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Who Needs Radio?
DragonMagic writes "MSNBC asks what many /.ers have been asking: Who needs the radio anymore? Rather, it goes on to really ask, who needs the RIAA anymore? With online music distribution sources, television, and the internet itself, how much longer will it be before the radio, and the RIAA, will be an obsolete means to promote artists?"
Why is it that people have this bad tendency of thinking that old technologies have to die because something "better" is available? Maybe because those days most technologies don't last long and that makes people believe all technologies are not meant to last. I believe when something is done right and usful in the first place it will probably last many years and that is what is happening with radio. The fax is another example of a useful invention that might be replaced but it is still used a lot because it is so simple and reliable. I just don't like the idea of replacing something that works, simple to use and cheap, by some expensive complicated solution that uses those always broken computer protocols.
I may be wrong, in fact, I have posted this comment on slashdot without using a fax nor a typewriter but by using a not so broken computer protocol. Still, I dared not posting other than Plain Old Text characters as I don't trust any browser anymore.
Nuage
> There is no major national left-wing news television or radio
> network at the present time.
Which only proves you ARE a left winger/socialist (10's and 20's)/liberal (30's, - 80's, outright stealing and redefining the label which used to define free market, individual liberties folk like myself)/progressive (90's - now)/whatever new word you guys want to tarnish next.
And isn't it telling that as soon as a name becomes clearly associated with you guys you abandon it because it becomes a toxic kiss of death for any candidate not running in California, New York or Washington DC?
NPR, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, Reuters. All are far to the left of center, NPR and CNN are virtually mouthpieces for the DNC, although NPR is a little too 'progressive' even for the Democratic party sometimes.
Fox and talk radio do carry the torch for the Conservative movement to varying degrees. Talk radio tends to be unashamedly conservative while Fox tries for a little more balanced presentation. But in today's media climate even a truly unbiased news source would appear to lean conservative due to being all alone on the rightmost portion of the visible spectrum. Now I'd have no objection to news outlets being as biased as they want to be if it werent for the fact that the heavy hand of government restricts competition by limiting new TV outlets and openly subsidizing NPR/PBS.
Democrat delenda est
Really, even for /., this is *too* stupid. You take your little pet idea, be it Linux/P2P/Tivo etc. etc., then proclaim Windows/radio/TV is over. /. readers are a tiny niche of the world's population - most people have never hears of P2P, RIAA, DMCA, HDTV and so on, and probably never will. The world doesn't really change so much, especially not peoples habits.
I simply *cannot be bothered* to choose every song I want to listen to, or every TV show I want to watch. I want to sit down, turn on the radio, and have someone else pick the music for me. Some of it I will like, some I won't, some I won't have heard before - I've discovered many of my favourite bands through radio.
And then there's local sports events, news, and some excellent journalism that have no other outlet, and all available whether I'm in my house, in my car, in my garden, on a bus or at work, all while I'm doing something else.
Go to a factory - they'll have the radio on. They won't have gentoo athlon boxen playing fair-use oggs, creaming their jeans about how the whole chain is free as in speech. They have more important things to worry about.
Radios are cheap, easily available, easy to use, and understood by all. They ain't going anywhere.
It got so bad one day after I'd heard that cock-awful remix of the Stones's "Sympathy For The Devil" for the THIRD time that day and it was only 1:30pm, that I rang the station and asked to speak to the controller.
They put me through to somebody and this is the gist of the convsation I had with them:
ME: "I'm calling to ask you why you repeat the same tunes again and again all day."
THEM: "Well, we repeat music no more than the other stations do."
ME: "So you're telling me that Virgin FM are no different from any other radio station?"
THEM: "Yes."
ME: "So how are you going to pesruade me to listen to you?"
THEM: "I'm not, you can always switch channels."
ME: "Are you on CRACK? What's you're job title?"
THEM: "PA to the programme controller."
ME: "Well, I can't be bothered if you can't - you can shove your station up your arse. You wouldn't know the meaning of piss-poor."
THEM: "If you are abusive, sir, I will put the phone down."
ME: "Go ahead you pathetic idiot."
So they did. I *was* rather angry by that time.
I then spent the next couple of hours configuring and installing THIS and we've never looked back.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"