Some Things in the United Kingdom
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The British are quite eco-conscious. They have alternative energy systems, and also have a first world power distribution system.
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Automated Train Ticket machine
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Subway system, note the "Mind the gap" on the floor. The subway systems are quite clean as well.
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A major train depot.
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Train station.
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Photo of a train station.
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The underground "Tube" or subway system under London. The subway is quite extensive, and convenient to use.
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A taxi
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The London "Eye". A massive ferris wheel built for the millenium celebration. It towers over London and takes in views of the city.
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A famous "Call box" (public telephone).
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One of the iconic double-decker buses seen throughout london.
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A Police car, notice the Silver color and distinctive Orange stripe.
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The Famous Rosetta Stone.
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The Rosetta stone allowed scientists to translate and correlate Egyptian Hieroglyphics with the Greek Language. The inscription on the Rosetta Stone is a decree passed by a council of priests, one of a series that affirm the royal cult of the 13-year-old Ptolemy V on the first anniversary of his coronation.
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Before the Ptolemaic era (332 BC), decrees in hieroglyphs were set up by the king. The priests were the only people who had kept the knowledge of writing hieroglyphs and they issued decrees. The decree is inscribed on the stone three times, in hieroglyphic (for a priestly decree), demotic (the native script used for daily purposes), and Greek (the language used for administration). This became a linchpin in deciphering hieroglyphs because after the fourth century AD, when hieroglyphs had gone out of use, the knowledge of how to read and write them also disappeared. 1400 years later, during the 19th century, scholars used the Greek inscriptions on the Rosetta stone to decipher them. Thomas Young, an English physicist, was the first to show that some of the hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Stone wrote the sounds of a royal name, that of Ptolemy. The French scholar Jean-Fran‡ois Champollion then realized that hieroglyphs recorded the sound of the Egyptian language and laid the foundations of our knowledge of ancient Egyptian language and culture.
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To find out more about the Rosetta stone visit the website of the British Museum here The Rosetta Stone has been exhibited in the British Museum since 1802, with only one break in World War I. Napoleon's army discovered the Rosetta Stone in 1799 at the town of el-Rashid (Rosetta) while digging the foundations of an addition to a fort. After Napoleon's defeat, the stone became the property of the English under the terms of the Treaty of Alexandria (1801) along with other antiquities that the French had found.
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Height: 45 inches (almost 3'9") 114.4 cm (max.) Width: 28 inches (72.3 cm) Thickness: 10.9 inches (27.9 cm) The Rosetta stone was excavated by Pierre Fran‡ois Xavier Bouchard
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A picture of typical vehicles driven by the British.
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Computers and the internet are prevalent throughout the UK.
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The two poles next to the pedestrians blink. At first I was confused by what purpose they served. They blink to signal to drivers to let pedestrians walk.
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A Public Phone.
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A Public Phone.
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An Escalator leading from the Subway
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The UK use "Roundabouts" (or circles) for traffic intersections. I drove in the UK while I was there and I found roundabouts to be very convenient. Directions were a bit odd, given in terms of number of circles. Making u-turns was particularly efficient. Traffic flowed much more freely and smoothly than with Traffic Lights. However, I'm told by my colleagues in the UK, that Traffic Lights work better with high volumes of traffic.
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The Windmill at Swindon.
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Maps
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Maps
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Map of the Rail system
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Subway Map
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A map of Photogenic locations in London
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Beazer Garden Maze
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Another view of the Beazer Garden Maze
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one of 1,000,000 surveillance cameras in London, placed there by the government to watch over the people.