September 2022

S M T W T F S
    123
45678910
11121314151617
181920 21222324
2526 27282930 

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

January 5th, 2018

gfish: (Default)
Friday, January 5th, 2018 10:57 am
I was using a streaming music service the other day, and I set up a "radio station" based on an album I liked. This is getting to be a common feature of streaming services, and it made me wonder. With the monotonically decreasing relevance of electromagnet broadcasts, how long until the definition of "radio" changes? I could easily see it coming to mean something like "making a personalized selection", and only history nerds would know about its original meaning.

Bonus: This would provide a very compelling (if incorrect) etymology for "radio button" -- I lived through the era of ka-chunk physical radio buttons, and it still took me a long time to make the connection. I can't imagine that term has any real meaning to people younger than me.