Listen and watch for free on your computer

Computers and handhelds are rapidly becoming universal devices for entertainment, communications, and creativity.

I often find myself without access to a TV, and commercial TV is largely a wasteland anyway, strewn with ads, trashy sitcoms, and propaganda dressed up as news.

Thank heaven (or whatever) for the internet and the world-wide web (WWW). The web provides an ever-increasing number of sites that offer music customized to your tastes. Pandora.com, http://www.pandora.com/, is one I used to listen to a lot but I’m now finding better options. If you want to listen to Pandora without paying you must put up with commercials that have become more frequent and intrusive, with content that often spoils the mood of the music you’re listening to. Pandora does offer ad free listening, but at a price, and it is not available when you’re outside the U.S.

Calmradio, https://calmradio.com/, offers some nice options for my tastes and it too allows you to listen for free if you are willing to put up with frequent interruptions nagging you to sign up for a paid subscription that provides ad free listening.

I recently discovered Upchucky (http://upchucky.com, and http://upchucky.org), which provides a vast assortment of audio and video entertainment. I especially like the “Jukeboxes” that cover hits from each year from 1940 to 1999.

Surf Music, http://www.surfmusic.de, provides links to a reported 16,000 free online radio stations from around the world. I’m just now beginning to explore this site but I especially like BBC Radio 3 for classical music.

Other such sites are live365 that claims, “5,000+ online radio stations run by real people, not generated by computers,” and TuneIn.com  that claims, “the largest collection of radio stations in the world.”

Everyone knows about YouTube, but there must be dozens of other sites that provide great video and movie content for free.

For documentary and educational programs the Smithsonian, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/videos/, is a good place to browse.

And I’ve just discovered, The Archive which provides access to an enormous array of resources, including audio, video, and text materials, as well as software and much more: https://archive.org/details/DonQuixoteDeLaMancha

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In the interest of providing everyone with more listening and viewing options, you are welcome to add your favorite free sites by entering a comment to this post.

And, if you find my posts on this blog to be useful and interesting you may want to check out my other sites that address more serious topics.

My active site that showcases my work in the realm of community economics and improved mechanisms for exchange and finance, Beyond Money: http://beyondmoney.net

My archival site for serious students of money and banking, Reinventing Money: http://www.reinventingmoney.com/

My non-profit organization, Community Information Resource Center: http://circinfo.wordpress.com/

My photo albums of my extensive travels: http://picasaweb.google.com/tomazhg

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