Ever get sick of listening to KQ at work? The Point got you bored? 93X just ain't hardcore enough for ya? Well, if you've got a computer nearby, there's a good chance that you can listen to a radio station that can satisfy your craving for music you like - without the commercials!

It's not a new idea, but it has been a long time in coming: streaming audio via the Internet. It has recently come to pass (mainly with the popularity of faster Internet connections like DSL and the finalizing of streaming protocol standards) that thousands of "'net radio stations" have sprung up. You can listen to any variety of music from 80's classics to hardcore hip-hop to brazilian new-wave. Web sites like www.live365.com and www.shoutcast.com are listing the most popular "radio stations" being broadcast from people's homes!

How does this work, you ask? It's not as hard as you think - where a web server throws the web page at your computer and then 'disconnects', a streaming server continues to send you little bursts of data, at the rate of about 1 per second (based on your connection to the Internet, of course). Each burst is a few seconds of audio data, usually compressed with MP3 or some other proprietary technique, where an audio player converts it to audio and plays it through your computer speakers. You could go on for hours listening to a single broadcast - have downloaded a few hundred megabytes of data - and never use up any hard drive space for storage! Once the audio data is played, it is immediately thrown out.

What does this mean, you ask? Well, to anyone with access to such a server, you could make your own radio station! You can compile your own list of songs you or other artists have made (legal gray area alert!) and broadcast it for anyone to hear! As I write this, I'm listening to NothingRadio.net - a broadcast of artists on the Nothing Records label (NIN, Squarepusher, Plug, etc.) while I work - and this station is put together by fans, not the label itself!

There are already thousands of radio stations available, most with no commercials (some commercial radio stations are starting to broadcast this way, too). The variety alone is astounding. I highly suggest you take a listen if you can...