Gathering to Watch from the Lab
Students from Berkeley’s campus climb as high up the hill as they can to watch the sunset behind San Francisco and the Golden Gate, but the barbed wire fence of the Department of Energy National Lab makes for a cut-off point. Far on the other side is Grizzly Peak: another great view, but one without the immediacy of this particular spot. Inside the perimeter of the lab, I had the opportunity to experience a set of perspectives both scientific and literal that are beyond the scope of everyday Berkeley life.
Campus on the Eve of Finals Week
Finals week is upon St. Lawrence University. The campus is in full “winter mode”, blanketed with snow. The oddest thing about this time is its effect on the student population: a sharp partitioning between those who are finished, relaxed, preparing to leave and those who are tense, stressed, and trying to make it through. Like the dynamics of molecules in excited states, that latter group slowly relaxes to join the former.
Natural and Artificial Clouds
Behind San Francisco are clouds both natural (horizontal) and the product of human craft (the vertical spiral).
Goods and Services
Quitting Time at the Lab
Snow covered northern New York this week, and the temperature rests in the single degrees Fahrenheit; now is an excellent time to look back at the warm eternal-summer glow of California. Particularly in contrast to the >60-hour-per-week graduate students down on campus, the “standard” workweek of staff at Berkeley Lab was a remarkably normal trend. At the end of the day, with that sunset light arriving, the workers who keep the physical plant running come outside into the evening breeze and head home.
Shade
A Farm in Vermont
A family farm on a hillside in northern Vermont at the start of winter is like an empty table, ready to be set for a meal. These and other folksy aphorisms, brought to you by a digital eye on a flying robot stabilized by orbiting artificial satellites and electronic gyroscopes. The future is excellent!
Midday in the Bay
With the weather above clear, midday in the bay is a nearly shadowless moment of odd geometry. It almost looks like a rendering from a computer simulation where the artist was uninterested in spending the time to model the shadows.
Squished
Superbird
At the Cincinnati Zoo, this bird watched carefully for the right moment to spear fish from a nearby pool. After 10 minutes, the bird gave up and flew away. I guess it wasn’t worth the trouble.
Hedging
Upgrading the Advanced Light Source
Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source, a massive X-ray laser sourced from a building-sized particle accelerator, was undergoing upgrades while I visited. Construction in the area added an mundane veneer to the superscience happening inside.
Transamerica Glow
The retrofuturistic shape of the Transamerica Pyramid emerging from the more traditional architecture of San Francisco is one of my favorite photography subjects. When will this Star Destroyer finally lift off from its docking station in the Bay Area?
Diver
Decaseconds 