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Sealand Put Up For Sale
antic writes "The Principality of Sealand is up for sale. The 550 square meter steel platform boasts "uninterrupted sea views", complete privacy and has been mentioned on Slashdot in the past for its offers of hosting outside the jurisdiction of (some) traditional laws."
It's not actually for sale, the owners are just offering a tenancy. Which makes it not such a sweet deal.
Sealand exists because in 1967, Britian's territorial waters extended only 3 miles out from the shore.
Therefore, they could legitimately claim the fort as theirs. If they had tried to do that after 1987... it wouldn't have worked, because the 3-mile limit was changed to 12 miles.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
So now they want to try their hand at web hosting, do they?
They tried their hand at web hosting years ago, during the original dot com boom. As the summary says, that's "in the past". The URL of the company providing it is http://havenco.com. That site used to have pictures of their facilities on Sealand, seems all that's left now is a hosting company, not saying anything about where the physical location of their servers is.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
Sealand is a bit of a running joke for the people of Harwich. I would contest their "uninterrupted sea views" as I'm fairly sure that the very brightly coloured (luminous yellow!) Hotel Continental situated on the cliffs of Harwich can be seen from it, hell... they can probably see it from Holland! It's also probably quite fire damaged at the moment having suffered a fire http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/5110244.stm last year, and not having its own fire brigade or hospital services had to make use of the British ones.
but sealand is affixed to the sea floor, not floating.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
My impression from the before and after photos (see http://www.bobleroi.co.uk/ScrapBook/Sealand_Fire/S ealand_Fire.html) is that the entire site was feeling its age and was in rather poor repair all around. It strikes me that the most cost-effective method over the long haul might be to scrape the platform down to the naked deck, and build a new facility from scratch. The existing remainder appears to be a maintenance nightmare in the making.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sealand_fortres s.jpg
More like "Seaplatform". though it doesn't have that ring to it.
If anyone is interested in it, move along. Not only is it in the middle of nowhere, you face invasion by several post - industrialized nations. You're better off buying an island in the keys. At least then you're lucky to have something called coconuts and White Sandy beaches.
In Soviet Russia, dots slash you!
The last time they were "invaded" by armed people, they retook the platform with force and held the "invaders" hostage. They've also in the past shot the the British navy... So I do suspect you might need to be armed with a bit more than beer and a hamburger.
On avarage, London has more days of sunshine than Paris.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
And if Luxembourg became a thorn in the side of any of those countries, I suspect they'd find themselves invaded right quick. If Luxembourg were to start hosting child pornography or harboring criminals, its 450-strong army would be little comfort.
Whenever Sealand comes up on Slashdot, people talk about what a great off-site data center it would make. And it would, as long as its illegal activities didn't piss off the US too much. If the US decided that there was some truly crucial piece of evidence there that it needed that outweighed the international outrage, it would be there.
I'm pretty sure they'd end up getting permission from the Brits first, or more likely asking the Brits to do it themselves. In the end I suspect the attitude taken by both governments would be, "Look, your little play country was fun, but you've always been part of Britain and your independence was more a matter of being ignored."
I think you mean: Hesh wants jalapeno poppers!
Read my blog.
I'm not so certain about that. Then England would be compelled to provide postage service, free health care, etc. Given the inconvenience of the location, it might not be worthwhile.
Nitpick: embassies are not the territory of the foreign country. They are under the jurisdiction of the foreign country. So embassies in the United States are still United States territory, but they are under foreign jurisdiction, not the jurisdiction of the United States.
The Rise and Fall of Online Community
If you're spending eight digits on your boat, you can afford to spend a couple million bucks to buy some SS-N-25 and P-800 surplus russian anti-ship missiles. Anything that's not an aircraft carrier battlegroup will be toast, and even some of those won't want to engage you without significant air support.
And the second that a US Navy vessel tells you to stand down and be boarded, and you refuse, and they shoot at you, and you fire back with missiles and try to sink their ship, what the fuck do you think is going to happen? They'll laugh and wander off? You'd be lucky to make off your ship alive.
And I don't know why 'pirate' would make you laugh. They kill people, you know. Navies are allowed to board anyone they suspect of piracy, and operating without a flag is a pretty strong indicator. And in international waters ships without a flag are subject to the jurisdiction of all nations, and thus any vessel operated by any country can demand they allow themselves to be boarded under suspicion of being a pirate vessel, and fire on them if they refuse.
That actually isn't just some hypothetical situation. Navies actually do board unflagged ships whenever they find them in international waters or their own waters. (And they alert the host country when they find them suspicious in other people's waters.)
If you're an innocent person in a boat that wasn't intended for international trips, but drifted, you'll usually be fine, and they'll even tow you back to shore. If you refuse to stand down and be boarded, they will attempt to board by force, period. If you attempt to stop them, they will shoot back. You might be able to hold them off, but they will send their military. And, hell, even if you can defeat their entire military, they'll just alert other navies where you are. Navies board and search suspected pirate ships on general principles, you can't just fire at them and they go 'Well, that seems a bit hard, let's just give up'.
Plus, have fun finding a port that will take a ship without a flag when you need to get repairs.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
"Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing... After they have exhausted all other possibilities."
--Winston Churchill
I wonder if that was in response to the nuts who created the Republic of Minerva.
Always loved this one. In 1971, some crazy bastard from Vegas with more dollars than sense rolls up at a partially submerged atoll in the Pacific with several barge loads of sand, creates a small island and declares independence. Various Pacific nations find this a bit of a worry and about 6 months later, they get conquered and annexed by Tonga. Apparently the Tongan King himself came along with a few troops and a brass band!
Anyway, the "government in exile" is still trying to get the joint back. My guess is that UN Convention was drafted to prevent more "nations" popping up like this.
One of these days I'm moving to Theory - everything works there