Networks

Whereas last term I had near to no trouble memorizing and understanding the concepts of Computing, this month of January has proved a point: things get harder as you pursue your dream studies. The new topic started out fine, addressed to be a theoretical theme, then I learned that as easy a subject as it seemed, I was going to need further help to comprehend mildy what the lessons were about without getting lost.

Networks. Sets of computers that working together can share all kinds of information. Until then, no doubts at sight. But networks are complicated, above all if you have never heard about them before. They appear in varying, different forms, with strange, short names that are intended in fact to help you remember what they are. If you mean to clasify them by physical from and linking, you are to learn all the layouts; they come in bus form (all the computers are aligned), tree form (one of the messiest to remember), meshed form (idem)...

Nevertheless, they can also be grouped by components; that is, whether they need wire connections to work or can function wirelessly. Networks can be arranged as well referring to the type of linking they use, P2P and Client-server.

And the way they're organized is only the beginning, because we study how they connect to the Internet, what those connections mean, how to check if the network works properly, how to program your computer to show you their IP, which are given to each computer in the world so that it can be easily identified. Only there are ways and ways to assign an IP and ways and ways to get lost in the middle of the process.

As interesting and necessary as networks are for human life to continue evolving, it takes a greater brain than you'd think to figure them out and not feel like you really cannot understand what you're trying to learn about.

Selfies

A selfie is a self-portrait photograph, usually taken with a hand-held digital camera or cell-phone. They are often casual, taken either with a camera held at arm's length or in front of a mirror, including either just the photographer or as many people as can be in focus.

Nowadays, exploring selfie exposure in the UK there has been denoted a pathological condition triggered by this called selfieism.

The origin of these photos comes from the late 19th century, when people began to experiment with cameras and started taking pictures of themselves in mirrors.

In the present day, selfies are a way of presenting one's body to others, usually in social networks, in a flattering but casual way where the main features of the person are perfectly noticeable. Yet, being as popular as they are, they also have become a way to show off, specially when we talk about young women, who show their bodies on the Internet, exposing themselves to a high level of sexual harassment when specific parts can be seen, mostly when these pictures are in other people's possession, say, a boyfriend of girlfriend, who posts them once the relationship is over as a form of revenge against the person.

Selfies have also been taken beyond the earth. A space selfie is a selfie that is taken in space. This refers to selfies taken by astronauts.

Quick Response Codes (QR codes)

Quick Response Code, worldwide known as QR Codes is a two-dimensional barcodes, designed in Japan for the automotive industry, that encodes information which can be any type of data.

Lately, it's become popular owing to its fast readability and greater storage capacity in comparison with standard barcodes.

It consists of back modules in form of a square grid on a white back ground, which can usually be read by a camera and processed using a special application. Then, data is extracted from the components of the image.

No matter what the industrial design was for, these codes have grown common in consumer advertising, being normally scanned by smartphones, which convert it into something they can work with, such as an URL for a website, making it unnecessary to type it into a browser. Almost every type of smartphone has the software required to read QR codes.

The current uses of these codes have expanded wonderfully, being now used in different areas, from locating to marketing, or even printed on train tickets in China.