Futures Pitch Document - Development

In this section i will be showing all the development work leading up to the creation of my futures pitch document, all sketches ideas and thoughts will go here.



i will begin with a little bit about my game, the genre and IP etc. and then move onto sketches and example work.

IP Opportunity statement

My IP Opportunity is the theme of ‘Time’ combined with the ‘Bones’

My ip will consist of several themes picked up on during my research which I deem interesting and so do others.

The game choice I have decided on is one about none other than voodoo priest dinosaurs resurrecting their friends through bones and fossils.

Game Genre

The genre is a very basic side on plat former, which involves puzzles and fun mechanics to get the children involved with the onscreen action, and also teach them at the same time.

Specification for target Audience

Just like a lot of children’s games this is a very bright and colourful game to attract them to it.

The main target audience is children, with the main aim of teaching them while they are playing a video game, which attracts not just the children, but the parents.

The game teaches kids about science and history, and can be adapted easily to teach other subjects just by changing the subject matter involved.

we had a futures pitch presentation today here are my prsentation posters for the presentation itself.

Poster one the main poster. no info on the poster just a picture to draw in the view (note, its to dark already im not impressed)

here was a really surreal set of ideas that i had for my front page. it will still however scare the hell out of kids and will put mothers off buying the game. i like it thought ill keep it for myself!

Poster two. this poster is the story, usps, all the info needed to know about the game.

a couple of drawings that i did to show what i want in the game. I.E characters and enemies.

FEEDBACK RECIEVED: the poster is too scary and dark for a childrens game, and the idea of bones on a game is a little stupid for a childrens game, would a parent or teacher allow their children to use a game themed on bones.

a thougth on the title aswell, instead of "yoo doo Voodoo" an idea that was given was "yoo doo Doodle" which is a more interactive idea and concept which allows children to actually colour and play with the dinosaurs/characters in the game making it more unique and each childs game is different.

oh and the background sucks, find a new one, still green and grassy all that nature stuff!

a couple of example pages now. created for the pitch itself, as just a test, does it look good together? there is a new background etc.

this is the specification for the target audience page, its a little wordy but has games at the bottom which have been done in this style, a fun game that allows children to learn and play at the same time, and they invovle some of the childrens favourite characters

a look and feel page here, adapted from my presentation as i liked the lower level layout of it. its bright and colourful and shows what i mean when i say "bright and colourful for children" peppa pig is the theme i am going for, stupid, yet its very bright and colourful with the child being stimualated visually as they play the game.

an adapted mechanics page, again simple layout, very clear mechanics which are bright and colourful and keeps anyone looking at it stimulated and involved with the game or the pitch document at hand.

Need to see Bev and see how the background and the page layout is so i can carry on with my pitch creation.


Time for some DINOSAURS!
here are a few of the characters that you can find in the game, they are a bit goofy and still black and white (i haven't been able to reach my sister and ask if he kids can help and color these things in)
they are simple and very bold and unique. each one has a special ability and they are clearly distinguished from each other.

a big fat dinosaur to barge through walls and items etc

a flying dinosaur. to flap around and take you to high places.

a swimming dinosaur. you always need a swimmer!

a big tall dinosaur that can reach high things. like stuff off the top shelf!

and finally a teeny tiny dinosaur that runs really fast and is very energetic.

these characters will be updated asap when i have added some color and allowed my sisters children to color them in, as kids being able to color and create dinosaurs is one of the aims of the game.

the title page ideas i have had. something a bit more lively and upbeat since it is a children s game. they are bubbly and WILL be colored really bright and in your face.

a marketing and USP set pages that i can use for titles etc.

my main character below. with a few mechanics.

im still working on these. i dont want him to have many mechanics.

i want the mechanics themselves to come from the dinosaurs.

so i will have to limit the amount of types of dinosaur i actually create.

some more mechanics. simple kung fu moves. and shaking his staff around. 

and here is a picture of the enemies you will be fighting. 

his shoes are off because i ran out of room on the page.....im just that good ladies and gents.

more mechanics are needed for these guys and some in game screen shots to really get a feel of these guys.

Since my game is aimed at children, i got my sisters children involved with my project. 

i gave them simple sheets of the characters, which are below, and then asked them to color the sheets in, a lot like a coloring book. this is something of a theme i want to have throughout the game idea, and the IP.  the images seen on screen by the children will be in black and white, and they are then encouraged to color the pictures in. this makes the game feel  very interactive, and more enveloped in the game, and through this hopefully they will learn through it.

below are the children s efforts to color in the pictures, i have several of these images that have an age range from 4 all the way up to 12, which is a large section of children! ( she has 7 kids so getting them involved in some of my work is great getting to find out how they think, and the ideas they come out with are amazing, something that a grown up could never say in a million years).

now this is where the children got inventive, they were asked to actually create their own dinosaur that they would like to see in the games, they came up with some very strange ideas and the colors were very bright and colorful (which i have been using in my game so far Color all the way!)

ive been doing some more work on the pitch and posters, and below i have a few pages from my pitch to show, and also my posters, this first one is my poster 1 the main game poster for the game itself, the one to grab peoples attention. its nice and bright and displays the games name and the tag line.

the title of the game has now changed however! its more child friendly!

Working Game Title: Dino Doodle 

tag line Where Yoo'Doo the Dino

(this is a play on words, the main character is called Yoo'Doo!)

and the second poster, the USPS and the little info about the game itself!

my posters are very simple and very clean, they are intentionally done like this so they are easy on the eye of the potential buyers of my game!

here are a few pages from my pitch that will be later handed in, they have been tweaked and changed over the weeks to become the final article!

this is the story description with some of the very bright characters, these showcase the bright quality to the stages and how bold the characters are. they are striking and are in black and white ready for the children to color them in!

this is the settings page, this tells the player about settings and scenarios that you will be experiencing, they are bright and colorful and very scenic places.

this page is a little profile of the enemies in the game, these are the main enemy that you will be fighting throughout the entire game!

i was thinking about changing my background of my pitch to match that of my posters, but i didn't want to use the same background over and over again throughout my whole project so i used a couple of backgrounds in the end!

Horizon Scanning - Bones

Horizon Scanning

Horizon - Bones

Thinking I would get away from the television shows that the nation loves, asking what the future holds for bones only results in Google sites full of spoilers for next season of bones, and episodes not aired in the UK, which isn’t something I wanted.

Research found at:  http://discovermagazine.com/2010/oct/12-most-important-science-trends-30-years/article_view?b_start:int=1&-C=

Found at:  http://weeklyworldnews.com/headlines/27557/scientists-clone-dinosaur/

So since I have gone through each section looking at how our bones once were, i decided to go back to this part of my research, and there was one thing that really caught my eye in research. And that was dinosaurs! I thought this would be a perfect start to this horizon scanning section!

But what could we achieve with dinosaurs in the next year?

 “DNA from preserved Apatosaurus fossils, which were on display at the university’s museum of natural science. Once the DNA was harvested, scientists injected it into a fertile ostrich womb”.

Well, apparently we might be hearing the pitter patter of tiny dinosaur feet later this year. The ostrich was injected with the DNA August 11^th 2011, and is being incubated in Florida.

You know that the research is all for science, right? With the scientist saying:

“Within ten years, we could repopulate the world with dinosaurs,” he said. “We could harvest them for civic service, law enforcement, or even mass transportation.”

“Imagine riding to work on a dinosaur,”

Let’s see how long it takes after the birth of the little dinosaur before PETA jump on it and slate the research.

From Bones, to the structure of our bodies, DNA to be exact.

A strange thing that scientists believe can be cured is the control over our addictions.

Found at: http://discovermagazine.com/2011/nov/18-how-pot-cocaine-hunger-intersect-in-brain/article_view?b_start:int=0&-C=

“Rimonabant worked in part by reducing appetite, and the company claimed it could also treat addiction, harmful cholesterol, and diabetes”.

With such huge claims June 2006 pharmaceutical giant Sanofi-Aventis began selling drugs to stop you from feeling hungry and begin to aid weight loss, which is a big step being able to control the body like this and create forced feelings to stop you feeling hungry.

With the new type of drug tested on rats and mice it shows that they are not getting side effects like the previous attempts have shown, which shows a giant step forward, if they can isolate this we can have pills and drugs that are not addictive, and with no side effects which lead to better treatment, and with understanding like this of addictions, cravings and other neurological processes, who knows what else we can achieve.

This came with a price though:

 “900 reports of nausea, depression, and other side effects”.

This was the huge draw back to the drug, making it be pulled and completely re invented. This is where the future comes in, they recently came back with a drug where there are no side effects, working with mice

“AM6545 enabled mice and rats to lose weight without inducing signs of depression or nausea”. 

With a bright outlook and scientists looking very confident with the work they are producing.

“A whole new class of drugs that combat pain, inflammation, metabolic disorders, and more. “I’m convinced that in the next five years we shall have more drugs for the endocannabinoid system,”

Found at: http://discovermagazine.com/2011/nov/18-how-pot-cocaine-hunger-intersect-in-brain/article_view?b_start:int=1&-C=

This quote and report was published last year. So although it is a little out of the year bracket for this area of research, it’s worth mentioning due to the huge breakthroughs they have made already.

Found at: http://discovermagazine.com/2011/sep/16-big-idea-safely-sequence-fetus-genome-world-ready

“In the late 1960s, medical researchers developed a way to find genetic defects in a fetus as young as 15 weeks”

This is the quote where I shall start my next area of research into DNA and changes made by science.

This was the starting point for many as they looked into research to help children while still unborn in the womb, people saw the horrors that can happen in the womb, and saw miscarriage and disease early in life to be the main focal point, if they can treat a child in the womb perhaps they can actually save children and parents from torment and fear.

Miscarriages put families through a lot and for one scientist is was a wakeup call, making him want to look into and research this field:

“I saw these invasive procedures done to my wife and our unborn kids, and thought, there’s got to be a better way,”

Scientists thought like this and strived to find a way to test unborn children, so they could eventually help and ease the pain of the mother and father, being able to do something about a child in the womb so, in the likelihood there is something wrong they can treat it and make it right.

“We plan to diagnose things like phenylketonuria, where the cure is as simple as avoiding certain foods. It would be a big improvement over figuring it out after birth in the hospital.”

Starting off with bigger more detectable and treatable disease they can hope to push forward to more minor cases in child defects.

With these types of development, you can actually see what is wrong with a child before it is born, and see how you can help your baby before it is physically born.

And with such huge development in this amazing science they think that they will be able to test everyone wide spread and not just monitored tests as soon as:

“By 2017, they believe”

But scientists go one further. Some say a little too far in fact.

 “Couples routinely choose the sex of their new baby and are able to carefully screen egg and sperm donors, but many say this advancement takes it too far”.

Found at: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=6998135&page=1#.TuYbWmMUqdA

Couples at this moment in time can actually screen their baby, and say whether they want a boy or a girl, its one thing to be able to cure a baby of an ailment, but for someone to actually decide its future and design it like a teddy, then threes something strange that is going to begin happening.

Like designer dogs, children will start coming out “perfect” perhaps they will start fetus tattoos and piercings for those who like them.

Found at: http://www.obsidianbookshelf.com/assets/images/graybynick4gwen.jpeg

“But many say this advancement takes it too far”.

Which is understandable, who knows how far people will go, and well Steinberg goes on to say:

“Steinberg says that designing your baby is on the verge of becoming reality”.

What a lovely image to put forth.

Found at: http://discovermagazine.com/2011/jan-feb/75

From all this poking and prodding around in the womb it was only a matter of time until social aspects starting to affect the unborn child.

Monitoring the unborn children one scientist believes he has found that children in the womb can socialise. Yes I said it. Apparently they re act with their surroundings, and themselves.

They carried out experiments on sets of twins in the womb.

“When reaching toward the co-twin—especially around the eyes and mouth—their motion was relatively slow and delicate. When the foetuses touched themselves, on the other hand, they were less cautious”

The scientist Umberto Castiello is now looking into how he can apply this to more and more children in the womb, i wouldn’t be surprised that in the coming year they have full understanding of the 9 months in the womb.

But now they have found out that unborn children can interact with people, the next step is obviously a face book account for their unborn child so they can interact with all their internet friends...

“Facebook Lets Expectant Parents Add Unborn Children to Friends & Family”

Found at: http://mashable.com/2011/08/01/facebook-expecting-option/

 Oh never mind.

But it’s ok, we are going to need babies to be created in a different more scientific way, as apparently were going to become robots:

 “Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed an aluminium steel foam using a combination of powder and cast metal that has a similar elasticity to bone”

I think like me they have read too many Xmen comics, and thought wolverine was a damn good idea.

“The rough surface of the foam would also foster bone growth into the implant, improving the strength of implant”.

With the research coming out in 2010, scientists have begun work by putting the foam into bones, applying them to people whose bones can reject certain materials:

“Bone rejection can result from more rigid implant materials, such as titanium”

Found at: http://www.metal-powder.net/view/7801/steel-foam-could-replace-bones

With what they are doing with bones and the human body these days I wouldn’t be surprised if people went in to hospital with a broken bone and came out with a whole new robotic arm.

Found at: http://www.visualnews.com/2011/03/11/can-we-live-forever-growing-new-organs/

It seems that with new skeletons being formed from bone and steel foam, we may be able to live forever as scientists have grown something a little strange in their labs recently.

“New discoveries in the scientific community are quickly advancing the ability to not only replace organs, but grow them from a patient’s own unique cells”.

Growing organs that can be used in place of failing organs, meaning that donors soon will not be needed, and with the huge developments and growth they have so far, people in the next year may be walking round with organs grown like plants, instead of waiting around for someone to die.

Horizon Scanning - Time

Horizon Scanning

Horizon – Time

Now onto something I am rather interested in. The future of time!

I am going to look into something that people actually believe is going to happen and whether there will be any advancement in the next year that will significantly change the way we view the concept of time.

First of all I’m going to clear up the matter of whether it will be physically possible for us to achieve time travel, i know there are stories of it happening now, but so far it’s all just theories and stories of people over the internet, and one man John Titor, that has claimed to be from 2036.

Imge found: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2011/dec/01/higgs-boson-seminar-lhc-findings

 

“Excitement as Higgs boson seminar set to announce latest LHC findings”

Looks like the Collider has been working hard for a while now.

I looked at this article talking about the upcoming seminar based in Geneva, talking about the findings that two teams working with the collider.

The seminar will take place on the 13^th December 2011.

A lot of people feel that the Boson Higgs may actually have been achieved.

“So what can we expect to hear? The two main groups that hunt the Higgs boson, the Atlas and CMS detector collaborations, will describe their results separately, unlike the recent combined figures put out this month in Paris. There has been too little time to merge the most up-to-date results from both experiments”

Two teams have teamed up and look to further their progress in the science field and feel they are getting close to a major breakthrough in the science field.

But with the excitement coming from the scientists who will be attending the event it looks set to be a very good event, for those whole fully understand the field anyway.

“As one Cern physicist put it: "This should be fun."”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2011/dec/01/higgs-boson-seminar-lhc-findings

Quotes and findings for this section are from this website report here.

With it looking like we’re going to reach a huge breakthrough with the Higgs Boson, it got me thinking about the big bang theory. Will we be able to achieve ultimate knowledge of the big bang theory? If this is possible, would we be able to re create it. And would it be a good thing or a bang thing if we did get this huge breakthrough.

So back to my original point, can this give us access to time travel; will we be able to do what John Titor said we could?

Apparently no, this is very unfortunate. A test was carried out this year, which will be furthered when the findings of the Hadron Collider are released, but in his initial findings which he showed to the world in July 2011,

http://www.bm.ust.hk/bm/HighResImages/Copy2%20of%20sundial_M0090_01_009.JPG

“Professor Shengwang Du and his team at from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology claims to have definitively measured the maximum speed of singular photons, noting that they do not move faster than the speed of light in vacuum”.

So no time travelling for us it seems, he goes on to say:

“The research done by Professor Du and his team explain that the premise of travelling time by exceeding the speed of light is impossible because not even light itself can exceed the speed of light”.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/large-hadron-collider-research-may-prove-time-travel-still-possible-52955

With the research only conducted in July 2011, it seems the only thing happened in the next 12 months is the slow debunking of the theory and the belief that it will never happen, disproving all theories, and making John Titor a liarv (which people suspect already!)

With the Hadron collider though being used in successful ways to find new and exciting things about particles and even the big bang theory who knows what will happen, personally i hope that the collider finds a way to move particles faster than light, and make time travel possible.

However will all the damning evidence against time travel, people still claim

“Theories still exist that claim to keep the possibility alive”.

And who better coming to the rescue but Steven Hawking, stating

http://topnews.in/law/files/Stephen_Hawking.jpg

“Hawking says that surpassing the speed of light is not necessary to time travel and that it can be achieved by moving near the speed of light. He poses an anecdote of a train designed to circle the Earth leaving its station on January 1, 2050 and goes round and round the Earth for 100 years at just short of the speed of light. When it finally docks on January 1, 2150, the passengers inside would have experienced only one week of time in 100 years due to the slowing down of time within the train to protect the train from exceeding the speed of light outside”.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/large-hadron-collider-research-may-prove-time-travel-still-possible-52955/

He is working closely in the next year with the scientists working on the Hadron collider so we will have to see whether he can move objects close enough to the correct speed in order to move in time.

After finding that my biggest scientific research might in fact not be able to be reached. I found myself asking,

 “What is possible?”

It seems a lot of people actually ask these questions, does anyone really know where we can go from here, if we can actually go anywhere from here.

It is not just new things that has been changed, old things that we have thought we have known about for years, has all of a sudden been re-examined and everything we know about it has changed.

A great example of science changing things of day to day life we have known about for years is what we are taught about in primary school, the art of photo synthesis, how a plant creates food.  We have always known a plant changes sunlight to food, but recently a scientist has looked further into this phenomenon, and it turns out it is all a part of Quantum Mechanics, a little more complex than just “the plant takes in sunlight” that we are taught in schools.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2011/12/08/further-evidence-that-photosynthesis-involves-quantum-mechanics/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+80beats+%2880beats%29

http://discovermagazine.com/2010/oct/30-years-past-30-years-future

This new magazine has asked just that. Seeing where we have come from, and what we can expect in the future, with several predictions from scientists and experts alike.

Many interesting articles fill the pages of the website and there are huge breakthroughs in science that I didn’t even know about. Although they may not be huge things like breaking the speed of light or changing the world into a better place, it is still really fun to see what people come up with to make every day life a little bit easier than it already.

http://www.ludlowcomputertraining.co.uk/images/ComputerWorkshop.jpg

It seems like everything is turning their hand to technology these days, and the big thing that’s taking over, and there is nothing bigger, than the internet. Everything is found there, shops are even closing down just because of the internet’s ability to send you items from stores all over the country, making stores on the high streets inferior, but it’s not suppressing when:

“It allows users to easily access information about any topic, anywhere and anytime. Most information on the web is free making it appealing to hundreds of millions of users around the world. The internet is also a medium that allows users to interact with one another regardless of whether they are next door or thousands of miles away”.

From: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_did_Internet_become_popular

But the internet is already here, and it’s already a huge place, what could possibly change?

Well a few things, the big one I found while searching around, was audio surfing, you see people all over trains, and in meetings using wireless devices for their phones.

From: http://sixrevisions.com/web-technology/6-predictions-for-the-future-of-the-internet/

It’s not just the typing that people are thinking about revamping and removing, remember minority report? Well since things like the Wii was realised, people have been searching ever since for new ways to interact with things round their homes, the latest in these steps forward was the Kinect for Xbox 360.

Apple has even begun to shape the future with this beautiful little creation. It’s a new little mouse that, well, it’s not a mouse, its move of a camera that you stick to your desk and you wave your hand at!

Found at: http://www.apple.com/magicmouse/

The mouse replicates the motion sensor aspect for your pc and makes your mouse camera based instead. So does this mark a future for interactive media used without peripherals, which would replicate the scenes in “Minority Report”.

Found at: http://www.apple.com/magicmouse/

Here is a little picture demo of the mouse in action, it only needs you to click, and this is just the beginning, it is looking more and more likely that peoples comfort for interface usage is going to go a lot further, even in the next year or so.

There is always a new iPhone and iPod coming along every year or two and this year we saw the release of the iPad 2 and the upcoming Wii-U

“The Wii U is the first of the 8th generation games consoles”

This is an interactive touch screen and camera filled controller which will be used in for the console.

The controller is above. And this is another step forward in the interaction we have with our consoles.

First it was the Kinect, using cameras and voice recognition, and motion control, and now Nintendo will be jumping on the band wagon of futuristic gaming in the coming year, with his new lovely 1080p console.

A thing i have found interesting in phone and console development, is there is a prototype in the works for an application which can save a trip to the doctors!

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2011/12/05/more-fun-than-a-blood-test-researchers-want-diagnosis-to-be-as-simple-as-spitting-on-your-screen/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+80beats+%2880beats%29

A couple of South Korean scientist have started to work on application that can take samples of fluids and diagnose minor illnesses, and this could be seen in use in the next year.

“The pair wants to check for disease markers in a tiny drop of a bodily fluid by pressing it against a touch screen, so your diagnosis could come straight from your smart phone. While there’s no app for that yet, the scientists recently finished a proof-of-concept study showing that a touch screen could differentiate between various concentrations of bacterial DNA—a first step towards diagnosing your disease by spitting on your iPad”.

So soon we may not need to floor the doctor’s office, and our applications may actually be useful for once instead of just being used to be guitar replicators, or mini games played on the bus.

It slowly shows that people are taking this research and application technology more seriously,  perhaps we will see alot more useful items to come later in the coming years which can cut down on face time in Doctor’s, meetings and perhaps interviews.

But if that’s not good enough, and you think it’s a waste of technology research, it is rumoured that:

“Brain-computer interfaces allowing the paralysed to walk again”

 “By 2012 date, a prototype full-body exoskeleton has been devised which allows the paralysed to walk again - using their thoughts alone to control it

This is achieved using a neuro prosthetic device with a highly advanced brain-computer interface (BCI) at its core, driven by neuro chips implanted in the patient's skull. These monitor electrical brain activity and adjust the movement of the limbs accordingly.

So people will soon be able to move freely and be free from what some people call a curse, and is a huge step in the right direction used by science.

But I will talk about this more in the Forecast section later on, as there isn’t a great amount of supporting evidence for me to back up this information.

But don’t worry about any of the upcoming year, because the worlds GOING TO END!!

“Mass hysteria grips the world as the Mayan calendar reaches the end of its current cycle”

Found at: http://www.futuretimeline.net/21stcentury/2012.htm

Mayan temple Found at: http://www.futuretimeline.net/21stcentury/2012.html

As the site predicts people will go into mass hysteria involving the end of the written Mayan calendar, will it end? Who knows, but i can tell you one thing, people are terrified by the mere concept.

“Many commentators predict massive and sudden destructive events of global and even cosmic proportion that will result in the loss of billions of human lives. Some suggest the Earth itself may be destroyed with the loss of all life”. 

Found at: http://www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrl20.htm

They are mainly religious goings on about how the world will end in 2010, and it coincides with the ending of the Mayan calendar. The original prophecy is as such:

“The prophecy is based on the "precession of the equinoxes:" The Earth resembles a wobbling top. The earth's axis very slowly draws a circle across the sky. It takes about 25,765 years for the Earth to complete each circle. This is called a "Great Year" or "Platonic Year." 

Found on: http://www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrl20b.htm

But if that’s not enough reason, the Mayans telling us were all going to die, how about these little fun little events that people actually believe that will actually happen in 2012.

Sun Storms

Found at: http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=629455

Solar experts from around the world monitoring the sun have made a startling discovery:

“Our sun is in a bit of strife”

. The energy that the sun gives off, like most things in nature, cyclic, and it's supposed to be in the middle of a period of relative stability. However, recent solar storms have been bombarding.

“The Earth with so much radiation energy, it's been knocking out power grids and destroying satellites. This activity is predicted to get worse, and calculations suggest it'll reach its deadly peak sometime in 2012”

“The Atom Smasher”
Which is the nickname that people have given to the large Hadron Collider that i have already talked in depth about, and how people are scared will blow the world into pieces.

The great concept that the bible just “says so”
Interpretations of the Christian Bible reveal

“that the date for Armageddon, the final battle between Good and Evil, has been set down for 2012”.

The Chinese book of Changes, says the same thing, as do various sections of the Hindu teachings.

Finally my favourite thing of all that cannot be avoided is the change of the magnetic poles surrounded the world are going to flip and apparently kill us all!

“We all know the Earth is surrounded by a magnetic field that shields us from most of the sun's radiation. What you might not know is that the magnetic poles we call north and south have a nasty habit of swapping places every 750,000 years or so - and right now we're about 30,000 years overdue. Scientists have noted that the poles are drifting apart roughly 20-30kms each year, much faster than ever before, which points to a pole-shift being right around the corner. While the pole shift is underway, the magnetic field is disrupted and will eventually disappear, sometimes for up to 100 years. The result is enough UV outdoors to crisp your skin in seconds, killing everything it touches”. 

Found at: http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=629455

There is nothing like finished a section with the knowledge of impeding death and destruction.