In the Testing Center
By Andy Harris
(sung to the tune of Family Night in the LDS Children's Songbook)
"This is the test I've studied for.
Going to class was such a bore.
I wish I'd withdrawn even more
With every passing hour.
***
I'd heard that learning can be fun.
There's an exam for everyone.
Roommate and cousin, *strangers, too
Together on Friday night."
Based on a true story. Class attendance may have been modified.
*Alternate wording: girlfriend/boyfriend
|
Published
7:14 PM
|
CERN's Large Hadron Collider is firing up again later this month after a relaxing Christmas break. This vacation is well-deserved after the LHC collided protons at energies of 2.36 trillion electron volts--the first time proton collisions have occured at over one TeV. This is only a fraction of the energies physicists hope to achieve in the future. When the LHC's winter get-away in the French and Swiss Alps comes to an end, it will shatter it's own world record while running at only half-power (3.5 TeV) until 2011, when it will undergo repairs intended to bring it into full working capacity of 7 TeV per proton in 2012.
How does this all work? Very carefully. The facility was paid for and built by over 10,000 scientists from over 100 countries. Proton beams are shot around a 17-mile-long loop to gain speed until the time comes for them to collide with another beam traveling from the opposite direction. Each beam has the energy of a WWII anti-tank shell in each direction. It's important that nothing goes wrong while they travel around their loop 11,000 times a second. More than 3,000 magnets of various types keep the beams in line. 96 tons of liquid helium keep the magnets and wires nice and cool to avoid resistance. These are kept at a temperature of 1.9 Kelvins (-456.25 degrees Fahrenheit). 0 Kelvins is called "absolute zero" and is theoretically impossible to achieve.
In other words, the Large Hadron Collider is really cool. Let's just hope it won't use up the earth's energy supply to quickly.
|
Published
5:48 PM
|
With midterms rapidly approaching, and in the true spirit of college-studentship, I have procrastinated studying and uploaded a ton of pictures to my blog. So have fun and try not to get lost in the Czech Republic! Below is a 30-second recap of my mission for those too lazy to click on the link or watch the imbedded slide show :)
My Trip to the Czech Republic
I was so excited to be in the Missionary Training Center learning Czech!
Wow, Charles Bridge in Prague! Mission Impossible was filmed here!
It's gorgeous...
(not me)
What's that in the distance?
Some sort of communications tower with
What the...?!?
Babies!
Ahh...my new apartment...
Time to learn how to cook.
I learned quickly how to deal with strange companions...
And we had many memorable adventures together.
We worked hard and our unity grew.
Until we saw many baptisms.
And human bone cathedrals.
Then it was time to leave.
I said goodbye to the land in which I had made my home and forgotten the English.
The flight wasn't bad for 23 hours.
My family was sure glad to see me! Or good at pretending.
I was glad to see them, too.
|
Published
7:35 PM
|
Welcome to the new and improved Medium Harris blog! The fact that this blog is up and running again is evidence that there may be further updates. These updates cannot be disclosed, but may include pictures from the Czech Republic, blogs submitted by email (woo-hoo!), and general rambling.
Today's complaint is not about Blogger, but rather about a glaring bias in the Blogger community. After scouring the known internet in its entirety, I found 5 templates remotely related to the sciences. It appears the market is inordinately skewed towards images of swirls, handicrafts, and adorable cartoon children. In other words: The Arts. Unless we take a stand, we are doomed to a cyberspace full of culture rather than lasers and nebulæ.
Case in point: What can we learn from doilies and stamps? On the other hand, scientists recently used slime mold growth to model the Tokyo rail system. Researchers also confirmed my hypothesis that the benefits of making my bed do not outweigh the risks.
We must take a stand!
Step 1: Find me scientific templates
Step 2: Snorkel the animals...
|
Published
1:35 AM
|
Short Introduction: Yesterday, I realized that I have six finals to take and only three days in which to take them. That means two-a-day finals until the end of the semester. In the spirit of laziness which I have tried to uphold all year, I have decided to study later and write a new blog entry now.
Our story begins late on a Sunday afternoon in the partially-lit hallway of Stover 1100. A few scheming hall members decided they needed a hall piano so they could play and sing without walking all the way to the lobby or basement pianos (living on campus and right next to a cafeteria is quite lazifying). After many seconds of deliberation, they decided the only feasible way to accomplish this task was to commandeer the lobby piano. They would have to suffer the long walk to the lobby and back pushing the great weight of the piano, but the thought of increasing the quality of life for posterity made the task bearable. They would have to wait for just the right time and just the right place to carry out the deed (the right place turned out to be where the piano was sitting since it would be hard to steal it from anywhere else).
Alas, the third-person narrative style grew wearisome and our troubled author began to write in first-person as in the rest of his noble blog entries. We had ward devotional at 9:00 that night, after which we concluded that our posterity could not wait another minute for their quality of life to be improved. Luckily, there were old newspapers and church magazines sitting on a nearby table, and we managed to sidle over to the piano undetected using them as disguises. The only problem was that there were other people using the piano at that very moment. After eying the piano suspiciously for a few minutes from behind our reading materials and seeing that they weren't getting the hint, we kindly asked their permission to take a turn on the instrument. They consented (the fact that root beer was being served across the room may have helped).
Right after ward devotional may not have been the most opportune time to steal the piano, but we managed to get the piano from the lobby to our hall without too many strange looks from passersby. It fit perfectly next to the drinking fountain, almost as if someone had planned it this way.
The only remaining obstacle was our Resident Assistant, who was sure to hear something out of place in his hall. After assurances that we moved the piano not for our own selfish desires, but for the greater good of hall unity, he relented. We went on to sing many a religious and patriotic song, firm in our belief and secure in our continuing peace and prosperity in the land of Helaman Halls. Note: only a small portion of the actual singers were present for this photo.
|
Published
3:07 PM
|
The Mullet
Today, I finally had enough time to let Brian give me a haircut. My hair was so long to begin with that we (Brian) decided it would be fun to shuck me a mullet. He offered financial compensation if I wore it to church the next day, but I decided I was hickish enough just being from Idaho. Here are the results of Operation: Mullet (Click on the pictures for larger versions).
The great thing about a mullet is that your bangs don't impede your vision and your ears are left uncovered, but you can feel your full, luscious hair swaying in the back as you walk. If only I had been warned of this event a couple weeks ago and had not done that trimming in the back...
Here's a shot of the nearly complete mullet, where the sides have not been completely trimmed. Why did I get funny looks walking down the hall?
After the mullet, we decided to go all out hick and give me some skunk tail.
I felt bad about throwing all of this away. What about the burn victim who needs replacement arm hair?
After this experience in Hickland, I am proud to say that my crop on top is now back to normal, but shorter.
|
Published
7:41 PM
|
Here are some pretty pictures I made to tide you over until Y Mount I and II are uploaded.
|
Published
7:01 PM
|
MATH 88Q. The Mathematics of the Rubik’s Cube—Stanford Introductory
Seminar. Preference to sophomores. Group theory through topics that can be illustrated with the Rubik’s cube: subgroups, homomorphisms and quotient groups, the symmetric and alternating groups, conjugation, commutators, and Sylow subgroups.
|
Published
6:13 PM
|
First of all, Brian sent me this hilarious article from the Onion. After a quick check to make sure it wasn't already on his blog, I'm posting the link below. This is one of my all-time favorites.
AL JIZAH, EGYPT—A team of British and Egyptian archaeologists made a stunning discovery Monday, unearthing several intact specimens of "skeleton people"—skinless, organless humans who populated the Nile delta region an estimated 6,000 years ago.
Secondly, I found out I made a grievous error in my last blog entry. I left out the most pivotal set of pictures, which has been reproduced below for your viewing pleasure.
This event simultaneously answered both vital questions: "Is my printer fixed yet?" and--more importantly--"Can my printer coherently reproduce a digital image onto a sheet of standard white letter paper while disassembled?"
Printing with only the bare necessities was so fun to watch that I decided another test was in order. If you look very closely you can see the partially printed image, which came out of the print heads much higher up the black cartridge holder than I expected.
Two pictures of Darth Vader purifying water have successfully been printed, signalling great success for my foolhardy endeavor.
|
Published
6:13 PM
|
My printer stopped working a week or so ago. Because I love opening the cases of all equipment electronic and because college sometimes requires printing ink onto paper, I decided to repair it myself. It turns out I would have to combat the mother of all paper jams to restore my printer to its former health.
My printer in all of its former glory. Notice it's not printing anything. Coincidence...I think not!
Taking apart printers can be
fun!
Hmm...No paper jam here...
There's the culprit! A popcorn kernel stuck in the hardest place to reach in the entire printer! How'd that get in there...?
How does this go back together again?
Hehehe...I found the switch that tells the printer whether it's open or closed...Now I have
ultimate power! No more waiting for the printer to be closed before it will print for
me!
Oops...that switch wasn't supposed to break. Better use duct tape. Now the printer is perpetually closed, even if I open the lid.
Almost there printy!
The best part of working with any piece of technology is the leftover screws that magically appear. Home Depot's not getting
my money any time soon.
The printer is up and running.
The universe has been restored to its proper order.
|
Published
10:05 PM
|
I will be sane again once finals are over.
|
Published
11:04 PM
|
Hi Petunia. How are you doing today? Oh, that's nice. It's not too dry here for you is it? Oh really. That's odd. I love the cold too, as long as there's snow on the ground. Cold is pointless without snow. So how old are you? 2 years old? Well...that's kind of young for me...So how's Provo treating you? What type of plant are you anyway? Oh, a cherry tree. Why is your name Petunia then? Wow! That was an extremely long and interesting story filled with mystery, intrigue, violence, and heroic bravery. You inspire me. Well, it was nice talking to you. I have to go kill a bunch of trees writing my English journal now. Ok, you too. Bye.
|
Published
11:33 PM
|
