Welcome to the new blog! If you’re reading this you likely already know who I am. If not, peruse the main page a bit for a clue (doing a full self-intro is a bit much). However, the point of this blog is to provide more comprehensive updates on what I’m up to in life and other matters. I’ll update with blog posts when time permits.

I’m very nearly finished with the ‘coursework’ part of PhD.

A couple months ago I finished the second year of my PhD. The only course that remains for me is an advanced course for Particle Physics. The good news is that the hardest courses (like graduate Quantum and Quantum Field Theory) are out of the way. After I take my last course next Spring, I’ll be moving on to planning for my Candidacy Exam. From what I gather it won’t be all that bad though. I won’t be expected to hand calculate QFT amplitudes for it or anything.

In the meantime, I’ve been full throttle in doing research.

For those that are unaware, I joined up with a CERN (CMS) group during my 1st year of PhD. I’ve been chipping away at my first High Energy project ever since. We’re basically looking for evidence of Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) physics which might include dark matter. I’ve specifically been part of a search for additional Higgs-like particles that could be related to dark matter.

There’s a lot of motivation behind adding additional Higgs Bosons to the Standard Model so it’s a pretty novel search. If you’re curious, shoot me a message on any platform or check out these slides I made when I took QFT2 BSM Physics Slides. The search I’m involved in is in two neutral Higgs-like scalars decaying to resolved photons, the category of searches I’m working on is under the umbrella of Xaa particle searches at CERN. If you want some interesting reading on it, I’ll give some links for that too.

https://home.cern/news/news/physics/cms-collaboration-explores-how-ai-can-be-used-search-partner-particles-higgs

For the related prior merged (unresolved) photons study: https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.134.041801

Research work has been pretty steady. I didn’t really have the time to dig in much until after I finished the first year of classes. However, by the time I finished my second year we had largely developed our analysis strategy. However, we can’t really move forward until we have more simulation to make predictions for more mass hypotheses. Learning how to do that has been much of what my summer has been so far this year. That’s…been a struggle.

When one works in the frontier of physics you engage with the ever-moving goalposts directly. In my experience that has been learning how to deal with the constantly changing detector conditions, disparate software packages updated in isolation, and compute infrastructure roadblocks every step of the way.

All my work hasn’t just been on my analysis though. I’ve been doing a lot of travel to Fermilab the past year. At first it was for DQM (Data Quality Monitoring) shifts. Then it was for attending schools such as EDIT and CMSDAS, where we learned about different kinds of detectors and analysis tools. Now, I’m also engaging in some lab work for the CMS Outer Tracker. So, a bit of everything. Tell you what though, getting up at 6am to drive past Chicago takes a bit out of you.

As a cool aside, this week I engaged in some DQM shifts for new kinds of beams at the LHC, namely proton-Oxygen beams for ion collisions. You can read more about what we’re doing with that here.

https://home.cern/news/news/accelerators/first-ever-collisions-oxygen-lhc

The plan at present is to try and ‘finish’ my current analysis my next February before moving onto planning my thesis project. I’ll be continuing hardware work in parallel. The hope is that I’ll be able to head to CERN come candidacy (funding permitting).

I can’t share all details on these things, but I will share what I’m permitted to as my research evolves.

There’s plenty of time for play.

It’s not all work here though, as some of you already know. I engage in most nerdly activities, and have continued here.

Game Collecting

If there’s anything I’ve learned about this area of Indiana, it’s that the retro game shops mean serious business. My game collection has grown immensely since moving out here. Some key achievements we have done is collecting all the mainline single-player Final Fantasy games as well as all of Xenosaga. There’s also me copping Chrono Trigger as well. It’s been a bit of JRPG heaven for some time.

My last big purchase was around 20 or so NES cartridges at a game shop down the street from our apartment. Probably taking a collection break for a couple months after that.

Game Streaming

I have been streaming on and off while here as well. I have sinced moved to YouTube (Twitch deleting recordings was too much for me). Most recently I have been streaming Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 and 4 in preparation for the upcoming remakes. I am also doing a challenge replay of Trails games (such as Trails in the Sky). For those, the additional gimmick is that I’ve added custom stream animations as well as made a website to track NPCs over the course of the games. I will likely bring back the Retro PC emulation streams at some point in the future.

Streams are usually Tuesdays and/or Fridays here: Streams happen here

For those curious about the Trails companion site: Trails Stream Companion Site

Recent Games (not streamed)

I play many games off stream still. I am still crunching through my backlog of console games. The most recent games I finished were Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Oblivion Remastered, Assassin’s Creed: Origins (played on PS5) and Ys III: Wanderers from Ys (Turbo-CD).

Thoughts on CO:E33

I remember seeing the initial trailers for this game and thinking it was either going to be a banger or another flop. I gladly had little reason to be concerned.

As a singular game unconnected to any prior IP, this is the best game I have played in a VERY long time. I feel comfortable comparing this game’s quality to that of Final Fantasy 6, Legend of Dragoon, or Xenogears. It is essentially everything that is good about the JRPG genre, but the cultural aspect is swapped for French. It does everything right one could ask for, and harkens back to a time when games could really stand out among a crowd. Personally, the best I’ve played this generation, the only gripes one can make are extremely minor (and most are likely to get patched) 9.8/10 game.

Thoughts on Oblivion Remastered

Perspective is an interesting thing. Many people who were introduced to The Elder Scrolls with Skyrim are finding themselves admiring what Oblivion has that Skyrim doesn’t. While I find myself conversely remembering what Skyrim improved upon. To contextualize this mini-review, I played 100% unmodded for a more unbiased perspective. Put most frankly, the remaster has all the same problems the original game had and more. All of the same game breaking bugs exist, it still CTDs like crazy, and the rebalancing of the leveling system and combat makes it less fun to play. Playing this reminds me why I like Oblivion less than Morrowind and Skyrim. Morrowind does the RPG mechanics better, while Skyrim does the combat and exploration better. I did all of the content and still say it’s like 6.8/10 at best, without mods. Shivering Isles is still good though.

Thoughts on AC:O

I went into this with very low expectations after being disappointed with Unity and Syndicate. I was pleasantly surprised by a solid game (despite its poor performance). I thought the narrative, characters, and combat were solid. My biggest criticism of those is that they clearly cut a lot of the Aya content and plot from the game, which it suffers for. I’m glad that the Modern plot elements came back for this one. It’s not revolutionary but it’s a solid 7.5/10 experience.

Thougts on Ys III: Wanderers from Ys

I have mixed feelings on this one. Not counting Oath in Felghana, this is probably my favorite version. However, the game itself is still sort of bad. It’s the Turbo-CD so it has solid graphics but the benefit of CD elevates its soundtrack to the next level. A lot of people bash the voice acting, but I think it’s kind of cute. This game really did need some better mixing for the voice acting and music to be better balanced though. You can hardly hear the character voices over the music. The actual gameplay I can’t praise nearly as much. It’s a really simple game, but the monster and boss combat design leaves a lot to be desired. The bosses in this game were more tedious and annoying than difficult. 4/10 game, but 10/10 OST.

Humans are social creatures too.

There’s a lot of social things I do now too. I sometimes go to Karaoke with other PhD students (and Lily). There’s been any number of social outings we do otherwise (like bowling). The most regular event though is game night.

Does it resolve?

Lately I’ve been hosting game nights pretty regularly, most of which devolve into playing Commander (MTG/EDH). We end up with at most 10 people in our apartment some weekends. It’s a blast but gets me to make some questionable deck-building decisions.

Did I really need to build a deck with several infinite combos just to prove a point?

Currently, I’m considering building a group hug deck with Food token play. I’ve already concocted a possible decklist for this guy.

What else?

I’ve done a lot of fun things with Lily and my friends this year, too many to post in just this blog entry. However, one newer thing is that Lily and I picked up LEGO kits as a hobby to do together. We just finished our first kit within the past week, it’s a fun little distraction to do together.

For upcoming events, today is the 4th of July (so Happy 4th). The most immediate thing we’re doing is going out for that. Next week is my 7-year anniversary with Lily, so we’re going out for that too (likely more on that in the next blog post).

Also, one more item of note. Around the end of the Spring semester I started hitting the gym and dieting again. My weight lost has been pretty major thus far. I’ve lost around 24 pounds (10.8 kg) since I’ve started. I eventually want to get down below 180, but let’s appreciate the small steps. For context, I started at around 225 lb. The basic strategy I’ve employed is 2-3 days of gym (most weeks), cutting 99% of the carbs and sugar in my diet, and intermittent fasting. I may start biking to and from campus sometimes once I get to a weight I’m happy with.

Future blog posts will not be as long usually, the first one just had a log of upfront worth saying.

Till Next Time,

Rob