iranian president

yesterday the president of iran, mahmoud ahmadenijad visited columbia university and gave a speech there. today i sat down and watched it from youtube, and you can watch it at the following links:

columbia president, bollinger: introduction
ahmadenijad speech: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7

these videos were mislabeled and incomplete on youtube, and i had to combine videos from two different sets to ensure the complete speech would be listed here. if you watch all the videos in order, some information will be reapeated.

i want to comment on this speech, but there is so much to say. i hope anyone reading this will watch and judge for themselves. his most publicized remarks include downplaying the holocaust, defending iran’s “right” to seek nuclear weapons, and denying that there are any homosexuals in iran. he is a fundamentalist in many respects and these views are certainly disturbing, but according to the report on Democracy Now! from Sept. 25, he is not very powerful. he is not commander and chief of iran’s army and he does not choose his own cabinet members, so it seems he has less power in his country than bush has here and bollinger is quite wrong to label him a dictator. i’m not sure whether our country should be scared of iran’s president, but i think all headlines demonizing him only patronize american people.

update from bloomington (the indiana one)

i have worked 3 full days at iucf, and so far i love it. at the moment my tasks include writing a program in labview, learning and working in RSI IDL (a development environment for Matlab (i think)), and verifying the calculations for the testbed (the copper/aluminum device).

this is a lot to take on, but i’m glad my supervisors have shown faith in me. in general, at iucf, trust and reliability are non-issues. i have been given access to anywhere in the lab 24/7, all the servers online, and i have administrator privileges to install any software on the computers (i never had administrator privileges at fermilab, and was never given a good reason as to why not). there is virtually no quota on my personal server; the labwide quota is 1.8 TB, and only a third of it is being used. i especially like the kitchenette where hot water is available for tea which is paid for on an honor system. each tea bag costs 15 cents.

working full-time again has been a shock to my system (i only took a month off, geeze!). my sleeping schedule is erratic so i have been really tired at work. i’m in no shape to ride my bike to work until i get used to this again. i tried biking to work on wednesday and felt terrible!

meanwhile, i have made some changes to my blog. i really like the dark blue scheme, and the picture at the top is one i took in switzerland last march (from Delphine’s patio). i have also updated the links (definitely check out Democracy Now!, the other ones are purely for entertainment). i also made an awesome exciting flickr account, to which more pictures are coming soon. i send my love to you all.

latest project

i decided to make a new afghan to go with the leather couch marty and i bought for our apartment. this is the progress i made in one week. i got carried away when starting the afghan and made it 8 1/2 feet long!

the brand of yarn is “i love this yarn!”, and is only found at hobby lobby. in black, i make 6 rows of hdc, and in aubergine, i make 14 rows of the following pattern:

Row 1: Work 1 dc in 4th ch from hook, 1 sc in next ch, * skip 1 ch, 2 dc in next ch, 1 sc in next ch. Rep from * across. Ch 2, turn.

Row 2: Work 1 dc in first sc, skip 1 dc, 1 sc in next dc, * 2 dc in next sc, skip 1 dc, 1 sc in next dc. Rep from * across, end 1 sc in top of turning ch. Ch 2, turn. Rep Row 2 for Pattern.

the pattern for the aubergine stripes was copied directly from one of my grandma’s crochet mags. i haven’t decided what border i will use yet, i just know it won’t be tassels because i think that is a waste of yarn.

my first day was AWESOME

today was so much fun! it seems everyone at the lab knows everyone else. while i’m sure a few people stay locked away in their offices, everyone i passed in the hallway wanted to stop and talk to whomever was escorting me at the time and to find out who i was. the cyclotron is rather small compared to fermilab, there are only about 120 employees. several autonomous groups are sharing the neutron source and work together in the building where it is produced. when you want to find someone, it is common practice to phone their office, and if they cannot be reached, to then page the whole building for them.

i spent the morning in safety training, which is important because i’m going be working in radiation areas and have to wear a dosimetry badge*. every three months, this badge will be sent away to a lab to measure my exposure to radiation (no cyclotron employee has ever had more than 190 mRem in a single year, the federal limit is 5,000 mRem/yr).

after filling out some paperwork, i was shown to my desk. i will be sharing an office with a handful of graduate students and post-docs. i will soon have an e-mail account and be able to login to the computers, but none of that could be set up today because my paperwork is not fully processed yet.

dr. sokol showed me essentially what i’ll be working on. i can give more details later, but for now here’s a brief explanation. the cyclotron produces a beam of protons at about 200 MeV. this beam is directed via magnets onto a chunk of beryllium. as the protons bombard the nuclei of this heavy metal, neutrons fly out in all directions, and the beryllium target becomes very hot (both temperature hot and radioactively hot). water flows on the back side of the target, allowing it to keep cool. one concern is that the beryllium could melt from the immense amount of power being dumped. so i will work on a device which mimics this process to see what temperatures could occur in the target, particularly if there is a failure in the beam focusing or the cooling system. there is a 60 lb chunk of copper that is butted up against an aluminum target. the copper is heated to simulate the heat generated by a proton beam because copper is an excellent thermal conductor and has a high melting point. the aluminum simulates beryllium well because they have similar thermal properties. i will use sensors to monitor temperature of the copper and aluminum in various spots. the sensors are designed to work with labview and all the equipment is brand new, so setting everything up should go smoothly! (hopefully)

i won’t be starting full-time until they finish processing my paperwork (gah), but i’m super excited about this job and can’t wait to get started!

*there is an episode of macguyver in which he visits a lab requiring the use of dosimetry badges. the lab technician explains to him that the badge turns different colors if he receives a dose of radiation. macguyver asks, “and what if the badge turns black?” to which she responds, “if it turns black, you will be dead.” this is not how they actually work, they do not turn colors like a mood ring.

operation employment: success

i have a new job!!! i start working tomorrow at the Indiana University Cyclotron Facility. i think it will be a short day with basic introductory stuff. i have ridden my bike from my apartment to the cyclotron (three miles one way), and it took 16 minutes to get there and 19 minutes back, on account of some long traffic signals. so i think it will be practical to ride my bike everyday until cold weather hits. i had an interview last week (with the director of the lab himself!), and was told i would not be restricted from working full-time if that’s what i wanted to do. initially i will be working on a project that will take a couple of months to complete, and then i’ll work on something else if needed. for my first day i’m packing: a bound composition notebook, a Labview manual (complements of fermilab), my laptop, a bike lock, change of clothes, lunch, checkbook, and my TI-89. fortunately i have a large book bag to hold my nerdy accoutrements. i think i’ll bring my CERN playing cards, for luck, and in case i make a scientist friend and conversation becomes awkward.