You don't need an exponentially larger number of people entering the system to keep it sustainable. I realise that the notion that there are two continual fluxes of people entering and leaving the system is hard to grasp, but it is the case. And as long as benefits are adjusted to account for the relative fluxes in the long term, all is fine. Arguably, it might even be fair to have some top-up coming from some progressive tax.
Creditors are completely rational: money is better placed in treasuries, when the economy is depressed. You could invest it, of course, but this is risky.
This is why, during recessions, the gvt has to spend in the stead of the economy: that way, the ball keeps rolling, and depression is averted.
Re:Why tax cuts work, I know it sounds wrong
on
Debt Deal Reached
·
· Score: 1
You are reasoning based on a false premise. One which is easily tested, too.
Premise: lowering taxes will increase revenue (through some undefined mechanism). Experiment: Reagan, Bush II. Each time, the revenue went down.
At what point do we admit that although in certain cases lowering taxes can increase revenue, we are clearly not in one of these?
Also, I submit to you this: taxes are an incentive to invest you money, rather than hoard it, and are therefore expansionary -- even if the revenue was just burnt in some huge bonfire of bills. Of course, in reality, they are spent in all sorts of highly valuable functions.
Re:Could Someone Help Me Out With This?
on
Debt Deal Reached
·
· Score: 1
WTF?
Cleave the child in twain is not the beatitudes. And it is not the mark of progressive thinking... If you were a Christian, you would know that the New Testament supersedes the old.
Also, if feeding the poor is more efficient as a society-wide programme, well, it ought to be so (unless you think feeding to poor should be a sort of vanity outlet). Now of course, if the majority of a society does not want to feed its poor, then maybe it deserves what it has coming.
Re:Could Someone Help Me Out With This?
on
Debt Deal Reached
·
· Score: 1
Oh, another one of those morons who insist we have a depression, just so they can convince themselves that _yes_ the gvt serve a purpose.
Hint: the policies you suggest were tried last time. Look up on what happened under Hoover. Arguably, he was responsible for Weimar going down the drain and Hitler rising. In the US he was responsible for people starving.
We basically did the right thing with the stimulus. But it was too small, so we only got a major recession instead of a depression. However, the tea party seems to think it is not too late for that, and they are working on it.
Re:Could Someone Help Me Out With This?
on
Debt Deal Reached
·
· Score: 1
Actually, printing money causes inflation only with high employment and not in a liquidity trap. QE was the printing of massive amounts of money, and the core inflation is still headed to 0 -- which is extra bad.
Some inflation eases the debt burden of everyone, and forces people with money to invest it.
Re:Could Someone Help Me Out With This?
on
Debt Deal Reached
·
· Score: 1
The US has something better than a credit card: a printing press. And as long as it is used in moderation, it can be used forever. Now if employment was good, using it would cause inflation, but it is terrible, and despite the trillions printed in QE, the situation is looking more and more deflationary. Which should convince you that in the current situation, you can print much money with no adverse effects.
Social security is a programme which has globally very positive returns on the economy, as do unemployment benefits, food stamps, medicare, medicaid, etc. Basically, all those things which ensures that people are not starving and can keep being productive citizens. It is highly worthwhile to keep paying into them, because they are good for the economy as a whole.
As for education, you spend a lot in beautiful buildings and classroom equipment, but not nearly enough on teachers. If you want good teachers, you will have to pay them -- and never mind that a couple of them turn out to not be great: if the salary is good, you will have enough good candidates to pick from.
But the important point is this: if you slash spending, you will depress the economy (no gov has ever slashed spending without that happening -- some got away with it because they did it counter-cyclically) and that means lower returns, and higher deficit.
1) the US, unlike Greece, can print its money, and thus could decide to not have debt. Doing it at once would in fact create inflation -- but not nearly as much as you think.
2) Indeed during QE I and II massive amounts of bills were printed, and no inflation resulted -- in fact we are in a deflationary situation. Because with such a high unemployment, inflation cannot occur. In fact, until pretty much all debt have been written off, there won't be any inflation.
3) When people are willing to lend money at rates below the inflation and you need that money to build infrastructure and you are not borrowing it, you are a moron.
4) India buys large amount of gold because they eat it. They do, it's something to do with gold decoration on cakes... As for China, they are diversifying. Because with the tea party, one cannot trust the US gvt anymore.
5) Absolute debt amounts matter not, only debt to GDP ratio, and when you slash spending, this contracts the economy, which worsens the situation. Balanced budget means running a deficit such that you are increasing the size of your economy more than the deficit. And in the case of a depressed economy, you have to accept that the debt will grow, because if it doesn't, a recession will soon turn into a depression.
Re:Could Someone Help Me Out With This?
on
Debt Deal Reached
·
· Score: 2
Sorry, but the absolute numbers of debt are meaningless. What counts is debt to GDP, and it was reduced under Clinton.
It makes sense, too: if I am Bill Gates, and debts of 10 000 000€ (because I needed cash, and all my assets are in stocks I did not want to sell right now), then I am perfectly fine. If I am me, with the same debt, well, I might as well declare bankruptcy right now:)
So the point is: as a country you can reduce your debt in two meaningful ways: increase revenue/decrease expenditures OR grow your economy faster than your expenditures. The second one is how you do it if you are competent. I guess this is why the debate in Washington is entirely centred on the first. Actually only on the "decrease expenditures" part. Which tends to shrink your economy.
Which makes it not just not very competent, but actually dumb.
Re:Could Someone Help Me Out With This?
on
Debt Deal Reached
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
There even is a reason for that: currently, the problem is that all those people with lots of money try to accumulate it.
Because the economy is bad and investing it is a sure loser. So better accumulate, just in case.
The result is that there are no investments, no hiring. And the economy stays bad.
If you tax a lot, then there is a) an incentive to have the money spent, b) the government can always build more infrastructure, give allowances to the jobless, which helps the economy. Of course, there is the added benefit that the society becomes more equal, and that the interests of everyone become more aligned, which makes for saner politics.
BTW, the rates you are citing are the marginal rates. It works like that: your first x dollars are not taxed. The next x are taxed at some rate, then the next at a higher rate, and so on until you reach the maximum rate.
Re:Each major release is taking longer
on
KDE 4.7.0 Released
·
· Score: 1
I don't need to misrepresent your comments, they are there for all to see. I am just pointing out how wrong and nasty they are. And I am not even a KDE dev!
KDE3 came out many years ago, developed by a different group, some members of which are still working on KDE4.
But by and large, the group is different. Some developers have only arrived during the last development cycle.
You refuse to test their work and declare it "shit". On a (very frequented) public forum. People whom you have never met, do not know, and whose only sin is to be part of the same project which displeased you many years ago.
And you have the gall to think yourself justified.
Never mind that I think you are wrong about KDE 3 and 4: this is the realm of opinion (more or less, at least I know what I am talking about). I just think you need to be told that the way you are behaving towards fellow humans is crappy. The sense of self-satisfied entitlement and selfishness which permeates your postings is sickening.
You are not a nice person.
Re:Each major release is taking longer
on
KDE 4.7.0 Released
·
· Score: 1
"I have no faith in those people because they only produce shit", sayest thou.
But you are not insulting them, just their product, which by your own admission, you did not try.
Sad.
Re:Each major release is taking longer
on
KDE 4.7.0 Released
·
· Score: 1
Preemptively calling software you have not tested "shit" is balanced. Okayyyy. Must be the same "balanced" fox uses...
Software development is not about faith. It is an evolutionary process where the state at any point is not a good measure of the state in the future.
That being said, you clearly like gratuitously insulting people for no valid reason. That is not the hallmark of a nice person. Or a balanced person. And insulting the KDE team because they dared give you something you were not quite satisfied with is... obscene, I guess.
Re:Each major release is taking longer
on
KDE 4.7.0 Released
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
Uhhh. Nope, that is GNOME (or apple). KDE still has a desktop which feels like a desktop. The mobile/tablet thing is just an option: on a small screen, I prefer the UI designed for it, and on large screens, the classical desktop UI.
I also note that although you haven't tried the desktop in two years, you still feel justified in saying horrible things about the work people are doing for free. I guess the recent article about people behaving like psychopaths on the internet was not too far off the mark.
BTW, you may criticize, this is your freedom, and makes for good debate. You may even say "two years ago, I thought it sucked". But it is dishonest to say it still suck when you could not be bothered to try. Presumably because you derive joy in being cruel to people you have never met because of a perceived slight you received years ago. About a computer programme you got for free.
It is a mystery to me too. Even the mac users who obsess about the tiniest details of their holy interface are not nearly as anal as the kde3-or-death users.
And it makes particularly little sense as KDE SC4 is better in pretty much every way as KDE3. Maybe is comes from investing so much emotion in your desktop and being shown that deep down, at was not nearly as great as it could be. Perhaps linux users care more about their software than normal users, and any change is seen as a personal insult.
ifup is the way to go for permanent connections at the system level. Networkmanager is crappy for multi-user systems anyway.
Now if you are a single user, well, what is wrong with "connect automatically"??
Re:Each major release is taking longer
on
KDE 4.7.0 Released
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
But thankfully, the KDE devs are not wedded to the 90s, and those of us who want a modern desktop still get one. Isn't free software wonderful?
Also, you say you tried a few releases. my guess is you haven't tries in a year. Which is an enormous amount of dev time. So you maybe should keep trying:)
Re:Each major release is taking longer
on
KDE 4.7.0 Released
·
· Score: 1
Spaces is a terrible implementation of multiple desktops. As for binding apps to desktops, kwin allows you to set rules which will force apps to launch in a specified desktop.
Also, you can have an activity per desktop, and thus a background per desktop.
The parent has clearly not used KDE for 3 years, and has no clue what he is talking about.
Sorry, but do you realise mortgages are debt? Do you realise that a 50 000 $ mortgage is a piffle?
Does that help you put into perspective the actual amount of debt the US has? i.e. not much, and the mere concept of a debt ceiling is cretinous in the first place.
For such a tiny amount of debt, you get to have a working (well, sometimes) government, justice system, law enforcement, clean air, roads, schools, 3 wars, unemployment benefits, health benefits etc.
The amount of debt you have does not even need to go down, it just needs to get smaller -- or the same -- compared to GDP.
Also, about democracy: since when do opinion polls be democracy? This is one of the most aggressively stupid thing I have seen written anywhere in a long time. When the US defaults, and realise this: paying the interest is not enough not to default, if you stop paying your employees, you are in default, and it will be treated as such by the rating agencies, borrowing will become somewhat harder.
And I cannot see any benefit you, as an American can possibly derive from it. Of course, you are lucky in the sense that the US is in a liquidity trap situation, and it may even be that the interest rates will not rise.
This brings us to the next point: if your interests rates are so low that people are practically paying you to get their money, and simultaneously, you are in a situation where you need investments, and you do not borrow to invest, you are an idiot.
FORTRAN is a horrible language. Abominable. It is ugly, inconsistent, baroque.
People will insist FORTRAN is faster.This is a lie. Has been since about 20 years. They will tell you it is "perfectly suited" to their purpose. It is not. Simply, they have no clue, no sense of aesthetics, and the ir Stockholm syndrome is too entrenched.
I do numerical simulations, and I consider myself a scientist. But I was trained as an engineer, And I know just what the author of TFA is talking about. Too many scientists think that once you have written the equations, your work is done.
Basically, the numerics is just number-crunching, right? No. If you want to solve interesting problems, the code must also be efficient. And if your problem is really interesting (aka not very well defined, because you are doing research) a well-written, well architectured piece of code will save you tons of time down the line.
And this cannot happen in FORTRAN. In theory, it could. But I never so that happen.
Oh, KDE 4.6 (and upcomming 4.7) are miles ahead of 4.2. After all, it is 2.5 years of development since you last checked...
Free software is not like closed source, it moves continuously: there is no particular incentive for big releases which mpres customers. But the progress accumulates just the same.
Uhh, I also comes from a long background of GNOME ignoring KDE, and acting as though they exist in a vaccuum. Also, they knew about the naming issue.
So the guy has reasons to be miffed: GNOME, at this stage lives in a bizzare delusion that they are an OS, and not just a DE. And this attitude is clearly grating: they seem to believe that what they do is the standard, and that probably KDE is something like windowsblind is (was?) for MS windows. And of course, the KDE dev have stopped assuming good faith, because their is none.
Yes. Basically, GNOME apps have some of their setting only st-able in the GNOME control panel. Same for KDE.
Now, despite what some people would have you believe, it is normal, usual, reasonable to have apps from both environment running under whitchever one you prefer. And you may still want to change their settings.
But now, it turns out that in your menu, you have two completely different system settings, named "system settings". This is clearly not very nice.
So ideally, they ought to be called GNOME SS and KDE SS, except for two details.
- KDE named their "system settings" first, and the GNOME dev knew about that
- KDE decided that "KDE" means the community, not the DE. And clearly, the app configures the DE... To me, this is a case of KDE lacking a bit of forsight, and GNOME being their usual arrofant selves (we are an OS -- no you're not, you are a DE, and that is quite enough)
Slashdot Mirror
You don't need an exponentially larger number of people entering the system to keep it sustainable. I realise that the notion that there are two continual fluxes of people entering and leaving the system is hard to grasp, but it is the case. And as long as benefits are adjusted to account for the relative fluxes in the long term, all is fine. Arguably, it might even be fair to have some top-up coming from some progressive tax.
But hey, this is for another debate.
Creditors are completely rational: money is better placed in treasuries, when the economy is depressed. You could invest it, of course, but this is risky.
This is why, during recessions, the gvt has to spend in the stead of the economy: that way, the ball keeps rolling, and depression is averted.
You are reasoning based on a false premise. One which is easily tested, too.
Premise: lowering taxes will increase revenue (through some undefined mechanism). Experiment: Reagan, Bush II. Each time, the revenue went down.
At what point do we admit that although in certain cases lowering taxes can increase revenue, we are clearly not in one of these?
Also, I submit to you this: taxes are an incentive to invest you money, rather than hoard it, and are therefore expansionary -- even if the revenue was just burnt in some huge bonfire of bills. Of course, in reality, they are spent in all sorts of highly valuable functions.
WTF?
Cleave the child in twain is not the beatitudes. And it is not the mark of progressive thinking... If you were a Christian, you would know that the New Testament supersedes the old.
Also, if feeding the poor is more efficient as a society-wide programme, well, it ought to be so (unless you think feeding to poor should be a sort of vanity outlet). Now of course, if the majority of a society does not want to feed its poor, then maybe it deserves what it has coming.
Oh, another one of those morons who insist we have a depression, just so they can convince themselves that _yes_ the gvt serve a purpose.
Hint: the policies you suggest were tried last time. Look up on what happened under Hoover. Arguably, he was responsible for Weimar going down the drain and Hitler rising. In the US he was responsible for people starving.
We basically did the right thing with the stimulus. But it was too small, so we only got a major recession instead of a depression. However, the tea party seems to think it is not too late for that, and they are working on it.
Actually, printing money causes inflation only with high employment and not in a liquidity trap. QE was the printing of massive amounts of money, and the core inflation is still headed to 0 -- which is extra bad.
Some inflation eases the debt burden of everyone, and forces people with money to invest it.
The US has something better than a credit card: a printing press. And as long as it is used in moderation, it can be used forever. Now if employment was good, using it would cause inflation, but it is terrible, and despite the trillions printed in QE, the situation is looking more and more deflationary. Which should convince you that in the current situation, you can print much money with no adverse effects.
Social security is a programme which has globally very positive returns on the economy, as do unemployment benefits, food stamps, medicare, medicaid, etc. Basically, all those things which ensures that people are not starving and can keep being productive citizens. It is highly worthwhile to keep paying into them, because they are good for the economy as a whole.
As for education, you spend a lot in beautiful buildings and classroom equipment, but not nearly enough on teachers. If you want good teachers, you will have to pay them -- and never mind that a couple of them turn out to not be great: if the salary is good, you will have enough good candidates to pick from.
But the important point is this: if you slash spending, you will depress the economy (no gov has ever slashed spending without that happening -- some got away with it because they did it counter-cyclically) and that means lower returns, and higher deficit.
What you say is wrong and inconsistent.
1) the US, unlike Greece, can print its money, and thus could decide to not have debt. Doing it at once would in fact create inflation -- but not nearly as much as you think.
2) Indeed during QE I and II massive amounts of bills were printed, and no inflation resulted -- in fact we are in a deflationary situation. Because with such a high unemployment, inflation cannot occur. In fact, until pretty much all debt have been written off, there won't be any inflation.
3) When people are willing to lend money at rates below the inflation and you need that money to build infrastructure and you are not borrowing it, you are a moron.
4) India buys large amount of gold because they eat it. They do, it's something to do with gold decoration on cakes... As for China, they are diversifying. Because with the tea party, one cannot trust the US gvt anymore.
5) Absolute debt amounts matter not, only debt to GDP ratio, and when you slash spending, this contracts the economy, which worsens the situation. Balanced budget means running a deficit such that you are increasing the size of your economy more than the deficit. And in the case of a depressed economy, you have to accept that the debt will grow, because if it doesn't, a recession will soon turn into a depression.
Sorry, but the absolute numbers of debt are meaningless. What counts is debt to GDP, and it was reduced under Clinton.
It makes sense, too: if I am Bill Gates, and debts of 10 000 000€ (because I needed cash, and all my assets are in stocks I did not want to sell right now), then I am perfectly fine. If I am me, with the same debt, well, I might as well declare bankruptcy right now :)
So the point is: as a country you can reduce your debt in two meaningful ways: increase revenue/decrease expenditures OR grow your economy faster than your expenditures. The second one is how you do it if you are competent. I guess this is why the debate in Washington is entirely centred on the first. Actually only on the "decrease expenditures" part. Which tends to shrink your economy.
Which makes it not just not very competent, but actually dumb.
There even is a reason for that: currently, the problem is that all those people with lots of money try to accumulate it.
Because the economy is bad and investing it is a sure loser. So better accumulate, just in case.
The result is that there are no investments, no hiring. And the economy stays bad.
If you tax a lot, then there is a) an incentive to have the money spent, b) the government can always build more infrastructure, give allowances to the jobless, which helps the economy. Of course, there is the added benefit that the society becomes more equal, and that the interests of everyone become more aligned, which makes for saner politics.
BTW, the rates you are citing are the marginal rates. It works like that: your first x dollars are not taxed. The next x are taxed at some rate, then the next at a higher rate, and so on until you reach the maximum rate.
Or use your own.
Once again, free software comes to the rescue :)
I don't need to misrepresent your comments, they are there for all to see. I am just pointing out how wrong and nasty they are. And I am not even a KDE dev!
KDE3 came out many years ago, developed by a different group, some members of which are still working on KDE4.
But by and large, the group is different. Some developers have only arrived during the last development cycle.
You refuse to test their work and declare it "shit". On a (very frequented) public forum. People whom you have never met, do not know, and whose only sin is to be part of the same project which displeased you many years ago.
And you have the gall to think yourself justified.
Never mind that I think you are wrong about KDE 3 and 4: this is the realm of opinion (more or less, at least I know what I am talking about). I just think you need to be told that the way you are behaving towards fellow humans is crappy. The sense of self-satisfied entitlement and selfishness which permeates your postings is sickening.
You are not a nice person.
"I have no faith in those people because they only produce shit", sayest thou.
But you are not insulting them, just their product, which by your own admission, you did not try.
Sad.
Preemptively calling software you have not tested "shit" is balanced. Okayyyy. Must be the same "balanced" fox uses...
Software development is not about faith. It is an evolutionary process where the state at any point is not a good measure of the state in the future.
That being said, you clearly like gratuitously insulting people for no valid reason. That is not the hallmark of a nice person. Or a balanced person. And insulting the KDE team because they dared give you something you were not quite satisfied with is... obscene, I guess.
Uhhh. Nope, that is GNOME (or apple). KDE still has a desktop which feels like a desktop. The mobile/tablet thing is just an option: on a small screen, I prefer the UI designed for it, and on large screens, the classical desktop UI.
I also note that although you haven't tried the desktop in two years, you still feel justified in saying horrible things about the work people are doing for free. I guess the recent article about people behaving like psychopaths on the internet was not too far off the mark.
BTW, you may criticize, this is your freedom, and makes for good debate. You may even say "two years ago, I thought it sucked". But it is dishonest to say it still suck when you could not be bothered to try. Presumably because you derive joy in being cruel to people you have never met because of a perceived slight you received years ago. About a computer programme you got for free.
It is a mystery to me too. Even the mac users who obsess about the tiniest details of their holy interface are not nearly as anal as the kde3-or-death users.
And it makes particularly little sense as KDE SC4 is better in pretty much every way as KDE3. Maybe is comes from investing so much emotion in your desktop and being shown that deep down, at was not nearly as great as it could be. Perhaps linux users care more about their software than normal users, and any change is seen as a personal insult.
ifup is the way to go for permanent connections at the system level. Networkmanager is crappy for multi-user systems anyway.
Now if you are a single user, well, what is wrong with "connect automatically"??
But thankfully, the KDE devs are not wedded to the 90s, and those of us who want a modern desktop still get one. Isn't free software wonderful?
Also, you say you tried a few releases. my guess is you haven't tries in a year. Which is an enormous amount of dev time. So you maybe should keep trying :)
Spaces is a terrible implementation of multiple desktops. As for binding apps to desktops, kwin allows you to set rules which will force apps to launch in a specified desktop.
Also, you can have an activity per desktop, and thus a background per desktop.
The parent has clearly not used KDE for 3 years, and has no clue what he is talking about.
a) your pet bug has actually probably been fixed: there was much work on multi -desktops
b) The size of KDE?? Uhhh, it is modular now.your download is probably smaller than it ever was in the KDE3 days.
Sorry, but do you realise mortgages are debt? Do you realise that a 50 000 $ mortgage is a piffle?
Does that help you put into perspective the actual amount of debt the US has? i.e. not much, and the mere concept of a debt ceiling is cretinous in the first place.
For such a tiny amount of debt, you get to have a working (well, sometimes) government, justice system, law enforcement, clean air, roads, schools, 3 wars, unemployment benefits, health benefits etc.
The amount of debt you have does not even need to go down, it just needs to get smaller -- or the same -- compared to GDP.
Also, about democracy: since when do opinion polls be democracy? This is one of the most aggressively stupid thing I have seen written anywhere in a long time. When the US defaults, and realise this: paying the interest is not enough not to default, if you stop paying your employees, you are in default, and it will be treated as such by the rating agencies, borrowing will become somewhat harder.
And I cannot see any benefit you, as an American can possibly derive from it. Of course, you are lucky in the sense that the US is in a liquidity trap situation, and it may even be that the interest rates will not rise.
This brings us to the next point: if your interests rates are so low that people are practically paying you to get their money, and simultaneously, you are in a situation where you need investments, and you do not borrow to invest, you are an idiot.
FORTRAN is a horrible language. Abominable. It is ugly, inconsistent, baroque.
People will insist FORTRAN is faster.This is a lie. Has been since about 20 years. They will tell you it is "perfectly suited" to their purpose. It is not. Simply, they have no clue, no sense of aesthetics, and the ir Stockholm syndrome is too entrenched.
I do numerical simulations, and I consider myself a scientist. But I was trained as an engineer, And I know just what the author of TFA is talking about. Too many scientists think that once you have written the equations, your work is done.
Basically, the numerics is just number-crunching, right? No. If you want to solve interesting problems, the code must also be efficient. And if your problem is really interesting (aka not very well defined, because you are doing research) a well-written, well architectured piece of code will save you tons of time down the line.
And this cannot happen in FORTRAN. In theory, it could. But I never so that happen.
Oh, KDE 4.6 (and upcomming 4.7) are miles ahead of 4.2. After all, it is 2.5 years of development since you last checked...
Free software is not like closed source, it moves continuously: there is no particular incentive for big releases which mpres customers. But the progress accumulates just the same.
Uhh, I also comes from a long background of GNOME ignoring KDE, and acting as though they exist in a vaccuum. Also, they knew about the naming issue.
So the guy has reasons to be miffed: GNOME, at this stage lives in a bizzare delusion that they are an OS, and not just a DE. And this attitude is clearly grating: they seem to believe that what they do is the standard, and that probably KDE is something like windowsblind is (was?) for MS windows. And of course, the KDE dev have stopped assuming good faith, because their is none.
Yes. Basically, GNOME apps have some of their setting only st-able in the GNOME control panel. Same for KDE.
Now, despite what some people would have you believe, it is normal, usual, reasonable to have apps from both environment running under whitchever one you prefer. And you may still want to change their settings.
But now, it turns out that in your menu, you have two completely different system settings, named "system settings". This is clearly not very nice.
So ideally, they ought to be called GNOME SS and KDE SS, except for two details.
- KDE named their "system settings" first, and the GNOME dev knew about that
- KDE decided that "KDE" means the community, not the DE. And clearly, the app configures the DE...
To me, this is a case of KDE lacking a bit of forsight, and GNOME being their usual arrofant selves (we are an OS -- no you're not, you are a DE, and that is quite enough)