Listening to another part of the world
I’ve decided to listen to the radio this evening. While I write. No big deal there, except that it involves technology that goes some lengths beyond the little crystal rocket radio my father used to attach to the telegraph wires in the station, roughly a half-century ago. In some ways, the system here this evening is overkill, but it goes with the direction we’ve been through the last few years.
First, my listening choice: RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta, where traditional music is available. The stream is coming in, wirelessly, to a Core 2 Duo laptop running Linux Mint (combining radio and Irish software in a manner undreamed off just a few years ago). I’m using a lovely set of headphones from Bose, and the sound quality is much better than I would have forecast. The thunder outside is no longer audible, but the flashes that I can see peripherally remind me that outside the weather is worsening. No matter. I’m in a geeky world of my own.
The worsening weather has a lot of people on edge right now, particularly in Louisiana. There’s a Category Four hurricane aimed straight at all those brand new levee walls, and a whole array of oil platforms. Given the ability of the petroleum industry to pump money from the rest of us, travel will cost just a bit more over the next few weeks. Thanks to Rob Paterson, I’ve tapped into some related information, and had a look at some remarkable maps that put storm paths into the perspective of the industrial world. More than a few wet shirts.
For better or worse, we’ll all be watching news TV over the next couple of days.
