A Pixel’s a Pixel What is a retina display anyways? pg 8
14 February 2013 Vol.1,No.6
Sink the Pirates! Debunking Myths about Copyright Laws pg 6
+
POUTINE WEEK in Montréal pg 4
+ KD Lasagna pg 10 + Resistance pt 2 pg 12
| The Plumber’s Ledger
Contributors EDITOR:
WRITERS:
Brigid Cami
David Bailey Frédérick Chagnon
COVER DESIGN AND LOGO: Kieran Mak
Daniel Dicaire Christopher Ho Alessia Rocha Padina Suky
LAYOUT: Brigid Cami
PHOTOGRAPHY: Alessia Rocha Padina Suky Erika Timoshenko
Erika Timoshenko Maxime Whaite
ARTWORK: Justin Turcotte
ADVISING: David Bailey
Information THE PLUMBER’S LEDGER IS A PUBLICATION OF THE ENGINEERING UNDERGRADUATE SOCIETY OF MCGILL UNIVERSITY. THE VIEWS EXPRESSED ARE SOLELY THE OPINIONS OF THE AUTHORS AND DO NOT NECESSARILLY REPRESENT THE POSITION OF THE EUS. FOR QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, AND COMPLAINTS, AS WELL AS MORE INFORMATION ON THE POLICIES OF THE PLUMBER’S LEDGER, PLEASE USE THE CONTACT INFORMATION BELOW. USE THIS CONTACT INFORMATION ALSO IF YOU HAVE AN INTEREST IN CONTRIBUTING CONTENT TO THE PLUMBER’S LEDGER ON A ONE-TIME OR REGULAR BASIS.
The Plumber’s Ledger
FROM THE EDITOR: Happy Valentine’s Day dearest readers! In the spirit of this historical holiday, there’s not a single related article in this issue. This month we bring you a nice melange of diverse content, as per usual, and even some crisp, new contributors, courtesy of EUS Activities Day. Kieran Mak, the new sole creator of covers, has really outdone himself this time. Note the background made up of file extensions. Genius. It all starts off with the news that you missed POUTINE WEEK. Yes, Poutine Week. Meanwhile, new contributor, Alessia Rocha presents us with an original recipe for KD lasagna. Imma say it again: K.D. Lasagna. A special thanks to Justin Turcotte for honoring us with his art all year. It is truly appreciated. As always, if you’re interested in becoming a regular contributor or if inspiration strikes, email us at ledger@mcgilleus.ca. We are always on the hunt for new members. In these harsh times of midterms and assignments and midterms, ain’t nothing like a nice read to take your mind off things. We hope you enjoy. Brigid Cami, Editor
ledger@mcgilleus.ca Vol. 1, No. 6 14 February 2013
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2013 February 14
The Plumber’s Ledger |
IN THIS ISSUE: Letter from the Editor.............................................................................2 Poutine Week.............................................................................................4 Copyright Law: The Broken System We Can’t Abandon...................6 A Pixel’s a Pixel........................................................................................8 Super Easy Kraft Dinner Lasagna........................................................10 Cream of Sweet Potato and Carrot Soup.........................................11 RESISTANCE Part. II................................................................................12 The Daily Vote.........................................................................................15 Kool Aid by Justin Turcotte.................................................................16
View it in glorious technicolor at www.facebook.com/theplumbersledger 14 February 2013
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| The Plumber’s Ledger
POUTINE WEEK 4
PADINA SUKY
2013 February 14
The Plumber’s Ledger | AFTER A VERY SUCCESSFUL BURGER WEEK, Montreal now has its own Poutine Week. From February 1st to February 7th, participating restaurants offered special poutines at special prices. It was originally supposed to be $10 for a meal size and $5 for a tester. After blocking my arteries, gaining a lot of weight, having multiple foodgasms, and spending tons of money, I get to share with you my experince.
GLOBE
Lucky’s Truck is a gastronomic food truck. This winter they parked their staff in L’Abrevoir’s kitchen. During the summer, you can look up their location on their website. The poutine they served was their usual poutine, La Fameuse. Cheese, caramelized onions and a foi gras and wine sauce topped with duck confit, the whole thing on a beautiful bed of french fires. This poutine was simply orgasmic. I took the tester size, which I immediately regreted. It left me hungry for more!
M: BRGR
February 1st. Poutine week: Day 1 5:30 PM, -2000 degrees outside. Tried going to GLOBE. They said they couldn’t let people in before 6. After freezing outside for half an hour, they said that they only served the special poutine on January 31st, not even during Poutine Week. Too cold to find another participating restaurant and craving poutine, we walked to the next block to get some at Frites Alors! A nice L’eau à la Bush for $8.50 satisfied our poutine needs of the day. GLOBE, you are now on my Black List.
BURGERBAR
Again, m:brgr did not have the tester size and I had no choice but to take the full portion. To be honest, I was expecting to be disappointed after my stop at Lucky, but m:brgr proved me wrong. Their poutine was great. And the staff was great! The crispy onions gave the whole thing a great texture and the salami made it just salty enough. The fresh parsley was the touch of life which could not be found in the other poutines and the gravy… ooooh the gravy! The only problem: the poutine was too heavy and too big. Such a heavy poutine should be served in a smaller size. I still finished it in about 5 minutes, but that’s only because I am gluttonous and disgusting.
iBURGER Buger bar. The poutine was very tasty, I must say. My first successful Poutine Week stop. A very beautiful poutine served in a kitchen pot! The wild mushrooms and truffle oil tasted amazing, but the fried egg had no reason to be there. It made the meal very heavy without adding any particular taste. The only surprise: they didn’t have the tester size and the beauty cost $15, $5 more than the Poutine week listed price. I consider this cheating.
LUCKY`S TRUCK
14 February 2013
It was my first time at iBurger’s, They have interactive touch tables from which you can order your meal. This is good for people who fear human contact: no need to talk to a waiter. The poutine consisted of pulled pork, cheese, their homemade sauce and french fries. It was more like pulled pork, cheese, and fries than an actual poutine. It was very sweet and the tastes didn’t go together very well. I call it a flop topped with terrible customer service. • 5
| The Plumber’s Ledger
Copyright Law: The Broken System We Can’t Abandon
DAVID BAILEY 6
YOU’VE GOT TO LOVE COPYRIGHT LAWS. Whether you download an unauthorized copy of a song or use a random Google image to advertise your bake sale, there are so many ways to slip up. Companies can be heavy-handed in protecting their rights, while dedicated pirates can get away without paying for anything. The system is undeniably a mess. Governments have attempted reforms in recent years which have often seemed draconian and which have crumbled after the campaigns of angry internet-goers. Many would rather see legislation protecting consumer rights rather than provider rights. Personally I think we need to look into a combination of both. Since providers have the legal resources to argue for their interests themselves, advocates of consumer rights can be seen as the underdogs. However, I believe that one of their biggest hurdles is that among all the good arguments against current copyright laws, there are a lot of trivial ones which get in the way of reasonable debate. These are the arguments that essentially seek to abolish all forms of copyright and make unlimited reproduction of intellectual property legal. In this article I’m going to look at a few of these and point out their flaws. I think piracy is acceptable in certain circumstances given the state of our system, but if we are going to fix that system we need to reach a consensus on a few basics. So let’s clear out some of the sillier arguments against copyright law so that we can focus on better solutions.
1. Copying isn’t stealing: When you steal something, the person who was robbed loses what you stole. But when you copy, it’s still there and the original owner isn’t hurt.
OK, I guess by that definition piracy isn’t theft. But that is irrelevant. The creator of a piece of content must have some control over how it is distributed, otherwise they are extremely limited in how they can make money off of it. Grand Theft Auto 2013 February 14
The Plumber’s Ledger | IV cost a hundred million dollars to make. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End cost triple that. There is a demand for these things, and we want companies to have the incentive to fill that demand. Saying that copying isn’t stealing is like holding your finger in front of someone’s face and saying “I’m not touching you.” There are times when there is nothing ethically wrong with pirating in my opinion, but if you make it a legal free-for-all by saying that you can copy and use any data, then who is going to make any sort of significant investment in electronically-transferable content? Some will counter with the next argument, but we’ll see why that is silly in a moment.
3. Pay-what-you want schemes are swell! Cards Against Humanity and Louis CK did it, and they made tons of money!
I find these strategies pretty neat, but they don’t really say much about how the majority of artists should operate. Popular internet items can pull it off, but that’s about it. There’s a lot of mediocre content that people would like enough to use, but not enough to voluntarily part with money, to support the producers. The honour system is not sustainable, especially when you consider that even if we have good intentions we are psychologically inclined to pay less if no one is forcing us. Things like Louis-CK’s DRMfree experiment are a particular solution, but not a general solution to copyright issues.
2. Companies should make their money by making it easier to access their content than it is to pirate content. Look at iTunes and 4. We have a Netflix! freedom of This is an anti-piracy strategy, and a pretty good one. You could argue that knowledge and a piracy has forced companies to follow it, ultimately benefiting consumers. But it still doesn’t justify piracy. If content is right to education. free to copy, then piracy doesn’t exist. Then the company which copies every- Prohibiting access thing and produces nothing will have the lowest expenses and will be able to digital content is out-compete anyone who puts time and money into producing something new. to deny this.
That’s a nice sentiment, and we should
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strive to make content easily available for educational purposes, but we shouldn’t offer absolute guarantees. You can call anything you want a “right,” but this one conflicts with the rights of producers to be recompensed for the work they performed. If you have to choose which right will be held in greater esteem by the law, we should choose the one that won’t make it impossible to produce content with high development costs. I’m not going to invest $100 million in producing the next cinematic masterpiece if everyone is going to freely copy it, claiming they are watching as a critic rather than for entertainment. I guess where I’m going with this is simply that we can’t have a free-for-all on piracy. Software and entertainment businesses would not be able to survive with their current quality of content. I suppose you could try to support them with tax dollars or with price-fixing schemes, but I’m not even going to get into how much of disaster that would be. So really, we’ve pretty much got to stick with the bones of our current system. There are tons of areas for improvement. For example, when I buy a piece of software, I should be able to copy it easily between my personal devices for the rest of my life and pass it onto my children. Then there is the issue that standard software packages like InDesign and Photoshop are out-of-reach to everyday users (the EUS invested in some licences for the Faucet and Ledger). We should try to come up with rules to protect consumers while allowing companies to raise the funds needed to invest in new content. The bottom line is that fixing copyright laws is a really difficult process and one that requires a lot of intelligent dialogue. If we’re going to make any progress, we need to move past the silly arguments outlined above and get serious. • 7
| The Plumber’s Ledger
Daniel Dicaire & Christopher Ho
A Pixel’s a Pixel EVER SINCE THE IPHONE 4S PREMIERED WITH ITS 3.5 INCH “RETINA” DISPLAY, mobile devices have been increasingly leveraging their screens as a selling point for their products. Numerous android devices are now being sold leveraging a “1080p” screen, and several of the new Macbooks are toting a retina display of their own. All of these metrics and names are based on two parameters of the individual screen: Resolution and Pixel Density. Resolution is the number of pixels in the entire screen. “1080p” is short form for a common television resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels making up the screen (the shortened 1080 refers to the number of vertical pixels in the display). Some other common form factors include the “Standard definition” 480p screen of old CRT televisions (640 x 480). Note: this is not a widescreen format. Some lower quality HDTVs use “720p” or 1280 x 720 pixels. So from this knowledge, we can compare two products and state that a higher resolution is “better,” and we would be correct. The problem arises when we compare different classes of devices. 8
The iPhone 4S has the “Retina” display that has a resolution of 960 x 640. This was an impressive display, and Apple decided to push this feature to its third (and fourth) generation iPad. Their Retina displays are 2048 x 1536. This doesn’t appear to make sense. Why would two devices be marketed with the same “Retina” feature, but have next to nothing in common in regards to screen? The trend is continued with the 2560 x 1600 13-inch MacBook Pro, which further complicates the matter. The concept that relates them is ill-defined by Apple, but is actually quite important. Pixel density takes the resolution, and divides it by the screen area, giving the number of pixels per inch (or centimeter). But even with this metric, the screens still appear different! IPhone 4S: 326 PPI (Pixels Per Inch) IPad 3/4: 264 PPI 13-Inch Macbook Pro (with Retina Display): 227 PPI When CRT televisions were still the norm, sitting too close to the set meant you could see the individual red, green,
and blue dots that make up the pixels. The same thing holds true today. The closer you are to the screen, the easier it is to see pixels. It turns out that there is a maximum amount of pixels that can be seen by the human eye at a given distance; any increase in pixel density beyond that limit can’t be detected. That limit is the definition of a retina display. At the typical distance your cell phone is from your eyes, 326 ppi, is all your eyes can recognize – Retina. You tend to hold a tablet farther from your face, and so your eyes are content with a lower PPIRetina. This trend continues ad infinitum. In fact, a 50 inch 1080p TV (44 PPI) from ten feet away is actually a Retina display, though I doubt the Apple marketing department would tell you that. Therefore, a higher pixel density is more important on a phone than a tablet – than a TV. I’ve included a few samples of pixel density by device, to show how competitive the market has become in the past year. Don’t be confused by marketing buzzwords like “full HD” and “retina”. Compare hard specs to get an objective assessment of your next device. • 2013 February 14
The Plumber’s Ledger |
Device
Pixels Per Inch
Desktop computer Standard laptop Retina MacBook Pro
100 ~ 110 100 ~ 135 220
Standard Tablet (iPad 1) Nexus 7 Retina iPad 3/4 Nexus 10
130 216 264 300
Standard smartphone
160
(HTC Wildfire)
Galaxy Note 2 267 Galaxy S3 306 HTC One X+ 312 Nexus 4 320 iPhone 4S 326 iPhone 5 326 Lumia 920 332 HTC Butterfly 440 14 February 2013
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| The Plumber’s Ledger
Super Easy Kraft Dinner Lasagna Alessia Rocha
Don’t have time to cook a complicated dish? With this recipe you can cook an easy AND delicious plate with five simple ingredients. Enjoy!
Ingredients
Preparation
2 Boxes of Kraft Dinner
1. Pre-heat oven to 350°F
0.8 kg / 1.8 lbs. (approx.) of ground beef
2. Prepare KD as directed on the box
3 cups of tomato sauce
3. Fry the ground beef and drain
2 cups of shredded Mozzarella cheese
4. Put half of the cooked KD on the baking dish, followed by half of the sauce, half of the beef, half of the cheese and repeat layers.
Parmesan cheese for sprinkling (Serves 8) TIP: You can add chopped tomatoes, sliced zucchinis, spinach, or other vegetables to the tomato sauce to make it even tastier and more nutritious!
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5. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese 6. Bake until cheese melts (15-20 minutes) •
2013 February 14
The Plumber’s Ledger |
Erika Timoshenko
Cream of Sweet Potato and Carrot Soup
What better way to enjoy the cold winter months than with a hot bowl of soup! As a general rule, soups are really easy to experiment with, and proportions do not have to be followed to the letter. Here’s one recipe that I’ve been fiddling around with lately! I used miso as a base, instead of vegetable or meat stock.
Ingredients
Preparation
1 onion, peeled and coarsely chopped
1. Heat oil in the cooking pot. 2. Toss in onions and heat until they are soft. 3. Pour in water and the spoonful of miso into the pot and let it boil until the miso has dissolved completely. 4. Throw in the spices (ginger and sumac) and stir. 5. Toss in carrots and potato and cook until they are soft. 6. Remove the pot from the heat. 7. Using either an immersion blender, food blender, or food processor, puree the soup until a smooth texture is obtained. 8. Pour in the cream and mix well. 9. Enjoy this soup either hot or cold!
2 tablespoons of oil 1 sweet potato, peeled and coarsely chopped 8-10 carrots, peeled and chopped into large chunks 1 tablespoon of miso (or more/less to taste) 4 cups of water 1 teaspoon of ginger powder 1 teaspoon of sumac powder ½ cup heavy cream
For that extra spunk: Play around with different spices, such as turmeric (to make it even brighter!), or chili powder (if you like things hot!). • 14 February 2013
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| The Plumber’s Ledger
Frédérick Chagnon
RESISTANCE Part II:
In the previous issue, the Resistance, using an experimental antimatter engine, was able to leave Earth with the hope of reaching the mysterious Object before the Hermes – with the hope of bringing down the all-powerful Wells Company.
THEY HAD BEEN ON THEIR WAY FOR A COUPLE OF DAYS and everything was still running smoothly. There had been no problem with the engine or any other vital component of the ship. Nikola was relieved that they were still alive and that his designs proved sound. Of course, there wasn’t much they could do at the moment but wait. They were scheduled to arrive at destination within a couple of days, and were waiting to pass the Hermes any hour now. Everything was going so well that Roy was already working on his “victory” speech and Sheranne was working on a communication device capable of reaching Earth and broadcasting over Wells’ firewalls. Nikola’s job was all but done now and he was spending countless hours gazing at the stars and dreaming about Life, the Universe, and everything. Around that time, Nikola noticed something strange out of the window. It appeared to be a glowing blue scratch in space. As he approached, he noticed that more scratches were starting to appear. As his mind was trying to find an explanation, he heard a high-pitched alarm from the ship’s speakers. Soon enough, space was filled with those scratches. The alarm became even louder and the lights started to flash repeatedly. A cou12
ple of seconds later Roy and Sheranne came running to the command post. “What the hell are those!! What’s happening, Nik?” Roy shouted as he raced towards the command seat. Sheranne took her place at the scans and found the first hint of an answer. “It seems that it has something to do with the electromagnetic field surrounding the ship . . . I can’t tell much more at the moment.” The scratches had become more or less circular around a point in a straight line ahead of the ship. They became closer as they approached the point. The scratches were now several centimeters thick and yet appeared to be thinner. “Oh god . . . this can’t be . . .” Nikola’s face had turned white. The scratches were now ripped open and they could see inside of them. “It’s . . . it’s full of stars!” All three of them were astonished at what they were seeing. Inside the scratches, which were now more like rips in a fabric, were stars. But not the stars that were surrounding them – those were of another sky, in another part of the Universe. “Nik, what are we looking at exactly?” Roy was losing his confidence and was genuinely scared of what was before him.
“I’m not sure . . . it seems like a breach in the fabric of space-time itself . . .” “So . . . a wormhole?” Sheranne asked. “Yeah, it’s like a shortcut between two points through a higher dimension. Think of a piece of paper with two points on it. You would think that the shortest distance between the points is a straight line joining them, but if you think about it a little harder, the shortest distance is actually achieved if you fold the paper on itself, joining the two points together. That’s pretty much what is happening right now.” “Do you realize what this means?” Roy was getting all excited again. “We have just discovered space travel! I mean, we already had space travel of course, but this is different. It’s instant travel to any star, planet, or region of the Galaxy we want!” All the scratches had now merged into one, and they were heading straight to the other side. Sheranne was the first one to come back to her senses: “We have to stop it. We can’t go.” Both Roy and Nikola were quite shocked by that affirmation. “What do you mean, ‘stop’? This is incredible! We have discovered interstellar travel!” Roy said. “Yeah, but it’s not what we are here for. Remember? Saving the human race and 2013 February 14
The Plumber’s Ledger | all that? Plus we don’t even understand what is going and we don’t know where we would appear and if there would be any resources to keep the ship functioning. It’s absolutely incredible what is going on, but we mustn’t forget what we are here for. Our people need us, even if they don’t know it yet.” Before Roy had the time to reply, Nikola realized what was going on: “She’s right Roy. It’s too risky at the moment.” Roy stared at them in disbelief: “But . . .” “Quick! Shut the engines down! If not, we will get through the hole, and never be able to come back.” Reluctantly, Roy turned the engines off. Rapidly, the scratches came back together as one, and normal space surrounded them once again. Nikola was the first to start talking
14 February 2013
again: “I have a theory on what happened. If my theory is correct, we should have no problem starting the process again. As you know, the Second Law of Thermodynamics dictates that no engine is 100% efficient. So part of the fuel, in this case, antimatter, is not “burned.” Basically, I think the unused antimatter was able to flow out of the ship. Once outside, it got trapped by the electromagnetic field surrounding the ship and circulated towards the front. I’m not quite sure how, but the buildup of antimatter in the field opened up the breach.” “So by controlling the buildup and direction of the ship, we should be able to choose where we are going, is that right?” Roy asked. “That’s the idea. More calculations and a lot more work would need to be done for confirmation, though. And we still
need to find a way to control the time component of it.” Before anyone of them had time to reply, an object flew past them at great speed. Sheranne was the one to see it first: “Guys, we need to hurry. That was the Hermes.” Everyone froze for an instant. With all the commotion caused by the discovery of the wormhole, they had forgotten about the race, the Object, and the Hermes. “Crap,” Roy said, trying to recapture his spirits. “Let’s go people; we can’t fail now when we are so close to our goal. Nik, how fast can we start the engines?” “We could start them right now, but . . .” “No time for buts, start the engine right now. We must reach the Object before that ship!” There was no time for routine checkups. They would have to hope that they wouldn’t reach the speed necessary for the formation of a wormhole. Nikola pushed the button and they all felt the sudden acceleration. As before the stars became nothing but straight luminous lines. Moments after starting, they were still in one piece, and once again on their way for the Object. *** Aboard the Hermes, everything was calm. They hadn’t noticed the Resistance when they first passed it, 13
| The Plumber’s Ledger but that would soon change. Without warning, the other ship raced past them, triggering all the alarms on board. Captain Jennifer West was the first one to react: “Radar, what was that?” “I . . . I’m not quite sure, Captain. It
Resistance, the ship which just passed you. At the moment, we are on our way towards your objective. Our mission is to free the human race from the claws of the Wells Company by giving back the sense of purpose, adventure, and progress that your employer has stripped us
appears to be another spaceship, but it moves much faster than anything I’ve ever heard of.” It was at this moment that they received a message. “Communication from the other ship, Captain.” “Alright let it through, let’s see who they are.” “Dear Hermes, I am Roy, leader of the
of. There is no need for you to try to stop us. And even if you tried, as you can see, there is no way you can catch up since we clearly have the technological advantage. Never again will humanity be forced into submission and dormancy by the likes of Wells. The stagnation is over. The people will have the truth about the lies and deception of the Company, whether
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you like it or not. This is the day – the day when the people take back the control over their lives.” The message literally stunned everyone on board. Jennifer finally understood the kind of dangers she was warned about when she left Earth. “Captain, what do we do now?” “I…I don’t know.” And that was the absolute truth. *** The transmission was over and they could finally see the Object with the naked eye. “The Object is right ahead, Roy.” “Great. Well, well, what do we have here?” “It looks like a moon or something. It follows a really messed up orbit around the Sun. It’s the only chance we have to look at it before at least 200 years.” Sheranne replied. Then she frowned, noticing something that shouldn’t be. “Something’s wrong. Nothing should be that bright at that distance from us . . .” The realization of what they were looking at came from Nikola: “Holy –. That’s no moon, that’s a spaceship!” And so it was. What will the Resistance find in the new ship? And how will the Hermes react to Roy’s message? These answers and more in the next installment of RESISTANCE, found in the pages of the next issue of THE PLUMBER’S LEDGER! • 2013 February 14
The Plumber’s Ledger |
Maxime Whaite
The Daily Vote
VOTING A NEWSPAPER PUBLICATION OUT OF EXISTENCE IS NOT A LIGHT MATTER. What would it mean to terminate The Daily? One less newspaper on campus, no more Daily content, and no more Daily Publishing Society fees in our tuition. On the whole, there is less paper consumed, and less money paid – nothing one can really complain about. It is the implication of these losses that is startling. It would mean that a whole group of students would be stripped of their ability to be involved in the process of creating and distributing writing. And the possibility of future students becoming involved and improving the publication is nil. The output of The Daily is no longer to be a question of worthwhile or worthless – the question has become irrelevant. The loss of The Daily
14 February 2013
would be a loss of discussion, of interest, and of engagement. It would be a loss for both the staff of the newspaper, and the student body it is distributed to. It was not too long ago that The Plumber’s Faucet was the only place where one with the inclinations to write could publish and circulate their words around a wider public. However The Plumber’s Faucet has a certain scope, like all newspapers, and the writer of a serious inclination has no place to go. So it was that The Ledger was created to represent and distribute a kind of voice that had had no presence before. As the loss of The Daily would have been a tragedy, the gain of The Ledger is a matter of triumph.
The Daily is one of Canada’s oldest newspapers – its founding is a feat of the early 1900’s. It is not necessarily the quality of the content that gives a school newspaper its value, but rather the opportunity given to those who can bring quality and insight. It is important to appreciate its existence and its promise. The Daily is not the Adonis of the newspaper world, however it does contain articles that are a completely worthwhile read. And that is worth not only keeping The Daily around, but also worth picking up an issue and spending some time reading. •
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