KDE's look is really easy to configure, so there's no reason to use the default setup if you find it too cartoony.
What is the cartoony part? The icons? You can get other icon sets at www.kde-look.org, as well as window decorations, color schemes and background images.
KDE even supports iceWM window decorations, so there are lots of possibilities...
KDE and GNOME exist to provide a nice desktop environment for those linux users who would like to use one. As far as I can tell, the people actually building them care little for marketing or microsoft's share of "the desktop". (KDE anyway, I'm not so familiar with the GNOME scene, so I won't speak for them, but I suspect it's the same).
If you don't use a GUI, then, well...don't use a GUI. Good on you, mate.
"Not surprisingly, this topic is red hot with controversy -- sharply dividing a world scientific community still on its guard after the ``Cold Fusion'' fiasco of 1989"
and
"Experts contacted by Reuters were wary, citing the first law of thermodynamics which, in layman's terms, states that you can't get more energy out than you put in".
The experts were anything but "wary"! Touting this 'invention' as a "red-hot controversy" and stating that the scientific world is "sharply divided" on the question of its legitimacy both strongly imply that scientists believe it might be true. Complete rubbish.
The popular press has a really nasty habit of trying to sensationalize science and pseudoscience alike, and they often fail to distinguish between the two (as we see here so blatantly). Michael's criticism of this story is legitimate, IMO.
Wow, that's suprising that you have had such a bad experience with KDE bug reporting; I have found them to be at least polite, and often helpful. I agree that devs should be very kind to bug reporters; you're helping them out, after all.
Anyway, you may be interested to know that I submitted a bug report on the fact that the "noxft" option isn't in the docs for konsole:
"p.s. I'm not going to file a bug. Once burned twice shy."
I don't understand what you mean. Isn't the whole point of filing a bug report to let the developer know that you got "burned"? So they can fix it? Or are you saying that you had a bad experience with a previous KDE bug report that you filed?
"Theres no excuse why we shouldnt take advantage of graphics cards that can render millions of polygons per second and do all of these effects i mentioned with ease."
Actually there's a really good excuse: lack of developers and resources. And perhaps lack of developer interest. Maybe few of the devs care about such gee-whiz features. If you want to see them happen, contribute! That's what it's all about.
Have you submitted bug reports/feature requests for any of these (especially konq crashes)? KDE needs your input to fix these things. Complaining on/. doesn't count:)
"Anti-aliased fonts are great, but there are times when aliased fonts are actually preferable. In particular, I used anti-aliased fonts, but in terminals, I *really* want a regular-old courier font. At 1024x768 in my terminals, anti-aliasing makes it difficult to tell the difference between and m and n or a , and."
konsole -noxft
It's a life saver, since most AA fonts don't render well in konsole anyway:)
Actually, Nickel-56 is slightly more tightly bound (because it's "double magic", has the same number of protons and neutrons), but it decays to Fe-56 on a very short timescale.
It's a huge stretch to say this is the first man-made supernova. Maybe it's the first man-made r-process nuclear reaction, but that's a far cry from a supernova. The reaction they've reproduced involves trace elements, not the iron/nickel that are really important in a SN.
Basically, a SN happens when a massive star has converted all of its core fuel into iron by nuclear fusion. The star's gravity compresses and heats the iron until it can fuse also. However, iron is the most tightly bound element, so fusing iron nuclei doesn't release heat energy, it removes it. The thermal pressure that was holding up the star's core disappears in a fraction of a second, and the whole thing comes crashing down in a huge implosion. The implosion causes the core material to form a neutron star or a black hole, and the rebounding shock wave blows the rest of the star apart.
Doesn't sound much like what they did. I don't mean to downplay their achievement; it's still very impressive. I'm just lamenting the sorry state of most science reporting...
Re:I seem to remember...
on
SNES Portable
·
· Score: 2
yeah, apparently he inspects that belt veeeery carefully before each flight. heh.
Re:I seem to remember...
on
SNES Portable
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I know of a guy who built his own helicopter in his garage. Thing's got a VW engine and a big rubber belt to drive the tail rotor. He actually flies around in the thing.
Gotta tell you, when I heard about that, my first reaction was not "So what? You've been able to buy helicopters for decades now!"
Re:neat, but...
on
SNES Portable
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Maybe you missed it, maybe you're trolling. The guy isn't hawking a product here, he's showing off something cool and interesting that he did. So, yes, no one would want one of these; that's not the point. The point is, as you say, that it's neat.
I for one think it's really cool, and the comic-book style presentation was hilarious.
Good point...maybe a rack-mounted system is closer to a stereo component? At least in physical size. Still would require quite a bit of customization, though.
One of the big differneces between a PC case and a "standard" home theater component is that there's no need for it to be a visible part of the cabinet. Other than the power button, it has no controls or displays. So, why not just hide it in the closet?
This brings up the question of interface. The PC interface of keyboard/mouse/monitor is overkill for the A/V stuff you'd use it for in a home thater. Anyone know of PC remote controls or other slick ways to control a hidden PC?
It should be noted to those (like the original poster) who are unfamiliar with the LOTR, that the above linked synopsis is total hogwash. I gather it was written to thwart lazy students who wanted the "cliff notes" version of LOTR.
Neutrinos interact with matter only through the weak nuclear force (and probably the gravitational force; whether they have mass or not is still kind of open, although it seems increasingly more likely that they have a non-zero mass). You are correct that the neutrino reaction does not directly produce a gamma ray photon.
The collision of a neutrino with a chlorine atom changes one of the chlorine atom's neutrons into a proton (note: a weak nuclear reaction), thus transforming the Chlorine atom to an Argon atom (atomic numbers 17 and 18, respectively). The reaction also produces an electron (charge must be conserved).
The particular isotope of argon produced (Ar-37) is unstable to radioactive decay. In a few days it spontaneously reverts back to Chlorine-37, producing an anti-electron in the process:
Ar(37) -> Cl(37) + neutrino + e(+)
The anti-electron immediately finds its way to the nearest electron, and they annihilate, producing a pair of gamma rays, which lead to a cascade of optical photons, which are detected by the experiment.
Whew.
Note that Super-K (the Japanese experiment that was damaged recently) doesn't actually use this chlorine setup, it uses something similar using ultra-pure water as the reactant. Also, I believe the water-based detectors rely on the kinetic energy of the electron in the first reaction to produce cerenkov radiation, rather than a subsequent beta decay/annihilation of anti-electron.
Here are some links on neutrino detector experiments. Google has all these and more.
I recommend the first link for a detailed overview of solar neutrinos.
enjoy,
Jason
Re:Um, if it's a star it can't be dark matter....
on
"Dark Matter" Observed
·
· Score: 2
Got me! Nobody knows. That's one of the Big Questions facing cosmology.
Could be massive neutrinos, could be vacuum energy, could be micro black holes. It could be all of these, or none of them. It could be something nobody's thought of yet, something we can't possibly imagine at present. It could be that we simply don't understand gravity as well as we think we do (although that particular angle has a big mountain of contrary evidence to overcome before it can be accepted).
Literally, all we know is that it's Matter (i.e., it exerts a gravitational influence on nearby baryons) and that it's Dark (i.e., said gravitational influence is about *all* it does that we can see). Hence, Dark Matter.
Yes, the sun produces neutrinos with every fusion reaction in its core; these are the so-called "solar neutrinos". There are also "cosmic neutrinos", a kind of background flux from other stars, supernovae, galaxies, quasars; anything that can produce neutrinos (basically wherever nuclear reactions take place).
Neutrinos mostly do not interact with normal matter; millions pass through your body every second. There is a very small probability that one will interact with matter, however, and it is this small probability that neutrino detectors rely on.
You basically get a big tank of chlorine, put it deep underground where nothing but neutrinos (which pass right through the Earth without blinking >>99% of the time) can reach it, and wait hours and hours for one of the chlorine atoms to interact with one of the billions of neutrinos passing by every second. The interaction produces a gamma ray photon, which in turn produces a cascade of visible light photons, which are detected by photomultipliers lining the tank's walls.
Re:Um, if it's a star it can't be dark matter....
on
"Dark Matter" Observed
·
· Score: 2
This object is not a brown dwarf. Nor is it a white dwarf. It is a normal, low-mass star.
I agree with you that most objects detected by the MACHO project may be things like white dwarfs and Brown Dwarfs, but this object is not one of them. That's why I suggested the title be changed to something like "At least one MACHO object is found not to be Dark Matter".
I hope that clears up my post.
Re:Um, if it's a star it can't be dark matter....
on
"Dark Matter" Observed
·
· Score: 2
It's true that calling it "Dark Matter" is just a label for something we know next to nothing about; I think the name itself embodies that ignorance nicely. In fact, we really only know a couple of things about DM: it makes up most of the universe, and most of it can't be made of baryons.
I'm already arguing this with an AC in another thread, but we already know that not more than 25% of the DM can be "normal" stuff (and it's probably a lot lower than that). That's stated explicitly in the article.
True, but I said nothing about wimps. Wimps are but one hypothetical kind of non-baryonic matter. The truth is, we know almost nothing about dark matter, we only know a little about what it is not (i.e., baryons).
Slashdot Mirror
KDE's look is really easy to configure, so there's no reason to use the default setup if you find it too cartoony.
What is the cartoony part? The icons? You can get other icon sets at www.kde-look.org, as well as window decorations, color schemes and background images.
KDE even supports iceWM window decorations, so there are lots of possibilities...
KDE and GNOME exist to provide a nice desktop environment for those linux users who would like to use one. As far as I can tell, the people actually building them care little for marketing or microsoft's share of "the desktop". (KDE anyway, I'm not so familiar with the GNOME scene, so I won't speak for them, but I suspect it's the same).
If you don't use a GUI, then, well...don't use a GUI. Good on you, mate.
I disagree. From the Reuters article:
"Not surprisingly, this topic is red hot with controversy -- sharply dividing a world scientific community still on its guard after the ``Cold Fusion'' fiasco of 1989"
and
"Experts contacted by Reuters were wary, citing the first law of thermodynamics which, in layman's terms, states that you can't get more energy out than you put in".
The experts were anything but "wary"! Touting this 'invention' as a "red-hot controversy" and stating that the scientific world is "sharply divided" on the question of its legitimacy both strongly imply that scientists believe it might be true. Complete rubbish.
The popular press has a really nasty habit of trying to sensationalize science and pseudoscience alike, and they often fail to distinguish between the two (as we see here so blatantly). Michael's criticism of this story is legitimate, IMO.
"Your eyes...I designed your eyes"
"If only you could see...what I've seen with your eyes."
Wow, that's suprising that you have had such a bad experience with KDE bug reporting; I have found them to be at least polite, and often helpful. I agree that devs should be very kind to bug reporters; you're helping them out, after all.
Anyway, you may be interested to know that I submitted a bug report on the fact that the "noxft" option isn't in the docs for konsole:
http://bugs.kde.org/db/36/36371.html
man, I'm glad I wasn't drinking my coffee when I read that! hehee...
"p.s. I'm not going to file a bug. Once burned twice shy."
I don't understand what you mean. Isn't the whole point of filing a bug report to let the developer know that you got "burned"? So they can fix it? Or are you saying that you had a bad experience with a previous KDE bug report that you filed?
"Theres no excuse why we shouldnt take advantage of graphics cards that can render millions of polygons per second and do all of these effects i mentioned with ease."
Actually there's a really good excuse: lack of developers and resources. And perhaps lack of developer interest. Maybe few of the devs care about such gee-whiz features. If you want to see them happen, contribute! That's what it's all about.
Well, if you want maturity and stability, just ignore the new stuff. Distros like debian stable make this really easy for you.
I think it's a clear advantage to have both new, possibly bleeding-edge stuff and old, probably rock-solid stuff available.
Have you submitted bug reports/feature requests for any of these (especially konq crashes)? KDE needs your input to fix these things. Complaining on /. doesn't count :)
."
:)
"Anti-aliased fonts are great, but there are times when aliased fonts are actually preferable. In particular, I used anti-aliased fonts, but in terminals, I *really* want a regular-old courier font. At 1024x768 in my terminals, anti-aliasing makes it difficult to tell the difference between and m and n or a , and
konsole -noxft
It's a life saver, since most AA fonts don't render well in konsole anyway
That's funny, I only have 256 MB of RAM, so why doesn't my HD swap when I use KDE?
[jharris@servo jharris]$ free
total used free
Mem: 255516 199036 56480
Swap: 265032 0 265032
I didn't say iron was the most stable element; I said it was the most tightly bound; i.e., it is at the peak of the curve of binding energy. See here:
b in dingE.html
/ no de20.html
6 1/ L25.html
http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/energy/
http://www.phy.uct.ac.za/courses/phy300w/np/ch1
http://blueox.uoregon.edu/~courses/dlivelyb/ph1
Actually, Nickel-56 is slightly more tightly bound (because it's "double magic", has the same number of protons and neutrons), but it decays to Fe-56 on a very short timescale.
It's a huge stretch to say this is the first man-made supernova. Maybe it's the first man-made r-process nuclear reaction, but that's a far cry from a supernova. The reaction they've reproduced involves trace elements, not the iron/nickel that are really important in a SN.
Basically, a SN happens when a massive star has converted all of its core fuel into iron by nuclear fusion. The star's gravity compresses and heats the iron until it can fuse also. However, iron is the most tightly bound element, so fusing iron nuclei doesn't release heat energy, it removes it. The thermal pressure that was holding up the star's core disappears in a fraction of a second, and the whole thing comes crashing down in a huge implosion. The implosion causes the core material to form a neutron star or a black hole, and the rebounding shock wave blows the rest of the star apart.
Doesn't sound much like what they did. I don't mean to downplay their achievement; it's still very impressive. I'm just lamenting the sorry state of most science reporting...
yeah, apparently he inspects that belt veeeery carefully before each flight. heh.
I know of a guy who built his own helicopter in his garage. Thing's got a VW engine and a big rubber belt to drive the tail rotor. He actually flies around in the thing.
Gotta tell you, when I heard about that, my first reaction was not "So what? You've been able to buy helicopters for decades now!"
Maybe you missed it, maybe you're trolling. The guy isn't hawking a product here, he's showing off something cool and interesting that he did. So, yes, no one would want one of these; that's not the point. The point is, as you say, that it's neat.
I for one think it's really cool, and the comic-book style presentation was hilarious.
Thanks portable video game guy!
Good point...maybe a rack-mounted system is closer to a stereo component? At least in physical size. Still would require quite a bit of customization, though.
One of the big differneces between a PC case and a "standard" home theater component is that there's no need for it to be a visible part of the cabinet. Other than the power button, it has no controls or displays. So, why not just hide it in the closet?
This brings up the question of interface. The PC interface of keyboard/mouse/monitor is overkill for the A/V stuff you'd use it for in a home thater. Anyone know of PC remote controls or other slick ways to control a hidden PC?
It should be noted to those (like the original poster) who are unfamiliar with the LOTR, that the above linked synopsis is total hogwash. I gather it was written to thwart lazy students who wanted the "cliff notes" version of LOTR.
Hi,
Neutrinos interact with matter only through the weak nuclear force (and probably the gravitational force; whether they have mass or not is still kind of open, although it seems increasingly more likely that they have a non-zero mass). You are correct that the neutrino reaction does not directly produce a gamma ray photon.
The collision of a neutrino with a chlorine atom changes one of the chlorine atom's neutrons into a proton (note: a weak nuclear reaction), thus transforming the Chlorine atom to an Argon atom (atomic numbers 17 and 18, respectively). The reaction also produces an electron (charge must be conserved).
The particular isotope of argon produced (Ar-37) is unstable to radioactive decay. In a few days it spontaneously reverts back to Chlorine-37, producing an anti-electron in the process:
Ar(37) -> Cl(37) + neutrino + e(+)
The anti-electron immediately finds its way to the nearest electron, and they annihilate, producing a pair of gamma rays, which lead to a cascade of optical photons, which are detected by the experiment.
Whew.
Note that Super-K (the Japanese experiment that was damaged recently) doesn't actually use this chlorine setup, it uses something similar using ultra-pure water as the reactant. Also, I believe the water-based detectors rely on the kinetic energy of the electron in the first reaction to produce cerenkov radiation, rather than a subsequent beta decay/annihilation of anti-electron.
Here are some links on neutrino detector experiments. Google has all these and more.
The Solar Neutrino Problem
Review of all experiments
Sudbury Neutrino Observatory uses deuterium (a/k/a heavy water)
Super-Kamiokande
AMANDA uses Antarctic Ice as the reactant.
I recommend the first link for a detailed overview of solar neutrinos.
enjoy,
Jason
Got me! Nobody knows. That's one of the Big Questions facing cosmology.
Could be massive neutrinos, could be vacuum energy, could be micro black holes. It could be all of these, or none of them. It could be something nobody's thought of yet, something we can't possibly imagine at present. It could be that we simply don't understand gravity as well as we think we do (although that particular angle has a big mountain of contrary evidence to overcome before it can be accepted).
Literally, all we know is that it's Matter (i.e., it exerts a gravitational influence on nearby baryons) and that it's Dark (i.e., said gravitational influence is about *all* it does that we can see). Hence, Dark Matter.
Yes, the sun produces neutrinos with every fusion reaction in its core; these are the so-called "solar neutrinos". There are also "cosmic neutrinos", a kind of background flux from other stars, supernovae, galaxies, quasars; anything that can produce neutrinos (basically wherever nuclear reactions take place).
Neutrinos mostly do not interact with normal matter; millions pass through your body every second. There is a very small probability that one will interact with matter, however, and it is this small probability that neutrino detectors rely on.
You basically get a big tank of chlorine, put it deep underground where nothing but neutrinos (which pass right through the Earth without blinking >>99% of the time) can reach it, and wait hours and hours for one of the chlorine atoms to interact with one of the billions of neutrinos passing by every second. The interaction produces a gamma ray photon, which in turn produces a cascade of visible light photons, which are detected by photomultipliers lining the tank's walls.
This object is not a brown dwarf. Nor is it a white dwarf. It is a normal, low-mass star.
I agree with you that most objects detected by the MACHO project may be things like white dwarfs and Brown Dwarfs, but this object is not one of them. That's why I suggested the title be changed to something like "At least one MACHO object is found not to be Dark Matter".
I hope that clears up my post.
It's true that calling it "Dark Matter" is just a label for something we know next to nothing about; I think the name itself embodies that ignorance nicely. In fact, we really only know a couple of things about DM: it makes up most of the universe, and most of it can't be made of baryons.
I'm already arguing this with an AC in another thread, but we already know that not more than 25% of the DM can be "normal" stuff (and it's probably a lot lower than that). That's stated explicitly in the article.
"that 75% is pure conjecture"
Actually, no it isn't. It's pretty solid.
"there is not proof that Wimps exist."
True, but I said nothing about wimps. Wimps are but one hypothetical kind of non-baryonic matter. The truth is, we know almost nothing about dark matter, we only know a little about what it is not (i.e., baryons).