Tuesday, October 8, 2002

Elevators to space have been a dream for decades, but someone is getting serious about it using recent advances in material sciences. (thanks for the link Bjarne!) http://www.sciencenews.org/20021005/bob9.asp The article fails to mention some interesting failure modes and other challenges. This is still very early, but now we know where some of the dotcom investors went. 3:38:42 PM     Fernando has been talking about the joy of great radio. http://radio.weblogs.com/0100167/2002/10/05.html What makes radio great is relative, but somehow I doubt that the drivel broadcast from Clear Channel ever makes the grade. A few decades ago interesting stations existed on the AM and SW bands, so you could spend time at night hunting interesting game. Unfortunately FM doesn't permit this sort of remote listening, but a few stations stream on the Internet. Someone recently asked about finding good folk shows. WUNC in Chapel Hill offers interesting programming on weekends and I've been listening (and contributing) for a few years. Recently I came across WUMB in Boston http://wumb.org/ Their webcasts are not of great quality (low bitrate on live365), but the content is there. If you are using iTunes in OS X the trick is to visit the live365 site and add the station from their list. http://www.live365.com/cgi-bin/directory.cgi?genre=folk There is something magic in radio to me - I strongly prefer good radio to movies or TV. A few of us spent quite a bit of time thinking about what it might mean in the Internet age, but there are barricades. It still strikes me as an important thing to do. 6:36:39 AM     Radio can be a powerful tool for discovering new music. If you are cultivating non-traditional tastes life can be more interesting. A few stores offer commentary and samples. I've mentioned a few. Today's is CD Baby. http://www.cdbaby.com/ Try The Half Moon Jug Band:) 6:36:25 AM     Autumn and Spring are the best times for spotting auroras and the sunspot cycles is still active. Last week saw astounding displays that were "the best of a lifetime" for many seasoned observers (guess who didn't see anything in suburban NJ). The best trick for finding them is to get some approximate advice and spend large amounts of time outdoors in dark areas when conditions are good. It is easy to trust places like spaceweather, but the quality of the data feeds leaves much to be desired (it reflects on primitive instrumentation more than the outstanding spaceweather site). While I'm at it I'll recommend another good solar weather site... http://www.sel.noaa.gov/SWN/index.html Perhaps a a decade or two we'll start to see solid predictions, but until then it is a good excuse to get night air. 6:36:12 AM

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