Do you like games? I do too...
Fun with friends, that's the main thing.
Favorite hobby? Probably painting.

Miniature games and me go way back, I have many many tiny painted things scattered in many places. Recently I have been trying to gear up for small pints-based board game/tabletop dice throwing with pals. To that end I have been 3D printing Battletech units and bought a starter kit.

I'm not sure where or when tabletop games can be easily played. Ideally a bar somewhere in Dublin city centre but we shall see. Mostly just trying to prepare sets of units so there are premade kits for people to just pick up and play. Then have rules as simple as possible to make it fun.



I've been play testing with my children, rolling through the phases and trying to trim down the gameplay while keeping it fun. In my head it's all about the post game, earn points/experience, upgrade and/or repair mechs, add detail to your lance and build toward the next battle. Very much leaning on a GorkaMorka type game but with 'mechs. Wondering about doing it DnD style where I play as a host. I dunno, this is the stuff I like doing when I should be productive, plan out games I'll probably never put into action. That and painting and making the minis, because that is awesome. And doing that with the kiddos too which is great fun, although it's definitely resulted in about 20 times the repairs one would normally have on a mini haha. So many tiny pieces to reglue after tiny hands disassemble.

Hopeful that this will lead to some fun evenings reliving those childhood days pretending to be giant robots in the school yard. I would be doing you a disservice, by the way, if you've read this much without recourse to run away, if I didn't mention that some fine example of humanity has uploaded all the episodes of Battletech to the internet Remastered! When I was showing my long HDD’d rips of the VHS and realised they were semi unwatchable to modern eyes I found these.
Anyway, this is longer than I wanted it to be, when the tldr is: I am 3D printing 50 mm tall robots so I can nerd more...

Listening to: the thickest bass riffs your human ears can handle Mcbaise - Alice


Postscript:
Resource links for Battletech game for self reference and dissemination...

• SARNA Battletech Wiki - amazing resource
• Flechs - get great record sheets for almost every mechs
• MyMiniFactory STL files
• Cults3D STL files
• Thingiverse STL files
• Tabletop quickstart rules
• Goonhammer rules runthrough

What does 10 years do?

I mean, time is relative right? Right.

Nothing much has changed in my head anyway, still just full of gifs movies music and slush. It's funny how fast the time feels like it's gone but also, holy H-E-double hockey sticks it's been a hot minute. I feel like currently I'm either catching my breath or having a midlife crisis. But then again ideally I'll be alive past 200 so it can't be the latter.

I send voicenotes to two pals a lot for the past number of years, and I feel like it's almost the exact format that my posts used to have. Blah blah blah, concise thought, blah blah, cultural touchstone, gif, joke, blah blah done. Self-indulgent sludge. But it's not like it's really put here for any purpose except maybe a sort of therapy? Maybe. Maybe.
I may or may not do this again soon, har.

Listening to: Donny Benét - Konichiwa and Kamasi Washington - Street Fighter Mas

(Lack of an) Online Presence

Blogs and forums have always been first on my list for preferred methods of web-based communication and especially outreach/information sharing. It's often hard to keep track of though, and can require quite a large amount of effort. Afterall, a 140 character tweet can be drafted, proofed, and published before you have boiled the kettle. I can only imagine the quantities of tea/coffee that content creators like Kurtzegast, Smarter Every Day, and Periodic Videos go through for each video.

Being fair to myself and the lack of effort I have put into blogging (or the various online projects I have initiated and never followed through on) I have had my hands tied by PhD work. The good news there being that I am submitted, viva voce-d, and to graduate any day now.

I would really like to get involved in science web content, it has been a desire in the back of my mind for a long time. The work with the Physics Society DIT, lab demonstrating, teaching hours, tutorials, talks, posters, conference dinners, discussions over tea, general academic life, all of this does really help grow a broad perspective. I've been very lucky to sit on tables with experts and attend talks by award winners, it's nice to share that for anyone who is interested. I realise there are plenty of staffers out there who do this, but there's always room for one more eh?

I wanted to put up a five minute blurb as a getting-back-to-it. As usual if you read this and want to comment I'd love to hear from you, but for the time being this is for myself I suppose.

#WhatDidScienceDoToday

Links

We all have draft emails or bookmark lists (or text files if your lists go back to 2005 like mine...) of "interesting" links, ones emailed from friends or recommended at parties, scrawled down and half forgotten.

About 5 years ago I had a plan for these links, to have them in a browsable format, like so many other websites out there. At the time I had been watching Albinoblacksheep and Fat-Pie along with all the other stops out there with cool videos, for some reason I thought I should list the ones I liked. Half so that when I told a friend about them they could go see them easily through my site (just links, no thievery, I've always meant to give credit where it's due).
As it ended up I just made a shuffling list of links on the index page of my rubbish site and left it there, a decaying list with no maintenance while my lists of links grew and grew.

Sidetrack
This reminds me of an XKCD comic:

When I saw this comic I was glad I wasn't alone, oh so many images.
/Sidetrack

I had other plans to for my site of course, lots of plans. They came and went, and inevitably I would find another site that had come along and done it better, with more class and with features I'd never have thought up. But that's the way it goes. (When I was 7 I thought up a new form of bowling, nobody has stolen it yet. I did think-up the motorbike with a hood that year too, but BMW got there before me. I was a practical kid, who wants to get wet when they're looking cool on a bike? My bike would of course not have looked as.. interesting.)

Anyway, long story short I might go back to posting cool images and links for awhile. Because lets face facts here, I'm very poor at this whole keeping up appearances. I do still take photos of Dublin which I keep meaning to add into posts alongside my inane ramblings about whatever it is I do keep filling pages with. But maybe inbetween that I can add videos which everyone has already seen thus proving how late to the party I really am.


(^ Flowers Timelapse by Katka Pruskova http://player.vimeo.com/video/56810854)

(^ Flame Throwing by The Slow Mo Guys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1Lxmjidfmw)

(^ Dancing Pigeons - Ritalin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGbucSjSLDw)

(^ Raspyni Brothers Juggle and Jest https://www.ted.com/talks/raspyni_brothers_juggle_and_jest)

A lunchtime's worth of videos maybe?

Old posts

Was just looking through my drafts folder there, wow there are a lot of half baked memories with cobwebs on. Like when I went for



Saturday (I think the 5th March 2011):
Skype morning with Steve, Rory etc. (while they were in New Zealand!)
1:30pm dart to Odette's,
hung out,
watched Dark Knight
set mouse traps.. emptied a mouse trap.
crashed




Sunday:
Came back from Odette's on a dart at 9am after leaving her off to work.
Apt was empty, cleaned my room a bit but wasn't arsed to wash the windows like I planned. Met Kevin and helped in the market, arranged a games night with Fern & Sean for 7pm. Helped Kev and Silke pack away the cheese from the market at 5pm and went back to the apt with Kev, by 6:30 I was wrecked, wanted to crash out and sleep. Josh texted me then asking to call him ASAP about a crane in danger on Wood Quay.
This crane in danger turned out to be a cormorant which wasn't able to fly running back and forth on the road. Luckily I'd brought a really big fabric shopping bag, a beach towel and some water for the "crane in danger". After some running around we ran at it in a pincer move and I caught it under the towel (after it gave Josh a nasty bite on the arm through his jumper).
Just then, perfectly timed with me kneeling with a massive bird under a towel on the side of a major road the Gardai turned up (apparently a passing car had phoned in earlier about the bird). They said they couldn't do anything for us, no cages available in the station and their dispatcher said they couldn't give us a lift to what we had then found out was the only open vets (thanks to our mother who Josh was on the phone to after I nabbed the cormorant), UCD Veterinary Hospital. The DSPCA weren't answering their mobile weekend number so we took it upon ourselves to hop a taxi to UCD and the two Gardai wished us well.
We flagged down a taxi even before the Gardai had left (it was the quays after all) and I managed to lift the struggling bird bleeding and in a towel into the large bag (all the while holding firm and covering it's eyes. Remembered these tricks from some animal program, TV educations are the best).
I don't think the taxi driver was too pleased with the idea of the bird on my lap (hur hur) but we were in the car before we warned him. He got us to UCD anyway, we rang the doorbell and were greeted by a young nurse who knew we were coming (again thanks to our mamma).
She lifted the bird out of the bag and out of the bloodstained towel to examine it, after a game of hide and seek behind the vending machine (and a nasty bite on the hand for me, cover the eyes people!) she ascertained that the injury was on its leg and its wings seemed fine. She took it into the back and after a short while she returned and said that it couldn't stay there for the night. So we were given 2 choices, they could put it down then or give it to us and we could ring the DSPCA again in the morning...
So of course we said we'd take it, the poor confused thing. After a quick bit of food, water and some antibiotics they returned it to us in a box then, the doctor showing a nice big scrape down his arm (they had put a rubber band over its beak to stop bites.. the hook on its beak proved effective enough!).
We got the bus back to town then from the main stop at UCD, the box placed carefully on the luggage rack by the door.. with clear sounds of movement inside.. and the occasional shuffle of the whole box. I don't need to tell you the driver was giving us some funny looks!
We got off on Westmoreland St. then and walked to the apt. where we met Una and inside met Fern and Seb who'd been waiting on me for something like 2 hours after my organising a games night! What a shit host I am, glad Kev was in haha. We put the boxed cormorant in my en-suite shower, it being the quietest room in the place (what with the nightclub under us being on that night too haha).
We had our games night then after Josh & Una left.

Monday:
In the morning then Josh came over, from his place on campus in TCD, at about 9:15am and we called the DSPCA. The box was shuffling around plenty so clearly the sedative had fully worn off and this bird was ready to fly (with any luck!). The woman from DSPCA arrived at around 10:45am to collect our recovering comrade. We handed over the box and were told it would be off to a fowl sanctuary in Wicklow, I said "That's not very nice, why can't it go to a pleasant one rather than a fowl one"... no I didn't I wish I did though. Then she'd had said "They don't get on in pheasant company" and we'd have been married the same day... Oh what could have been! Cormorant, that lady and I!
*Cough*

For the rest of the day I worked from home on the transfer report. Dull stuff there.
BUT I made a Damn tasty spicy salad for lunch, should have taken a picture, but it's all in mah belly now. Cleaned the counter tops then and swept and mopped the kitchen and some of the sitting room because I didn't get to yesterday. Now back to the transfer report (sorry for all the past to present switching).have to laugh at past to present switching when this is only published more than a year on

Tuesday:
went to college after lunch to sort out a circuit, helped Gearoid in the lab and ran into James and had a chat.

Wednesday:
worked all morning on the transfer, 4:45 pm got a bus to Dave's for his birthday. Had dinner there, hung out until 9 pm and then got a bus back to town with Josh. Spoke to Odette on the phone then for a little while once I was back in the apt. and then went over to Olesya's Wine Bar with Kev & his dad (Lord rest his soul, what a great man). Had a few glasses of lovely red wines, a nice Italian, 2006 Masi Valpolicella Bonacosta, and then a nice Chilean wine, can't remember the name. We left after last orders and had to get Kev's dad out of Dame Tavern and into a taxi, which was hilarious and difficult. Headed straight back to the apt. then and spoke to Odette for a minute, it being her birthday for about 10 mins at that stage and then went to bed.

Thursday:
Woke up at 4:30 am thinking it was 7:30, washed my face and started waking up when a panic came over me, where were all the other pets I was supposed to have. My shelves were full of STUFF, no pets. What had I done with them, did I leave them somewhere? Oh My God, Odette is going to kill me, where are all the other animals, what time is it? Why is it 4:30 am? What other animals, I only have Nuvola (poor little Nunu, I miss her) and she is right there. Why am I shouting at myself at 4:30 am. Time for sleep.

I worry about myself sometimes.

8:45 am I got up then, pottered around, answered emails and such, didn't start college work until around 10am, breakfast now (11 am) and a quick semi update of the blog, plan to try fill up missed days in here later on.



That was the end of the blog I'd written back then, don't think I planned to "full up missed days" so long later haha. I'd literally just written bullet points, good enough to rebuild the days for a blog post.
I miss living in town sometimes, the apt. is a most amazing place and living with Kevin was great. I'm really happy I live with Odette now though, so happy in love and do like Blackrock and love the cottage we found. Crazy how much changes in a year and a half.
Back to work now. Very busy week next week.

P.S. all Italics in the main body of text were added as thoughts from now me, the rest is memories from past me. And they said time travel wasn't theoretically possible..

Ain't I been saying it?

10 points to whomever can name the movie I mean to quote in the title.

I'm sure I've mentioned this before but I really like postcards, there is something nice about sending and receiving postcards. Doesn't matter what they say or where they are from. I think it's why I like personal blogs too. The stupider the better almost, just squeeze each thought off the tip of your tongue and onto the paper. Let it soak up that one moment and then post it off. I got a postcard from a young Italian girl (via postcrossing, I'm not off asking random kids to send me mail. Just to be clear.) a couple of months ago which I loved. It wasn't anything fancy, it was just a snippet of her life. What sticks it most in my memory was that she drew at the top what the weather was like, a little cloud half over the beaming sun (as you would recognise from weather forecasts) with the expected temperature for the day.

There's something about that, the idea that a moment, one silly little ineradicable moment is selected and the sudden thoughts are saved.

Now of course I'm not saying every postcard is like this, I know all too well that when writing postcards (especially on holiday) can be a rushed affair and you may say the same 5 key things on each one just like we did in school for our Irish, French, German, Spanish etc. classes. "A Liam a chara, taim anseo i merica creid no na creid..." and so forth. But I do enjoy those postcards too.

For the past few years myself and Master Powell have been exchanging postcards (oddly to the same address, as we lived together for a year and a half of it) from each place we would visit with the oddest things we could come up with, typically hinting at underground spy work or assassinations in the making. (Dear FBI, we are not going to do anything bold, we promise, kisses K & I)

If you want to get involved in this we are of course more than happy to post you a card of some sort anytime! I keep my stamps in my wallet, I'm not kidding. Zakerius at the home of gmail.com of course. Or just join postcrossing, it's a lot of fun!

Listening to Modest Mouse - Broke (great song, great band, good times)


P.S. sorry all of the images take forever to load lately, I've switched back to using my server space and foolishly keep hoping that massive images will load quickly. I will go for smaller images in future most likely.

Nearly finished with September 2012 already

Isn't the world ending soon? I really do never get enough time to finish what I start..
I never even get a chance to start half the things I want to start really.

College term is beginning again, final year of my PhD, the start of my 21st year in education, my 8th year of graduate physics and coming up on my quarter of a century.
More than this, much more than this.. (hur hur) one brother is starting his leaving cert courses (5th year), another has moved to San Diego for his PhD in UCSD, one sister is starting schooling (5 years old) and another is going to be moving to England to continue her graduate level architecture. Really crazy to think, I find it hard enough to believe that little Alannah is 5, let alone that Josh isn't going to be living in Ireland for at least the next 5 years. Feels very odd indeed.

Listening to Interpol on my headphone in the office, just G and myself in the office at the moment, I like Interpol sometimes. What do you like to listen to when you're working? Do you not get to listen to music when you work? I hate it when that happens, I never work right without music. I remember my first job, it was just a summer job in a primary school (1st level of education) near where I was living. I had just finished my leaving cert and my dad sorted me out with a few weeks repairing and upgrading the computers he had sold them years before. I spent about the bulk of it just formatting machines, fresh install of the latest Windows and all that.
I would walk down to the school each morning, stop off in the shop and buy an Irn-Bru and a pack of Crispy M&Ms. I had brought a set of PC speakers (the same set I have in my office now, had them for about a decade [harman/kardon HK195]) and was blasting Eagles of Death Metal while I worked alone in the computer room. The school was basically empty except for me and the odd teacher who was dropping by to grab this or that from their rooms. Just me, spinning on office chairs and checking the HDDs, dusting out machines and replacing power supplies that had lived their lifetime. Was a fun couple of weeks considering I was getting paid to do it.
I like that memory.

My brother is gone D:

    All the way to San Diego, 8363.86 km away (give or take). I really hope he is settling in well over there, in those 40 degree highs and 20 degree lows. With the sunshine, and the sandy beaches. Getting paid to be a student, doing maths (well, he likes that.. that wouldn't be for me). That bastard.

Recent (iPhone) photograph, taken in Blackwater, Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford (Aug 2012).
My two brothers, Daniel and Josh (L-R) scoping the fields ahead for dinner.

    But I really miss him, even if we didn't see each other every day it's hard to think he's not even remotely close by. I mean, it's nearly the other side of the world (well New Zeland is really the other side of the world to Dublin [nearest land mass anyway]). But I'm really happy he has found somewhere which will look great on his academic CV and also give him a great chance to explore and grow as travel only can (not to mention give me another handy holiday destination for the next 5 years).

    As for everything else in life I will sit down and finish blog posts and organise images eventually. I enjoy writing blogs because it feels like having a journal you can access everywhere (or a log book, draft blog posts allow more control than draft emails for sure). It's nice to collect moments in time and to have somewhere to share things as everyone who writes personal blogs knows.

Childhood photograph, taken in Blackwater, Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford.
From left to right are my nana, Shauna, Josh, myself and my grandad, rest his soul.

Back to work with me now, preparing a poster for the 2012 International Workshop on EUV and Soft X-ray Sources and getting a general talk ready for the postgraduate seminar I have to give in October.

Listening to Ben Prunty Music's songs from the game FTL (which is an epic game btw, worth well more than the $9).

June is Ending

View from Sandymount/Sydney Parade across Dublin bay towards Howth head.

I just saw Terry Pratchett, watched a live stream of his talk at Science Gallery and then went over for a coffee at, funnily enough, the exact time he was leaving. Oh how coincidental, you'd swear I planned it >.>
Unfortunately I didn't bring the Discworld book I'm currently reading for him to sign but I wouldn't really have wanted to bother him, he was already surrounded by fans anyway.

Same old life other than that, data analysis, finding and reading papers about Z-pinch experiments, the latest EUV results and the odd few laser ablation papers with novel setups. So many papers, my Mendeley (highly recommend for citations, paper arranging and backup etc.) is ever stocking up. Somehow I've managed to put 9,841 scientific papers, books & manuals on my office computer... Luckily with Mendeley I could sort these and so not get perpetually lost in information when trying to cite someone specific.

Also my, I say my because it's the laser I've used most for the past 3 years and I love it, Surelite Nd:YAG seems to be fixed once again. Looks like it was just a faulty flashlamp, I had replaced it as pretty much the first response to the initial failure but it looks like the new flashlamp wasn't up for the task. In any case it looks to be working now, will run it again later on and tomorrow to make sure it's functioning, maybe take an energy measurement and burn pattern too. Will need it working perfectly for my next experiment in August.
There are lots of other things I really need to sort for this experiment too, fingers crossed I can get it all to slot neatly into place. If anyone knows who that guy I talked to at a conference about the cheap EUV filters his group made was, please tell me. It's this reason everyone should make up business cards (not that I have any), I can never remember names.

Honey dressed up for the day by her fabulous stylist Odette.

Odette & I had the lovely Honey as a house guest for this last weekend gone, a big dog in a small cottage. Could be a good book. The accursed Irish summer weather in all its undependable glory meant we didn't take her on a walk at all (the poor pup) but we did dress her up! That makes it so much worse right! Hahaha. Odette got better pictures of Honey sat in an armchair with a beret on, she really is a patient dog.

Otherwise I don't have a huge amount to report, I am loving Post Crossing and trying to get more people to get into A Show with Ze Frank (and the Finishing Stamp mission). Cooking with Odette lots, she has restarted her cooking blog and is continuing her YouTube channel. Kevin has started an instructional cooking blog too.
'Tis the season I guess! (whatever convinced me to get back blogging at the same time)
I feel like this post looks like a very poorly edited wiki page of someone's conversation to the demons in their head.
Send help.

View east along the Liffey from Grattan bridge showing the Millennium bridge & Ha'penny bridge.

View from the bridge over the duck pond in Saint Stephen's Green.

Tide in at Sandymount/Sydney Parade (not exactly the same location as the 1st image).

All pictures from now on will be mine, do with them as you will, pretend they are yours, email me a picture of you and I will photoshop us both into them and we can say we once hungout in Dublin... with Elvis.. and a llama.

A lack of blogging

So, this is where I left you off, nearly a year ago and the beginning of a huge experimental investigation of our Laser Triggered Vacuum Arc lamp (LAVA-lamp). I haven't as yet published any papers on this work but have presented a couple posters. Here's one poster, presented at the 2011 International Workshop on EUV & Soft X-Ray Sources, 7-9 Nov, UCD (N.B. font went a bit bonkers, save the page and open pdf to see it properly). I won best poster for it actually (modest as ever I am), was absolutely chuffed.
But yes, the experiment went really well, gathered a huge amount of data, was wonderful to work alongside Larissa on it. That work finished up in late October due to other deadlines and the analysis is ongoing (due to the volume of data and other engagements). Over all I have to say the last 3 years of PhD have flown by, it's a little shocking really, but I have loved it. I'd recommend any physics student who enjoys working on interesting and challenging projects to get out there, contact groups who's work you find interesting. There's always an intern position somewhere and it's such a great way to learn what research is like (and earn a bit of money sometimes too).

One more year left myself now, the big thesis write up to do and a whole pile of papers and theory to brush up on. Practise makes perfect but re-reading is Always a bonus, you'll never keep exactly the right time without checking back every now and then. It's scary but it's fun and I'm so lucky to have fallen into such a good group and such an interesting project. Plasmas are all around us you know, every day, most of the universe is in a plasma state, everything came from plasma too in the very beginning. Without our local massive globe of plasma our planet wouldn't support life. It's nice to be able to try grasp these things sometimes, forget any real physics and just think about what we are. Those immortal heart wrenching words We are star stuff. You have to admit it's fun to think about that, and if you don't think so then I'm sorry you can't see the wonder in the things around you. Wonderment is the most important thing in life, without it what's the point.

Anyway this is getting ranty and that wasn't my point for this post. I just wanted to write something because life is flying by! So it's good to have a record of where I once stood and what the air was like, how were the natives, what was the view like. The biggest news I have in life is I've been living with my lovely Odette for just over a month now in a pretty little cottage. Really loving it, it's going to be a fun year full of adventure I'm sure. I hope everyone else is well out there, lots of hardships but I hope there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. Until nextime I guess.

View off Killiney hill, looking south towards Bray head.

Blackrock baths looking north west towards Dublin city centre.

Hanko finishing stamps for one of Ze Frank's missions.

What did science do today #3

(Every day is too much to expect really, so it will be an intermittent thing, okay? Okay.)

As part of the research I will be working quite a lot in UCD (the project I work on is jointly funded between UCD, DCU and TCD)



One of the next steps in my work in UCD will be doing visible spectroscopy on a Sn laser triggered discharge source. For this I will be bringing the visible spectrometer I use in TCD to UCD, to make this easier the table and optics have been set up ahead of moving the spectrometer, so no time is wasted.



For this alignment I went all Art Attack and made a cardboard cut-out of the spectrometer I will be transporting (to make sure I can fit it around other analysis tools which will have to be attached to the chamber).



I know, I'm a pro-scientist, you don't need to tell me. Sticky-tape physicists have nothing on me.

Survivor sitrep

(backdated - 23rd July 2011)

Last Saturday the weather was beautiful, sun was beating down and I was flaking out on the grass in St. Stephen's Green. Was lovely to just relax and enjoy the sun for awhile with my dearest Odette. The problem with working in labs is you miss out on sunshine (usually not a problem living in Ireland where the sun doesn't like to show up unless there are exams on somewhere).

We were both minding our own business when the outbreak took hold!

Before we knew it They were everywhere!

Luckily they all seemed more interested in each other than in the survivors in the next green behind the bushes and so we could make swift our escape, but not before seeing some horrific sights of the victims of this terrible plague.

>.>

Two days in a row with very little worth showing.
Maybe this wasn't such a hot idea at the moment?

Blah blah blah science.

New mural in Meeting House Square in Temple Bar:


The plants in my bedroom window, I loves me green things:


And for anyone who doesn't already know how retro-cool I am, the floppy diskettes I use Still for recording experimental data:


I will try and maybe think up a weeks worth of stuff over the weekend. That or just do some interesting work once in awhile haha.

What did science do today #2

Today wasn't a day with a lot of photo opertunities, I continued to work on the Faraday Cup setup. Spent a fair amount of time sorting out the lab, was trying to find a piece of kit I knew I had put somewhere "safe". So other than cleaning and sorting the day was spent reading, sending emails, phoning suppliers to check lead times, drawing up aditions to designs and looking over data.

I really did try to think of something good to photograph. But ahwell. Hopefully tomorrow.

What did science do today

Welp, this is my plan, I'm going to tell you what I did each day.
What do you think?
I will try and keep it short and interesting but I also wont be putting up much detail on things as it isn't good to give up my results to the world quite that freely just yet.

One side note, I ran into two guys from Sixty Symbols/Periodic Videos walking through TCD just before lunch. I watch their videos all the time so I don't mind saying I was a little star struck. There is a talk on this evening in the Science Gallery by the producer of the videos but I can't go because I am going to see an exhibit of Andrew's art.

What I've done today is mostly wrapped up with the design of the Faraday Cup I plan to use in future laser triggered plasma discharges. It is used to detect ions by biasing the centre copper cup and counting the electrons that essentially go missing when they pair with the ions (in simple terms and skipping stuff).


A magnetic field can be used to stop any secondary electrons which are knocked off by the impinging ions from escaping and being counted as an ion pairing (which would lead to extra ions being recorded that didn't strike the cup) and by using the shielding and aperture any electrons which are excited off other metallic surfaces by the strong emission of light from the plasma are stopped from impacting the cup and causing a decrease in the number of ions recorded.

So that's that, other things were done but I think one thing a day.
Thoughts, comments and opinions are as always more than welcome.

Crapit

Missed a month.
When did that happen?
The flip?

I'm still alive, still with Odette, still in college, still writing dull blog posts over using the word still. Have pictures of things and news about things. Will try put together a fludge soon. A proper one.

Things I like to view online

So for no reason other than the fact that my head is sore from stupid slides that never seem to look right I am going to try write a post. The topic of this fludge post is fairly self-evident but just to spell it out T, H, I, N, G, .... ohright, sorry, yeah. I'm just going to go through a few things I enjoy keeping up with on das internet.

Epic gifs can frequently be found here:
Senor Gif

Wonders of a quite interesting nature always here:
QTube

If like me planes make you daydream this is for you:
Flight image of the day

Oh so many ways to kill time, but whynot get informed about a random chunk of the news:
Philip DeFranco Show

You can't beat XKCD, just incase Anyone doesn't already read it:
XKCD

Monty Python's youtube channel, lots of good laughs there:
Monty Python

I try not to let myself get trapped with exponentially expanding tab bars but Reddit makes that difficult:
Science Reddit

Any gamer out there will already know Yahtzee, but just incase:
Zero Punctuation

A recent thing on my radar, and it being Towel Day and all it simply has to be included:
Hitchikers Guide Game

And finally:

The gig I missed

Well QOTSA played a few meters from where I sleep and I didn't get to see them play.

I did hear every beat though, which rocks, and I got (bad) pictures of them. It was Josh Homme's birthday yesterday, so I guess he left earlier than the others to nurse a hangover maybe. The guy beside me got Joey's drum sticks, right in front of my eyes. I also got to talk to Joey which was epic (although brief). The gig that never was, for me anyway. Or maybe half was is more accurate. Next time eh?

Whynot? But why?!

So yeah, things flying by, mostly time, but other things too.
On the happy side of my mind at the moment, the other side doesn't see much daylight anyway, but definitely on the happy side.
Work is going well, well it is going well enough. Well well well. Wellity wellity..
The changes I was asked to make to my transfer/continuation report (the thing required of PhD students at around the 18 month mark of their studies which is used to #1 show people they are on track and/or learning stuff & #2 give them a feel for what the big write-up will be like come the 4 year mark) were mostly small things, slight issues with phrasing and such (physicists can't say "vast quantities" and the like, one must quantify one's self if one wishes to be well read) [honestly not ripping the piss, this is how it is and I do try to write scientifically when drafting reports/posters/presentations]. There were however things of a larger nature that needed addressing, for example the explanation (& derivation) of Bennett's condition (I wanted a link here to explain this for me but I will have to do it myself.. Bennett's condition, in the case I am looking at it, is a balance of plasma pressure and magnetic pressure inside a plasma which can be used to yield estimates of the plasma and discharge conditions required for a Z-pinch to occur). This isn't a huge thing to ask, it is something which I should understand empirically as it is essentially a cornerstone of the pinch work (kinda). But none the less, reading so much theory and trying to piece it together and make a clear, concise picture in my head was/is difficult. There is a lot to be said for having an expert explain things to you, but trying to make yourself an expert really means kicking your own ass ten times a day. You feel it too, no pain no gain and all that. Feel like I've a bruised brain, maybe that's why I'm in a writing mood.

Getting the feeling I'm losing my train of thought though and this post is becoming a nightmare. So I will add some disclaimers to it and move on to the rest of life?

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Personal life stuff now:
Josh & myself got to hangout with my nana & granddad on Sunday which was lovely, my aunt & uncle were there too with my uncle's two girls. Always fun seeing them, crazy how quick time goes, they're little messers but that's the best way to be. Gotta love family, can't beat the feeling really. Togetherness is what we're made for, social animals and all that.

Got to spend time with Odette Monday evening & yesterday evening (despite my 13 hour day in the office melting my head) which was lovely, love her to bits. She is the best, never too sure what to say, to many things in my head, so many little stories but I think I want to keep them to myself. Makes me think of that bit in Saving Private Ryan when Cpt.Miller says he is saving the memory of his wife cutting the roses to himself. They're too nice, they're just for me. Those moments, little smiles for no reason, sudden feelings and heart flutters. All the sweet things shared. Nawww.

The little fuzz ball that is Nuvola is as lovely as ever, never thought a little rodent could have so much character! She really is hilarious, funny to watch her trying to learn things and figure out patterns, great then to throw in a change and see how she tries to adapt. Never thought I'd get so attached to a hamster either, guess that's the way it goes, she is just too cute. Keep meaning to upload videos of her to YouTube.

Hopefully be able to get back to being a social animal myself soon by the way, haven't really seen friends outside the apartment for a while, glad I've gotten to see Fern a bit during the past few months and been meeting up with Josh alot which is always good but if it wasn't for Kevin bringing people over to the apartment I'd not really be seeing people.

On to summer plans? Whynot indeed. Well, lets see. May has arrived with all its bells and whistles, enjoyed as much sun as work would afford me during April, try my best to do the same in May. Want to take Tony up on his offer of a couch in Paris at some stage. Wouldn't mind trying to convince Odette to go see Sophie too. Then it's just dreams of sunshine and beaches in late August early September. Might try and get down to Wexford too, would really like to. Will see if I can talk Josh into going. Will be spending time up in Louth with my mammy too for sure, lots of hiking & hanging out. Also want to read half a dozen spectroscopy, plasma theory, atomic physics and magnetohydrodynamic texts. Will keep myself busy, no doubt about that.

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DISCLAIMER:
Two important things I would like to add here just to cover myself:
#1 this is not intended as an information source to anyone in Any way, undoubtedly I will lead those looking to learn astray (I welcome comments/corrections to anything I have stated in the first section)
#2 I am deeply sorry that I have linked to Wikipedia as a source of understanding, there are no other links I could find to explain the terms in very simple terms (a job I may undertake in the future?)

I would also like to apologise for the manner in which most of this is written, there are more parentheses in this fludge post than there are spots on a giraffe

wha's new(s)?

The only thing that happened this week in my life to speak of is my 5 year aniversary with Odette <3
Five years?! Can you believe it? I can't, don't know where the time has gone. Also means I'm pretty much 6 years studing physics at 3rd level.. All very scary really, how quick time goes by!

Love my baby madly though, she's wonderful in most every way. I wont go getting all mushy though, more just wanted to say. Everybody has those times they say things they regret or do things they didn't think through, but through it all I've loved her with all my heart, more and more every day.