Long ago I hosted a Shoutcast station where I played classical piano music. It was popular. So popular, in fact, that I had to shut it down. I hosted the station on my home PC, and the amount of bandwidth and processing power that consumed nearly brought my PC to a halt. If there was any way to monetize the hours spent putting together and programming that station I might have invested in dedicated hardware for it.
Today I spent hours beating my head against the wall of a new-to-me Shoutcast management interface. Not going to identify it just yet but it seems to be considered best in class for this. It’s overkill for my needs but it is built such that I could possibly charge others to host Shoutcast stations on my server. I don’t really want to deal with that but it’s something to think about, more in terms of giving away server space to friends and such. I’m a little concerned about potential bandwidth expenses should anything I do with this become as popular as the station I did years ago. But I am not worried about my new stations becoming popular. It’s going to be hours and hours of spy recordings I made through the kiosks.
Had a somber, numbing few days until now. Looking back at the shit web pages I’ve pumped out I should be ashamed. I took my name off the boilerplate copyright. But I am doing stuff again. I sat at the desk for 8+ hours two days in a row, earning nothing and probably just sabotaging myself in the process. But my hands are moving.
I say old/new because that Shoutcast channel I had years ago was the success I’ve had out here in which I took the most pride. It was about as much as I’ve done in life to make use of my double-degree in Piano Performance and, more to the point, Musicology. So here I am again, but with a better poise.
