[CarlRJ]

Lately I've been streaming a couple different classical stations (KUSC and KPBS Classical, which is a feed from Classical 24), and I get push notifications from several different local news apps when the city and county start their daily briefings on the local Covid situation. I turn the TV on for those briefings, then go back to classical afterwards. Most of the time, I can expect if any major news happens, the various push notifications will alert me. A bonus of all this is, zero ads.

And getting specifically the local news notifications makes sure the stuff I'm getting is actually applicable to where I am. If you're in a large enough market so that one or more local TV stations have their own local news apps, the push notifications can be useful even if you never look at the app otherwise (as long as the app can be tuned so it doesn't spend all day sending you random less important stuff - recipes and sports scores and human interest stuff - if so try a different station's app).

I've long listened to either classical or chillout / downtempo lounge in the office - mostly Soma.fm or di.fm - because I've found I want music, but don't want words - if there's lyrics, they distract from the programming project at hand.

I do have a small AM/FM radio in good working order, to prepare for the remote chance that the tubes break and the internet stops coming out of the tubes.