Author: Eugene

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Adventures in Java Part 2

Ok, probably sheer coincidence, but with my luck probably not. After installing the Java SDK (1.4.2_05), Mozilla and Firefox broke. All I did was install the Java SDK RPM, copy the JRE plugin to my Mozilla/Firefox plugin directory and restart Firefox. Starting up Firefox, all I get is

INTERNAL ERROR on Browser End: No manager for initializing factory?
System error?:: Success

If I try to run firefox-bin directly, it complains about not being able to find and open libmozjs.so, even though it’s right there in the firefox directory!!!

Gaahhhh, stupid computers. Stupid user.

Update: Ok, so I remove Java, Mozilla works again but Firefox is still broken. Install Java again, Mozilla breaks. Remove Java, Mozilla works. Hmmm. Either I have a problem with my Fedora installation, Mozilla/Java is broken or I’m just dumb.

Update 9SEP04: Somebody who found this entry via Google emailed me to see if I had found a solution to the problem. I don’t know if I had, but a few days after writing this entry I installed a new Firefox nightly build and everything has been working fine since then. Currently using the 08SEP nightly build of Firefox and haven’t had any Java related problems so far. Haven’t gotten around to checking out Mozilla yet though.

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And waiting on deck…

Number 4 you’re up to bat! Fresh from the NHC is news about Tropical Depression 4 getting warmed up in the eastern Atlantic.

AT 11 AM AST…1500Z…THE CENTER OF TROPICAL DEPRESSION FOUR WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 12.2 NORTH…LONGITUDE 22.7 WEST OR ABOUT 275 MILES… 445 KM…SOUTH-SOUTHEAST OF THE CAPE VERDE ISLANDS.
THE DEPRESSION IS MOVING TOWARD THE WEST NEAR 14 MPH…22 KM/HR… AND THIS GENERAL MOTION IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE FOR THE NEXT 24 HOURS
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 35 MPH… 55 KM/HR…WITH HIGHER GUSTS. SOME STRENGTHENING IS FORECAST DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS… AND THE DEPRESSION COULD BECOME A TROPICAL STORM LATER TODAY OR TONIGHT.

This one will definitely require some watching for those on the East coast.

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We are very messy people

Well, this is interesting.

THE MASSIVE NORTHEAST BLACKOUT of a year ago not only shut off
electricity for 50 million people in the US and Canada, but also shut off the pollution coming from fossil-fired turbogenerators in the Ohio Valley. In effect, the power outage was an inadvertent experiment for gauging atmospheric repose with the grid gone for the better part of the day. And the results were impressive. On 15 August 2003, only 24 hours after the blackout, air was cleaner by this amount: SO2 was down 90%, O3 down 50%, and light-scattering
particles down 70% over “normal” conditions in the same area. The haze reductions were made by University of Maryland scientists scooping air samples with a light aircraft. The observed pollutant reductions exceeded expectations, causing the authors to suggest that the spectacular overnight improvements in air quality “may result from underestimation of emission from power plants, inaccurate representation of power plant effluent in emission models or unaccounted-for atomospheric chemical reactions.” (Marufu et
al., Geophysical Research Letters, vol 31, L13106, 2004.)

Perhaps it will start people thinking a little more about what gets spewed out of industrial and power generating plants. One can only hope.

From Physics News Update 696

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Adventures in Java

Teaching files. Residents want teaching files. Faculty want teaching files. Problem is it’s hard to find any really good cheap/free teaching file software out there.

From the RSNA there’s the MIRC project, which I know virtually nothing about, but which one of the residents wants to set up and run.

MIRC wants Tomcat and the Java SDK. Not the runtime, but the SDK.

According to the project website,

The MIRC project develops tools to enable the medical imaging community to share images and information for education, research and clinical practice–within an institution and via the Internet. MIRC provides a common index that can be searched using medically relevant criteria. MIRC also offers an authoring tool that makes it easy to create radiology teaching files and other electronic documents in flexible formats with a common underlying structure.

Should be an interesting project.

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Nature’s laying the smackdown on us

Ok, it’s not a really big smackdown. At least not yet. I hope it isn’t anyway. Maybe a slap upside the head or a smack on the wrist.
Just in case we’d gotten complacent over the past few years, Bonnie and Charley are our little reminder that yes, this is hurricane season, and just because it’s been quiet the past few years doesn’t mean it’ll stay that way.
The current track for Bonnie has it going through the western part of SC and will probably bring heavy rain and winds. Charley on the other hand will come much closer to Charleston, and I think we’ll be in for a rainy and windy weekend.