Keith, thanks. In practice, experiment data is not "perpetual",
life time of typical physics experiment is about 5-10 years after
the last data taking. Afterwards, people tend to dissipate (retire,
graduate and move on, just move on, lose interest, join different
project, etc). after the last person who was involved with
the experiment is "gone", experiment data is "orphaned" and
nothing much can be done with it, even if the physical media
and the data format is still readable and if the analysis
software still can be compiled and still runs.

That said, CERN support the "open data" approach, where general public
has access to experiment data. But not to raw data, without calibrations
and interpretations, raw data is dangerous, john q. public can easily
"analyse it wrong". this is a hot debate topic in the physics community.
https://opendata.cern.ch/

Re the TRIUMF photo, that's not my scope, I have a much newer one, but
for some tasks, old scopes are better.

The photo is taken in the walkway of the meson hall. Cyclotron is dead ahead.
On the left side, attached to the He dewar is the brand new
He compressor (makes liquid He: in Canada, we recycle!). Further left beyound the He compressor
is the experimental hall with the cold neutron (0K cold, not just cold) machine
and the muon beam lines for materials science experiments (MuSR). Outside
of the picture (dead ahead behind the cyclotron) is the brand new state
of the art e- accelerator. To the right (in a different building) is
the unstable atom production (transmutation) machine (no, not lead to gold,
we are not CERN!) and experiments that study these rare unstable atoms. Dead behind
is a small cyclotron, it makes unstable atoms for medical use (radioactive tracers
for medical imaging). This concludes your virtual tour of TRIUMF. You are welcome.


K.O.


On Tue, Jan 10, 2023 at 11:49:49AM -0800, Keith Lofstrom wrote:
> > From: Konstantin Olchanski <[log in to unmask]>
> > Subject: Re: SL6 ssh fail
> ...
> > It looks like my remaining option is to build openssh from OpenBSD "portable" sources.
> ...
> > - "so old" - like a grand-father's axe, most our SL6 machines hardware was upgraded 2-3 times by now, they run from SSDs on DDR3/DDR4 RAM machines.
> > - exception is VME processors
> 
> I'm on Konstantin's side here - although it is a side many
> light-years wide, with MANY of us spread thinly across it.
> 
> While I do not have my grandfather's axe, I still use my
> great-grandfather's carpentry toolbox, which my grandfather
> brought from Sweden in 1911 (I also have my grandfather's
> steamship ticket, and his Swedish-to-English dictionary). 
> 
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__wiki.keithl.com_JohanSigfridLofstrom&d=DwIBAg&c=gRgGjJ3BkIsb5y6s49QqsA&r=gd8BzeSQcySVxr0gDWSEbN-P-pgDXkdyCtaMqdCgPPdW1cyL5RIpaIYrCn8C5x2A&m=iqT8zmlP56N56Jq9YP_a6cjE90PVa3LlHNdlKR14LBh4UY7CFKqQzSC6tQwZud2d&s=_bHbAaGb3b436-GEoRYnWCwPRLp6V7b_tiSALqhmBzY&e=  
> 
> I use those tools to build the gizmos that help me imagine
> space technology evolution into the 22nd century (and read
> emails from my Swedish fourth-cousins).
> 
> Science has plucked almost all of the low-hanging fruit; 
> future discovery lies in subtle manipulations of vast
> amounts of both new and archived measurements made by
> vast amounts of hardware accumulated over many decades. 
> 
> The huge problem with archived measurements is their origin
> in imperfect and evolving hardware, software, procedures,
> theories, and people.  Those inputs color the data;  new
> data collected with new hardware, software, etc. can be
> incommensurate with old data.  This is a good reason for
> keeping the old hardware/software sets alive, so you can
> measure twice, with your great-grandfather's ruler and
> with your laser interferometer, and cross-calibrate the
> data taken both ways.
> 
> Konstantin contributes to TRIUMF, Canada's premiere 
> particle accelerator.  I am amused that the photo associated
> with the TRIUMF Wikipedia page shows a Tektronix oscilloscope
> designed in the 1960s:
> 
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_TRIUMF-23_media_File-3ACanadian-5FScience-5F-2D-5FTRIUMF-5Fcyclotron-5F-2D-5FFlickr-5F-2D-5FCargo-5FCult-5F-2821-29.jpg&d=DwIBAg&c=gRgGjJ3BkIsb5y6s49QqsA&r=gd8BzeSQcySVxr0gDWSEbN-P-pgDXkdyCtaMqdCgPPdW1cyL5RIpaIYrCn8C5x2A&m=iqT8zmlP56N56Jq9YP_a6cjE90PVa3LlHNdlKR14LBh4UY7CFKqQzSC6tQwZud2d&s=VoPCz_dAeUSdH6dEptF53yurEpghrR-JZvyRjGJ0Sj0&e= 
> 
> Also a large pipe and a huge dewar labeled "HELIUM", which
> will probably be all used up and dissipated to outer space
> by 2160.  Data measured with instruments consuming large
> amounts of helium may be non-repeatable in 2160. 
> Yet somehow, data wranglers like Konstantin must "pay data
> forward" so that 2160 scientists can evaluate 2023 data 
> (and 1968 data, TRIUMF's founding) in an accurate context.
> 
> ----
> 
> I began using Scientific Linux because I assumed that
> Fermilabs would maintain its data-handling infrastructure
> for decades.  I believed the RedHat booth-boys at Oscon
> who told me that long term support would not be affected
> by the sale to IBM. 
> 
> Oops.  
> 
> With decades of investment in my Gnome2-based creations,
> I spent the last year flirting with Ubuntu-Mate - and
> last week fault-isolating a borked desktop environment 
> (log error: Could not acquire name on session bus)
> to a flaw in /etc/X11/Xsession.d/80mate-environment,
> cured(?) by adding "unset DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS"
> before the closing "fi" in that file. 
> 
> So, after climbing out of the Scientific Linux rubble,
> then beating my head against the crumbling Ubuntu wall,
> my next desperate move is to debian-mate, hoping that
> some flavor of mate (or other "gestureless" desktop)
> will last until I (and my jittery hands) die. 
> The only gesture I'm good at involves my middle finger.
>  
> I hope that the data and algorithms that I create in the
> debian-mate environment will endure, even if the desktop
> environment creators transition from mouse gestures to
> hand gestures to rectal thermometer squeezes.
> 
> I'm a circuit designer, more adept with solder than shell
> scripts.  My guess is that Konstantin is closer to me on
> the hardware-software spectrum than he is to most of you;
> he must make the instruments attached to Canada's premiere
> particle accelerator produce reliable and secure data, not
> animated web pages.  TRIUMF's data must be accessible and
> verifiable a century from now, so future researchers can
> answer the perpetual question about the past:
> 
> "What the HELL were they THINKING?"
> 
> Blovation off:  Now I must go outside with my great-
> grandfather's tools, to repair a 1960s greenhouse damaged
> by last week's windstorm.  Then back to a warm keyboard.
> 
> Keith
> 
> -- 
> Keith Lofstrom          [log in to unmask]

-- 
Konstantin Olchanski
Data Acquisition Systems: The Bytes Must Flow!
Email: olchansk-at-triumf-dot-ca
Snail mail: 4004 Wesbrook Mall, TRIUMF, Vancouver, B.C., V6T 2A3, Canada