Ayaan Hirsi Ali a Francie

Muj prispevek na ceskem foru euRabia:

Ucastnil jsem se meetingu s Ayaan Hirsi Ali v Parizi. O meeting byl veliky zajem, do salu se veslo cca 200 navstevniku + cca 100 VIPu. Dalsich asi 800 lidi muselo zustat venku.

Ayaan prislo podporit mnoho vyznamnych lidi: Segolen Royal (minula a budouci kandidatka na presidentku Francie), Philipe Vals (sefredaktor Charlie Hebdo - publikoval danske karikatury Mahomeda), Rama Yade (ministrine pro lidska prave, puvodem z Afriky),... Proti Ayaan otevrene vystupuje pouze extremni levice (vetsinou trockisti). Sarkozy se bohuzel zdraha poskytnout Ayaan obcanstvi. Zda se, ze se boji o obchody s muslimskymi zememi. Snazi se to organizovat pres Brusel/EU. Je ale na nej velky tlak, protoze pred volbami prohlasil: "A chaque femme martyrisée dans le monde, je veux dire que la France offre sa protection en lui donnant la possibilité de devenir française" = "Kazde mucene zena na svete chci rici, ze Francie ji poskytne ochranu tim, ze ji da moznost stat se francouskou."

O meetingu jsem napsal kratkou zpravu, s fotkama, na svuj blog: http://hrivnac.free.fr/wordpress/?p=102

Cela diskuse je zde.

Cesti komuniste se nezblaznili

Oni velice dobre vedi co delaji. Je jim jasne, ze zadny jejich kandidat vyhrat nemuze. Pri volbe chteji proste pro sebe ziskat co nejvetsi vyhody. Kandidatura pani Bobosikove je velice jasny signal podporovatelum pana Svejnara: Jestli se s nami nebudete bavit, vaseho kandidata potopime. Je to licitace, komunisti jsou ochotni podporit jakehokoliv kandidata vymenou za ustupky.

A proc to dela pani Bobosikova ? Dobre vi, ze presidentkou zvolena nebude. Ale prece nezahodi moznost promluvit v nejsledovanejsim programu Ceske Televize.

New Athenaeum command available

New Athenaeum command allows to run standard Athenaeum tasks on the server. User doesn't have to supply her Python script, she can use the standard one (which is contained in the Athenaeum applications and used in JAS3 plugin and JSP Web Service). User only supplies her options script. There are several standard tasks currently supplied: Cool, Event, Fork, Info and Restart. Simple results are returned as Strings, more complex results as XML fragments.

Athenaeum is installed within CERN AFS cell, user can use, for example, following commands:

# setup Java (you should put this into your login profile)
source /afs/cern.ch/sw/lcg/external/Java/bin/setup.sh
# find out which tasks are available:
athenaeum
# look at Info task source
athenaeum http://voatlas16.cern.ch:54324 insider Info
# execute Cool task on voatlas16.cern.ch:54324 server
# using myCoolOptions.py script to specify options
athenaeum http://voatlas16.cern.ch:54324 insider Cool myCoolOptions.py

This is a simplest myCoolOptions.py script:

server             = "oracle://ATLAS_COOLPROD"
dbname             = "COMP200"
schema             = "ATLAS_COOLONL_LAR"
user               = ""
password           = ""
lod                = ""
showPoolRef        = "false"
foldersChoice      = ""
tagsChoice         = ""
channelsChoice     = ""
startTime          = "Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 CET 2000"
stopTime           = "Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 CET 2030"
startRun           = "0"
startEvent         = "0"
stopRun            = "2147483647"
stopEvent          = "4294967295"
startLumi          = "0"
stopLumi           = "4294967295"
larCondTypeChoice  = ""
payloadLimit       = "10"

For LAr Ramp payloads asks following script:

server             = "oracle://ATLAS_COOLPROD"
dbname             = "COMP200"
schema             = "ATLAS_COOLONL_LAR"
user               = ""
password           = ""
showPoolRef        = "false"
startTime          = "Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 CET 2000"
stopTime           = "Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 CET 2030"
startRun           = "0"
startEvent         = "0"
stopRun            = "2147483647"
stopEvent          = "4294967295"
startLumi          = "0"
stopLumi           = "4294967295"
larCondTypeChoice  = ""
payloadLimit       = "2"
lod                = "everything"
channelsChoice     = ""
foldersChoice      = "/LAR/ElecCalib/Ramps/Ramp"
larCondTypeChoice  = "*"
tagsChoice         = "LARElecCalibRampsRamp-comm-01"

Outside CERN, user has to install Athenaeum and replace athenaeum alias with full command: java -jar ${ATHENAEUM_HOME}/lib/AthenaeumExt.exe.jar. He has probably to set up an SSH tunnel to the Athenaeum server as well, like this: ssh -L54324:voatlas16.cern.ch:54324 user@voatlas16.cern.ch

(currently unavailable) All Athenaeum functionality is available via graphical clients which can be installed and run using Web Start. If you have correctly integrated Java 1.5 or 1.6 with you browser, that link will install and start Athenaeum client or you machine (Linux, MS or MacOSX). You may also do it with following command: javaws http://cern.ch/hrivnac/Activities/Packages/WebStart/JAS3/jas3.jnlp.

Simplified Athenaeum version is also available as a JSP Web Service.

More informations about Athenaeum are available from its Home Page.

La nationalité française et la protection pour Ayaan Hirsi Ali

A chaque femme martyrisée dans le monde, je veux dire que la France offre sa protection en lui donnant la possibilité de devenir française. N.Sarkozy Environ 200 personnes pouvaient participer (plus environ 100 VIP). 800 sont restés dehors. Tout le monde a soutenu la demande de la nationalité française et de la protection pour Ayaan. Malheureusement, Rama Yade, ne pouvait pas l'annoncer, il semble que Mr.Sarkozy hésite. Je pense que la France devrait être heureux que personne comme Ayaan Hisri Ali veut devenir français et ne doit pas hésiter une minute. Plus d'informations (et une vidéo) est disponible sur le blog de Caroline Fourest. Plus d'information et la pétition se trouve sur le site du magazine Le Meilleur des Mondes.

Tajne Volby !

Tajne Volby ! Vzpominate ? To jsme skandovali v listopadu 1989. Komuniste totiz pouzivali verejnost volby na kontrolu svych obcanu. Nepripomina vam to neco ? Zda se, ze velka cast poslancu uz zapomnela. Nebo uz v roce 1989 nepatrili mezi skandujici, ale mezi ty, jak se tehdy zdalo, odchazejici.

Je dobre si pripomenout, ze poslanci jsou v Parlamanetu sami za sebe a maji hlasovat podle vlastniho svedomi (tak nejak to stoji i v Ustave). Nikdo tedy nema pravo jim prikazovat koho maji volit - a pri volbe je kontrolovat. Presvedcovani (nekteri rikaji natlak) je naopak scela legitimni. Ostatne vsichni maji moznost presvedcovat ostatni - rika se tomu politicka diskuse. V opacnem pripade je uplny Parlament zcela zbytecny. Uplne postaci, kdyz v nem bude za kazdou stranu sedet jeden zastupce a jeho hlas bude vazen vysledkem jeho strany v poslednich volbach. Parlament bude pouze registrovat usneseni stranickych sekretariatu. Bude to prehlednejsi, a levnejsi.

Namitka, ze pri verejne volbe mohli obcane kontrolovat sve zastupce, take neobstoji. Tuto moznost nemeli v patek a sobotu obcane, meli ji pouze partajni sefove.

Sauvegardons la laïcité de la République

Signer la pétition

New Old Atlas Graphics Page

is here. It contains links to all major Atlas graphics applications.

How to get HEP in Java ?

Ok — so the question is — given where particle physics is now - how do we get them in?


My contribution to the Java discussion on the Gordon Watts blog:

Short answer:
——————-
Write useful applications.
Examples from Atlas: Atlantis, Tag Collector, AMI,…
Examples from HEP: FreeHEP, jHepWortk,…

 

Longer answer:
———————-
Write useful applications + convince bosses to allow non-Root/non-C++ components. There is a big problem with CERN IT management: they have chosen to choose one framework/language and to boycot anything else.
The first choice was LHC++/Objy/IrisExplorer, the second is Root. The second choice is clearly better, but the main problem persist: bureaucratic
monopolisation. Any project capable of disturbing Root/C++ monopoly is illegal in CERN. There are many concrete examples: people are asked to remove their code from LCG repository because it is in Java, proposed presentations and tutorials are refused for the same reason.
Java is not the only victim, non-Root C++ projects suffer as well.

Many choices made by LCG (Atlas incl.) have been made just to lock us in the “chosen” technology: Root C++ dialect.At the beginning of LCG, there were some some (shy) attempts to make real modular architecture with abstract interfaces. Several RTAGs went in that direction. All that has been canceled. Java RTAG (yes, it was scheduled) was renamed to “future languages” RTAG and silently canceled later. Etc,etc

Tous autour d'Ayaan Hirsi Ali le 10 février à Paris

Le 10 février, à Paris, se tiendra un grand meeting de soutien autour de Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Plus d'informations sur le blog de Caroline Fourest. Ayaan Hirsi Ali a aussi son blog.

Java is more then twice faster then C++ in real life benchmark

Atlas uses Octopus to convert its geometry database from Oracle to SQLite. Octopus is written in 100% Java, as well as MySQL JDBC driver. Until recently, we were using native C++ implementation of SQLite, interfaced with Octopus via JNI. We have now migrated into 100% Java implementation of SQLite. This implementation has been created automaticaly using NestedVM tool. NestedVM converts MIPS binary (result of GCC compilation) code into Java classfiles. This way, any language, which can be compiled by GCC, can be translated into Java. Resulting Java is supposed to be quite slower as original code (or equivalent code written directly in java) because it contains only very low-level language constructs (quite close to assembler).

What was our surprise, when we have found that new 100% Java implementation is more then twice faster than previous mixed Java-C++ implementation. We get that speed-up on top of usual advantages of Java: platform independence (we just need one distribution, which runs on every platform, 32 or 64 bit based), exact reproducibility of results and order-of-magnitude smaller executable.