m a te
k e e
g
Faculty Advisor
Web Head
Dr. S.N. Sinha
Lokesh Chandra Basu
Executive Members
Coordinators
Ranjan Kumar Shubham Jaiswal Abhay Gupta Rajat Gupta Shagun Akarsh Krati Verma
Shubham Mittal Soumitr Pandey Rishabh Jain Samyak Datta Devang Roongta Abhilash Jajoo
President Vikram Singh Rathore
Vice President Amey Sahasrabuddhe
Edit Heads Amish Kumar Bedi Rishabh Sharma
Finance head Pravesh Jain
Design Heads Tushar Mehndiratta Rahul Kumar Modi
Team Aditi Gupta Aditya Kumar Gaurav Kapatia Kritgya Bawal Palak Jajoo Prithvi Thakur Suraj Kumar Sau Tushar Gupta Vijay Jain Vikalp Gupta Vishal Singh Harsh Anurag Abhishek Nayak
Akshay Agarwal Alankrita Gautam Anshul Agrawal Digant Ray Megha Vijayvargia Richa Jain Swapnil Kashyap Shashank Jha Vinayak Shekhar Sahai Anmol Anand Divyen Jain Himanshu Tandon Karan Kumar Rohit Jangid Amlan Baishya Kushal Saharan Samyaka Dalvi Anjali Ahuja Yatharth Bhatiya Shubham Agarwal Ajay Shivhare Sahil Singhal Shruti Lal Sonia Barroliia Virender Pratap Singh Kushal Sharma
Manush Gupta Bhagyashree Piyush Mohanty Surabhi Sharma Krishma Gupta Parag Nandi Shubham Srivastava Vijay Kumar Sahu M Karthick Anirudh Goyal Manuj Garg Diksha Meena Himaanshu Gauba Juhi Kaushik Shivam Dixit Shivani Soni Sourabh Gupta Vaibhav Gupta Madhav Pathak Varun Joshi Abhinav Tushar Asim Aashish Sandip Pathri Varun Joshi Ananya Tripathi
geek speak
contents
“ What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? ….An idea. Resilient… highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it's almost impossible to eradicate.” The above lines delivered by DiCaprio and immortalised by Nolan resonate one undeniable truth, the potential of an idea. An idea is like the seed of a fig, given proper nurture, it can bloom into an entire ecosystem. A technical institute needs a technical mouthpiece. This was the idea behind the inception of Geek Gazette, which has grown and matured over the course of 5 years, expanding in circulation and influence. Amidst the stir of Cognizance and the exciting wait for the next season of Game of Thrones, one cannot stay immune to the geekiness in the campus atmosphere. The magazine in your hands is an attempt to reflect and channel the same. Striding across diverse fields like forensics, medicine, hacking, timekeeping and video game consoles, and touching upon ingenuity such as origami applied in science, distributing electricity via IP addressing and nanobots to fight diseases, this issue beams the limelight on campus research and technical achievements – the advancements in photogrammetry, a field of research in which IITR leads the world by 20 years, the ACM-ICPC world finalists who will be competing at St. Petersburg this summer and the quiet brilliance of the Institute Instrumentation Centre. This issue celebrates our 5 years of campus coverage. It is a tribute to the programmer coding through the night, the roboticist calibrating sensors at the workshop, the level80 Death Knight battling Korean opponents online, the Yoda revering movie buff, the majority whip debating over FDI, the bookworm reading The Dark Tower series, the philatelist, the artist, the cinematographer and the guy who shared Firefly on DC++. There is a geek in each one of us, expressing discreetly, moulding our choices and waiting to be recognized.
Geek on. geek gazette
campus tech
The Place Less Known
8
Turnitin- Cheater’s Bane
24 34
Blowing Away the Competition
37
The 65th Bit features
The Railway’s Overture
15
Biopic: Aaron Swartz
20
First Encounter With The Third Kind cover story
44
26
Photogrammetry: Interview with Dr. Kamal Jain 5
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BIKE ENGINES POWERHOUSES EXPLORED What gets blood boiling more than squeezing a fistful throttle to exhaust and eyeing the horizon barging in its domain? Bikes have always been among the front pages of the adventure diaries of people from all squares. What makes bike so adrenaline charging is the power delivered by its engines. Over the years, engines have reformed and evolved to parallel the human sporting spirit.
D
bolting down the streets. There is DTSi and then there is DTS-Si, with an additional 'S'. DTS-Si has a Digital Microprocessor which controls the ignition timing of the 2 spark plugs. The DTS-Si has offset position of the inlet and outlet port which creates turbulence in the air fuel mixture inside the cylinder for rapid combustion.
evelopments have been steady. The racing maniacs came crazy on streets with the introduction of hitherto all new two-stroke engines. In a two stroke engine the piston strikes once up and then down, hence the name two stroke, thereby making the shaft attached to complete one cycle. Technically the intake of fuel mixture and exhaust goes simultaneously in one thermodynamic cycle of a typical two stroke engine.
There have been certain advancements in the ignition technology to boost up the engine power miles ahead. Digital C.D.I. and TRICS III are all responsible for exploding the fuel with zero error precision. The quick 'Capacitor Discharge Ignition' is a substitute to long time charging Inductive Discharge Ignition (IDI).The 'Throttle Responsible Ignition Control System' controls the ignition by operating the throttle. Depending on cruising, acceleration or max speed, the rpm and ignition requirement varies. For a specific amount of throttle open, a magnetic field switches “Reed switch� on or off. The Reed switch, connected to CDI, provides the ignition Advance Timing Maps. The precise mechanism helps a rider live his ride to the fullest, be it 'slow and cool' or full-on hot headed.
The technology had it all to lure commercialization at once. Kawasaki launched its H1 triple in 1969 with 498cc air cooled two stroke MACH III engine as they called it. A two stroke engine provides high power-toweight ratio making it light, compact yet powerful to count on. An update in the line up came with the Vtwin engines of classy Harley Davidson bikes. The 45-degree two cylinder layout provided more playfield for fuel mixture to couple up its energy with new electronic ignition. Subsequent changes were rather dramatic in literal sense. Number of cylinders multiplied to four. Self cooling V4 engines were launched with viscosity so high that even the riders couldn't handle it quite often. Experiments flooded in the market but nothing truly new had come for a while to the desperate dreams of speed crazies.
Other similar eyeball grabbing acronyms APDV, ASFS, ATFT are a little variation to the mainstream changes in four stroke engine. The 'Advanced Pro series Digital Variable ignition' handles the ignition digitally with 8-bit Microprocessor chips. The 'Advanced Tumble Flow induction Technology' that comes with Hero's Hunk model provides a tumbling motion for the homogeneity of air-fuel mixture.
The arrival of four-stroke engines revamped the floor setting new parameters of efficiency, durability and economy. A four stroke engine has 4 strokes or moves instead of 2-Intake of fuel mixture, Compression, Power i.e. igniting it with spark and then Exhaust. The whole process takes two complete rotations of the crankshaft which was one in two stroke scenario. The conclusion that a two stroke engine generates twice the power and speed at the cost of fuel efficiency and life.
With the current amount of investment the R&D of bike engines hold, one thing is for sure - the hunt for a beast engine won't stop till the road is stripped off underneath hot wheels for real.
To make up for this speed lag in the 4-stroke engines, unearthly robust technologies have been layered upon to make it accessible to the middle profile people. Among some innovative ones is the DTSi technology. The 'Digital Twin Spark plug ignition' engine e m p l o y s 2 s p a r k p lu g s i n a s i n gl e combustion cylinder. The flame front created by a conventional single spark takes some time in reaching the farther end in the cylinder. In DTSi, the two spark plugs couple together to provide torrents of speed for faster and better combustion. Bajaj has patented the DTSi technology in India. DTSi e n a b l e d B a j a j p ul s a r c a p t ur e d t h e imagination of youth for real time street racing and with its 220 cc version, it came geek gazette
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“In the heart of IIT Roorkee lies a silent building, behind all the hustle and bustle of Bru, away from the entire conundrum which you may have heard of, but may have never been to... This is the very place that s e t s II T R o o r k e e a p a r t f r o m m a n y technological institutions of the country and puts it in a league of its own, as one of the premier institutes that e n c o ur a g e r e s e a r c h a n d innovation and have all the facilities in place to ensure more and more students are drawn to this field.� Yes, it is the Institute Instrumentation Centre, popularly known as the 8 crore lab, barely losing
THE PLACE
LESS KNOWN
Atomic
out to the amount our institute pays to our gardeners; where a grant of 200 lakhs is just another thing. Well, there is more to these 8 crore that you might not know of... So, let's delve deeper and know what the IIC is really all about as Geek Gazette makes an attempt to give you a tour of The Building Most Travelled By... AAS is used for qualitative and quantitative analysis of a sample. Absorption Spectrophotometer Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy is based on the principle that an atom can be characterised by its distinct pattern of wavelengths at which it will absorb energy, owing to its unique electronic configuration. The sample is converted into atomic vapour and then subjected to electromagnetic radiations. These radiations are selectively absorbed by the atoms which then excite to higher energy levels. The energy corresponding to respective wavelengths are measured and the concentrations of the elements are then determined. AAS is widely used in environmental and clinical analysis.
Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer It is the fastest trace element analysis technique. Laser Ablation Microanalyzer is used in conjunction with ICP-MS. In this technique, a laser beam ablates the sample. An intense magnetic field, produced by interaction of radio frequency passing through a copper coil, interacts with tangential flow of gas to produce plasma. The positively charged ions generated in plasma are then transported to mass spectrometer. A quadrupole finally separates and collects the ions according to their charge to mass ratios. ICP-MS has a great use in forensics in matching the elemental composition of a component of a crime scene with the traces left on accused. It can also calculate the elemental composition of a sample as old as 5 million years and thus determine erstwhile environmental conditions.
Superconducting Quantum Interface Device SQUID is a superconductor loop containing Josephson junctions. When 2 superconductors are weakly coupled, they form a Josephson junction having unique magnetic properties. For materials to exhibit superconducting properties, they need to be cooled below their critical temperature by liquid Helium bath through pumping. If this pumping is stopped even for an hour, we lose three and a half lakhs in a blink of an eye. SQUID measures magnetic moment and calculates magnetic susceptibility and magnetization. Today, SQUID magnetometer finds its place in various disciplines including geophysics for determining thickness of earth's crust, biomagnetism for brain imaging and many more.
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geek gazette
Macromolecular Crystallographic Unit
Now, this is something IIT Roorkee surely must be proud of. IIT Roorkee is the first IIT and also the first institute in north India to acquire this MCU worth Rs. 5 crore. X-ray is diffracted by the crystalline atoms in different directions. The angles of diffraction and intensity of diffracted beams determine the 3-D crystal structure, bond lengths and disorders. MCU is useful in the study of molecular biology. MCU specializes in cloning, crystallization, three-dimensional structural analysis of proteins and drugs. Structure based drug design is done using this facility and now the drug can be designed to target a specific protein of a pathogen.
So, next time when you follow that 'someone' to the Biotech Department, do take a detour to this oft ignored majestic laboratory!
THE TUBE T
he London underground is a rapid transit system in United Kingdom. Colloquially known as the Tube, it is the oldest metro system in the world (operating since 1863). When introduced, it faced massive opposition when construction crews started digging up all over the place (much like the NBCC guys), followed by an FUD wave of people dying of asphyxiation within the tunnels. It has come a long way since then, revolutionizing transport, businesses and the face of London as we know it to conveniently providing a plot twist for Skyfall. The term underground transit system would be a slight misnomer in the sense that less than half of the entire Tube is actually underground (its 45%, to be exact.) It recently celebrated 150 years of its existence. Needless to say it has a lot of history associated with it. The logo of the Tube is known as “the roundel”- a red circle crossed by a horizontal blue bar. The typeface used in the Tube is called New Johnston, and was designed specifically for the Underground -- they have never released it and it’s never used anywhere else. British road signs have a similar typeface called Gill Sans, but it´s not the same. Tube stations were used extensively as air-raid shelters in World War – 2. The Royal Mint, to celebrate 150 years of Tube, issued two limited edition £2 coins which will be issued from selected London Underground ticket machines at some stations. The coin features the edge inscription 'mind the gap', a very well recognized phrase, introduced in 1969 in Tube, that is almost synonymous with underground travel all around the world (including our very own Delhi Metro). A final very interesting did-you-know fact about the Tube: In 1926, suicide pits were installed beneath tracks due to a rise in the numbers of passengers throwing themselves in front of trains — and the most popular tube suicide time is at approximately 11:00 in the morning.
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[
[
“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.�
S
ince time immemorial( sorry for the redundancy, time is indeed immemorial) with advent of human civilization we have made inventions, contraptions that could help us measure the only thing that's not constant-time. Keeping track of seasons, sun dials, movement of constellations, hourglasses have been some of the ways our ancestors kept record of time. We being a product of newer times went on to improve upon the old ways and came forward with mechanical clocks , quartz watches and atomic clocks which can measure picoseconds with ease. However, here we reveal to you the magic of mechanical watches , magic using gears and springs and an interesting innovation called as "tourbillion". A mechanical watch uses a mechanical mechanism to measure the passage of time, as opposed to modern quartz watches which function electronically. It is driven by a spring (called a mainspring) which must be wound periodically. Its force is transmitted through a series of gears to power the balance wheel, a weighted wheel which oscillates back and forth at a constant rate. A device called an escapement releases the watch's wheels to move forward a small amount with each swing of the balance wheel, moving the watch's hands forward at a constant rate. Inspite of the evident inaccuracies in mechanical watches, they have come in vogue in recent times due to the aesthetic value attached with them and the hard work involving the intricate design and the elegance associated with it. It's comprised of gears, and jewels, and plates, but once you put it together... Boom! It comes to life.Without delving deep into the detailed working , we bring to you another innovation in mechanical watches namely tourbillion. Developed around 1795 by the French-Swiss watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet , a tourbillon aims to counter the effects of gravity by mounting the escapement and balance wheel in a rotating cage, to negate the effect of gravity when the timepiece
(and thus the escapement) is stuck in a certain position. Originally an attempt to improve accuracy, tourbillons are still included in some expensive modern watches as a novelty and demonstration of watchmaking virtuosity Gravity has a direct effect on the most delicate parts of the escapement, namely the pallet fork, balance wheel and hairspring. Hairspring, which functions as the timing regulator for the escapement is thus the part most sensitive to any exterior effects, such as magnetism, shocks, temperature, as well as inner effects such as pinning positions (inner collet), terminal curve. Temperature and magnetism have been eliminated as problems with new materials. Shocks have much less effect today than at Breguet's time thanks to stronger and more resistive materials. Gravity comes into play on the remaining effects. . Effects of gravity on an escapement can have quite significant effects with slight variations of position. Even if a pocket watch was most of the time in a breast pocket, the exact position could still vary over 45째. A tourbillon quite neatly takes away this problem.
Mechanical watches today are mostly sold to buyers who value craftsmanship and aesthetics over very accurate timing. The tourbillon is considered to be one of the most challenging of watch mechanisms to make (although technically not a complication itself) and is valued for its engineering and design principles. Watches now have become more of a symbol rather than a device for showing time and as we bid aideu we would just like you to remember "tempus fugit" (time flies).
The first production tourbillon mechanism was produced by Breguet for Napoleon in one of his carriage clocks (travel clocks of the time were of considerable weight, typically weighing almost 200 pounds).
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Hacker Culture
What they had in common was mainly love of excellence and programming. They wanted to make the programs that they used be as good as they could. They also wanted to make them do neat things. They wanted to be able to do something in a more exciting way than anyone believed possible and show "Look how wonderful this is. I bet you didn't believe this could be done.” - Richard Stallman
T
he word 'hacker ' infallibly evokes an image of a person behind a glaring screen typing out lines upon lines of incomprehensible code in hopes of illegally infiltrating secure systems with the intention of causing harm. This image has constantly been reinforced by wave after wave of Hollywood movies that it has become tattooed upon our subconscious. However, this word has spawned a prolific culture around itself and now stands for a code of ethics. You will be amazed to know that hacking began with something as simple as the desire of a few blind teenagers to be able to talk to each other over the telephone, without incurring a huge bill. In t h e e a r l y d a y s o f t e l e p h o n e networking, the blind constantly devised ways to bypass the operator protocols and talk to each other free of c h a r g e. N o t a b l e a m o n g t h e s e techniques were sending a short pulse of the frequency of 2600 Hz to hack into the AT&T database and the blue box – an unauthorized electronic device that generates the same tones employed by a telephone operator's dialing console to switch long-distance calls. Besides wreaking havoc on AT&T's annual turnover, it bundled the sentiments of nonconformity and teenage-rebellion with phone phreaking, and eventually sowed the seeds of hacking. Organized hacking, under the Glider f l a g, w a s i n i t i a t e d b y b u d d i n g programmers in academia around 1960s. But, all hackers are not
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necessarily programmers. They might even be engaged in some other forms of media. A hacker is a person who enjoys playful cleverness and tries to use devices beyond their intended purpose. As Richard Stallman (rms), an eminent personality in the world of free and open source software (FOSS) and the founder of the free software movement said : “What they had...........be done”. These subcultures were initially isolated from each other as they operate on independent networks before the advent of the Internet. Even in isolation, they evolved a similar code of ethics which has been since listed in popular internet publications such as the Jargon File, a comprehensive compendium of hacker slang illuminating many aspects of their tradition, folklore, and humor; updated by the famous Eric S. Raymond (esr). As is wont with growing communities, there are always a few who don't subscribe to the code of ethics and in the case of hackers; these few are the ones who represent our generic subconscious hacker image. They are usually teenagers getting ahead of themselves, but in their arrogance, they tarnish the entire community. On January 8, 1986, a personality known only as The Mentor published one of the most famous articles on hacker culture, known as The Hacker's Manifesto. In it, he detailed the thoughts and feelings of a hacker and tried to
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explain what drives them to be different. With the advent of public internet services, the as yet isolated hacker communities found a common platform for meet-ups in the form of a Bulletin Board System (BBS), a primitive chat room. It was used for mass messaging and file transfer and led to the spread of various hacker texts and growth of smaller groups. This in turn resulted in the appearance of an appreciable number of 'crackers' who had built up their knowledge by dabbling in the volumes of hacker texts available to anyone who wanted it. The world started to recognize how big of a security risk was presented by such a huge network and the hacker community tried their best to distance themselves from the crackers. Many such crackers had in their adolescence committed minor, playful crimes and went on to become white hat hackers. Since the 90s, the hacker culture has evolved beyond expectations. Steven Levy, a renowned journalist who has been closely related to the culture, identified Richard Stallman as “the last true hacker”. In current times, the hacker collective has moved on towards broader fields as supporters of open source software. They are no longer the lone cowboy type, coding away fiercely at a CRT screen at odd hours of night with only a 6-pack of Mountain Dew Code Red, with all measures to secure their identity. Nowadays, they are out in the open with well-maintained blogs proudly displaying their name and claim to fame and found to be frequenting the comments sections of reddit and ycombinator. The promotion and propagation of this amazing culture still does need work. A lot of people are confused about what the culture actually stands for and trinity of fear, uncertainty and doubt has done no good. From isolated college subcultures to a vast social phenomenon, from tech tricks to a way of life, hacking has grown at an amazing pace and we hope that it never reaches critical mass. If you want to be familiar with this way of life, we at Geek Gazette strongly urge you to go through the various texts on hacker culture available on the internet, specially “How to be a Hacker” by Eric S. Raymond. geek gazette
STUFF THAT
TIME IS MADE OF Time and Tide wait for none
I
t seems that this “Time-Tested” saying since ages can now be put behind bars. Human Ingenuity might soon learn to be inert to the passage of time, with possible changes to the definition of the unit of time and its measurement. Brushing up the details on how analog clocks work, let’s take up a few minutes to explain to you the same. They consist of a mechanical oscillator, with a specific time interval, which finds itself attached to a controller that keeps the oscillator running by setting up pulses, utilizing the energy lost in oscillations. The pulses are counted by a Power-driven counter (In case you are wondering about this previously heard term, Yes! you need to brush up your EC102 course now!!) which displays the desired units. Now, reverting back to our main topic, let’s peek at the current definition of a “second” “The time needed for a cesium-133 atom to perform 9,192,631,770 complete oscillations.” The principle remaining the same i.e. counting of the oscillations performed, today’s clocks have been henceforth designed. Now, looking forward to more precise, more accurate, more “economic” clocks, the focus has begun shifting to “faster clocks”. In case this leaves you wondering if it means changing the reference frame of measuring time, you are right. One way is to increase the rate at which the clock “ticks”. This has led to research on new elements like y t t e r b i u m, m e r c u r y a n d s t r o n t i u m, w h i c h r e s o n a t e 429,228,004,229,952 times each second. In fact, the impossibility of such a strontium clock has been recently proved.
Scientists working on atomic clocks use two fundamental principles to measure time: A) Using a single atom, just as in the case of Cesium, but now experimenting with different other elements. This has not resulted in producing resplendent results owing to the fact that this single atom could touch unprecedented frequencies, the measurement of which lies above the current technology B) Using a multi-atom system, normalizes the effect of such high frequencies but fabricates the issue of interference of the fields.
W
hile atomic clock theory has quite aptly described the definition of a second and is en-route to a plethora of such fancy ideas, it has failed to actually propel forward the discovery of a device that the common man can very well purchase and use. Recently in the month of January 2013, a senior Scientist at Berkeley, Holger Müller and his colleagues have succeeded in producing what they have christened as a “Compton Clock”. What makes this clock unique is that it doesn’t rely on the traditional aluminum-ion based analog clocks nor does it have anything to do with the atomic oscillations of atoms. On the contrary, it uses the property of the dual-nature of matter as both a particle and a wave (Proposed by DeBroglie), as a matter wave’s frequency is 10 billion times higher than that of visible light. This idea was deemed far-fetched as the frequency of the wave, called the Compton, or de Broglie, frequency, might be unobservable. And even if it could be seen, the oscillations would be too fast to measure. Müller had already built an atom interferometer that measures atomic wave interference, about a couple of years ago. He got this idea of combining wave oscillations and a clockwork that counts the pendulum oscillations to create such a clock. However, this idea was difficult because of the high frequency of these waves. He however found out that Compton frequency of a single particle is, in fact, useful as a reference for a
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clock. In relativity, time slows down for moving objects, commonly called as twin paradox (The thing that astonished you while you were flipping the pages of H.C Verma during your JEE preparation!). A similar treatment was done with Cs-133 atoms. In the lab, Müller showed that he could measure this difference by allowing the matter waves of the fixed and moving cesium atoms to interfere in an atom interferometer. Müller’s studies have not only revolutionized the notion of time, they have led us to another milestone. “Time and Mass are inter-related i.e. they can be used to measure each other”. This opens the doors for researchers to build their own kilogram-reference scales. “Our clock is accurate to within 7 parts per billion. This clearly shows that the present reference of weight is subject to change with the change of time. It means that knowing the time is equivalent to knowing the mass of the particle. To standardize the definition of a kilogram we need to build an incredibly pure crystal of Silicon so that the no. of atoms in it is known to high accuracy and is impossible to change”, says Muller. The final question that arises is- Okay, if I know the time, I get the mass. But what exactly is time? Müller opines, “Now that will take a long - long time and physical matter to answer. It is definite that it requires the insight of a very- very massive particle, not something as tiny as a photon!”
geek gazette
THE RAILWAY’S OVERTURE
T
he true lifeline of any college vacation is also the most unheeded one- the railways. It has the most important task of taking you back to your den as soon as the semester ends or mid-sem break starts. So let's add a bit more to our knowledge of the mighty railways of India- and trust us it's more than irctc.com. India has the 4th largest (yes, it's not the 1st as exaggerated by many) railway network (in terms of the length of railway lines laid). It comes after USA, Russia and China. The British considered railways very essential to the economy and thus they invested heavily in establishing the same in our country during their stay here. From the firsts of steam locomotives that chugged out of Howrah station destined for Hooghly in 1854 to the very famous Mumbai to Calcutta route (opened in 1870) which was a part of inspiration of Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days, Indian Railways is the grand daddy of transportation system of India. Geek Gazette brings to you some of the things to know about our railways: You might have missed it but every train engine, except for
them. The code is generally of the form [gauge][power][load][series]. [gauge] - is a single letter identifying the gauge i.e. the width of the rail that makes up the line. W- Broad Gauge; Y- Meter Gauge; Z,N- Narrow Gauge [load] - identifies the kind of load the loco is normally used for. P- Passenger, G- Goods, S-Shunting, M-Mixed Traffic [power] - identifies the power source of the vehicle. DDiesel, C- DC traction, A-AC traction [series] - Starting in 2002, for diesel, passenger and mixed locos i.e. WDP, WDG and WDM, the series identifies the horsepower range of the loco with '3' for greater than 3000bhp but less than 4000 hp, '4' for greater than 4000 hp but less than 5000 hp. [subtype] - redefines HP specification. A- 100 hp, B- 200 hp, C- 300 hp Thus, WDM-3A implies Broad Gauge, Diesel, Mixed Traffic with HP of 3100.
older steam ones, have classification codes that identify
How a train is directed to its route and kept track of? There is no such thing as control room of Indian Railways. There are thousands of control cabins at all major stations that control the operation in their jurisdiction and handover the trains to the next control system as they move. The control room controls the fish-plate of tracks and based on the current traffic in the route, the train is diverted from one track to another. Unlike plain pilots, who actually talk to ATC for landing, taking-off etc. there is no explicit talk going on between Control Room and driver. The control room indirectly communicates through signals. Control Tower sets the route, signals and speed limit boards along the track informing the driver of the route set for him. The drivers have a VHF (walkie-talkie) to communicate with the guard of train and nearby control room. As they say: ‘Sometimes, the difficult part is to keep thing simple.’
Track Circuits-
Braking-
Ballasts-
To keep track of the train, track circuit was invented. Oversimplifying, a small current is passed through the track and as a train moves along, it creates a short circuit that can be detected. Based on this, a track diagram can be generated and as a train moves along, short circuit at a given point causes the light to illuminate showing where train is.
is a tricky part in trains. Good understanding of slope of track and change in the movement after applying the brake is necessary. There is a vacuum line which is connected to the emergency train stopping gear in all the compartments.
The ballasts are laid on the tracks to absorb the vibrations and shock waves generated during the movement of trains. They wear out over time and when this happens fresh ballast is laid on the tracks.
What about the ubiquitous dark blue color of our coaches? Apparently there was no solid reason for it. A dull maroon/rust color was the dominant color scheme employed by the IR till 1990s. From late 1990s, the dark blue paint scheme began to be used in all stocks other than Rajdhani/Shatabdi. This was also the time when IR switched from vacuum-braked stock to air-braked stock (more advanced braking system) and many consider that it was probably done to differentiate between the former braked stocks and the later ones. For all the railways enthusiasts out there, check out irfca.org (and believe us it stands for Indian Railways Fan Club Association) for excellent technical history/coverage of Indian Railways. And the rest of you definitely have enough matter to brag about the next time you are standing on the Roorkee Railway station platform and see a train chugging into the station.
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Sometimes it sets my teeth on edge, “ Blood. other times it helps me control the chaos.
”
-Dexter Morgan The fascination of Dexter with blood may probably remain unmatched, but blood spatter analysis, as a special field of forensic science, has advanced to a brand new high in the past few years and makes real contributions to solving crimes, instead of just corroborating the already known evidence. As science students (and really devoted viewers of the drama series Dexter!), this was the one technique that we actually understood, and figured out the uses it could be put to. It can unravel the way a crime was committed. But of course, the crime must involve blood. As might be apparent, its study involves fields of biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics. A Bloodstain Pattern, or blood spatter, is formed due to the simple fact that blood clots. Upon exiting the body, bloodstains change colour from bright red to dark brown, as a result of oxidation of oxyhaemoglobin (HbO2) to methaemoglobin (met-Hb) and hemichrome. Outside the body, blood behaves as a fluid, and the laws of motion and gravity apply. Due to surface tension, it assumes a spherical shape while travelling in the air, and due to cohesive force, groups of molecules assume the smallest possible area. When a spherical blood droplet hits the ground, it forms an elliptical stain. Now, a certain Dr. Victor Balthazard realised that the sine of the angle of impact actually can be determined as the ratio of the lengths of the minor and major axes of the ellipse. After determination of the angles of impacts of several well formed blood stains, comes the visually fascinating and fun-part - Stringing! If you have no clue of what that means, you really haven't seen the array of red strings running from anywhere to everywhere, forming a web even more intricate than a spider's, and converging together to form an area. That area is called the area of convergence. Now they have softwares that eliminate the necessity of this string-method, that apparently calculates with more accuracy the area of convergence, but where's the fun in that! The analyst uses elastic string to draw lines and then can determine the exact location the crime was committed. And that's not all. The other things that can be determined are type and velocity of the weapon, number of blows, the handedness of the assailant (left or right),
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position and movements of the victim and assailant during and after the attack, which wounds were inflicted first, type of injuries, how long ago the crime was committed, and whether death was immediate or delayed. There are 3 kinds of blood spatters according to their initial velocity. A low-velocity spatter usually is seen due to dripping blood, which may be due to the victim walking around after having been injured. A medium-velocity spatter can be caused due to blunt force, like intense punches or baseball bats. Stab wounds are also included in this category, which sometimes squirt blood. This is called projected blood. A high-velocity spatter involves gunshot wounds, but can also include other weapons, if the attacker uses an extreme amount of force. It actually looks like just a fine spray of tiny droplets! That's enough with the science part of this thing. One of the main activities of blood spatter analysis is Photography. That actually might be the second of three things you remember seeing Dexter do as part of his job - Stringing, photography, and analysis of blood samples.But crime scene photography has some unique requirements. With blood in the picture, special attention must be given to the blood stains. The crime-scene is comprehensively documented using pictures comprising of overall wide angle i m a g e s (s h o w i n g t h e s c e n e a s i t i s) , m i d - r a n g e images(zooming up to a single blood stain pattern), and close-up images (macro images). Nowadays, blood spatter analysis has really integrated itself into modern forensic science and is no more considered rocket science. The IABPA (International Association of Blood Spatter Analysts) offers courses in this field, and puts up standards for training and research. And it is obvious that it is here to stay. Blood spatter analysis has really caught the imagination of people everywhere, and it delivers results. What more could one possibly ask for? “No blood. No sticky, hot, messy, awful blood; no blood at all. Why hadn't I thought of that? No blood. What a beautiful idea!” - Dexter Morgan PS : Even the best blood analysts are jobless if a murder is blood-less, aren't they? geek gazette
Say
Perhaps to
We, humans are a product of the evolution process that took millions of years to make us who we are. Living in the modern times, we look for instant gratification of our pleasures and desires. This often manifests in the form of occasional alcohol and drug use (we are not talking about habitual users). Call it a boon or a bane, the exponential growth of science and technology and the proliferation of social media and internet have made it very easy to get hold of casual drugs. While drug abuse has always been a matter of contention, the recent admission of doping charges by a former professional road racing cyclist and a record seven consecutive times winner of '`Tour de France' ,Lance Armstrong has brought forth the issue to
As mentioned earlier, no drug use is the best policy (Trust us, it is).
Urine testing: most commonly used, easy and accurate to a fair extent. Drugs in urine are tested using a technique called immunoassay and other more extensive tests such as Gas Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry. The time frame of urine testing usually is within a week or two at most.
Spiking or masking the sample: This is a method used to throw off testing equipment from seeing certain results. Commercial and OTC chemicals containing nitrates were once used to mask THC but are now commonly tested for.
Hair Testing: The technology behind the hair test was pioneered by Psychemedics Corporation. When drug metabolites are circulated in the blood, they enter the scalp's blood vessels and are filtered through the hair. These metabolites remain in the hair and provide a permanent record of drug use. About 50 strands of hair are taken and dissolved in a series of solvents and then tested upon using a variety of chemicals and enzymes. This is a time taking yet very thorough test which means it's often employed in cases of legal interest and military use .Hair testing has a time frame of 30-90 days which means it can show drug use dating months back.
Diluting the sample: Dilution is the process of reducing the concentration of drug or drug metabolites in the sample. This is accomplished by adding fluid to the sample. Diluting a sample will lower the specific gravity and Creatinine level (Creatine is used by muscles and creates a waste product called Creatinine). Eating vitamins helps remove drug metabolites. Drug testing laboratories all routinely test samples to detect dilution. Internal Dilution can be done by drinking lots of water to dilute the sample but doesn't work too successfully as it often gets the attentions of the test agencies.
Perspiration and saliva testing: This is quite frequently used though it has many limitations. The major one being that it can detect drug use only within 4-6 hours and the second one being that it's not available for a wide array of drugs that are consumed. It basically works on the principle of presence of cannabinoids (drugs) in sweat or saliva of a person after consumption. The maximum time frame for this test is around 3 days.
Fooling a hair test might prove a very tough nut to crack and can be much harder if cocaine or synthetic drugs are used by darkhaired people as it is the melanin (hair color) that is the carrier as opposed to keratin (hair) in a THC screen. So repeated use by darkhaired people is almost impossible to reduce below detectable levels.
Blood testing: Although expensive and intrusive, blood testing is the most accurate confirmation of drug use. Since blood testing accurately detects the presence of the drug or its metabolites at the time of testing, the results from this type of test are the best indication of current intoxication. However the same limitation mars its use and that being it can only detect within 22-40 hours of actual use.
For saliva testing, the possible solution would be to avoid the test. However the next best solution is to position the collection pad in between the teeth and gums instead of the tongue and teeth. Substitution: probably the stupidest bypassing technique which involves swapping the urine sample with a clean sample, provided by a non-user or by a synthetic sample. However, ironically, it is one of the best possible things that can be done to avoid flagging your sample.
Now coming back to the more important issue of bypassing the drug test, we try to highlight the common techniques used to achieve the purpose. geek gazette
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“Isn’t it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do “practice”?” ― George Carlin
As students of engineering, medicine seems to us a distant and orderly field of knowledge and procedure. It is actually an imperfect science, an enterprise of constantly changing knowledge, uncertain information, fallible individuals, and at the same time lives on the line. In this article we take a look at how medicine has progressed through the ages. From Sushruta to Flemming to the test tube baby, we have covered all the aspects of how medicine has evolved to acquire its present form.
timeline of MEDICINE 27th Century BC 6th Century BC The Indian physician Sushruta revolutionized surgery and formally gave birth to a number of fields of medicine. The guy was a genius. Plus he wrote a book. His magnum opus, the Sushruta Samhita comprises 184 chapters giving a detailed description of 1120 illnesses, 700 medicinal plants, 64 preparations using minerals(early forms of viagra) and 57 preparations based on animal matter (nothing beats cow urine).
460 BC Hippocrates decided to be born this year on the Greek island of Cos. He single handed separated medicine from theology and philosophy and hence became the Father of medicine. The Hippocratic Oath which is mandatorily undertaken by every medical student is a tribute to him. (So no jokes here)
1656 English architect Sir Christopher Wren was the first to administer medications intravenously by means of an animal bladder attached to a sharpened quill. People had a knack for inter-disciplinary cool stuff back then.
1800 Sir Humphry Davy announced the anaesthetic properties of nitrous oxide. In 1842, American surgeon Crawford W. Long used ether as a general anesthetic during surgery but did not publish his results. In 1844, Dr. Horace Wells, American dentist, used nitrous oxide as an anesthetic. He had the effect demonstrated on himself by a travelling circus member.
The Egyptian Imhotep described the diagnosis and treatment of 200 diseases and achieved Godly stature. For 3000 years he was worshipped as a god in Greece and Rome. When the Greeks conquered Egypt they recognized his contributions and adopted his methodologies in their medicine, and continued to build temples to him.Weird?
5th Century BC Alcmaeon of Croton (rhyming name) was a Pythagorean and he proved his genius by being the first to cut up dead bodies or “perform human dissections” as he justified it. While playing around with corpses, he accidently discovered the optic nerve and Eustachian tubes. He also distinguished arteries from veins and theorized that the brain was the centre of intellectual activity (you don't say).
1628 William Harvey published 'An Anatomical Study of the Motion of the Heart and of the Blood in Animals'. Fancy title for 'Blood flows'. He basically described how blood is pumped throughout the body by the heart, and then returns to the heart and recirculates. The book is very controversial but became the basis for modern research on the circulatory system.
1796 Edward Jenner founded immunology. In his famous experiment, he rubbed pus from a dairymaid's cowpox pustule into scratches on the arm of his gardener's 8year-old son, and then exposed him to smallpox six weeks later, which he did not develop. The process was termed vaccination from the Latin vacca for cow. (Jenner wanted it to be 'Jenneration', but it was taken).
1870s 1899 Felix Hoffman developed aspirin (acetyl salicylic acid). The juice from willow tree bark had been used as early as 400 BC to relieve pain and scientists knew that it was the salicylic acid in the willow that made it work, but it irritated the lining of the mouth and stomach. Hoffman synthesized acetyl salicylic acid, developing what is now the most widely used medicine in the world. God bless his soul.
1928 Scottish bacteriologist Sir Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin.This discovery changed the course of history altering forever the treatment of bacterial infections. By the middle of the century, F l e m i n g ' s d i s c o v e r y h a d s p a w n e d a hu g e pharmaceutical industry, churning out synthetic antibiotics that would conquer some of mankind's most ancient scourges, including syphilis, gangrene and tuberculosis. He shares the 1945 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Ernst Chain and Sir Howard Florey.
1953 J ames Watson and Francis Crick at Cambridge University described the structure of the DNA molecule. Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin at King's College in London were also studying DNA. (Wilkins in fact shared Franklin's data with Watson and Crick without her knowledge.) Watson, Crick, (the plagiarist duo) and Wilkins share the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1962 (Franklin had died and the Nobel Prize only goes to living recipients).
Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch established the Germ Theory of Disease according to which, a specific disease is caused by a specific organism. Before this discovery, most doctors believed diseases were caused by spontaneous generation, or the wrath of the Gods. In fact, doctors would perform autopsies on people who died of infectious diseases and then care for living patients without washing their hands, not realizing that they were therefore transmitting the disease germs.
1912 Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins published his work of a series of animal feeding experiments with diets consisting of pure proteins, carbohydrates, fats, minerals and water fail to support animal growth. This led him to suggest the existence of “accessory food factors�, now more famously known as vitamins (vital amines), that are essential for animal growth and survival. He was awarded the 1929 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
1935 Dr. John H. Gibbon, Jr., successfully used a heart-lung machine for extracorporeal circulation of a cat (i.e., all the heart and lung functions are handled by the machine while surgery is performed). Dr. Gibbon used this method successfully on a human in 1953. It is now commonly used in open heart surgery.
1954 Dr. Joseph E. Murray performed the first kidney transplant between two identical twins, one of which was dying of a kidney disease. Because they were identical twins, the organ did not appear foreign to the other's body, which did not reject it.
1978 On July 25, 1978, Louise Joy Brown, the world's first successful "test-tube" baby was born in Great Britain. Though the technology that made her conception possible was heralded as a triumph in medicine and science, it also caused many to consider the possibilities of future ill-use.
1980s - Present The next epoch in the tale of medicine is one that witnessed rapid growth in multiple sub-disciplines and amalgamation of medicine with biotechnology. Notable among these being, stem cell therapy and artificial insulin. Gene therapy remains yet another undelivered promise, but current technology gives us a reason to hope. From carbon fibre prosthetics to full face transplants to artificial blood to the first ever functional cure of HIV, the field of medicine has surpassed one hurdle after another in the quest for human longevity.
BIOPIC
AARON SWARTZ
ACTIVIST. REBEL. GEEK. ne of the most interesting aspect about our belief systems, as geeks, has been our belief in existence of the child prodigies, the ‘so-called’ crazy ones, the wunderkinds. We are so dazzled by their prominence, stardom and genius that we end up fancying them a distinctive space in our hearts. One such prodigy, recently in news, was Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide after hanging himself, in his Brooklyn Apartment, this January. Geek Gazette explores the brilliant life of this internet prodigy, also a social worker, political reformer and writer and tries to look into possible reasons of his fall.
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activism came up, when he co-founded Demand Progress, a group that successfully led the campaign against ‘Stop Online Piracy Act’ (SOPA) from getting implemented. In 2006 he released—which no one knows how—the complete bibliographic data for books held by the Library of Congress. He thought it unfair that the Library's catalogue division charged hefty fees to provide this information, which, being the work of the government, had no copyright protection within the United States. So with his belief that knowledge should be free and must not rest in few hands, he posted it in the Open Library.
Aaron Swartz, just like other prodigies, was born genius. At an early age of 14, when most of us, were busy memorizing Pokémon names and collecting Hannah Montana feeblestuffs, he was out writing long codes for developing the nowubiquitous tool RSS 1.0, which revolutionized sharing throughout the internet. A year later, he was working with Sir Tim Berners Lee, the creator of World Wide Web, on enhancing internet through the Semantic Web, which aimed at converting the unstructured web into a ‘web of data’. He then with John Gruber, created Markdown, a simplified markup standard derived from HTML. While his stay at Stanford, he founded the software company Infogami which later on merged with Reddit, making him a millionaire before he could legally catch a can of beer. But this was not all. Just the beginning.
It was not that authorities where always supportive. In 2011 he was arrested for allegedly retrieving 4.8 million documents from JSTOR, an online academic journal library, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a fee-based repository of articles from scholarly journals. The prospect of spending 35 years in jail, may or may not have triggered his long believed depression. But on January 11, he ended his life and the believers of free knowledge, the common man moaned in his grief. The whole web wept. WikiLeaks claimed him as an ally, while Anonymous, the famous hacker group, took down a number of websites, converting them into his homage shrines. For instance, anyone who opened the website of U.S. Sentencing Commission, found it to be replaced by: "Two weeks ago today, Aaron Swartz was killed. Killed because he was forced into playing a game he could not win."
Although programming was his first love, but there was something else that drove him in later stages of his short life. This other thing was activism. At 26, Swartz, had established himself as a singular force between the world of technology and activism- a young man who believed that information was the most valuable of assets, a form of wealth no one should be deprived of. His best work in free-knowledge geek gazette
It is not always that our obsession with geeky-ness blindfolds us to sense the righteousness. As a believer in freeknowledge, with Aaron Swartz gone, we believe we are heavily down in our stand against confinement of knowledge. Knowledge must not rest in few hands. It must be free.
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hat if one fine day in R- land.... by some extraordinary chance you happen to meet some form of extra terrestrial life. Preposterous, but possible and if it happens you will be part of a historical moment. It is important to remember that size of the universe and rarity of life makes it extremely unlikely that two races of roughly equal intelligence will encounter each another. So the aliens you meet are either going to be primitive or way too advanced. If by some great stroke of luck and intelligence, you manage to build a space ship that takes you to the space letting you explore Mars and other planets, you might encounter some molecular species. Or maybe they are going to be of a primtive type, venturing in space, piggybacking on a comet (venom's suit from Spiderman 3) or a meteor (could be the one that just landed in Russia!!). In that case, there is nothing to be done. Collect samples and send them to SETI. But what will make up for a much more interesting scenario is you accidentally running into the movie like, advanced E.T. here.
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geek gazette
Here is the protocol that you must observe: No fighting, no hiding, keep your cool : A species which has mastered interstellar travel is not going to be anywhere near 5000 technological years of the human race . It is highly probable that they might have already encountered animals ( most probably dogs). So it will be important to show them that you are a member of the most advanced species on the planet, iitians even more so and keep calm. The reason you are still alive would be probably because of their genuine interest in you. Do not waste your time worrying about protecting your wallet, phone or any other trivial object that might be important for you. If they can fly all the way upto here, they can get anything they want with a snap of their fingers. Do not be threatening , trying to act like the saviour of mankind. There is no fight happening here, matrix style. So act smart and stay still. Communicating with them : Nothing from HS technical communication is going to help you with this one. Find out if you are even audible to them. It is possible that they might just hear a completely different range of frequencies. Or even if they can hear your voice, there is a rare chance they understand what you speak. Check if they respond to visible light. Writing will be the best way to express then. You might show them some of your random notes scribbled in class ( in case you have any) to check if they identify something. Or you can use pen and paper to convey some ideas. If they communicate in a way you cannot observe or copy, physically push them for attention. They must be able to interact with the surroundings in order to build or operate a ship, and so they will detect your push. Be patient and if all else fails, keep trying new ways of attracting attention. (try saying Biotech IITR) Ignore the basic customs, most importantly do not smile : much of what we do would not be at all obvious to an alien visitor. Smiling might not be considered a polite gesture, because showing your teeth and greeting them will surely not be a polite conversation starter. Since you are going to be primitive for them it will precisely make them feel what you feel when a dog shows you its teeth. Baring of teeth is a threatening gesture across species. Try not to make unnecessary movements, except when manipulating objects or copying their communication if you are able to. Try not to be afraid of their bizarre actions. They could be just as individual as humans, or perhaps more so, so do not expect every single one of them to pay attention to you.
Maths to the rescue : Once you have found a way to communicate, it will be important to show them that you are as intelligent as them. They are definitely going to be maths nerds , so no worries if you are way out of their league, so would be Einstein. Use the maths to show off the knowledge of human race you possess. Pure mathematics is noncultural and can be used to show you are intelligent and start the process of mutual learning. Draw different numbers of dots to represent basic numbers and do a few multiplications. You can use coins or objects to represent the numbers. In the numbers, put every ten dots or objects in groups of ten to show that we use base-10 for our numbers. Things to remember : They will know relativity, but not Einstein. They will not know Pythagoras but will know his theorem, not Darwin but natural selection. A few maths problems together will bridge the differences and promote harmony. You can show them binary by using any two characters. Use astronomy to talk about earth. You could draw elliptical orbits , show them your home and ask them about theirs. Project yourself as curious, willing to learn and most importantly peaceful. Try and be careful enough not to give away important biological information about your DNA, in case they plan to use it to destroy us in the classic Hollywood style.
Ebbinghaus
Illusion
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ver wonder why the Moon looks bloated and flat near h o r i z o n, y e t r e a c h i n g overhead it seems shrunk as ifacted upon by some winzip tool! This simple observation haunted humans since the time they started reasoning. And was exorcized by Ebbinghaus. The Ebbinghaus illusion is an optical illusion of relative s i z e p e r c e p t i o n. T h e illusion lies on apparent size of two circles relative to circles nearby. Two identical circles are placed adjacent; one surrounded by large circles and other by small circles. This ju x t a p o s i t i o n m a k e s central circle surrounded by large circles appear smaller than the central circle surrounded by small circles.
End of the game : Once you have made peace with them and learned everything you could , it will be time to say goodbye. Come back and get all the popularity you can. Get your picture in the papers, meet all the important people and earn world wide fame. Keep your first words simple. They will be remembered for years to come. You might become the most important person on earth and hence make some enemies and eventually get killed. Sad though it might be but there is nothing that can be done about it. But if all turns out well, you could become earth's harbinger for the universe and earn yourself a place in history. Good luck, keep your fingers crossed and wait for this day to come... geek gazette
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TURN IT IN – CHEATER’S BANE
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which are available for free. It also features an innovative, cross-language approach to identify "translated plagiarism." Translated plagiarism consists of students taking existing source material in one language, translating it into the language used at their institution and misrepresenting it as their own work. The translated matching capability, international and multi-language schools can identify unoriginal content that has been translated from English into other languages.
he students of IIT Roorkee are hereby informed that in order to check the practice of plagiarism the research papers given by the students may be submitted for textual similarity review to Turnitin.com. All submitted papers will be included as source of documents in Turnitin.com reference database solely for detecting plagiarism of such papers. Good news or not but the institute now has now purchased a license for the plagiarism detection software, Turnitin. A report from the plagiarism detection software will now be submitted along with the thesis or dissertation. A few professors have also warned the students not to copy the contents of their project or term papers from the internet as they will use this software to verify the originality of the content.
In 2012 over 80 million student papers were submitted to Turnitin. The software has become very popular with the instructors as it has helped to decrease plagiarism and increase the creativity of students. Grading becomes easier and less time consuming. Students find it better because they get richer feedback and it helps them improve their writing. The software, and its algorithms, is fool proof and constantly updated. One cannot beat it using conventional methods. It analyses the raw data underlying the assignment and can totally see through any of the lame manipulations that are recommended on the Internet to beat Turnitin. If you copy paste you are screwed. The only way out is to write your own stuff or maybe buy custom written original papers on any topic from a variety of enterprising freelancers and established paper mills. Turnitin has thus become the leading academic plagiarism detector, utilized by teachers and students to avoid plagiarism and ensure academic integrity. As of now, the introduction of Turnitin might not seem a very exciting prospect from the student's viewpoint but it will certainly help in curbing plagiarism and improving the quality of student's work.
Plagiarism is often referred to as practice of copying, which has become very popular and complex due to a wide range of source materials being instantly available. The instructors submit electronic version of essays, research or project papers to Turnitin. This software produces an originality report after comparing it to a database from three primary sources. The first is a current and an extensively archived copy of publicly accessible internet, with more than two billion pages updated at a rate of 40 million pages per day. The other sources include commercial pages from books, newspapers and journals and student papers already being submitted to Turnitin since 1996. It compares the submitted work with the existing database and produces a similarity score. It shows in detail the extent to which the content is copied, depicting how much percentage is exactly copied from what source. Student work is shown with full formatting, including diagrams and figures. Matching text is highlighted almost like on real paper. However this report does not indicate whether a student has plagiarized, but simply helps to identify sources that contain textual similarities in submitted papers. It is finally for the instructor to decide whether plagiarism has occurred or not.
The students of IIT Roorkee are hereby informed that in order to c h e c k t h e p ra c t i c e o f plagiarism the research papers given by the students may be submitted for textual similarity review to
Apart from an originality report Turnitin has several other features that include grade mark, peer mark, voice comments and grading rubrics. Grade mark saves time and improves feedback through online grading where standard and customized marks appear directly on student's paper. Peer mark engages students in writing process by providing structured, anonymous feedback of other student's written work. Interactive rubric design is used to analyse and grade academic quality of internet sources used by students
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geek gazette
As we entered the workaholic cabin at the far end of the corridor, one floor above level zero of the Geomatics building of Civil Department, we were welcomed by a commendably knowledgeable yet humorous and humble gentleman, Dr. Kamal Jain, who has made the whole institute proud by creating a 3D model of the Main Building and the Civil Department using the technique of photogrammetry, implementing it successfully for the first time in India, sees this as a milestone in the development and effectuation of the science. Here are a few excerpts from the candid and inspiring insight he offered to Geek Gazette, verbalising various aspects of the project and the embroiled journey within.
C C O O V V E E R R S S T T O O R R Y Y
GG: For starters, please tell our readers a little about photogrammetry. Prof. Jain: Photogrammetry, in the literal sense is the science of 'measuring with help of photographs'. It is actually a subdivision of Surveying, which is by definition the study of areas to prepare maps. While other known conventional methods are Plane Table method and the more popular GPS technology, Photogrammetry is different in the sense it uses for mapping, the Binoculars Principle. See, it's quite similar to the way our eyes gauge the depth and geometry of an object. Two of our eyes picture on our retina two different images of an object, and the angle subtended between the lines of sight conveys to the brain how actually the 3D structure of the object is. Similarly, two photographs of an object taken from some distance reveal the 3 dimensional forms and features of the object in space. A point on the object is taken as the Floating Point, which is movable on the virtual image in all 3 directions viz. X, Y, Z whose position in two different images gives the exact dimensions of the object. Thus it is actually, 'measuring with the help of photographs' only. GG: We would like to know a little about your project, about rendering the Civil Department and Main Building. Prof. Jain: Our project was entirely based on photogrammetry, though the outcome i.e. the 3D model you see is the last stage of the whole process of photogrammetry. It involves using software like 3D Max, Maya etc. to digitalise the results of photogrammetric measurements. So I along with my team clicked 500 photographs of the civil department and the main building and in subsequent steps used them to create the 3D models. This is for the first time in India that such a model has been successfully created and that too having far better quality than the previous attempts. GG: It must have felt amazing to accomplish it for the ďŹ rst time in India. What is your next step? Are you pursuing this technique in any other large scale projects? Prof. Jain: Yes, of course. We are getting numerous proposals from both inside and outside India and we are expecting many more in the coming times, e.g. a video game making firm in Singapore wants to collaborate with us to use this technology in rendering the features of the buildings etc. shown in the games. The kind of rendering possible with this technique is beyond that currently being used in video gaming software. Recently, I was also invited to some European countries for guest lectures and workshops on photogrammetry, and what I found was, except Germany and France, all countries are lagging behind us in the field by at least 20 years. We are the ones setting standards in this sphere by our indigenous methods e.g. the single image method I have developed, is a path-breaking one as it uses only a single photograph to map entire 3D structure.
Not only today, we have been leading it from the very beginning. In 1958, University of Roorkee became the first institution to offer a course in photogrammetry. Thus we are going great in this direction, leading the world by a wide margin. GG: It is great to know about such innovative methods being employed in our institute. We certainly feel proud to know that we are leading the world in this field. However, the general perception is that photogrammetry is an expensive and complicated process. What's your take on this? Prof. Jain: See, the cost of photogrammetry has evolved with time. In 1990s, the setup would cost you a crore rupees. In the next few years, the cost began to drop down with the advent of PC simulated technology.Under the eleventh five year plan, for the first time in the country a demonstrative project of 3D mapping using all contemporary and emerging technologies were used for the Chandni Chowk area of Delhi. The project cost the government a whopping 67 crore rupees. Today the modelling costs for areas planned by the government is around 50 lac/ sq. Km and for walled up and crowded areas it's around 80 lac/sq. Km. Now, the achievement of our project is that we have brought down its cost to 10-15 lacs against the current market expenses which would surely cross 25 lacs. So in a way, through our project, we have brought down the clichéd high cost image of photogrammetry. GG: How is it different from the virtual mapping technique used by Google for Google Earth? Prof. Jain: See, there is a stark difference between the two. While photogrammetry uses photographs taken from some distance to analyse and map the objects and areas, what Google Earth employs is a Wire Mesh Draping technique. Imagine a wire mesh draped onto an object. It will invariably take the shape of the object, thus the image formed shall be accurate in terms of size too, i.e. the exact dimensions of the object and areas are revealed, thus fascinatingly mapping the landscape as we see on Google Earth. GG: How do you see the future of photogrammetry in India? Prof. Jain: Photogrammetry has got an awesome potential in India in the coming years as the current focus is towards Egovernances and creating 3D models of the cities. It will supposedly be the next big thing in focus now, and going by recent trends, the next biggest scam to be unveiled in our country will take place in this field. (Laughs) GG: Did you have to face any difficulties in researching and implementing upon this path-breaking project? Prof. Jain: There weren't as such any difficulties in the process, as I have been researching upon this for quite a while, in fact several years now. The software firms, as a part of a project had, for testing purposes, provided us their Geomedia software worth 2.35 crores for free. We had been testing LPS and other software for several years. So the only hassle you can talk of is the financial aspect of it. This project hasn't been funded by the department. All the R&D has been carried out on my own cost. Even the PCs you see here in my cabin have been bought on my own expenses. I myself have paid all the research assistants. Well, in the end, it feels great to have implemented the project entirely on my own. GG: As we see, the trends indicate deviation of mind-sets from research and attraction towards hefty packages. For a parting note, what's your message to the engineering students, particularly at IITs about research in such unexplored areas? Prof. Jain: First of all, they need to inculcate in themselves self-confidence that they can study their subjects in depth instead of just cramming things up to pour out in the exams. They must avoid getting spoon-fed by their teachers. Mark my words it is most lethal thing that can happen to a student. It delimits their imagination and pursuit of research, thus killing the very essence of education.In addition, they must remain motivated enough to learn new things like useful softwares to remain updated with the market and the industry. Rest, just stay grounded and keep your vision clear and any path, however unexplored, unbeaten it might be, cannot remain arduous to betrodden by you.
KRAV MAGA
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he umpteen times you have typed Inglorious Basterds, Schindler's List or The Dictator on the DC search box and searched for the finest prints of these cinemas. In case you are wondering, if the Geek Gazette team is here with opinions on these brilliant motion pictures, you are in for a surprise. History and Geekdom have been inseparable since time immemorial. Taking turns at exploring the hoary pioneers of Geekdom through biopics and timelines, Geek Gazette takes a dig at one of the most fascinating martial art technique that traces its origins to the Jew-Nazi Conflict, Krav Maga. Brought into force by Imi Lichtenfeld in order to help the Jewish community to protect themselves from Nazi armed forces, the formulation is quite an interesting pick, though the history doesn't go far back. Literally translated as “Contact Combat”, it is a mixture of self-security and armed combat. Heavy usage of day to day objects is encouraged with special focus on absconding from danger (Which was actually used by Lichtenfeld's paramilitary organization that helped in the creation of the independent state of Israel. A group of six Krav Maga Instructors eventually brought this to the Pacific). Absence of a proper code of uniform/belt system is responsible for the unnoticed path this form has taken. Unlike Karate or Judo, there are no rules in a realtime fight, made crystal clear by Liam Neeson in Taken. The main mode of impact is relied by palm/open hand strikes. In case the fighter desires to use a weapon such as a mace or a bamboo rod, he must ensure that it penetrates the vital organs such as groin, eyes, neck, and fingers. Here are a few helpful tips.
of the body. Try to be balanced and never let yourself be on the lower ground. Training houses of Krav Maga are located in the most inhospitable environs where the student is at a disadvantage such as garages, caves and garbage dumps. These broaden the understanding of real life situations. Situational drills will often determine appropriate pre-contact behavior, defensive techniques, tactics, use of force, etc. For example, a 35-year-old man "placed" in an elevator with one seemingly inebriated and slightly agitated 60-year-old man would likely undergo completely different adrenal, technical and tactical responses than the same man carrying his 10month-old baby on an elevator with three belligerent and argumentative 20-year-olds. Continuing with its alienation from other martial forms, a surprising fact comes to light here. A very small amount of time is devoted to physical activities and sports during training. Moreover, it consists of drills that semi-replicate the fighting scenes. This is because of the fact that during the origins of the Nazi-Jew War, the Jews were at the greatest risks at public places like sport stadiums and as a result, failed to receive subsidiary physical training. Though not one of the famous and easy fighting skills, Krav Maga comes to light for the indigenous formulations adopted then. Adopting it and spreading it to a larger mass remains the challenge today. Take note, Poli-Junta, we are looking forward to a newer non- academic proficiency next year now!!
i) One must fight “insane”. Take control of your opponent's body movements and neutralize him to the farthest extent. There is nothing called as sportsmanship in Krav Maga, as it is not a sport or recreation technique! ii) Get ready to make your stance. Rest your toes and point them in an intelligent manner while your hand remains at the back. Take the opponent by surprise by grabbing him by your legs and then delve the finishing blow with the arms. iii) Hit the vital spots with the maximum force in the minimum time. Learn to withdraw your weapons/limbs as soon as the blow is delivered and retreat. iv) Defense is the key. The foremost priority lies in escaping all threats posed by the aggressor. Never attack until you are free from danger. The magnitude of the attack is proportional to the time you have been subdued by the enemy. v) Judge the readiness of the aggressor by the expressions geek gazette
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There you are! You bunch of fiction loving geeks ! You have always longed in search of the greatest stories and adventure tales of all! We know that. And it is your love for them that has made us compile a list of most loved characters from the world of detective stories. And just for your fun, we have rated them with an AGGR (sometimes referred to as the Awesome Geek Gazette Ratings), which are often seen as one of the most prestigious rankings. Go on, fill yourselves with nostalgia!
FAMOUS DETECTIVES
HARDY BOYS: 6.3 The Hardy Boys, Frank and Joe Hardy, with their adventurous journeys and mysterious crime cases, have been a cultural touchstone all over the world. Their adventures allow readers to vicariously experience an escape from the mundane. At the same time, they live ordinary lives when not solving mysteries, allowing readers to identify with characters who seem realistic. +1s: We simply love the way these boys show us that even the worst problems can be solved if we each do our best to help others.
BATMAN: 9.3 NANCY DREW: 7.2
With the whole Wayne Enterprise Bank Account as his pocket money, and as a watchful protector to the city of Gotham, Bruce Wayne aka The Batman or The Caped Crusader or The Dark Knight, is indeed the epitome of geekdom for many. And we are truly in love with the way he uses his filthy rich money vaults to be geekiest detective of all, in spite of his non possession of superpowers. Something hard for the Gotham public to guess? Yeh... Coz He is Batman! +1s: The army of foes he has to face is really strong and variant (Not to forget, the psychopath, Joker). His policy not to kill them makes him the most adorable of superheroes we have known.
Much in the ado of this male supremacist list, we bring you one of the finest Girl Detective of all times, our sweet, Nancy. Boys! At the age of 18, this wealthy, attractive, independent and above all the cult icon of the century, is surely someone to look out for! +1s: We just crave the way she never has to go school. Wonderful parents, aren't they?
PERRY, THE PLATYPUS: 7.6 Here we have Perry the talking platypus from Phineas and Ferb. Well, walking on two feet is just one of his abilities. Looking cute is another. With gun fighting, rocket flying, laser battles, Perry, just makes other agents look like rank amateurs. By the way, do you know, where is Perry? +1s: His double life as Perry the docile platypus and Agent P in disguise is just way too awesome.
MISS MARPLE: 7.4 Another one from Agatha Christie's universe! This elderly spinster who lives in the village of St. Mary Mead acts as an amateur detective. Along with Poirot, she is one of the most loved and famous of Christie's characters. +1s: Having a kind hearted and caring grandmother like figure around you always helps. Doesn't it?
SCOOBY DOO: 8.1
HERCULE POIROT: 8.1 This Belgian detective is often seen as the most famous and longest lived of all Agatha Christie's characters. He stands as the only fictional character to be given an obituary in The New York Times, after his death in 1975. +1s: The neatness of attire, the upward curled moustache and his turnip pocket watch creates a persona which readers truly relish.
Who needs an introduction with this biggie? Almost all of our childhood has been spent following this epic Hanna-Barbera creation. Next time, when you miss him, just shout out: ‘Doo-be-doo-be-dooo!’ +1s: His unparalleled commitment to Scooby Snacks, even for the most dangerous of cases, is something we should all aspire for.
PATRICK JANE: 8.8
L: 8.3
This CBI consultant, of The Mentalist fame, uses his keen powers of o b s e r v a t i o n, d e d u c t i o n a n d knowledge of social engineering to solve the hardest criminal cases of all. He was recently included in the TV Guides' list of Sexiest Crime Fighters, something which Red John, his greatest enemy, will be sad about. +1s: His proficiency at cold reading, hot reading, and kinesics just drives everyone nuts. Agent Lisbon, are you listening?
Something to cheer for Manga fans! L Lawliet, is considered to be the greatest detective of the world. In Death Note, L fights against Kira, the most dangerous mass murderer. Calm Down. In the meantime, when you find your name written in your friend's Death Note, you now know whom to look for! +1s: Often regarded as the coolest, most well developed character in anime today, L, is also the best chick magnet of our time.
DEXTER MORGAN: 8.9
Moving towards the darker side of the list, we have a blood splatter analyst, who in his spare time, knocks off criminals before Miami Police gets their hands in. Lovable, charming and deadly. He's America's favorite serial killer. + 1 s : Yo u w o u l d never want to resolve any issues with Dexter using his method of conflict resolution. Fear the 'Code of Harry'.
FINAL LOW DOWN
SHERLOCK HOLMES: 9.8
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NANOMEDS I
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Tiny robots that fight cancer. Invisible disinfectants. Seems wierd? Shock resistant and energy absorbing body armour?
s this science fiction or an impending reality? Nanotechnology was an offbeat branch of research until about a decade ago, but not anymore. Now, it's a very exciting field in which many surreal manifestations are visible in the horizon. In this article, Geek Gazette presents to you the applications of nanotechnology in the field of medicine. The application of this technology in medicine is a very recent venture. Contrast agents for cell imaging and therapeutics for treating cancer are among the aces of its medical applications. The most interesting aspect of nanomaterials is that their size is of the order of bio-molecules and structures. The smaller devices are less invasive and can possibly be implanted inside the body, plus it enhances the rate of biochemical reactions. These devices are more sensitive than typical drug delivery systems. So these materials have high potential in biomedical research and applications. The overall drug consumption and side-effects may be lowered significantly by depositing the active agent in the inflamed region only and in no higher dose than needed, thus reducing costs and human suffering. The size of nano-materials is exploited in yet another way. Quantum dots (composed of Cadmium Selenide) in association with MRI can produce exceptional images of tumor sites. The use of fluorescent quantum dots could produce a higher contrast image and at a lower cost than today's organic dyes used as contrast media. Nanoparticles of Cadmium Selenide glow when exposed to
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ultraviolet light. When injected, they seep to cancer tumors. The surgeon can see the glowing tumor, and use it as a guide for more accurate tumor removal. The downside, however, is that quantum dots are usually made of quite toxic elements. The treatment begins with the injection of a clear fluid. Invisible inside, however, are particles precisely engineered to slip past barriers such as blood vessel walls, latch onto cancer cells, and trick the cells into engulfing them as if they were food. These Trojan particles flag the cells with a fluorescent dye and simultaneously destroy them with a drug. This allows destroying cancer tumors with minimal damage to healthy tissue and organs. Cancer therapies may be the first nano-medicines to take off. Treatments that deliver drugs to the neighborhood of cancer cells in nanoscale capsules have recently become available for breast and ovarian cancers. The heart of this entire cancer treatment approach is a highly branched molecule called a dendrimer. Each dendrimer has more than a hundred molecular "hooks" on its surface. To five or six of these, folic acid molecules are connected. Because folic acid is a vitamin, most cells in the body have proteins on their surfaces that bind to it. But most cancer cells have significantly more of these receptors than normal cells. Then, an anticancer drug is linked to other branches of the dendrimer; when cancer cells ingest the folic acid, they consume the deadly drugs as well.
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Another interesting use of nanotechnology in surgery is artery welding. A flesh welder is used to fuse two pieces of chicken meat into a single piece. The two pieces of chicken are placed together touching. A greenish liquid containing gold-coated nanoshells is dribbled along the seam. An infrared laser is traced along the seam, causing the two sides to weld together. This could solve the difficulties and blood leaks caused when the surgeon tries to restitch the arteries that have been cut during a kidney or heart transplant.
On the contrary, like every other technology, it raises concerns about toxicity and environmental impact of nano-materials. Researchers have found that when rats breathed in nanoparticles, the particles settled in the brain and lungs, which led to significant increase in stress response and those nanoparticles, induce skin ageing through oxidative stress in hairless mice. Carbon nanotubes – a poster child for the “nanotechnology revolution” – too could be as harmful as asbestos if inhaled in significant quantities. Workers in a paint factory were reported with serious lung disease and nanoparticles were found in their lungs.
fast5 TV Series: Arrested Development Season 4 Release Date: 26 May The return of the highly acclaimed TV series has a huge number of fanboys riled up. The season will release on Netflix with all 14 episodes available together.
Movie: Go Goa Gone Release Date: 10 May The first Bollywood movie featuring zombies leaves zombie flick lovers hoping that this will not disappoint.
Short Movie: Paperman Released The Academy-award winning short is a must watch for everyone. Combining a traditional boymeets-girl love story and adding a little touch of magic turns Paperman into a beautiful story worth watching.
Game: Tomb Raider Released The reboot to the Tomb Raider franchise does not fail to deliver. The survival-exploration game is fascinating and attractive. Definite contender to Far Cry 3 and Bioshock Infinite for Game of the Year.
App: Facebook Home Release Date: 12 April Facebook's definitive home screen and lock screen upgrade for Androidpowered smartphones brings up your social experience by a few notches. It prioritizes social updates over rows of apps welcoming you on your home screen. Although only available for a few phones on release, Facebook plans to extend support to many more phones as soon as possible. geek gazette
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Blowing Away the Competition Wind Tunnel at IIT Roorkee!
What are Wind Tunnels? As the name suggests, a wind tunnel is a tube or tunnel through which wind is blown at a high speed. These are of two types: structural wind tunnels and aerodynamic wind tunnels. Structural wind tunnels are useful in civil and disaster management engineering as they are used for testing buildings and bridges while aerodynamic wind tunnels are used to test automobiles and aircrafts. Scientists and engineers put a model of building or bridge in the wind tunnel and study the way air moves around it. This gives a pretty good idea of how that structure will react to the real conditions.
How Does a Wind Tunnel Work?
Our Civil Engineering Department houses a wind tunnel and is planning to natively develop another one for structural wind engineering: the first in India. Only eight of its kind exist in the world!
Specifications: Test Section: It will comprise of a large multi-fan wind tunnel with a huge cross section of 3.5m X 3m with a length of at least 16m. The present wind tunnel presently at IIT Roorkee has a cross section of only 2m X 2.1m with a test section of length 15m.A wider cross sectional area has been envisaged to further include thrust areas such as wind energy, atmospheric air pollution and wind driven snow and avalanches. It can create winds with speeds of 35m/s,more than double the current wind tunnel's maximum speed of 16m/s. Power: It will work on a 3 phase power input of 440 VAC and output 300VDC and 800A. It will have a 100 brush less DC motors’ with a power rating of 3KW each and rotation speed of 6000RPM! Centralized Control System: It has a programmable, high-speed Digital Signal Processing (DSP) based controller for communication and control of 100 Variable Speed Drives (VSDs) through a combination of PCs. Turn Table: A computer controlled round turn table, having a diameter of 3 m to mount and orient the test model. The test model is made of 20mm thick seasoned wood with a pipe of 0.1 m diameter passing through its centre to take out the sensor leading to the recording device. The turn table can rotate at any angle between 0 to 360 degrees with respect to the flow direction during experimentation itself.
Wind tunnels are based on the idea that a full scale structure will behave in the same way as a small model with air moving around it. One advantage of a wind tunnel is that even unnatural conditions can be created. Large fans are used to which can sometimes create wind speed up to 80m/s. Pressure taps and many other sensors are placed on the model at various points which keep track of parameters such as pressure and force at that particular point. Sometimes smoke is also used to test air flow. Engineers have used wind tunnels to improve the designs of mega structures like space shuttles or even entire cities. At the End of the Tunnel: It will not be wrong to claim that this wind tunnel is going to be the future of structural testing not only for IIT Roorkee but for India as well. After this wind tunnel is built, it is going to be the first preference for testing building structures in the whole country. Apart from this it will be helpful in civil engineering research and will also help in building designs which can sustain against natural calamities involving fast winds, for example, cyclones. In a country like India which is going through an infrastructural boom, this machine can play a vital role in development. geek gazette http://gg.ieeeiitr.com 34
Yawning the best thing ever
Yawning is an 'involuntary action' in which we inhale air that stretches the eardrum followed by an exhalation which over the years has become the international sign of boredom. It's involuntary because we do it even before we're born (even 11-week old foetuses yawn). Rather, it's the body's way of rejuvenating the brain so that it can function more efficiently. Yawning is one of the best-kept secrets of neuroscience. heightened state of arousal, so a morning yawn acts like It's the 'natural thermostat' which regulates temperature a cup of coffee in providing a jolt of energy. It increases and metabolism of the brain. When air in the atmosphere dopamine level which activates oxytocin or pleasure is cooler than the brain, yawning cools the facial blood chemicals thus can lift your mood too.Our bodies induce which in turn cools the brain and alters blood circulation. A yawning to draw in more oxygen or remove a build -up of lot of energy is needed to stay focused or when engaged carbon dioxide. This theory helps explain why we yawn in in concentrated activity or in situations like exhaustion or groups. Larger groups produce more carbon dioxide, sleep deprivation, the temperature of the brain increases. which means our bodies would act to draw in more Thus, yawning cools the brain and more accurately oxygen and get rid of the excess carbon dioxide.Yawning reflects a mechanism that stimulates the neural area of is also contagious, because it triggers the mirror neurons the brain in being more conscious, alert, self-reflective that literally prompt you to reflect another person's and maintaining a good memory. This is the reason why behaviour or emotional state that's why seeing someone dogs yawn before attacking, Olympic athletes yawn yawn might make us yawn. before performing and fishes yawn before they change So, our geeky fans, here's a simple trick to increase your mental efficiency -“Yawn as many times a day as activities. Yawning also facilitates transitional states of brain, going possible�. And the next time you're caught yawning in the from sleep to waking periods or vice versa. It does help to class, pull out this newsletter and show the professor the reset the body's internal clock by regulating the body's various benefits and involuntary nature of yawning claim circadian rhythms, or the roughly 24-hour cycle of human your right to yawn. After all, students yawn in class, not behaviour and biological activity. Yawning leads to a because the teacher is boring but because it rids the brain of sleepiness, thus helping you stay focused on important concepts and ideas.
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Interesting, unethical and dangerous! While the world's two largest armies are jostling for strategic foothold, GEEK GAZETTE gives you a sneak peek into our huge neighbour's latest intel technology. Intel gathering through HumInt (Human Intelligence) has been in practice for several decades. But with aggressive intelligence often making spies vulnerable, there was a much-awaited need to launch military satellites into the space. And these Spy Satellites aided a more technical way for recon operations: unmanned and less flawed. But with a growing uneasiness in global environment, China has launched an intel warfare by the means of an extremely advanced technology known as ELINT- Electronic Intelligence. ELINT is the geo-location intel gathering from non-communicational signals. These may include electromagnetic signals but not that the one due to nuclear explosions. ELINT usually involves gathering information about opponent’s defense network and analysis about electronic parts of defense structures such as surface to air missiles, and radars. Other ELINT disciplines include interception and analyzing enemy weapon control signal or the identification, friend or foe responses from transponder in aircraft used to distinguish enemy craft form friendly one. The most common sphere in which china has been developing its ELINT is the analysis of all its neighbour’s radar location and operational procedures. With the intention of usage of ELINT during aerial warfare china hopes to have an unflinching domination in airspace. China depends on two methods of electronic warfare: 1) Soft Kill- Sending deceptive signals and confusing opponents' defense system with the use of electronic jamming systems. 2) Hard Kill- Intercept and attack opponents' radar and electronic systems with specialized missiles. A new dimension into which china had been working since 1990's is the weaponizing through energy weapons. The PLA (People's Liberation Army) has been experimenting with the role laser weapons can play in its arsenal. Space recon and space weaponization has also been its main aim. The 2006 incident in which China blinded a U.S. satellite and later in 2008 when China blew up its own obsolete satellite with laser weapons showed the complexity of Chinese advancements. Presently, ELINT has given another edge to China. A new setup being developed by Ministry of State Security (China) and Chengdu Air Defence Corp has revealed a system named MOJANG 11. In the wake of India acquiring ballistic missile shield, MOJANG-11 will help china to freeze and destroy Indian missile shield. The most effective role of MOJANG-11 is that any Indian offence through AGNI missile can be thwarted as MOJANG will hack into the system and freeze the missile, thus hampering the missile to take off!
IN ORDER TO COUNTER CHINA, U.S AND NATO HAVE THEMSELVES DEVELOPED SEVERAL ELINT DATABASES. THE BEST OF IT BEING TACDB (TACtical DataBase) PLATFORM LISTS, SORTED BY NOMENCLATURE, WHICH CONTAIN LINKS TO THE COMMUNICATION AND ELECTRONIC SIGNALING EQUIPMENT COMPLEMENT OF EACH PLATFORM, WITH LINKS TO THE PARAMETRIC DATA FOR EACH PIECE OF EQUIPMENT, MILITARY UNIT LISTS AND THEIR SUBORDINATE UNITS WITH EQUIPMENT USED BY EACH UNIT.
Using the COMINT (Communication Intelligence) gathering method enables the intelligence officer to produce an electronic order of battle by traffic analysis and content analysis of several enemy units. Another breakthrough made by china is the strategic offensive by blocking EWACS (Early Warning Air Control Systems).Such a case makes china more powerful than the U.S. which has not been able to dish out new technologies at a pace equal to China. If it continues, the Dragon might just displace Uncle Sam, with its eye going on everything around.
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the 65th bit “This coding season, think ‘out of the box’!”
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eek Gazette recently interviewed the competitive programming team 'The 65th Bit'. It comprises of the trio of Sharat Ibrahimpur, 5th year Applied Maths, Dipit Grover, 4th year CSE and Tarun Goyal, 5th year CSI. Their claim to fame is their recent selection for the world final round of Association of Computing Machinery's Inter Collegiate Programming Contest 2013, popularly known as ACM-ICPC. They will be heading to St. Petersburg State University, Russia in the last week of June to compete for the title of world's best collegiate programmers. GG: How did you come up with the name, 'The 65th Bit'? Dipit: We did not have a team name until about one week prior to the registration deadline. We searched online a lot for names, but most of them sounded generic and boring like 'SIGSEGV' and so on. Sharat: We were playing around with clichéd names when Dipit just randomly came up with this name, and I just went mad about it. I started explaining the unquantifiable awesomeness of the name with examples of 64-bit variables and how they are the 65th bit, thus defining ourselves as 'out of the box'. GG: Describe your ICPC regionals experience in one sentence.
Sharat: As a team, our strength and weaknesses are complementary. The best part about ICPC is that even if you are weak at some topic, you need not worry. You know that your teammates can make up for it. At this point it is important to realize that no problem can be solved by a single approach. We thus decided that for every problem, two of us will attempt it together and the third person will be called in to debug if required. GG: “Coding is meant for CS junta”. What is your take on that? Sharat: I'm in Applied Maths and from my branch I can see that not a lot of people are into programming, competitive or otherwise. However, if you harbor interest, your branch is definitely not a factor which affects your performance. In college, you have a lot of free time, I was interested in problem solving and took up programming as a productive time sink. Tarun: Problem solving is all about interest. Being in CSE only shows that one got good marks in JEE. It doesn't say anything about interest. And most people qualifying JEE are good at math. So, anyone can work on algorithms, provided there's a little interest. GG: Do you think competitive programming experience helps you in the software industry, not just with placements, but also actually working as a software engineer?
Sharat: Awesome! Dipit: Awesome! Tarun: Awesome! geek gazette
GG: How do you feel about team participation in the event?
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Being in CS only shows that one got good marks in JEE. It doesn’t say anything about interest .
Tarun: Most of the software companies ask algorithmic questions in their interviews and written tests. Actually my CGPA is only 6.8 but I enjoy coding. I think that if you are good at something, you must present it well. I was selected for the final round of Facebook recruitments and cracked Walmart recruitment. Programming expertise and aptitude are the main skills a company looks for while hiring. Sharat: Good coding skills will definitely get you an excellent job, but as a software engineer my experience was not good. Competitive programming and commercial programming are quite different. The same principles are not applied to both fields. GG: Did you ever feel like you were on top of the world after cracking a problem you had a lot of difficulty with? If so, which program(s) caused you to release a dose of dopamine?
Sharat: I have had a few such experiences! The first one was when I was solving a very tough problem on Project Euler in number theory. It involved a map based algorithm for finding the square root of a number which reduced its time complexity from O(n) to O(log n) and it required a lot of obscure math knowledge. Believe me; any non-math guy would not be able to understand the beauty of the solution. This was the first time I appreciated my decision to pick Maths as my major. The joy was overwhelming. In any contest, if you crack a problem after devoting a lot of time to it, the feeling is simply orgasmic!
We would like to thank The 65th Bit for taking a few hours out of their daily schedules for the interview and we wish them all the best for the world finals. We hope they crack the top 10.
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Console 1UPs - How We Got A Life
debuted in 1967 as a bulky rectangular brown wooden box with two attached controllers, thus it was named 'Brown Box'. Ralph H. Baer, also known as "The Father of Video Games", developed the brown video game console such that it could be hooked up with any ordinary TV set. There were only six simple games for the console, namely PingPong, tennis, handball, volleyball, chase games and a light-gun game. In 1972, inspired by the design of the Brown Box, Magnavox launched the first official gaming console-Magnavox Odyssey. Nintendo entered the console market with its color TV gaming series but it was only available in Japan. Atari jumped in during 1975 and so did many other companies. But, these other companies were in over their heads due to heavy losses during 1972. Even Magnavox and Atari had to suffer great losses but they persevered and didn't abandon the field. The major reason for a short-term fall of industries was that companies mainly concentrated on improving graphic and sound qualities while gameplay and games remained intact. However, it was not until Atari released the arcade hit Space Invaders in1980 that shook the home console industry was completely. That's why Atari 2600 dominated the market during 1980s, monopolizing the market even over superior quality consoles.
A video game console is a specialized computer system designed for interactive video gameplay and display. A video game console functions like a PC and is built with the same essential components, including a central processing unit (CPU), graphics processing unit (GPU) and random access memory (RAM). It is estimated that video game consoles represent 25% of the world's general-purpose computational power. They have been banned in China since June 2000(Although there have been recent speculations that the ban may be lifted this year). Video gaming has come a long way since the early days of PingPong and Pac-Man. As you shall see below, the evolution of game consoles is indeed intriguing. Did you know that there are more than 70 different consoles to date? And did you know that there was a peak era of video arcade game when Nintendo and Sega were fiercely pitting against each other with their revolutionary consoles? If you are amazed by such facts, then we guarantee that this entry will excite you even further with bits and pieces of fascinating historical facts across the video game consoles timeline. The first working prototype of a video game console geek gazette
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During 1983, the console industry had to go through another even more severe fall due to a growing number of home computer users. However, after this, the golden age of the console industry arrived and many all-time classic games like Mario Bros. (Still one of the most popular games) and Pac-Man were released. Nintendo and SEGA dominated with the release of consoles like NES (Best selling console of that time) and SG-1000. As the struggle for domination continued between Nintendo and Sega, each of them released brand new consoles to challenge each other's positions. Sega came up with its number one console of all time, the Mega Drive/Genesis in 1988. To counter the threat, Ni n t e n d o p r e s e n t e d t h e S u p e r Ni n t e n d o Entertainment System (SNES) two years later, the successor to the NES. Atari was slowly slipping out of the console market despite yet another undertaking in its latest system, the Atari 7800 which didn't fare quite as well.
gaming. Sony progressed on with the next PlayStation, the PS2. It was the first home game console to play DVDs. It was widely accepted all over the world and went on to become the best selling gaming console to date, selling over 150 million units! Nintendo came up with the Nintendo GameCube, preferring to utilize optical media over cartridge. However, it was largely overshadowed by PS2's huge success and was discontinued.
In the early 1990s, there was a notable shift in the medium used for storing games from cartridges to compact discs. What this meant was that there were increased capacities for video gaming, prompting as well a transition from 2D graphics to 3D. T h e f ir s t C D c o n s o l e w a s launched by Philips (1991) – the CD-i. Regrettably, the console was more commonly recognized as a failure for its sub-standard games and frustrating controllers. Atari made its last console appearance with their CD-based Atari Jaguar in 1993, which was meant to contest against the other 16-bit consoles like the Sega Genesis and SNES. It then found itself losing the console battle against advanced next generation consoles such as the Sega Saturn and in 1994, the Sony PlayStation marking Sony's official entry into the console market. Nintendo, on the other hand, stuck to its cartridge system for its new Nintendo 64.
November of 2005 saw the release of the first new generation console, the Xbox 360. It was much more powerful than the previous generation and was the first console to introduce 1080p full HD gaming. It was very well received and was sold out in every country it launched (except Japan). Its online gaming service Xbox live created a new benchmark in online gaming and content delivery to people. It still remains the best online gaming p l a t f o r m, f a r b e t t e r t h a n t h e PlayStation Network. In September 2006 at the Tokyo Game Show Nintendo revolutionized the gaming industry by introducing motion gaming and creating a whole new dimension in video gameplay. The Nintendo Wii was unveiled. It met with huge success and received most of the top game console awards. The November of 2006 also saw the launch of the third major console, the PS3. It was the first ever console to utilize Blu-ray as its disk format. Initially it was criticized for its high price and lackluster launch titles, but as its game collection grew it slowly gained momentum.
Following the failure of the SEGA Saturn, SEGA came up with its last video gaming console, the SEGA Dreamcast, introducing the concept of inbuilt modemswhich could be used to play online games. It also had a new kind of optical media, the GD-ROM which was introduced to prevent piracy. Microsoft entered the console field in 2001 with the Xbox and revolutionizing the concept of online multiplayer
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In 2006, it was clear that the console industry was dominated by three big names - Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony completely phasing out any
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competition. After a couple of years, the industry saw a shift in sales of consoles with the Wii slowly dropping and its competitors closing in on its advantage. This was due to the nature of consoles i.e. Wii being designed more specifically to cater casual audience and the other two being preferred by the “core� gamers. This shift was supported by release of third party titles with major developers refusing to release titles for Nintendo Wii. Sony and Microsoft finally jumped in the motion gaming bandwagon. 2010 saw the release of the PlayStation Move by Sony and Xbox Kinect by Microsoft. Both consoles redefined Wii's idea in its own way. Sony's controller was termed as a dramatic evolution of the Wii, including a dynamic combination of speed and accuracy. However, Microsoft's Kinect was in particular unique as it introduced controller free gaming by completely eliminating the need for a controller. This led to Kinect sales creating a Guinness World Record of Fastest Selling Consumer E l e c t r o n i c P r o d u c t t ill d a t e , notching eight million sales in just 60 days! Nintendo introduced its latest console, the Nintendo Wii U in 2012. Although it is the successor to the Wii, it did not generate hype as a next generation console and was instead treated as simply being evolved from the current interest in touch screen technology. It has gathered moderate interest from people. But Nintendo is now being severely dominated by Microsoft and Sony. New rumors come every day indicating development of the PS4 or the Xbox 720, as the industry eagerly waits for revolutionary, standard-defining next generation consoles.
Left-Right-Left Knowing trivia about anything and everything constitutes an important facet of Geekism. Geek Gazette answers for you one of the most nagging trivia questions out there- Why do some countries drive on the left and others on the right?
It's not as simple a question as it seems. It indeed has a very 'logical' root embedded in history. In the past almost everyone travelled in the right because it was most appropriate, living in a feudal, violent society as it was. Since most people are right-handed, swordsmen preferred to keep to the left in order to have their right arm nearer to an opponent and their scabbard (worn on the left) further from him. Also a right-handed person (which majority of people are) finds it easier to mount a horse from the left side and it would be very difficult to do otherwise if wearing a sword (which would be worn on the left). Also mounting and dismounting a horse is safer towards the side of the road than in the middle of the traffic. So if one mounts on the left, then the horse should be ridden on the left side of the road. So why is it 'right' in countries like France, USA etc.? In 1700s, farm products were carried in big wagons and these wagons were pulled by several horses. The driver of the wagon sat on the left rear horse so that he could keep his right arm free to lash the horses. Since he was sitting on the left, he naturally wanted everybody to pass from the left so that he could look on and make sure he keeps clear of the
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oncoming traffic. Therefore he kept to the right side of the road. Also the French Revolution encouraged right hand side travelling in Europe. This was done in order to shun the aristocrats' way as they travelled in the left. Later, Napoleon's conquests spread the new rightism to the Low Countries (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg), Switzerland, Germany, Poland, Russia and many parts of Spain and Italy. The states that had resisted Napoleon kept to left – Britain, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Portugal. The countries which were part of British Empire also drove to the left side of the road and this is why to this day countries like India, Australasia and former British colonies in Africa go left. What about Japan? It never was a part of British Empire and yet it drives on the left. Although the origin of this habit goes back to the Edo period (16031867) when Samurai ruled the country, it wasn't until 1872 that this unwritten rule became more or less official. Railways in Japan were introduced in the same year and it constituted the technical aid from British. Gradually a massive network of trains and trams was developed and obviously they 'stayed' on the left. So that is what it is.
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It is common belief that science and art are miles apart but as proved by Da Vinci and Co. science is art refined. Origami in science takes this radical idea to a completely different level, shattering all preconceived notions along the way. This simple art of folding paper that originated in Japan in the 17th century, has led to huge breakthroughs in science.
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FOLDING
These examples strengthen the dogma that the most complex problems in life have simple yet beautiful solutions. From being a relaxing hobby, to providing a paper swan macguffin for Prison break, to saving crash test dummies, this ancient art has come a long way and has a long way to go.
1. Cosmic Origami: In October, 2012, Johns Hopkins University scientists, Mark Neyrinck and Miguel Aragón-Calvo, received the “New Frontiers” Award for work on “Origami Universe”. In a cold-dark-matter universe, cosmological structure formation proceeds in rough analogy to Origami folding. Researchers compare origamic tessellations with the formation of cosmological structures formed from dark matter. The dark matter is described as a 3-D sheet analogous to origami paper. The force of gravity folds the dark matter in a way similar to an origamist folding paper. This similarity with origami helps us to analyse the tessellations in the dark matter. 2. Origami Grocery Bag: In March 2011, engineers Zhong You and Weina Wu (University of Oxford, UK) designed a collapse-able origami grocery bag, made out of steel that can be easily folded down flat without opening the bottom panel. Similar rigid containers made of cardboard can be folded only if top and bottom panels are removed, a time consuming and tiresome process. 3. Solar-Cell Origami: Conventional solar panels are flat and also do not capture sun's energy effectively unless they are tilted to track the movement of sun. Using a special origami technique given by MIT professor Jeffrey Grossman for folding solar cell such that they produce constant power regardless of sun's movement. Some of these folded solar cell systems are 2½ times more efficient than the traditional flat arrangements, but the work is at a very early stage of development and needs huge structural improvements. 4. Ultra-thin, high resolution Origami lens: High power lens are very thick and heavy, but in January 2007, two scientists namely Eric Tremblay and Joseph Ford from the University of California in San Diego successfully made ultrathin, high resolution Origami Lens. The lens, besides being the size zero of lenses, is 7 times more powerful than conventional camera lenses. Conventional camera lenses use many parts to fold and bend light for sharp images but using origami folding techniques such parts can be replaced by one optical system. The Origami Lens is made of a crystal which is diamond-cut so that the light travels in a zigzag manner analogous to the way paper is moulded in origami to form patterns. Here, the lens itself is not folded, but the optical path is folded hence is bit less complicated and much efficient. 5. Launch of space telescope: Space telescopes are our sole hope of studying far away galaxies and anomalous astronomical events. But these telescopes are giant and cannot be sent to space due to their huge size constraints. Professional origami artist, Robert Lang helped scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Livermore, California) to design a method for folding a space telescope so that it can be packed into a space shuttle and then easily detached when in space. The foldable telescopic lens is called “Eyeglass”. In early 2002, a telescopic lens measuring over 3 m in diameter was constructed. When folded origami style, it was 1.2-meter in diameter and shaped like a cylinder. By early 2004, a 5-meter prototype lens was constructed and shown to concentrate light as expected. In the future, it may be possible to fold 100-meter telescope lenses into 3-meter diameter cylinders and have these delivered into space - all thanks to origami. 6. Airbags in Cars: A German company, EASi Engineering, was interested in finding a better way to pack airbags into car steering wheels. Professional origami artists, Robert Lang, helped design an algorithm which allows computer simulations of airbag folding and deployment. The origami algorithm developed by artists to make insects has been used to create creases in airbags. This allowed the company to evaluate the efficiency of the airbags without actually doing a crash test, saving money, time and the lives of crash test dummies. 7. Stents: Two professors from Oxford University Zhong You and Kaoru Kuribayashi developed an origami Stent graft. A stent is a support that holds open a blocked artery when it reaches its destination. But to reach the target it needs to be much smaller. This stent folds down using an origami pattern based on a model called water-bomb base. Thus the stent reaches its target without hurdles.
urvival of the fittest- this jungle law dominates each and every second of all organisms out there. They say that life has no other purpose than to perpetuate its own survival. Predation constitutes one of the most important aspects of any organisms’ life. This threat of predation imposes strong selective pressure on organisms, resulting in a myriad of behavioural strategies that allow them to survive. Anti-predatory behaviour is the employment of effective strategies to avoid the four stages of becoming a prey i.e. detection, attack, capture and consumption.
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attack. Snapping turtles defend themselves by raising themselves up on their legs to appear larger, hissing, snapping their jaws, and lunging to scare off a threat. Some reptiles and possums deceive the predators by pretending to be dead (Thanatosis or feigning death) to discourage attack. The lo moth possesses eyespots hidden on its hindwings, when under threat, the moth suddenly reveals these spots, aiming to startle its predator (Aposematism). And when there’s no option left the prey may flee to escape if the predator is not too close.
Surviving Encounters with predators-
Threatened animals may also sacrifice nonessential body parts like tail or limbs to distract the predator and permit them to escape (Autotomy).
Avoiding captureHaving been detected by a predator, many animals attempt to signal the predator that they are not worth eating or attempt to deter an attack by intimidation, flight, deception and fighting back. Push-ups performed by the lizards are the sign of physical fitness and the signal to the predator that it would be a waste of time and energy attempting an
Some animals like the Zebra have evolved dazzle camouflage, whereby instead of attempting to conceal themselves, they are patterned to cause motion dazzle, confusing a predator during an attack, and making it harder to select and track a target. Biting, charging, and scratching are other effective forms of defence that work by chasing potential predators away or encouraging them to release the prey after capture.
Avoiding ConsumptionHaving been captured, an animal must prevent the predator from killing and eating it. Exuding foul tasting or toxic compounds encourage release by a predator that has already attacked. The regal horned lizard shoots blood from its eyes at the attacker which acts as an irritant, deterring canine predators. Some animals make themselves too big or unwieldy to eat by inflating their bodies. Armadillo lizards bit their own tails to form an unmanageable ring avoiding being consumed. Anti-predatory behaviour has become a “hot spot� of evolutionary ecology having a lot of technological inspirations. Military camouflage is an example where we use this anti-predatory defence mechanism. Zebra’s motion dazzle technique was fundamental to the appearance of warships in both the world wars. All this teaches us one thing for sure- adapt or perish.
geek zone GADGET REVIEW: Galaxy S4 On the eve of the Ides of March, Samsung showed world that it shall not fall like Caesar. Samsung formally unveiled the latest in its Galaxy S line-up of smartphones, the Galaxy S4. Under the immense pressure of being the successor to the Galaxy SIII and Samsung's new flagship smartphone, people expect nothing less than a miracle. We at Geek Gazette review what it has to offer to justify the “++” in its name. Being a flagship phone, the S4 sports a monstrous spec sheet, which delivers super smooth performance. Loaded with a Samsung Exynos 5 Octa core (Quad-core Cortex-A15 + Quad-core Cortex-A7) chipset, it is the first phone to have an Octa core chipset. The phone also has 2 gigs of RAM, a bright and vivid full HD (1080p) 5” display with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 technology, and a 13 MP (4128 x 3096 pixels) camera with autofocus and LED flash that can shoot full HD videos @60fps (that's humongous) and HDR videos too. Samsung has also included temperature and humidity sensors in S4 that forms a big part of its SHealth app. At first look it is very difficult to differentiate between the SIII and S4 as design wise both phones are identical. But the S4 is slightly thinner and lighter as compared to the SIII and Samsung has also managed to cut down on the bezel side. Some of the features of phone are really quite distinctive and way cool in comparison to the SIII. The S4 boasts of many new features such Air Gesture, float touch, S-Health package, i-track movement etc. .Let's have a closer look at them. 1. S-Health: This native app simply focuses on the user and functions as a life-companion which keeps track of your health. It also keeps track of surrounding temperature and humidity. 2. S-Translator: Similar to Google's translator, Samsung introduced its offline translator in GS4 for the first time. In addition to translating your voice, it can also use OCR(Optical Character Recognition) to translate text to help you along your way 3. Air-Gesture: This feature enables users to access features such screen lock, SMS scrolling, etc. using hand gestures over the screen. Although it may sound insignificant, it is practically useful. 4. Air View: Air view enables the user to get details without actually touching screen by pointing their fingers over the screen. This is similar to taking a pointer over a menu on a computer. 5. Adapt display: Adjusting the brightness is something that's always been done to adapt to different lighting conditions, but Samsung claims to have a more advanced system for the Galaxy S4, which will also adjust contrast and colour along with brightness. All of the settings will not only be adjusted based on environmental lighting, but based on what is on the screen. 6. Gaming Device: Using a gamepad accessory, the GS4 can be converted into a portable gaming console. With the Game Pad you can replace your console with the Samsung Galaxy S4, using the HDMI port to connect it with your television or monitor. The controller uses Bluetooth to connect with the phone. 7. Camera experience: Samsung has incorporated a host of new camera features that transforms the GS4 into a true camera smartphone. The camera interface is quite simple and easy to use. Dual mode, drama shot, story album, eraser, etc. are several additions to the new camera interface in GS4. Samsung does not disappoint and we look forward to the Galaxy S4. However, a word of warning as the CyanogenMod Team which put out the ROMs for its predecessors have spoken that they will not support the S4 due to the DRMlocked nature of the Exynos chip on board the S4. We do expect to see nascent developers taking up the mantle as the phone has already been rooted, pointing devs in the right direction to kernel-level optimization and modification.
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WATCH DOGS Another addition to this year's open world based action-adventure videogames is the Ubisoft Montreal production, the WATCH_DOGS. With next-gen quality graphics, unique gameplay, and with catchy taglines, 'Everything is connected', 'Hacking is our weapon', 'Connection is power', it has already made to the list of IGN's Biggest Surprise and Best New Franchise. Let's have a look. The game has a magnificent storyline which revolves around the concept of information warfare, centered in an alternate reality version of future Chicago, one of many cities to have ctOS (Central Operating System, a supercomputer which controls the whole city). The central character, Aiden Pearce, a highly skilled hacker is supposed to be controlled by the player and has a special ability to hack into various electronic devices tied to the city's ctOS. The consequences? Well, they range from hacking into people's phones to retrieve bank data and steal funds to triggering malfunctions in equipment to distract other characters and hacking into t r a f f i c l i g h t s t o c a u s e c o ll i s i o n s . Something new for gamers? Isn't it? If we dig into gameplay, Jonathan Morin, Creative Director at Ubisoft Montreal, mentioned that Watch Dogs is 'designed to go beyond the limits of today's open world games', referencing both of information as a plot point, and allowing players to control the entire city through its hacking mechanics. In the game's universe, combat utilizes a combination of stealth components and active free running, along with some elements of a t h ir d p e r s o n s h o o t e r. T h e o n l i n e multiplayer version has an elusive new streak in which a player can control surveillance cameras in an attempt to hack the other player. All in all, this ground breaking open world action game blends in some cutting edge technologies, sophisticated game designs and realistic graphics, which we would love to try our hands on. All we have to do now is to wait for the fourth quarter of 2013.
geek zone Wrath of the Gods The answer is something called a Super-heavy launcher that propels spacecrafts beyond the low-Earth orbit. So, in the doomsday scenario, a super-heavy rocket-launcher would be able to deliver a thermonuclear charge to the asteroid. (because nukes solve everything)
Russia, besides Vodka, Kalashnikovs and a badass president, has a unique appetite for things that explodeMolotov cocktails, Tunguska and Chernobyl. The latest addition to this series was the Feb 15 aerial explosion of a meteorite near the city of Chelyabinsk. The shock wave it set off caused an estimated $33 million in property damage, much of it in the form of shattered windows and weakened walls. It also injured about 1,200 people, most of them hurt by the flying glass from those windows. Not a single casualty was reported (Russians are tough, really tough). Authorities started the cleanup almost immediately, while researchers rushed to figure out the scale of the explosion. Based on the readings from infrasound sensors stationed all over the world to detect nuclear-weapons tests, NASA rounded the energy release to be equivalent to 500 kilotons of TNT, or in simpler words, 30 times the energy of the atomic bomb that wiped out Hiroshima. That translates into an object about 17 meters (55 feet wide), weighing 10,000 tons, the biggest cosmic impact recognized since the 1908 Tunguska asteroid blast that levelled millions of trees in Siberia. This was just a demo of how unpredictable and destructive a meteor strike can be (Now, those who have played Age of Mythology already know that) If we don't wish to go out like the dinosaurs, we need to have a defence mechanism in place before the next one knocks the Earth out of orbit. The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) (an actual Russian Institute) has suggested setting up of ground- and space-based systems for detection, including an ultra-wide-angle telescope at Russia's Lake Baikal. This is to be followed by asteroid monitoring and cataloguing. One of the reasons no one saw this coming is that everyone was looking the other way. (Who tracks a 17 m wide piece of rock floating in space?) The threats posed by asteroids cannot, of course, be compared with the dangers arising from space debris. There are currently more than 600,000 pieces of "junk" in low-Earth orbit that are greater than 1 cm in diameter. (Like the camera that Sunita Williams lost during a spacewalk) A collision with such an object can cause serious damage to a satellite, while an object greater than 10 cm in diameter can "kill" a spacecraft. Satellites regularly have to be led away from hazardous debris — a process which uses up valuable fuel and reduces a satellite's life span. Debris currently costs European satellite operators an estimated 140 million ($181 million) per year, which could rise to 210 million ($271 million) in the next decade.
Research is being carried out in the direction of upgrading the existing Missile Defence Technology, to counter this threat. (which is more or less, hit and trial, because you try to shoot down an incoming missile with your missile, all the action taking place at 15,000 mph) Scientists may classify the Russian meteorites as an unremarkable kind of space rock, but they are extra-special to the folks in Chelyabinsk. For one thing, such meteorites are worth more than their weight in gold on the collectors' market. Some have estimated their value at $2,200 per gram. For another thing, the region's residents are now talking about capitalizing on the international interest generated by the impact. Among the ideas being debated are building a "Meteor Disneyland" theme park that re-creates the glass-shattering event, or organizing a cosmic music and fireworks festival, or erecting a beacon-tipped pyramid at nearby Chebarkul Lake, where meteorite fragments have been found. Tourist companies are already starting to sell group tours to Chelyabinsk at $800 a person. When the meteor exploded, many of the region's residents feared that it was a plane crash, or a missile strike, or even the end of the world. Now it's starting to look as if it was the best thing to have hit Chelyabinsk in years. All hail capitalism!
overAPI As grammar is to a natural language, so is a function to a programming language. Oftentimes, a quick reference sheet (or cheat sheet) comes in handy while working with languages one is not well versed with. OverAPI has a collection of such sheets for a whole bunch of languages, accessible via a quick and pretty UI. Most of the popular languages such as Python, NodeJS and Ruby are featured up front and the remaining can be accessed via a neat, alphabetically categorized and sorted list. Also available is a Chrome App, which creates a local copy of all the sheets for easy access and a list of CSS, JS and other tools which are useful for designers and developers alike. Although, it could use a few changes such as a site-wide search feature and an option to let users contribute custom sheets, it is a unique effort and immensely useful. The developer also actively implements suggestions and fixes from the comments section on the site, resulting in a dynamically improving experience of which you can be as much a part as the developers. Similar sites do exists, the foremost being QuicklyCode, however, the easy and clean UI of OverAPI is definitely its USP among the competition. To our delight, the site is open source and available on Github, so feel free to create a local copy, fork and contribute to its development!
Jupiter, with its strong gravitational pull has been protecting Earth from major asteroids since eternity. The next line of defence is the Earth's atmosphere and the power of friction. The same force that destroyed Space Shuttle Columbia saves the Earth daily from hundreds of such space rocks, burning them up midway, a spectacle we call shooting stars. Without an atmosphere, the Earth would be speckled like the moon (also, we wouldn't be able to breathe, so moot point) Now, suppose a kilometre wide asteroid changes trajectory and heads towards the Earth. Do we have a contingency plan? (Besides sending Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck into space, of course, because that would be cheating) geek gazette
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ne common observations, while travelling anywhere in India, be it through Indian Railways or State Bus Services, is the complex network of old electric transmission lines, which are just on the verge of rusting away into junkyards. This is just one example; there are thousands of others. Almost all contemporary set-ups in Electrical Power Transmission or Distribution are older than 5o years or so. Not only in India, but in the whole world. Geek Gazette takes time out, to scrutinize new technologies, in this field, with a belief that these will turn out as the cornerstone in our race to a more energy efficient world. Smart Grids, as are believed, will be the necessary torchbearer of the much needed transition towards a low-carbon, efficient and clean energy system. But, what is it? A Smart Grid is an intelligent, digitized energy network, delivering electricity in an optimal way from source to consumption. This is achieved by integrating information, telecommunication and power technologies with the existing energy system. In simple terms, it is a way of maintaining the balance between electrical demand and supply using sensors, complex algorithms and advanced power circuits. How does it work? Well, let us understand from basics. Coal, Nuclear or Thermal power plant sends electricity through transmission lines to substations and then
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on to transformers. Finer and finer wires and smaller voltages, until it reaches your Laptop or iPod plugged into the wall. Since electricity travels close to the speed of light, every kilowatt must be utilized the instant it is produced. For electricity board, this means balancing the heavy load with the supply instantly. But when demand outpaces supply, everything goes dark. A Black Out. Hence, comes the need for backup power plants, which pump electricity in the moments of shortage. But keeping these plants online is the most expensive part of your power bill and wastes fuels like natural gas. Here the role of a Smart Grid comes into play. Engineers have begun putting
sensors in areas that consume heavy amounts of electricity, like factories. Each sensor sends back real-time data of energy use, giving utilities a heads up in the demand side of equation. As sensors keep on becoming cheaper and technologies like Internet and Wireless Communication become widespread, a flood of data will be available providing information about power cuts, over heating power lines. That means we could stop relying on Grandmas to inform us that the ‘power is out’. Not only this, who knows, that in the future, agencies may turn off a large electricity consuming Smart Appliances in your home to avert a blackout. And that would help in cutting out of backup power plants, making energy distribution process efficient, reliable, c l e a n e r a n d c h e a p e r. Henceforth, Governments have increasingly recognized the value of Smart Grids. China aims at building a strong smart grid by 2020, a project worth $7.3b. On the other hand, the US has dedicated $4.5b to its Smart Grid undertaking. Significant initiatives are currently being undertaken by Japan, Austria and Korea. The Indian Smart Grid scenario is taking shape, even more after 17-18 January, which was viewed as India Smart Grid Day, by the Ministry of Power. So, in a world where energy needs to cleaner, transforming into a cleaner energy just seems smart. And we are marching towards it. geek gazette