"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.
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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.