I’m An Unsafe Coder November 29, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in computers.6 comments
I’m finishing up a string of three owl shifts here at DZERO. One o the things I’m trying to accomplish is some minor improvements to the AI system that monitors DZERO’s data acquisition. Its job is to look for problems, and if it recognizes one, it attempts to fix it or, at the very least, tell us humans on shift how to fix it. I suppose it is more of an expert system than AI.
The last time this code underwent any real work was… well, years ago. The dark ages, actually. The code is cross-platform. Though it runs on Linux systems, I did most of the development work on a Windows system. For these minor upgrades I’m also building it on a Windows system.
The problem is the development tools from Microsoft. As you might guess, since I last built this thing they have done more than evolved! The biggest change, of course, is Microsoft got religion about security. This is even baked into their development tools. So when I build the AI system now I get 100’s of warnings of unsafe coding practices. I’d say 90% of them are great fodder for a buffer overrun exploit – a type of programming exploit that has caused millions of computers to be owned!
Of course, I don’t care. The AI system operates behind a firewall. Even though I know everything there is to know about this system (well, mostly…) there is no way for me to get at it when I’m offsite unless I am fully authenticated and using secure communication protocols. So, this is mostly a pain in the butt for me.
Well… not exactly.
Looking at a few of these closely I see that in many cases I am building strings dynamically and then copying them into fixed length buffers. The string building is dynamic, and I never check to make sure the length of the string is less than the buffer it is being copied into. Now, this can’t be that the dynamic string is longer than the buffer often: this AI program typically runs for weeks at a time. But… you know… now that I think about it and look back at the log files… every now and then it just stops. I’ve never been able to track down why. I wonder if it is something like this?
I guess these things are not only security problems (which I don’t care about) but perhaps are also bugs (which I do care about). Oh well, I guess I’m going to have to fix all of them. Darn.
The D0 Run 2 Detector – 5am shift fun November 28, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in D0.add a comment
I’m on shift at DZERO again. The detector is running amazingly smoothly. We have had one interruption that lasted about 1 second (the system fixed itself). So… I’ve been getting a lot of work done! But sometime around 5am my ability to answer email without making an embarrassing error or run a program without having to try over and over… well, lets just say I give up.
So I’ve been playing with a nice image stitch program I found from MSR: ICE. I took some high resolution pictures of the D0 Run 2 detector’s blueprint and stitched them together at max resolution, and then dumped it into a neat high speed DeepZoom image. Check it out here. Looks best when you full-screen it! [you’ll need Silverlight installed, but you should be prompted if you are missing it automatically].
Bombings in Mumbai November 27, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in life, politics.1 comment so far
I just saw this in the NYTimes:
Coordinated terror attacks struck the heart of Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, Wednesday night, killing dozens in machine-gun and grenade assaults on at least two five-star hotels, the city’s largest train station, a movie theater and a hospital.
I was there – visited one of the hotels that was bombed, was in that train station that was bombed, when I was attending the CHEP 2007 conference. The city is fantastic – so crowded it makes New York City look deserted. I loved it and the people. So it is very sad to see something like this happening. I don’t pretend to being to understand the politics in a country as large and diverse as India – but it looks like this attack was particularly confusing (i.e. none of the various new sources I read have any idea what drove this attack). But it sounds like it was much worse than before: American and British hostages. 
Best wishes and I hope no one reading this is unfortunate enough to be directly connected with any of the victims; and if you are, I can only wish you best of luck.
N.B. Clicking on the picture brings you to pictures in flickr tagged with “mumbai”. When I look at the list there are a bunch of unrelated pictures at the top (i.e. life goes on). Scroll down to see lots of user generated content.
Something Smells Funny Out There November 25, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in science.1 comment so far
Overbye has a good article in the Science Times today. It discusses all the recent results from satellite experiments that, given proper interpretation, may indicate further direct “particle” evidence for dark matter. That would be huge!
The reason I mention the article, however, is Overbye puts in a bunch relating to the competition between the various theorists who are trying to explain the dark matter signals. For example,
That theory was called “a delightful castle in the sky” by Dr. Gordon Kane, who said he was glad it kept Dr. Arkani-Hamed and his colleagues busy and diverted them from competing with him.
And there are a bunch more comments similar to that. Worth the read for the science as well as some of the story about how science is done. It ends with a great quote by ex-UW postdoc, who is now a professor at NYU, Neil Weiner:
In a year or two, we’ll either not be talking about this idea at all, or it will be all we’re talking about.
I love his optimism. If we actually know something definitive in a year or two that would be great! Sadly, in that time scale I don’t think the LHC will have very much to contribute (perhaps in two??)!
The Atom Smashers November 24, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in Fermilab, USA, science.10 comments
The Atom Smashers (http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/atomsmashers/) will show on PBS on Tuesday night. It looks like it focuses on Fermilab and the particle physics research occurring there. I like their tag line:
After funding cut backs, Fermilab—a premier U.S. government research laboratory focusing on particle physics—is struggling to survive. Physics, politics and international competition collide as scientists race to find one of the most elusive sub-atomic particles ever theorized: the Higgs boson.
Elsewhere on the site the film makers claim they don’t try to answer questions – but rather to get you to "think":
We hope this film will raise the awareness of America’s strange relationship with science. We don’t attempt to answer questions in our film, but rather to raise them. Is this research worth doing? Should we care about it? Should the U.S. participate in it or let it get done elsewhere? Also, we hope to help demystify science and scientists. We’d love it if a viewer came away thinking, “You know, those scientists are not really that different from me."
That last line being one of the main points of this blog!! Leave a comment if you get a chance to see it – I’d like to know what you think!
This show is part of PBS’ Independent Lens project. I have no idea if it will be available online. I hope so as I don’t have a TV receiver (their videos online are all very short, so I might be out of luck)!
P.S. Sorry about the links (and lack of them) – the computer I’m on doesn’t have my normal blogging software and so is a pain-in-the-butt to use.
A Very Large Middle Finger November 23, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in politics, university.1 comment so far
From the latest What’s New:
Burton Richter, the American physicist who shared the 1976 Nobel Prize with Sam Ting, showed up on CNN yesterday afternoon … The Chevy Volt, Richter said, could cut US oil consumption by 60%, however, CEO Rick Wagoner had ignored his advice and pushed the arrogant Hummer, which a young lady in my class described as a very large middle finger. Any bailout of GM should be predicated on total conversion to a maker of small high-efficiency vehicles.
Emphasis mine. To any professor that doesn’t think students are smart… 
20% November 20, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in university.1 comment so far
Today the stock market went down 5%. Ok, that is depressingly normal. But this has real effects. Unlike some others, I’ve been fortunate not to see a direct effect (i.e. lost a job, etc.). But this is going to hit home directly in two ways.
The state of Washington has released its latest set of budget numbers – the projected budget gap has gone from 3.2 billion to 5 billion for the next two year state budget cycle in less than 4 months. The state government is now looking to slash about 20% from everyone’s budget.
This will be painful. While the university’s load on the state budget is only 400 million (compared to a 1.2 billion dollar annual operating budget), all of the salaries come from than 400 million. The most immediate effect will be: it will be very difficult to hire anyone new as the University attempts to save money by attrition. On the flip side, of course, everyone’s retirement benefits have got straight into the toilet, which may make people put off retirement!
The second way, of course, will be federal funding. Given the current climate I can’t see any possibility that number will go up. Perhaps Obama’s statement that he will ignore a balanced budget for two years will keep it safe from immediate harsh cuts, but…
The LHC is too big to fail! November 17, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in USA, politics, science.5 comments
A friend of mine and I were discussing the bailout. The consensus seems to be that large companies – like GM and Chrysler – are too big to fail.
Can we say the same thing about a science experiment like the LHC? 
Could we apply for extra science funding under the bailout program?
Science Funding is like… November 13, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in Uncategorized.add a comment
You know how it is. You decided to by that new car on sale because it was just before the new ones came out – sales were great because dealers were clearing lots… And then the new model comes out… and it flies!!! What are you to do? You are stuck with your old car for several years; you can’t just sell it; the value has dropped so much because these new cars fly!
Science funding is about to get a new model. At least, that is what we all hope:
It is no wonder, then, that 76 American Nobel laureates publicly supported Barack Obama – nor that there has been a dramatic lightening in mood among my colleagues in New York over the past week.
Obama understands – at least, according to his campaign literature and rhetoric – that science has the power to improve lives profoundly.
He also realises that the nations that succeed in the highly competitive world economy are those that foster technological advances and nurture intellectual strength.
…
So there is a feeling of hope that the new president will be much better for American science, and as a result for science across the globe.
I’ve seen other articles around the web describing the new “spring” in scientists step.
There is a problem, however, for many of us: that new about to be obsolete car is still on the lot. The funding model in particle physics is done mostly by yearly grants, reapplied for every three years (with reports and oversight on a much more frequent timescale). If you and your group happens to be up for renewal right now… well, the money that the DOE and NSF have to spend on you is what is in the current, pre-Obama budget. And that is a budget from a continuing resolution – and continued at a disastrously low level.
N.B. While I will always remain optimistic (with brief interludes of bitterness) that things will get better, I am under no illusion about the current financial situation and its already real and further potential impact on scientific research in the USA. As the article says:
But it is one thing to pledge an increase of funding during an election campaign, and another to double the budget during a global recession.
Jobs Getting Harder November 12, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in university.5 comments
Yes, I know. It is a big surprise that the economy is affecting academic institutions. Isn’t the reason that we all went into them was to be insulated from the real world, after all? A few weeks ago I wrote that our university prez had said:
The upshot is, Emmert thinks, things will be tight, we don’t have to stare at our toes until this financial crisis blows over. Indeed, he said that this might be an opportune time to do what other universities were doing to us about 4 years ago – poach!
He basically repeated the same thing at a faculty senate meeting I attended a few weeks later. The New York Times recently had an article along the same lines:
Boston University, Cornell and Brown have announced selective hiring freezes.
And Tufts University, which for the last two years has, proudly, been one of the few colleges in the nation that could afford to be need-blind — that is, to admit the best-qualified applicants and meet their full financial need — may not be able to maintain that generosity for next year’s incoming class. This fall, Tufts suspended new capital projects and budgeted more for financial aid. But with the market downturn, and the likelihood that more applicants will need bigger aid packages, need-blind admissions may go by the wayside.
Even private universities are having trouble – especially if their endowment was not well parked. At any rate, it is getting ugly. On the other hand, I do see a fairly good crop of particle physics experiment positions open (theory, experiment – ops! I don’t see this years! hmmm, so much for that argument!). Ok, a good crop of announcements that I’ve seen go by.
Sadly, however, I do think it is going to directly affect us at UW, despite Emmert’s cautious optimism. Bummer. Now that the election is gone we are lucky to still have a friend of the University in the governor’s office, which bodes better for the university budget that it might otherwise in this climate. My fingers are crossed. I really want to be sending out more “We have a job opening” emails!!
