Even though this is a political site. I'm sure tired of Hillary Diaries. Torture. Justice department. Constitution. Impeachment. Corruption. Election 2008. Whitey. You know, it's tedious sometimes. So this is about how to enjoy yourself.
I'm a self-employed software engineer (i.e. running a non-profit) and so I'm around the house/office all the time. My local NPR station moved its antenna, so I now have trouble receiving them. They (KUNC in Greeley, CO) played "Diverse Music", an eclectic brand of different music, and I enjoyed the idea that I might hear "another brick in the wall" only a few minutes after Vivaldi's "Spring". Also, I move around the house a lot, and might wander from the office to the kitchen to the garage and back again, and I disliked interrupting the soundscape. Especially on the weekend, I want to hear all the NPR stuff, from "Car Guys" and "wait, wait" to "splendid table" and "Weakened Condition"
And Penny Evans was a Vietnam War Widow - more below the fold..
Here's the problem : Difficulty getting the radio signal, having many radios about the house, liking interesting music... So here's what I did: my own Radio Station.
I used to be the chief engineer of my college radio station in Minnesota, back when transistors were new (Siliconious period). We broadcast the signal via closed-circuit (carrier-current) thru the campus electric lines. We had tremendous fidelity - just plug in your radio and you're part of the antenna! 'course if you're a block off campus, too bad. But that's good.
So the key to this is your very own FM transmitter - simple really; get this http://www.canakit.net/...
or search for "FM Transmitter kit" and you'll find plenty like the kit I built.
How this works : you take a computer which would normally output to speakers, and you plug it into this transmitter. Then any radio within reasonable range (like < 100 feet) will get the signal of whatever the computer is sending.
Here's what it will let you do: First, if you like streaming audio (like I can get from KUNC, anywhere in the world), you can use the internet to login to a streaming audio source and then send it all over your house, to any radio that is tuned to the right frequency.
Second, and equally important, if you have your own audio library you could create your own prefered playlists and broadcast them throught your house - it's like a shared iPod shuffle. I have over 200 vinyl records (yeah, even some 78s and 45s) and even more CDs that I've digitized onto a dedicated network drive, along with my wife and kids' preferences. We have over 20GB of digitized music of all sorts on a cheap hard drive. On the computer, using a jukebox ( I use Musicmatch since it came with a player years ago, and I bought a licensed copy), I have digital access to thousands of songs (legally - I own all the originals) I can use the jukebox to build playlists, shuffle the order, and create a radio station that broadcasts just what I want. All for the investment in a local FM transmitter. I especially like that I can add to the playlist every so often, and I can ask it to "shuffle" every morning and I hear what I like, but in a different order every day. And on top of everything else (in my case), the computer that's doing this is not my workstation, just another network hookup, so it doesn't hurt my workstation performance at all. The Transmitter and the Radio does the work.
So the point is that there's a tremendous opportunity to make your workplace cooler (more cool?) Rad? whatever the current phrase is, using this local transmitter and a computer that's running all the time anyway to provide amusement, tailored to whatever you want. That's leverage.
But to politics, and in reference to the recent moveon.org "alex" video - My system just brought up, as I write this, Steve Goodman and "The ballad of Penny Evans". It brings tears to my eyes: some things never change. Where have all the flowers gone?
Ballad of Penny Evans
* Steve Goodman
My name is Penny Evans and my age is twenty-one
I'm a widow of the war that was fought in Vietnam
I have two baby daughters and I do the best I can
They say the war is over but I think it's just begun
I remember I was seventeen when first I met my Bill
At his father's grand piano we played old 'Heart and Soul'
I only knew the left hand part, he knew the right so well
He's the only boy I slept with, and the only one I will
First we had a baby girl, we had two good years
And next the warning notice came, we parted without tears
Then it's nine months from our last goodbye our second child appears
And it's ten months and a telegram confirming all our fears
So once a month I get a check from some army bureaucrat
And once a month I tear it up and mail the damn thing back
Do they think that makes it all right? Do they think I'll fall for that?
They can keep their bloody money, it won't bring my Billy back
I never cared for politics, speeches I don't understand
Likewise I'll take no charity from any living man
But tonight there's fifty thousand gone in that unhappy land
And fifty thousand 'Heart and Souls' being played with just one hand
My name is Penny Evans and my age is twenty-one
I'm a widow of the war that was fought in Vietnam
I have two baby daughters - thank God I have no son
They say the war is over but I think it's just begun
Steve Goodman was a Genius - RIP.