Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights

Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights - read here
The petition ! - sign here

GraXML gives 3D View to Atlantis

There is now a prototype of Atlantis with 3D View possibility provided by GraXML. Following Atlantis elements can be shown in GraXML: S3D SiCluster STr (simplified) InDetTrack (only some descriptions) Jet BJet TauJet Electron Muon Photon ETmis The complete application is available via Web Start, it can be downloaded and started directly from you Web Browser if your Java (1.5 or 1.6) is correctly installed. Otherwise, you can download and start it using javaws command. There is Simple Guide to Atlantis-GraXML package.

Object Extensions

My contribution to the discussion on another blog, concerning possibilities to dynamically extend objects with new methods

If you are allowed to use Java, you can use Groovy (which is bytecode-compatible with Java). Then you can do something like this:

// Define "extension" method within a class 
class IntegerCategory { 
  static boolean isEven(Integer value) { 
    return (value&1) == 0 
    } 
  }    

// Use it 
  use (IntegerCategory.class) { 
    println 2.isEven() 
    println 3.isEven() 
    } 

I don’t agree that nobody is using Java & comp. for data analyses. There are many users of JAS and jHepWork (certainly not in Atlas). And The Atlas event display - Atlantis - is written in Java.The example I mentioned above was not directly in Java, but in Groovy. Groovy is a kind of Java-extension - dynamically typed language. It is completely compatible with Java (you can freely mix them in one program) and it has many unsafe features which some people would like to have in Java (like operator overloading, multiple inheritance,…). And it has excellent support for XML and SQL. It is, for example, very easy to create a histogram from SQL table: http://hrivnac.free.fr/wordpress/?p=72.

Java itself can support features you have asked for via “Dynamic Proxy”:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-jtp08305.html
It is very powerful system, but a bit complex.

[It is strange that all my cotributions are marked as spams - maybe because of included URLs ?]

The complete thread is here.

Putin et La Bombe

Un autre signe que nous devrions avoir peur: Préemptive attaque nucléaire peut être utilisée pour défendre la Russie, selon le chef des forces armées russe, le général Iouri Baluevsky (par Russia Today).

Rapport Attali

Rapport de la Commission pour la liberation de la croissance francaise est publié. l est très rare de voir une proposition tellement rationnelle. J'espère seulement que N. Sarkozy ne renoncera pas aux attaques des imbéciles de gauche et de droite, et il appliquera les propositions.

En fait, j'ai été impressionné par J. Attali déjà auparavant. Chaque fois quand je l'ai entendu, j'ai été surpris que quelqu'un d'aussi intelligent peut se déclarer à gauche. J'ai eu la même impression aussi avec d'autres, comme B. Kouchner. Il semble que même les gens raisonnables doivent prétendre être sur la gauche si ils veulent être acceptées.

Plus d'informations sur le blog de J. Attali.

Java Web Start in Atlas

Despite managerial boycot, Java is well used in Atlas. There are also several WebStart-based applications available: https://twiki.cern.ch/twiki/pub/Atlas/PvssDataViewer/PvssDataViewer.jnlp http://atlaseditor3d.web.cern.ch/AtlasEditor3D/images/EMDH.jnlp http://triggertool.web.cern.ch/triggertool/TriggerTool.jnlp http://cern.ch/atlas-l1calo/l1calomap/l1calomap.jnlp http://www.hep.ucl.ac.uk/atlas/atlantis/webstart/atlantis.jnlp http://www.hep.ucl.ac.uk/atlas/atlantis/webstart3d/atlantis3d.jnlp http://cern.ch/hrivnac/Activities/Packages/WebStart/GraXML/GraXML.jnlp http://cern.ch/hrivnac/Activities/Packages/WebStart/JAS3/jas3.jnlp

Mur de l'Égypte

AFP a dit:

Membres du Hamas et des Comités de résistance populaire, ont détruit les deux-tiers du mur de séparation entre la bande de Gaza et l'Egypte voisine, à l'aide d'engins explosifs et des bulldozers.

...

Quatre Palestiniens et un garde égyptien ont été blessés par balles, lors de heurts avec les forces égyptiennes.

Eh bien, il ya un mur entre Gaza et l'Égypte ? Non seulement entre Gaza et Israël ? Je ne me souviens pas d'un journaliste de parler de ça.

Et les egyptians ont tiré à leurs frères palestiniens ?

Athenaeum 1.5.1.3 released

Athenaeum 1.5.1.3 has been released. The most important change is support for Cool database in SQLite (when they are accessible from CERN AFS). This release is available via all usual channels: From Athenaeum Home Page as simple Athenaeum plugin to JAS3. You should have JAS3 already installed. In case you have already installed JAS3 with an older version of Athenaeum plugin, the updated will be proposed to you when you start JAS3 next time. As a Web Start Application installable by single click on any machine (as long as Java is already there). As a J2EE Web Service which is slower and less functional, but doesn't require any local installation. From CERN Java Distribution directly runnable within CERN AFS cell. Athenaeum runs on all incarnations of Linux, MS and MacOS. It depends only on Java, version at least 1.5.

Why Root ?

Here is my contribution to HEP software discussion in another blog:

Hi,
just a note concerning monopolistic position of Root and invisibility of other (often Java-based) projects. There was a long (and heated) discussion about it on the Root WikiPage in June 2006. Here is my view (with links to other contributions):
http://hrivnac.free.fr/wordpress/?p=5

In short: After the disaster of LHC++ project in CERN, CERN IT didn’t want to take any risk and outsourced all software development to Root team. Since that time, all non-Root development is effectively forbidden in CERN. There are alternative projects, but it is very difficult to get them through due to CERN boycot.

Here are just two alternative project examples (besides JAS):
http://projects.hepforge.org/jhepwork (Java)
http://openscientist.lal.in2p3.fr (C++)

Julius

The whole thread is here.

Soutien aux OGM - Petitions

• CULTIVER DES OGM EST UN CHOIX LEGAL ! AGISSONS POUR PRESERVER CETTE LIBERTE EN 2008 !


• nonaumoratoire sur le maïs GM résistant à la pyrale