Today the Scientific Policy Committee (SPC) of CERN released a first final plan for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC):
– beam pipe closure at the end of August ’07
– followed by LHC commissioning runs at 450+450 GeV (till end of ’07)
– shut-down for final machine commissioning
– followed by first physics runs at 14 TeV (full luminosity by end of ’08)

This might sound strange and boring for all non-physicists (even for some of them), but it’s at least a bit interesting for all those working for/at CERN…

I wonder if the B40-masterpiece will still be there at this time… PPJB rulez!

… and the “machine” I am working for (on the physics/software front) I got something to look at.
I just got an email with a link to a webpage with some movies made out of webcam pictures taken in the cavern during the last months/years.

The birth of ATLAS http://www.hep.upenn.edu/atlas/movies/movies.html

[edit]
for those interested in other fancy stuff… I just got an email with this:
The official Ravensburger ATLAS jigsaw puzzle: click here (pdf)
and the ATLAS 3D viewer: click here (jpg)

Here we go… for those of you interested in War 1.0!

sourcecode
deckfile for 52 card game
deckfile for 54 card game

This version is using ROOT to plot the stats.
You have to have a proper ROOT setup to compile/run it.

Here are some example results.
setup: war -G 100000 -P 3 -C 54cards.crd -O war.root -R 1 -S 5
ROOT file
NTricks plot
Ndraws plot
Nwinner plot

btw
if enyone can solve the problem why player two always wins more games than player one… he/she’ll get a drink

Woohoo! From today on I’m a real CERN user and not just a short term user… since my original CERN contract ended last Friday, I had to get a new contract (which was horribly difficult btw)… So my group decided to get me the “full membership”. Now I’m a valid member until I finish my degree in Copenhagen, which will hopefully work out… it looks not to bad!