France/Switzerland

Here are some pictures from CERN, CMS and around our apartment in Saint-Genis, France, and a map of the various sites on the LHC (in no particular order):

The CMS Experiment

CMS Control Room

Close to the CMS Detector

The tunnel to the CMS cavern (100 meters underground)

A picture from my bike ride to Thoiry, at the base of the Jura mountains.

Map of the LHC

Except for this globe thingy (I think its a welcoming center)

CERN isn’t very picturesque

Dostoevski and Me

Every time I read Dostoevski’s biography it makes me feel better about myself:
“…He rented an apartment, conceived an expensive passion for biliards, flung money away right and left, and when a year later he reseigned his commission because he found his sevice in the military Engineering Department ‘as dull as potatoes’ he was deeply in debt. He remained in debt till the last years of his life. He was an incorribible spendthrift. His thriftlessness drove him to despair, but he never acquired the self-control to resist his caprices. It has been suggested by one of his biographers that his want of self-confidence was to an extent responsible for his habit of squandering money, since it gave him a passing sense of power and so gratified his vanity.”