I know, everyone jokes about the 1.0000 exchange rates for electronics (and beer, FWIW) -- but they don't necessarily mention the wage exchange rate. As a percentage of income, the pricing on electronics is similar in the US and the UK. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_inco me the median income was 58 PS3s a year for the UK and 77 PS3s a year for the US. The US numbers are a year newer, but that shouldn't make too much difference. They don't sound that similar.
Sketchup http://sketchup.google.com/index.html already has something that allows you to set the perspective based on horizontal and vertical elements of an image. You can then make a model based on that perspective. It will even use the photo as textures for the 3d model.
I'm guessing this could be automated by looking for dominant lines. You can only do this on a single image by making assumptions about the thing you're looking at (in this case, that it's made of box like structures parallel to the ground).
Another way to look at it is to consider you did have a FTL car and you cross a starting line at the exact same time as a photon. To an observer watching, they would see you go AHEAD of the photon after crossing the line. However, in your frame of reference inside the car, the photon PASSES you at 300,000 Km/s - there is no point at which the photon is actually behind you (unless you consider before you actually crossed the line). Either way it's just one paradox that FTL travel throws up.
There are similar thought experiments that show FTL communication can lead to you being able to tell someone they're about to do something before they've actually done it!
Slashdot Mirror
Unless you're a black male in Texas, in which case you're about 12 times more likely to be killed by your country than by lightning.
Sketchup http://sketchup.google.com/index.html already has something that allows you to set the perspective based on horizontal and vertical elements of an image. You can then make a model based on that perspective. It will even use the photo as textures for the 3d model.
There's a tutorial here: http://sketchup.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?a nswer=57655&ctx=sibling
Sketchup's totally free from google.
I'm guessing this could be automated by looking for dominant lines. You can only do this on a single image by making assumptions about the thing you're looking at (in this case, that it's made of box like structures parallel to the ground).
The nature link you gave is broken. There's a short article here about the resolution obtainable with a scanning TEM.
I'll be there IIIIRCC (If I've Installed IRC correctly)
Another way to look at it is to consider you did have a FTL car and you cross a starting line at the exact same time as a photon. To an observer watching, they would see you go AHEAD of the photon after crossing the line. However, in your frame of reference inside the car, the photon PASSES you at 300,000 Km/s - there is no point at which the photon is actually behind you (unless you consider before you actually crossed the line). Either way it's just one paradox that FTL travel throws up.
There are similar thought experiments that show FTL communication can lead to you being able to tell someone they're about to do something before they've actually done it!