Articles by Julian Duvivier

News & Features May 30, 2018

The Hyperloop: The Future of Transportation?

In 2013 the inventor and innovator Elon Musk proposed a plan for a fifth primary mode of transportation, after cars, planes, trains, and ships, which he called the Hyperloop. The concept is to create a vacuum tube down which a manned pod is propelled at hypersonic speed. It was to go in a loop between two destinations at speeds that would allow it to become the fastest method of travel available. Elon Musk called it “a cross between a Concord and a railgun and an air hockey table” and yet despite the insanity of the proposition he, working with SpaceX engineers, released a early systems design in 2013. At this point, it seemed guaranteed that Musk had a new venture in mind. However, instead of founding another company, he publicly released the Hyperloop Alpha design with the goal to “see if the people can find ways to improve it”. By…

News & Features May 3, 2018

Zuckerberg’s Congressional Testimony

On April 10th, Mark Zuckerberg entered Congress, the black suit he was wearing in contrast to his standard grey shirt displaying the severity of his position. In 2014 the British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica began gathering data on Facebook users and using it to influence the opinions of voters in favor of the politicians who hired them. The data collection was done through a survey app called thisisyourdigitallife which gathered the data of anyone who allowed the app to access their Facebook account as well as of the people connected to them through Facebook, amounting to up to 87 million according to Facebook. On learning of it there was public outcry and facebook apologized, however CA continued to possess their data. Controversy arose again when in March, former employee of CA, Christopher Wylie released details on the data collection. This resulted in CA claiming to have deleted all the…

News & Features, Television February 28, 2018

Stranger Things: Season Two Episode Six

Episode 6 follows the story lines of Will who is under care at Hawkins Labs, Dustin, Steve, Lucas, and Max who are hunting for Dart, and Hopper who discovers the secrets of Hawkins Labs. The episode also concludes Nancy and Jonathan’s visit to Murray and continues to explore the town of Hawkins and the characters we have grown to love. It begins the buildup to the finale, setting the stage for episode 8; episode 7 follows the story of eleven alone. It also introduces the main conflicts for the rest of the season !!WARNING!! The second part of this article contains a spoiler heavy review of Stranger Things Season 2 Episode 6: The Spy and therefor SPOILERS. Spoiler Review The episode begins with Will in horrible pain being taken into Hawkins Labs. It briefly shows Hopper being washed after his venture into the tunnels under Hawkins before returning to Will…

News & Features, Television January 9, 2018

Stranger Things: Season 2, Episode 2

Episode two, Trick or Treat Freak, follows four storylines, Eleven’s time in the forest and subsequent meeting with Hopper, Hoppers investigation of the poisoned farms and time with Eleven, Will, Mike, Lucas, Dustin, and Max’s activities during Halloween, and the turmoil between Steve and Nancy over Barbara’s death which reaches its climax during a Halloween Party. It is one of the defining episodes of the series as it introduces some of the important season conflicts. Trick or Treat Freak was one of my favorite episodes in this season and certainly one that has best kept in my thoughts afterwards. It sets up many of the major plot points in the season as well many of the most intriguing character relationships. I think it can certainly be considered an iconic episode of stranger things that perfectly follows up upon the previous episode MADMAX and leads into the following episode The Pollywog….

News & Features November 1, 2017

Eighth Grade Trip to Washington

On Friday September 24th the eighth grade took a trip to the capital of the United States, Washington DC. The trip took the eighth grade to many monuments, memorials and museums throughout the city. The afternoon of the first day included a visit to the National History Museum, meant to celebrate American Culture and the Aerospace Museum, detailing the World’s Exploration of Space. That night we visited the World War II, Korean War and Vietnam War Memorials. The standout of these three was the Vietnam Memorial, a wall with plaques commemorating the fallen soldiers. There was no grandeur, no statues just a wall of names. This reflects the horrific losses of human life in war in contrast to the other memorials celebrating the magnificent soldier who pulled through and won the day, because not all war stories end like that. Many start with a man walking into the field of…