Alex's Somewhat Redesigned Island on the Web

Why this page is so minimalist.

    All web page are under construction to some extent or another, but this is the first effort at revampment in two or three years (now with new, minor changes!)  Previously, I've never had much interest in investing a lot of time on a web page. While I enjoy peeking into the lives of (interesting) strangers, I haven't seen the same benefit to opening up my life in the same way :)
    What's changed my mind? I've accumulated enough stuff that I think would be of genuine interest to others, and that I'd like to share.

Who Am I?

Graduate School

I am a first-year graduate student in Physics at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).

Why Physics? Because it is the fundemental science, the center of the universe (although the mathematicians might also argue for that title). Only physics can answer the question Why We Are All Here, something the philosophers have been grappling with for thousands of years without any progress.
 

Undergrad

Previously, I attended the University of Texas at Austin, graduating in December, 2001, with a B.S. Physics.

    I worked for  Dr. Karol Lang in the UT-High Energy Physics group on the MINOS project. MINOS is a vast international collaboration (like so much of high energy physics) set out to measure the mass the (formerly believed to be massless) neutrino. Our primary contribution is to model, measure, understand, and test the 1700+ phototubes for the Far Detector.

"Physicists cannot do...

"Given these facts, why the hell would anyone want to hire a physicist? The answer: Physicists can do 80% as well as the experts on all these tasks, whereas each of the experts' abilities goes quickly to zero once outside their disciplines. Even in my company, there are engineers of many types on many tasks, but the guys at the top are disproportionately physics PhDs. [Okay, there are a couple of engineers and maybe even a chemist.] Why? Because they are the ones who can comprehend the big picture and make sure that all the subdisciplines are exchanging the right information with each other."

(Quote extracted from an article by Jeffrey Hunt of Boeing in the American Physical Society FIAP newsletter. Used without any permission, but I hope they won't mind.)

University of Texas Sailing Club

I'm retired Commodore of the UT Sailing Club. For the non-sailors, the office of Commodore is akin to that of "President", but the title dates back a couple of hundred years. It's a lot of work, but incredibly rewarding. We've got some thirty-five boats, ranging from simple Sunfish all the way to our pride and joy, our flagship, the J/24. We sail for fun, for teaching and instruction, for racing, and just to get away from it all. I can be found on Lake Travis most Saturdays, riding the wind.

Some other organizations...

UT Ballroom Dance Club

UTBDC has the distinction of possibly being the only ballroom dance club with more guys than gals. This makes classes progressively more awkward as the semester progresses. You might think this would lead to more women showing up, but no. Still, it's a wonderful resource, and a lot of fun.

Flying Club, Longhorn Solar Racecar Team

I used to be involved with these organizations, but busy life means concentrating your time where most important.

 

My Computers

    As anyone who knows me knows, computers are a rather important part of my life and interests. I've a disparate collection of four, all running one flavour of Un*x or another, and include x86, Alpha, Sparc, and 68040/Mac.

Ford Taurus SHO

    I'm enthralled by the Ford Taurus SHO, and hope to own one soon. Here's a little corner on some research I've picked up from reading on the web and forums and mailing lists, including resources on locating SHOs in Texas, and common failure modes.


 

I'll add more when I get to it. (Oh, sure!) In the meantime, email me at awinbow@mail.utexas.edu