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Linux Radio

An anonymous reader writes "This might very well be the nerdiest site we'll ever encounter... Linux Radio is an online radio station broadcasting the Linux kernel! Each time someone visit the site, a random source file is selected and read loudly by a virtual speaker materialized through the open source speech synthesizer eSpeak. Will it prove useful to anyone is probably a difficult question to answer, but the excitement provided is worth experiencing at least once. However, this concept proves once more the advantages of open source over proprietary software making such achievements impossible : whoever in his right mind would want to listen to binary files loudly?"

15 of 141 comments (clear)

  1. Useful? Not too difficult a question actually by grasshoppa · · Score: 3, Informative

    No.

    See? That was easy.

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  2. Holy cow !!! by unity100 · · Score: 4, Funny

    For some fscking reason, this thing actually sounds appealing and coherent to me. Not to mention relaxing and understandable.

    1. Re:Holy cow !!! by ZosX · · Score: 3, Funny

      I honestly don't quite see how farting could possibly give the illusion of distance.

  3. Can we get a sultry female voice instead? by haruchai · · Score: 4, Funny

      I mean, c'mon, does Stephen Hawking really have time to read all this? And, this has to be the most tedious method of mirroring the kernel sources that I've ever "heard"

    --
    Pain is merely failure leaving the body
  4. Hell... by damn_registrars · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's still better than at least 90% of what counts as "music" today.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
  5. Re:i don't understand by maeka · · Score: 3, Funny

    whoever in his right mind would want to listen to binary files loudly?

    I like my Autechre just fine, TYVM.

  6. Not nearly nerdy enough by dangitman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If it were being broadcast on a shortwave radio band rather than internet radio, it might classify as one of the nerdier things ever. The internet is just so conventional.

    --
    ... and then they built the supercollider.
  7. I understand by Johann+Public · · Score: 3, Funny

    wanting to prove that it's possible to install and run Linux on (nearly) any computer imaginable, but something tells me you're going to need a little more work in the patching, drivers, and other modifications department to get it running on H. sapiens wetware computers...just saying

  8. nothing but includes for the first three minutes. by wagadog · · Score: 5, Funny

    lol it's like the begats in the bible.

  9. Re:Binary by sourcerror · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Actually, around 87-89 in Hungary it wasn't uncommon for radiostations to broadcast homebrew C-64 programs. The C-64 casette-tape only used the audible spectrum by spec anyway.

  10. Final goal by gmuslera · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Make all kernel developers to give some time to improve eSpeak and/or getting new voices for it. Will give a whole new dimension to that radio if is the Linus Torvalds voice the one reading the kernel source (and probably more interesting, the comments attached to it).

  11. Re:"Binary files"? by Genrou · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When I started using computers, they used K7 tapes to store programs. You know, they were mostly used for audio, but since they were cheap, it was a perfect media for home computers of that time -- bits were converted to sound, mostly using some sort of frequency modulation. There was no Internet then (I know, how can one imagine a world without the Internet), so the only source of information about computers were magazines and an occasional TV or radio program. Well, there was a weekly radio program where I lived that broadcast computer programs -- the binary files themselves. You just pressed "record" in your tape recorder, hoping the transmission was good enough, and then you could load it in your computer. Sometimes, they broadcast ZX Spectrum, sometimes it was MSX programs. They usually worked well, but sometimes the noise in the transmission would cause a lot of errors. It was a very nice way to distribute the programs

  12. Re:Wow there are a lot of asterisks! by Bender0x7D1 · · Score: 3, Funny

    You missed the obvious...

    Oh my God... It's full of stars.

    --
    Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
  13. Re:Useful? Not too difficult a question actually by Hognoxious · · Score: 4, Funny

    Access it? I'm pretty sure they wrote most of it.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  14. Listening to binary files... by Arancaytar · · Score: 3, Funny

    whoever in his right mind would listen to binary files

    You mean like an MP3?