How does the most complicated machine in the world work? Why should we pay 16 billion euros to keep some physicists happy with a new toy? What has CERN ever done for us? What happens when you lose control of a beam the size of spaghetti with the energy of a full express train? This talk, delivered by a beam instrumentation engineer at CERN, will introduce CERN and it's accelerator complex, and discuss the technology required to deliver one petabyte of cutting-edge science per day to over 170 research facilities in 36 countries. The talk will also cover some of CERN's open source software and hardware contributions to date, and finally explore their science and technology roadmap for the coming years.