While I would generally agree, I've found a single station that has redeemed FM in my eyes...90.5 WBER. It's a small rochester-native college run radio station that actually plays good music, and being private does not have to worry about commercials.
But even with this station...FM makes me so terribly sad. I don't live in rochester for all of the year, and I can't get their signal from lower NY, so I have to make do with what is on. And what is played are commercials with music interspersed, annoying DJs, and rap/pop. Out of nearly 20mhz to choose from, I have a whole *one* station which I can tolerate, 94.3. In the past, 90.7 WFUV had a good set of programs, but they've shuffled their program playlist and no longer appeal to me. Because of this, I've ended up subscribing to XM, but only for my periods of break at home. Perhaps if it were less pricey, I'd consider it as a more regular deal with them.
Is there any hope anymore? I suspect not. *sigh*
Re:Very disappointed with the Shuttle
on
Discovery Heading Home
·
· Score: 2, Informative
While I feel that this is just feeding the trolls...
The shuttle itself is not inherently flawed as everyone seems to suspect. Losing one tile is not enough to take down the entire orbiter, either. Tiles are lost during re-entry quite regularly, with dozens to hundreds of the small tiles being replaced after every landing. The issue with Columbia was due to a piece of foam clipping a critical wing edge at relatively high speeds, a freak accident the of which falls mostly on the nature of unpredictable air pockets to expand in the foam as the altitude increased rather than poor design on part of the shuttle.
This risk can be lowered, but consider the "mortality rate" of the shuttle at present. We've lost a whole two orbiters, one of which was due in no way to the craft, but rather a defect in one of the SRBs shortly after lift-off. Now consider this: We're sending hundreds of tons of metal into space, and we're doing it with a crew of humans squeezed inside of it who miraculously survive the stay for a couple of days one hundred and eighty miles up there and return to the ground safely. Is there any particular reason that this should be inherently safe? Failures happen in this field. You can't predict every outcome, but ou can try to make some contingencies for it. Even commercial air travel, while still pretty safe overall, has its disasters, but does everybody simply abandon flying? Not bloody likely. Space is not safe. Not by any stretch of the imagination, and to suggest that it is in any way, shape, or form is to ignore the obvious.
This said, I'm a huge proponent of a next-generation space plane designed around a one-time-use disposable re-entry shield. While the tiles were originally expected to be a good deal cheaper to maintain than a giant heatshield, things turned out quite a bit different in practice, as a more-or-less solid ablative head shield would end up likely being more cost effective in the end and potentially far safer for everything. Don't forget that the nature of the shuttle's re-entry is inherently safer and more efficient in that it's guided, rather than ballistic, and results in *far* lower G-loads and heat during the time spent approaching the ground. On top of this, since the whole shuttle is returning rather than just a control capsule, a reasonable payload can make the return along with the crew.
With that defintion in mind ("microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation"), it seems that yes it is. All it does is "simply" produce and/or push microwave energy in a more-or-less single direction.
If you have ever walked on a beach with fluffy, fine-grain sand, you would notice the inherent difficulty in traversing even the dry variety. Since the entire traction surface can be moved by the rover, it could easily end up accidentially digging itself into a small ditch, from which removal could be difficult. Given the rover's weight, wet sand would actually provide superior traction than dry sand due to the stronger cohesion (for lack of a better word) between the grains.
Then again, we're geeks. None of us should have first-hand experiences with this "sand" thing;)
Slashdot Mirror
So here you go, the standard fare coral cache of the page for when it implodes.
y pe/
http://www.multipledigression.com.nyud.net:8090/t
While I would generally agree, I've found a single station that has redeemed FM in my eyes...90.5 WBER. It's a small rochester-native college run radio station that actually plays good music, and being private does not have to worry about commercials.
You can visit their website and listen to their stream if it sounds interesting enough. (They mostly play Alternative from both mainstream and indie but take requests for a good deal more)
But even with this station...FM makes me so terribly sad. I don't live in rochester for all of the year, and I can't get their signal from lower NY, so I have to make do with what is on. And what is played are commercials with music interspersed, annoying DJs, and rap/pop. Out of nearly 20mhz to choose from, I have a whole *one* station which I can tolerate, 94.3. In the past, 90.7 WFUV had a good set of programs, but they've shuffled their program playlist and no longer appeal to me. Because of this, I've ended up subscribing to XM, but only for my periods of break at home. Perhaps if it were less pricey, I'd consider it as a more regular deal with them.
Is there any hope anymore? I suspect not. *sigh*
While I feel that this is just feeding the trolls... The shuttle itself is not inherently flawed as everyone seems to suspect. Losing one tile is not enough to take down the entire orbiter, either. Tiles are lost during re-entry quite regularly, with dozens to hundreds of the small tiles being replaced after every landing. The issue with Columbia was due to a piece of foam clipping a critical wing edge at relatively high speeds, a freak accident the of which falls mostly on the nature of unpredictable air pockets to expand in the foam as the altitude increased rather than poor design on part of the shuttle. This risk can be lowered, but consider the "mortality rate" of the shuttle at present. We've lost a whole two orbiters, one of which was due in no way to the craft, but rather a defect in one of the SRBs shortly after lift-off. Now consider this: We're sending hundreds of tons of metal into space, and we're doing it with a crew of humans squeezed inside of it who miraculously survive the stay for a couple of days one hundred and eighty miles up there and return to the ground safely. Is there any particular reason that this should be inherently safe? Failures happen in this field. You can't predict every outcome, but ou can try to make some contingencies for it. Even commercial air travel, while still pretty safe overall, has its disasters, but does everybody simply abandon flying? Not bloody likely. Space is not safe. Not by any stretch of the imagination, and to suggest that it is in any way, shape, or form is to ignore the obvious. This said, I'm a huge proponent of a next-generation space plane designed around a one-time-use disposable re-entry shield. While the tiles were originally expected to be a good deal cheaper to maintain than a giant heatshield, things turned out quite a bit different in practice, as a more-or-less solid ablative head shield would end up likely being more cost effective in the end and potentially far safer for everything. Don't forget that the nature of the shuttle's re-entry is inherently safer and more efficient in that it's guided, rather than ballistic, and results in *far* lower G-loads and heat during the time spent approaching the ground. On top of this, since the whole shuttle is returning rather than just a control capsule, a reasonable payload can make the return along with the crew.
With that defintion in mind ("microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation"), it seems that yes it is. All it does is "simply" produce and/or push microwave energy in a more-or-less single direction.
From this day on, Spearman shall always prevail when faced with the terrible might that is...the tank!
Perhaps soon we shall have the legendary battles of "Warrior vs. Tank" or "Worker vs. Mechanized Infantry?"
If you have ever walked on a beach with fluffy, fine-grain sand, you would notice the inherent difficulty in traversing even the dry variety. Since the entire traction surface can be moved by the rover, it could easily end up accidentially digging itself into a small ditch, from which removal could be difficult. Given the rover's weight, wet sand would actually provide superior traction than dry sand due to the stronger cohesion (for lack of a better word) between the grains.
;)
Then again, we're geeks. None of us should have first-hand experiences with this "sand" thing