you can bet some high school or college kid would rather spend his money on a night out, then on a bunch of music he can get for free.
What makes you so sure?
You do know that album sales were at record highs during the peak of Napster's popularity, don't you? If all the high school and college kids weren't buying music, someone else was making up for it, because the market sure as hell didn't notice.
If your Aibo smells smoke it will alert you. It will notice if you stop breathing, or if you fall and hurt yourself, and it will summon assistance without panic. Perhaps if people enter the house unexpectedly while you are away or asleep it will call the police.
I'd love a robot that does all this for me (and everything else you stated). I'd be one of the first to buy one.
But I don't want it to be my "pet". I don't want it to play ball and I don't want to have to spend time with it to satisfy it's "emotional well-being", because we all know robots have no such thing. In fact, I want it to do what I tell it to do: To quietly take care of my house and stay out of my way. I'd also prefer that it looked nothing like a dog, but more like a funny little robot.
I have a real dog with real emotions and a real need for love. She snuggles up to me in bed, licks my face, and protects my family. A robot will never be able to replace a real dog. Not for me. It could, however, enhance my life in other ways, and I'd be happy to buy one but it would only be for that reason: To make life more convenient for me. Not to satisfy my emotional needs.
Re:I always find myself needed a wireless monitor
on
Wireless Monitors?
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· Score: 2
You haven't considered a nice KVM switch?? You could hook up a few dozen servers for the cost of a single wireless monitor (assuming this was one, which it isn't).
I have GTE (now Verizon) dialup that is limited to 150 hours a month.
Why? I told GTE to fuck off when they switched to the hourly plan some 3 odd years ago and hooked up with Earthlink. Why would you pay for limited usage when unlimited alternatives are available?
I know of people who routinely transfer 8-10 Gb per DAY (yes, per day - they max out at around 1000 kilobits second, 60 seconds a minute, 60 minutes an hour, 24 hours a day = 88473600000 bits/per day = ~10.2 gigabytes per day!) of mp3s, warez, movies, spam, etc.
You're full of shit. Care to tell me just where these people are putting their 10GB per day of MP3s, warez, movies, etc? Hard drives top out at about 160GB and cost a few hundred bucks. You'd have to buy a new drive every 16 days.
Plain and simple, your claim is bullshit. Unless you have a server farm full of large drive clusters, you'll never get away with transferring that much information. Number one, you have to store it: No family can go through 10GB per day and actually use all the content. That's 166 hours of MP3s or 10 DivX movies. Nobody sits in front of their computer and takes in that much content every day, so they've got to store it in one way or another for later use. That storage doesn't come cheap, and within just a few days, most people's hard drives will be filled to the brim. So the 10GB per day, assuming it's a realistic number, won't last very damn long.
As for uploads, you can't upload 10GB per day when your upload cap is 128k.
Better rethink your numbers, because they make zero sense whatsoever.
The telco doesn't want to be responsible since they just rent out the numbers
Well, the telco IS responsible, and if something like that were to happen to me it'd be "Sorry, I'm not going to pay this." The telco didn't rack up those charges, they're simply passing along the third party bill to you. Since said bill was generated through deception and fraud, there is no way in hell anyone could force me to pay it.
In the USA, at least, the telco legally can NOT disconnect your service for refusing to pay third party bills like this. You just tell them to fuck off and if they give you any hell, threaten a lawsuit, and/or call your state's consumer protection agency. People who sit there and pay that crap are insane. They need to realize that just because someone bills you for something doesn't mean you're obligated to pay for it, and there's not shit anyone can do to force you to pay it. Their only option is to convince a judge that you really owe them the money.
I've invoked the "ain't gonna pay that" attitude many times, especially when it comes to BS medical bills. I've never had a problem: Either they justified their bill to me and I paid it, or they left me alone. None have dared to send one to collections or put it on my credit report yet.
Re:Only thirty destinations? Use pneumatic tubes?
on
Hospital Robots
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· Score: 2
Yup, Costco uses those to move cash around as well. Hell of a good idea.
waiting for 20 seconds to expire... 7... 6... ok, I can hit submit now.
Question: If you're going 70-100 mph (as you are wont to do in that godforsaken wasteland), and you have your camera set to maximum shutter speed with very fast film (1000 speed), will your pictures be blurred beyond recognition if your camera pointed out the side window?
Not with a professional camera... My wife has a very nice professional grade 35mm camera. She took some pictures of me sitting in my ultralight with the engine running & prop spinning. In every shot, the prop looks perfectly still.
Now I know damn well that prop was spinning a lot faster as far as the film was concerned than looking out the side of a car at 70+mph...
Engines are air pumps, a smaller engine boosted with enough added air can indeed catch up with a V8....
But you're comparing apples and oranges. If you give the small engine a bunch of add-ons, then the big engine has to have the same add-ons. You can't say, "Well I took this four banger and spent $15k on it and now it whoops your puny $2000 V8." Well, no shit, sherlock! You're pitting a heavily modified engine vs a stock engine - of course you're going to be faster.
Give the guy with the V8 the same money for add-ons and the comparison is then valid. Of course, he will chew your ass up and spit it out in any race...
I can put a big block V8 with twin turbos in the back of a little Pontiac Fiero, upgrade the suspension and kick damn near anyone's ass in any race, including autocrossing. Under 10 seconds in the quarter mile and excellent handling. Does that mean I have the right to brag because I beat the pants off a stock (insert any other V8 powered car here)? No, I've made significant modifications and that changes the rules. If I get to make modifications in a verbal comparison, then so does the other driver.
If the judges would just start killing cases like this (and fining the lawyers that bring them, also fully within their power) then the "clogs" will be reduced.
I agree, but the problem is, most of the judges are the same breed of scum sucking bottom feeding lawyers...
(yes, I know most lawyers and judges are not scum sucking bottom feeders, but man, why don't the good ones do something about the idiots?)
NEW machines installed in Adelaide convenience stores make the illegal copying of the latest CDs and computer software - which costs artists and software designers millions of dollars - as easy as buying a loaf of bread.
Nope - no bias in this article, that's for sure.
News flash: Photocopy machines installed worldwide make the illegal copying of the latest books and sheet music - which costs artists millions of dollars - as easy as buying a loaf of bread.
"These things are baaaad", said local idiot Glenn B. Aaker. "I couldn't imagine anything more potentially devastating for my web site than people copying pictures of myself and my farm animals. Those pictures are copyrighted, damnit, and they cost me a lot of, uh, money, to make."
Mr. Aaker said his goats would not take this lying down, but rather, standing up. "Hell no", he said. "We're not putting up with this. Besides, I get more pleasure out of it (fending these criminals off) when they're standing up."
Convenience store owner John Tsavrou said the photocopy machines were popular among strange looking people. "If people ask, we tell them it is sick and wrong to copy pictures of Mr. Aaker copulating with his goats and there are warnings on the machines - but what they copy is up to them," he said.
A spokesman from Xerox had no comment, although he did shoot milk out of his nose in a fit of hysterical laughter when told his machines were driving down Mr. Aaker's profits.
Sygate personal firewall is also free for home use. I've had prior experience with their commercial software and have nothing but praise for it. Their personal firewall software also works very well...
Except that, in the US, no lunatic would ever enter a house with a knife. He'd take a gun, possibly a semi-automatic, because he'd be pretty sure you'd have one.
Ahh, but you're wrong. Lunatics enter houses with knives and other basic weapons all the damn time around here. Heck, many of them don't even have weapons. They are almost always petty burglers or rapists intending to overpower their victims and in most cases don't have guns. Why? Well, you can safely stab someone to death or hold a knife to their throat and do what you will with them without anyone knowing. You fire off a gun and the entire neighborhood is going to dial 911. At that point you have to immediately start running to get a head start on the cops, and even then, they'll bring in the dogs and probably catch your ass.
And if he does have a gun, he obviously intends to kill with it, so what does it matter? Better that I have one of my own so I at least have a fighting chance.
Escalation does not apply only to nuclear weapons.
So you're saying I should cower down in my own home to avoid escalating the situation? "Please, don't shoot us. Rape my wife, terrorize my children, steal my belongings, but please don't kill us." Like hell. He's going to get a body full of lead. Maybe I will, too - and maybe not - but either way, I'd sacrifice my life in an instant if it meant preventing my family from enduring torture.
Tim (?), will you email me? I have some questions about the iButton setup in your home (from a previous story). Tried to email you but your mail server isn't accepting it, and have no other way of contacting you but replying to your latest post and hoping you'll read it. (And yes, moderators, I know this is offtopic. Get over it.)
There have been well publisized reports of parents being made to serve jail time because their kids (repeatedly) skipped school.
Sounds like you need a new community. No way in hell would I serve jail time because my teenager did something wrong - especially something as trivial as skipping school. I can't believe the legal system in this country has come to that! I can understand if the parents left their guns sitting around and the kid shot someone, sure, throw the parents in jail. But skipping school? You've got to be kidding me.
I personally would like to beat the living hell out of whomever pushed that law through the system...
No. Thankfully, you are not allowed to carry weapons in Norway. The result is simple, a relative 96% less guncrimes and 60% less violent crime than the US
You're deluding yourself, or your government is doing it for you. If there really is a difference in crime it's the result of society, not the removal of guns. In the vast majority of instances (Australia, for instance) when guns have been taken out of the hands of citizens, gun crime has gone through the roof.
While you may depend on the police to save you and claim it works well (and maybe it does in Norway, I've never been there so I don't know), here in the US, we take care of ourselves. The police are usually very helpful but they're completely worthless to me when I wake up and find a crazed lunatic in my house with a knife attempting to cut my family up. What am I going to do, call the police and wait for them to show up while he slits my wife's throat? Don't think so. First thing I do is blow his f'ing head off with my shotgun. Second, fill his dead body with lead for good measure. Third, call 911 and the insurance company to have my carpet replaced...
Barbaric? Perhaps. But would you rather watch your family die a horrible death at the hands of a maniac because you're too 'civilized' to take his life? For me, the choice is easy... anyone who comes through my window at night will leave in a body bag. Period. And that includes any government official coming to take my guns away...
You've obviously never used a handheld GPS. My Garmin eTrex works fine in my metal car. It works fine in my house, even in the center of my house away from the windows it still gets a decent lock on the satellites. Now, when I put it in my pocket and hopped in the car, it lost it's link, but I can leave it on the seat or even on the floor of the car and it stays up just fine.
I also downloaded the stupid player, though I never signed up for service. I just wanted to play some.RA files and it was their latest offering.
After playing two or three files with it, it decided to crash my Windows box. The third time this happened I uninstalled the piece of shit and downloaded RealPlayer 8.
You can't burn more than two tracks per artist per month. (...) Want to make a mixed Radiohead CD? Too bad. You can't.
If you unsubscribe, all of the tracks you've downloaded to date deactivate themselves and become unplayable.
You can't burn tracks that you download from RealOne, even though RealOne has music burning software built in.
If you unsubscribe, your music commits suicide.
Man, what a deal! I get to pay through the nose for tracks I can't do anything with and when I cancel, I get a nice ass raping to boot! Where do I sign up???
the problem with internet radio is that it require too many underlying serious infrastructural support to actually work
Who modded this 'insightful'? Internet radio works fine. It has for quite some time. Yes, it requires a lot of infrastructure, but it's easy enough to overcome as evidenced by the many successful Internet radio stations available.
There is no problem with Internet radio. It's a niche market but it does have a market and it is very viable. The problem is these controlling bastards who want to shut it down - honestly, do they really expect anyone to pay $350k+ per year to broadcast online? They know damn well this will put Internet radio to death and that's exactly what they want. When people can listen to non-RIAA controlled radio stations, they're going to start buying non-RIAA music, and eventually Internet radio will overtake commercial radio. When that happens, artists will have zero need for the recording industry.
Don't kid yourselves: This is not about money. This is not about copyright. It's about CONTROL. It's about ensuring that you only listen to what the people in power want you to listen to. They don't want you to hear music that they don't own, because you might decide it's better than the trite shit that they want you to hear and that would be bad for them.
I never understood this? You need a device, similar to or equal to a computer which costs way more than a small radio, and more importantly bandwidth, monthly fee in one location, to be able to listen to something that typically requires a $2.25 device and a AA battery.
You need a computer: Something you already own. You need bandwidth: Something you already own.
I guess I don't see the problem here? It's not like some company is saying, "Hey, we have this great radio station, just $1500 for the hardware and $40 per month and you, too, can listen!" You already own the equipment for other uses so the cost to tune in is zero.
As for why? Everyone else has already illustrated that for you: Local stations suck. They're controlled by megacorps and you're only allowed to hear what they want you to hear. I listen to SomaFM - in fact, I've got a listing of a dozen or so favorite Internet radio stations on a touchscreen in my living room and I can tune in to any just by tapping the icon. We have people over for dinner and they go, "Wow, this is some great music. What station is this? I've never heard this before!"
People are sick and f'ing tired of the typical garbage and want something new. If you've got a broadband connection, Internet radio delivers that.
I personally hope some of these operations move offshore and tell the RIAA to go f themselves. I've listened to Internet radio stations all over the world; what's to stop someone like somaFM from throwing up a server in another country and streaming the same stuff?
Re:Apple condemning it? Quite the opposite...
on
iPod on Windows
·
· Score: 1
What stupid fucking moderator modded this "Troll"?
Slashdot Mirror
Ace of Bass
...
That's "Ace of Base"
Fooled me the first time, too...
you can bet some high school or college kid would rather spend his money on a night out, then on a bunch of music he can get for free.
What makes you so sure?
You do know that album sales were at record highs during the peak of Napster's popularity, don't you? If all the high school and college kids weren't buying music, someone else was making up for it, because the market sure as hell didn't notice.
If your Aibo smells smoke it will alert you. It will notice if you stop breathing, or if you fall and hurt yourself, and it will summon assistance without panic. Perhaps if people enter the house unexpectedly while you are away or asleep it will call the police.
I'd love a robot that does all this for me (and everything else you stated). I'd be one of the first to buy one.
But I don't want it to be my "pet". I don't want it to play ball and I don't want to have to spend time with it to satisfy it's "emotional well-being", because we all know robots have no such thing. In fact, I want it to do what I tell it to do: To quietly take care of my house and stay out of my way. I'd also prefer that it looked nothing like a dog, but more like a funny little robot.
I have a real dog with real emotions and a real need for love. She snuggles up to me in bed, licks my face, and protects my family. A robot will never be able to replace a real dog. Not for me. It could, however, enhance my life in other ways, and I'd be happy to buy one but it would only be for that reason: To make life more convenient for me. Not to satisfy my emotional needs.
You haven't considered a nice KVM switch?? You could hook up a few dozen servers for the cost of a single wireless monitor (assuming this was one, which it isn't).
I have GTE (now Verizon) dialup that is limited to 150 hours a month.
Why? I told GTE to fuck off when they switched to the hourly plan some 3 odd years ago and hooked up with Earthlink. Why would you pay for limited usage when unlimited alternatives are available?
I know of people who routinely transfer 8-10 Gb per DAY (yes, per day - they max out at around 1000 kilobits second, 60 seconds a minute, 60 minutes an hour, 24 hours a day = 88473600000 bits/per day = ~10.2 gigabytes per day!) of mp3s, warez, movies, spam, etc.
You're full of shit. Care to tell me just where these people are putting their 10GB per day of MP3s, warez, movies, etc? Hard drives top out at about 160GB and cost a few hundred bucks. You'd have to buy a new drive every 16 days.
Plain and simple, your claim is bullshit. Unless you have a server farm full of large drive clusters, you'll never get away with transferring that much information. Number one, you have to store it: No family can go through 10GB per day and actually use all the content. That's 166 hours of MP3s or 10 DivX movies. Nobody sits in front of their computer and takes in that much content every day, so they've got to store it in one way or another for later use. That storage doesn't come cheap, and within just a few days, most people's hard drives will be filled to the brim. So the 10GB per day, assuming it's a realistic number, won't last very damn long.
As for uploads, you can't upload 10GB per day when your upload cap is 128k.
Better rethink your numbers, because they make zero sense whatsoever.
The telco
doesn't want to be responsible since they just rent out the
numbers
Well, the telco IS responsible, and if something like that were to happen to me it'd be "Sorry, I'm not going to pay this." The telco didn't rack up those charges, they're simply passing along the third party bill to you. Since said bill was generated through deception and fraud, there is no way in hell anyone could force me to pay it.
In the USA, at least, the telco legally can NOT disconnect your service for refusing to pay third party bills like this. You just tell them to fuck off and if they give you any hell, threaten a lawsuit, and/or call your state's consumer protection agency. People who sit there and pay that crap are insane. They need to realize that just because someone bills you for something doesn't mean you're obligated to pay for it, and there's not shit anyone can do to force you to pay it. Their only option is to convince a judge that you really owe them the money.
I've invoked the "ain't gonna pay that" attitude many times, especially when it comes to BS medical bills. I've never had a problem: Either they justified their bill to me and I paid it, or they left me alone. None have dared to send one to collections or put it on my credit report yet.
Yup, Costco uses those to move cash around as well. Hell of a good idea.
... ok, I can hit submit now.
waiting for 20 seconds to expire... 7... 6
I already said I could see some of the benefits, but these things would become a bigger problem in the long run.
Funny, the way I see it, your patients are the problem...
*stupidfucking20secondrule*
Question: If you're going 70-100 mph (as you are wont to do in that godforsaken wasteland), and you have your camera set to maximum shutter speed with very fast film (1000 speed), will your pictures be blurred beyond recognition if your camera pointed out the side window?
Not with a professional camera... My wife has a very nice professional grade 35mm camera. She took some pictures of me sitting in my ultralight with the engine running & prop spinning. In every shot, the prop looks perfectly still.
Now I know damn well that prop was spinning a lot faster as far as the film was concerned than looking out the side of a car at 70+mph...
Engines are air pumps, a smaller engine boosted with enough added air can indeed catch up with a V8....
But you're comparing apples and oranges. If you give the small engine a bunch of add-ons, then the big engine has to have the same add-ons. You can't say, "Well I took this four banger and spent $15k on it and now it whoops your puny $2000 V8." Well, no shit, sherlock! You're pitting a heavily modified engine vs a stock engine - of course you're going to be faster.
Give the guy with the V8 the same money for add-ons and the comparison is then valid. Of course, he will chew your ass up and spit it out in any race...
I can put a big block V8 with twin turbos in the back of a little Pontiac Fiero, upgrade the suspension and kick damn near anyone's ass in any race, including autocrossing. Under 10 seconds in the quarter mile and excellent handling. Does that mean I have the right to brag because I beat the pants off a stock (insert any other V8 powered car here)? No, I've made significant modifications and that changes the rules. If I get to make modifications in a verbal comparison, then so does the other driver.
If the judges would just start killing cases like this (and fining the lawyers that bring them, also fully within their power) then the "clogs" will be reduced.
I agree, but the problem is, most of the judges are the same breed of scum sucking bottom feeding lawyers...
(yes, I know most lawyers and judges are not scum sucking bottom feeders, but man, why don't the good ones do something about the idiots?)
I have a dish, and I get all local broadcast channels without SNAFU. What snafu are you having?
Probably the same one I'm having:
Them: "We're sorry, we can't sell you local programming without a waiver from your local stations."
Me: "Why is that?"
Them: "Because, our computer says that you can receive them with an antenna."
Me: "But I can't. I've tried five different antennas and all I can see are fuzzy looking ghost people."
Them: "Sorry, can't help you. Would you like to apply for a waiver?"
Me: "Yeah, sure."
Them: "Oops. Looks like your waiver request was denied. Why don't you try a bigger antenna?"
Me: "$#%@ing @#$%$%@#"
NEW machines installed in Adelaide convenience stores make the illegal copying of the latest CDs and computer software - which costs artists and software designers millions of dollars - as easy as buying a loaf of bread.
Nope - no bias in this article, that's for sure.
News flash: Photocopy machines installed worldwide make the illegal copying of the latest books and sheet music - which costs artists millions of dollars - as easy as buying a loaf of bread.
"These things are baaaad", said local idiot Glenn B. Aaker. "I couldn't imagine anything more potentially devastating for my web site than people copying pictures of myself and my farm animals. Those pictures are copyrighted, damnit, and they cost me a lot of, uh, money, to make."
Mr. Aaker said his goats would not take this lying down, but rather, standing up. "Hell no", he said. "We're not putting up with this. Besides, I get more pleasure out of it (fending these criminals off) when they're standing up."
Convenience store owner John Tsavrou said the photocopy machines were popular among strange looking people. "If people ask, we tell them it is sick and wrong to copy pictures of Mr. Aaker copulating with his goats and there are warnings on the machines - but what they copy is up to them," he said.
A spokesman from Xerox had no comment, although he did shoot milk out of his nose in a fit of hysterical laughter when told his machines were driving down Mr. Aaker's profits.
Sygate personal firewall is also free for home use. I've had prior experience with their commercial software and have nothing but praise for it. Their personal firewall software also works very well...
Except that, in the US, no lunatic would ever enter a house with a knife. He'd take a gun, possibly a semi-automatic, because he'd be pretty sure you'd have one.
Ahh, but you're wrong. Lunatics enter houses with knives and other basic weapons all the damn time around here. Heck, many of them don't even have weapons. They are almost always petty burglers or rapists intending to overpower their victims and in most cases don't have guns. Why? Well, you can safely stab someone to death or hold a knife to their throat and do what you will with them without anyone knowing. You fire off a gun and the entire neighborhood is going to dial 911. At that point you have to immediately start running to get a head start on the cops, and even then, they'll bring in the dogs and probably catch your ass.
And if he does have a gun, he obviously intends to kill with it, so what does it matter? Better that I have one of my own so I at least have a fighting chance.
Escalation does not apply only to nuclear weapons.
So you're saying I should cower down in my own home to avoid escalating the situation? "Please, don't shoot us. Rape my wife, terrorize my children, steal my belongings, but please don't kill us." Like hell. He's going to get a body full of lead. Maybe I will, too - and maybe not - but either way, I'd sacrifice my life in an instant if it meant preventing my family from enduring torture.
Tim (?), will you email me? I have some questions about the iButton setup in your home (from a previous story). Tried to email you but your mail server isn't accepting it, and have no other way of contacting you but replying to your latest post and hoping you'll read it. (And yes, moderators, I know this is offtopic. Get over it.)
My email address is ryan at ryanwright dot com.
Thanks...
There have been well publisized reports of parents being made to serve jail time because their kids (repeatedly) skipped school.
Sounds like you need a new community. No way in hell would I serve jail time because my teenager did something wrong - especially something as trivial as skipping school. I can't believe the legal system in this country has come to that! I can understand if the parents left their guns sitting around and the kid shot someone, sure, throw the parents in jail. But skipping school? You've got to be kidding me.
I personally would like to beat the living hell out of whomever pushed that law through the system...
No. Thankfully, you are not allowed to carry weapons in Norway. The result is simple, a relative 96% less guncrimes and 60% less violent crime than the US
You're deluding yourself, or your government is doing it for you. If there really is a difference in crime it's the result of society, not the removal of guns. In the vast majority of instances (Australia, for instance) when guns have been taken out of the hands of citizens, gun crime has gone through the roof.
While you may depend on the police to save you and claim it works well (and maybe it does in Norway, I've never been there so I don't know), here in the US, we take care of ourselves. The police are usually very helpful but they're completely worthless to me when I wake up and find a crazed lunatic in my house with a knife attempting to cut my family up. What am I going to do, call the police and wait for them to show up while he slits my wife's throat? Don't think so. First thing I do is blow his f'ing head off with my shotgun. Second, fill his dead body with lead for good measure. Third, call 911 and the insurance company to have my carpet replaced...
Barbaric? Perhaps. But would you rather watch your family die a horrible death at the hands of a maniac because you're too 'civilized' to take his life? For me, the choice is easy... anyone who comes through my window at night will leave in a body bag. Period. And that includes any government official coming to take my guns away...
GPS does not work inside or in a metal car.
You've obviously never used a handheld GPS. My Garmin eTrex works fine in my metal car. It works fine in my house, even in the center of my house away from the windows it still gets a decent lock on the satellites. Now, when I put it in my pocket and hopped in the car, it lost it's link, but I can leave it on the seat or even on the floor of the car and it stays up just fine.
I also downloaded the stupid player, though I never signed up for service. I just wanted to play some .RA files and it was their latest offering.
After playing two or three files with it, it decided to crash my Windows box. The third time this happened I uninstalled the piece of shit and downloaded RealPlayer 8.
Never again.
Man, what a deal! I get to pay through the nose for tracks I can't do anything with and when I cancel, I get a nice ass raping to boot! Where do I sign up???
the problem with internet radio is that it require too many underlying serious infrastructural support to actually work
Who modded this 'insightful'? Internet radio works fine. It has for quite some time. Yes, it requires a lot of infrastructure, but it's easy enough to overcome as evidenced by the many successful Internet radio stations available.
There is no problem with Internet radio. It's a niche market but it does have a market and it is very viable. The problem is these controlling bastards who want to shut it down - honestly, do they really expect anyone to pay $350k+ per year to broadcast online? They know damn well this will put Internet radio to death and that's exactly what they want. When people can listen to non-RIAA controlled radio stations, they're going to start buying non-RIAA music, and eventually Internet radio will overtake commercial radio. When that happens, artists will have zero need for the recording industry.
Don't kid yourselves: This is not about money. This is not about copyright. It's about CONTROL. It's about ensuring that you only listen to what the people in power want you to listen to. They don't want you to hear music that they don't own, because you might decide it's better than the trite shit that they want you to hear and that would be bad for them.
I never understood this? You need a device, similar to or equal to a computer which costs way more than a small radio, and more importantly bandwidth, monthly fee in one location, to be able to listen to something that typically requires a $2.25 device and a AA battery.
You need a computer: Something you already own.
You need bandwidth: Something you already own.
I guess I don't see the problem here? It's not like some company is saying, "Hey, we have this great radio station, just $1500 for the hardware and $40 per month and you, too, can listen!" You already own the equipment for other uses so the cost to tune in is zero.
As for why? Everyone else has already illustrated that for you: Local stations suck. They're controlled by megacorps and you're only allowed to hear what they want you to hear. I listen to SomaFM - in fact, I've got a listing of a dozen or so favorite Internet radio stations on a touchscreen in my living room and I can tune in to any just by tapping the icon. We have people over for dinner and they go, "Wow, this is some great music. What station is this? I've never heard this before!"
People are sick and f'ing tired of the typical garbage and want something new. If you've got a broadband connection, Internet radio delivers that.
I personally hope some of these operations move offshore and tell the RIAA to go f themselves. I've listened to Internet radio stations all over the world; what's to stop someone like somaFM from throwing up a server in another country and streaming the same stuff?
What stupid fucking moderator modded this "Troll"?