Merry Christmas from FELIX
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ISSUE 1621 FRIDAY 11th DECEMBER 2015 The Student Newspaper of Imperial College London Merry Christmas from FELIX The PHOE IX N est. 1887 th PAGE 2 THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON FRIDAY 11 DECEMBER 2015 felixonline.co.uk [email protected] Contents A word from the Editor Editor-in-Chief News 3 Grace Rahman Comment 5 Comment Editors Tessa Davey and Vivien Science 7 Hadlow Arts 11 limey, what a year it’s been. for contributing to this narrative. Science Editors Jane Courtnell and Lef For me, and presumably, Imperial students do a tonne of Apostolakis Phoenix 15 for you too. I can only stuff. I should know, because it gets speak for me though, so I sent to me every week, and I publish Arts Editors Music 44 will. It’s my editorial, mate. When I it. Indira Malik, Jingjie Cheng woke up on New Year’s Day 2015, This week’s issue is a bumper and Max Falkenberg Film 46 B I didn’t think I would still be at Christmas special, and if you Imperial by the end of it. I was due flick to the middle for your Music Editor Games 51 to graduate, I certainly wasn’t up beloved centrefold, you’ll find art, Cale Tilford for further, further education, and I photography, poetry and prose from Food 52 Film Editor assumed I’d be spending Christmas some of Imperial’s finest, in the Fred Fyles 2015 on a houseboat in Berlin, just form of Phoenix. It’s beautiful, the Welfare 53 working on my poetry or trying to arts editors who put it together are Welfare Editor learn to code. beautiful and don’t worry, there’s Noor Mulheron Puzzles 54 Alas, I am not on a boat. I’m not still a tasteful nude of the swimming in Berlin (most of the time). I’m sat and waterpolo teams on page 14. Sports Editor Hangman 55 in a subterranean office in Beit – a Phoenix is a termly endeavour, so Josh O’Donnell hall I was not cool enough to get give the arts editors a buzz if you Sport 56 a room at in first year – living my want in next year. Soppy editorials are not my jam, but Puzzles Editors Hamish Beck and Roxana actual dream. I get paid to write a The art supplied for this issue it’s due. I’m constantly astonished by Radu newspaper for you lot. is just one way Imperial students the quality of content that hits my FELIX, Beit Quad, There’s a theme at Imperial. We continue to display how freaking inbox, the time my section editors Food Editor Prince Consort Road, arrive, we want to get the best out of cool they are. Where else would dedicate to fine-tuning their work Sanjay Bhattacharya London SW7 2BB our time here, so we put our heads you have physicists writing theatre and the general support I get from Tel: 020 7594 8072 Copy Editors Printed by Iliffee Print Cambridge, down and work solidly for four reviews, medics mulling over think a team of students who before the Henry Lloyd-Laney, James Winship Road, Cambridge years. We are occasionally distracted pieces and the programmers of summer holidays, I only knew from Bates, Tessa Davey and Registered Newspaper by general elections, rugby clubs tomorrow coming out with pieces stalking their Facebook profiles and Francesca Siracusa ISSN 1040-0711 or giant desks, but apart from so inflammatory, Owen Jones would Twitter accounts. What a bunch. Copyright © FELIX 2015 that, we don’t pay much attention. be jel? Loads of places, you might Merry Christmas to you all, but Cover art by Adrian And FELIX is as guilty as anyone respond. Nah mate, not like this. especially them. Thanks guys. LaMoury Letters (kinda) In response to ‘Problematic yet about the beliefs of fellow students several students. Nevertheless, the to judging someone for their the moment we’re simply too busy representative?’, Issue 1620 not only causes harm to the targeted author implies that this individual socioeconomic status. Such conduct with our coursework and studies to individual(s), but divides and is unqualified to perform her is most primitive and unscientific, wade into the bewildering world of Dear Chief Editor, degrades the rich social tapestry duties as president on the basis of undeserving of Imperial’s reputation activism, rallies and power politics. In the 4th of December edition of endowed upon us by this learned her political beliefs. I have seen no as a center of learning. We shouldn’t let petty, polarizing FELIX, your music editor published institution. In this day and age, it is evidence to support this insinuation; To add insult to injury, the and introspective distractions a piece criticizing the current Union too easy to disseminate thoughtless, the overwhelming majority of author concludes by lambasting clutter our media. We should president’s political views and the harmful comments via the Internet, tweets by the account in question Imperial’s student population for however be discussing thorny political apathy of the student in this case blanket accusations of promotes student engagement, political stupor, subtly alluding and uncomfortable issues, such population. I wish to respond to treason against patriotic Scots. college outreach programs and to the well-worn jibe of ICL as addressing gender imbalances, that article. Whilst one must decry ill-judged diversity, no less than what one insulting UCL. Evidently Imperial living conditions and profligacy I agree with the author’s contention comments whenever they appear, would expect. It seems that the is less politically-active than other with our dear tuition fees. FELIX’s that, prima facie, some of the I believe that the author has also author wishes to decry an elitist vibe universities, for the simple reason investigations of these issues president’s views are incendiary and committed errors of judgement. It is in the president and hence sets her that we are a technically-oriented and attempts to bring greater alienating. At Imperial College we fair to question the impartiality of up as an anathema of the student institution. Nevertheless, it is false transparency to the autocracy have much to appreciate, especially the concerned individual given their body. In this country it is common to say that we are apathetic about imposed on us are much appreciated. the diversity of our student body. past comments, especially when to succumb to class-based prejudice; our welfare and self-governance. Kind regards, Facile and defamatory comments such comments would likely offend a rational person would not resort We care deeply. It’s just that at Daniel Williams felixonline.co.uk FRIDAY 11th DECEMBER 2015 PAGE 3 NEWS [email protected] Imperial network brought down by cyber attack Ours was one of hundreds of university networks attacked this week Grace Rahman of Service hacks account for up when it too was subjected to another Editor-in-Chief to a third of outage incidents, and DDoS attack. This made it harder to experts estimate that 2000 occur per update IT departments and students day. Such attacks can be purchased on the network’s status. n Tuesday, Officefor as little as £100 online. By 5pm, Imperial’s ICT Service 365 email accounts, The academic network stopped reported that network services had TurnItIn, and other updating the situation on its major been restored in college. online services at incident Twitter page as it believed A representative from ICT told Imperial were disrupted due to these details were aiding hackers. FELIX, “The disruption was patchy; Oa DDoS attack on the national The Joint Information Systems it was often the case that only one network for universities. Committee, which runs Janet, was critical component of a service was Janet, which runs .ac.uk domains, forced to shut down its own website unavailable – the sign on process for reported “disruption” from 9:24 Office 365, for example – but the onwards on Tuesday, causing rest was fine. We were able to put “intermittent service” to users Students in place a number of work-arounds throughout the day. to overcome these situations”. Students across the country were across the “There is not a great deal students prevented from submitting work on can do apart from making every time, using some library services, effort to ensure their personal and watching Netflix on college country were machines do not get enrolled into grounds. bot-nets through the accidental A DDoS attack involves the prevented installation of malware. Install installation of malware on multiple security patches ASAP and keep computers before instructing them from virus and malware-checkers up to to access a site simultaneously, date!” causing failure due to the volume This news comes after Office of traffic. ‘Botnets’ of malware- submitting 365 went down in parts of the UK infected computers can range from and Europe last Thursday, due to thousands to millions for one work on time an outage with Microsoft’s cloud attack. These Distributed Denial There was carnage in the FELIX office. Photo Credit: FELIX platform, Azure. IBM in sexism row over #hackahairdryer Female scientists wondered whether men would be asked to hack a beard trimmer his week, a misjudged throughout the day, until IBM campaign on the part of IBM said eventually decided to pull the IBM to get women into campaign. By then, even the science faced backlash London Fire Brigade had chipped online after being dubbed sexist. afterwards in on Twitter, saying: “We’re staying TThe initiative focussed on getting out of the sexism debate, however, women into STEM subjects by that the we’d suggest that it’s generally a bad encouraging them to “hack a idea & possibly a bit dangerous to hairdryer”.