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New Discovery Disproves Quantum Theory?
An anonymous reader writes to tell us the Guardian is running a story that has quite a few physicists up in arms. From the article: "Randell Mills, a Harvard University medic who also studied electrical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, claims to have built a prototype power source that generates up to 1,000 times more heat than conventional fuel. Independent scientists claim to have verified the experiments and Dr Mills says that his company, Blacklight Power, has tens of millions of dollars in investment lined up to bring the idea to market. And he claims to be just months away from unveiling his creation." The only problem is Mills' theory is supposed to be impossible when using current rules of quantum mechanics.
Didja ever think that trying to "unify" quantum theory with other theories is sort of like trying to "unify" the Bible with evolution?
/just sayin'
I am scientifically inaccurate.
Damn you! beat me to it!
I was just saying this to my boss today. in 2000, Linux was '5 years' from being ready for the desktop.
What happened?
(This isn't a troll. I honestly feel Linux has gotten virtually nowhere since then, except for mabye a slightly nicer KDE).
Kernels 2.4 and 2.6 have come about since then, but essentially we're icing the cake with stuff that is consumer-friendly: udev does a nice job of detecting your USB/1394 devices; WLAN support has improved; there exist distributions that do a good job of working the ACPI magic with recent notebook computers.
Microsoft's 'innovation' for consumers is prettification and commoditization, which the GNU/Linux distributions are having to do the same. My computer is a household appliance and is used when I need to use it (otherwise it's off). Linux will be ready for the desktop when it has a convenient 'appliance' distribution.
My big issue is software installation. 3rd party repositories are a fundamentally flawed system- I can't install most applications as they either arn't in a repository, or my distro (FC3) is not supported [anymore].
After 10 years of using Linux, I still have trouble installing software. My mother can do it on windows.
Surely the collaborative way in which the GNU/Linux experience comes about makes it necessary to cooperate upon the how software comes together. Rarely are there software packages which come to you in a cathedral-built lump (one example is Codeweavers' Crossover Office), and the 'peculiarities of each distribution' remains the justification I use for repositories and getting software by yum and aptitude (where appropriate).
Regarding FC3, I use FC3 at home and the chatter on their site tells me that FC3 still has security updates and should still have software support because it has not moved to Fedora Legacy yet. The FC4 install disks will upgrade your computer from 3 to 4 if you should so wish (at reasonably low risk of brokenness), and I found the repositry files from http://www.fedorafaq.org/ (be careful to read the FAQ for FC3 because the root page is for FC4) good for all my software needs, but I must admit that I'm happy to type yum install xine at a console.
Mod me down, but saying "mod me down" or similar on an obvious matter equals a karma whore!
^_^