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Comment: Re:Fractional charges? (Score 1) 105

by BitterOak (#44042457) Attached to: First Particle Comprising Four Quarks Discovered

Of course after I actually clicked on the article, that made sense. Now I'm wondering how this is different than two mesons "stuck together". Which, according to TFA, it might just turn out to be.

Well, the binding energy (which would be reflected in the mass of the particle) would be very different for two mesons stuck together. In a tetraquark, the four quarks would be bound together with essentially the same energy, whereas with two mesons stuck together, there'd be much stronger binding between the two quarks in a meson than between the mesons. But even that would be interesting, as I'm not sure a state with two mesons stuck together have been observed. (Of course, baryons similarly stuck together have been observed: atomic nuclei.)

Comment: Re:Fractional charges? (Score 1) 105

by BitterOak (#44041881) Attached to: First Particle Comprising Four Quarks Discovered

I'm wondering how the hell its color charge works, myself.

As I said in the response to the gp, tetraquarks consist of two quarks and two anti-quarks, the same quark content as two mesons. It is therefore possible for them to be arranged in a colorless state, which is of course demanded by QCD. (eg. a tetraquark could consist of a red quark, a blue quark, a red anti-quark, and a blue anti-quark. Of course, these colors are constantly changing as a result of the gluon field, but the tetraquark will remain overall colorless, just as mesons do.)

Comment: Re:Fractional charges? (Score 1) 105

by BitterOak (#44041845) Attached to: First Particle Comprising Four Quarks Discovered

Would particles like this have fractional electrical charges? +4/3, -4/3, etc?

No. The "tetraquarks" that are being talked about in this article consist of a pair of quarks and a pair of antiquarks. (i.e., the same quark content as two mesons). Quarks have charges of +2/3 or -1/3, while anti-quarks have charges of -2/3 or +1/3. Whenever you put together 2 quarks with 2 anti-quarks, you'll always get whole number charges, i.e. -2, -1, 0, 1, or 2. (Try it.)

Comment: Re:Neat idea. (Score 1) 74

Um... $50 dollar routers have been done, for a few years now.

I know. I have one myself. But the cool thing about the Pi is you could run whatever software you like, or even write it yourself, and it would be open source. I'm frequently reading about vulnerabilities showing up in off the shelf routers. With a software solution on a Pi, you could patch and upgrade it yourself. And if it didn't offer the features you wanted, you could add them.

Comment: Neat idea. (Score 4, Interesting) 74

I've always thought the Raspberry Pi would be a pontentially much more useful device if it had two Ethernet ports instead of one. It could be a NAT box, Firewall, TOR proxy, or any number of other things. By separating these functions form the computers you're trying to protect, you potentially have a lot more security. Dare I dream there will be a model with two Ethernet ports sometime in the future?

Comment: Re:Facebook and Google and the NSA (Score 1) 322

I have been thinking about the claims by Facebook and Google that no government agencies have direct access to their servers, and that is likely quite correct.

What they do most likely have, is a tap point on Facebook's and Google's networks which can then snoop on all traffic between their servers and their users and visa versa then ship it off en masse to the NSA for processing and storage...

But most traffic to and from Facebook and Google now is SSL encrypted. So the questions is, has Google and/or Facebook provided the government with the means to decrypt it?

Comment: Re:First (Score 1) 405

The Prius does indeed restrict the front seating passenger from using most of its center panel functions when the car is moving, which is really idiotic because it's smart enough to know there is a passenger in the seat (since it will complain loudly when that same passenger doesn't put his seat belt on).

So, who the hell would buy a Prius then?

Comment: Re:My friend had that game. (Score 3, Insightful) 146

by BitterOak (#43891689) Attached to: Salvaging E.T. In Software, Instead of New Mexico

It sucked. With or without any bugs that I have forgotten in the mists of time, the gameplay was horrible, the field of play was idiotic, and it lacked any immersion into the movie storyline. It sucked.

I think you hit onto its key problem, which was immersion into the movie storyline, or any storyline for that matter. Contrast that game to Adventure for the Atari 2600. I really felt I was wandering mazes and entering castles with that one. (Okay, not like a modern first person RPG, obviously, but this was a 2600, after all.)

Comment: Re:WHAT popular perception? (Score 1) 318

by BitterOak (#43856615) Attached to: Taking Action For Free JavaScript

Contrary to popular perception, JavaScript does not run "on the Web site" -- it runs locally on users' computers when they visit a site.

This statement makes no sense. If you actually know what JavaScript is, you probably know it runs in the web browser. If you don't know what JavaScript is, you don't have any perceptions about it whatsoever.

Ummm, I think that's exactly what they mean. Yes, Javascript runs in the web browser, but the web browser runs on the user's computer, like the article says. When they talk about "user's computer" versus "on the Web site" they mean client side versus server side: i.e. Javascript generally runs client-side while PHP runs server-side.

Comment: This article is absolute nonsense! (Score 0) 318

by BitterOak (#43856601) Attached to: Taking Action For Free JavaScript
I visited the site (regulations.gov) that they were all hot and bothered about using Firefox, which contains a free Javascript engine (in fact, all of Firefox is free!) and it worked fine. No requirement for a proprietary version of Javascript at all! This article may be confusing Javascript with ActiveX, but that site doesn't even require ActiveX! I'm not even aware of a non-free version of Javascript. There may be some proprietary extensions to the language that Internet Explorer uses, but the vast majority of sites I visit work just fine with Firefox.

Comment: Re:Funny ould world we live in (Score 1) 802

by BitterOak (#43856109) Attached to: Judge Orders Child Porn Suspect To Decrypt His Hard Drives

So you wouldn't mind if pictures of you being raped were being looked at on the internet? Fair enough, personally I'd have a problem with that and want it to be a crime to look at them, but maybe that's just me, I have been known to be a little odd.

Well, if he/she is over 18, then it ISN'T illegal. I guess you're under 18, since you seem to think it is illegal for people to look at pictures of you being raped.

Comment: Re:Their country, their rules (Score 1) 204

Do you ban yourself from New York because of the $3500 fee they charge for filming in certain public buildings? Or is it just developing countries where you demand that all privileges be provided free for the Western tourists?

Does that $3500 fee apply to people who whip out their cell phone and make a short video for Vine?

Comment: Re:What did Fox News do? (Score 2) 330

I know they are stupid and shouldn't be called a news show, but what did they do that requires wiretapping?

It's not what they did; it's what the person talking to them was allegedly doing. The Executive branch was investigating a leak from one of its own, and Fox News was on the receiving end of the information, apparently, so by wiretapping Fox News' communications, they were hoping to find the source of the leak.

"Everyone is entitled to an *informed* opinion." -- Harlan Ellison

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