audio
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Ripples
The song “Ripple,” by the Grateful Dead, never fails to move me. Here’s a live performance by the Dead, in 1980, on YouTube. My favorite version, however, is this one by KPIG’s Fine Swine Orchestra, recorded by Santa Cruz musicians sheltering in place during the pandemic. That’s a screen grab, above. I am pretty sure… Continue reading
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Microsoft Bing Chat 0, Perplexity.ai 1.
So I thought I’d give Bing a try at using ChatGPT to answer a question for which I knew the answer. The question was, “What group sings the theme song to the podcast ‘A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs’?” Bing search took me to a page of search results about the podcast itself,… Continue reading
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My podcasts of choice
As a follow-up to what I wrote earlier today, here are my own favorite podcasts, in the order they currently appear in my phone’s podcast apps: Radio Open Source (from itself) Bill Simmons (on The Ringer) Fresh Air (from WHYY via NPR) JJ Reddick & Tommy Alter (from ThreeFourTwo) The Mismatch (on The Ringer) The New… Continue reading
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Radio 2.x
On Quora, somebody asks, How can the radio industry stay relevant in the age of streaming music and podcasts? Here’s my answer: It already is, if you consider streaming music and podcasting evolutionary forms of radio. But if you limit the meaning of radio to over-the-air broadcasting, the relevance will be a subordinate one to what’s happening… Continue reading
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Vermont Public Radio rating wins, and the future of streaming & podcasting
Public Radio: What is the best NPR station in the country? That’s a question on Quora I thought needed answering. So I did, with this: Here’s a quantitative answer to your qualitative question: WVPS of Vermont Public Radio. Because, in Nielsen’s Audio Ratings, it scores a 12.6 in its home market of Burlington, and a 16.2 in its neighbor market… Continue reading
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Coming From Every Here
To answer the question Where are SiriusXM radio stations broadcasted from?, I replied, If you’re wondering where they transmit from, it’s a mix. SiriusXM transmits primarily from a number of satellites placed in geostationary orbit, 35,786 kilometres or 22,236 miles above the equator. From Earth they appear to be stationary. Two of the XM satellites,… Continue reading
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Audio blog #2
Yesterday’s audio blog post (again, not a podcast—I already do two of those) had 81 visits during that day and another couple dozen this morning. It also got one response on Facebook, a few on Twitter and a couple by email and other channels. Two responses were to the substance of the post, and one… Continue reading
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An audio blog post
I’m trying something new here, speaking instead of writing. Here it is: [Note: this didn’t work at first on iPhones, so I changed the file type to .mp3. Should work now.] I recorded it last night while walking twelve thousand steps, briskly, on the deck of my house. Think of it as a kind of… Continue reading
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Digging in Radio.Garden
Radio.garden is an amazing and fun discovery, perfect for infinite distraction during life in quarantine. (James Vincent in The Verge calls it “Google Earth for Radio.”) Here’s a list of just some discoveries I’ve made while mining that Earth with Shazam open on my phone: CIAU/103.1 in … not sure where this is, except in… Continue reading
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Mics Matter
Sometimes you get what you pay for. In this case, a good microphone in a bluetooth headset. Specifically, the Bose Soundsport Wireless: I’ve had these a day so far, and I love them. But not just because they sound good. Lots of earphones do that. I love them because the mic in the thing is… Continue reading