"The anechoic (meaning echo-free) chamber at Orfield Labs in Minnesota absorbs 99.99% of sound, making it the quietest place in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records."
"While a human can normally hear sounds as low as zero decibels (an average conversation runs at about 30 decibels), the background noise in the anechoic chamber has been measured at -9.4 decibels."
"Companies use the chamber to test the sound levels of products, such as washing machines, refrigerators and Harley Davidson motorcycles. NASA uses a similar chamber to perform stress tests on astronauts."
Still baffled as to why the beeb IP restrict this. I can acknowledge it's part of BBC Worldwide, and therefore not covered in the licence fee, but what harm it would do to let Britain have the same access as the rest of the non licence paying world is beyond me.
We have an unusual requirement when it comes to developing the BBC website - it carries advertising internationally but not in the UK, and we have to build and design for both these situations simultaneously. The site carries advertising internationally so that UK licence fee payers don't cover international costs. Some content on the site is available in the UK but not internationally - notably certain rights restricted video. Up to now we have had: A UK edition without ads, A UK edition with ads, an international edition with ads and an international edition without ads, all in addition to some content which is visible in the UK but not internationally. Managing all those combinations within our existing design framework had become impractical as well as expensive and, critically, had started to affect our ability to find the best ways of developing the site in the future.
This has been submitted several times already to HN, with more detailed articles. (A question, how do you dudes find these duplicates?)
tl;dr is that there exists a chamber so quiet that people find it extremely uncomfortable (for various reasons, feel free to speculate), at Orfield Labs. It works simply by reducing echo (anechoic chamber). There will be an award for anyone standing in there for more than 45 minutes. And it's in Guinness Book of Records as the most quiet place on earth.
"The anechoic (meaning echo-free) chamber at Orfield Labs in Minnesota absorbs 99.99% of sound, making it the quietest place in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records." - followed by fluff and tour information.
I'd love to explain it but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me either. Some kind of law saying that the BBC can't make profit from us in the UK, because they are funded instead by the TV licence fee[0]: we pay the government/BBC about US$250 per year to be allowed to watch television broadcast by anyone, BBC or otherwise.
The message we get when visiting this URL:
"We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the profits made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes. You can find out more about BBC Worldwide and its digital activities at www.bbcworldwide.com.
"If you are looking for travel news in the UK, please visit the Travel News site."
Comments
Can someone summarise? Once again, as a Brit I'm unable to access content from BBC.com.
Thanks :-)
Some choice quotes that sum it up nicely:
"The anechoic (meaning echo-free) chamber at Orfield Labs in Minnesota absorbs 99.99% of sound, making it the quietest place in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records."
"While a human can normally hear sounds as low as zero decibels (an average conversation runs at about 30 decibels), the background noise in the anechoic chamber has been measured at -9.4 decibels."
"Companies use the chamber to test the sound levels of products, such as washing machines, refrigerators and Harley Davidson motorcycles. NASA uses a similar chamber to perform stress tests on astronauts."
Thanks guys.
Still baffled as to why the beeb IP restrict this. I can acknowledge it's part of BBC Worldwide, and therefore not covered in the licence fee, but what harm it would do to let Britain have the same access as the rest of the non licence paying world is beyond me.
from the BBC faq:
We have an unusual requirement when it comes to developing the BBC website - it carries advertising internationally but not in the UK, and we have to build and design for both these situations simultaneously. The site carries advertising internationally so that UK licence fee payers don't cover international costs. Some content on the site is available in the UK but not internationally - notably certain rights restricted video. Up to now we have had: A UK edition without ads, A UK edition with ads, an international edition with ads and an international edition without ads, all in addition to some content which is visible in the UK but not internationally. Managing all those combinations within our existing design framework had become impractical as well as expensive and, critically, had started to affect our ability to find the best ways of developing the site in the future.
via http://www.bbc.co.uk/faqs/website_changes
There's more info there about how they do it (GeoIP) and some known issues.
Interesting, thanks. It's still incredibly annoying. If you can block me based on my IP, just use the same technology and don't serve me the ads.
Thanks, I was in that same position—but after all, why would I be able to view British Broadcasting Corporation content from Britain.
This has been submitted several times already to HN, with more detailed articles. (A question, how do you dudes find these duplicates?)
tl;dr is that there exists a chamber so quiet that people find it extremely uncomfortable (for various reasons, feel free to speculate), at Orfield Labs. It works simply by reducing echo (anechoic chamber). There will be an award for anyone standing in there for more than 45 minutes. And it's in Guinness Book of Records as the most quiet place on earth.
dateline > 23 October 2012
"The anechoic (meaning echo-free) chamber at Orfield Labs in Minnesota absorbs 99.99% of sound, making it the quietest place in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records." - followed by fluff and tour information.
What is the deal with BBC.com anyway?
I'd love to explain it but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me either. Some kind of law saying that the BBC can't make profit from us in the UK, because they are funded instead by the TV licence fee[0]: we pay the government/BBC about US$250 per year to be allowed to watch television broadcast by anyone, BBC or otherwise.
The message we get when visiting this URL:
"We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the profits made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes. You can find out more about BBC Worldwide and its digital activities at www.bbcworldwide.com.
"If you are looking for travel news in the UK, please visit the Travel News site."
[0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_Uni...
I wonder why they don't just mirror the content on the uk site without the ads.
Politics, eh.
I also wonder why Brits have to pay the BBC over $200/yr even if they only want to watch ITV (or any other channel, all funded by advertising)
The same reason you have to pay for public schools even if you do not have children.
Hm, that's interesting. I'm in the UK, and I can access bbc.com without any issues. I'm using StudentCom, though.
http://web.archive.org/web/20130607104502/http://www.bbc.com...