Fortunately, the changes the FTA requires will require *multiple* bills to be passed, and given the current political climate, the deal will probably be held up until the next election:
The Greens will want the bills killed simply on principle;
The Democrats will probably insist on fine tuning the wording until it looks nothing like the FTA anymore, or the election comes and they lose half their senators;
The independants will probably decide they need some time (read: a few years) to be sure everything meets their approval;
And the ALP will probably reckon that they can get more by bagging the agreement as a sell-out than they can by passing it in "the interest of Australian jobs".
Of course, after the election all bets are off, and if the PM calls a double dissulution he could simply bypass the senate in a joint sitting, rather than brow beating it into signing.
However that's a long way down the track, and depends very much on winner.
Was not to long ago - this year it dropped below 0.50 USD, but the economy here has been getting better and in the US it must be getting worse (or we'd go up against the Euro too).
In Australia though, it always seems that importers think it's 0.50USD every day. There are times when I feel my intelligence is being insulted.
And surprise, the worse offenders are the music stores with their AU$35 CDs.
Trans-Tasman/Australia-US relations? No, perish the thought!
Seriously though, the figure of 2 hours is a matter of some contention, seeing as the pilot himself has pointed out nobody has actually enquired as to how much fuel his custom aircraft carries, or how much fuel he took or has remaining. So unless NZ have another way of knowing, the figure may well have simply been plucked out of the air.
Just like the combat section of the NZ air force!;-)
Hmmm. Then there's probably a lot of talk-back radio listeners in Australia who'd love some UK judges. Here the voices of protest are over lenient sentences - though normally for violent assualts and the like.
In this particular case, the Australian judge did what most Australian judges seem to like to do these days - look at whether the accused actually benifited from the crime and sentence accordingly. Had they sold the songs, he would have sent them to the slammer for sure.
It occurs that this precident does not bode well for ARIA and their ilk though, who had been hoping to use the courts to crack down.
Note: This was the "MPW3/WMA Land" case, where the students were as guilty as sin and admitted it too. The "mp3s4free.net" case is still going through the courts.
Yep. 100% completely different. The mp3s4free.net case is still going through the courts, and will be for some time. (The wheels of justice turn slowly in Australia just like everywhere else.)
For crying out loud, didn't anybody notice the words "MPW3/WMA Land" in BOTH the articles?????
I actually submitted (and had rejected) this story with the correct details to Slashdot about two days ago. The real story is apparently entirely too boring.;-)
That's because selfishness ISN'T a virtue - it's a gapping personality flaw.
Of course, self-interest certainly isn't a virtue either, but it is an integral part of the human nature. Most people lack motivation if they have nothing at stake. (Though fortunately, that is not true for ALL of society.)
But there's a difference between wanting your fair share, and wanting the share of the person next to you.
Solidarity certainly might not drive the world, but at Gallipoli it made a hell of a difference!
I rather doubt it's in the constitution, though you're certainly welcome to look.
Remember, this is AUSTRALIA we're talking about. Judges tend to be somewhat... liberal in their rulings insofar as the rights of the citizen over the corporation go.
At one stage, on finding that a tobacco company had destroyed most of the internal documentation sought by the plaintif as a precautionary move against lawsuits, the judge simply declined to allow the defence to give their case.
I think the point is that while the "GNU" part of GNU/Linux was RMS, he had almost nothing to do with the "Linux" part which played a significant role in making GNU/Linux a success.
As mentioned before, the GNU project was useless without a kernel, and Linux was useless without something to interact with it.
So why don't we call it the RMS/Torvalds GNU/Linux OS and just be done with it?;-)
It's nice to know that we're able to give them away to a country who probably needs them. Last I recalled, Eritrea was one of the poorest countries in the world.
Couldn't submarine use something akin to a jet engine, directly heating seawater that, due to thermal expansion, is then ejected out of the chamber generating propulsion. No idea what kind of noise that would make...
Probably not. To start of with, every enviromentalist and his dog would be a little concerned about letting seawater that close to a nuclear reactor, seeing as getting too close tends to contaminate the water to some degree.
Also, the expansion you'd get probably wouldn't be hugely efficient, and efficiency is the key to submarine survival. And besides, it would probably be rather hard to throttle, which would rule it out completely.
Modern nuclear reactors are really just big steam-engines with the fission pile as the boiler. Granted, the "pile" may be a fast-breeder core, a series of rods or a pebble bed, but it's still just a hot nuclear furnace.
But how efficient is water component? As I understand it, a liquid (normally sealed water, but sometimes liquid metal) is pumped through the fission pile, heats up, is pumped out to heat water which then turns into steam, which then turns a turbine, and electricity is produced.
Would it be more efficient to pressurise these new water cells with the heat instead of generating steam, or at the very least, without needing to turn a turbine?
For that matter, if you could make it compact enough, would the system have applications in nuclear submarine boilers? Modern diesel subs still have an advantage noise-wise over nuclear subs because while diesel subs run off battery power, nuclear subs still use steam turbines.
This disadvantage is often clear every time US and Australian submarines train together, though different training is probably a factor too.
I know you're probably just saying this because the theory sounds good, and I know you probably mean no harm, but I find your comment bordering on disturbing.
No, it's not the principle of harvesting power and running at night for solar powered cars. It's the suggestion that you might even *THINK* about doing it in *this* race in particular.
Now, although this might not be entirely clear to some, the road in question is two lanes for most of the distance. I believe it's even sealed bitumen for all of the distance too (not sure) - an excellent quality road. However, the point is, you are not talking about a built up freeway or something here.
At 5pm in summer in NT and SA the sun won't be down for at least half an hour (hopefully). That gives plenty of time to stop everybody and make sure that nobody is on the road at dusk. In Australia, dusk is typically when the wildlife starts moving. For the 'roos and wallibies certainly, and considering the streach of road, probably quite a few emus too.
If you hit a wallabie in normal car (stationwagon) at 80km/hr, you will be stopping, but if you're lucky, it might not have done any serious damage.
If you hit a full sized red kangaroo at that speed, you've a fair chance the car will be a write-off.
If you hit an emu at that speed... my suggestion is don't if you'd like to walk away, as the body will crash through the windscreen without slowing.
In all these cases, you have modern braking and a very solid frame on your car. If you're lucky, you may be able to steer well and only clip the animal in question.
Now hit it with an amalgum of solar panel and fiberglass with regenerative braking systems designed to conserve as much power as possible. Note that steering won't be as good either for swerving while braking.
Made my point yet?
(For the record, if you're not experienced in driving in Australia, you should NEVER swerve to miss wildlife. You've far higher chance of walking away if you hit something on the road than if you roll the car or hit a tree instead.)
Slashdot Mirror
Fortunately, the changes the FTA requires will require *multiple* bills to be passed, and given the current political climate, the deal will probably be held up until the next election:
The Greens will want the bills killed simply on principle;
The Democrats will probably insist on fine tuning the wording until it looks nothing like the FTA anymore, or the election comes and they lose half their senators;
The independants will probably decide they need some time (read: a few years) to be sure everything meets their approval;
And the ALP will probably reckon that they can get more by bagging the agreement as a sell-out than they can by passing it in "the interest of Australian jobs".
Of course, after the election all bets are off, and if the PM calls a double dissulution he could simply bypass the senate in a joint sitting, rather than brow beating it into signing.
However that's a long way down the track, and depends very much on winner.
Was not to long ago - this year it dropped below 0.50 USD, but the economy here has been getting better and in the US it must be getting worse (or we'd go up against the Euro too). In Australia though, it always seems that importers think it's 0.50USD every day. There are times when I feel my intelligence is being insulted. And surprise, the worse offenders are the music stores with their AU$35 CDs.
Trans-Tasman/Australia-US relations? No, perish the thought!
;-)
Seriously though, the figure of 2 hours is a matter of some contention, seeing as the pilot himself has pointed out nobody has actually enquired as to how much fuel his custom aircraft carries, or how much fuel he took or has remaining. So unless NZ have another way of knowing, the figure may well have simply been plucked out of the air.
Just like the combat section of the NZ air force!
Hmmm. Then there's probably a lot of talk-back radio listeners in Australia who'd love some UK judges. Here the voices of protest are over lenient sentences - though normally for violent assualts and the like.
In this particular case, the Australian judge did what most Australian judges seem to like to do these days - look at whether the accused actually benifited from the crime and sentence accordingly. Had they sold the songs, he would have sent them to the slammer for sure.
It occurs that this precident does not bode well for ARIA and their ilk though, who had been hoping to use the courts to crack down.
Note: This was the "MPW3/WMA Land" case, where the students were as guilty as sin and admitted it too. The "mp3s4free.net" case is still going through the courts.
Yep. 100% completely different. The mp3s4free.net case is still going through the courts, and will be for some time. (The wheels of justice turn slowly in Australia just like everywhere else.)
;-)
For crying out loud, didn't anybody notice the words "MPW3/WMA Land" in BOTH the articles?????
I actually submitted (and had rejected) this story with the correct details to Slashdot about two days ago. The real story is apparently entirely too boring.
That's because selfishness ISN'T a virtue - it's a gapping personality flaw.
Of course, self-interest certainly isn't a virtue either, but it is an integral part of the human nature. Most people lack motivation if they have nothing at stake. (Though fortunately, that is not true for ALL of society.)
But there's a difference between wanting your fair share, and wanting the share of the person next to you.
Solidarity certainly might not drive the world, but at Gallipoli it made a hell of a difference!
I rather doubt it's in the constitution, though you're certainly welcome to look.
Remember, this is AUSTRALIA we're talking about. Judges tend to be somewhat... liberal in their rulings insofar as the rights of the citizen over the corporation go.
At one stage, on finding that a tobacco company had destroyed most of the internal documentation sought by the plaintif as a precautionary move against lawsuits, the judge simply declined to allow the defence to give their case.
Pity that was overturned on appeal though.
To do a Bernard:
;-)
Wouldn't being in a backwater make them "litigation -crazed amphibians"?
Entirely more fitting too, as reptile is entirely too far up the evolutionary chain.
I think the point is that while the "GNU" part of GNU/Linux was RMS, he had almost nothing to do with the "Linux" part which played a significant role in making GNU/Linux a success.
;-)
As mentioned before, the GNU project was useless without a kernel, and Linux was useless without something to interact with it.
So why don't we call it the RMS/Torvalds GNU/Linux OS and just be done with it?
Of course, the news just came through that we're giving our 50,000 lost sheep to Eritrea.
It's nice to know that we're able to give them away to a country who probably needs them. Last I recalled, Eritrea was one of the poorest countries in the world.
Couldn't submarine use something akin to a jet engine, directly heating seawater that, due to thermal expansion, is then ejected out of the chamber generating propulsion. No idea what kind of noise that would make... Probably not. To start of with, every enviromentalist and his dog would be a little concerned about letting seawater that close to a nuclear reactor, seeing as getting too close tends to contaminate the water to some degree. Also, the expansion you'd get probably wouldn't be hugely efficient, and efficiency is the key to submarine survival. And besides, it would probably be rather hard to throttle, which would rule it out completely.
I think this raises a question though:
Modern nuclear reactors are really just big steam-engines with the fission pile as the boiler. Granted, the "pile" may be a fast-breeder core, a series of rods or a pebble bed, but it's still just a hot nuclear furnace.
But how efficient is water component? As I understand it, a liquid (normally sealed water, but sometimes liquid metal) is pumped through the fission pile, heats up, is pumped out to heat water which then turns into steam, which then turns a turbine, and electricity is produced.
Would it be more efficient to pressurise these new water cells with the heat instead of generating steam, or at the very least, without needing to turn a turbine?
For that matter, if you could make it compact enough, would the system have applications in nuclear submarine boilers? Modern diesel subs still have an advantage noise-wise over nuclear subs because while diesel subs run off battery power, nuclear subs still use steam turbines.
This disadvantage is often clear every time US and Australian submarines train together, though different training is probably a factor too.
No, it's not the principle of harvesting power and running at night for solar powered cars. It's the suggestion that you might even *THINK* about doing it in *this* race in particular.
Take a look at a map.
Now, although this might not be entirely clear to some, the road in question is two lanes for most of the distance. I believe it's even sealed bitumen for all of the distance too (not sure) - an excellent quality road. However, the point is, you are not talking about a built up freeway or something here.
At 5pm in summer in NT and SA the sun won't be down for at least half an hour (hopefully). That gives plenty of time to stop everybody and make sure that nobody is on the road at dusk. In Australia, dusk is typically when the wildlife starts moving. For the 'roos and wallibies certainly, and considering the streach of road, probably quite a few emus too.
In all these cases, you have modern braking and a very solid frame on your car. If you're lucky, you may be able to steer well and only clip the animal in question.
Now hit it with an amalgum of solar panel and fiberglass with regenerative braking systems designed to conserve as much power as possible. Note that steering won't be as good either for swerving while braking.
Made my point yet?
(For the record, if you're not experienced in driving in Australia, you should NEVER swerve to miss wildlife. You've far higher chance of walking away if you hit something on the road than if you roll the car or hit a tree instead.)
Actually, I think you'll find it's probably a US-originated term.
http://www.wordorigins.org/wordork.htm