RC Cola: The Belgium of Sodas

rc_cola @ 2009-01-31T14:29:00

2009-01-31T13:54:40Z

arkadia is ti blame for this.

Pick one word from each pair that you think describes me the best and comment with your choices. Then copy this and post it in your own journal to see how your friends view you.

* dominant or submissive
* logical or intuitive
* social or loner
* kinky or vanilla
* cute or sophisticated
* kitten or puppy
* warm flannel sheets or sleek satin
* leader or follower
* quiet or talkative
* spontaneous or planned
* teddy bear or porcelain doll
* hiking or window shopping
* tequila or vodka
* top or bottom
* bare foot or shoes
* jeans or slacks
* tender or rough
* aware or dreamy
* nerd or jock
* brains or brawn
* common sense or book smarts

In case you were wondering who votes for McCain

2008-09-13T06:48:34Z

It's the people who get married at a waffle house

http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/ftp/multimedia/waffleweddingx/publish_to_web/

One Year Anniversary of PhD Candidacy

2008-08-29T11:30:26Z

So one year ago I passed my final test and was informed of it in the hallway, in which I shouted in exhaltation enough that people 50 feet away could hear. Now after one year of a supposed full-on run towards research I have a laughable amount of progress towards my thesis, only slight progress in learning French, but I'm doing great in service work and coding not related to my thesis.

The main person I have to blame for everything non-French is my advisor (nah, I guess I'll blame him too). I think he doesn't know enough about what's going on with the experiment in the present (caring a lot about the past and the future) that he avoids too much conversation about it to hide his naïvety. This means he never directly to me broached the subject of analysis and hasn't been too helpful when I bring up the fact that I have never done an analysis and need him or someone to do some hand-holding for me.
This came up in a big way twice in the past week. Two weeks ago I found out that my advisor had emailed the schedule for watching the detector to everyone in our experiment EXCEPT his own university. I was drunk when I found this out and I was drunk (but not badly) when I emailed him in righteous indignation (thank you Elisa for the phrase). He responded in two days with full apologies.
Then last weekend I emailed him to see what the schedule for my flights back would be. He was his usual "wait, I'm supposed to take care of this?" So I had another drunken but not badly email that I fortunately cc'ed to the other professor in the group. The other prof emailed me within 13 minutes and he recently just took care of pretty much the entirety of my flight plans.
Hopefully when I get analysis stuff up and running he'll be either helpful or have ridiculously low expectations for what passes for a doctoral thesis.

So once I get back from Oregon, I gotta work on analysis and the tiny project I'm also doing. I can't wait to do work upon real data and not simulation.

Turkey vs Czech Republic

2008-06-16T11:09:34Z

Anyone who has had any plans to be a Soccer fan should follow Euro Cup 2008 this month. In particular, be a fan of Turkey and watch the Turkey/Czech Republic game that happened last night.

I myself bought a ticket yesterday and went with a crowd of Turks including my roommate. The entire day was an insane trip of superfandom I haven't encountered since UCSB. Thanks football for making everyone a college undergrad again.

Radio Talk Show Host doesn't actually know what appeasement is.

2008-05-17T12:14:06Z

It's sad that someone like this would be let onto national television, but it's another example of why anyone still rooting for Bush is a complete idiot.

Hillary with the gracious bow-out?

2008-05-15T14:28:05Z

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/14/clinton/index.html

This article points out that she's trying to get her supporters to rethink threatening or committing to voting for McCain in the general is Clinton loses. It looks hopefully like she'll participate in all the primaries, and probably run a nicer campaign. Whether she'll drop out before the convention or wait for the math to decide is another issue entirely.

This is what the website says, I think I could take more...

2008-04-03T12:48:40Z

Open Question: Best Fantasy to suggest for post-Rowling readers

2008-03-28T13:40:38Z

Steven Levitt recently finished all the Harry Potters and found he didn't like The Golden Compass. A deluge of suggestions, most being "suck it up and read more of Golden Compass." I think this is either the wrong approach or the wrong series to suggest. I know a few people were suggested Robert Jordan, but I think only Terry and Amber stuck with it to book #11. Also, Zack and I tried to drop American Gods onto our respective fathers' laps, and I think both of them failed to finish it.
Is Robert Jordan or Neil Gaiman not the right choice? What would be?

Don't worry about suggestions for me, I recently have heard too much good about George RR Martin's series that I just picked it up (15 Francs for a paperback, ouch).

EDIT: Zack's parents apparently both read American Gods and at least his mom liked it.

Captain Helvetica!

2008-03-02T20:34:28Z

So I spent both days this weekend travelling to play magic, and it was great. While at the second, I realized that my carful of people were the only Genevan players around, and so probably that we were representing switzerland at the time. It was then that I came up with the idea of a Captain Planet like team, except each person represented a language spoken in Switzerland.

Swissketeer French: Fashionable Timepieces, can manipulate time. Female in haute coutoure wear.
Swissketeer German: Banking, has an infinite supply of cash. Male, in business suit.
Swissketeer Italian: Extreme Sports, especially mountain ones. Female in sport clothes.
Swissketeer English: Overbearing media and diplomatic immunity. Male, in unfashionable clothes.
Swissketeer Romanish: Power of adherence to tradition. Male, homespun gray clothes.

With their powers combined (but mostly French and German's power), a man entirely in Red with a giant white cross on his chest will appear.

All of this is so cool, it's such a shame that none of them have anyone to pick a fight with.

Edit: Megan has made the awesomest contribution by suggesting that they are instead like the Spice Girls. The Swiss Girls, or something. I like it.

Thoughts on Bike Helmets and Cities

2008-02-25T15:03:54Z

Should you wear a helmet while biking around in cities? I've been hassled on this one for time immemorial and I wanted to share my honest opinions on this one.
First off, I rarely do wear a helmet when biking around towns or cities. I always wear a helmet mountain biking and on huge road biking ventures. Probably the #1 reason I don't wear a helmet is because it prevents me from immediately getting on my bike and going off to wherever. The second reason, and a damn good one for cities, is that I'm worried about me losing it or it being stolen (has happened before to me). Lastly, I just love the feel of wind rushing through my hair. Sounds stupid, but the best way for me to get my hair to look good is to take a 15 minute bike ride.
Now the arguments for the helmet are always about safety. However, I think to place all of your safety trust in a device around your head is quite stupid. Instead, you should learn how to bike well, which really sums up to two things:
1) Avoid crashes. Being fully aware of the surroundings is key, and I find that I'm able to do so easier without a helmet. Either way, good bikers will crash a lot less than inexperienced ones
2) Learn how to crash well. Since undergrad, I've biked a lot without a helmet and I've had my share of crashes and falls. Outside of mountain biking, I've never hit my head. There were periods in undergrad while I was learnign rule #1 where I'd never have an scar-free knee or something, and that was because I could manage any crash, even the 15 mph ones with bad brakes.

So I do believe that biking with a helmet is safer than without, but I think that learning to bike without a helmet will make you much safer whether you don it or not. Also I think the benefits for city biking do not outweigh the problems.

Holy Crap!

2008-02-07T15:09:05Z

It's been a shit long time since I've updated, instead going with the incremental updates on AIM and othersuch. I just read my post from October again so I'll try to give the update since then.
Socially, I'm meeting more people and making connections with the graduate students here as well as a few meetups with people outside of the lab. This is the area I need to brush up on the most, if I want a date anytime soon.
Leisure is doing great, as I found a group of magic players that I'm totally gonna have to devote all my fridays to. Half of my new years resolution actually is to qualify for the Pro Tour and the next two months are honestly my best shot at it. So I'll be travelling to nearby cities and countries to do my best at this one.
Finally found a great skiing connection, being the CERN club. My boots finally fit beautifully two weeks ago and only give me trouble if I walk too far with them (which means I should be skiing more instead of walking). One last official outing with them this weekend, and then I have to go to the meetings to sign up for more on a week by week basis.
I finally found an analysis group right before winter break, and I'm only starting to look over the physics/code of it all. I blame this on being at the detector and putting it together so far. But now, I'm done with doing that most of the time and starting tomorrow will actually focus on stuff towards my thesis.
While my advisor for this analysis project is pretty neat despite living 3 hours away in Zurich, my real advisor is completely clueless on pretty much everything and I hope I can get him with the program this summer when he visits for reals.
So now that things are turning my way, I just have to keep pushing myself to being sociable as well as get stuff done with code.

Ze Fraunch arrre fai-gotts

2007-11-13T14:07:00Z

It always amazes me the disconnect between the number of people who speak english on the Swiss side and on the French side of the border. This weekend I went to a magic tournament ~30 miles from Geneva, still deep in French speaking swiss territory but a little further from France proper. The tournament was run entirely in english, with english cards, and I never had to try my french against the people I was playing. Interactions with 4 or 5 swiss outside the tournament and they all spoke enough english so I could get what I needed. This kind of streak would probably be impossible just over on the froggy side of the border.

In addition to all this, my work crew is almost entirely Russian engineers. So whenever an actual argument breaks out, they just start speaking really quickly in Russian. This gives me the advantage of plausible deniability as well as not having to worry about what they're arguing about. The disadvantage is the only native english speaker I work with is most definitely my boss.

ITT we laugh at Yankees (Warning: Sports)

2007-10-09T05:38:45Z

The only thing I love more than watching Pittsburgh teams win while I'm in Pittsburgh is watching New York teams lose and seeing who cries. The Yankees sucked it hard this month, as much as the Mets sucked it up last month. I really hope this quells the east coast's insatiable desire for the most boring sport in America and we can all start loving entertaining sports like Hockey, Soccer, or Ultimate Frisbee. That or more college football.

This is what my dinner party conversation will be for the next 5 years

2007-09-28T05:31:39Z

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/scientists_ask_congress_to_fund_50

Europe - Opinion after the first month

2007-06-30T21:14:31Z

A lot of people have been hassling me to tell them how things are going and I've been thinking of a couple of rants to post, so this update is going to be a long one. It's also probably going to be unedited, so if you want more info or more thought out responses to something, leave a comment.

CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) is a really interesting place to work. You have a lot of different cultures (US, French, Swiss, Russian, and UK are the big ones) and the people you work with either have PhDs or are normal day-laborers. There are tons of fights over which PhD gets to do what he wants, a lot of mindlessly following procedures and schematics drawn up years ago, and the proper safe way of doing things. Many laborers simply ignore some of these things until they're just told to actually follow them.

One great story of this is that a bunch of laborers/engineers needed to install some pipes or cabling down in the detector, but there was a bunch of lights in the way. So the engineers just shut off power to the area and dismantled the lights. The problem is, some of those lights were emergency/backup lights, that do not turn off if the power is shut off (for obvious reasons) so there existed bare wire with a good amount of power coming off of it somewhere near a bunch of metal rails. The entire detector cavern with the exception of the ground floor was barred from work happening for a day and a half.

My hostel room has been given somewhat the Ryan treatment, as I have a handful of posters up and my UCSB pennant. My shower works on the principle of those push faucets in that every 30 seconds you have to slam your palm or small of your back against the knob to keep getting water. The room and bathroom are pretty small, but that's expected and liveable. The kitchen is a joke. There's a hotplate and a microwave, and you get a portion of a fridge that doesn't get all that cold. No communal supplies at all, and some assface stole my first set of fork and spoon. My diet has been probably more healthy than when I had a freezer, oven and BBQ, but that's probably more to blame from the wonderful taste of a good french baugette. The other breads haven't been as good, I think I'll have to try a true french bakery to see if they can/do preslice the baugettes.

The opinion on which side of the border has been an interesting one. I live on the French side of the border, but I'm only a km from the official border and less to the closest entrance into CERN (which I personally consider Swiss territory). Geneva is a good half hour/45 minute bike ride from my hostel, and is a pretty cool city all things considered. I am immensely peeved of the fact that all stores close at 7 as far as I can tell, even downtown. Closer to my place is a suburb city which has flourished because of CERN, and it has most of the stuff you need day to day. The problem with the swiss side is that everything is ridiculously expensive. Knowing that the Swiss Franc/Euro conversion is something like 1.65:1, something on the swiss side of the border will be twice as many francs as it would be in euro on the french side. That's a 20% mark-up for a lot of stuff. The huge benefit of switzerland is that a sizeable portion of them speak english to some degree. So you'll be stumbling through French and they'll just say "You speak English?" and you'll say yes and breathe a sigh of relief and continue the transaction that way.

I am starting to like the French side of the border more and more. It's this incredibly manufactured cuteness. A bunch of the houses being built new now are made to look like the 16th century or so countryside villas. The little village next to my hostel on the French side you can really tell ballooned to be a CERN service town, and it's pretty good for that. It's got two good supermarkets, a kebab stand, some good restaurants, and a large outdoor bar. There's a bunch of other little villages dotted around the area, but I haven't gotten enough of a chance to explore them, although I feel now that I'll be biking to my lab site starting monday I might. So right now I'm on the "Fuck Switzerland!" side of the Fuck Switzerland/Fuck France dichotomy but the tide could sway anytime.

Going out drinking Friday night was an interesting experience. Asking for a Hefeweizen or Wheat Beer will get you confused looks and someone at the bar thinking you want a bar from the tap. Asking for a Vodka Martini will get you half vodka, and half vermouth blanc, which is not dry or sweet vermouth but a vanilla-y vermouth that's not a nice crisp flavor that you look for in vermouths. Also, it will be served to you in a Tom Collins glass. So the moral of the story is only trust the french for wine, not even for fortified wine products.

On the language front, I am getting somewhat better, I can now order food without too much confusion. I can't carry on conversation to any degree. I think mostly I'm extremely peeved at the pronunciation scheme. I know it's a big joke about the French, but it's absolutely true. I try to pronounce stuff I've only read either in a straight american accent, or a faux french accent and half the time they'll look at me completely confused. Anyone who's been to a french speaking place have an opinion on whether to fake the french accent or go deadpan american accent for speaking?

I haven't traveled anywhere outside of the Geneva/Pays de Gex region, but I do have ambitions of heading over to somewhere the weekend of July 21st. Paris, Amsterdam, or Monte Carlo are the big candidates right now. I'm totally open to other suggestions or opinions of which would be most fun to a primarily english speaker.

That's pretty much it. I have been keeping to myself a bit, and I will be looking forward to getting back to Pittsburgh and the rest of the States, but work here has been really rewarding and productive. It does feel like a vacation to just work 9-5/6 and then spend the rest of your day and weekend as you like. If that's how the real world is like, more people should have marketed it to me as that.

Perfect Job Meme

2007-03-30T02:23:41Z

List 10 jobs, real or fictional, you would love to have. Don't take into account things such as money, required education and skills, or time periods, location, etc. Just post your ideas, serious or silly (and preferably silly) for all your friends to see and share.

1. Professional Magic Player
2. Scientist for Manhattan Project
3. Leader of Genetically-Engineered Super-Army
4. Mad Scientist
5. University Professor in a place with wonderful weather
6. Head of R&D project for cool tech developments
7. Head of NSA/CIA/NRO
8. Video Game Ideas/Story creator
9. Webcomic writer
10. Stand-Up Comic

Ganked from arkadia

Update

2007-03-17T03:24:32Z

Taurus is in worse condition than when I left it. I was able to at least drive it, now the whole thing dies seconds after the engine starts up. I had to get it towed back to my place. Talked to my parents last night and there's a possibility of buying/bumming another of my grandmother's cars when she goes to her nursing home and her caretaker goes back to Poland. So I'm not actively seeking any deals but I think I'll call the guy who had a '93 Impreza for $500.

Everything else in my life is going pretty good. My spring break was otherwise enjoyable and I'm pretty stoked about going to Fermilab next week to learn about CMS.

FOCUS: The car is in a place that I can be parked for weeks without hassle, but I want to have this thing off of my hands and possibly make some money off of it. If I list the car as a parts car on craigslist, what can/should I ask for it (200?) and is assumed that I can't move it or should I state it explicitly in the post?

'94 Ford Taurus Wagon - The Dilemna

2007-03-15T22:02:26Z

So my honeywagon, a '94 Taurus Station wagon, has major engine problems. The kind that will cost $1400 or more to fix. I'm supposed to call the shop tomorrow about what I want them to do. This car is usually my 'ace in the hole' car, as in it's really only used when it's raining/über-cold, or if I need to rescue a bike, or if I don't feel like biking, or any of a swath of inane reasons. The times it's really useful beyond that is making things much easier for my girlfriend to come over, road trips, and shopping.
I see myself as having three options:
• Suck it up and pay for repairs on the car. It's been good to me, I'll want it for driving cross country, and the car working is worth more than the cost of repairs + what I'd get from selling it.
• Don't get repairs on the car. Instead, search craigslist and others for a better car that will cost less or marginally more than the repairs. Possibly even sell the broken Taurus on craigslist
• Don't get repairs on the car, sell it. Bike and Bus everywhere I need to go, mostly bike. Rent a car for big weekends when I need it.

Why #3 is even an option is because I'll be leaving Pittsburgh sometime in September, hopefully for the Large Hadron Collider. So it would be somewhat nice to not have to dump my car on my parents or store it for 3 years, and I could buy myself a decent car when I get back.

Give me your thoughts on the matter.

Paperwork is for Frenchies

2007-02-28T19:00:27Z

So I have to register a bunch of stuff in order to go to a software/hardware talk on the big CERN accelerator. First was Fermilab accounts, which took 5 minutes and was done over the internet. CERN however, needs like three (possibly more) forms, and has no over-the-internet handling, which means I have to print them out, fill them out, scan them, and send them back to different people.

Homework however isn't as bad as it previously has been, and research so far consists of reading 100 pages of a technical document so I know what's going on at CERN.

Philosophical Question of the Day: If our minds are in some control of our emotions, does our conscious self have any obligation to feel a certain way?

As in, does experiencing a broad range of emotions fulfill some emotional obligations? If we're able to make ourselves feel happy, if we do this all the time is it actually happiness? or just a joyful melancholy if there's no sad? I feel in somewhat of a Buddhist way that an opposite must exist for something to be considered (happy vs sad, good vs evil), but whenever I feel down about something, I'm able to look at my life and convince myself that things are going pretty well and get out of the slump pretty quickly (hours or days).

Fucking A

2007-02-22T22:28:26Z

So I failed day 2 of the qualifying exam again. I honestly thought I had a chance on this one, but I messed up one or two too many things on the Quantum part. The statistical mechanics part, the class that I failed and the part I got practically nothing on last time, I passed with flying colors. And the general physics part I died on, but SO DID EVERYONE. So instead of best 2/3 it was 2/2 with a part that will frustrate you for an hour. I hate how the students study for months for these exams and the qualifying committee can't even write good questions that will show our understanding of the subject.
So now I have a decision to make: I can refuse to take the test again, leave in May/June, and get on with my life; or I can delay my whole track/plan I had going for myself by three months while I study for this fucking shit pile one last time. If I fail in August, they kick me out.
This whole thing has really taken the wind out of my sails. Everything had been going beautifully for the past 3 months, what with passing the Oral Quals, nobody caring I failed Quantum 3, passing my other two classes last semester, looking like having easy classes this semester, rediscovering downhill skiing, having an advisor who cares and isn't a nervous wreck, not having to TA this semester, and Natalie being a hunk of awesome thrown in.
What's most frustrating is that I can't even yell or cry or have some huge emotional outburst. I'm just frustrated, angry, and drained from all of this.

2 posts, 1 day: strangeness

2007-02-02T03:06:08Z

So 5 hours after I posted the last LJ post, I get a call from the bike shop that my bike is ready. With the combination of my bike back and the weekend pretty much here (only class on fridays is a 9:30-10:30 one) I doubt I'll get miffed about any other random physical objects I have for quite a while.

Broken Shit

2007-02-01T16:06:47Z

A good number of physical things around me have broken down and it's really aggravating me that people trained to fix them aren't doing as such.

Bike: As many of you know, I have three bikes with me in Pittsburgh. One of those three has pedals made for normal shoes. The other two are pedals made for bike shoes. The bike with normal pedals has been in the shop for three weeks, compared with a normal turn-around time for bike maintenance being ~3 days. This really hurts me as I don't like walking around in bike shoes and it's both uncomfortable for me and destroys the shoe if I wear normal shoes and pedal on the special pedals. My second string bike also has a heavily deformed back rim that I want to get fixed (I think I'll try a different shop) but I dunno if I want to go down to the one bike in my apartment being my Mountain Bike that hasn't been ridden for 4 or 5 months. So there have been a number of days that I just drive to campus these days to avoid bike shoe drama and lugging the crappy lock, and quite possibly a bit of the cold weather recently.

Ski Jacket: The little cube of metal at the bottom of the zipper on my MBSEF ski jacket fell off, and it seems like all that should take is a crimping tool and a new tiny cube of metal. Instead, the zipper has to be replaced which requires the tailor sending it away for two weeks. So now I have to wear things from my set of suboptimal for cold weather jackets. Even then my leather jacket has a giant hole in it that needs repairing.

Clarinet: Back when I was giving stuff to shops, I thought it would be a good idea to get everything that needed to be fixed fixed. So I found myself a music store and put my Clarinet in for recorking and some fiddling with all the screws. This guy has only been in the shop for a week and a half, and I don't need it for anything, but I'd just like one item to get back to me.

Dryer: We got extremely lucky by having a dryer come with the apartment, which has been awesome in general. On Sunday the dryer broke and I called up the landlord. She called me back half an hour later saying that she'd take care of it, but couldn't do anything on Sunday. I understood and when on Tuesday when no repairguy was in sight, I called with more random apartment quibbles and she said the guy was coming in later that day. It's still not fixed and I have a smaller and smaller number of clean pants even after bringing two dryer loads to a skeezy local laundromat.

Besides all that, Classes are going well and studying for the qual is slow but accelerating. I really believe that if I get the bike back, I won't care about any of the other stuff. But it is disconcerting that all the problems have piled up simultaneously.

Meme from Susan

2007-01-24T23:57:26Z

01. Can you cook?
02. What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator?
03. What talent do you wish you had?
04. Favorite place?
05. Favorite vegetable?
06. What was the last book you read?
07. Are you Dirty or Clean?
08. Any Tattoos and/or Piercings?
09. Worst Habit?
10. How did we meet?
11. What's your philosophy on life?
12. Negative or Optimistic?
13. What was your dream growing up?
14. What is the best thing that ever happened to you?
15. What was your first impression of me?
16. Tell me one weird fact about you:
17. Whats your favorite memory of us?
18. Tell me your favorite joke:
19. Have you ever kept anything from me?
20. What do you think of me as a Person?
21. Do you think I'm sane or insane?
22. Would you cry for me if I died?
23. Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?
24. If you could change anything about me, would you?
25. How do you fall asleep?
26. Ever gotten angry with me?
27. Would you go on a blind date if I set you up?
28. If you had one day to live, what would you do?
29. A million bucks.. what would you do with it?
30. What is your worst fear?
31. Favorite thing to do in your spare time?
32. Can you sing or dance?
33. In one word, how would you describe me? Be honest....
34. Will you repost this so I can fill it out?

RICHHHARRRRDS!

2007-01-15T01:04:53Z

Your results:
You are Dr. Doom

Dr. Doom		72%
Apocalypse		63%
The Joker		60%
Lex Luthor		58%
Poison Ivy		58%
Magneto		55%
Mr. Freeze		54%
Juggernaut		54%
Dark Phoenix		50%
Catwoman		45%
Riddler		44%
Venom		44%
Green Goblin		42%
Kingpin		42%
Mystique		26%
Two-Face		26%

Blessed with smarts and power but burdened by vanity.

Click here to take the Supervillain Personality Quiz

Halloween: Success!

2006-10-30T00:26:22Z

My Joker costume took a lot more effort and money than initially suspected, but I got a lot of great stuff out of it: new cufflinks, shoe spats, a better jacket, lipstick, and most importantly a new costume for conventions and Halloweens to come if I ever have green hair again.
The costume was so good that people who didn't know I was going as the Joker did not recognize me at all. I had undergrad physics buddies, people I TA'd, and plenty others asking me: "Who are you?" To which I had to reply "The Joker" and they'd finally have to ask.
"No, who are you in real life?
Classic.

Here's pics from the Halloween party. I had to bike in the rain between applying the makeup and the party, so there were some problems including, but not limited to:
• Green hair bled onto forehead, causing parts of my forehead to be green
• Lipstick…pretty much complete failure, and all my fault
• Didn't get everywhere great for white makeup, so my neck had too little and went away by the end of the night
• Makeup on my forehead and eyebrow cracked a good deal. If anyone knows of a good solution to this, I'm all ears
• My bowtie thing is good except for the fact that it's a polyester ribbon. This is liveable but I'd like a cotton/silk solution at some point...

Without further ado:

EDIT: Sorry, the pics were like 1600x1200. They have been reformatted to a more sane size.