To Boldy Go

Today marks the first day I heard someone seriously talk about petabytes (Check out chep 2007) of data. I just can't wait for UT2010 which will be like 5 PB on my harddrive o.O

300 Big Boys

No I am not talking about a Frank Miller comic or a movie based thereon or even the excellent Samurai Jack episode. Check out this website to see if you should spend your next tax refund in the same inspired way Fry did here:

I choose neither.

I suppose this article is working on proving Darwin wrong, at least if you assume that the intelligent are more likely to be successful in our society. That is assuming of course that since humans are a product of nature, everything we do is part of nature.

And I got a new plot to post next to my plot correlating the average global temperature to the number of pirates.

What do New Zealand and Switzerland Have In Common

Not only is most of the Swiss sailing team from New Zealand (they are suprisingly excited about sailing over here) but much more importantly let me introduce you to the village of Lauterbrunnen:


Does that look at all familiar to you? Think about a big stream flowing though the center, an elaborately carved caslte to the right, and a lot of elves running about. Still not quite there, wel let me give you a visual guide:


Welcome to Rivendell! Allow for Tolkien's fantasy and I would say that is about as close as it gets. So Switzerland has something else to offer than cheese and chocolate, although that is already pretty good :)

ATLAS Movies

Well it appears my workplace has decided to make a few movies about ATLAS and the LHC, hopefully to raise public awareness, and maybe to debunk some of the myths that have been building up during the lengthy construction of this new accelerator. Check out the videos on the ATLAS YouTube site. They are pretty cheesy (and some of the stuff they say is actually wrong) but either way the videos are awesomely geeky, or geekely awesome.

When I got back from lunch today I saw this:



and thought it must be a sign that this afternoon my code will work. And life will be good.

It is good to be a geek

Well it looks like next year will be a celebration of awesome:

1.) You know ...
2.) Fallout 3 (I'm giddy)
3.) LHC (I work every now and then you know ;)

And talking about awesome. It's a tribute to TBS really is.

I <3 Blizzard

This is the happiest day of my life.

A Puddle of Drool is Forming on my Laptop

What could this mean? I dare not think SC2 since I would not be able to take the disappointment of being wrong ... so I will safeguard myself into thinking World of Diablo 3craft.

I need a Camera

Well I arrived in Milano yesterday for a calibration workshop for ATLAS. I took the train, reflecting on how it is probably the most civilized available mode of locomotion. Next to the Geneva train station I found a comic shop displaying Magic(TM) cards, which made come to the happy realization that there are nerd everywhere. Finally I can feel at home in Geneva.

After that pleasent experiance I had to play a bit og dodge the heroin addict at the train platform while waiting for the train. After that I was off to a very enjoyable train ride though the Swiss and then Italian countryside.

After about 4 hrs of riding the train I arrived at Milano Centrale, about 30 minutes walk from the downtown area. That walk I did with my supervisor Michel and our man at CERN Damir after locating our hotel by the train station. We found the the Duomo cathedral ... they don't build churches like that anymore. Poster that, there is one being build in Barcelona ;)

After that we went to see the Castello Sforzesco a big keep just outside the center of Milano. Sadly it was closed when we got into the keep, so we were forced to duck out to the park behind the castle. Here we found out that the reason all the shops were closed was that it was Liberation day in Italy, so everyone was in the park and nobody at work. I also had a chance to interact with a few girls who were wondering where I was from. It appears they were dissapointed to find out I am from Canada ... maybe they were hoping I was from somewhere more excotic? Norway maybe? Cause Norway is fsckin' Metal.

Anyway I better get back to listening to the workshop discussion. Apparently nobody is motivated enough to analyze testbeam data.

Guranga!

I did not realize that gamers were being tageted thanks to the latest killing spree in the US ... I do rather much enjoy the turn slashdot reader took blaming JC,, i suppose if you aren't blaming Marilyn Manson you have to find somebody else.

The net connection at cern rocks

Well, I just downloaded the ubuntu cd image in 1.5 minutes, that is an average rate of 6Mbps. That was pretty cool.

Tripping to Europe

Well I get to spend most of the summer this year working at CERN in Geneva. I arrived last week Wednesday after a relaxing 20hrs on various planes and in various airports. In the meantime I have not only found an office and a computer to write this message from, I have also moved into a small appartment in the village of St Genis-Pouilly, France. I have started stalking up on wine, cheese and beer, and have even managed to successfully feed myslef breakfast this morning. It lacked pancakes, I will have to get some pancake mix on the way home today.

Aside from working I am also planning to go visit my sister in Hamburg (Last week of May) and my friends Aleks and Caroline in London (First few days of June). I am going to try out some three way combination between ryanair and easyjet and hope that I will make it to Hamburg, London and back in one piece :)

Now I think it is about time for a coffee break.

Best Scifi of all time?

Well the BBC just conducted a poll of 300 people to find the top 10 SciFi films of all time. It seems that Serenity came out on top, even above Star Wars, just to show that Fox is run by morons. I hope that they will get back to producing Firefly, but for now we'll just have to read comics ...

And is it just me, or what happened to KAAAAHHN!!!!?

Best Lab Ever!

Wondering about the hallway in our basement I found a lab that way too exciting to belong in the basement of a physics department:

Futurama

Futurama truely is a great show. I've been whatching it a lot recently, here is one possible reason why one could argue that Futurama is in fact directed at science geeks:



Ohh No! Does this mean that dark matter tastes like hot koolaid?

Procrastination

And I thought I had too much time on my hands.

So on the way back from Banff I ended up listening to 99.3 Fox, more particular their Metal Mondays show. At some point they played (what i think was some) Iced Earth. That has sent me into a serious Power Metal bender. On the suggestion of a friend here I got myself some Edguy to listen to. That band rocks! Furthermore though extensive study I have found that Power Metal indeed makes an awsome soundtrack to Supreme Commander.

Physics & Skiing

So the Winter Nuclear and Particle Physics Conference happened from last Friday evening up to noon today. The conference is taking place in Banff, in the province of the rich and sometimes famous. I went with Keith one of the other students at UVic. We got a lucky break of getting to give our talks right on Friday evening, so the rest of the conference was very enjoyable. It was also very cool that this year (for the first time) the conference is being organized by the my undergrad university (and a few other universities from back east, so I got to meet some of my old profs and some of the new students from back home.

Anyway today we decided to take off early (and skip the concluding remarks) such that we could check out one of the ski resorts. We decided to go to Sunshine where I skied again for the first time in like 15 years. With some help from Keith, the other UVic grad that came to the conference I actually was relatively comfortable exploring all the greens and blues at sunshine.

On Monday we spent the entire day at Lake Louise, a much better ski resort (though the regulars tell me that it usually does not get as good a snowfall as this year). Very nice skiing, and Keith actually took me down a black diamond at some point. That and we did this awesome blue going though the woods, and to my peril, around some boulders. Felt very good though, and lots of powder.

They're Everywhere!

I saw no less than seven people on the bus today sporting an iPod. Come on people, if you can't get a decent mp3 player at least get some decent headphones! While we are talking about iStuff at least get and iRvier, 1337 it up a bit, and then play Mario on it. You know that nearly makes the iRiver cool. I would still get a DS before going though all that work though.

Will solve Peskin & Schroeder Problems for Coffee

Well after paying tuition tomorrow I will have a grand spanking CDN$1 to my name. In an effort to fun my caffeine addiction between then and my next paycheck (tomorrow 11:59pm) I shall shake my moneymaker .... and since my nerdy, fat ars probably won't do it let me offer you my brains on a plate. No? Well let me talk to that thing over there. I hear zombies like brains ... wait that's a mirror. Ugh!

For all you *nix Geeks

Well you are probably already using this, just in case you are not: The fuse module & sshfs are very nice extensions available for any 2.6.15 kernel and after. This lets you mount remote file systems, without all that tedious mucking about with nfs. maybe I like it more than I should, then again I am geeky that way.

I am not even playing right now o.O

, you're now logged in!

Below you'll find your test result. After, continue on to your
homescreen to discover what we're about.

continue to OkCupid homescreen >

Well on your way! You are 73% Addicted!

You play a lot, and you're starting to get hooked. Keep it up and soon you too will be part of the ever-growing group that is totally addicted. Or, see the warning signs now and get out while you still can!

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 99% on addiction level

Link: The World of Warcraft Addiction Test written by survivedestiny on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Gutterballs

I went out bowling with some friends here yesterday. It was the first time since I played 5 pin since about high school. Needless to say the balls felt excessively small, and that is my excuse for how badly I did. That and the vodka in my 7up.

There are some pictures of the night out up on facebook.