The joys of Radio

[dellstart]

Due to intense computer problems , my comp was in repair for about a week, and we dont own an idiot box. Thus what did , i do to stay sane after hard day at work, you got it .something i haven't done in a looong looooong time. i turned on the radio and reignited my love with radio in general and talk radio in particular.It was just so liberating, I really didn't miss surfing the web at all. which says a lot.

[expedient]

I don’t get to listen to radio as much as I used to. I don't drive as often and many offices I visit have switched off radios in favor of silence or antisocial-iPod-wearing-zombification.

<rant>
God how I hate trying to get the attention of someone only to find out they can't hear you because they're wearing noise-cancelling earbuds, have lost the ability to notice anything in their peripheral vision due to screen-trance and then have to fumble for an eternity of disconcerted awareness-raising followed by fumbled button-pressing and ear-plug removal and impugned glaring at for the interruption. Only to have your time and their time wasted for several minutes, when taking into account the time-lag/latency issues, for a basic but time dependent question like, "Did you send that thing, yet?" But will they learn sign language or even semaphore? I should insist they all have to run instant messaging in lieu of normal human communication so I can just query the zombies as though they're just a distant computer terminal.
</rant>

I love talk radio too. I've been listening to time-shifted shows more often recently (streaming/podcasts) just to spend a quiet evening.

<semi-rant>
The problem with time-shifting (streaming/downloads/recording) TV and radio is that I find it hard to find the time watch/listen because it's apparently "okay" to interrupt a recording, multiple times to "chat", but if your watching something "live" at a scheduled time silence *must* be maintained lest the slightest word be missed from the latest soap.
</okay it's another rant>

I just came from from walking in the woods last week back to the big smoke...

[Spec8472]

God how I hate trying to get the attention of someone only to find out they can't hear you because they're wearing noise-cancelling earbuds, have lost the ability to notice anything in their peripheral vision due to screen-trance and then have to fumble for an eternity of disconcerted awareness-raising followed by fumbled button-pressing and ear-plug removal and impugned glaring at for the interruption. Only to have your time and their time wasted for several minutes, when taking into account the time-lag/latency issues, for a basic but time dependent question like, "Did you send that thing, yet?" But will they learn sign language or even semaphore? I should insist they all have to run instant messaging in lieu of normal human communication so I can just query the zombies as though they're just a distant computer terminal.

Consider it from the other side:
When I put earbuds in - it's because I'm in the middle of doing something requiring a long train of unbroken thought.
Someone coming up and tapping me on the shoulder even for quick questions can lead to losing that and having to try for a long while to get it back.


On podcasts/radio: This American Life is pretty much the only podcast that I still maintain an interest in. TAL + a few movies kept me sane for the 28hrs or so it took to get from Sydney to London and back last year.

[zeekgenateer]

I don't really enjoy radio. If there was a DJ that catered to my taste, I probably would enjoy it, but I have enough music to keep my ears busy for a long time without having to listen to long stints of crap or overly played songs.

On the talk radio side, I'm not sure. I enjoy reading tech opinion pieces so maybe if it was a bit more focused on tech news, but I only would really listen in the car. Which I will not be using when I move downtown.

[expedient]

Consider it from the other side:

For sure, there are times and/or situations when this is a legitimate way of working but some people will always take the biscuit. The flip side is when you get a few people who are always inanely chatting in a loud and disruptive manner when others in the vicinity are under tremendous pressure to finish their work. In a cooperative work environment though you have to expect to be interrupted for any number of reasons and the professional way of dealing with that is the internal customer service equivalent of smiling and asking, "Can I help you?" The example I gave is fortunately the minority attitude (maybe 1 in 40) of people in the offices I visit.

I don't really enjoy radio. If there was a DJ that catered to my taste, I probably would enjoy it, but I have enough music to keep my ears busy for a long time without having to listen to long stints of crap or overly played songs.

On the talk radio side, I'm not sure. I enjoy reading tech opinion pieces so maybe if it was a bit more focused on tech news, but I only would really listen in the car. Which I will not be using when I move downtown.

iTunes is a fairly easy way of discovering podcasts. There are tech or many other topics you might be interested in, from overview and opinion to detailed or teaching specific skills. You can use it to automatically download new episodes or, like me, go directly to the sites and get them from there.

On the music side, I like historical music podcasts, covering an artist or genre I'm interested in.