not always be a bad thing. Sometimes culture needs to change and we need only a select few to get the gears in motions. The Beatniks lived in an odd time of America and did not like what they saw. Beatnik heroes did not throw great rallies, or write wonderful speeches, they stayed at home and partied, perhaps that’s all they really should have done. Beatniks wrote books, played music, and recited their poetry, they just took it easy and asked for the world to change. The world did change, whether by their hands it’s not certain, but Beatniks played a part. They played it expressing themselves in every way they thought they should. Change is inevitable, the Beatniks knew this and enjoyed every moment of it. Money, popular opinion, or even God isn’t needed on a side to win a war, the Beatniks knew this and preached it well.

EDIT - Woah, paragraphs fall to pieces in translation.

[Manyak]

Re: Post a Paper, Educate a Pavilionite!

I bet you're just too lazy to do your homework.

[Jamos' Old Account]

Re: Post a Paper, Educate a Pavilionite!

This topic would probably do better in the imaginari forum.

[Starba]

Re: Post a Paper, Educate a Pavilionite!

This topic would probably do better in the imaginari forum.

I dunno, I think it's kind of ambiguous, considering it's based on non-fiction rather than creative works. The structure is a little unorthodox, but I don't know if that means it doesn't belong here. Up to the mods, though.

Altoecko:

The beatniks are something I never really knew much about, thanks for posting that! What made you decide to write about that specific topic?

[altoecko]

Re: Post a Paper, Educate a Pavilionite!

We had to pick a a culture in history to write about and I've always loved the Beatniks. They were just plain cool.

[Sejon]

Re: Post a Paper, Educate a Pavilionite!

I have like...one essay that I could post at some point, and that was from sixth form (preparatory college). All my essays from high school were written with pen and paper -- no Belizean school would require you to work on the computer when not even the school had any computers, much less the students . Which means they've all probably been thrown away by now.

[Starba]

Re: Post a Paper, Educate a Pavilionite!

I have like...one essay that I could post at some point, and that was from sixth form (preparatory college). All my essays from high school were written with pen and paper -- no Belizean school would require you to work on the computer when not even the school had any computers, much less the students . Which means they've all probably been thrown away by now.

Haha, whatever works. Essays for publications are good, too, so if you're a writer/reporter an online magazine and have an interesting piece done for them, that's cool, too.

[Loki]

Re: Post a Paper, Educate a Pavilionite!

Gates of Heaven

“Any day with a dog is a special day.”
-Anonymous 3rd grader from a standardized test essay-

“I knew love; I knew this dog”
-anonymous plaque at Bubbling Well Pet Memorial Park-

A close friend of mine spent some time as a grader of standardized test for 3rd graders in Arizona a few years back. The kids were asked to "write about your favorite way to spend a day.” Later, for fun, the graders would pick their favorite lines from these essays, write them on sticky notes, and place them on the wall for everyone’s enjoyment. These quotes ranged from the bizarre and nonsensical “funflute” to the profound “any day with a dog is a special day.” Though these quotes were not to be taken from the grader’s room my friend smuggled them out so that these children’s wisdom would not be lost. She shared them with me and we had a great laugh, but “any day with a dog” struck a cord with me, and I have always remembered it sense.

It came to me profoundly during the climax of “Gates of Heaven” (Errol Morris, 1980) which consists of a montage of grave markers at the Bubbling Well Pet Memorial Park. These markers showed the same insight that the 3rd grade child did when he wrote about his special day with a dog. Each of these markers are private, deep, declarations of love towards their pets. “I knew love; I knew this dog,” reads one of the plaques. And in it lies the sentiment that is the focus of “Gates of Heaven,” a documentary centering around two pet cemeteries and about the people, places, and philosophies that are tied to them. “From the beginning, I would always object when people would say, "It's the pet-cemetery movie." No, no, no, no! It's not about pet cemeteries. And the next question is always, ‘If it's not about pet cemeteries, what is it about?’ Well, that's tricky!” (Murray) said Errol Morris in an interview with The Onion’s AV Club.

“Gates of Heaven” was Errol Morris’ first movie. In the late 70’s Morris hadn’t accomplished much in his life. He had graduatiated from The University of Wisconsin with a B.A. in history and failed out of graduate school at Princeton University and Berkeley. During this time he discovered his love of film and spent many hours at the Pacific Film Archive. At this time he conceived of the idea of making a movie about the serial killer Ed Gein. During this time Morris befriended Werner Herzog but proved unsuccessful at finishing the movie. His next project was to write a script about Vernon, Florida but was interrupted when he saw the headline “450 Dead Pets To Go To Nappa” in the San Francisco Chronicle. Intrigued, Morris left for California where he would film “Gates of Heaven.” (Wikipedia, 2006)

“Gates of Heaven” is unique in two primary regards. First in it’s composition of shot and second in it’s portrayal of it’s subject. The shot composition is very formal. Morris rarely moves the camera and chooses to shot his subjects in the center of the frame, at eye level, strait on. This gives his interviews a very formal feel. However the interviews are very intimate. Morris is never in the movie, there is no narration, and we never hear Morris ask any questions. All that is presented is what the subjects of his movie have to say. “Gates of Heaven” is composed of monologues told by people who have some connection with two pet cemeteries. The first, run by Floyd McClure, was closed from lack of funding and the pets their were moved to the Bubbling Well Pet Pet Memorial Park. The movie starts with McClure and the moves to Bubbling Well to interview the Harbert family who runs the park. In between the two halves is a long, unbroken shot of Florence Rasmussen, an old woman who lived across from Flyod’s cemetery. Despite establishing and scenery shots, a few inserts, and one funeral. The movie is composed of a person, sitting in front of the camera, and talking.

The camera doesn't seem intent on capturing special "moments," or on recording people in action. In fact, there is little or no dramatic action (the most dramatic shot is of a young man mowing a lawn), no shaky, blurred or grainy images, no abrupt zooms, nothing is clumsily framed -the film has none of the usual signature shots of the documentary. (Covino)

In addition to the precise framing, the interviews are conducted in meticulously constructed sets. One gets the impression that these are the subject's’ homes and offices, but they’ve been orangized to create the most optimal scene. This creates a sense of artificiality not present in other documentaries, but some how, seems to contain more truth than if Morris had filmed the rooms as they originally looked.

A film like Gates of Heaven, which does not make a show of its "naturalness," achieves a far more startling degree of realness. The film lacks the usual shock absorbers. Despite its rigor, despite its formalism, despite its posing, despite its artificiality, despite all these things, Gates of Heaven overwhelms the viewer with the sheer, incredible horror of life as it often is in the quietest, most everyday moments. (Covino)

The one shot in the film that doesn’t look like it was formally composed is the one of Florence Rasmussen. She sits, framed, in the door way of her house, which seems to be falling down around her. “She paints the details in quick, vivid sketches and then contradicts every single things she says. Morris recalls that he photographed her just where and as he found her.” (Ebert)

The interview with Rasmussen is a perfect example of how “Gates of Heaven” portrays it’s subject. Rasmussen gives one long, unbroken speech that rambles from subject to subject. It starts with her talking about a cat that doesn’t show up any more and moves through her life story. She laments the fact that her son doesn’t visit her anymore and owes her money, but also pities him and his divorce from a “hussie.” I can just imagine Morris, ecstatic, when he asked her a question about the cemetery she lived across and instead got this rambling account. Rasmussen’s story is real and full of truth. That’s what Morris got out of his subjects. They speak in a raw version of English about their feelings and philosophies and have a simple elegance that gets right to the heart of the matter. Consider the owner of a rendering plant. His interview is cut into McClure’s. McClure grew up around a rendering plant and hated it deeply. His life long dream of owning a pet cemetery comes from the fact that he sees rendering plants as “the floors of hell.” (Gates) The interview with the owner of the plant is one of the most funny in the movie. This is a man who can’t understand why people see him as evil. He doesn’t get why a secretary would quit the job because she can’t stand what the company does, or why he has to lie to people about taking the animals from the local zoo after they die. What is most important about this interview is how it gets to the core of him. We know exactly who this guy is. Why may not like him, or find him outrageous, but we know who he is. Morris achieves this with every person he interviews in the movie.

Another case of this depth that “Gates of Heaven” achieves is that of Philip Harbert. He is the son of the owner of Bubbling Well. He once was a sales manager for an insurance company but is now working under his younger brother taking care of the landscape. In all of his interviews he talks about the skills he learned as a salesman. About positive motivation, and dynamic planning. In one seen he is surrounded by his trophies. At first this seems like an unlikely setup until he explains that when interviewing new hires he would set up his trophies like this to inspire the applicant. He seems upbeat and content in his new life, but one can’t watch him for but a few minutes without seeing that he is a sad, lonely, and self delusional man. We known him better, perhaps, than he knows himself. This is what Morris’ film accomplishes. It gets to the truth of these people. Who they are, what they want, what they fear, and what they believe. It suggests that these people are typical too. That people everywhere are simple, complex, bizarre, insane, and full of untold depths. Or as Morris puts it “the fundamental belief that if you scratch the surface of any person, you will find a world of the insane, very close to that surface.” (Murray)

What “Gates of Heaven” did with this formalistic, artificial composition
and probing, almost mocking (says Morris of criticisms that his film is making fun of these people: “I find many of them ludicrous, but it doesn't mean I don't like them, or feel sympathetic with them, or compelled by them in some way. Quite the contrary.” (Murray)) portrayal of it’s subject was create a new kind of documentary. Before Documentaries sought to portray their subjects in an unobtrusive way. That documentary should always be shown as reality with no artificiality seemed to be the golden rule, thought this was seldom the case. Even in Nannok of the North was their artificiality. Nanook’s igloo was rebuilt to accommodate the camera. But until “Gates of Heaven” that artificiality had to be hidden and the documentary was to be unfiltered truth. “Where the cinema-verite documentary hoped to film human subjects without affecting their behavior, Morris openly acknowledges the role of the filmmaker. From beginning to end of this desolating yet mordantly funny film we are aware of a presiding directorial presence.” (Berger) Morris doesn’t subscribe to the idea that documentaries are journalism. He believes that it is more important to enter the mental landscape of the subject. To show how people see themselves and the world they live in, not just show the people living in the stark, factual world of journalism. “You owe your subjects and yourself the responsibility to tell not so much a balanced story as an interesting story. You owe it to them to take their story seriously," Morris said in an interview with Bill Kurtz of the Christian Science Monitor, “I like to think that I'm very subjective, with a clear objective element." (Kurtz) What Morris did for the documentary is open it up to a way of telling stories though impossible before. Here is an subjective camera filming people and coming out with something that maybe more unsubjective that if it had been filmed through traditional means. “I had tremendous difficulty editing the movie, because there was no principle for editing that kind of thing. I don't think that it's even clear now how radically different that movie is from other movies.” (Murray)

This artificiality came to be known as Morris’ style. In his movie “The Thin Blue Line” (Morris, 1988), which argued the case of an alleged murder, there are reenactment scenes that are fully artificial. Thought the movie was praised for being compelling and socially conscious it was also criticized for being too artificial. That there was no place for reenactments in a documentary, and that it gave birth to daytime trash TV that used reenactments to blur the line between reality and fiction. Morris techniques have raised important questions: is there any film that documents the truth or, by nature, are all films subjective? Can any one film detach itself from the motivations of the filmmakers and just document life? Is such a pursuit even worthwhile? I’m reminded of the criticisms of Michael Moore’s two movies “Bowling for Columbine” (Moore, 2002) and “Fahrenheit 9/11” (Moore, 2004). Though these films were praised by some, others felt that they were far to biased and that they only showed things from Moore’s point of view. This always struck me as ridiculous. Of course they only show things he wants to show. The films are his arguments about social problems. The strive not to be unsubjective but to convince a viewer to see things Moore’s way. Does this mean that they are not documentaries though? And if they’re not, are Morris’ movies? And if not his, can any documentary ever made be considered such? Or can a documentary, like Morris’ movies show, be more than just a unsubjective shot of someone who pretends the camera isn’t there? I think so.

There is a famous story that Werner Herzog told Morris that if he ever finished a film he would eat his shoe. After seeing the premier of “Gates of Heaven” Herzog did just that and it is documented in the movie “Werner Herzog Eats his Shoe.” (Blank, 1980) Thus was the bringing of an illustrious career for Morris. After “Gates of Heaven” he went on to make many excellent documentaries “The Thin Blue Line”, “Fast, Cheep, & Out of Control” (Morris, 1997), “Mr. Death” (Morris, 1999), and “The Fog of War” (Morris, 2003) which one the academy award for best feature documentary in 2004. In “Fog of War” Morris used a device he invented called the Interriotron, which allows the interviewer and the interviewee to maintain eye-contact through the lens of the camera. (Wikipedia) This allows Morris to maintain the illusion that the subject is talking to the camera while still having a full conversation with them. So while Morris had changed what a documentary was in 1980, he changed how it was filmed in 2003.

“Gate of Heaven” remains an important landmark in the history of film. It’s formal presentation and unsubjective filming of an unusual and deep subject changed what documentaries could be. It is important milestone making a move away from cinema verte. It is the first in a series of important and strange movies from an unique and strange filmmaker.

The appearance of an original talent in the arts frequently conforms to a pattern. Simply put, the newcomer presents us with a work, which defies nearly every criterion in the established canon of taste. The new work - like a new theory of light or matter - abruptly makes its predecessors appear inelegant, clumsy, misguided. (Berger)

This is what Morris did with “Gates of Heaven.” It made everything that came before seem outdate and wrong, it showed us the depths of a person that lies just under the surface, it showed us the profound truths in a gave plaque, or a child’s statement that “everyday with a dog is a special day.”



Bibliography

Berger, Alan. “Impertinent 'Heaven' probes pet cemeteries.” Boston Herald American, 20 March 1981.

Covino, Michael. Gates of Heaven. Film Quarterly 33 n3: 47-50.

Ebert, Roger. 2002. The Great Movies. New York: Broadway Books.

Gates of Heaven. Directed by Errol Morris. 85 min. MGM, 1980. DVD.

Kurtz, Bill. “Looking Through the Lens of a Groundbreaking Director.” Christian Science Monitor Vol. 92 Issue 27 (1999): p17

Murray, Noel. 2005. Interview: Errol Morris. The Onion, September 14, sec. B.
Wikipedia. 2006. Errol Morris. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Errol_morris (accesed 5-5-06).

[Starba]

Re: Post a Paper, Educate a Pavilionite!

Loki:

What a powerful essay! I did see "The Fog of War" a year or so ago, but I didn't notice that it was employing a new filming technique for a documentary. Still, it was an amazing way to tell a biography, by having the subject basically narrate and direct where it was going. I could hear the glee in the voice of the interviewer, too.

What class did you write this for? Was it an important course in your major, or just a subject you found fascinating?

[Loki]

Re: Post a Paper, Educate a Pavilionite!

It was for Film History II- Sound Film, and yes it was for my major. This was my final paper for the class and I got a C+ and I don't know why.

[The Toecutter]

Re: Post a Paper, Educate a Pavilionite!

Here's something rather basic from a Digital Logic class I had 2 years ago:


Objective:

The objective is to design a digital lock in VHDL and implement it on a CPLD board, and examine its operation.

Design:

The device was a digital lock designed in VHDL(See page 6). It made use of four D flip flops, for having up to 16 possible states, 4 of which went unused. For the lock to become unlocked, a correct combination of buttons must be pressed. If the wrong combination is entered, an alarm sounds. The lock has two built-in features, being a capability to reset the lock from any combination of buttons pressed, and a capability to deactivate the alarm. Both of these features are activated if a sequence of two buttons are pressed. A state table(page 3) and state diagram(page 5) are included for reference. Then a 7-segment decoder was used to display whether the lock was on, off, or in the alarm state(See page 10).

Procedure:

VHDL was used to write the architecture for the digital lock. It was then compiled in VHDL and simulated for a series of input combinations(See page 12 for simulation.). The combinations were X1-X0-X2-X0, X1-X2-X2, X1-X1-X2-X2, X2-X1-X2-X2, X0-X2-X2, X0-X1-X2-X2, X2-X1-X2-X2, X1-X0-X2-X2, X2-X2-X0-X2, X2-X1-X0-X2, X1-X0-X1-X2-X0-X2, X1-X0-X2-X1-X2-X1-X0-X0-X0-X2, and X2-X1-X0-X2-X0-X1-X1-X0-X2. The design was then tested on a CPLD board.

Data:

[Present State]...[Input]...[Next State]...[Output]
[A...B...C...D]...[Xa...Xb...Xc]...[A...B...C...D]...[L...A]

[0000]...[001]...[0101]...[10]
[0000]...[010]...[0001]...[10]
[0000]...[100]...[0101]...[10]

[0001]...[001]...[0010]...[10]
[0001]...[010]...[1000]...[10]
[0001]...[100]...[0110]...[10]

[0010]...[001]...[1010]...[10]
[0010]...[010]...[1010]...[10]
[0010]...[100]...[0011]...[10]

[0011]...[001]...[0100]...[10]
[0011]...[010]...[1011]...[10]
[0011]...[100]...[0000]...[10]

[0100]...[001]...[0000]...[00]
[0100]...[010]...[0000]...[00]
[0100]...[100]...[0000]...[00]

[0101]...[001]...[1000]...[10]
[0101]...[010]...[1000]...[10]
[0101]...[100]...[0110]...[10]

[0110]...[001]...[1010]...[10]
[0110]...[010]...[1010]...[10]
[0110]...[100]...[0000]...[10]

[0111]...[001]...[1011]...[11]
[0111]...[010]...[1011]...[11]
[0111]...[100]...[0000]...[11]

[1000]...[001]...[1010]...[10]
[1000]...[010]...[1010]...[10]
[1000]...[100]...[1001]...[10]

[1001]...[001]...[1011]...[10]
[1001]...[010]...[1011]...[10]
[1001]...[100]...[0000]...[10]

[1010]...[001]...[1011]...[10]
[1010]...[010]...[1011]...[10]
[1010]...[100]...[1011]...[10]

[1011]...[001]...[0111]...[11]
[1011]...[010]...[1011]...[11]
[1011]...[100]...[1011]...[11]
See page 6 for the results of the simulation to compare table with.

Data Analysis:

The printout data for each item tested matched the expected results. The digital lock, which was tested on a board, matched its simulation results exactly for each given set of inputs. This shows that the data was completely accurate and that the hardware was properly functioning. However, without an additional VHDL code given by the instructor, the display would not have worked correctly.

Conclusion:

The conclusion is that VHDL can effectively be used to design a finite state digital device based on the state diagram of the device itself.

[hitogoroshi]

Re: Post a Paper, Educate a Pavilionite!

Well, lucky for you guys, our science teacher made us write short research papers, caring more about the research done, so this is a simple one.

Nanocrystal Solar Panels: The future’s energy

Introduction

Solar panels are great inventions, harnessing the one kilowatt/m2 that the sun provides. However, solar panels are not yet practical to use for large scale applications. Could the new technology of nanocrystals be combined with solar panels to create a new and more efficient form of energy? If so, we could drastically reduce our oil dependency with a fuel source that is harmless to the environment.

Background Information

Currently, solar panels are made with semiconductor material. This requires expensive equipment and temperatures of several hundred degrees centigrade. When you figure out the cost of a solar panel over its lifetime, it’s roughly 40 cents per kilowatt hour: and with recent power bills averaging around 8 cents per kilowatt hour, solar panels are still much more expensive then using conventional power sources. In addition, the average solar panel can achieve only 20% efficiency. Efficiency is how much of the suns energy is the panel is actually utilizing.
Nanocrystals are primarily measured in the metric unit nanometers, or nm, which are 1 billionth of a meter. Nanocrystals are very small: in fact, atoms have been entrapped in nanocrystal cages as small as three nanometers wide!

Science/Technology Research

A key experiment in determining the viability of nanocrystal solar panels was performed by Ilan Gur of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. As semiconducting plastics are expensive to make and break down over time, Gur’s team made a similar solar cell out of durable, inorganic materials: namely, nanocrystals. While the efficiency of Gur’s solar cells is too low for them to be used, Stanford University materials scientist Michael McGehee states, “It opens the door for printing solar cells made with inorganic materials.”
Another experiment at Berkeley by W.U Huynh proves Michael was absolutely right. By using a special compound, they managed to get extremely minute control between the actual nanocrystals and the solar cell elements, from micrometers down to nanometers. In fact, one test showed efficiencies as high as 59%.
Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have also discovered that making nanocrystal solar panels out of lead and selenium can double the output over conventional solar panels. This is done using a process called carrier multiplication, enhanced by impact ionization, where the excess energy that is formed when a semiconductor absorbs a proton is transferred to another electron, rather then being wasted as heat. Although carrier multiplication has been known to science for decades, it was inefficient until impact ionization was discovered. Although the scientists have not yet built a working PbSe solar cell, they were the first to discover Impact Ionization.

Conclusion
So, solar panels seem like a great idea, but when you factor in the high cost of production, and the low efficiency, you’ve got an equation for disaster. Yet nanocrystals handle both of these problems nicely. Mostly importantly, they are incredibly cheap to produce, making them a much more attractive alternative to currently used semiconductors. They are stable, and as an added bonus, the use of carrier multiplication with impact ionization can give them incredibly efficiencies.
With oil dependency and global warming such major problems, you wouldn’t expect the answer to be measured in billionths of a meter. Yet nanocrystals have a wide variety of uses in the energy industry, from solar cells in windows and even fabrics, to cells that can take energy from not just the sun but any light source. And while these may still be prototypes, the standard solar will obviously not be standard for much longer.

[Valkysas]

Re: Post a Paper, Educate a Pavilionite!

I have a very special essay I want to post, I just gotta find it first.

[The Toecutter]

Re: Post a Paper, Educate a Pavilionite!

When was this written?

Solar power is now down to $.16/kWh, been below $.20/kWh since 2001, even factoring in costs of energy storage and inverter. Your typical nuclear plant charges roughly that amount.

That $.40/kWh is usually the figure quoted if you only use them for 10 years. But they last much, much longer than that. Sets from the 1970s are still delivering 80% of the power that they used to.