Yeah, I get that, but I thought that the gravitational attraction was between the relative masses of the two objects. Presumably, therefore, any massless doodah wandering by would be unaffected by the masses of thingamejigs it might pass.
That being so ...

A mass-less photon (at speed) whizzing past a superhumongous 'body' would be unaffected by it, gravitationally, regardless of how massive the body was, if it had no mass. Ergo - a photon at speed has mass.

Where does that mass come from. If it comes from momentum, then it must have mass at rest (mass * velocity).

>Photons have no _rest mass_ or they couldn't go the speed of light.

So, we keep measuring the speed of light more and more precision, and what if our precision with that measurement simply isn't up to the job, and light actually travels at ever so slightly less than the (theoretical) speed of light.
Photons at rest could then have a Really (really really ...) small mass ...

ebyrob> I think momentum is an important term to remember here. Photons may not have rest mass, but they do have momentum. (in classical physics: p = m * v)

Hang on ... isn't momentum mass times velocity?
Momentum? why you keep using that word?

Oh I do hope they don't try and Top Gearise it, like they did with Gardener's World a year or so back. With GW they reverted to the old format (and quite possibly killed Toby Buckland's TV Gardener career!).

Hey BBC, do us all a service and just leave it alone!

Ironically, Germany!

You hear a lot about "but then only criminals will have guns", and that may well be partially true.
The difference, of course, is that if only the criminal has a gun they mug you, you hand over your wallet, and they leave. They are unlikely to decide to shoot you anyway because then they're murders rather than muggers. best of all, you live, but are a little poorer.
The other fact that is ignored is that criminals simply do not walk into schools or cinemas and shoot kids. They just don't do it!

To recap:
Strict Gun Laws = a chance to be robbed at gunpoint, far less chance of having someone shoot your kids.
No Gun Laws = Far less chance of petty crime, but a high incidence of mass shootings.

For the record, in the UK you are more likely to be mugged at knife point as guns simply aren't that easy to get hold of - but you're still unlikely to be mugged at all. Also, those criminals who _do_ get guns tend to use them to shoot each other rather than the public at large.

Er ... no. His post successfully explained the anomaly to me. That you cannot see the point isn't down to his explanation being 'bad', or indeed because he may be egocentric (not sure how that affects it either way?).

His point, if I may attempt to clarify, is that because Japanese culture has the aforementioned duty, failure, shame deeply ingrained, combined with the history of ritual suicide, that there may well be more people considering suicide because of their perceived failures, shame, loss of face, etc, and ritual suicides are most often committed using blades anyway, so _possibly_ even if there were a gun available, they'd chose to use a blade, but given the strict gun control, and the fondness for harakiri (suicide by ritual self disembowelling) the lack of guns doesn't hold them back.

I wonder whether higher rate taxation doesn't just encourage those caught to seek out the loopholes. A flat tax rate, combined with a reasonable initial tax free earning seems like the best, and fairest, way to me. Include in that tax rate any and all income, including dividends, and you (fairly) eliminate many of the current loop holes (the UK tried to target Contractors with IR35 rather than simply taxing dividends, the common loophole, possibly because of the big business lobbying during the Blair Govmnt).

Oh, you mean like when Gary McKinnon, who similarly walked into unsecured US military and NASA computer. The difference - oh yes, no one noticed for ages!

Fixed that for you

Fixed that for you

I understand there was big uptake on VPN services from the US to get around the poor coverage so folks could get the BBC if they wanted, though I don't see why it couldn't be offered as a paid service to offset our licence fee.

I'd have to say the coverage by the beeb was excellent and well worth the fee, and I'm not a sports fan!

It totally stinks that the high percentage of legitimate Megaupload customers are getting screwed 'cos of the US bully-boy tactics. What about shutting down the US Postal Service because of all the illegal activity that enables? People do bad things with telephones too. Hey, don't people use cars as getaway cars ... let's shut down Ford and GM while we're at it!

How about maintain two FB profiles, one for friends and one 'work safe' one with work colleagues on it. I know several of my friends kids maintain two profiles, one for friends and one for Mum & Dad and it works a treat!

Of course, you could just ask them to login too, and you can skim through their page(s) whilst they do the same to yours! As others have said, simply tell them you're not on FB (or any of the others) but you are willing to start one up if it is a requirement.

... and my personal favourite, ask them to send you a friend request and you'll consider their application!

What I don't get is why anyone thinks lobby groups buying legislation is the right way!

Possibly that might be the sensible thing to do, 'cos next time you land in the US you could find yourself arrested, but as other posters have said, it's not OUR fault the US has stupid laws and it's certainly not up to us to police them.

If I have a non-US gambling website and someone from the US wants to come spend their $$$'s then I say good luck to 'em 'cos it's none of my business where you are as long as what we're doing is legal where I am! It's the US citizen that's broken the law, not the website.

Really getting fed up with the US continually forgetting they're just ONE COUNTRY amongst many. You want to make online gambling illegal - go right ahead! Make Intelligent Design part of the science curriculum ... fill ya boots! Legislate Pi = 3 ... whatever! Just don't think you can bully the rest of the World into doing it too!

... and Rest Of The World: Wake UP and grow a pair! Tell the US to take a hike!