

XKCD: Large Hadron Collider - bkrausz
http://xkcd.com/401/

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maximilian
When is the LHC supposed to fire up? I thought it was this summer? I wonder if
CERN is a sweet place to work, as a physicist or even as a research assistant
or programmer. One never hears too much about working at physics labs.

~~~
pfedor
I know one guy who got an offer from Google but chose to stay in CERN, so
obviously he must like it. On the other hand, some of the stories he tells are
not very reassuring. For example, someone recently decided that CERN would be
a Microsoft-only shop, to the extent that the NNTP server news.cern.ch has
been shut down because MS doesn't sell NNTP servers. However--this is sweet--
the department where my friend works writes software that actually operates
the detectors in the colliders, so it _has_ _to_ _work_ so their department is
exempt and they're still using Unix (Linux and LynxOS.) Another guy I know had
to implement web applications using Oracle cartridges. Also, some say there's
a lot of nasty politics going on there, my friend's wife quit CERN because of
that. My guess is this also depends on the department.

~~~
maximilian
Its hard to imagine them being an all windows shop. I've yet to meet a
physicist that used windows. They all use linux as far as I've seen. Most math
profs I know either use linux or os x. The only people I know who use windows
are either in CS or engineering.

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henning
I give him credit for not cracking a Half-Life joke.

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ashu
somebody came and down-voted all comments here? i thought this was pretty cool
and hacker-interesting.

~~~
doubleplus
Every new xkcd gets posted and voted up here... even the bad ones. Maybe s/he
doesn't like the hero worship and voted down the comments because there's no
way to vote down the post. Kinda cheap, but there you go.

~~~
jraines
Actually I haven't seen one on the front page in a while, but maybe I haven't
been paying attention.

Also, I have a friend who is a dyslexic physicist, and he thinks the Large
Hadron Collider is kinda gay.

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TrevorJ
...well, what else are they gonna do while they wait?

