The protagonist of our story, Mr. Wimby is a fan of Wimbledon. Its been ages (atleast his age) that he has followed Wimbledon. Be it watching Boris becker making delightful volleys, Be it Goran climbing up to his father upon making it finally to where he belonged, Be it staying up late hoping that the stupid television channel realises that paes is playing on court 10 - please switch to it, Be it hoping Nirupama vaidyanathan becomes first indian woman to make it to round 2. Wimby is no novice at the art of crashing in early at wimbledon to get ground entry on the day. But this time, there is more in store. Sunday, June 29 (6.30 pm): Wimby is languishing in his room at southampton. The distance to Wimbledon has gone up from last year (when he was based in london) but perhaps the urge is commensurate. An idea is seeded. A quick check with BBC weather and the idea takes root. A sunny Monday and Roger Federer on centre court. Sounds like an invitation to Wimby's ears. Just as a fail-sa...
The idea of applying for host had germinated even while I was in Imperial in 2006/7. It took more than two years to take root. The idea of soaking in british culture and getting to know more about english people has always been high on my agenda. And host provides just that. So with a glimmer of light visible at the end of the phd tunnel, and effectively an end to the bliss state of life called 'student-life' in sight, I decided to apply for host in September this year. The application moved swiftly and I was intimated that my 'host' family would be somewhere in Wales. After a lull in communication for a while, I finally learnt (towards the end of september) that I would be hosted by the Nocks. Now the Nocks are a joint family - Roland and Margaret in their 40s, 18-yr old son michael, 16-year old Rachel, a dog, 6 ducks, 3 ducklings, 3 rats. or so I was told in the introductory mail. I was immidiately excited. On calling up Roland, I realised that Roland and Rachel had ...
Last couple of weeks have seen life being breathed into two major research facilities - one computational (supposed to make sense of experimental data) - other experimental (supposed to make sense of theoretical data). Put together, they demonstrate the scintillating synergy between theory, experiments and computations - the three corner-stones of modern research. Firstly, We at University of Southampton are now proud owners of the 74th fastest supercomputer in the world and the fastest university-owned supercomputer in England . The new facility nicknamed ' IRIDIS-3 ' on campus will help researchers at Southampton to perform calculations that they ever dreamed of. Hopefully, researchers on campus would now dare to dream even more and push the frontiers of research at Southampton. Secondly, For a small matter, the world is now in possesion of its' highest energy particle accelerator - the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The first physics at the LHC i...
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