RE: WHNT-TV, Huntsville, AL: Fire Destroys Building at U.S. Space and Rocket Center
Topic: Miscellaneous
11:40 am EDT, May 8, 2007
Catonic wrote: I just watched this on repeat; one of the items lost in the fire was an Apollo Command Module. =(
Fortunately, it was just a drop-test boilerplate that was lost (not sure, but possibly either BP-23 or BP-27, both models recently in the posession of the Marshall Space Flight Center). The Apollo 16 CM is safe. The other artifact lost was more interesting, the Instrumentation Unit from the actual Saturn V stack they have had on display in the rocket park for decades. This IU has been a fixture of the museum for years...
Plan B for Outer Space | SpaceRef - Your Space Reference
Topic: Science
3:05 pm EDT, May 7, 2007
As events unfold, it appears that the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE), the President's plan to return humans to the Moon and then onto Mars, is on the classic pride-before-the-fall trajectory. In the spirit of collegial exchanges, I offer the following observations and thoughts for our recovery. To my fellow rocket scientists and space enthusiasts, the time has come let go of last century's space dreams and start working toward a more contemporary future.
More free music, all sourced from the same 5 samples. Includes a new Logickal track.
"And upon the pages were the most infernal of diagrams; my mind reeled as I traced the signal paths - slowly at first, but with developing fervor as comprehension dawned upon me. There was only one thing that these phantasmagoric blueprints could describe, only one possible device with this pentagonal symmetry. I hoped it was not too late..."
It’s official - the first single by Logickal is hitting the streets on dPulse! It’s slowly creeping out to thee Internets by way of some of your favorite download services, with more to come in the next few days.
Big thanks go to the remixers - BlueDeceiver and Maurice Syntax provided their own personal interpretations of the title track, which is in some ways an homage to some of the sounds of my heroes - take 2 parts SP/Doubting Thomas/Download and mix with mid-period Coil and blend with some old-fashioned Logickal layering. Both remixes add take the formula and discard it completely, which is exactly what I was hoping for. Speaking of remixes, we decided to feature Randy Garcia’s Polar Attractor remix from Krushjob on this single, so big thanks to him for the stellar track as well.
I should also note here that Sugarknife features the sugary voice of Angelique Fisher, the knife-edged tones of John Sharp and the wonderful contact-mic’ed skulduggery of Mr. Natural on the sugar bowl and chef’s blade. Hints may also be heard of young Master Ryne lurking about in there somewhere as well. Thank you, my wonderful friends and collaborators.
Rounding out this single release are new improvisations called Students Fear The Three Cs (the stylistic partner to Krushjob’s Feels Atomic which is also included here) and the soothing Lullabye 43. I do hope you all enjoy - I have included a player from last.fm here for your listening pleasure, but please don’t forget about the download links below. If your favorite service isn’t yet listed (and I can think of a certain largeish service that is so far conspicuous by its absence), do not despair - I have been assured that they will be available shortly!
Eventually, it happens to all of us. You’ll be talking to someone, online or in person, who seems completely normal. Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the person will say something really weird, like “You can’t fix a problem like underpaid public school teachers by just throwing money at them!” or “Why do they need tax-funded traffic lights at this corner? All the cross-traffic’s already stopped, which shows the Free Market works!” or “Hitler was a Communist! They called themselves the ‘National Socialists’ for a reason!”
You, my friend, have just made the unpleasant discovery that you’ve been talking to a Libertarian.
Now don’t get me wrong! Most smart people are, to a certain extent, libertarians with a lower-case “L.” We all like to be left alone to determine the course of our own lives without state intrusion. But Capital-L Libertarians tend to take those admirable sentiments to their logical extreme, wanting to shrink fire departments and public libraries and FEMA down to the size where they can be drowned in Grover Norquist’s bathtub, or, failing that, at least stabbed to death like Marat.
The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.
Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that all their music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same music companies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which contain completely unprotected music. That’s right! No DRM system was ever developed for the CD, so all the music distributed on CDs can be easily uploaded to the Internet, then (illegally) downloaded and played on any computer or player.
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