Some of you may have seen this before but it's worth repeating - Mark Thomas has set up a company that runs balloon flights over the Menwith Hill NSA facility in Yorkshire, England. The balloons are equipped with parabolic microphones and binoculars so that you can spy on the spies. Check here.
BTW, do any Brits think it is a gross breach of sovereignty to have foreign bases in the UK? I mean, how would Americans feel if foreigners set up a military base here? Maybe there are foreign bases in the US and it's just a NATO thing...
Why bother? Because broadband connections are only available to a tiny minority of potential internet users perhaps? Try getting a broadband connection anywhere in the developing world - or indeed in any rural part of the US.
Remember France has more tourism than any other country in the world. In May I was in Arles (Provence) and was very saddened to see a McDonalds filled with American and British tourists. This is in a town brimming with superb restaurants that will happily sell you a $15 meal that would cost you a fortune in the US. Incredibly fresh local produce, fantastic fish from the Mediterranean only 40 miles away. There were no locals in the McDs, but the tourists who bring so much money to the area seemed to prefer it - for reasons that I cannot even imagine.
Well presumably the idea of using as many languages as possible is that it gives any future paleolinguist a better chance of translating the contents of the disk. The original Rosetta stone was the key to translating Egyptian heiroglyphs, simply because it contained the same passage in both heiroglyphs and another dead, but understood language (classical Greek.) Perhaps whatever people speak in 10,000 years time will have its roots in at least one of the languages on the disk, allowing it to be translated.
You didn't read the article did you? Come on, own up. The disk is analogue - all you need is a microscope and a knowledge of the written form of one of the 1000 languages it is engraved in.
During the seventies, there were lots of similar pirate radio stations broadcasting into the UK - however as they were broadcasting from international waters the UK couldn't touch them - they usually waited for them to stray into UK territorial waters to arrest them.
Now the difference here of course, is that in this case the UK chose to observe international law, whereas in the example that you gave the US ignored it.
UK courts have a long history of slapping down the government and the UK would be very wary of failure in court should they launch an action against Sealand.
The subject is always at infinity so all you need to worry about is if the focal plane is at the right distance from the secondary/tertiary mirror. The focal plane assembly is fairly small so can be wound back and forth on actuators of some description I suppose.
From your question it sounds as if you are a wee bit confused. There are no lenses in these telescopes, just two (or three depending on the configuration) mirrors. The mirrors are made of glass but are backwards compared to the mirror in your bathroom - the light bounces off the coated side without passing through the glass. The glass is there purely to support the layer of silver or whatever the hell they use. Glass is used as it can be polished to very low tolerances and is thermally stable but it plays no optical role in the telescope - it's merely a support for the reflecting surface.
The European taxes are actually value-added taxes, not sales taxes, and therefore the true costs are higher, but hidden. Additionally, they cascade on each other, so that you have tax on tax.
Incorrect, VAT in European countries is charged to the end consumer only - resellers claim back 100% on goods bought for resale.
As you state, European VAT rates are high - 17.5% in the UK. However, many goods are tax-exempt - for example in the UK there is no tax at all on food, drugs, children's clothing, books and many other products.
I use gimp for post-processing of images of satellite data generated with Erdas Imagine. A typical satellite image might be 20k X 9k pixels, 32bits per pixel, 6 bands of data (4GB!!). Obviously we need to do the image processing at this resolution (to prevent scaling effects) but frequently we need to also output at this resolution - for large maps, posters etc on a roll plotter.
Erdas Imagine can easily pan, zoom and manipulate an image this size - yet GIMP on the same hardware (SGI O200) becomes virtually unuseable.
Imagine does this by storing several copies of the same image at different screen display resolutions in it's proprietary image format. If the same thing was done with gimp and XCF files, it would make my life a hell of a lot easier.
PS: Please be kind to us, after all we did help a little with that small Hitler problem. Thanks.
I've never understood the 'if it wasn't for us, you limeys would all be speaking German' school of though.
Let's see:
July 1940 Germans start planning Operation Sealion (Invasion of Britain)
July 1940 Battle of Britain commences
September 1940 Germans abandon invasion of Britain
October 1940 Battle of Britain ends
December 1940 Brits wipe out Italians in North Africa
January 1940 Brits and ANZACs kick shit out of Germans at Tobruk
June 1941 Brits and ANZACs retake Syria and Lebanon
July 1941 US enters war
So the idea that if the USA hadn't entered the war, the UK would have been invaded is crap. Sure, the US and Canada helped economically - but many Americans seem to think that Hitler was still trying to invade in July 1941 - he wasn't - he was fucked on three fronts (North Africa, Russia and the middle East) and he knew it.
That is within the US - try mail ordering something from outside of the US and the carrier (FedEx or whoever) will charge you US import duty on it (which can be up to 100% on some goods). This is exactly the same.
Why should I, a US citizen, have to play tax collector for a government which I have no voice in and whose territory I don't even live in.
You won't you twat, if you bothered to read the article before spouting off you would realise that this is a tax on goods shipped from outside the EU into the EU ordered over the web. It's just like the import duty that you as a US citizen pay on French wine or Italian salami.
No - receiving an SMS message is free - just like receiving a phone call. You only pay for outgoing calls. I think it is only in the US where you pay for incoming calls.
They're 6 miles from the UK mainland and UK territorial waters extend 12 miles. The only commando raids they are likely to face are from British forces - no one else could do anything.
As you rightly point out libel and slander (i.e. defamation) are common law torts - if someone libels me, I may take them to court and extract compensation from them.
However, some jurisdictions in the US, apparently under the impression that some 900 years of English common law is clearly horseshit, have decided to introduce a criminal offence of libel, which is punishable by fines or imprisonment.
Of course, from the plaintiff's point of view, criminal libel is wonderful as you don't need to hire a lawyer, risk an award against you etc - the state assumes all the risk.
From the defendant's point of view it completely sucks.
So what? The UK has a staggered drinking age: 5 (sic) in private, 16 in a pub or restaurant with a meal (limited to beer, cider and wine) and 18 to buy anything you want. You can drink in public too provided you're over 5 and someone else has done the buying if you're under 18 - it's perfectly OK to take beers or bottles of wine on a picnic. But it's all pretty academic as no-one ever checks IDs anyway - they're just not hung up on it in the way that Americans are. I used to go to the pub for a couple of quiet pints and a game of pool with my dad when I was 15.
You can get a round trip ticket from the East Coast of the US for under $300 and it will cost you about $12 per night to stay at the youth hostels.
OK, well if there are no real mountains in the Lake District I guess you won't have any trouble getting up this then.
The mountains of the Lake District may be small (although really not much smaller than those of Wales or Scotland) but they are still real mountains - exposed barren rock, extremes of climate and steep and unforgiving terrain - belittle them at your peril.
Nick
PS For those who are interested, the route in the piccie is Shadowfax on Scafell, E4 (about 5.11d on the US scale)
...they couldn't find an English actress for the role. I wonder how good her accent will be - if it's as good as Paltrow's then we'll have nothing to worry about but if she comes out with some sort of Dick van Dyke effort then the film will be excruciating.
Slashdot Mirror
BTW, do any Brits think it is a gross breach of sovereignty to have foreign bases in the UK? I mean, how would Americans feel if foreigners set up a military base here? Maybe there are foreign bases in the US and it's just a NATO thing...
Nick
Which is in inexcusable breach of UK sovereignty...
Nick
Nick
Nick
Nick
You didn't read the article did you? Come on, own up. The disk is analogue - all you need is a microscope and a knowledge of the written form of one of the 1000 languages it is engraved in.
Didn't it occur to you that the word 'analog' in the first sentence of the article might mean that the disk is NOT DIGITAL?
Now the difference here of course, is that in this case the UK chose to observe international law, whereas in the example that you gave the US ignored it.
UK courts have a long history of slapping down the government and the UK would be very wary of failure in court should they launch an action against Sealand.
Nick
The subject is always at infinity so all you need to worry about is if the focal plane is at the right distance from the secondary/tertiary mirror. The focal plane assembly is fairly small so can be wound back and forth on actuators of some description I suppose.
From your question it sounds as if you are a wee bit confused. There are no lenses in these telescopes, just two (or three depending on the configuration) mirrors. The mirrors are made of glass but are backwards compared to the mirror in your bathroom - the light bounces off the coated side without passing through the glass. The glass is there purely to support the layer of silver or whatever the hell they use. Glass is used as it can be polished to very low tolerances and is thermally stable but it plays no optical role in the telescope - it's merely a support for the reflecting surface.
Nick
Incorrect, VAT in European countries is charged to the end consumer only - resellers claim back 100% on goods bought for resale.
As you state, European VAT rates are high - 17.5% in the UK. However, many goods are tax-exempt - for example in the UK there is no tax at all on food, drugs, children's clothing, books and many other products.
Nick
C# is three semitones higher than Bb. The even-tempered western scale goes: C,C#,D,Eb,E,F,F#,G,Ab,A,Bb,B
Nick
Erdas Imagine can easily pan, zoom and manipulate an image this size - yet GIMP on the same hardware (SGI O200) becomes virtually unuseable.
Imagine does this by storing several copies of the same image at different screen display resolutions in it's proprietary image format. If the same thing was done with gimp and XCF files, it would make my life a hell of a lot easier.
Nick
No, it's because the USPTO were the only national patent office dumb enough to award a patent.
I've never understood the 'if it wasn't for us, you limeys would all be speaking German' school of though.
Let's see:
So the idea that if the USA hadn't entered the war, the UK would have been invaded is crap. Sure, the US and Canada helped economically - but many Americans seem to think that Hitler was still trying to invade in July 1941 - he wasn't - he was fucked on three fronts (North Africa, Russia and the middle East) and he knew it.
Nick
If you're so keen on avoiding patent payments to foreign-owned compaies, why do you award them patents?
For some reason it comes on a CD-R with a xeroxed insert. I can't imagine why Adobe would let their packaging standards slip so badly...
Nick
Nick
You won't you twat, if you bothered to read the article before spouting off you would realise that this is a tax on goods shipped from outside the EU into the EU ordered over the web. It's just like the import duty that you as a US citizen pay on French wine or Italian salami.
So read before opening your mouth.
Nick
No - receiving an SMS message is free - just like receiving a phone call. You only pay for outgoing calls. I think it is only in the US where you pay for incoming calls.
They're 6 miles from the UK mainland and UK territorial waters extend 12 miles. The only commando raids they are likely to face are from British forces - no one else could do anything.
However, some jurisdictions in the US, apparently under the impression that some 900 years of English common law is clearly horseshit, have decided to introduce a criminal offence of libel, which is punishable by fines or imprisonment.
Of course, from the plaintiff's point of view, criminal libel is wonderful as you don't need to hire a lawyer, risk an award against you etc - the state assumes all the risk.
From the defendant's point of view it completely sucks.
Nick
You can get a round trip ticket from the East Coast of the US for under $300 and it will cost you about $12 per night to stay at the youth hostels.
Nick
The mountains of the Lake District may be small (although really not much smaller than those of Wales or Scotland) but they are still real mountains - exposed barren rock, extremes of climate and steep and unforgiving terrain - belittle them at your peril.
Nick
PS For those who are interested, the route in the piccie is Shadowfax on Scafell, E4 (about 5.11d on the US scale)
Nick