It was revealed this morning that Barack Obama has selected Joseph Biden as his running mate. Given that the speculation largely involved only two other men–Senator Bayh of Indiana, and Governor Kaine of Virgina–I think Senator Obama made the right choice. I don’t agree with some of Senator Biden’s positions on issues (for example, I think it was a mistake for him to support the bankruptcy legislation he did, though it would have been hard for a senator from Delaware to oppose it), and I wish he didn’t talk so much (if you’ve seen footage of senate hearings you know exactly what I mean), but he’s as tough as anyone in Washington, and he knows foreign relations as well as anybody else.
Filed under: Current Events, Politics on August 23rd, 2008 | No Comments »
The winds seem to have calmed quite a bit tonight, though not completely, and the rain has finally stopped, after more than 24 hours of constant downpour. At this time last night I was lying here listening to the wind and the rain, and it was actually relaxing, in spite of the outside chance of our many trees experiencing limb-jettison.
Driving downtown this afternoon to return some books to the library (closed), I found streets everywhere covered in twigs and Spanish moss. In front of two houses in the Duck Pond there were downed trees, one of which was substantial, though it fortunately fell in such a way that it missed striking any structures. This was a special relief, since, had it hit any building at all it would have been a house which Miriam and I particularly like.
Our street escaped entirely unharmed, save for our one small branch on the cedar tree, which is insignificant. Fay mostly meant rain, and I’m eager to see the totals for the storm. I’d also bet that Paines Prairie and Devil’s Millhopper are flooded.
Filed under: Gainesville, Meteorology on August 22nd, 2008 | No Comments »
It has rained all day today, which is remarkable, really. I would have to guess that we’ve had five inches of rain. The winds this afternoon have been strong, though not especially steady. Mostly it’s been rain blowing against the windows, but at about 5:30 this evening I was sitting on the couch and heard a snapping sound behind me. I found that the wind had broken a small limb on one of my Eastern Red Cedars in the front yard, and knocked down the arbor beneath it. There’s no serious damage, but my cedar trees are pretty shabby to begin with, so this doesn’t help. I haven’t looked out back where there are eighteen oaks of assorted varieties, which will use any excuse to jettison limbs, so I might have some unpleasant surprises there. Meanwhile, I got a text message from the University this afternoon–they have an automated system–saying campus was closed tomorrow. I am not scheduled on Fridays anyway, but if I were I’d have to go: when you work for a public radio station it matters not if there is rain or snow or sleet or any of that jazz.
I hope everyone is keeping safe.
Filed under: Garden, Meteorology on August 21st, 2008 | No Comments »
On my trip to South Carolina I got to listen to a lot of XM Satellite Radio, as the rented Hyundai Sonata had it installed. It was initially exciting to scroll through over a hundred channels in good sound quality. But, for me, the excitement quickly wore off and was replaced by disgust, when I realized what a ripoff XM is.
First and foremost, XM has commercials. I don’t know if they are on every channel, but their talk channels certainly have commercials just like regular AM talk radio. Second, XM uses annoying DJs like any FM station, who talk over the beginning and end of songs just like crappy FM radio. I don’t know if it was just the receiver installed in the Hyundai, but the names of songs and artist appeared only briefly at the beginning of each track, and quickly disappeared to make way for the name of the channel. You could press an “info” button to find the song name again, but that was annoying to do for each song which you didn’t catch the name of in the first three seconds. The classical channels (of which there were only three) would give the title of a piece and its composer–”Haydn: Sym No. 42″, for instance–but didn’t display the name of the performers, which makes the whole enterprise useless for me. There are channels devoted to music of the 1950s and 1960s, but both operate like the crappy oldies channels you know and hate, with an extra annoying DJ and that stupid choir that sings something like “good time, great oldies…”. Plus, the ’50s channel played “The Loco-Motion” by Little Eva, which is not a 1950s song at all. Nor is “Raindrops” by Dee Clark, which they played right after.
This all may seem like small beans, but if I were paying for this service, and found it to be no better than terrestrial radio, I’d be enraged.
Filed under: Rantings, Technology on August 20th, 2008 | 1 Comment »