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Grep Without a Pipe

Grep is used commonly to filter the printout of ls and ps commands. It will only print the search criteria that is the parameter of the grep command. For example:

ps aux | grep apache2

The previous command will determine if apache2 has a running process. You can also use the grep command without the pipe. This will search a folder, which you can do recursively with -r, and look for a particular string in the files. You can sift through the contents of the entire /etc directory for a particular string. How powerful!

sudo grep -r static /etc/*

The above command will most likely pull up /etc/network/interfaces, particularly if your network adapter is setup as static.

The Large Hadron Collider

I think this research is fascinating. Investigating the origins of the universe is paramount. Gathering scientific data about fundamental particles, and their nature will uncover new exciting technologies. The more we understand about physics the more progress we will make as a species.

GENEVA – Scientists moved Saturday to prepare the world’s largest atom smasher for exploring the depths of matter after successfully restarting the $10 billion machine following more than a year of repairs.[Source]

After a year of repair, and a faulty startup the Large Hadron Collider is up and running again. With new upgrades, new software and lofty goals I forsee much progress to be made. I myself am excited. Particles will be smashed together at near the speed of light; nearer to the speed of light than ever before in history.

There are two things, that I understand, that may be investigated; or hopefully investigated. The mythological Higgs Boson, the so called force particle can be sought. The standard model, the list of the known fundamental particles that have been found in particle colliders has a few gaps. One gap is clearly gravity, but that is a whole other ballgame, and a topic for another time. The Higgs Boson is the fundamental particule that is supposed to transmitt force, which will fill a big gap on the Standard Model. They may also be able to test certain aspect of String Theory, but this is pure speculation on my part. I do not know exactly what can be tested or not, but frankly I think String theory is an exciting concept.