Plasma

Plasma or plasm may refer to:

Biology

Computing

Media and entertainment

KDE

KDE (/ˌkeɪdiːˈiː/) is an international free software community producing free and libre software like Plasma Desktop, KDE Frameworks and many cross-platform applications designed to run on modern Unix-like and Microsoft Windows systems. The Plasma Desktop is a desktop environment provided as the default work environment on many Linux distributions, such as openSUSE, Mageia, Kubuntu, Manjaro Linux and also the default desktop environment on PC-BSD, a BSD operating system.

The goal of the community is to develop free software solutions and applications for the daily needs of an end-user, as well as providing tools and documentation for developers to write such software. In this regard, the resources provided by KDE make it a central development hub and home for many popular applications and projects like Calligra Suite, Krita, digiKam, and many others.

History

Origins

K Desktop Environment (KDE) was founded in 1996 by Matthias Ettrich, who was then a student at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen. At the time, he was troubled by certain aspects of the Unix desktop. Among his concerns was that none of the applications looked, felt, or worked alike. He proposed the creation of not merely a set of applications but a desktop environment in which users could expect things to look, feel, and work consistently. He also wanted to make this desktop easy to use; one of his complaints about desktop applications of the time was that it is too complicated for end user. His initial Usenet post spurred a lot of interest, and the KDE project was born.

KDE Plasma 4

KDE Plasma 4, subsequently renamed from KDE Plasma Workspaces, is the umbrella term for the fourth generation graphical environments provided by KDE. It comprehended of three workspaces, each targeting a certain platform: Plasma Desktop for traditional desktop PCs and notebooks, Plasma Netbook for netbooks, and Plasma Active for tablet PCs and similar devices.

KDE Plasma 4 was released as part of KDE Software Compilation 4 and replaced Kicker, KDesktop, and SuperKaramba, which formed the Desktop in earlier KDE releases. They are bundled as the default environment with a number of free software operating systems, such as Chakra,Kubuntu,Mageia (DVD version),openSUSE, or PC-BSD.

With the release of KDE SC 4.11 on 14 August 2013 KDE Plasma 4 was put into "feature freeze" and turned into an long-time stable package until August 2015. On 15 July 2014 KDE Plasma 4’s successor, KDE Plasma 5, was released.

Features

Plasma features containments, essentially an applet that contains other applets. Two examples of containments are the desktop background and the taskbar. A containment can be anything the developer wants: an image (either raster graphics or an SVG image), animation, or even OpenGL. Images are most commonly used, but with Plasma the user could set any applet as the desktop background without losing functionality of the applet. This also allows for applets to be dragged between the desktop and the taskbar (two separate containments), and have a separate visualization for the more confined taskbar.

Heliotrope (mineral)

The mineral aggregate heliotrope, also known as bloodstone, is a variety of jasper or chalcedony (which is a cryptocrystalline mixture of quartz). The "classic" bloodstone is green jasper (chalcedony) with red inclusions of hematite.

The red inclusions are supposed to resemble spots of blood; hence the name "bloodstone". The name "heliotrope" (from Greek ἥλιος helios, Sun, τρέπειν trepein, to turn) derives from various ancient notions about the manner in which the mineral reflects light. These are described, e.g., by Pliny the Elder (Nat. Hist. 37.165).

Heliotrope was called "stone of Babylon" by Albert the Great (1193–1280) and he referred to several magical properties, which were attributed to it from Late Antiquity. Pliny the Elder (1st century) mentioned first that the magicians used it as a stone of invisibility. Damigeron (4th century) wrote about its property to make rain, solar eclipse and its special virtue in divination and preserving health and youth.

Heliotrope features in one of Boccaccio's stories in the Decameron.

Plasma (physics)

Plasma (from Greek πλάσμα, "anything formed") is one of the four fundamental states of matter, the others being solid, liquid, and gas. A plasma has properties unlike those of the other states.

A plasma can be created by heating a gas or subjecting it to a strong electromagnetic field applied with a laser or microwave generator. This decreases or increases the number of electrons, creating positive or negative charged particles called ions, and is accompanied by the dissociation of molecular bonds, if present.

The presence of a significant number of charge carriers makes plasma electrically conductive so that it responds strongly to electromagnetic fields. Like gas, plasma does not have a definite shape or a definite volume unless enclosed in a container. Unlike gas, under the influence of a magnetic field, it may form structures such as filaments, beams and double layers.

Plasma is the most abundant form of ordinary matter in the Universe (of the forms proven to exist; the more abundant dark matter is hypothetical and may or may not be explained by ordinary matter), most of which is in the rarefied intergalactic regions, particularly the intracluster medium, and in stars, including the Sun. A common form of plasmas on Earth is seen in neon signs.

Plasma (comics)

Plasma is a fictional character in the Marvel Universe.

Fictional character biography

Leila O'Toole was born in Dublin, Ireland. As a college student, Leila travels to Egypt to explore the ruins in the Nile Valley. There, she encounters the Cult of the Living Pharaoh, was intrigued by the cult and joins.

She is initially repulsed by the cult's habit of human sacrifice and flees. She is brought back and falls under their spell.

She learns that the Living Pharaoh has a link to Havok. She meets him outside the cult and acting innocent, over the weeks, Havok eventually falls in love with her.

They end up back at the cult's headquarters, via trickery on Leila's part, and in multiple incidents, Havok is forced to fight Leila, who is in disguise. Each blast of his cosmic energy only serves to strengthen her. Even Wolverine is of no use, as he is quickly knocked out by a blast. In the end, Havok stops her with a simple punch to the face and leaves.

Leila decides to recruit cults into one massive army, and starts with the forces of Khonshu, the god which Moon Knight worships.