Your Phone Has an FM Chip. So Why Can’t You Listen to the Radio?

Post by Aaargh20318 » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 1:29 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #154

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't had an outage in years. I've never had a switch or any network equipment die on me either. We also bury our cables here (everything except the high-voltage power distribution network) so there is no risk of trees falling on wires. Seriously, why would you run cables on poles, that seems super fragile to me.

Well, lucky you. For the rest of the world though, Internet isn't a thing to be taken for granted. Sure it works 99% of the time, but it's not like electricity which work 99.999999% of the time, and then you have workarounds like batteries and gas tanks and stuff. And by "rest of the world" I don't mean third world countries or something. AFAIK Internet infrastructure in the US sucks hard compared to Europe, and here…

Post by Aaargh20318 » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 1:31 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #192

TeMPOraL wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, lucky you. For the rest of the world though, Internet isn't a thing to be taken for granted. Sure it works 99% of the time, but it's not like electricity which work 99.999999% of the time, and then you have workarounds like batteries and gas tanks and stuff. And by "rest of the world" I don't mean third world countries or something. AFAIK Internet infrastructure in the US sucks hard compared to Europe, and here…

Trees cut the lines here about 1 to 4 times a year. The longest outage was 10 days, the shortest was about 3 hours. Most everyone in my neighborhood eventually buys a generator. The power company told me it costs $15,000 per span to bury the wires. They find it cheaper to send a repair crew out to rebuild the wires regularly.

Post by throw7 » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 1:36 PM UTC

Post by forgetsusername » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 1:41 PM UTC

Frondo wrote: post #40

WalterBright wrote: post #19

I just bought an internet radio for my stereo (yes, I'm that old, I have a stereo). I was surprised to discover it also had a wire in the box that turned out to be an FM antenna. I thought with internet radio, who needs an FM tuner? (all the local stations have streaming URLs) Turns out I actually like it. It's handy when the internet fails, or when you're nearing data caps, or just want to run it all day without int…

It's funny, I really like listening to a number of local stations for the variety of music I get introduced to; but somehow, the fact that there is a real person curating it makes me enjoy it. Listening to spotify, it doesn't do it for me. Something about having someone come on, make a little human conversation, that's part of the experience for me. Algorithms don't cut it.

Post by teh_klev » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 1:45 PM UTC

LeoPanthera wrote: post #92

alsetmusic wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's strange to me to read a positive comment about terrestrial radio broadcast amid so many complaints about ad blocking on the web. I stopped listening to radio many years ago and now I have an irrational resentment when I hear car stereos blasting pointless, noisy ads at traffic stops. I always wonder what allows people to mentally tune them out rather than decreasing the volume until music resumes. This is in no…

It really depends what country you're in. In the UK, by far the most-listened-to FM stations are from the BBC, which are of course ad-free. Radio 1 (for younger people) and Radio 6 (for less-young people) are great places to listen to new music. And you can stream them over the web, for free, even if you're not British: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio