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Satellite Radio Systems Compared
The NYT has a review/comparison of XM radio and Sirius, the two systems of digital satellite radio. Not everyone wants to pay for radio, but I guess if you spend enough time listening to it, maybe it's worthwhile.
Everything today is dominated subscriptions.
Every software company has these subscription software developers network.
Every other game is becoming subscription based. I am glad sims online is failing.
Every good radio frequency is subscription based.
Soon public bathrooms will be subscription based. The only thing that needs subscription is magazines.
Radio used to be a wonderful local medium. Anywhere in the country you'd here local accents talking about local events advertising local businesses and appealing to local tastes in music. Even well into the era of media conglomerates, radio was still by-and-large a small-scale operation.
Clearchannel and the whole deregulation mess has pretty well ended that. Aside from a few AM and college stations, radio has about as much identifyable personality as network television. And now proponents of Big Radio can point to the few remaining independents, by and large willfully obscure and pretentious holdouts, as examples of why small radio is no longer relevant.
Satellite Radio is probably good for a lot of reasons, but it certainly will do nothing to slow the gradual blending of America's cultural palette into one big swath of homogenous gray.
I've only lived in two places in my life. I'm about to take a two month long cross-country drive. I'm seriously worried that I'm not going to see (or hear) anything unfamiliar.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
Seriously, though, I'm a little tired of the "why would anybody want to pay for that" attitude around here. It's a service, about the same value as a newspaper subscription, and priced accordingly.
Why does Slashdot seem to be getting more and more parochial?
"You may want to take that into account when picking a system."
:)
Should a patriotic American support protectionist policies? Or support efficient economics? Either way it seems you're right.
I chose to go with Sirius Radio and I've been very pleased with it (I've had it for a bit over a year now). And, in addition to the no-commercials policy on their music stations, one of the major deciding factors for me was ClearChannel's stake in XM.
For those not aware, ClearChannel owns over 1200 stations nationwide and they're one of the major proponents of payola. That's right -- artists get on the air simply because their labels paid for their songs to be played.
I believe that radio play should be based on merit and not deep pockets. And, I don't want to have anything to do with ClearChannel.
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
Outsourcing is not as pronounced because American companies have greater flexibility due to less regulation of employment practices. It has nothing to do with salary compensation.
If you look at the total compensation for employees in America and Europe, you won't find much difference as the higher American salaries are balanced by the higher outlays European companies make to finance the larger benefits and government taxes.
As I've indicated, outsourcing from Europe to America is marginal at best. So don't worry, your IT jobs will be going to India. At least this way you can feel better about yourself.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
One may as well invest in a multi-disc changer that reads MP3 discs. This way you can have hours upon hours of music that you choose, commercial free.
If you've never used a satellite radio before, then your comment is somewhat uninformed. There are two major downsides to what you propose. The first is that you never get to hear anything new. The only things you will listen to are what you put in your library. The second (and this is the one that most commentors have missed) is that you get a lot more than music on the radio. You also get a dozen news channels, sports, a couple of comedy channels, vintage radio shows (like The Shadow and The Saint, for example).
I'm not saying that satellite radio is for everyone, but oh MAN is it worth it.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"