What it's like to play with the Jaguar Supercomputer

Back on a recurring theme. I was just pointed to this on CNN Money.  Of course I remember the TV crew coming but didn't know it had been aired.

The comments after the article, as usual, are the most fun.
I liked this one: "It's amazing we went from the first computers that filled entire floors which a bunch of blinking lights and engineers in lab coats monitoring them all the time to ... a computer filling an entire floor with blinking lights and engineers in lab coats monitoring all the time. Nothing changes, just the scale."

This sleepaway camp..

..in the Adirondacks costs $11400 a summer and is practically impossible to get into.  So goes the headline about Raquette Lake Summer Camp in upstate New York.  However, yours truly did get into that camp, and for free, in 1979, as a soccer coach thanks to the  British Universities North America Club (which has meanwhile itself expanded somewhat, it would appear).

What I found in the  summer camp didn't seem particularly exclusive: dangerous flints in the soccer fields, lavatories that didn't function until the day before Parent's Visiting Day and endless peanut butter sandwiches - yuk!  The only hint of exclusivity was John D. Avildsen, the Director of Rocky, who came to visit his son, landing in a helicopter and stepping out in a boiler suit. Still, shining flashlights at  the bears at night was fun (you could only see their eyes) and we won the World versus USA Soccer Game  8-0 - I still have the pennant!


That first hop across the pond to New York in 1979 was epic - 24 hours in an "Evergreen Airlines" DC 10 that took off from London, stopped at Paris, then refueled at both Shannon, Ireland and Bangor, Maine before limping into  JFK. I then  got in a yellow New York taxi cab and getting out forgot the direction traffic flowed on American streets and opened the door on the  wrong side.  A passing truck slowly bent the door back 180 degrees  - oops! 

Churchill did worse in 1931, though  - making the same mistake he stepped into Fifth Avenue and was run over. He later wrote, "There was one moment--I cannot measure it in time--of a world aglare, of a man aghast. I certainly thought quickly enough to achieve the idea 'I am going to be run down and probably killed.' Then came the blow." Fortunately, Churchill's injuries, while requiring three weeks in hospital, did not threaten his life. "I do not understand," Churchill wrote, "why I was not broken like an eggshell or squashed like a gooseberry . . . I certainly must be very tough or very lucky, or both."

Zoe Cournia ...

..describes her experience in our laboratory here.

"I cannot imagine being a happier doctoral student in another place!"

The Greatest Ever!

Spain, who just won the European Championships, are, in my opinion,  the greatest soccer team ever.
Now greatness cannot measured by who would beat whom in some hypothetical match-up, but by how far and for how long a given set of players in their time stands above the rest of the world, and it is their sustained dominance that gives Spain 2008-2012  my vote.

Spain have no rivals in Europe, as the 1974 'Beckenbauer' West German side and  the 1998 'Zidane' French (who I watched win the World Cup in the yard of an old farm in the Aveyron) both failed (just) to win three majors.  Spain's only rivals would be the 1970 Brazil side, who won all of their World Cup games that year, and had a number of individuals such as Pele and Jairzinho, who combined  skill and explosive power in a manner unseen before or since. Brazil 1970 was almost universally considered the greatest team of all time - until July 1st 2012.  But apart from one World Cup that Brazil side won nothing else - there was no serious Copa America or Euro equivalent to test them - and they fizzled in the World Cups in 1966 and 1974.

So Spain win on results, and for me they win on style as well. You see, I have always liked precise passing, consistency and intelligence. That's what Spain, who had never done anything in international football, brought to the game in 2008, when Luis Aragones decided they were not tough enough to beat other nations physically and needed instead to keep the ball. So he instilled the "Tiki-Taka" possession football that Johann Cruyff had initiated as manager of Barcelona.

Now Cruyff  arguably was the world's greatest ever player, but that's a whole new discussion....

"Houses Made of Wrecked Ships"

The Victorian church of the Holy Trinity and All Saints at  the village of Winterton-on-Sea, Norfolk, snapped by my wife as we hiked around it last week. The tower is seven stories high, built to serve as a landmark from the sea, but many died on the notorious shifting sands off Winterton Ness,  and many of the church graves are of the drowned. In 1722 Daniel Defoe (who wrote Robinson Crusoe)  remarked on all the houses of the village being made from the timbers of wrecked ships.

You shall not leave!

....the German Civil Service!

The benefits of Germany’s 4.5 million Civil Servants (Beamter) are enticing. They have a job for life, health insurance and a generous pension.  Among the Beamter are the German professoriat, which indluded me from 1998 until 2007.  Now I had always assumed that some measure of employment permeability between the German Civil Service (Beamtenschaft) and rest of the world would be actively encouraged. Not so, it seems…

 Now there is indeed a strong conflict of interest argument against too frequent personnel switches between the high-level bureaucrats, who regulate industry, and industry itself. However, for most civil servants, including the professoriat, hindrance is against the national interest.  But, as Ansgar reminded me in the pub last Monday, in Germany employment as a Beamter is expected to be marked by a higher-than-normal degree of loyalty on both sides, with the above-mentioned benefits being matched by faithfulness and dedication to the State. Indeed, the new Beamter's first task is to swear a solemn oath of loyalty. Leaving the Beamtenschaft is tantamount to treason, so that’s why in doing so you forfeit your pension, you see. It’s a punishment for failing in your loyalty.

You have revealed your true colours.  You shall not leave.

Bear Caught at the Lab

 (Photo: Jason Richards)

A black bear was recently caught at the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at ORNL.

HFIR may well be an efficient means for scientists to scatter neutrons but a black bear appears to be an efficient means of scattering neutron scientists.