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Large Hadron Collider Struggling
Writing in the NY Times, Dennis Overbye covers the birthing pangs and the prospects for CERN's Large Hadron Collider (which we have discussed numerous times). "The biggest, most expensive physics machine in the world is riddled with thousands of bad electrical connections. [And] many of the magnets meant to whiz high-energy subatomic particles around a 17-mile underground racetrack have mysteriously lost their ability to operate at high energies. Some physicists are deserting the European project, at least temporarily, to work at a smaller, rival machine [Fermilab's Tevatron] across the ocean. ... Technicians have spent most of the last year cleaning up and inspecting thousands of splices in the collider. About 5,000 will have to be redone... Retraining magnets is costly and time consuming, experts say, and it might not be worth the wait to get all the way to the original target energy [of 7 TeV]. Many physicists say they would be perfectly happy if the collider never got above five trillion electron volts. Dr. Myers said he thought the splices as they are could handle 4 [TeV]. 'We could be doing physics at the end of November,' he said in July, before new vacuum leaks pushed the schedule back a few additional weeks. 'It's not the design energy of the machine, but it's 4 times higher than the Tevatron,' he said."
birth pang
n.
1. One of the repetitive pains occurring in childbirth. Often used in the plural.
2. birth pangs Difficulty or turmoil associated with a development or transition
... best of what's still around. I've noticed a distinct decline in the quality of professional services in the last decade. In the midwest and the New England region of the US, at least. Based on this story, maybe the same is happening in Europe. In the past 2 years, I've had electricians, plumbers, painters, carpenters and landscapers at the house to execute various jobs I have needed. In most cases, I have had to fix problems myself after the "professional tradesman" declared the job finished, wrote up an invoice for his/her expensive services and departed. In almost all cases, I could have done the job more carefully and better myself if only I had the time. Ironically, everyone to a man was extremely skilled at the invoicing and billing process. When it comes to getting paid, everyone is a genius. Pride in the work? Not so much. This story about the LHC sounds eerily familiar. Assuming the work was done by the local (or imported) tradesmen, is it possible that the work was sub-par?
That's interesting. Here in Arizona, it's a little different. Most of the contractors like you mention are either illegals, or meth-heads. The meth-heads can't return phone calls, can't show up on time, are flaky and unreliable. The illegals are cheap, but frequently don't know what the hell they're doing and do substandard work as a result. Non-illegal, non-meth-head, reliable and competent contractors are extremely rare around here.