Late night for a talk March 1, 2006
Posted by dorigo in computers, physics, science.2 comments
In 20 minutes, Elena will show some results of her analysis of top mass reconstruction at the CDF top mass meeting. We will be in video link with Fermilab, where is now afternoon (3PM there) while here it is 10PM and we would rather be in bed.
It has been a long day - we basically reprocessed all the data with an improvement (in the jet energy corrections) to obtain new plots for Elena’s presentation. Happily everything went smoothly, although we did not have a minute to spare.
Now Elena is rather tense, having 40 minutes to describe the details of her work, which involves the use of an algorithm never used in CDF analyses before - it is called rForest and will be the subject of a post tomorrow…. Stay tuned!
Beliefs and compromise March 1, 2006
Posted by dorigo in personal, politics, science.add a comment
I answered a comment by Riqie to my post “Go Oriana” a moment ago. I think the topic is worth a post of its own, so I replicate it below.
In his comment, Riqie points out that my being a scientist would require me to speak the truth and fight for it despite the consequences.
I agree with Riqie, an illuministic world would be a much better place to live in.
The fact is, before being a scientist I am a man, and as a man I like to take a stand for what I think is right. And, strange as it might sound, sometimes one has to avail compromise rather than defence of what one believes to be the undisputable truth.
As much as I loathe Calderoli (our Minister of Reforms who had to resign after the riots in Lybia following his wearing a T-shirt with cartoons on muhammed) I have to admit there is nothing wrong from a purely technical point of view in wearing a T-shirt, whatever its contents - showing the Pope with a dildo up his ass, to make an example.
However, when it comes to saving lives, practicing dialogue with the islamic world rather than throwing gasoline on the fire is the side I’m taking.
Sorry if that does not fit with the clear-cut scientist kind of image I was projecting of myself….
George W. Bush and his true friend March 1, 2006
Posted by dorigo in news, politics.add a comment
Today’s newspapers and media in Italy all covered with a variegated set of adjectives from sarcastic to triumphal the meeting between Silvio Berlusconi and George Bush, which took place yesterday in Washington.
Leaving aside the polemics about the interference of the United States in a foreign forthcoming election and the rooting of a US President for a would-be italian Premier, what is undeniable is that George really likes his italian ally. He can easily forgive the withdrawal of troops from Iraq announced by Berlusconi, because he so likes the guy.
I think George sees an example in Silvio: as his father before him, W. has done a lot in the field of conflict of interests and exploitation of power, but will unfortunately remain a dilettante if compared to the italian friend: in this respect, the US constitution and the system of counterweights of US democracy proved more resilient than the italian one.
