http://www.spotthedifference.com/explorer.asp
It might seem a bit stupid in the beginning, but the difficulty increases progressively. To me I found the inverted moving text the hardest. It took me about two hours to complete the whole thing, and I got 53 gold speed, 11 silver speed, and 14 bronze speed.
Then it says go for gold....lol. I don't think I have the endurance to continue. Probably I'll try some again tomorrow morning.
I went to a trip visiting CMS detector on Friday. To see the real thing is a completely different story than working on a computer in some faraway place.
The detector itself is still being built, so we can see slices of the detector standing around. Actually this is the best time to visit it. Once the assembling is done, I don't think it will be interesting to see. It's just a huge cylinder with wires around it. The photos are uploaded in my web album.
The only strange feeling is that the material doesn't look like being able to detect particles. Of course there are lots of high-tech components in there, but the muon chambers looks like, uh, big pieces of metal. Well, it should work. I hope.
I updated my album: http://picasaweb.google.com/FHeadFHead
When I was in my college, I always complained about the food there. There are not too many choices on campus, and most of them don't taste good. There is a small "supermarket" in the student center, but stuff there is too expensive. The closest supermarket with a decent price is about 15 minutes away by foot.
Now I'm here, and things are worse. I just can't believe it. Of course the research here is good, but in terms of eating, it's the opposite. There is one cafeteria-like place where we can get breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The food itself is OK, but after a while I'm full with it. It's also too expensive. Last week I got a main dish, a small dish of salad and a small cake, and it cost me 17.85 Swiss Francs. The next day I went to the closest Calefour (15 minutes by bus) to get a lot of cheaper food.
Other than food, the scenery here is good in general. There aren't too many buildings around the CERN site, so it's basically green everywhere. I also heard that you can see sheep in the grasses. I would really like to see them. lol. I did see horses from time to time. Last time there was a person riding a horse passing by.
To buy stuff or go shopping one has to go to downtown Geneva, which is about 30 minutes away by bus. For this reason we normally don't go that far. It's just too time consuming.
Almost simultaneously, the neuroscience blogs on WordPress start to write about synaesthesia. Is this some kind of trend? Or maybe everybody just wrote what they saw, probably with some more detail. This kind of decreases the variety of surfing through blogs.
For those who don't know what synaesthesia is, it's the phenomena that senses associates with each other. A famous example is that some people see colored letters even though they are printed black. It's related to a increase in connection between brain areas, etc. For more detail please find them somewhere else.
I've had a hard time communicate with local people since they don't speak English. Nor German. Only French.
"Bon jour~"
"Uh....hello, how are you?"
"????"
It's kind of weird since back in Zürich everybody speak in German. How could a country be so different? I was initially guessing that the people here will at least know a bit of German. There are German newspapers though. Luckily at CERN everybody speaks English.
Today we had a whole-day meeting, from 9 in the morning until 7:30 in the evening. This is really ridiculous. No wonder people call CMS the continuously meeting society. We still have another all-day meeting tomorrow from 9 to 5-ish in the afternoon. It will probably run late again for an hour or so. (sigh)
The flight is kind of complicated and I arrived 4 hours later than expected. I still don't have internet access from my computer so I won't say much in this post.
Despite the fact that I have to go there again in the near future which is a bit unpleasant, the space design is actually pretty good, unlike the French consulate in Boston.
New York is really special in design. The design itself is pretty simple, yet it is aesthetically pleasant. The big window makes the room bright with natural light, so it won't make people feel caged under the artificial lights as in most offices. The plus sign on their flag is also cleverly designed on a fake wall. The wall is red, and there is a hole shaped as the plus sign, and through the hole you can see to the other side. It's not something too complicated, but it gives me a very modern feeling.
I forgot to ask because of the bad news, but is photo allowed in there? I guess not, but it doesn't hurt to ask I think. I have to go there at least one more time anyways (sigh).
Although it seems that Swiss visa is not necessary needed to go to Geneva, I still went to New York to apply for one. The flow chart on CERN website states that one needs a Swiss visa instead of French visa to get there. Well this is probably just another excuse for taking a day off.
Today, unfortunately, I woke up late in the morning, and then I hurried there and hoped that I can still get in in time. Yes, I managed to arrive in time before the office closed, but I couldn't imagine at that time that it was the biggest mistake I made.
I prepared a lot of documents: medical insurance letter, letter of enrollment, letter from CERN, I-20, travel itinerary, letter of UROP funding, etc. Basically everything I can think of. The website doesn't tell us clearly what is needed, so it's safer to prepare more. It ended up that I prepared way too many things than needed. Ughuu. Well, whatever. At least I'm all set for the application.
There is a six hour time difference between here and Geneva. I originally thought that the letter from CERN is enough for me to get the visa, but apparently the consulate needs someone at CERN to actually respond and somehow prove that the letter is real. By the time I arrived, the office in Geneva closed already. Which means the response from Europe won't arrive until next morning their time. And it also means that I won't get my visa by today, and that I have to go to New York again either on Friday or next Monday. All because I slept two hours too many.
I planned to visit MoMA after I'm done with my visa, but I'm really not in a mood to go there. So I went back to Boston earlier than planned.
I saw it today flying in the air in front of the row of dorms....it was so beautiful. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me and couldn't take pictures of it. (Well my skill is probably not enough to capture that anyways. :p)
It will probably still be there tomorrow. Maybe I could try to take some photos.
A very good short educational clip about how people with Asperger's syndrome think and perceive.
More information: http://www.aspergers.com/
Vote for your favorite fruit!
The vote count won't update until next hour, so don't worry if you don't see a change after you vote. The poll will continue for quite some time, so take your time and vote often. If you want to add some other options, comment on this post and I will add it to the list. There are still three slots left.
The link is here: http://videolectures.net/. This site launched couple of months ago, and now it has more than 1000 lecture videos. For free. The presentations are recorded from seminars or work shops I suppose.
I just watched presentations on innovative fMRI technique (vortex pattern matching) and semantic web tutorial (two and a half hours long in total!), and I'm pretty happy with the content. Not all the presentations are about difficult stuff, there is also a tutorials section for people not familiar with the field(s).
One more thing to do during the summer = =+
