The long awaited James Webb Space Telescope has finally been successfully launched today. It is a Xmas gift for many people who have been waiting for it for many years.

On a more personal side, I am happy and proud to have contributed to a tiny part of a tiny piece of software of this huge project over the last 15 years: the Instrument Performance Simulator of the NIRSpec instrument.

As already announced by Julien Blache, I successfully passed my PhD defense today, and I am now a doctor.

During my PhD, I designed and implemented an optical simulator for the MUSE instrument, an integral field spectrograph which will be installed on one of the large European telescopes of the VLT.

As I am one of those who have read "able" instead of "unable", I had to find a really cheap flight. This may sound crazy, but an Iberia flight to Buenos Aires from Berlin costs far less than from Lyon (where I live) or even from Madrid: 781.12 EUR from Berlin instead over 1,200.00 EUR from Madrid and over 1,300.00 EUR from Lyon (in both cases with a change in Madrid Barajas).

I wonder if Iberia pays you 420,00 EUR if you flight from Berlin to Madrid...

Now I have to find a cheap way to go to Berlin from Lyon (probably an EasyJet flight). I plan to spend a few days of holiday in Berlin before flying to Argentina.

Some of you may have noticed that I was mostly unavailable those last weeks. I was finishing writing my PhD report. It is now submitted, so I have more free time again.

I am currently processing the backlog. If you are waiting for an action from my side, you should get some news in the next few days.

My ADSL line was opened yesterday, so I am back on the Internet! Actually during the last two months, I still had an Internet connection, but only though a 56k modem, not really useable for maintaining Debian packages or for doing an "apt-get upgrade" on my machines (and a bit costly).

I am in my apartment for a month, and it tooks two weeks to get the invoice of my telephone line, one more week to get the ADSL line and one more week to get my modem from the post.

The connection is an ADSL2+ connection, so there is enough upload rate to be able to host websites. I moved all my websites to my home server, and I am just waiting the activation of the reverse DNS to be able to host an SMTP server.

John Kerry has just called George Bush to congratulated him. As most European people I am disappointed by the result of the elections.

But maybe the question is why US elections is so important for European people. Maybe Europe is not enough united to be an alternative to the US power...

Yesterday I moved to my new apartement. Moving was not really easy as it was running cats and dogs. The apartement now looks a bit empty, as I currently only have a camping mattress, a sleeping bad, a few clothing, without forgetting my computers... I need to buy a mattress, a fridge, solid plates, etc.

In the next few days, I'll have to open a telephone line, with an ADSL connection. I hope it wouldn't take too much time, as it's not very easy to only have an Internet access at work. That's why I am not so active into Debian by now, though I am still reading my mails and uploading packages.

On monday, I received a phone call to tell me that I am accepted at the Centre de Recherche Astronomique de Lyon to do a PhD. I will begin it the 1st of October.

I am currently living at my parents' house, which is located in Toulouse, so I have to find a flat very quickly. I'll take the train to Lyon tomorrow, and I hope my search will be successfull.