Recently, I set up an Internet Radio Station featuring music from Archive.Org’s Great 78 project. While putting that together, it occured to me that a few of my relatives would absolutely adore a way to experience this music, but the quirks of media streaming seem to have left most of them behind. So, for the Holidays this year, I decided to make some Radios. Well, not Radios, but something Radio adjacent. A little box that endlessly loops through 5000+ songs from Archive.org’s Great 78 Project, while being simple enough for even the least technologically inclined members of my family to figure it out.

I spent a few hours today putting together a proof of concept Digital Audio Player based on RasPlex as discussed in yesterday’s post. I had some Successes and some Failures that I’d like to discuss here.

I am building a home stereo digital media player. Specifically, a small, sleek box with two wires coming out of it that I can sit next to my turntable, and plug in to my amp. It will have wifi, and will work as a dlna/UPnP receiver, so that I can cast music to it from my media server using my phone, a laptop, a desktop, or a tablet.

Here is the situation. Disney now owns the majority of Fox’s assets, making them the single largest owner and supplier and controller of english language pop-culture anywhere in the world. Rupert Murdoch is now the largest shareholder at Disney. Rupert Murdoch is, IMO, the reason Trump was elected. The Trump administration has removed Net Neutrality protections. This is their latest victim, after destroying many banking consumer protections, and allowing airlines to lie about, or refuse to disclose, the baggage costs.

Comcast (through merger with GE/NBC/Universal), Viacom, Disney (who now controls most of Newscorp/Fox’s media), CBS, and Time Warner currently control 90% of American media. This media oligopoly is more dangerous than we often give it credit for. These five companies exert incredible power over our modern political landscape. (They are responsible for things like the DMCA, and the TPP, EME, and today’s Net Neutrality decision, in addition to our ever increasing copyright terms.)