Free Music, now that's music to my ears

I know what it means now when I hear the phrase “silence is deafening.” I’m sitting in front of my computer with my Mircrosoft® Word program open, trying to gather my thoughts and produce a deliberative muse to put to print.

My concentration is elsewhere at the moment. Maybe because I have a sick parent in the hospital or maybe because my mind is still lingering vicariously in the latest Marvel® Comic movie I went to see last night.

I thought that by coming into a nice quiet room, one that is void of all the weekend noise, I could possibly put some words together and create a new and useful piece. But it’s not so quiet in here at all. I can hear the constant hiss of the A/C and swoosh of the fan as it circulates the cool air. Outside, I hear a light rumble from my neighbors’ lawn mower. The dogs are excited too. All these sounds are merging together and now I’m adding a squeak from my chair. Not just any squeak, though, one that adds rhythm to this concert of sounds. I have put together in my head a deafening opus.

I sit back now and realize that I do this often. I compile the sounds around me into my very own symphony that provides me with a simple pleasure. This is music. And I love music. Music inspires me. It allows me to travel to far away places and meet people that I would never meet in my circle of life. Music expands my circle.

The great thing about music is I don’t have to be an expert on it. I don’t have to be a musician to criticize it, I don’t have to be student to understand it, and I don’t have to be a connoisseur to appreciate it. I only need to enjoy it. And I do!

Here is a list of my five top sites I visit to listen to, explore, discuss, and download music.

1. http://www.thesixtyone.com/ The sixty one makes music culture more democratic: artists upload their work for review, but, rather than allow a stuffy suit in a boardroom to decide what's good, thousands of listeners do.

2. http://hypem.com/ The Hype Machine follows music blog discussions where thousands of people write about the music they love… and it all ends up here.

3. http://www.laudr.com/ This site makes it easy to find awesome underground music. It was built around the concept of loving some obscure band or artist and wanting to share them with your friends. Join the community and add your own music links and vote for the ones you like.

4. http://skreemr.com/ This is a search engine for locating audio files on the web. They index what already exists on the publicly accessible reaches of the internet. Currently, they index over 6 million mp3 files from over 100,000 web sites.

5. http://cllct.com/ The Collective Family is a community of music lovers (artists and listeners alike) that believe music must be free! Music would rather be heard than sold. Artists upload their releases for all to hear and download. Put the songs on your iPod, burn them to CD, give them to your friends. Music is an art, not a commodity. Music is awesome, and music loves you.

Alternative Home Energy is Here...What are you waiting for?

Home energy consumption is one of the main problems of people today. The fact is, we all need electricity to power our lives. We need the level of civilization that can be provided by electricity. However, most people think that the price they pay is just too much for the amount of electricity they get to consume.

In the true spirit of humanity, people did what they always do whenever there’s something that does not completely satisfy them about life: they innovated.

Alternative home energy has been on the roll ever since people have made designs efficient enough to make them feasible. People may think that alternative energy is just a recent development, but in fact, alternative home energy has been around even before electricity was discovered.

Consider these types of alternative home energy:

1) Wind energy – Nowadays, windmills are used in homes to run small generators. These generators produce and store electricity to be used in running small home appliances. However, windmills have been around for a long time. If you take a look at the word “windmill” you will realize that this type of alternative home energy device was used for a purpose other than producing electricity.

Yes, the windmill was indeed, used to mill grain. As you may well know, grinding grain by hand is very hard work. So in order to make life more convenient and the production of flour more efficient, windmills were used to turn the large grinders.

Seeing as how this was so effective, it was inevitable that the windmill evolve into the 21st century in order to be used as a power source.

Homemade windmill generators can be a fun weekend prject costing less than a couple hundred dollars and could possibly save you $1000's. Look here for more info on homemade windmills!

2) Solar energy – Many people think of this type of alternative home energy as something that’s technologically advanced. In a sense, harnessing the power of the sun to produce electricity is. But this alternative home energy has already been in use for a long, long time.

Think about this word for a second: clothesline. Aha, you get it now, don’t you? Yes, we have been using solar energy to dry our clothes for God knows how long. Think about that spin dryer or hair dryer you have and think about how much electricity it uses to do a task that the sun has been able to do for years, albeit at a slower pace.

This alternative home energy is harnessed nowadays for a variety of tasks. Some use it to heat their homes, others use solar power to heat water, and other people use solar cells to power small appliances and save a little on that electricity bill. The efficiency by which we are now able to convert solar power into electricity is of such a degree that it is very possible to power a whole house! Now, isn’t that amazing?

Find out more about how you can build your very own solar panels at home and stare reaping the rewards of lower home energy costs. Visit Here!

3) Hydropower – This type of alternative home energy makes use of water currents in order to turn turbines to run generators. Once again, this is not really a new technology. Like windmills, waterwheels were often used to harness the power of a nearby river in order to grind grain into flour.

4) Biogas – This is another alternative home energy source. Biogas is produced naturally via the decomposition of different biological material. By using biogas instead of the common LPG, home owners can cut back on their heating bills.

As you can see, there are a lot of different types of alternative home energy. What you need to do is explore these options and discover which type is the best for you to use. You have also been informed as to how we have used these energy sources in the past and how they are being used today.

Right now, Wind and Solar power are probably the easiest ways to lower and even eliminate your home enery costs. The components are small enough for even city dwellers to accomodate. The combination of both types of systems could altimately lead the the power company paying you for your excess energy... Now wouldn't that be a hoot!

By using alternative home energy, you accomplish two things: you save on your expenses and you help create a better world. You see, alternative home energy sources do not produce any harmful effects to the environment. By using these sources, you harness relatively free energy. Some people may say that the devices used to harness these sources may be too expensive, but in the long run, you’ll end up saving so much more than you spend.

Visit Earth4Energy and Power 4 Home RIGHT NOW AND GET STARTED!