The Mystery of the Lost Coin

The issue of the toilets in the building where Maikel works is still not over. The toilet in his floor is still not fixed... Not even after CERN recorded his second inverse femtobarn of data!! And Maikel is very disappointed because nobody did any party this time!!

Anyway, in spite of working in the World Cathedral of Science, the most advanced High Energy Physics laboratory of the world and the most technological place ever made by mankind, Maikel still needs to spend a dangerous journey everyday desperately looking for working toilets while running away from the radioactive shit that commented in other posts.

One day Maikel decided to go to a distant place where some Maikel told him he could find a clean toilet (just 2 floors below him). After the risky journey, he arrived to the peaceful resting place but, right before he could start to do his stuff, he noticed something highly unusual.

A coin inside the toilet!!!

He started thinking about how could the coin have arrived there. Maybe there was someone around checking if anyone tried to get it with his hands (puajjj!!!!). Maybe there was even a camera around! For sure the coin was there since some time ago, as it seemed old. Maikel didn't think about making a photo of it, but it looked very similar to this one that someone else did.

Anyway, of course Maikel was not going to get his hands dirty in the disgusting radioactive water for a coin, although it seemed like a 50 cts (almost enough for getting a coffee from the machine, mmm). He had a different plan. He decided to monitor the coin as well!

During some days, he was making a double research work: at the same time he continued improving the monitoring software of the CMS detector while dealing with unexpected power cuts, system problems and LHC configuration changes, he was also researching about who was getting the coin, monitoring the stuff from time to time. During more than a week the coin stayed there. Not even the cleaning staff dared to get the coin out of there. Probably because they know more than anyone else about the unspeakable horrors that may happen to someone touching such water. Most probably the have their cleaning legends about the Dark Ages of CERN and also about the Chosen One that one day could get the coin out, in the same way as Arthur was chosen to get Excalibur.

One day, the Chosen One came. And got the coin out. But it happened exactly during the days Maikel was on vacation in Spain so he could not get to know who was :( In the other hand, that gave an unexpected alibi to Maikel so he can prove that he was not the one who took it!!

Now we all know that here at CERN, among us, there is some hero, the Chosen One, who would be ready to risk his live for all of us. Or at least for the contents of the toilet...

Femtobarn party at CERN!!! Toilets will get fixed!!

Official CERN news:
http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2011/PR06.11E.html

CERN's LHC accelerator has now delivered so much data that both CMS and Atlas detectors have already recorded over 1 inverse femtobarn of data!!! (equivalent to 70 millions of millions of collisions, for the people who likes millions). And yes, in case you didn't notice that is a lot. For comparison, in all the years that Fermilab's Tevatron was working (currently second most powerful accelerator after CERN's one, and for many years the first one) it recorded just 8 inverse femtobarns (running since 1983). Now in only few months of continuous running, LHC did already 1. And expectations are to get from now about another 1 per month till reaching 5.5 this year (and then they will start doing other things, like superfluid liquid drops of heavy ions matter).

Maikel discovered that while he was in one of his interesting meetings close to the CMS control room. Suddenly the meeting finished and bottles of champaign and boxes of snacks started appearing from nowhere. People were bringing stuff and more stuff and soon there was a small improvised speech followed by people eating and drinking like crazy. Party!!!!!

Maikel's friends soon discovered it and felt envy about how lucky Maikel was. It's strange the fact that they even knew about it, as everybody knows that Maikel is very silent and quiet and never says anything...

Anyway, in a strange cosmical coincidence that some would correlate with this femtobarn party, suddenly all CERN toilets are getting fixed. Maikel was complaining since months ago about the radioactive toilet full of antimatter in front of his office (see this post) but since few weeks ago the situation got worst. The water just didn't come out when you desperately pushed the buttons and the radioactive products from CERN physicists stayed there under your impotent face. Soon the smell overpassed the human resistance capability and even Maikel was forced to run away and try to use other facilities. Then he discovered that other ones around the same building and other buildings were in the same disastrous situation. Somehow it seemed that CERN was able to crush all world records in high technology and femtobarns but it was unable to repair toilets!!

But now the situation is changing. People repairing toilets have been spreading around CERN and fixing stuff here and there. Maikel even got told that in the toilet in front of him 5 people fixing the toilet were seen this morning, discussing about the theoretical problems and deploying an experimental fix, which didn't work. Somehow 5 people were not enough to fix a toilet but we expect tomorrow the sun will shine and the toilet will get finally repaired, being able to accept antimatter again.

PD: note, tomorrow is Saturday so no luck
PD2: actually the weather forecast is quite crappy... XD

Maikel was not dead!! He was in Mars!!!

And here you have the certificate proving it!!!
http://marsparticipate.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/participate/sendyourname/?action=getcert&hashid=8AA9B4832BF7299FF9640B10B8E97E70


Well, actually Maikel did not go in person, but his name will go!! What are you waiting for?? Send also your name there!! There is a deadline for it very soon!!!
http://marsparticipate.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/participate/sendyourname/

CERN's LHC without competitor after 2011...

Not so funny as my usual news (and not invented, as usual). Actually I think they are sad news for science...

The second bigger and most powerful accelerator after CERN's LHC, the Tevatron of Fermilab, has officially declared that will close at the end of this year 2011:
http://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/Special_Edition011011.html

Someone could imagine that they just close because we already discovered the Higgs and because they are not powerful enough as to make sheep-sheep collisions as us. Some other could argue that they close because they realize that CERN people is just more handsome. But the truth is most probably just other: money (we are in crisis, remember??)

Anyway, just the accelerator will close. They have many other experiments running that look promising. Let's hope for the best for our colleagues!!

CERN people comes out of the closet!!!

Something unexpected happened at CERN. Something that could have been a total revolution 20 years ago. And it is not the discovery of Higgs boson, super-symmetry or extra-dimensions!!!

The LGBT CERN social group has sent facebook messages, emails and even flyers and posters with publicity about their community at CERN. They even announced a public meeting at R1 where they will see each other's faces and will chat. And yes, for the ones who doesn't know the acronym, like Maikel, and who didn't get any tip from the group's logo colors, like Maikel, it does not stand for some strange and nerd physicists / mathematicians words that you'll need years of study to understand (or maybe not). It stands simply for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender.

And, for the ones who didn't know, this courageous fact of not being ashamed of oneself and declare the orientation to everyone is called in French and Spanish: "to come out of the closet" :) Till today, everyone suspected that the closets at CERN were quite full, but nobody dared to say anything about that. Finally it seems that the time has come! We are not anymore in the Middle Age, you know. And, apart from working at CERN, we are not so stupid either. Well, actually everyone sees these announcements so normal that nobody gives much importance to this meeting (and you know you should apply a correction factor of at least 1/10 to everything Maikel says).

The Duck Conspiracy...

Today at the CMS control room, Maikel did a funny discovery: they have one little cute rubber duck in the DAQ (Data Acquisition system) shifter desktop console. After some very hard thinking and the heavy use of his only neuron, he realized that it is some kind of words joke with DAQ and 'duck' :)

When he asked about the history of that duck, someone told him that they have it there "just because ATLAS also has ducks in their DAQ shifter console". Actually, Maikel found out that in ATLAS they have not one little duck but a whole big family of them, with different kinds and sizes!! I guess someone got jealous and, as he/she could not steal one of ATLAS because he could not get permission to enter into the control room, he/she just bought a little one for CMS.

When talking about that, Maikel heard horrible rumors about The Duck Conspiracy. People in CMS is planning a secret sneak intrusion in the ATLAS control room. The target would be to kidnap one of their little ducks. Then, they would bring it to CMS control room and would chain it somewhere where the webcams can see it. Finally, they will try to blackmail ATLAS showing them the little prisoner duck from the cams, asking to stop recording luminosity or other horrible things like that. ATLAS people!! Be aware of that!! I'm telling this information risking my life!!!

Apart from that, I heard that this fact of having ducks in the DAQ consoles is actually a long standing tradition. They also have them at Fermilab DØ experiment control room since many years before ATLAS existed. I would have to make a deepest research to find out the origins of this yellow rubber tradition. Maybe the ancient Greeks also had rubber ducks in their accelerator control rooms??? Only a expensive research with a worldwide collaboration will be able to discover that...

NASA conference on Astrobiology Discovery!!!

Yeah, NASA and CERN is not the same, I know, but Fidel told me about these interesting NASA news for us.

Textually, "NASA will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 2, to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life." It will be broadcast live on the NASA website.

They don't clarify which is the important finding that will impact so much our lives. I fear the worst. They might have found intelligent life anywhere... Probably, after so many years looking for it on Earth, they were not able to find any intelligence in the life here, specially at CERN, and then they started looking at the stars... Or, who knows, maybe it's just the opposite. Maybe they just found other ones like us, to go to have parties and get drunk, without any intelligence at all. That would be fun!

Maikel is in the CMS news!!!

Once again, Maikel got famous and was in the CMS official electronic newspaper!!

http://cms.web.cern.ch/cms/Media/Publications/CMStimes/2010/11_01/index.html

The article is nice and he is very proud of it but some people has noticed that the picture does not seem very natural and there are suspicions of having some photoshop on it... Who knows if some hacker could have added his picture!!

Anyway, the CERN lovers of the gossip can finally know the faces of the people who works with Maikel. Now they can put faces to these people and imagine the most funny and unbelievable gossips about all of them!!

Important news for nerds / frikis!!! (StarWars 3D!!!)

Sorry for the spoiler in the title but I needed to spread these news. They will make very happy to many nerds (and we all know that CERN is full of them!!!). I also have to say that the very very nerd ones, will surely feel disappointed, as they would prefer to stay with the classical versions that they already like a lot (or better I would say 'love' or even 'worship'.

http://www.eljueves.es/2010/09/30/star_wars_3d_sea_tres_veces_mas_mala.html

So, in 2012 we will have 3D versions of all the movies, starting from I to VI. Let's wait for it!

Guess which one of the models is forbidden in Italy!!

One of the two models in the right is forbidden in fashion exhibition in Milano. Can you guess which one??

Of course, the allowed one is the skinny one of the left:
http://www.elmundo.es/yodona/2010/09/27/actualidad/1285587254.html

Somehow many Italian fashion stuff still think that men (and girls) prefers skinny & skeleton rather than plump & chubby ones :) Of course, at least at CERN, we prefer the non-skeleton ones!!! We don't want a thin stick or pole! We need something tender and soft to hug!! :D

LHC is doing trenecitos!!

If you are attending meetings at CERN recently, you probably have noticed that very often LHC people is doing things called something like bunch train injection studies. There are even gossips about little trains of heavy ion runs. People who does not understand what that mean, would maybe think that they are doing "trenecitos". Probably you already know about these if you voted in the past blog :)

Don't be scared! I don't think they will be really doing that things! It's probably something scientific and cool. Probably LHC people is enjoying them a lot so the cannot be that bad!! Just join the train!!

PS: I attach a photo of a real trenecito. It is amazing that it is a real photo shown in the Japanese wikipedia and that you find it looking for trenecitos in google images...

Forbidden to have relationships within the same enterprise in Switzerland!!!

Andrea sent me this amazing news about big enterprises forbidding relationships within the same enterprise... They say that if bosses notice them, they should take actions like moving them to separated offices or floors or even firing them!!!

If they did something like that at CERN... I guess there would be riots and suicides all around... There are very few girls here now but if they are not allowed to go out with CERN men, I guess they only solution these have is to become gay or even worst: to go out from CERN to meet people from Geneva... (yes, that possibility also exists, Maikels!!!)

http://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2010/07/28/news/divieto_d_amore_tra_colleghi_di_lavoro_ora_in_svizzera_si_rischia_il_posto-5880840/?ref=HREC2-6

The Lactose Free Milk group has sneaked in the blog!!

Somehow Maikel was creating an official CERN Dancing Club facebook page and then the evil Lactose Free Milk group sneaked in instead, at the right side. He is still trying to get rid of it but is always coming back... stronger than a phoenix and more evil than Dr.Evil (Dr. Maligno, for the Spaniards). Maikel will have to use his blogger super powers to get rid of Lactose Free Milk!!! (he will do it tomorrow, today he feels a bit lazy).

Spain won the world cup!!!

What??? You already knew?? How is that? Maybe it is because I was honking the horn all night as well as everybody else in Geneva that night? :D
PS: I know that happened already an eternity ago but I had to write it anyway :D

Paul the German octopus was right!!!

For those without knowledge about the topic. There were dark histories about intelligent Spaniards, masters of the photoshop, modifying the photo of Paul choosing Spain as the winner of the semifinals of the World Cup

http://www.thefinalthird.com/2010/07/04/paul-the-german-octopus-picks-spain/

Then, the modified images and the truth showed up

http://www.nowpublic.com/sports/paul-oracle-octopus-picks-spain-over-germany-its-fraud-2636988.html

http://deadspin.com/5579829/psychic-octopus-predicts-spain-but-it-might-be-a-fraud

But then he did a new prediction, and was consistent!! Spain won Germany!! And not only that. It also predicted the victory of Spain in the final match!!

http://www.marca.com/2010/07/11/futbol/mundial_2010/selecciones/espana/1278884899.html

And there is no photoshop there, you can even see the video!! (with Spanish fans cheering up!)

http://www.marca.com/tv/?v=zvVSRkHTU0K

And Spain officially wants Paul to come to Spain. We love him!

http://www.marca.com/2010/07/15/futbol/mundial_2010/1279219533.html

Now everybody is buying Paul's t-shirts!!

http://www.zazzle.com/paul+the+octopus+t+tshirts

And there is even a reggeton song about Paul!!!

http://www.marca.com/blogs/fuera-de-juego/2010/07/15/el-video-musical-del-reggaeton-del-pulpo.html

There is even experimental evidence now that this octopus must be Spanish in some way. He even has an enormous dick!!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8792000/8792008.stm

FECALCOPROBOYS, your favourite group since now!!!

Marina (the girlfriend of the brother of the girlfriend of the friend of Maikel's girlfriend who is sleeping with the friend of Maikel's girlfriend although they are just friends) just made me discover this amazing group with amazing sounds and lyrics (like metal rock and voices only burping...). It will soon be your favourite group as well!!!

http://www.myspace.com/fecalcoproboys

Spanish team is in semifinials!!!

0 - 1







Finally Spain won and is semifinalist in the World Cup for first time in history!!!

We have to say that the main protagonist of the match was not anyone of the players but this girl, larissa riquelme, who someone said promised to be shown naked in internet if Paraguay win the match. That made many Colombian friends of Maikel to be supporting Paraguay rather than Spain during all the match, shouting "Paraguay" and "Larissa" during all the match. Some of they conveniently started supporting Spain after they finally scored.

Pffff, what a painful and stressfull match we had to see!!! And next match will be this Wednesday against Germany!!!

Weina and Norbert are back!!!

Both of them arrived CERN at the beginning of this week but it seems that they were hyper-busy and had no time to show up to the Maikels.

Maikel expect to be able to lunch with us today (and maybe play some Munchkin in the afternoon) and Mikaela hopes to be able to lunch with us tomorrow.

Let's hope we can see them before they leave 'forever' again!!!

PS: there are also rumours about Eleni coming back for few weeks some time soon but I have no gossip confirmation about that :)

CMS Control Room discovered the gossip blog!!!

Mikaela and Mikaela (shift leader and DQM shifter) just discovered by chance this gossip blog, while Maikel was having coffee with them and Mikaela. Now the CMS Control Room screens start turning pink while people is bored without StableBeams and is looking for some gossips...

Ashes from the volcano from Geneva???

It looks like at CERN we didn't realize about anything (you know, lonely boring physicists with white coats in offices without windows :D) but looks like the volcano ashes were visible from the lake!!!

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/04/more_from_eyjafjallajokull.html#photo13

The whole set of amazing photos are at

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/04/more_from_eyjafjallajokull.html

PS: thanks to Ines for them :)