Making Change

I listen to several talking magazines each month. One of them, Asimov, is a science fiction magazine, and they have both an occasional letters to the editor column and a column called on the net, which talks about topics relating both to the world of the internet and science fiction.

One of the most annoying things about it is the constant links. A full link is slow to listen to and disrupts the flow of the magazine text for the unsighted, as we can't just mentally skip over it. The constant h t t p : / / w w w dot prefix also slows things down. So I wrote a letter to them suggesting that they drop it. It'd reduce the space needed for the article, most browsers put it in if it's not there anyway, and makes things easier. I suggested that for addresses that need a prefix, they could print that one, and leave the standard one as the default.

And then I listened to the letters column each month, if it was there, waiting to hear if my letter got printed. Nope.

However, this month, after a brief hiatus, the On the Net column reappeared. And there was no prefix, which made me happy. In the final paragraph, the author commented that he was dropping them from now on, and cited my reasons for it. So either we're on the same page, or they responded positively to my missive. Either way, mission accomplished.

The Area is Safe from Kenny G

Well, the Oaisis went off the air on Monday, replaced with yet another station playing urban dance music.

Though I wasn't a regular listener to the station, I used it as stress relief. A little mellow jazz with far too much saxophone was sometimes good for when you were caught in a traffic jam. Now, it's gone, only available on HD radio.

And I don't think we needed yet another urban dance station. There are so may formats out there that will never be heard in this area. And other areas like Austin (KLBJ) or the Bay Area(KFOG and KFRC) seem to have stations that can pass a fiscal year without a format change. I don't know why it can't happen here. Yeah, it was extremely mellow, inoffensive wallpaper for the most part, but sometimes that was just what was needed. Now, it's gone, and I will have to rely on WRR classical or some other station if I can find one to fill that wallpaper bill.

Bummer. It makes me seriously miss the days of Jazzy 99.1, a station that had no qualms about playing a big band tune followed by a fusion tune followed by a dixieland tune followed by some bop followed by some manhattan transfer or Ella Fitzgerald. They truly understood the breadth and length of Jazz, and as such they died a fast horrible death.