Random notes for Rhode Islanders:

• 90.3 FM (WRIU) makes a great change from 95.5 WBRU. Even after listening for more than a year, 90.3 still plays lots I haven’t heard before, and their unvarnished DJs are the polar opposites of the annoying ones that used to try way too hard at 99.7 “the edge” (now defunct). Unfortunately, being a small college station, they switch off completely during the summer.

  I can’t quite say that you won’t catch them repeating anything, because one evening last week, they left the same CD shuffling in the player for hours. I heard the exact same songs (Erin McKeown, Distillation) on three separate short car trips over a two-and-a-half-hour period, starting at 6:30 PM. When I was listening at home after 9, a DJ came on and apologized for being a little late.

• artinruins.com has lots of pictures and background info on the Providence buildings that will be torn down, or have already come down, as a result of the I-195 relocation project. I walk by Thurston Manufacturing (their link) and the former Providence Machine Company (their link, my photo) almost every weekday on the way to lunch.