The week before Thanksgiving, Melba and I travelled to the islands. She is going there for a few months and I went to help her get settled. It was interesting first because Hawaii is an amazing place and thext because we weren’t just there to be tourists, so we saw an additional cross-section of island life.

I worked the Sunday night until after 23:00. When I got back. I disassembled my tech and put it together with my already packed clothing. I roasted some almonds and put them in a bag with apples from Martin’s that Ooms had given me. Melba had boiled some eggs, and packed other food.

We got all our stuff together. Stopped by Sobey’s and I bought a Liberte kefir to help sustain me and settle my stomach. We dropped my extra keys off at Ooms’s. We went to the bank for me to get U.S. currency from the ATM. That last was a wasted trip because the machine was down.

Down the Mac-Cart 401 Freeway to Pearson at around 4 for our 6:30 flight.

We stopped at the Skypark to leave the car and got shuttled to the terminal. Oh, we left one of the bags of food in the car. At least I have my apples and almonds.

We checked in for our Northwest flight operated by Delta (or the other way around). We continued on to U.S. customs where there was a huge line. The desks don’t open until 5 a.m. or 5:30. IN the line I was caught under a flickering fluorescent light. It was terrible and giving me a headache, but I was able to move forward soon.

The signs by the metal scroll doors had a symbol of what looked like a gendarme reading a parperback novel with one hand, but it means customs.

When I got to the desk the interrogator agent asked me whether I had any snacks. I told her I had some apples, but that I couldn’t remember what else I had. I was so tired, I couldn’t remember the almonds I had roasted.

She interpreted this incomplete response as deception and sent me to the inspection station. She had written a big A and a big S on my declaration card. I later gathered that the A meant go to the agricultural station and the S meant to search the bearer. The people ahead of me had only an A as they munched their apple sections.

I waited a while and the dude put on latex gloves and directed me to put my luggage on the stainless steel table. He zipped the bags open and discarded my apples, but left the almonds for me. I guess it is because they are cooked or processed or dry.

He asked me why I had a telephone in my bag. I told him that we had internet in our hotel room and I intended to make telephone calls over the internet. He accepted my explanation, which was the truth anyway.

He said I was free to advance into the terminal, but Melba was int he waiting area for questioning. The agent told me I had to continue.

I went and waited at the gate a while reading the design issue of Fast Company. After about half an hour though I started to worry, because I wasn’t sure she would get out in time to board the plane. So, I went to wait just by security where she would come through. Another half hour later she came through happy and relieved. They had questioned her for a full hour.

We rushed down to the gate and after a quick bathroom break, boarded the plane.
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Saturday afternoon I rushed over to the Waterloo Public Square for the Physica Phantastica exhibit of Perimeter Institute’s Quantum to Cosmos Festival.

I was assigned to be a floater, which meant I could have ended up doing anything. Another guy, mark, was also on the same non-assignment. We talked a bit and it turned out he was in the off-stream co-op class from me in university.

Julie sent us over to the gyroscope ride. We were going to run the amusement ride like a ‘carny.’ Greg showed us how to strap people in and gave us the tape measure to ensure that the kids were tall enough. (You must be taller than this tape measure to ride this ride.)

The gyroscope has a pair of seats, harnesses, straps and handles on a large circular red frame which can rotate in a larger black circular frame that rotates on a axis perpendicular to the red frame’s axis.

The red frame can just spin freely, but the black frame is driven by a hydraulic pump controlled by a lever that, half the time, I control. Mark ran it the other half of the time.

Mostly kids rode it, like Eric, Taylor, Shelha, Linden, Diana, Josh, Emily, Aliya, Alex, and many others.

Kids would say funy things like: “These people aren’t my parents they are just friends of my parents.” and “Such little fabric does so much. (talking about the safety straps)”

People would ask what the significance of the ride was. We would tell them that mostly it was a fun ride, but it also gave them a feeling of doing astronaut training, demonstrated the idea of how you know you are spinning compared to us not feeling we are spinning on the planet earth.

One guy asked what it felt like. Both Mark and I had to admit that we had never ridden it. But we got to ride after the day ended.

The exhibit closed early Saturday so there could be a private viewing for a VIP PI anniversary gala where the lieutenant governor and Mike L and others would be there. So we cleared people out, cleaned up the exhibits and then rode the ride.

Mark and I strapped in to the chairs. I mostly strapped myself in except for some I couldn’t reach.

Greg spun us around and it was fun at first, but then with the tent heater blasting in my face, that fact I hadn’t eaten, and my accumulated fatigue caught up with me and I asked to be let off. It was a good experience though, like when a gendarme needs to feel a stun device before using it.

It was time to go back to my house. Before I left I snapped another shot of the mars rover.

I felt sick riding the bus back to my house. When I got back, I went to bed and slept myself better.

• Saturday lecture on uses of quantum processors 20 Oct 2009
• Visit the Physica Phantastica displays for Q2C festival 15 Oct 2009

Saturday morning I got up at 9 a.m. still sleepy from volunteering the night before. I caught the bus uptown to the Perimeter Institute for a lecture as part of the Quantum to Cosmos Festival.

I got to the blackboard building at quarter past ten. I paused by the chalkboard that marked the line for ticketholders, but continued when I saw a volunteer push open the locked door to let me out of the chilly morning air.

There were a few other people there, some were waiting for tickets and others were volunteers or TV crew. After they checked my ticket and had us walk around and up the stairs to the upper entrance to the theatre, it turned out I was the earliest ticketholder to arrive.

The talk was Everyday Uses for Quantum Processors with David Cory.

I sat in the frontest rightest seat, which meant I sat beside the Q&A host who sat beside the speaker (until he got up to speak, that is).

Michele Mosca intoduced Cory.

Cory just transferred from MIT to IQC at UW. He still has grad students at the Tech, so he is there in Cambridge a quarter of his time, I gather.

He has a beard and tousled messy hair. He wore a relaxed khaki linen blazer over a collared shirt. He spoke comfortably dropping in amusing observations or comments. He is clearly a good lecturer.

He talked about the use of an interferometer and how it can reveal an easily observable quantum phenomenon and have useful applications.

Cory identified a key difference between classical and quantum states with and example of flipping a coin and whether it is heads or tails . . . or both. Then he went on to describe the apparatus of an neutron interferometer and how the phase change from one of the split beams of a neutron wave function can be used to detect the nature of the interference.

He expanded on the idea describing different ways that the methods have been refined. Then he told of some examples of where it has been applied: detecting channels for water in types of cheese, measuring globs of fat in chocolate, searching for water or oil underground.

The topic was certainly interesting, but the lecture may have been a bit to esoteric for a community audience. I think many people may know about things like wave-particle duality, once you get start using terms like wave function, coherence, and phase it may add up to being beyond the appreciation of most.

During the question period he made a comment that was particularly interesting to me. Mosca had asked what opportunities can students find at IQC. Cory said that at MIT research labs aren’t part departments, but parts of labs. Essentially no discipline has precedence in involvement in a field of research. He said his lab at MIT took students from all sorts of courses of study and went on to enumerate a long list. He said his lab at IQC will be the same.

I like the idea of creating a structure which favours interdisciplinary involvement.

That was the first lecture I attended for IQC, but not time to tarry, I had to go to the square for volunteering at Physica Phantastica.

• Visit the Physica Phantastica displays for Q2C festival 15 Oct 2009

Friday night after work I headed down to The Aud to help with loading the buses after the Karlsberghaus Oktoberfest.

Matt and I had a bit of a discussion about how the barriers were set up. In pervious years it has been trying because people push, crowd and bud in line and it ends up being hard to control.

The previous year was the best so far where we controlled the entrance and exit from the barriers, but it was still tough.

This year was surprisingly calm. We most of our 1,800 ticketholders back onto the buses without much incident.

I think that people didn’t have to wait too long was a big help, but overall it seemed quite different.

After the night we headed back to the house and ate pizza. Then I went home and got to bed at 4 a.m.

• Bus security at Oktoberfest 31 Oct 2007

I am volunteering for the soon to start Quantum to Cosmos Festival put on by the Perimeter Institute. Tonight was the pre-show meeting, so we got to see the Physica Phantastica display, which is where I am volunteering.

There are a bunch of demonstrations relating to physics in a sturdy, barn-shaped tent at Waterloo’s public square.

There are interactive demonstrations of physics phenomena, videos and information terminals, but the one I liked best was the display of the Mars rover replica.

Amy from the jet propulsion lab in California explained that it was a replica of the rover that will be launched in 2011 and reach Mars in 2012.

I am not scheduled to be at the rover though. I will be a floater for one shift and at the polarization station for the others.

Light can be polarized in different orientations which means the wave properties are aligned certain ways. Often we encounter light that hads a mix of alignments, but often when reflected or filtered, specific alignments will be more prevalent.

People will be able to use polarized sunglasses or filters to view light reflecting or passing through different materials. Sometimes I will be there to help explain the phenomenon.

In the nearby mini-theatre there will be a 3D film playing narrated by Stephen Hawking. I’m pretty sure the film uses polarized glasses for the 3D effects, which will make it a good example for explanation because it is happening right there.

I also listened to a quantum computer demonstration. A woman who was assigned to that display asked what she would say to a 14-year-old to explain it. The operator explained that they would have a magnetic quadropole to be a visible analogue to the nuclear quadropole in the apparatus. The magnetic quadropole would have four stable states.

I asked a few questions to draw out the significance and comparison to a conventional computer. The guy answered pointing out the superposition of states in a quantum computer. The woman said, “That’s what I was looking for.” I was glad to have helped.

Then I watched the superconductivity demonstration where they have an apparatus for a mag lev push car. A little styrofoam train car floats above a rare-earth magnet track that zooms around when you give it a little push.

That one is supercool, not just because it uses liquid nitrogen.

It turns out that I know one of the organizers from university years ago. We chatted a bit. I hadn’t recognized her name in the e-mails because she has a different surname now. She commented that it is amazing the displays that were assembled there in just a couple of days. I joked that it was like a scientific barn-raising.

So, I recommend you come to the square and check out the displays over the next 10 days. Also, you can check out some online lectures.

I got a promo e-mail to day asking me to pass on this information:

Enjoy a wide range of interesting online presentations at www.q2cfestival.com. The ‘Quantum to Cosmos: Ideas for the Future’ Festival marks the 10th Anniversary of Canada’s Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. The innovative online activities, from October 15th to 25th, will take a global audience from the strange world of subatomic particles to the outer frontiers of the universe. Please share this link with others who will enjoy the free, online programming.

[...]

Starting October 15th, the first day of our 10 day festival, check www.q2cfestival.com for a daily list of live-streamed events. Complete program information is available at www.q2cfestival.com/program. If you miss a live-streamed event, don’t worry! You can watch it on-demand later. Look for the ‘Play’ button on the image to the left of the event at http://www.q2cfestival.com/program.

City workers completed the Maibaum or Maypole outside Kitchener’s Oktoberfest headquarters, Hans Haus, though I prefer to call the monument the Oktober pole.

The bare pole in Bavarian blue and white and a wreath was put up earlier in the week, but the rest of it was added on the first day of the month, October. The previous pole used to be across the street opposite the Haus, but was taken down for streetscape construction and now it has returned.

The pole has the coats of arms of the local cultural clubs: Hubertus Haus, Transylvania Club, Alpen Club, Schwaben Club, and Concordia Club, as well as figures in traditional dress for each club. It also has the arms of the City of Waterloo and the City of Kitchener.

I just wish somewhere around here had a mural of beer and wine at war.

I went to the Feds town hall meeting Friday, where Waterloo VP External Relations Meg Beckel was presenting and answering questions about the new UW marketing logo, which attracted so much criticism from some students over the summer. It is the right thing for her to listen and explain. A few students were a bit like deaf woodpeckers hammering, but not listening, but she kept cool and responded reasonably well.

First she presented some slides explaining the process they went through and Waterloo’s strengths that they are trying to communicate.

The list of Waterloo’s supposed strengths certainly have a shade of truth to them. They are all desirable qualities, but I don’t think they really capture or reflect Waterloo’s culture. I’d like to see phrases that reflect the values and norms of my university. The words as they are while not totally off the mark, smack of cursory jingoism.

One of the slides, in particular, shocked me. The basis for the logo came from superimposing a multi-coloured harmonograph on a black W.

This is very esoteric, like when a company devises a name from ancient Sanskrit word for chaff-free grain, something that few would know. The audience needs to be able to understand a message, be it verbal or visual, without an ancillary explanation.

She communicated her position reasonably well, but there were some apparent contradictions. Innovative was one of the “Waterloo words,” but they apparently weren’t able to use technology in their consultation or testing of their proposals.

She said they used “industry best practices” in developing their visual identity, but in the talk she described consulting with student ambassadors (tour guides), and the alumni council. She also commented that the negative reaction to the logo was a surprise.

Clearly, the consultation was insufficient. While I expect there were other groups involved, the two she mentioned are obviously biased samples.

I support the efforts to build an accurate and unifying brand for Waterloo. I think much of the opposition from students is unreasonable, but there are some obvious weaknesses in the process that brought us here.

It is great that there is more of a public explanation now, but I think it would be better to go further back in the process and start involving students more.

• Selling Waterloo at the universities fair 02 Oct 2009
• Waterloo asking for new logo feedback 10 Sep 2009

Sunday morning I got up and headed downtown for the universities fair at the convention centre. I had allotted extra time to get there because roads were closed for a bank-sponsored run. After navigating away from roadblocks and one-way streets, doubling back and around, and finally finding a reasonable parking garage.

I ran west on the sidewalk, but had to go down and take the path underground to bypass the run. Then rushed up onto the skywalk, into the convention centre and down and down the flights of escalators to get at the Waterloo booth at the last minute. I made it.

Of course things things started slow and only a few students were wandering around, but soon it would pick up.

Later in the morning, our carpeted area was overflowing and surrounding us, the answerers of questions.

What do I need for med school? What sets Waterloo apart? I don’t know what I want to do? Can I get a course calendar? How do I get into pharmacy?

I tried to be friendly and reassuring and sell us based on the value of co-op and our culture. The searchbook, the basic Waterloo pamphlet was helpful. It was just a few pages, minimizing damage to our natural environment, but had basic admissions info and Waterloo strenghts.

It also had the “bold colours” of the newly-created and widely-criticized logo and visual identity.

We also gave out cards with ways to get more information. “You should also come visit our campus on the first Saturday in November.

Then we also asked people to give us their e-mail addresses, to which we would send an information e-mail about how to get the information and brochures they wanted (more “bold colours”).

Helping out at the university fair was great. I hadn’t done it in a long time and it was interesting to see how things have changed. In the afternoon, I left to go back to Waterloo for work.

After my reunion dinner with SSBB at the Concordia Club, I drove Melba back to the house and headed for Toronto. I had told friends that I would be coming in late to celebrate Ian’s birthday with them. I got into their Italian neighbourhood at around 13:30 and started walking south in the rain down to Queen Street, where they were.

Once I got a call to confirm, which actual establishment they might be at, I hailed a cab. A fellow named Imran drove me and met them at Ossington. They were just getting into a pub called Sweaty Betty, we walked into the crowded place and then back out. I wasn’t clear what was wrong with the place, except maybe the name. The name must be some clever pun I don’t get, or it’s just stupid.

Matt, Roy, and Shawn were there too. Others had left the group earlier.

We walked up the street and checked out some other sketch places, like this one place upstairs that was essentially a gutted apartment with what looked like an special occasion permit posted and a bar in what would be the living room if there was any trim, deco or furniture.

Eventually we landed at a place around a corner. A hole in the wall not much longer than the bar counter in contained. At the far end a few eastern European looking fellows were singing in Ukrainian. The place was called the Communist’s Daughter.

The musicians spilled behind the bar and played more songs. The bartender with a shaved head, thick round glasses, a grey sweater and black vest, had to clear pint glasses off the tables so he could serve us some draft.

On a later song a guy with Van Dyke-like chinweed and a German army surplus shirt played guitar behind the bar. Into the song, he jumped up onto the bar. I chuckled when the bartender stopped serving drinks to accompany the strings on an unusual, horizontal trumpet.

After leaving there, we caught a cab back north, and Hendrik drove us to Jess’s place, where she was having an Alberta party, then a few blocks more and time for sleep.