NPR Streaming Online Wrecked: WTF?
One of my beloved Saturday rituals is listening to Wait, Wait — Don’t Tell Me live streams. In the past, this has been a fairly simple process: go to NPR Web page at 11:00, click “Streaming Media,” wait for the separate media player to open, and cross my fingers that Mo Rocca will be one of this week’s panelists.
No longer. For some reason, NPR has changed their media setup so that you have to have the Windows Media Player plugin to listen to live streams. There is, of course, no such plugin for Firefox, or at least not one that FF or I can find, and I’ll be damned if I use Internet Explorer more than I absolutely have to. The new “Listen Live” link also resizes your window — the entire window, not just the active tab — to the most impractical size imaginable, with a big ad for Pike’s Nursery in it.
Why, NPR, why? This is cruel and inhumane.Yes, I can listen to the podcasts at my convenience, and those are great for when I miss a show or am otherwise busy at the appointed time, but there’s something satisfying about listening to it as it goes out over the airwaves. It’s just what I do if I’m at home late on a Saturday morning. (No, I can’t just listen to it over the regular radio, because my reception sucks; streaming media is much clearer, without the static, volume bursts, and interference; I could go out and sit in my car to listen to it live, but that would just be silly.)
Gah. I’m all sulky now.
