The radiation radiates from a point (more or less). As the radiation travels it forms an expanding sphere. The energy from the initial burst of radiation is spread out over the surface area of this sphere.
As the surface area is proportional to the square of the radius, the energy dissipates at a rate of 1/r^2.
For the energy to dissipate at a rate of 1/r^3 it would need to be spread throughout the sphere, as the volumne is proportional to the cube of the radius.
Thats right.
Whoever holds the balance of power in the Senate usually makes a bigger difference to what policies get passed than which party holds the majority in the House of Representatives.
Of course it would make for an interesting 4 years if the ALP were forced to form a coalition with the Greens or Democrats to make a government
Note on Australian Politics for anyone who doesn't get this:
Whoever hold a majority in the lower house (House of Reps.) is called the government. This is usually either the Australian Labor Party (ALP, traditionally aligned with unions and strong social policies), or a coalition between the Liberal party (traditionally aligned with businesses and strong economic policies) and the National Party (traditionally aligned with farmers). Usually no party holds a majority in the upper house, so the balance of power will be held by the Greens (environmental party), the Democrats (left leaning), or an independent (wild card, could be anyone).
Laws need to be passed by a majority in both houses, so whoever hold the balance of power in the senate can usually get the government to pass some of the laws they want, in return for backing the governement on some of the laws they want.
Overall I think it is a good system.
You've missed the point. If the courts find the license to be invalid, there is no license for IBM to be complying with. Therefore IBM will have been using other peoples code without a license, and will be in breach of copyright. As will a whole lot of other people using GPL'd code.
While the average OSS developer might not mind people using the code they had intended to release publically without a license, there are also companies with less morals who will decide it's easy money.
Nationality is a demographic. However it is not the only one.
If any other demographic were to put together the money to fund an information source exclusively for their use the legal and organisational structures would not be there to support it.
There is no reason why Slashdot (assuming they wanted to) should not be able to buy the geek rights to the olympics, in much the same way the BBC has bought the British rights to the Olympics. No reason except for inertia on the part of the governing bodies of the Olympics that have always sold right to nations (or other geographical areas).
Yes we would get non-geeks coming to Slashdot for the Olympic coverage, but the BBC gets non-British watching their Olympic coverage via proxy servers, so what difference is there really?
The internet represents cheap, fast, global communication.
From the point of view of individuals this is a great thing. It means keeping in touch with loved ones on the other side of the globe, not having to be constrained by the choices of news editors idea of what is newsworthy, and generally be able to share information with whomever we choose, in both directions.
From a corporations point of view the internet is a great thing because it allows cheap fast access to the eyes and minds of the individuals.
Unfortunately these reasons are orthogonal, and often exclusive. Fast, cheap marketing gives corporations mindshare (which often leads to marketshare), while open communication channels give us the oportunity to discover competitors to those same corporations we may never have known existed otherwise.
Individually we can quickly adjust to taking what the internet offers, societally it will take some time before everything large groups of people do together is optimised to make the best use of fast, cheap, global communications.
The same applies to organisations. Single organisations can quickly make use of internal networks to streamline their in house processes, but it will take a while for entire industries to optimise for the ability to quickly and cheaply share information.
Slowest of all are governments, and other regulatory bodies. Once governments, standards setting organisations, and industry regulatory bodies have had time to adjust to the internet, we will probably find that the world stops trying to change the net, and rather changes to take advantage of it.
In short the internet is changing the world, but not necessarily overnight.
Reminds me of the Empire from Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett.
They built a big wall around their empire, even along the ocean shores, and told everyone on the inside that it was for their protection, and that they would surely be killed by ravening hoards of barbarians if ever they left the safety of the wall.
In the end, the Empire had done such a good job of brainwashing its citizens, that no-one bothered to question the continuing need for the wall.
Of course the hoardes had never existed to begin with. The wall had always been about stopping the citizens from considering the possibility of leaving the Empire.
In the age of the internet dividing rights up based on geographical regions makes little sense (if any).
A more interesting idea, and potentially a big money earner would be to divide rights up based on target demographics. Not sure how well this could be done in practice, but I freel the idea has potential.
Fortunately Australia has a preferential voting system, so you can vote for the people you like, without giving the greater of two evils a better chance by not voting for the lesser of two evils.
Thats something I love about Australia, that I know will severely annoy me should I ever travel to the USA.
In Australia the price shown on the item/menu/shelf/whatever, is the price you pay for it. If it says $5.95 on the price tag, you pay $5.95 at the register. Taxes are already added in (items which attract the GST are marked as such on the reciept), and you aren't expected to tip anyone for anything.
Incidentally I never quite got tipping. To me its your employers job to pay you to serve me, not mine. If your boss doesn't want to pay you, they should set up as a self service business. I would expect the cost of providing service to be factored into the total cost, not tacked on at the end.
In Australia (though I am not an accountant, and this may have changed since last I looked into it) the tax is based on the dollar amount, ignoring the cents, so you could get 99c untaxed by charging $X.99 rather than $X+1.
The "It sounds less expensive" reason also works. If you charge $6 and your competitor charges $5.99 the gain in profit from making an extra 1c per sale is less than the loss from people saying (or thinking) "that product costs $6.something, and this one is only $5.something, I'll get the cheap one". The difference is marginal, but when it takes so little effort to just charge 1c less, hey, why not?
I had a brief look at the chicken article that several people linked, saw the "If I were a dog" comment, and thought: "What could possibly be cooler than pirates fighting zombie pirates? Pirates fighting ninjas!"
They were only able to write the third party firmware because the source was made available to them under the GPL, why is it that they cannot comply with the terms then?
Second I don't mind what is being shown in magazines, television, or the internet, so long as children (or anyone else) aren't being hurt. To me the point of banning looking at child porn is not to stop people from looking at child porn, it is to stop children from being taken advantage of. As seeing pictures doesn't hurt anyone, why is child porn banned? To discourage creation of child porn. Does this work? Who knows.
Slashdot Mirror
Then the humans could be used to attract dinosaurs.
And our dinosaur weilding robot overlords would trash Tokyo.
Again.
I'll try to explain.
The radiation radiates from a point (more or less). As the radiation travels it forms an expanding sphere. The energy from the initial burst of radiation is spread out over the surface area of this sphere.
As the surface area is proportional to the square of the radius, the energy dissipates at a rate of 1/r^2.
For the energy to dissipate at a rate of 1/r^3 it would need to be spread throughout the sphere, as the volumne is proportional to the cube of the radius.
Thats right. Whoever holds the balance of power in the Senate usually makes a bigger difference to what policies get passed than which party holds the majority in the House of Representatives. Of course it would make for an interesting 4 years if the ALP were forced to form a coalition with the Greens or Democrats to make a government Note on Australian Politics for anyone who doesn't get this: Whoever hold a majority in the lower house (House of Reps.) is called the government. This is usually either the Australian Labor Party (ALP, traditionally aligned with unions and strong social policies), or a coalition between the Liberal party (traditionally aligned with businesses and strong economic policies) and the National Party (traditionally aligned with farmers). Usually no party holds a majority in the upper house, so the balance of power will be held by the Greens (environmental party), the Democrats (left leaning), or an independent (wild card, could be anyone). Laws need to be passed by a majority in both houses, so whoever hold the balance of power in the senate can usually get the government to pass some of the laws they want, in return for backing the governement on some of the laws they want. Overall I think it is a good system.
Is it in Canberra? (Don't answer that)
You've missed the point. If the courts find the license to be invalid, there is no license for IBM to be complying with. Therefore IBM will have been using other peoples code without a license, and will be in breach of copyright. As will a whole lot of other people using GPL'd code.
While the average OSS developer might not mind people using the code they had intended to release publically without a license, there are also companies with less morals who will decide it's easy money.
Nationality is a demographic. However it is not the only one.
If any other demographic were to put together the money to fund an information source exclusively for their use the legal and organisational structures would not be there to support it.
There is no reason why Slashdot (assuming they wanted to) should not be able to buy the geek rights to the olympics, in much the same way the BBC has bought the British rights to the Olympics. No reason except for inertia on the part of the governing bodies of the Olympics that have always sold right to nations (or other geographical areas).
Yes we would get non-geeks coming to Slashdot for the Olympic coverage, but the BBC gets non-British watching their Olympic coverage via proxy servers, so what difference is there really?
Why have an internet?
The internet represents cheap, fast, global communication.
From the point of view of individuals this is a great thing. It means keeping in touch with loved ones on the other side of the globe, not having to be constrained by the choices of news editors idea of what is newsworthy, and generally be able to share information with whomever we choose, in both directions.
From a corporations point of view the internet is a great thing because it allows cheap fast access to the eyes and minds of the individuals.
Unfortunately these reasons are orthogonal, and often exclusive. Fast, cheap marketing gives corporations mindshare (which often leads to marketshare), while open communication channels give us the oportunity to discover competitors to those same corporations we may never have known existed otherwise.
Individually we can quickly adjust to taking what the internet offers, societally it will take some time before everything large groups of people do together is optimised to make the best use of fast, cheap, global communications.
The same applies to organisations. Single organisations can quickly make use of internal networks to streamline their in house processes, but it will take a while for entire industries to optimise for the ability to quickly and cheaply share information.
Slowest of all are governments, and other regulatory bodies. Once governments, standards setting organisations, and industry regulatory bodies have had time to adjust to the internet, we will probably find that the world stops trying to change the net, and rather changes to take advantage of it.
In short the internet is changing the world, but not necessarily overnight.
Reminds me of the Empire from Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett.
They built a big wall around their empire, even along the ocean shores, and told everyone on the inside that it was for their protection, and that they would surely be killed by ravening hoards of barbarians if ever they left the safety of the wall.
In the end, the Empire had done such a good job of brainwashing its citizens, that no-one bothered to question the continuing need for the wall.
Of course the hoardes had never existed to begin with. The wall had always been about stopping the citizens from considering the possibility of leaving the Empire.
Don't knock English cooking.
What not to like about a lump of overcooked meat sitting in slowly congealing puddles of its own fat?
Can't remember the original source, feel free to chime in.
It would appear that some letters went missing.
Of course I meant:
I freely share with you my feeling
In the age of the internet dividing rights up based on geographical regions makes little sense (if any). A more interesting idea, and potentially a big money earner would be to divide rights up based on target demographics. Not sure how well this could be done in practice, but I freel the idea has potential.
Fortunately Australia has a preferential voting system, so you can vote for the people you like, without giving the greater of two evils a better chance by not voting for the lesser of two evils.
I got good at one handed typing in highschool.
Mainly by playing NetHack with the numerical keypad.
Thats something I love about Australia, that I know will severely annoy me should I ever travel to the USA. In Australia the price shown on the item/menu/shelf/whatever, is the price you pay for it. If it says $5.95 on the price tag, you pay $5.95 at the register. Taxes are already added in (items which attract the GST are marked as such on the reciept), and you aren't expected to tip anyone for anything. Incidentally I never quite got tipping. To me its your employers job to pay you to serve me, not mine. If your boss doesn't want to pay you, they should set up as a self service business. I would expect the cost of providing service to be factored into the total cost, not tacked on at the end.
My understanding is that they are both right.
In Australia (though I am not an accountant, and this may have changed since last I looked into it) the tax is based on the dollar amount, ignoring the cents, so you could get 99c untaxed by charging $X.99 rather than $X+1.
The "It sounds less expensive" reason also works. If you charge $6 and your competitor charges $5.99 the gain in profit from making an extra 1c per sale is less than the loss from people saying (or thinking) "that product costs $6.something, and this one is only $5.something, I'll get the cheap one". The difference is marginal, but when it takes so little effort to just charge 1c less, hey, why not?
That exactly what I thought.
I had a brief look at the chicken article that several people linked, saw the "If I were a dog" comment, and thought: "What could possibly be cooler than pirates fighting zombie pirates? Pirates fighting ninjas!"
Do I feel a poll coming on? I think I do.
They were only able to write the third party firmware because the source was made available to them under the GPL, why is it that they cannot comply with the terms then?
First porn was not banned in 1984.
Second I don't mind what is being shown in magazines, television, or the internet, so long as children (or anyone else) aren't being hurt. To me the point of banning looking at child porn is not to stop people from looking at child porn, it is to stop children from being taken advantage of. As seeing pictures doesn't hurt anyone, why is child porn banned? To discourage creation of child porn. Does this work? Who knows.
Just out of curiosity, have you read your own sig lately?
For the sig impaired I reproduce it here:
Age means nothing, IQ means everything.
I was about to say "Hey, that's only two words", but then I realised what those words were, and thought better of it.
Shouldn't be hard to find, it's right under your nose.
Looks like the dickwads paid a few megacents too few.
I can do it easier still. Build a large foot-bot, drop it.
And that is exactly why a lot of people don't like capitalism. It's OK in moderation, but dammit, I hope that was meant to be funny.