SPRING 2019
GEEK GAZETTE ISSUE 21
acm Chapter
COVER STORY
BIG STORY
EDITORIAL
The Tale of Arctic Oil
Architecture and Modernism
It's Elementary!
Association for Computing Machinery Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee
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Team GEEK
FACULTY ADVISOR
PRESIDENT
Dr P. Sateesh Kumar
Samar Singh Karnawat
Pratyush Singhal
Morvi Bhojwani
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
DESIGN HEAD
FINANCE HEAD
WEB MANAGER
Rishi Ratan
Darshan Kumawat
Karandeep
Yash Agrawal
EDITORIAL & NEWS
DESIGN
FINANCE
WEB
Abhishek Talesara
Chirag Sharma
Deepti Srivastava
Mehak Mittal
Shashank PM
Harshvardhan
Swapnesh Kumar
Mohd. Arbab
Twarit Waikar
Nitya Meshram
Rajsuryan Singh Abhay Mudgal
Natansh Mathur
Kunal Satpal
VICE PRESIDENTS
Saloni Agarwal
Yash Dev Lamba
Ekta Singhai
Niharika Agrawal
Yash Khandelwal
Rushabh Zambad
Shivanshi Tyagi
Akshay Kamath
Shubham Joshi
Naveen Dara
Nikunj Gupta
Aastik A Tripathi
Sanjana Srivastava
Idika Verma
Akshat Khandelwal
Parth Bahuguna
Ankita Gurung
Raghav Dhingra Vishal Goddu
Aditya Ramkumar
Kashish Jagyasi
Saumya Gupta
Aanand Vishnu
Arnav Sambhare
Shriya Ramchandani
Anmol Chalana
Murtaza Bookwala
Vidhit Jain
Rhythm Gothwal
Karma Dolkar
Pushpam Choudhary Tiasa Sen
Shruti Verma
Aviral Gangwar Sejal Gupta
Vivek Chand Ritvik Jain
Presenting:
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The Great Entertainment Showdown
08
Perfecting the Promo
10
The Far-Reaching Simplicity of Slice of life
13
Architecture and Modernism
16
Slapstick Tactics
19
A Democratic Faux Pas
21
An Illusive Affair
Ever wondered how the superhero movies have overtaken the comics? Or what made them the prime focus of the production houses? Comics vs movies. Pick a side and read on to find out more!
Since the era of cinematic masterpieces such as Psycho and Alien, to the current age of clichĂŠd action flicks, the art of the movie trailer has grown and evolved into stagnation. In this article, we explore the subtle trifles that go into making a good movie trailer.
Exploring the essence and value of Slice of Life, a genre of entertainment that focuses on the natural and mundane aspects of life.
A take on Time, Construction and Governments. This article explores how and why the modernist architecture has evolved with a special focus on the role of government in its development and future.
A collection of whimsical war strategies and machinery devised throughout the past.
An insight into preordained demise of a system of govenance called democracy.
A comprehensive exposition of the ideas of hallucinations, and lucid dreaming.
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It's Elementary!
26
Rediscovering P2P
28
The Tale of Arctic Oil
32
Urban Hermits
34
The Bright Side of The Dark Web
36
Tech Bits
A personal take on the Higgs Boson, the fundamental entity responsible for imparting mass to all other objects, and its discovery.
Most applications in this day and age utilises server approach. Is P2P dead? A comprehensive study of P2P taking Skype as an example.
Everyday, more and more fragile environments are destroyed in the search for fossil fuels. Our dependence on oil and its derivatives may already have caused irreparable damage to our planet.
If society is the backbone of humanity, then how come there are people who want nothing to do with it? Here we delve in the lives of those who keep withdrawing.
In the midst of hideous claims against the Dark Web, is there something to be proud of?
A compilation of some of the most eye-popping headlines in science and technology over the past few months.
Geek Speak
Geek Gazette has always strived for innovation and novelty from issue to issue. With our latest issue, we have aimed to improve the readability of our magazine by making our articles more visually appealing. As we worked to perfect the issue from a series
of hastily noted scribbles to a polished final draft, we realised how much an article can change upon thinking from a visual
perspective. Infographics, timelines, banners, collages—all these elements, apart from greatly increasing the charm and comprehensibility of an article, also help in conveying information in an easy-to-read and articulate manner. Also in this issue, staying
true to our commitment of bringing the best in technology, philosophy, art and science, we experimented with a new section, namely a collection of headlines that piqued our interest over the semester. With that, dear readers, we leave you to the enthralling journey that is our magazine, that we have put our heart and soul into. We hope you like it!
The Great Entertainment Show FEE000
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remiered on May 15, 2017, Wonder Woman was officially the highest grossing superhero origin movie of all time. With over $820 million in box office collections, it has also garnered critical acclaim and been the centre of intense debate regarding the representation of female power in the 21st century. In contrast to the sale of a mere 87,477 copies of the latest issue of Wonder Woman, 44 million people watched the movie. It is hard to imagine a certain installment of the comics gaining the consumption and the popularity that the film enjoyed. An interesting combination of factors makes these movies, or visual media in general, surpass its printed counterpart in fame, money, and outreach. It’s not rare for a critic to quote the words, ‘The movies do not do the books justice.’ A big factor in criticism on the subject is, ‘What came first?’, following which, the second medium is judged to be inferior in most of the cases. Reading a book first, for example, would give the reader a storyline and create a rough sketch of the characters. It would often seem demeaning to the readers to see their beloved characters being portrayed in a hurried and unredeeming manner. The movies might have plot changes which do not meet the expectations. Moreover, the movie 06
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would only seem like a flashy conglomerate of the best parts of the comics, it comes off as hollow to the readers. But none of this poses a problem to the non-reading audience who don’t have anything to regret. The movie meticulously takes them through a journey in 2-4 hours, which would otherwise take them days through a book. Visual content evolved to the demands of the working class—its primary consumers—and has succeeded at keeping to the whims of millennials, where comic books have failed. Many would rather sit in a recliner in a dark room with food and drinks while watching a story come to life in front of them rather than trudge through the comic book pages, completing near half of the scenes with their imagination. Moreover, there have been hundreds of issues with superhero comics. Some of them were good and some were not. These issues helped the studios understand what worked and what did not. In a way, movies are the products of these reviews. All the unpopular storylines were pushed aside, and the good filtered parts were merged to form movies. Superheroes and action scenes are inseparable. But no matter
how hard the comic writers and artists try, the action scenes are filled with visuals which can depict an action sequence, but lack continuity. Movies are able to describe an action scene more convincingly than the comics, omitting scope of imagination where none is due. With the Oscar-winning animation effects of Spiderman: Into the spiderverse, it’s not difficult to see that the creators have managed to inculcate the best parts of a comic book action scene while creating something visually fantastic in the process.
SOURCE: Goodreads, IMDb, Metacritic
Comics have the luxury of time. They unveil all the intricate details and subtleties at their own pace. Movie-goers usually don’t possess the former and lack the patience for the latter. Hence, movies are usually a collection of the most important developments in the story. The aforementioned is an exquisite setup for an audience looking for a fun afternoon devoid of any intellectual discussions on Iron-Man’s suit or Thor’s hammer. Furthermore, The audience is given a continuous sequence of action devoid of any “unimportant” details. This may near blasphemy for a true comic book fan, but most of the movie-goers aren’t that bothered. In fact, they mostly detest their comic-citing friends for having a superiority complex. They’re just looking to blow some stress and the continuous feed of audio-visual magic seems to do the trick.
great tool to create subtext, which can be aptly portrayed by the actors. Sounds also aid in delivering a subtext properly. But with text and graphics being the only way in comics, it becomes unbelievably difficult to create this form of subtext. The only way comics can portray emotions is through primitive dialogue clouds or sketchy graphics. But in movies, the director has much more room to play with your imagination. The background score and lighting conditions adjust themselves according to the feelings; reinforcing the emotions the director wants you to feel. Facial expressions, although lacking in detail against printed graphics, remain indispensable. They may not be read as effortlessly but, before one can regret it, his senses are assaulted with the film-maker’s magic in the next action sequence and he leaves the cinema hall with a smile, feeling accomplished for persevering through for that post-credit scene. Comic book fans are understandably protective of their comics but they’re fast losing ground in the movie-going majority. Hollywood does not make movies for comic book fans. The filmmakers intend to make the movie appealing to the fans as well but if they cater to a wider audience while detaching slightly from the core fan base to earn millions of dollars in profit, they would not hesitate to do that every single time. Comic book audience has always been niche. Without all the drama that unfolds on the screen, it is impossible for the comic book houses to reach the number of readers currently in their reach. Also, to recover the humongous cost and still generate profit, the film has to appeal to a larger audience which, unfortunately, is not the case with comics.
While comics are more blatant about awakening a viewer's imagination, movies in themselves are not devoid of instances where viewers have to fill in the gaps. It could be a joke, an answer but rarely an integral part of the story. These instances called subtexts, make the story more engaging and personal in just the right amount. Facial expressions are a GEEK GAZETTE
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Perfecting the Promo N
ot only did Alfred Hitchcock know how to make great movies, but he also knew how to sell them. His trailer for Psycho, back in 1960, lasted a remarkable six-and-a-half minutes. But what’s more remarkable is that, in all that time, the trailer does not show a single footage or dialogue of the film. Instead, it features Hitchcock giving a tour of his movie set, discussing the events of the film with just enough detail to tease the audience, but holding plenty back. While many trailers of the fifties were essentially digested recaps of the film, Hitchcock didn’t just manage to intrigue the audience with his new style of marketing; he helped redefine trailers as a work of art. Trailers have changed dramatically over the years. While they were once a brief thrill limited to the cinema and all but forgotten about once the main feature rolled, they’re now major events – obsessed over, dissected and reworked by fans. Nearer to the release, there can be as many as five different versions of a trailer, varying in length and concentrating on specific characters or themes, such as romance, suspense or action. In the course of time, trailers have been seen as worthy of 08
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study. They play on emotional impact and produce an overall feel for the movie very quickly. They are a perfect orchestration of a multitude of elements. The scenes will be carefully selected and purposely ordered. The graphics will be stunning making the title card more memorable. The music will drive or compliment the visuals. Often, trailers are exquisitely edited, flashy and heart-pounding. However, this formula of what makes a trailer good has become so ubiquitous in the movie industry, that almost all the trailers are beginning to look and feel the same. There is a generic structure behind almost every trailer, which has made the art-form more or less stagnant. Most successful trailers nowadays follow a three-act storytelling structure. Act one introduces characters and situations; plot complications ensue, followed by a rapid-fire third-act teasing a climax and maybe, for fun, a jokey postscript called a button. Then, the titles roll. Another generic trick is the montage. Trailer editors look for iconic, easily read images that have a strong emotional visceral impact and stick in the memory. The fast cuts and pop-songs make even the most turgid of movies appear exciting.
The song Lux Aeterna originally written for the movie Requiem of the Dream has become a blueprint for all drama movies. It was first orchestrated and re-purposed for The Lord of The Rings: Two Towers trailers and has since been used in, among other trailers, Zathura and The Da Vinci Code. While it has now faded from favour, the world of movie trailers is still one of deja vu. The Revenant was one such movie that breaks out of this generic template. What makes it so different is the sound of distressed breathing in the background which sets the pace for the trailer and builds tension throughout. It’s an interesting contrast to the usual go-to for every movie—a character voice-over of a specific speech from the movie trying to convey what the entire movie is about. Having the panting breath instead of a voiceover tells the audience everything they’d need to know about what the tone and sensation of the movie would be. It gives a perilous, almost claustrophobic, feeling akin to the kind of perpetual near-death that DiCaprio’s character, Hugh Glass experiences for almost the entire movie. The trailer throws much of the narrative architecture out the window, mapping not the movie’s plot but its mood.
This romance of discovering a movie inside the theatre is now lost during the promotions. As the number of teasers and trailers is going up, the film-makers are showing so much footage and dialogue, it’s similar to an abridged version of the film.
One way to grab millions of itchy internet eyeballs is to crank up the punch lines and explosions even at the risk of spoiling a movie, to promise the audience more and more of the same. The other way is to tease the audience. The latter is only about raising questions but never answering them and whet the appetite of its viewers. There is a fine line between a trailer that teases and a trailer that tells. Fractions of a second make all the difference in whether a joke lands or doesn't or whether the two-minute montage builds to the right climax or whether it gives away the entire premise and even the outcome of the movie. There are plenty of bad trailers that are cliché-ridden, have cheesy voiceovers, and are misleading or reveal too much. At the same time, there are cases when one can remember the trailer even after one has seen the film. Having said that, a good trailer is not about flawless sound effects or stylistic tricks or the generic storytelling structure. Like any other form of art, it is about trying to reinvent. It is about introducing a new, different style of marketing which leaves a mark on its viewers. All said, there can never be a comprehensive list of what a trailer should or shouldn’t be. The idea of a good trailer is continuously evolving and in this huge evolving space, a trailer can always find its own way to seduce the audience and leave them wanting for more.
Earlier, people used to go to the theatre without having an idea of what they were about to see, and that was part of the storytelling—the movie would start and the story would be exposed to you. This romance of discovering a movie inside the theatre is now lost during the promotions. As the number of teasers and trailers is going up, the film-makers are showing so much footage and dialogue, it’s similar to an abridged version of the film. Trailer-editors now reveal the most expressive and aesthetically spectacular parts of a movie in order to bring the audience to the theatre. While these movies still make a lot of money, it ruins the viewing experience. It is commonly felt that one has already seen the entire movie in the trailers. GEEK GAZETTE
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The Far-Reaching Simplicity of Slice of Life
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here are few tropes as widespread and structurally important yet at the same time as underrated, disregarded, and scorned as Slice of Life. Often described as boring and pointless, this contempt stems from a flawed understanding of the concept and an isolated view of the application of its simplistic nature. A great story is driven by great characters and SoL is the best tool available to build lifelike, robust characters. Slice of Life is like reading a random page from a diary. There are no subplots, in the sense that the subplots are the main plot. Nothing is omitted as irrelevant. The focus now is no longer the story but the characters themselves and how they interact with the plot. Each interaction with the characters tells us something about them - their expressions, their thoughts, the words you expected them to say but they didn’t. The term comes from anime but can be extended to other mediums as well. For a stark contrast, consider two “mystery” anime: Hyouka and Detective Conan. The former follows Oreki Houtarou, whose motto is “to use as little energy as possible”, through the mysteries he solves at school. The series is episodic and the mysteries have little in common with each other. Some may not even be very interesting. And therein lies the beauty of Hyouka. Each mystery is solved with Oreki presenting a set of deductions and walking his friends (and the viewer) through his thought process till the inevitable conclusion. The viewer feels capable of solving these simple mysteries by themselves and with this POV, they view the anime from Oreki’s perspective. The most powerful episodes don’t even have any mysteries in them. Hyouka is a mystery anime in which each episode has a mystery to solve but they are just landmarks in Oreki’s change.
Slice of Life portrays characters as natural, thinking, and feeling beings, and not just instruments to facilitate plot development. Detective Conan, on the other hand, is driven by the quality of its mysteries with the main plot almost taking a backseat. After engaging the viewer with its uncommon premise, it hooks them with its complicated and compelling cases. Each
case presents a new solution which seems easy at face value but is hard to arrive at on one’s own. The viewer now watches episode after episode in equal parts to watch the characters solve the mysteries and to follow the main plot. Character development is sparse with the main plot evolving every few dozen episodes. Slice of Life portrays characters as natural, thinking, and feeling beings and not just instruments to facilitate plot development. The appeal lies in identifying and often relating to the qualities of these characters. The plot moves forward organically with the cause and effect of each action clear and intuitive to the viewer. The viewer can now engage on a more primal level leading to better understanding and emotional investment in the characters and the plot. The challenges that face characters are often “normal” and common, (subject to the standards of their setting) which have analogues to circumstances that the average viewer would have experienced at some point in their lives. The show focuses on how personalities are reflected in behavior and what it takes for a specific type of person to change. The viewer roots for these characters, trying to understand them better while at the same time asking themselves “What would I do if this happened to me?”. As the audience connects with SoL on an emotional level, it takes less mental strain to watch. In fact, some SoL are geared towards relaxed viewing. A trope known as iyashikei are designed to have healing benefits from the relaxation produced (Mushishi, Natsume Yuujinchou). Peaceful music, intricate scenery all help to provide an escape from the current lives of the viewer and allow them to indirectly live the natural, everyday experiences of another character. It’s easy to see why some may disregard SoL by assuming this extreme form to be the only representation out there. But SoL is rarely used in isolation, just like life itself is never stable with challenges of all forms capable of popping up unannounced. SoL is always mixed in with another genre to varying proportions depending on the nature of events taking place in the character’s life. Candid depiction allows SoL to integrate very well with a number of other genres and enhance their quality. In a drama, where the focus is on emotional tension created by the plot, it is easier to understand the source of the tension from the unfiltered GEEK GAZETTE
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perspective of the characters that SoL provides. The viewer understands why these characters inevitably cross paths and the impact this has on them. A good example of this is AnoHana (Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai). A group of childhood friends drifts apart after one of them dies in an accident. Many years later when one of them begins to see her ghost, they are drawn together once more as they try to lay her spirit to rest. Such trauma at such a tender age has severe effects on the personalities of all characters and they cope with their loss in different ways. The anime explores how this taints their daily lives even after all this time. Other examples include Cowboy Bebop, Re:Life, Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Comedy wa Machigatteiru, The Breakfast Club, Boyhood, 12 Angry Men, The Catcher in The Rye. In comedy, when the viewer is acquainted with the personality of the characters, jokes don’t need to be explicit anymore. Implied references can induce laughter without having to think through what they mean. Chuck Jones’ cartoons were full of this trope - Wile E Coyote doesn’t even need to be on screen for us to know who the anvil fell on. This form of comedy is easier to engage with and thus more enjoyable. SitComs have been using the SoL format for ages. While the amount of character growth varies, most SitComs follow random days in the lives of the characters. This allows them to contrast mundane events in the lives of the viewer and of the characters on screen. Eg Seinfeld, The Office, Brooklyn 99. SoL allows us to follow a romance through every stage. It shows us why the characters like each other and why they shouldn’t, what they are mistaken about and what they don’t see. It makes us understand where each character is coming from and what they want from their relationship. We get the infuriation of knowing these characters are definitely not compatible from the get go and watching them struggle and fall apart, as well as the satisfaction and vindication of watching characters we had accurately judged slowly fall in love. The Before Trilogy does this beautifully. Three movies 12
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following the same pair, released 9 years apart with the corresponding in-film timeskip, over the course of a few hours giving us an accurate impression of where they are emotionally through only their conversations and body language as they walk about a new city is as close to the definition of SoL romance as it gets. A number of other plot focussed genres such as action/battle use SoL moments for multidimensional character development. These are the filler arcs of One Piece, Bleach, Naruto. Gintama is a balance of gag, shounen battle and SoL. There is a clear difference in episodes about helping the neighbours move in and protecting the shogun from an alien invasion. For a more extreme example, this is John Wick remembering good times while grieving for his dog before decimating a syndicate. In many ways, SoL is the life force behind a lot of shows. Something that seems so simple on the surface has such far-reaching consequences. Yet the intangible benefits are often easy to overlook. As someone said - “Slice of Life isn't porn - you just don't know it when you see it.”.
E
ither Gods or Ancient Aliens constructed the Great Pyramids of Giza, the Megalithic Temples of Malta, the Sacsayhuamán in Peru, and many such marvels. Not really. But those who really had them built were monarchs with almost the powers of demigods. The same is true for the architectural marvels of modern times like the Burj Khalifa, the Palm Islands, and many others, built mostly by the most powerful and prosperous states of the world. With the aim of immortalising itself, providing state-of-the-art public services, promoting tourism or even spreading their propaganda, the government has always played an instrumental role in influencing the architecture and construction techniques of their governed region. Architecture is not just attributed to the monumental buildings but to all the buildings of the region. It is their coherence which portrays the architecture of the region. With the introduction of modern architecture and construction techniques, we have come to witness a shift from exquisiteness towards functionality; a transition not only limited to the field of architecture but also in many others like language.
A major reason for doing away with high rise ceilings with decorated pillars and carved windows is quite predictable ‒ they are expensive! Economics plays a prominent role in defining the architecture of a region and thus, is a reason why the most prosperous of all have contributed the greatest number of examples to the field and this article. The rise of modern architecture coincided, or rather, was boosted by the wars on the largest scale humankind had ever witnessed. As wars involve too much money, it became a necessity to economise on this front. This was the time when concepts like ‘minimalism’ gained widespread support. Furthermore, with the colossal increase in population, the creation of more economic households was and still is not a choice but has rather turned into a need of the time. The form of government is a defining factor in influencing the architecture and building the architectural marvels for generations to come. An authoritarian ruler is guided by his wishes, whether it’s employing tens of thousands of slave workers to build tombs for the pharaoh, spending state resources prodigally to build a great white mausoleum for a royal consort, or sending hundreds of thousands of his own GEEK GAZETTE
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Prehistoric
Classical
11,600 B.C. - 3,500 B.C.
850 B.C. - 476 A.D.
Neoclassicism
Art Nouveau
1730 A.D. - 1925 A.D.
1890 A.D. -1914 A.D.
Byzantine
527 A.D. - 565 A.D.
Beaux Arts
1895 A.D. - 1925 A.D.
subjects to erect a great wall for the protection of the kingdom, the supreme authority is not answerable either to the whims or the complaints of its subjects i.e. the general public. The aforementioned in itself sets the stage for the entire arrangement. On the other hand, a government of the people, by the people, for the people, is answerable to the people for its each and every step. The decisions taken by such a governing system focus on the benefit of all, ensuring loss to a minimum. Due to such a heavy constraint, it has to direct its decisions towards a just and fair use of resources for all, and not just for the aristocracy. Incorporating grandiosity in the architecture instead of keeping it economical is a trade-off they are afraid to make. Neither can they employ slaves nor exploit the poor and the resources without disrupting the economy and reputation of their state. A democratically elected government will try to provide more services to the people to remain in power instead of building ostentatious royal palaces with huge echoing domes and intricate carvings which add glory to their ‘reign’.
pioneered by leaders like Mussolini, was directed towards instilling in people the ideas of nationalism and historical pride. The Nazi party, in order to appear the same, promoted elements like flat roofs and lack of decor to create, “an impression of simplicity, uniformity, monumentality, solidity, and eternity”. However, spreading propaganda in the shadow of buildings, either by the architectural style, colours, or names, is not something which ended with the fascist regimes.
A dictatorship or a fascist government bolsters architectural styles which will help them spread their propaganda as has been in the era of Nazism and Stalinism. Fascist architecture,
The proponents of this modern construction style claim that the cost of tearing down the old building and rebuilding it is less than making a stronger one initially. Moreover, as the
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According to a colloquium at the Getty Center, the average lifespan of a conventionally built building (masonry and wood) is about 120 years, whereas, for the modernist buildings (reinforced concrete and glass curtain wall), it’s just the half i.e. 60 years. Given that there is development in technology, this data does not seem to resonate with ‘development’. If this is not degradation, then with all the advancements in engineering, what has made us use the construction techniques which have a shorter lifespan?
Romanesque 800 A.D. - 1200 A.D.
Gothic
1100 A.D. - 1450 A.D.
Renaissance
Art Deco
Modernist Styles
Postmodernism
1925 A.D. - 1937 A.D.
1900 A.D. - Present
exponentially growing pace of development in science and technology is unprecedented, it is very likely to have far better construction strategies and technologies in a span of half a century. Owing to this, it is considered better to make something better after those 60 years as compared to waiting for 120 years. Moreover, with the rapid pace of development in science and technology which is unprecedented in all of human history, waiting for 120 years to use a better technology or architecture in the building is too much as compared to waiting for 60 years. For the proponents, this shorter lifespan is desirable for most of the buildings. The opponents, on the other hand, claim this construction and reconstruction is more chaotic and unstable for the society in general. Besides, the loss of heritage, which provides a cultural identity to the people, is inevitable in such a style of construction.
1400 A.D. - 1600 A.D.
1972 A.D. - Present
buildings - all while keeping the economics in mind is an asymptotic goal which we are trying to achieve. It remains an immeasurable uncertainty whether the Burj Khalifa of Dubai, the Shard of London, or the Marina Sands of Singapore, will last centuries like the Great Pyramids of Giza or will they be doomed like the Notre Dame de Paris too.
Architecture is a snapshot of time and the people living in it. The times are a-changing, so is the snapshot. What matters is how we keep up with the pace of change of time while standing the tests of time at the same time. Incorporating the classical grandiosity without any compromise in functionality and making minimal yet significantly durable GEEK GAZETTE
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War Blooper Reel F
or years, human creativity has shaped and expanded various forms of art. Due to its subjectiveness, art might be the only field where the exceptional uniqueness in the creativity of the human brain is not only accepted with dead seriousness but also highly appreciated. However, this doesn't stop the human brain from showcasing similar talents in different realms of life. The incongruence produced as the aftermath often amuses us, even if it wasn’t meant to in the first place. This ‘over application’ of creativity in devising war strategies presents the apotheosis of irony—how something that seems so delightful was actually concocted to bolster human differences and hatred.
make the mines’ electronics too cold to function after some days. The possible proposed solutions included wrapping insulating blanket around the mines. The most unprecedented proposal—resulting from a surge of ingenuity—was locking live chicken inside the bomb's mechanism with a supply of food and water, and with a quixotic thought that the body heat emanating from the chickens would keep the bomb warm. It's a major disgrace for the society that we never could witness this clever plan actually shape up.
Blue Peacock Blue Peacock
A preeminent advantage of monarchy is that history is filled with refreshing accounts of awe-inspiring individuals with power and money (mostly) to bring into effect their rational virtuosity. A certain king Goujian of the Kingdom of Yue, China employed his power against the rival Kingdom of Wu. To scare the army of Wu, he would have the front line of his army decapitate themselves. It is believed that the line up prominently consisted of criminals sentenced to death, whose families life would be threatened as well. They were
This British tactical nuclear project showcases the epitome of human dexterity. The project's plan was to store 10 kilotons of nuclear mines on the Northern German Plain, that would be set off in the case of a Soviet invasion. While formulating a military strategy, it is pivotal to take the geographical restraints of the application into consideration. The planners realised that the dropping temperatures in the winters would 16
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Goujan’s King King Goujan’s scary scarescary tactic scare tactic
sent screaming like maniacs and then had to cut off their own heads in front of the enemies in order to create an everlasting effect in their minds. Battle of Pelusium Battle of Pelusium The most self-satisfying sacrifice done by people is for their religion and native land. A person holds his beliefs very dear to him and would go to immense lengths in justifying them. The people of Egypt were no exception to this. Ancient Egyptians had great respect for life in all forms. Their meals were mostly vegetarian and even if they devoured meat, they thanked the animals for their sacrifice. One very special animal to them was the cat. To harm a cat was to offend Bastet, the goddess of home, domesticity, women's secrets, cats, fertility, and childbirth. The punishment for exasperating her was death. During the Battle of Pelusium, the unethical Persian King Cambyses II used animals as hostages, especially cats against the Egyptian Pharaoh Psametik III. The strategy in all comical sense was successful and lead to the first Persian conquest of Egypt. Razzle Dazzle Dazzle Razzle Razzle Dazzle or Dazzle Painting or Dazzle camouflage was a scheme as hip as the name suggests. Numerous steps have been taken to avoid detection by the enemy but it becomes almost insurmountable to do so while using a huge fighter ship. Acceptance of one's incapability is the first step of being capable of achieving wonderful feats. British marine artist Norman Wilkinson complied to the aforementioned by accepting the fact that the ships were too huge to hide. He created this camouflage where the ships were coloured with contrasting colours in the convoluted pattern of geometric shapes intersecting with each other. The idea was to make it difficult to estimate a ship's range, speed, and course by the enemy. Each ship had its own dazzle and some gifted ones were even painted by professional painters. This family of ships were heavily used in World War I and to some extent in World War II. GhostGhost Army Army Ghost Army was a special Allies troop of soldiers whose members were recruited from art schools and ad agencies. Night-timing as a group of actors in a European theatre, the
soldiers were masters of “tactical deception”. They used inflatable tanks, rubber aeroplanes, elaborate costumes, radio cords, huge speaker to play recorded messages for their on-field acts. They used these “advanced technologies” to fake battlefield military. The 1100 part-timing artists staged more than 20 battlefield detections to fool the Germans led by Hitler between 1944 and 1945. Not only was this technique lucrative in fooling the Germans, but also fostered the careers of upcoming artists like Bill Blass and Ellsworth Kelly by giving them a good sense of practical experience.
Krummlauf Krummlauf
After the invention of guns and tanks, one would consider it to be a saturation point in the development of weapons. But inventions like Krummlauf would prove them wrong. Krummlauf is German for ‘bent barrel’. It is a bent barrel GEEK GAZETTE
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attachment for the Sturmgewehr 44 assault rifle developed by Germany during World War II. As a bonus, the curved barrel comes equipped with a periscope for sighting the enemies to make it easier to shoot around a corner by somehow not actually looking at what someone was shooting at. Their production was stopped due to a few design flaws and definitely not because it sometimes created friendly fires due to unaimed shootings.
The numerous examples prove that the wars always present a captivating setting and provide a medium for people to explore their inner competence. The last major war, World War II was so exhausting that most nations did nothing notable and stuck to monotonous routines after its termination. This has led to a decline in the creativity of the beautiful human mind. The sudden decrease in human flair is made evident by the time and power people are investing in
Corkscrew Tanks Tanks Corkscrew The concept of tanks is ingenious, and for something that's a weapon as well a vehicle how can it not be. Unlike humans,
areas like environmentalism. However, a few recent events in some specific countries provide hope that we are slowly regaining our inventiveness. If we continue to follow this path and break away from our dull perceptions and solutions, we might soon be ready for another World War. Studying the past, we would have to live up to great expectations and thus shouldn't rush into it unless we are truly ready to lose rationality once again.
all tanks are not created equal, with some serving their purpose more meticulously than others, emanating from better and more expensive design. One of the sleekiest design is that of the Corkscrew Tanks. Their base is composed of huge cylinders with a helical flange just like a screw. The tanks propel as these cylinders rotate. The reason for such a creation is simple—to overcome challenging terrains. The design is highly compatible with snowy terrains. However, the designers forgot to take into account that the land vehicle, at some point, would have to travel on roads and the giant corks wouldn't really be the best idea. Even though the corkscrew has everything in fashion, it lacks a few points in function.
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A Democratic Faux Pas “… Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that
did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy… Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty” ~ John Adams, The Letters of John and Abigail Adams
D
emocracy takes the saying ‘fight fire with fire’ quite literally. In other words, democracy, by definition, is self-contradictory and flawed and thus will soon run its course. In theory, it needs to be considered how effectively and faithfully the principles of democracy are applied to decide whether the decision taken by the governance, on the whole, is legitimately democratic or not. A democratic institution requires, for any decision to be taken, a free and fair debate, where people are duly informed and elections are held fairly, the participation of citizens is voluntary, and the press is under no restriction, and most importantly, the majority decision must be given full weight of the law. No one can prevent democratic machinery from being its own antithesis, other than those safeguards which in turn risk democracy themselves. The elaborate mechanisms
meant to safeguard democracy from destroying itself, turn out to lead to democratic suicide themselves. What does ‘a democracy going too far’ mean? As it happens, suppose that a majority of the society or state decides, after free and fair elections and adhering to all conventions of democracy, that they do not wish to abide under the current democratic model. That instead, they wish to terminate the democratic era and come up with another form of government. Logically speaking, they will have acted in accordance with the principles of democracy, despite their resolution to suspend democracy. So in a manner of speaking, if the people, who disavow democracy, mobilise in large groups, then democratically they have full authority to immobilise democracy. This might not result in an authoritarian or totalitarian regime, but regardless, will spell GEEK GAZETTE
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an end for democracy. So even in a democracy, there is, in theory, nothing that cannot be questioned if backed by the majority.
Too much democracy endangers itself by refusing or failing to impose limits on actions that endanger democracy itself. To a certain extent, democratic principles and processes are based on the participation of representative bodies, each serving different sections of society, which results in a diverse range of perspectives and proposals. They can, if the situation calls for, disturb and even fight the foundational norms of society, or, in this case, democracy itself. The fact that all regimes would include radicals who would prefer to abolish their current governing model, implies that it is possible for them to derail decentralization or disenfranchise minorities. Accordingly, as a precaution from such a fate, a democracy might opt to defend itself by enforcing a plethora of measures like indefinite suspension of fundamental democratic rights and freedoms. Using the protection of hardcore dictatorship, democracy is given a better chance of survival, even if, the supposed beneficiaries of democracy, the citizens, are denied their privileges. While this may indeed ward off the initial threat, the fine line that would exist between the protection and demise of democracy would have been crossed and democracy will have dealt itself another potentially deadly blow. These two predicaments describe the two bookends of a democratic society. Too much democracy endangers itself by refusing or failing to impose limits on actions that endanger democracy itself. In contrast, the effects of ‘too little democracy’ are self-explanatory, and represent the same. Germany in post WWI period perfectly demonstrates both, how ‘too much’ democracy in the Weimar period and ‘too little democracy’ during the Nazi regime, in the right environment, and with appropriate support, corrode democracy. In one such instance, ‘The Reichstag Fire Decree’ abolished freedom of expression and press. After his election as chancellor, using the powers vested in him by democracy, one Adolf Hitler passed the ‘Enabling Act’ which authorised him to override the Reichstag as well as the Weimar constitution. Other democratic provisions such as Article 48, 20
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which allowed infinite presidential power during an emergency, and Proportional Representation in Reich paved the way for inevitable annihilation of Weimar Republic. All of this is not just a speculation based on events of one country. Since the end of the Cold War, most democratic breakdowns have been caused not by generals and soldiers but by elected governments themselves. Like Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, the elected heads of states have subverted democratic institutions in Georgia, Hungary, Nicaragua, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and Ukraine. While on the electoral road, usually, there takes place no coup d’etat. All those efforts to subvert the democracy are usually legal, in the sense that they are approved by the judiciary and accepted by the legislature. Press still publishes, but are bought off or bullied into censorship. Citizens still continue to criticise the government, but increasingly find themselves facing tax or legal troubles. Those who dissent against the killing and abuse of democracy tend to be hyperbolic or even anti-democratic. Thus most of the times, democratic demise is as imperceptible as it is inevitable.
An Illusive Affair E
ver feel like there is a shadow lingering in the corner of your eye? Normally, a sane person would never give it a second thought. But imagine that apparition appearing right in front of you with a malicious grin, close enough to make out every hideous detail. This is a somewhat overt example of what one might see while hallucinating. Hallucination is the apparent perception of something that does not exist outside your mind. People usually associate the term hallucination to something visual, the most popular being the pop culture depiction of seeing rainbows and unicorns, and although this might not be incorrect, this is just a glimpse into the world beyond the run of the mill perception made by an ordinary mind. Hallucinations aren’t confined only to visual oddities. There have been accounts of people sensing a taste out of the blue. It can be seen that it is not uncommon for us to evidently perceive the non-existent through all of our sensory receptors, the examples range
from perceiving that the wall or the lights are talking to you, to more sinister visions such as seeing dead, decaying flesh on people's faces. Hallucinations are often confused with illusions and dreams. Illusions are sensory misinterpretations of things that are actually present in the environment while hallucinations are perceptions of things that are not actually present at all. Illusions occur when something seems to be different from what it actually is. Hallucinations often cause grave confusion, as they can be indistinguishable from reality in our minds. We don’t always perceive the world as we see or hear it. Our brains work on the predictive coding model, constantly maintaining and updating a mental model of what we expect to be present based on the old sensory inputs. This mental setup works wonders in composing perception, taking in each detail without a second thought. But sometimes, the brain has the GEEK GAZETTE
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capacity to overpredict whereby it may briskly presume something that isn’t there, making us actually perceive the non-existent thing. This promenade of giving more weight to the expectations and beliefs about the world than to the sensory evidence furnishes hallucinations.
Sometimes, the brain has the capacity to overpredict whereby it may briskly presume something that isn’t there, making us actually perceive the non-existent thing. Joanna Atkinson, a deaf researcher and clinical psychologist based at University College of London conducted a study after the baffling accounts of multiple deaf people claiming to have experienced auditory hallucinations. She conducted the study on 27 deaf schizophrenic subjects, inquiring whether they experienced voice hallucinations by providing them with a wide range of possible auditory receptions. To her surprise, all of her subjects showed signs of experiencing auditory hallucinations, although she observed that people who never had the perception of sound didn’t experience ‘true auditory hallucinations’. She claims that the pseudo-hallucinations were a work of their ‘mind’s eye’, i.e, they saw visual hallucinations, moving lips or hands making movements used in sign language. But, the study resulted in a very bewildering conclusion that those who had experienced hearing before had experienced true auditory hallucinations! Those who didn’t learn any language, sign included, claimed their hallucinations to be enigmatic and lacking any linguistic content. This study blows open a whole new world of possibilities when it comes to understanding and trying to help better the situation of people who have lost the ability to use any of their sensory organs. Hallucinations might sound like an interesting experience, but the ubiquity of hallucinations has resulted in hallucinators facing a hard time distinguishing reality from illusions. Imagine sleeping alone in a pitch black room and hearing a whisper crawl through your nose, that could leave a person traumatized and possibly even push them to believe in the existence of supernatural entities. Most people who suffer from psychotic disorders often have hallucinations that are distasteful and could probably remind them of wistful memories, like constantly having images of a 22
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deceased loved one. Although, there have also been inspiring accounts of people who have transformed this shackling disorder into beautiful wings that enabled them to take flight and make art, tantalizing its subjects due to its sheer outlandish nature. Large sects of people find hallucinating to be recreational and eye-opening, and hence administer themselves with hallucinogens to voluntarily induce hallucinations. In such cases, one might be listening to their favourite album, let’s say The Dark Side of the Moon, and their initial auditory input could result in a rainbow-like visual manifestation dancing in front of them. This unusual yet captivating phenomenon is known as synesthesia, wherein, stimulus in one sensory organ results in the involuntary triggering of a second cognitive pathway, subjecting the person to out of this world experiences. Many artists use hallucinogens as an escape from the real world and to help catalyse the creative process, resulting in the creation of music that they themselves find mind-bendingly hard to recreate after the effects of the drug wear off. If you are a staunch devotee of Nixon and want to escape the distasteful outside world, lucid dreaming is the thing for you. Typical dreams impel the subject to believe every part of it is real. It’s only after they wake up that they realize that something was indeed bizarre. Lucid dreaming mulls over the boundary between dream and reality. A lucid dream is where dreamers are aware they are dreaming and they possess some control over the characters and surroundings. Lucid dreamers have access to their memories during lucid dreaming, can perform actions and are aware of themselves, remaining unmistakably in a dream state and not waking up. Other than being an endless source of artistic inspiration, lucid dreaming delivers an intriguing prospect of being able to explore our inner worlds with full awareness that we are in a dream state. Wandering in realistic dream environments can be particularly productive. Dreams can serve as a mental rehearsal space to practice real-life activities, overcome anxiety, practice being social, or even stand up to a bully. The dream world is your canvas and you can create anything in it. Being cognizant in your fantasies is essentially stunning. Simply envision that you cherish flying and you know it's unthinkable for you yet at the same time you can take the delight of getting a charge out of it in the dream realm.
It's Elementary! K
nowledge has and always will be the most important tool necessary for humans to survive and continue in the extraordinary reality known as the universe. At first, it was thought that an atom was the smallest indivisible part of matter, but eventually subatomic particles like protons, electrons and neutrons were discovered. Yet again, it was shown that protons and neutrons contain quarks, which—along with leptons—are the most elementary constituents of matter. Particle physics is governed to a large extent by the ‘Standard Model’, a theory supposedly so perfect that all the observations made by humans in the quantum realm are within the error range of the theoretical results produced by it. As perfect as it may seem, the Standard Model is still a step short of being a Grand Unified Theory, a prelude to the Theory of Everything. Higgs Theory or Higgs mechanism is an important aspect of the Standard Model and is partly responsible for it’s elegant nature. Nature is governed by four primary forces, namely strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electromagnetic and gravitational force. The forces are represented as fields with gauge invariance being an exquisite property. These forces are generated by the combination of gauge invariance and
symmetries; and propagate with the aid of particles known as gauge bosons. Gauge Invariance is a property of a field in which the Lagrangian of any parameter is invariant under different states of the field, which implies that any change in orientation of a field does not affect any of the measurable parameters. The forces and fields cannot be quantified, however are perceivable in terms of certain parameters such as charge for electromagnetic field. This principle is one of the building blocks of physics as it provides constants in this variable universe. Invariance produces symmetry in the force fields which do not act unless this symmetry is broken. The Standard Model of particle physics describes the weak nuclear, strong nuclear and electromagnetic forces and classifies all known particles into fermions and bosons. Forces are generated when a gauge field breaks symmetry, twists and bends in response to its interaction with other fields. The standard model was incomplete before the postulation of the Higgs mechanism. It could not explain the varying mass of similar sized particles like the massless electroweak bosons and the heavy weak-nuclear W and Z bosons. Higgs mechanism explains why these fundamental particles have mass. It describes the existence of a scalar 23
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gauge field that permeates through space and a boson that is the fundamental constituent of the field. The bosons form a net within the field and the particles gain mass due to their interaction with the net. The field, mechanism and boson which was later discovered, were named after Peter Higgs, a major contributor to the development of the theory. Higgs theory and Standard Model were obsolete without the existence of Higgs Boson, but were employed in research by the scientific community for the accuracy these offered in experiments. Higgs field is a tachyonic scalar field. Tachyons are theoretical particles that are supposedly faster than light and thus have an imaginary mass. The field too has an imaginary mass and remains constant at any point in space. Fundamental particles like electrons, quarks and bosons have mass because they interact with the field. The field provides rest mass to the particles without breaking the gauge invariance. The field gives existence to the particles by providing rest mass, which varies from particle to particle
depending on its interaction with the field, regardless of the size. Particles which interact more with the field have more mass compared to those that interact less while massless particles like photons pass straight through without any resistance. Subatomic composite particles like hadrons do get a portion of their mass from the field, but the value is insignificant compared to the total mass. The mass of composite particles comes from the interactions of the fundamental particles within them. A proton is composed of three quarks which interact with each other and are bound together by gluons. The energy produced due to the interaction is stored in the proton and accounts to about 99 percent of its mass. Regardless of the many explanations it provided, the possibility that the Standard Model would be obsolete existed until the Higgs Boson was found. Higgs Boson is an elementary particle in the Standard Model that is produced by the quantum excitation of the Higgs field. It is a highly unstable particle and deteriorates almost instantly via several mechanisms with different
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probabilities. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was the first particle collider that successfully observed the boson with an observation rate of one per several billion collisions. The boson is the smallest unit of the Higgs field and is comparable to the molecules in a chunk of material. It has a finite mass despite the tachyonic nature of the field, and is observed to be 125GeV/c2 and is within the estimations of the Standard Model. Because of its instability, the boson itself was not seen by the researchers at CERN but the decay pattern of the result of collisions in the LHC were analyzed which followed a similar trend to that of the theoretical pattern of the boson hence proving its existence or that of a similar particle.
while after the creation of the universe before splitting into the forces that exist today. If such a field is identified and developed, the theory will unify all the existing forces of nature and transform into a Theory of Everything and advancing human knowledge by leaps and bounds. If Higgs field is the energy of vacuum, then the vacuum energy density due to the field must be negligible. However, the Higgs Boson has an energy equivalent. This is one of the most important unanswered questions in Physics. If the Higgs field is the ‘universal thing’ we hope it is, then it is still incomplete and the possible answer may be found after the discovery of plausible ‘new’ physics.
The Higgs field has greater significance in explaining the origin of the universe than particle physics. It is often associated with and might possibly be the Inflaton, an imaginary field responsible for the expansion of the universe at the time of its formation. Higgs field is a possible contender for being the unified gauge field that existed for a
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Rediscovering P2P T
he Internet has brought us together in more ways than we could have dreamed of. One marvellous accomplishment of internet was video conferencing, with Skype pioneering it in the initial stages. The highlighting feature of Skype was its hybrid peer-to-peer architecture, first of its kind. As a matter of fact Skype derived its name from “Sky peer-to-peer”, which was abbreviated as Skyper back in the days. However, they had to skip the ‘r’ due to unavailability of a domain name. A peer-to-peer (long for p2p) network is one in which a computation workload is partitioned between peers unlike a client-server where servers handle all the computational workload. There is no hierarchy in the architecture and all peers are equally privileged. Peers then share a portion of their resources such as processing power, disk storage and network bandwidth. The Skype p2p network consisted of three types of nodes. The first and the most trivial are the ordinary nodes, which is any computer logged in to Skype. They hold the IP address and port number of the nearest reachable supernodes. The second type of nodes are the supernodes that serves as proxy servers and handles data flow and connections among users i.e it relays 26
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2009 NSA offering 'billions' for Skype eavesdrop solution
2011 Microsoft buys Skype for $8.5 billion. Why, exactly?
2012 Skype replaces P2P supernodes with Linux boxes hosted by Microsoft
2013 Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages
Subhead: Skype worked to enable Prism collection of video calls
communication between two clients. Supernodes are the ones with no firewall or network address translation (NAT) restrictions and a decent bandwidth with adequate processing power. These reduce the excessive workload (i.e computation) on ordinary nodes; however they lead to overconsumption of network bandwidth and CPU time of the supernode. Lastly, there exists login server which as the name suggests handles login and logout activities and keeps track of logged in nodes. While Skype is not a perfect p2p architecture, we can consider it to be one. When two people on different computers start a Skype conversation, the communication stream is broken up into packets of 1s and 0s and transmitted through the network. So, a conversation actually goes to other end while passing through multiple computers connected to the network. In 2011, Skype experienced a meltdown when a majority of computers went offline leading to insufficient computation available to continue the ongoing conversations which lead to Skype crashing. Many clients complained that they had problems making calls while some were unable to log into Skype. To counteract the failure, Microsoft added some supernodes which ran 24*7 to cater to the needs of the people. In 2012, however, Microsoft made a few significant changes to the network design of skype. The major highlight being supernodes coming directly under the control of Microsoft. Since then Skype has moved step by step towards a client server model. With ever increasing active users at a point of time, the efficiency of p2p is questionable, since it gets excessively complex to maintain and implement algorithms for high volumes of user nodes. With the introduction of mobile devices into the p2p network, multiple factors comes into the picture. One, mobile devices does provide with enough computation power, nor do they have enough bandwidth required for an ordinary node. Second, as handheld devices, they require battery to operate. With continuous computation from users end, battery life takes a hit. Furthermore, not all networks support p2p capability, or if they do, they require human intervention. While the aforementioned reasons strongly favor the requirement of client server model, users were overly tensed when Skype changed its policy in 2012. One major advantage of p2p is user privacy, since a central server does
not hold all the data of the user. Users were, therefore, worried about data privacy. These fears were proven to be true with the shocking revelation of the PRISM program. PRISM is a program under which the National Security Agency (NSA) of the USA collects internet communication from various U.S internet companies. It was brought to light when classified documents about the program were leaked by Edward Snowden. Turned out that NSA had full access to voice, video and text messaging, and file sharing from targeted individuals from Skype.
One major advantage of p2p is user privacy, since a central server does not hold all the data of the user. Skype’s move to client server was considered a nefarious move to easily provide information to the American secret agencies, to an extent where NSA had usernames and passwords to user accounts. Now, a deeper dive is necessary to understand the prospects of p2p. We, thus, stumble on the question, “Is p2p really bad?” P2P implementation for a file sharing application is many folds faster than a similar file download from the internet. Torrents work on a similar principle and is considered as one of the fastest way to download large files if sufficient seeders are available. A video call client implementation is also fruitful, for example Skype and WebRTC have proven to be leading clients in the domain of video calling. If that is not enough, Bitcoin and its alternative digital currency operates on peer-to-peer networks. Tor, the infamous browser to dive into the dark web utilises a p2p architecture to keep clients anonymous. Even Microsoft uses p2p networks to send Windows 10 updates to its end users. And to further add to that, the latest proposal for Web 3.0 also proposes a decentralized approach with p2p networks. Clearly, p2p can be considered as the future with new technologies popping up. The only question that remains now is, “Did Skype switch to server client for the ease of NSA?”
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T
he modern era of automation has driven the need for energy propelled solutions for everyday processes, in order to reduce dependence on manpower. This has led to an increase in the utilisation and production of energy from various natural resources, the majority of these being fossil fuels and oils. We have been exploiting these resources for so long and with such unhinged gluttony, that we have overlooked their impact on climate, specifically on the melting polar ice caps. The disregard has lingered to the point where a surge in our attention wouldn’t be of any significance, because it might already be too late. The polar regions of planetary bodies are usually the coldest regions due to the fact that they receive the least effective sunlight, and are usually plunged into darkness for long periods due to the tilted axes of most bodies. They are therefore covered with some form of ice (either methane and nitrogen ices, CO ices, or water ice) depending on their distance from their star. The Earth, currently, has polar ice caps at both the north and south poles. Both of these were formed in different time periods and contain vastly different amounts of ice. To begin, we must understand how these ice caps formed as it is the key to understanding the Earth as it is. About 33 million years ago (beginning of the Oligocene Epoch), the current Ice Age began with the formation of the Antarctic Ice Cap, during which time, the Antarctic region went from being largely forested to being covered in ice within a few hundred thousand years. This is thought to have occurred due to a natural climate change event, likely, the weathering of the forming Himalayas, which had crossed a critical height. The weathering and subsequent erosion of the Himalayan rocks consumed large amounts of CO. As a result, the CO levels in the atmosphere dipped below 1000 ppm (0.1%), after which the Antarctic ice began to accumulate. Later on, with other factors at play, CO levels kept decreasing gradually. When the levels dipped below 400 ppm, the formation of the Arctic Ice Cap began. The CO levels, just prior to industrialisation, settled to about 180-200 ppm. All this information has been collected primarily from ice core samples, mainly from the Antarctic Ice Cap. The polar caps can be used to track climatic patterns over the past several thousand years from the traces of CO2 and CH4 found trapped in the ice. Due to anthropogenic factors, such as the rapid industrialisation and the boom in population, the energy
demand of our planet has gone up exponentially. Up until the last couple of decades, most of the energy demand of the Earth has been satisfied by fossil fuels, primarily coal, followed by oil. As a result, we’ve been putting a lot of CO into the atmosphere. Presently, the CO emissions on Earth total to about 40 Gigatonnes per annum. Measurements exist from the 1880s and the rate of increase of CO levels rocketed up first in the 1950s due to the industrial expansion in the USA, Europe and Soviet Union, the second major increase occurring during 2000-2015 with the industrialization of China. Currently, coal is responsible for 42%, crude oil—34%, and natural gas—19% of CO emissions worldwide. The current concentration of CO in the atmosphere is around 410 ppm, which means that we’ve surpassed the level at which the Arctic Ice formed, and crossed the critical point at which the northern polar cap will mostly disappear in summer by 2050. This would have significant consequences for the climate and surface cover of the Earth, as it would result in an increase in sea level of approximately 6-7m at the very least. This would open up vast tracts of the Arctic ocean that have previously been untraversable and would open up new shipping routes such as the northwest passage and fishing grounds, all of which will bring about an unimaginable positive economic shift to the region. This process has already commenced, as the ice cover is constantly decreasing year by year. Economically, this may be great, but environmentally, it is nothing short of a disaster. Almost all of Arctic wildlife will perish, most notably the Polar bear, which relies on the summer ice beds of the Arctic as its home and hunting grounds. Another thing to consider is the fact that ice is white and has little albedo. Therefore, it reflects a lot more light and energy as compared to water. With the disappearing ice, the Earth will absorb more heat from the sun, furthering the process of ice loss. The Arctic region is made up of 19 geological basins, half of which have experienced oil and gas exploration. Oil was first produced in 1968 from the Alaska North Slope in Prudhoe Bay. In 2008, the USGS estimated that the areas north of the Arctic circle contain upwards of 90 billion barrels of oil, 44 billion barrels of natural gas that is yet to be discovered and that would be technically recoverable in the near future. Of this, more than 50% of the undiscovered oil is estimated to occur in only 3 geological provinces; Arctic Alaska, the East GEEK GAZETTE
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Greenland Rift Basins and the Amerasian Basin. Prior to 2014, technological developments and high oil prices allowed for exploration in the Arctic region. Due to the oversupply of oil produced in the USA and Canada that began in 2014, oil prices came down significantly and as a result, the commercial interest in Arctic exploration has declined.
The current concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is around 410 ppm, which means that we’ve surpassed the level at which the Arctic Ice formed, and crossed the critical point at which the northern polar cap will mostly disappear in summer by 2050. The major nations which control territories in the Arctic circle, i.e. the USA, Canada, Russia, Greenland, Denmark and Norway, have each carried out some form of exploration activity and wish to lay claim to large tracts of the Arctic that they’d like to exploit as and when feasible. Drilling for oil in any sort of conditions is a challenging task. There exist a lot of hurdles that need to be overcome before a well can start producing oil and gas. In an area such as the Arctic, one which hasn’t been well explored and comes under international waters, there lays the issue of whose oil is it. The major forces in the region continuously try to assert and lay claim to vast areas of the Arctic that’ll soon be devoid of ice in the summers. Assuming a country lays claim to a certain area, the next issue would be environmental. This goes both ways. The oil rigs are harmful to the local ecosystem, and there also exists a threat for Polar bears, as humans would essentially be intruding on their hunting territory. The harsh climatic conditions of the Arctic region are also bound to cause plenty of issues. The melting permafrost of the Arctic can unsettle the foundations of various structures. At the only time when the weather is reasonably better, i.e. in summer, swamps form which makes drilling and transport by road extremely difficult. The only benefit summers offer is the opening up of shipping routes to bring in men and materials. Once the 6-month long summer ends, a very harsh arctic winter sets in. Freezing oceans block shipping routes, temperatures as low as -50 °C can cause equipment 30
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to fail or malfunction, which can be life-threatening to people stationed there. But the most important hurdle, by far, would be money. Starting up an oil and gas extraction operation in the Arctic region would cost several billion dollars. The melting ice opens up opportunities in the region. The Arctic is a very scenic and beautiful place. With summers becoming warmer, shipping routes open, there are now regular cruises which operate from the Caribbean that go up and across the Arctic through the northwest passage. The potential for tourism is high and countries such as Canada, USA, and Greenland are working hard to promote tourism in the region. The permafrost now melts in the summer giving way to a soil that is fertile and suitable for cultivation. Locals can now grow their own crops reducing reliance on imports from other parts of their country. The incoming of the oil and gas industries will give rise to new jobs. All this will cause a significant rise in the GDP of the region and pave the way for an economic boom. If humanity carries on using all sorts of fossil fuels with reckless abandon as we have been doing since the past, It would spell disaster for the earth as a whole and ergo, a lot (all) of humans as well. The rising of atmospheric CO over the levels of 1000 ppm would cause the eventual disappearance of the Antarctic Ice Shelf, that in turn would cause an increase in sea level of at least 60-70m during the Antarctic summer. This would completely submerge several of the densely populated coastal cities across the world, including but not limited to Mumbai, New York, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Reducing humanity’s dependence on fossil fuels and moving towards renewable and more sustainable sources is going to be no small feat. Shifting from using heavy fossil fuels like coal and oil towards light crude oil and natural gas is the first step we ought to take. And in the long term, the only solution to prevent Antarctica sharing the same fate as the Arctic is to completely sever our dependence on fossil fuels and rely only on renewable energy sources. The issue has already gained worldwide acknowledgement, and the cost of renewable energy has seen a consistent decrease in the recent years as compared to conventional sources, so perhaps we are looking at a brighter future already.
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Urban Hermits I
t is common knowledge that the human being is a social animal. It is that aspect of our nature that, along with our intellect, made us the dominant species on this planet. Now with the onset of the age of globalisation, human beings all over the world are bound closer than ever. Our generation is attributed to bear witness to the rapid pace of development that came with the ever-growing interconnectedness. Still, despite the drastic increase in connectivity all over the world, loneliness and social withdrawal are at a rise. In fact, many claim that we are in, what one may call, a ‘loneliness epidemic’. According to the American Psychological Association, “Social isolation and loneliness could be a greater threat to public health than obesity”. For some people, the situation is so acute that they tend to completely withdraw from society for extended periods of time. Owing to several reasons, this condition is far more common in Japan than in other regions. In Japan, such a person and the phenomenon itself is termed as hikikomori. Hikikomori, literally meaning pulling inward, is defined as a psychological condition in which a person isolates 32
SPRING ‘19
themselves from society for a period of six months or longer, without a principle psychological or physiological problem at the source. While the specifics differ, most hikikomori start off with quitting schools. The trigger may be low marks, failure or some other altercation; however, It is cumulative of several reasons and events that break their will. It may sound like teenage rebellion or laziness, but according to psychologist Tamaki Saito, who coined the term and is researching the behaviour of hikikomori, they are crippled by social fears. In order to get a better understanding of the situation, let us take a look at Japanese society. The Japanese value their culture highly and as such are very rigid towards it. Their lifestyle has detailed hierarchical systems, social interaction guidelines and a multitude of traditions at heart. One of the most key components is respect. Few things are above honour, and the conduct of oneself not only affects the honour of that person but of their family and other affiliations as well. Thus people are expected to keep up acceptable social appearance. This appearance is called sekentei. Such a daunting environment proves to be taxing to hikikomori, as they feel burdened by the weight of their
failures, resulting in a compounded blow to their self-esteem. The high work ethic and result oriented system of education and jobs in Japan certainly don’t help. There is a well-defined race track in place leading from kindergarten to school to college to a job. This system has worked well for the current parent generation who attained stable jobs between 1960 to 1970 and thus, they often enrol their kids for tutoring even before pre-schools. However, the road is not so smooth now.
Japanese believe in the worth of the role played by an individual in society. Thus, someone incompatible with those social aspirations becomes an outcast and useless in terms of that society. The popping of 1980s’ bubble economy and the economic relapse that has taken over Japan since 1990s came down the road like a landslide, resulting in students questioning their efforts due to the receding job opportunities. The change also made it hard for parents to understand and relate to their children. In 1996, the Japanese ministry of education took steps to reduce the workload of students by reducing their working days to five and removing subjects but that proved to be counterproductive as it resulted in many parents sending their children to cram schools to ‘make up for lost time’.
It is being branded as a failure by their own family and society that haunts them. The fact that others are living a normal life, and they can’t, generates a massive complex. They cage themselves in their comfort zone and try to find a semblance of normality that is not there. It is the weight of what they should be, not a fear of what they are, that breaks them. The phenomenon is not restricted to Japan either, multiple cases have been found in various countries, including the United States and India. It is imperative for us to understand that while they seem determined to live a life of solitude, the hikikomori also have dreams. They wish to go out and mingle in society, find friends and lovers, but are afraid or find themselves unable to do so and their prolonged isolation serves to make things worse. The proper way to address the situation isn’t leaving them alone, one must help them integrate back into society one step at a time.
Once they decide to drop out of the competitive world, an individual finds it harder to go out as time passes. They feel afraid or anxious in social situations. The situation keeps worsening to the point where even virtual contact becomes agitating. While western civilization has some focus on the importance of the individual in itself, Japanese believe in the worth of the role played by an individual in society. Thus, someone incompatible with those social aspirations becomes an outcast and useless in terms of that society. Due to the strong familial culture, the thought of discarding their children hardly ever occurs to the family. However, parents often respond to such isolationist behaviour by anger, lecturing or emotionally blackmailing them about bringing shame to the family. This may result in a breakdown of communication with parents, violent tendencies or excessive psychological stress.
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33
The Bright Side of The Dark Web O
ver the last few years, information on the infamous website known by the name of ‘Silk Road’ circulated on the internet. The word of its existence became widely known throughout the masses. The association of Silk Road with the dark web was one of the prime reasons for its popularity. The dark web is the notorious part of the internet which is usually hidden from the masses. The people possessing it’s knowledge do not recommend visiting it. The wicked dark web is collectively thought of as a place where hideous criminal activities originate and prosper. But is it all bad? The Dark web is an overlay network which can only be accessed through specialized browsers with certain configurations. Firstly, they are not indexed, i.e. standard search engines are not able to crawl these web pages. This part of the internet is collectively known as the Deep web. The Dark web is, thus, a small subset of the Deep web. Secondly, the URLs of such sites are encrypted. These URLs, therefore, are not understood by the standard browsers. Darknets constitute the Dark web and these operate on different communication protocols and ports i.e they do not work on the HTTP/HTTPS protocols that the surface web 34
SPRING ‘19
makes use of. The Darknet, therefore, is a cryptic part of the internet and can be thought of like a parallel universe; a place where people can communicate secretly and securely. Their hidden nature is intricately associated with their name being ‘dark’. An example of a specialized browser allowing access to the Dark web is TOR. It is known as the “onion network”, owing to the onion data structure used to encrypt data in layers. Only the entry and the exit nodes are aware of their location in the layers. Other nodes are oblivious to their location and likewise, unaware of the layer/chain length. An asymmetric key cryptographic concept is used for communication between the nodes. Asymmetric key cryptography, better known as public key cryptography, makes use of two different keys i.e. public and private key to encrypt and decrypt data. The public key is shared with the world and messages are encrypted using it. It can later be deciphered using its private key pair. This is the primary principle through which ‘anonymity’ is achieved. TOR and similar services operate by bouncing their users traffic around the web so that their ISP is negligent of what sites they visit and the sites the users visit are unaware of their physical location.
The brighter side of the Dark web usually doesn’t make it to the surface for the general public to appreciate them, and for good reason too.. To put it in perspective, all manner of people use the Darknet. This includes but is not limited to government agencies, journalists, dissidents in countries with hostile governments, activists, whistleblowers, free speech advocates, criminals, and spies. The high focus on privacy and anonymity makes the Dark web a turbulent breeding ground for illegal activities to prosper. The anonymity that protects the identity of an individual hosting child pornography websites is the same anonymity that protects the voice of political dissidents trapped inside regimes where anti-regime actions risk in prison-time or death. The cloak used by drug dealers to sell cannabis is the same cloak of anonymity used by whistle-blowers to hold both corporate and legislative bodies accountable. The Panama Papers, the Paradise Papers, came to light after whistleblowers, utilizing anonymity, came forward, confident they were protected against retaliation. Many newspapers, including the USA Today, the New York Times, and the Guardian, have their own secure drop servers for whistleblowers to upload documents using TOR and the Dark web. A paper released in 2013 named “content and popularity analysis of TOR services” concluded that the number of hidden services with illegal content or devoted to illegal activities and the number of other hidden services (devoted to human rights, freedom of speech, anonymity, security, etc.) is almost the same. To conclude, the Dark web isn’t as dark as people imagine it to be. The question that arises now is why should we care? instead of what should we do? Everyone has heard about celebrities, famed personalities getting hacked, but the truth is everyone not living under a rock has been or is getting hacked with his or her private information getting stolen, be it government or blackhat hackers. This very idea violates basic human rights. The darknet gifts you the right of being able to voice your words with anonymity. Is this not what everyone strives for?
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GEEK GAZETTE
35
Tech Bits IBM unveils first commercial Quantum Computer IBM unveiled the first Quantum Computer for commercial use in the CES, the IBM Q System One. A 20-qubit machine, it has a very limited capability but is useful for scientific and research purpose. The company currently does not plan to sell the machine, but customers can perform quantum calculations online. The devices are accessed using Qiskit, a modular open-source framework. By harnessing the power of quantum physics, this computer can vastly outperform classical machines.
Alcohol with all the fun, and without the hangover A potentially safer alternative to alcohol has been developed by a company Professor David Nutt and his research group. The synthetic alcohol, Alcarelle, does not produce negative side effects of alcohol consumption such as liver damage and hangovers. Its creator, Professor Nutt claims that the product will change patterns of alcohol consumption once it is regulated.
Google employee calculates the value of pi upto 31 trillion digits This fourteenth of March, also known globally as Pi day (14/3) saw Ms Emma Haruko Iwao, a developer at Google, calculate the value of pi till 31 trillion digits. Emma utilised the power of Google’s cloud architecture to run an application of 25 different virtual computers to achieve the result. The new figure beat the previous record of calculating pi up to 24.6 trillion digits and took around 121 days of non-stop work to complete. It serves as an example of how far computing technology has come from the days of old.
36
SPRING ‘19
Scientists constrain dark matter The origins and properties of dark matter still remain a puzzle to this entire generation of physicists. However, a team of researchers from Russia, Finland and the US have managed to put a constraint on the theoretical model of dark matter particles that are excluded from the current Standard Model. Through astronomical observations, scientists determined a number of observations pertaining to oscillations in astronomical objects. The variation in periods of these oscillations led to the conclusion that there exists a constraint to the interaction of dark matter particles.
SpaceX’s Starhopper successfully completes the hop test SpaceX’s latest venture into deep-space exploration has yielded another fortunate result. The company’s Starship program hopes to develop a spaceship capable of traversing the solar system and nearby stars. A scale replica of this proposed starship, known as the Starhopper, successfully performed a ‘hop test’, where it briefly lifted off a launch pad with its engines and stayed suspended. This test provided valuable information to SpaceX’s research team and is another step in our eventual foray outside of our solar system.
EU passes controversial directive targeting copyright violations, could spell the end for memes The European Union recently passed the highly controversial directive in an effort to limit the spread of copyrighted content. The most questionable part of the Directive, known as Article 13, requires websites to remove any form of copyrighted material. The directive has received severe criticism from content creators and aggregator websites, both of which claim that the laws would impact content creation at its very heart. Memes, which mostly follow similar formats over their life, may also be affected negatively as the new laws adhere to strict control on their spread.
A: Visiting my dad’s grave is always such a peaceful experience. It makes me feel that I am visiting him for real.
B: I had both my parents cremated so that they always stay at home with me on my mantlepiece in gold plated urns.
G!
BAN
A. Well, I wouldn’t want my loved ones to be burned, rather let them lie undisturbed in peace. B. And let them be disturbed by worms and ghosts! No chance. It’s better to have their bodies leave this world like their souls.
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