Author: Ibrahim El Merehbi

Thomas S. Kuhn, the paradigm shift, scientific revolutions, & truth [link]

Link

What Thomas Kuhn Really Thought about Scientific “Truth”, By John Horgan | Scientific American | May 23, 2012

 

Misuse of Thomas Kuhn, By William S. | LinkedIn “History and Philosophy of Science” group conversation ” August 15, 2012

Compiling Muesli Fortran

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Here is the code you need to compile and install the free numerical and graphical MUESLI library, developed by Édouard Canot [1].

sudo apt-get install 'libatlas-dev liblapack-dev zlib1g-dev libreadline6-dev imagemagick  
libx11-dev libpng12-dev g++ gfortran' #installing dependencies
 Note: for Ubuntu 10.04 replace “libatlas-dev” by “libatlas-headers”)
tar xvfj muesli-linux-all-2.6.3_2012-05-03.tar.bz2 #untar

cd muesli-linux-all-2.6.3_2012-05-03/GNU_GFC
./configure --f90=gfortran --blas=/usr/lib/ --lapack=/usr/lib/lapack/ #configuring

make -s distclean #clean your distribution from previous installation
make -s (or for detailed output: make MODE=verbose) #compiling; this will take some time

cd tests #testing
make #make the test files
./run_all #run all the made test files

cd ..
make install #installing

cd tests/fgl #testing fgl
make #make the test files
./run_all #run all the made test files


And here’s a video on how to do that [1]:

For further help, please contact MUESLI’s author from the respective homepage [2].

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[1] http://playterm.org/r/compiling-muesli-fortran-on-ubuntu-1336936852
[2] MUESLI library homepage: http://people.irisa.fr/Edouard.Canot/muesli/

Ubuntu 12.04 & Cinnamon

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Hello again,

Precise Pangolin

Those who will try Ubuntu 12.04 & have a multitouch touchpad will notice the new feature (when enabled)!
Some not very apparent new features (relative to 10.04 & not 11.04 or 11.10!) are:
  • Installation time (i.e; start of copying files to notification or required reboot): 6~7 minutes.
  • Properties of an image in the image viewer gives you the folder name the image is located in & the ability (which I like) to open this folder by clicking the name.
  • Two-finger scrolling: In the “Mouse and Touchpad” settings, under Touchpad I enabled horizontal scrolling (which I do not understand why it is not enabled by default) & chose “Two-finger scrolling” instead of “Edge scrolling”. The latter was not comfortable in my case; I sometimes couldn’t lock the scroll & use it, but with the two-finger option (which needs some time to get used to) is much better; I can now use two fingers anywhere on the pad to scroll not just verticall or horizontally but in any direction (i.e; both vertical & horizontal).

Cinnamon

I’d also like share with you the relatively new desktop graphical user interface (GUI): Cinnamon. Below are two images of the desktop, which unlike Gnome 2 which has two panels, has only one main panel.
Cinnamon might very well appeal to Gnome 2 users who do not wish to switch to neither Gnome 3 that Fedora employs nor Ubuntu’s new Unity.
A particular feature employed in Cinnamon that adds to Gnome 2 that I really appreciate is a graphical feature. What I really like is the Mac-like drop-down window when saving a file. All I can show you is the screenshots below:
Cinnamon
The default GUI for Mint 12 with its default one-panel look.
Cinnamon panel settings
Cinnamon panel settings
It is very easy to edit the panel settings &/or add a new panel.

If you like what you see & would like to try it out, you can install it on Precise Pangolin (12.04 LTS) as follows (read note below first):

Note: Keep in mind that Cinnamon is a newly born project & so it is under active development &  you might possibly face bugs (but keep in mind ithat it has already the default for Mint 12). It deserves to be tried; Note that the above ppa is the “stable” repository.
Personally, I guess It is going to be second after Unity, though I am also testing LXDE, XFCE, fluxbox, openbox,…
Update (2012-06-05): For more about Cinnamon, check the article “Cinnamon 1.4” by Tim Schürmann and Kristian Kißling from Linux Magazine.

If you really enjoyed Cinnamon, I highly suggest that instead of installing Ubuntu & Cinnamon that you install the Ubuntu-based Linux Mint (or its other alternative, the Debian-based Linux Mint Debian Edition -LMDE).

Thanks for reading 🙂

Ubuntu 12.04LTS (Precise Pangolin)

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Ubuntu 12.04LTS, otherwise known by Precise Pangolin, is coming soon; it is currently in Beta 2 testing. The final release should come in April. Here are a couple of images:
Ubuntu Precise Beta_Unity_2012-03-26
Unity on Ubuntu Precise Beta 2

Ubuntu Precise Beta_Unity & dash_2012-03-26
Unity’s Dash on Ubuntu Precise Beta 2
Ubuntu Precise Beta_Classic_2012-03-26
Gnome Classic on Ubuntu Precise Beta 2
Gnome 3 on Ubuntu 12.04 Beta 2
Gnome 3 on Ubuntu Precise Beta 2
LXDE on Ubuntu 12.04 Beta 2
LXDE on Ubuntu Precise Beta 2

Some of Unity’s features: http://developer.ubuntu.com/resources/technologies/unity/

For those like myself who are interested in Gnome, you could install the “gnome-panel” package to get the option (at login) to choose Ubuntu Classic (more gnome-like)

Just as anything new (whether good or not) alot of people might dislike the new Unity (replacing Gnome) just like I did at first, but I believe (after watching the following video) that Linux (whether Fedora with Gnome 3 or Ubuntu with Unity) is leading the computing experience!!!

P.S.: From 12.04 & on, the LTS releases are 5 years instead of 3 😀

Thanks for reading 🙂

David Wallace on the Physicality of the Quantum State [link]

Link

Guest Post: David Wallace on the Physicality of the Quantum State | Preposterous Universe | November 18, 2011