A tourist visiting a foreign country isn't even close to an equivalent interaction between beings that have, potentially, no common variables. Communicating with another human, even if you have no common language, can be done with gestures like eating - as you pointed out - but you can't do that for a being that you don't understand the biology of. Does the alien even need to eat? It might not have fingers and toes to count on. Establishing a baseline communication through mathematics *is* going to work, because (we assume) mathematics is our lowest level language for describing the universe around us. It might take a vast amount of time, but being able to teach them the notation for our mathematical system then allows for natural phenomena to be described in such terms and then those terms can be translated.

If an alien has no concept of our language or biology but can gradually understand our mathematical notation (even just starting with physical representations of addition and subtraction and then moving to more complex mathematical notation), it can then understand when we write a certain number that it represents light (because it is a constant), and then we can explain what our word for light is and start to develop and understanding of language around that word.

The 9th paragraph of the article does list the countries.

The link in the last paragraph of the ./ article also directs you to the panel's website which has the nations listed under Policy — About the Ocean Panel.

The image on the panel's website front page is a looping image of participating countries appearing one by one — and the countries disappearing is just the start of the loop.

Oh, you're right! My mistake.

The tax isn't aimed at foreign companies, though. It has a lower revenue threshold for local companies (25 million euros vs 750 million euros). Arguably it's trying to promote small businesses, or non-digital services. Profitable local companies will have to pay the tax as well, so it'll be interesting to see how they ballance a 3% additional tax on digital transactions versus employing more personnel to facilitate in-person transactions / services.

I wonder if this will affect certain POS machines that use the internet for transactions. I guess I might know if I RTFA...

ABC cut almost 5% of their jobs in June, due to an $84 million dollar budget cut. Their enterprise agreement from three years ago agreed to a 2% wage increase each year over three years, which is just above the inflation rate (about 1.5%) over the those years. It's hardly a cash grab. Sure, Australian journalism is garbage, but ABC news hardly even rates as a 'top offender' in terms of biased, barely researched news (here's looking at you, Murdock, Stokes and Fairfax).

Google and the Aus government should be able to reach an agreement so that smaller, media institutions can profit in some way from their articles without having to paywall articles like the Guardian. That isn't to say it needs to be fiscal remuneration for use of articles, I completely agree that Google shouldn't be paying for ABC news wage increases, but they also shouldn't be able to 'curate' a news showcase for Australians that compound confirmation bias (you've looked at 'Xa' article, how about 'Xb' article that reinforces the point?) or steer readers to institutions that can, and do, pay more for increased visibility.

I did a degree in creative and professional writing after studying engineering/science, and one of the only things I would say that I actually learned in that degree is that one of the things that defines works of 'art', in any discipline, seems to be that it has a different effect and meaning for those experiencing it. Something that resonates for one person doesn't necessarily resonate in the same way for others. It's completely fair to think an author is overrated, or even just particular works, it's part of having your own critical mind and opinion on such things. I don't think anyone actually reading all of the classics really appreciates every single book that could be defined as 'classic' unless they're a huge literary nerd, and even then they'd have to be a very specific type of literary nerd.

Classics are known as classics due to a wide appeal, but none are without critics. That appeal may wane with time, as the issues and perspectives in the books grow less relevant, or the use of language becomes less approachable, but they rarely ever have that classification of 'classic' removed- because after their peak they become a reflection of a time and a place in which is was widely accepted and appreciated.

I think poetry finds itself in the same boat, but the entire genre has a continuously diminishing readership. Arguably songwriters are poets, but the traditional written piece seems to be falling out of style quickly in comparison to its contemporaries, plays and novels. Even at its peak, poetry was never an extremely lucrative field, and very few authors made their living just writing poetry (though I do have a limited historical view of this; I'm a technical writer, not a literary historian!).

Doesn't the theoretical black hole temperature formula ( T = hc^3 / 8(pi)GMKb ) indicate that as a black hole evaporates it gets hotter?

CBM stops currently known black holes of specific size from evaporating, as a low temperature will absorb energy and mass, becoming larger and colder, but it seems possible that a black hole evaporation event could cause hotspots given how the math works (given the right circumstances, i.e. nothing from our current observable universe). Hawking radiation is part of the process of evaporation, rather than the end result of an evaporation event.

In any case, the actual Nobel prize was presented (in part) to Penrose for his mathematical proof of black holes (done in 1965), not anything recent. The real story here should be the other half of the prize being presented to a pair who have been studying Sagittarius A* for the last 30 years, accurately mapping orbitals of stars, pioneering our ability to see through interstellar gas and dust, with new techniques and technology, compensating for atmospheric distortions and providing the most convincing evidence yet of the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy).

It's likely that if Stephen Hawking were still alive that he would have shared Penrose's half of the Nobel prize.

Are you okay? Is there a medication / drug that you need that you might have taken too much of, or not enough of? I think there might be a reason your post has 420 words.

I seem to have failed to go down the rabbit hole with you. Life only measures time insofar as we created the concept of time as a measurement of a dimension. Life only measures time if life also measures everything else. I'm not sure life is keeping that close an eye on my waistline. Though I will admit, your post does make an interesting post-modern ballad.

Chances are that what you are seeing is merely a 'PCR Test Wave' of false positives - indicated by an absence of a corresponding wave of hospitalizations and deaths, lagging by 1 to 2 weeks.

Considering the first wave was in early March and the second wave is in late June, early July, it's pretty evident of a second wave rather than false positives...

Additionally Australia uses multiple tests to confirm cases, not just PCR tests. These include rapid antigen tests for viral protein and serology antibody tests in addition to nucleic acid tests (of which PCR is one).

It's a bit of a moot point, but the competition comes at the time when you purchase a specific device rather than when you're making a choice about an app on the store. Purely because the decision has already been made as to what platform you have. You no longer get to change your mind or compare options on the different stores after you've made the decision to buy a specific device locked to a particular store.

It's like a mechanic that only services specific brands of cars. If you buy Car A then Mechanic A will be your mechanic, if you buy Car B then Mechanic B will be your mechanic. The mechanics aren't really competing, because the decision has already been made as to who you'll get your car repaired with when you made the initial purchase of a car. Though the mobile stores are a part of the vendor's suite of services rather than being just an affiliated service. Also, it doesn't address the fact that you might have factored this in when you made the initial purchase.

I personally think they are competitors but it's not on a case-by-case store purchase basis. It's not as obvious as that sort of direct competition. That being said, there is more of that direct competition on the Android platform because you can sideload other stores. Though having a particular store on your device by default is another aspect of discouraging competition.

I think that's what makes this an interesting case.

From the article, it's a matter of reacting an acid (CO2) and a basic substance (the waste) which means its the chemical energy of the substances in question that is used rather than having to catalyse the reaction with something high powered or anything like that.

That being said there's probably an issue of how to ensure the substances react appropriately on a large scale. In places where both CO2 and these wastes are produced is idea, as there's no real issue with transportation- just capture and the circumstances around a controlled reaction. Otherwise the transport of either CO2 or waste material might render the overall gain null and void.

The actual reaction has to take place in an appropriately controlled environment, but we definitely have the technology to do it. The question then remains what will encourage use of this method? What monetary gain is there to be had in eliminating these waste products when there's little consequence for companies to dump the waste cheaply or just release the CO2 produced?

You're right. I'm not very observant. :(

I have no idea why you get mod points every time you post this on an article that might have a sliver of relevance to your complaint. OMG anonymous commenting on Slashdot has been removed- says the anonymous post. You haven't even bothered mentioning the NSA surveillance topic, which is at the least (in regards to your copied post) a waste of government money and at most the exact Orwellian future your post relates to- but you can't be bothered to address it specifically. Why does anyone up vote you? Is it a joke that I'm not getting?

I'd like to see a source for your facts there. In my country, at least, temperatures have risen steadily (as in there's a general trend upwards) since almost 1910, including this summer (though I am in the southern hemisphere). This doesn't mean every year is hotter than the last, but with 19 of the 20 warmest years all having occurred since 2001, with the exception of 1998 (confirmed by various authoritative scientific bodies, and also NASA), it's hard to believe any comment on an actual downward trend as factual. I think it's something like 97% of climate scientists agree that climate warming trends over the last century are caused by humans, and even more of them agree that the earth is actually warming up.

They've survived worse heat waves and worse bushfires before, but the conditions that predicated these fires are warmer and dryer conditions than any event before it (meaning the combination of both). Despite having survived much higher previous temps, the area has historically had extremely high humidity, something that isn't the case in the area today. It's not clear whether they would recover given time, but with the conditions as they are there's a real possibility that they wouldn't.