Gordon Watts

Blown

Those of you that read blogs around the web will likely have seen these...

• Amazing video of a guy walking around after the storm. Amazing how much stuff just go blown into the street. He starts by saying "I'll just let the video speak for itself". He's right. And how are there still trees standing!?
• Ernie the Attorney was in New Orleans when it hit. But he also got a riveting summary of a doctor's experience. [Thanks Scoble].
• NYTimes photo series (registration may be required). These are all stunning pictures in a nice large format for easy viewing.
• Fickr's katrina cluster. It looks like enough pictures have been uploaded to Flickr that its automatic clustering algorithm is starting to grab pictures from the New Orleans/Mississippi part of Katrina's wake (it used to be only the Florida bit). This series of photos will be dynamic -- what you see on one day will be very different from the next. As more uploads occur in flickr you can see other groupings here.
• Satellite Image of Katrina just before she hit [digg]. And time-lapse for those of you with quicktime.

The standard news web sites also have lots of video up. Often the talking heads get in the way of really getting a grasp of what happened. I'm not sure why they feel like they can explain what happened better than the pictures. The sheer scale makes it almost impossible to explain verbally. Talking heads are good for explaining how the price of oil will or won't be affected and that dubya isn't on vacation any longer. But what can they really add to a picture of a flattened house (they try: "Wow, there is nothing there!")?

Americans in Marseille

Robert, Paula, and I got together for a few drinks this afternoon. We sat outside in a square around Cours Julien and had beer/wine. What did we talk about? Of course, it started with New Orleans. I remember at one point looking around at everyone there and wondering if anyone else here was talking about it.

It was really nice. I remember after 9/11 not being able to talk to friends about the disaster because I was stranded in Calgary (which was very welcoming -- but it isn't the same without your friends). By the time I returned home from Calgary my friends had all been processing the events for 3 days; I was just ready to get started.

We talked about the various web sites we were getting pictures from. Really, words don't do the tragedy justice. Mostly news sites. I assume there are lots of people who have taken their own pictures already but the place is such a disaster and there are so many more important things to worry about they've not really had a chance to upload yet. As a result flickr and smugmug aren't showing much original material yet. I have to say that I really like looking at people's pictures. The new organization's pictures are stunning -- but they don't have the personal and emotional power that an individual's photo does -- even if it just of a shelter in Baton Rouge or a back yard fence.

After that the conversation jumped to Intelligent Design. The proof that there is a God is that the hurricane turned and missed New Orleans at the last minute -- in a totally unpredictable way. This statement uses the result to prove the existence of God. Of course, in science you don't get to do that. You have to assume there is a God and then say "he will move the hurricane at the last minute" and then go back and look at all the hurricanes not just this one. This statement assumes God and tries to predict how the world would be different -- and then tries to test it. We had some fun with that.

Then we got onto conspiracy theories. All sorts -- who was really behind 9/11? etc. But there was a new one that I'd never heard -- did Iraq really invade Kuwait. I'd never given a second though (I can't say that I have given it a second though at this point either). It was a lot of fun.

And it was really nice just to sit and talk and unwind with good people.

Fingers Crossed

Well, the socre is now 3 to 2. 3 bugs in ROOT code and 2 bugs in my code. The 3rd ROOT bug is understood but not fixed. Hopefully after this is fixed I'll be able to make a plot again! Woo hoo!

Of course, by saying this I've totally jinxed it and there will be another nasty bug hiding...

Bad News Day...

Lots of bad news today.

• More than 500 killed by bridge collapse in Iraq.
• Leves fail in New Orleans. Spent new year's eve 2000 there. It was a lot of fun. I wonder if it will ever be the same? This finally got Bush out of his vacation. The news reports are rather grim -- things so bad they are ignoring the dead looking for the living.
• >60% think creationism/Intelligent Design should be taught along side evolution in public schools. School ciricula by design? Our poor students are going to be so confused. And laughed out of other countries with more advanced school systems.

I actually was going to start talking about what (another) crappy day I'm having -- ROOT is still giving me crashes (though in a totally different place). Then I looked at the news and realized, unfortunately, that I'm not having that bad a day. Nothing like perspective.

Stupid Tax

I paid again! After finding the bugs in my software I discovered that I wasn't really using ROOT correctly. There was a better, more efficient way to approach it. Cool! Since I have to regenerate all my files, I guess I'll just redo my code.

Duh. That was another almost 24 hours wasted. My bad this time. Exactly like altering a lug nut and having the fuel injector fail. But I think it is stable now. I'm getting plots out!! One bug left, but I can work around it safely.

I gave serious consideration to changing from ROOT to something else, like JAS. JAS is based on Java, a more modern programming language -- and it runs on a virtual machine. This means about half the bugs I had in my code would have been pointed out earlier and I would have spent less time debugging (5 days is a lot of time for someone to be stuck like this). But ROOT is like Microsoft Office -- it has about 90% market share. Everyone uses it and DZERO writes common analysis tools around it. So I have to use it unless I want to do a lot of extra work.

And while I was working on tihs Microsoft sent around a request for proposals -- like one for eScience. I spent a few minutes trying to think if it was enough to write a ROOT replacement. Sadly, so much work has gone into this that there is no way. But it was a fun fantasy before getting back to ROOT.

Hopefully this blog will now return to more normal and less technical topics!

It's a Bug, Jim

ROOT is like a formula 1 race car. If you over tighten a lug-nut, about 100 miles down the track, on a sharp left hand turn, the fuel injector will fail. As the mechanic you have to figure out that it was that lug nut that caused the fuel injector to fail. They may not seem like they are connected, but they are!

It finally broke today. I spent all weekend trying to distill my fiarly complex code down to something simple that would cause my crash. And I got it. There were three problems. Two ROOT's and one mine.

The first was a stupid-tax bug. I was trying to clean up after myself, deleted unnecessary things, etc. That tickled a weird bug in ROOT that has now been fixed. That was probably me being too clever.

The second is a "huh"!? type of bug. I read a directory twice. If you read it once you are ok, but twice causes problems. And it only causes problems if you then save the file from which you read the directory. And only causes problems when you read back in that file. The ROOT folks are still trying to understand that one -- so it may turn out to be my fault in the end. ;-)

The last one was mine. I did the classic C++ mistake: I tried to throw something into the trash twice! Right. I agree, how could you do that!? Well, sufice it to say that I didn't realize I was throwing it in the trash the first time. ROOT did it for me. Expected behavior, but I, none-the-less, didn't catch (forbout about) it.

I hope this ends 4 amazingly frustrating days. I've done no physics or real thinking and my eyes hurt from staring at the screen for so long.

But, hey, there is no other tool like ROOT out there and this is part of the price of being free (and to me for trying to be a bit too clever perhaps). Hopefully with the bug fixes that are back in the ROOT source no one else will have to face this!!

Watching the Train Wreck Happen

I keep hopping that Katrina will suddenly veer off and go back out to sea, but doesn't look likely. So, I've been periodically scanning Flickr -- searching for the tag Katrina -- curious to see what people will upload. It does feel a little like watching a train wreck in slow motion.

Given that everyone who is in New Orleans has been told to get the heck out of there and that those that can't are in the Super Dome it isn't likely there will be much posted to Flickr other than screen scrapes from TV's (and I seriously hope no one has stayed behind to post pictures). But if previous events are any indication people stuck there will take pictures and upload them after-the-fact. This happened with the London Bombings, for example. Some of them were amazing. You can already see some pretty amazing pictures. And this guy seems to have cataloged the contents of his house on Flickr to deal with the insurance when he returns (at least, I hope he has left!!)....

Too Bad It Was On The Editorial Page

It was very nice to read a balanced article on Intelligent Design, from the NYTimes.

William Dembski, one of the most vocal supporters of intelligent design, notes that he provoked Thomas Schneider, a biologist, into a response that Dr. Dembski characterizes as "some hair-splitting that could only look ridiculous to outsider observers." What looks to scientists - and is - a knockout objection by Dr. Schneider is portrayed to most everyone else as ridiculous hair-splitting.

Too bad it is in the op-ed section of the paper.

Which brings me to something else. World View. We all filter information we gather from some perspective. I from a scientists perspective, perhaps a painter form a painter's perspective. When I get information about a painting I can tell simple stuff -- I like it, neat use of colors, etc., it looks like a Picasso -- but I don't have the ability to tell the expert stuff -- is it really a Picasso. So I look to an expert. But how do I choose an expert? What if two of the experts disagree? Worse is what if I already own the painting, so I want to believe it is a Picasso?

How does someone that isn't a scientist judge the evolution arguments? Especially if they are already favor one side of the argument because of their upbringing? Especially when our government -- which one might trust as a source -- seems to be saying that ID is a viable option?

If you didn't know what to trust off the top of your head and you started reading all these blogs both pro-ID and anti-ID could you tell? How long would it take you?

The Marseille Way

If you arrive at your friends door at 3am, ring the door bell once, and they don't respond immediately, start yelling at the top of your voice to wake up your friend. It really helps if you have 2 or 3 of you together. This has the effect of waking up everyone on the street. They will start yelling back at you. You should yell back at them. The rising noise will eventually wake up your friend and they will late you in and all will return to quiet.

I HATE ROOT

ROOT is a tool that all high energy physicists depend on. Without it, and its author, Rene, the world of HEP would be a very different -- and we probably wouldn't be able to do what we can. I don't think it is an understatement to say that the previous version of ROOT, PAW, revolutionized the way we analyze data (think of it as a database optimized for the kind of work we do).

But there are times! The software (like ROOT) is like a high performance race car: if one thing is slightly out of whack... crash! I started this morning thinking I would take 10 minutes to finish up looking at a study on taus. I'd run the jobs before breakfast and they were done by the time I got into the office. Just had to look at 2 plots. First inkling that was going to be a bad day: the plots were there, but they weren't! Some funny error messages "R__unzip error: bad header" and a bunch of zeros! Ack! What to do?

Google the problem, of course. Unfortunately I couldn't find anyone else with the problem, but I did see that there had been 5 bug fix patches to the version of ROOT I was using. I downloaded those, installed, and built the tool. Now I had a real crash. Not just an error message, mind you, but a core file and everything else. I tried to rebuild, change options, everything. Nothing. Finally, I removed the patches and was back to the original error. I'd started this at about 10am, and it was now 4pm!!!

While trying to write up a bug report to send in to the experts I discovered something really weird. I could see the plot in the GUI, but not from the command line. Further investigation revealed that ROOT had written out a "directory entry" but no data! It is as if the icon appeared in your windows explorer for a picture, but when you clicked on it it said "Hey! There is no file!" Hopefully your operating system would never allow that to happen! Turns out ROOT did it without complaining.

Who knows why this happened. And why it happened for that one stupid plot (well, I know -- because it was the plot I wanted). At this point it was 6pm. I was still in a dark mood by 6:30 when I got home, but two beers out on a terrace with Paula seems to have fixed that.

I'll have to figure this out this weekend. Ugh. I hate ROOT.