All posts by Sascha

Jackbox Games

Computers and IT, Family & Friends, Games, World Wide Web

In these special times during the COVID-19 pandemic and while staying at home and practicing social distancing day and night, I thought about having an online game night with friends and remembered the good old classic You Don’t Know Jack game I had on my PC ages ago.

Turns out, I actually bought a few Jackbox Party Packs and some other Jackbox Games via HumbleBundle over the years and I just completed my Steam collection via a special offer on Green Man Gaming.

So I wanted to give a quick run-down on which games there are, which one I/we like most and what worked well for us.

Jackbox Games actually released a tutorial page on how to play their games with remote friends. Somehow Twitch and Youtube don’t (yet) work well for me, but both Skype and Zoom did a fine job (despite the sound coming through the mic together with my speech).
Also they have some games on sale, or even for free, right now on Steam and elsewhere.

For all games you need one computer running the games and a (mobile) device with a browser for each player. That’s it. And while the number of players is limited, many of the games allow for an almost unlimited number of spectators (audience), which can still take part as an extended jury.

If you feel like playing a bit, just ping me directly on Steam or elsewhere ;)

Continue reading Jackbox Games →

My corona live life blog

Family & Friends, Germany, Munich

Given the certainly very unique situation caused by the current corona pandemic, I decided to set up a little live blog to document the next couple of weeks representing a mixtures of home office, home schooling, home day care and whatever is yet to come …

First of all, for those of you that are still wondering about the why, here is two interesting reads: Tomas Pueyo at Medium.com and Harry Stevens at WashingtonPost.com.

In the following live life blog, I’ll focus on a few specific, mostly non-work, activities whenever something comes up …

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15 years in ATLAS

ATLAS, Berlin, CERN, Copenhagen, Denmark, DESY, France, Geneva, Germany, Humboldt Universität, LHC, LLP, LMU, Munich, Niels Bohr Institue, Outreach, Physics, Switzerland

Fifteen years ago, Tuesday 8 March 2005 at 9:57am, I received my CERN account, to start working for the ATLAS Experiment.

What started as an internship – chosen because of a lack of courses in the field I originally planned to pursuit, the physics of macromolecules – in the high-energy-physics group at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, turned into a stay at CERN during the Summer Student Programme and a Master’s thesis about the electron identification with the ATLAS transition-radiation tracker (internal) together with studies on a precision measurement of the W-boson mass.

During my PhD at Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY in Zeuthen and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and various short stays at CERN I was mainly working on the commissioning of the ATLAS pixel detector (internal) and data-driven algorithms to determine the W+Jets background in events with pair-produced top quarks, and was involved in the startup of the German National Analysis Facility.

Going back to the Niels Bohr Institute as a postdoc, I started working on searches for unconventional signatures and long-lived particles and got stuck with that ever since.

I started out looking for heavy, charged long-lived particles, an analysis I continued also after moving to LMU Munich in 2014.  Since then, I had the pleasure of leading two ATLAS physics subgroups – supersymmetry with R-parity-violating and long-lived signatures as well as exotics with unconventional and exotic Higgs decays – and joined a community effort in documenting the current status and harmonise searches for long-lived particles at the LHC. Amongst other things, I am currently also working on searches for Soft Unclustered Energy Patterns as signatures of strongly coupled Hidden Sectors and just finished my habilitation.

Besides physics analysis, especially looking for long-lived particles, I was always interested in science communication and education and have been involved in outreach projects since 2006. Highlights were and are certainly the design of the ATLAS LEGO model in 2011, the creation of the ‘Build Your Own Particle Detector‘ programme in 2013 and running it since, the coordination of the ATLAS contribution to the 2019 CERN Open Days, and the still ongoing work on a new ATLAS Visitor Centre. Since 2018, I am also an Education & Outreach coordinator for the ATLAS Collaboration.

I hope to have quite a few more years within ATLAS and other collaborations …

Habilitation

ATLAS, CERN, LLP, LMU, Munich, Physics

Yesterday, I officially finished my habilitation at LMU Munich by picking up my diploma.
So from now on it’s not just Dr. rer. nat. it’s also Dr. habil.

My last deed in the process, I did already on 5 February with a scientific debate about my main research topic: “Searches for new physics in signatures of long-lived particles”. Hopefully soon, following some more paperwork, I will also have my venia legendi and be a Privatdozent for experimental physics at LMU Munich.

My 2019 physics wrap-up

ATLAS, CERN, Outreach, Physics

It’s been quite the year …

On the physics side, our search for heavy, charged long-lived particles in ATLAS using 2015 and 2016 data as well as several analyses I had been on the ATLAS editorial board for or was involved in as ATLAS PubCom reader got published this year.
We continued exploring a first-ever search for Soft Unclustered Energy Patterns (SUEPs) as a sign of Hidden Valley / Hidden Sector models, and I was invited to give a talk about searches for long-lived particles at the LHC at this year’s Frühjahrstagung of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft. I was able to join the Large Hadron Collider Physics Conference in Puebla, Mexico to talk about searches for long-lived particles as well as science communication in ATLAS and the International Particle Physics Outreach Group (IPPOG).
In addition, the long-standing community white paper on searches for long-lived particles beyond the Standard Model at the Large Hadron Collider is finally under journal review.

On the outreach side, obviously the CERN Open Days have been the most visible activity this year, while a lot of other projects went on behind the scenes. I finally manage to get the ATLAS mural at Point 1 at CERN a make-over, ten years after its initial creation. And the renovation of the ATLAS Visitor Centre is, despite a few unforeseeable delays, in full swing and we hope to reopen in early 2020.

  • planning the new ATLAS Visitor Centre

Luckily I also had multiple chances to see ATLAS this year, due to the Open Days preparations as well as several outreach projects we are working on, from more professional underground virtual visits to a 360 degrees virtual visit to the cavern.

And in the spirit of the holidays and competing with lasts year’s pictures, also this year we put together some season-inspired pictures … you’ll see more of that in the coming days ;)

  • (c) ATLAS/CERN
  • (c) ATLAS/CERN
  • (c) ATLAS/CERN

Last but not least, I also handed in my habilitation report a few weeks before Christmas.
Let’s see if that helps in finding a new job net year …