Slashdot Mirror
Science for the Car Ride?
qaffle asks: "Being a commuting college student I've been putting many hours on the road recently and have gotten sick of the repetition of regular radio and music in general. I've been trying to listen to talk radio but all that is ever talked about is sports and I can only listen to Bears updates for so long. I'm curious if anyone knows of any sites online where I can find good science, computer related, or physics audio discussions online that I could listen to on the drive. This should give me a good variety and the ability to listen to something interesting during mid-late morning and early afternoon drives."
here
Just a couple of days ago NPR did a story on how the San Francisco Chronicle (the major newspaper in SF) is beginning a pilot project of daily audio news. Basically, every night after they complete the morning edition, the email the stories to a recording studio (in Atlanta, I believe). The stories are recorded and then you can download them to your computer and burn them to a cd.
Their main selling point is that you can customize what sections you want to receive. So, if all you want is sports and science/technology, you can get just that. However, it is a pay-for service (but there aren't any ads).
I used to do a 1.5 hour car ride (both back and forth) at least once a week for a couple of years. I found that audio books made fantastic companions. Major publishers make many (most?) of their books available on tape or cd -- both fiction and non-fiction.
Speaking for myself, audio books allowed me to delve into genres that I generally don't read very much, such as mysteries. The BBC radio adaptations of Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes are simply fantastic. (As an aside, I would recommend looking for radio adaptations rather than straight readings -- the radio adaptations are simply a lot more fun and engrossing.)
I also got a chance to listen to a bunch of the old radio programs -- Superman, Batman, The Shadow, and a bunch that I can't recall off-hand.
And I'm sure that you can find audio books on science -- I just suggest that you also take the opportunity to expose yourself to a wide variety of texts. Since you're stuck in the car anyway, it's not like you're losing anything if you accidentally pick up a crappy story.
Also -- a good way to save money is to find a used bookstore that will allow you to return your audio books for credit. And there are also some stores that rent audio books.
(p.s. You should also engage in the occassional guily pleasure. Mine were the William Shatner "Star Trek" novels -- you haven't heard "Star Trek" until you've heard William Shatner do all of the voices. Yes -- Spock, Uhura, Scotty; it's absolutely fantastic, truly phenomenal.)
I forgot to mention in my above post -- if you're into science fiction, definitely look up the "Alien Voices" series by Leonard Nimoy and John De Lancie. They got together with a bunch of other actors (generally from the various Star Trek series) and did live audio adaptations of classic science works (e.g. H.G. Wells). Truly, truly wonderful stuff. Well worth the price of admission.
Books on Tape saved me during my long Los Angeles commute. It's a rental service: you rent tapes, listen to them, drop them in the mail when you're done (postage is already paid). You get a month to listen to them before they're late.
The books are unabridged, so they tend to be 10 - 20+ hours long. They have a frequent renter program (rent 10, get one rental free), and an online discount - rent 3 at once and you get a 5% discount. What else - you can space when they arrive - one big shipment, one every other week, once a month, whatever. And, once you're hooked, you can refer a friend, and get another free rental!
I often order 10 books at a time, delivered every other week for 5 months. Very handy.
You can rent CDs, too. They have two types of CD recordings: high quality & mp3 (resulting in 5+ discs, or one).
They're located at http://www.booksontape.com/ They have samples online so that you can hear the readers voices. I have my favorite readers - resulting in listening to authors that I would never have read normally, but I liked the reader so much I thought I'd give them a try.
I recommend the service very highly! If you decide not to use them, but listen to other tapes or CDs, be sure to get unabridged tapes. The abridged ones are short and miss a lot.
have you heard about the linux show?
also, I dont want to be redundant, but NPR always has something interseting
Personally, I listen to "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered" on my 45 minute commute, with an occasional does of Tom Leykis for a change...
Balam
Sure enough, they've got an audio archive. Best thing is, individual interviews are downloadable mp3s or oggs. (Check out the 'what's an ogg' link beside each of the latter!)
Also, if you're willing fork over the cash, XM Radio can be entertaining. There's a Discovery channel with sciency-type stuff.