Is Cyber Warfare a Serious Threat?

Twenty first century being the post-industrial knowledge era where information is greatly valued, begs the question: is our information in safe hands? Created in 1969, the Internet continues to rise in its popularity to an extent where its incumbency is almost a subject of dependence for prosaic lives. Huge organizations and even governments use the Internet as a means of communication. Henceforth, extremely confidential and high priority commands run through wires as binary making it extremely theft prone. Cyberspace is the place harboring various computer network communications and a virtual world synopsis where cyber-weapon as a development of the era plays a vital role in constituting a virtual war - the cyber-war. Nations and various organizations have hence been taking part in cyber warfare, developing their capabilities for both defensive and offensive purposes. Cyber warfare is greatly driven by motives classified into military, civil, political and research bills. The ways in which cyber warfare allows the attacker to fulfill its purpose is analogous to real life methods such as espionage, sabotage and propaganda. Cyber warfare continues to emerge as an extremely serious threat due to the recent cyber-attacks carried out by various nations across the globe; not only has the United Nations recognized cyber warfare to be a threat to world peace, but the technological products that surround us have also been deemed to be involved in it however despite it being argued that a cyber-war is very improbable coupled with the hype being largely made by tech firms in order for them to make huge profits.

Moustache

Moustache. What comes to the mind when you hear this word? Facial hairs on the upper lip or an attribute of the gender male. Whatsoever it has been in possession of many important personalities like Hitler, Hulk hogan and many Viceroys. No doubt the style has evolved and today there you see a variety among the Moustache on Faces. Beliefs differ among Religions and visions on whether to keep it, trim it or simply remove it.

Summary of At Hiruharama

Tanner, Mr. Tanner’s grandfather was an orphan in Stamford, Lincolnshire before he was sent to New Zealand as a servant. There he met Kitty, Mr. Tanner’s grandmother, who was also a servant. They got married, and moved further up north to buy some land and carve out a living. They settled in a quiet piece of countryside called “Hiruharama” and after two years, Kitty told Tanner that she was expecting a child. After consulting with the doctor and getting his assurances and a prescription of medicine, Tanner borrows two racing pigeons from a man named Parrish, in order to contact the doctor in an emergency. However, on the day that Kitty does go into labor, their neighbor, Brinkman, comes around for dinner. Tanner quickly sends off a message to the doctor using the racing-pigeons and begins to help his wife while Brinkman continues to complain about the lack of food. The doctor arrives as soon as Tanner delivered the baby. As the doctor deals with the afterbirth, he realizes that it was a smaller twin and gives it to Tanner. It turns out that the second twin would be the more successful of the two, starting a career in law and hence bringing lawyers into the Tanner family. After that experience, Tanner hung up a tin sign on the wall: “Throw Nothing Away”, just to remind the family how important that philosophy was, especially to them.

Biography of Penelope Fitzgerald

Penelope Knox Fitzgerald (1916-2000) was born into a bookish family in Lincoln, England. Her father, E.V. Knox, edited Punch magazine from 1932-1949. (Punch is a British satire weekly started in 1841. It coined the term “cartoon” in the modern sense.) Her uncle wrote detective fiction. Her aunt was also a prolific and popular novelist. Penelope’s mother Christina studied English at Somerville College, Oxford, not long after it opened for women. Penelope went to Somerville herself in 1935 and did brilliantly. She co-edited the student newspaper and graduated with a first. After graduation, she worked for the BBC and wrote film reviews for Punch. Her biographer, Hermione Lee, says Penelope had “all the makings of someone who was going to start publishing books in her 30s.” But she didn’t. At 25, she married Desmond Fitzgerald, a former officer with the Irish Guards. She had three children and settled into domestic life. But as Hermione Lee points out, it would be too simplistic to conclude “marriage stopped her writing.”Instead, she incubated every facet of her life and transmuted it into fiction decades later.

Threat to the Fishes.

The rate at which the fishes are threatened.

Inland fish farming and marine fishing both are a huge source of income and employment for the people mostly the fishing communities. Now there are two types of people who do fishing. One is subsistence and the other one is commercial. People who fall into the category of the subsistence fishing do not go into the deep seas they just catch some fish with hand woven nets using a wooden boat for their family usage and the one that is left is sold in the market as a source of income. No such pollution is caused by this type of fishing but the Commercial fishing does threaten the fish. The main reason the greed of money takes over and the fishermen catches too many fish with the least concern that they have to reproduce and the reproduction rate already is too low just because the destroying of breeding places and pollution (plastic bags).

Summary and Analysis of The Sandpiper by Ahdaf Soueif

Background/Setting

The setting is the resort town of Alexandria though the city is only mentioned. Action, such as it is, is limited to a beach house or a residence close to a beach. The background to the story to the story is the failing marriage of the European narrator and her Egyptian husband. The story covers just couple of hours of a summer afternoon.

Characters/Characterization

The narrator is caught between two cultures, her husband has drifted from her, yet she is passive though unhappy. There are touches of the neurotic in her. She is in Egypt for summer, Alexandria in fact, but the rest of the time she lives in her “northern land”. But being in familiar environment does not seem to ease things. Her passivity is surprising. She walks without disturbing the sand on the path. Though she has been married for eight years and has come to Alexandria for that many years, she has not learned the language and feels ill at ease. To be sure there is much conflict in the two vastly differing cultures. Women in upper class families did no work in Egypt but she is used to being independent in her country. There is a hint of the husband straying – “On that swirl of amazed and wounded anger when, knowing him as I did, I first sensed that he was pulling away from me, I should have gone”. She is now waiting only for her daughter Lucy to “grow away from me”. Lucy was born in Egypt and is at home there. The narrator senses that Lucy’s need for her is lessening and soon she will be able to make a break.