Livestation is a simple app that does some cool things.

I’m a news junkie, especially from non-US sources. Unfortunately, watching TV from Europe or Asia is hampered by a big problem–the curve of the Earth. The satellites that hit Europe and Asia are not exactly positioned to beam their signals down to the US. While I have the big dish to get some of the content, that is still reliant on the broadcaster ‘double bouncing’ their signal through an Earth station somewhere and not encrypting their feeds.

Online options are dispersed. Most of the good peer-to-peer programs like Sopcast and TVAnts are Windows only, and going to 100s of different websites can be a real pain.

So I’m pretty pleased to find Livestation. This is a small downloadable app that gives you a standard interface to a lot of different content from around the world. I’m watching Orange Sports from France right now, and can flip to Euronews and a few other feeds of interest. Right now I’m watching Al Jazeera English service (which is funny in the bias that it shows).

Try downloading it. Works on Macs, Windows and Linux.

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The USNS Mendonca ro-ro past the window.

Ro ro past the window where will you go?

Ro ro past the window where will you go?

Military Sealift Command has a number of ships up in Baltimore that you can see anytime you drive through the city. But it’s actually quite rare to see them afloat, unless you are off the coast of Iraq or some other trouble spot.

Today the USNS Mendonca, a ro-ro ship past the window with the AIS Ship plotter listing its final destination as ‘To Sea’. Maybe they sense an Obama victory and are getting the ships in place to bring back the tanks?

USNS Mendonca is one of Military Sealift Command’s nineteen Large, Medium-Speed Roll-on/Roll-off Ships and is part of the 21 ships in the Sealift Program Office.

• Length: 950 feet
• Beam: 106 feet
• Draft: 34 feet
• Displacement: 62,069 long tons
• Speed: 24.0 knots
• Civilian: 30 contract mariners
• Government-Owned/ Chartered:

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