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'Hovering ship' photographed off Cornish coast by walker

bbc.co.uk

261–270 of 270 posts

Re: 'Hovering ship' photographed off Cornish coast by walker

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But again with these 3 ships why is it only the ships themselves being precisely cropped out and not even small remnants of the immediately surrounding water?

They aren’t cropped. They are sitting in fog. The fog is the same color as the sky and there is no backdrop to see through the fog other than the ships. In other words, anything in the fog would be “floating”.

indeed the real horizon line is apparent on the right of the picture

Re: 'Hovering ship' photographed off Cornish coast by walker

#264
post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The confusing part is that the government has to maintain the confidence of the house, and is comprised of members of parliament. Normally the government whips mean that parliament does whatever the government tell it to do, so "holds the government to account" is a laughable statement. Unlike the US system where the president can easily not have the confidence of the Senate or House (R president, D House, D Senate f…

> The confusing part is that the government has to maintain the confidence of the house, and is comprised of members of parliament. Confidence of the Commons, yes. The government doesn't have a majority in the Lords. >Normally the government whips mean that parliament does whatever the government tell it to do, so "holds the government to account" is a laughable statement. To an extent, that's true. The select commit…

The Tory "Research groups" and the 1918 are influential inside the tory party, but tories always stick together.

Nothing new, Redwood challenged Major in the 90s, and Thatcher lost support of the tory party before that, but various backbenchers might arrange for PMs to leave, but they would never dream of voting against the government in a vote of confidence.

Parliament isn't important, internal politics of the conservative party are important. (And Labour, but less so as (apart from Blair), Labour don't win elections)

The government in the last few years has broken the law time and time again, but nothing happens. They did lose support of parliament, some tory members actually rebelled - including grandees like Ken Clarke. The electorate put them where they belong.

Democracy doesn't really exist in the UK, we have 40+ years of a dysfunctional opposition party that only won thanks to Blair, and the only times that parliament started to assert itself, it was massively punished.

AV wasn't perfect, but it was still far better than FPTP, and the masively rejected it. We can have a government that kills hundreds of thousands of people, flushes billions into the back pockets of tory donors, and we reward them with ever higher approval ratings.

Re: 'Hovering ship' photographed off Cornish coast by walker

#265
post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Interesting. I would still consider that government funded, personally, since it's a mandatory fee imposed by the government and applied to all TV watchers, not just consumers of the BBc. It's certainly a bit more blurry though with the direct collection. Not all consumers. No need for a TV license to listen to radio 4, or use the website. I do have a TV license, but that's mainly because I very occasionally use ip…

> Not all consumers. No need for a TV license to listen to radio 4, or use the website. I may misunderstand then. In order to watch live TV in the UK you must pay a fee, mandated by the government, and that fee is paid to the BBC? If that's the case, I stand by what I said previously. > Some states in America require a dog license and/or a cat license, is that a tax? Is a fishing license a tax? How about a fee to ent…

"a compulsory contribution to state revenue ... added to the cost of some goods, services, and transactions"

A license fee, be it for a dog, cat, or television

1) Is not compulsory

2) Is not added to the cost of anything

And in the case of a UK Television license it doesn't go to the state.

I think the problem is getting hung up on the definition of tax, which itself is a rather meaningless debate. The UK government, and indeed parliament, has no say over the BBC budget or income, only the level of the license. If a million more houses decided to license a tv set, BBC income increases by £150m, if a million more houses "cut the cord" and just watch netflix, disney, etc, then BBC income decreases by £150m.

Compare with primary/secondary education, where the government decides how much money to spend on education each year. It could increase it one year, decrease it the next, it's a government funded service.

Trying to define the BBC funding model as "tax for a government department" or "not a tax to an independent company" is itself problematic, the BBC is pretty much unique in its funding model and its control. It's overseen by a board which comprises of zero members of government, although the chair and some non-executive directors are appointed by the government.

EDF, the energy company, is owned by the French state, but I don't think people consider it to be government funded.

Re: 'Hovering ship' photographed off Cornish coast by walker

#266
post #221

I strongly suspect the Marfa Lights (in Texas) are the land version of this exact phenomenon. In that case, car headlights looking like they are floating above the land horizon instead of boats over the water horizon.

Another headlight phenomenon, "light pillars": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pillar Really freaked me out the first time I saw some moving about on a dark country road from other cars off in the distance.

I saw them only one time in my life, a few decades ago. I was leaving a band practice, and the drummer's sister and I were pretty blown away when we noticed it. Well, that's an understatement, because you couldn't miss it. Every light that could be seen was at the base of a pillar. We didn't know why it was happening, but we were pretty impressed.

Pictures do not give you the full experience, since there is a huge 3D element to how they appear, too.

Re: 'Hovering ship' photographed off Cornish coast by walker

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't get US Presidential memos. Also, last I checked, the US President was not in charge of how words are allowed to be used on HN.

Like there's really a memo. It's been in so many different news outlets. The current admin is trying to distance from previous use of the word. And if you think I was being serious, then you must not have gotten the memo on sarcasm. You should really declutter your inbox. You seem to be missing a lot of memos.

Perhaps you didn't get the memo - about charity, about not replying with snark or sneering, and about sarcasm often not coming across well in a text-only medium. All have been said here, by dang, frequently.

Re: 'Hovering ship' photographed off Cornish coast by walker

#268
post #222
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a lay explanation. Light travels at different speeds in different substances. But it always takes a path that is locally fastest - meaning that any nearby path would be slower. (This is called the Fermat principle.) You can see this principle at work when you put a stick into water. Because light travels more slowly in water, the light first heads mostly straight up, then bends when it hits the air. The resul…

OK so, that's how the air ripples work for heat... because of the density of the air. It makes me wonder, if you had a 10 inch globe of vacuum suspended in air, how different looking thru it would appear vs the air. It seems like you might be able to detect it via sight alone.

That's what a visible shockwave from an explosion is. Light bending through sharp pressure discontinuities.

https://i.redd.it/jbx7x4a66em21.jpg

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_31RYF3p42E/maxresdefault.jpg

http://waitbutwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/explosion-i...

The vapour cloud which often forms occurs in saturated air as a partial vacuum forms behind the shockwave:

https://frontlinevideos.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/massi...

https://media.tenor.com/images/a6572b4115f67f2aeea90c529d598...

Re: 'Hovering ship' photographed off Cornish coast by walker

#270

I know these things are happen and I understand the effect, but has anyone looked into whether this was photoshopped? Major news outlets have been fooled in the past. Maybe it is a compression artifact, but the lines of this image look so perfect that I have to at least ask.

There is no visible wake in the ocean, which there should be, even if a mirage made the ship that made the wake appear to be above the oceam. Therefore this photo is fake.
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