From the help file for 'Grip,' a CD ripping utility:

Q: I was listening to a CD in Grip and it sounded horrible! What's up?
A: Perhaps you are listening to country music...

Funny combination of news headlines and information:

Some Say U.S. No Longer Feels Like Home
For some "blue" voters, President Bush's pledge to heal the nation's divide is not enough. ABC News reports these disillusioned Americans are mulling a move - overseas.
 Would You Leave U.S.?
 Book a Flight Overseas

um... who are you Jason? (not that I'm Al... that's Albert)

and... Eric, I did not watch Control Room... so it's up to you as to whether or not you want to steal it from me. I'll be in my office this afternoon... really close to the "pervert row" that is the Mac Lab, so come looking for me if you want.

I don't know what to say, but I think Jason is right. I have been a asshole this past year when using this message board, I didn't take any of your feelings into consideration when I should have. This time I sincerly apologize to everyone for all the trouble I have caused and the feelings I have hurt. I don't think a guy like me is suppose to have friends as good as you guys. I will understand if none of you want to see me again.

to the person named al you are a real asshole! who do you think you are just using eric for your amusement? isn’t he a person? isn’t he your friend? you are mean and cruel, you don’t care about anyone just yourself! you didn’t even really apologize to eric you basically said he was your puppet. he may be a pushover for excepting such a obviously lame apology but that doesn’t give you the right to step all over him. i don’t see why any of the people on this site are still your friend, you obviously aren’t compassionate or caring to any of them. i think you’d be better off getting the hell off this board! in fact don’t even bother seeing any of these people in real life you haven’t earned there friendship at all!

Hope everyone's been enjoying the iPod/MD debate. It's intermission time.

Let's all do a line to take off the edge.







...aw fuck yeah... thash btter..e.. wOOOOOOoooooOOOOoooooOOOOOOoooaaahahooooo! yeee.


"I can't feel my face!!!" haha.

on a totally different topic:

Yay! Another paper done! Only one more to go! Soon I will be able to come out of my cave.... soon.

Hope you're all having a great life. : )

I just don't agree with your arguments, Eric.

Firstly, yeah- I realize 100% that half the reason I like MDs so much and you like iPods so much is because we own those respective units. I'm not debating that. If I didn't own an MD I probably wouldn't even care about this nearly as much as I do. That's a given.

But having said that I still don't agree with your numbered points. I'll address them in order:

1. "THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A WANNA BE JOE BLOW DJ." That's a pretty bold statement that I think is entirely innacurate as well as completely unfounded. Apple markets the iPod through its effervescent coolness. And what combined demographic knows coolness better than junior high/high school/college students? I remember in jr. high when the first "idiot-proof" music creation programs came out. ImpulseTracker, ScreamTracker, and all those MOD-file creation programs. They were huge. I can remember a number of people at V.B. with cassettes in their walkmans showing off the shitty stuff they made instead of doing homework that night. And inevitably the kids asked "how'd you make that?" and then they too would go home and download the trackers and make more garbage. Hell, that's what I did when I was showed that stuff (and unlike the majority of students I didn't even find the music all that astounding). And again, like I said before- Fruity Loops is being pirated in ridiculous numbers. What accounts for that? Why did kids ever get into playing that game Beatmania? Why was that game so appealing? The enjoyment is purely escapist. If you played the game without the music, it would lose all appeal. The point is that once you drop that quarter in the slot YOU'RE A DJ FOR THE NEXT 5 MINUTES! And the kids LOVE it! And what about Karaoke? It's a global phenomenon for one reason: you get to be a ROCKSTAR!!! And you gotta remember the millions of internet advertising campaigns that featured crude flash embedded drum machines that aped "DJing". Offhand I can remember both SPRITE and Bootlegger had their own versions... but there were countless others. Whenever the kids get a chance to make shitty music with next-to-no effort or skill required, they're all for it. And everyone knows kids love to collect. Marbles, pokemon cards, pogs, it doesn't even really matter what it is. Make SOUNDS be the next thing to collect.

2. "For people that use recording technology, like yourself, ask yourself really, How Often do you use that feature?" I concede I don't use it often (though when I do I wonder how I ever survived without it). But with HI MDs currently being comparable in price to iPods (if not cheaper), it's just one more feature that the iPod doesn't have. Presently it comes down to being a better bang for your buck.

3. "you need a good mic." I call bullshit on this one. If you're going to be listening to audio, you need to have headphones. There's no excuse for people to not know that headphones ARE microphones. Plug your headphones into the line-in, and you're done. Now you've got a bi-directional stereo input that is of relatively good quality (most shitty headphones would be about equivalent in quality to a mic that will cost you upwards of $50 or $60 bucks... and the headphones are superior in that they are STEREO recievers!). One of the oldest studio-tricks in the book is to use monitor-headphones as a secondary room source because of their quality in sound recording. It's about time people figure out that they already own a pair of surprisingly good microphones.


And as for the scrolly wheel, that's just what I mean. The iPod's selling factor is it's "coolness". That's what I've been arguing from the start. Of course I thought the scrolly wheel was cool and the backlit display was sexy. But my whole argument this whole time has been that I don't understand how such shallow qualities beat out actual function for the vast majority? I know that it's true... but I just can't wrap my mind around it. That's essentially what I'm trying to understand.

wow, i totally motherfriggered some of that up: here's my corrections:

WROTE: looks like it's definately you and Leo in one this one.
SHOULD BE: looks like it's definately you and Leo in on this one.

Wrote: "SLQ of Rock"
SHOULD BE: "SQL of Rock" - get it? "School of Rock, SQL of Rock".. it's golden. Woot-Tang Clan FOREVA BITCHES!!

my apologizes.

"Any psychologist can tell you that once somebody has invested in something, then tend to believe it was worth their time and effort and money... even if it wasn't."

hahah, it's quite obvious that no one here's going to convince you that the iPOD is better, so there's really no point in trying. looks like it's definately you and Leo in one this one.

i will however make a rebutal to your arguments, mostly in your critique of Sony not putting more emphasis on recording technology of the MD.

1. "How many "joe blow wish-they-could-be-DJs" out there are gonna buy an MPC?"
Yes, you are correct, none will be an MPC. but the reason is because THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A WANNA BE JOE BLOW DJ. my original point was that anyone who is serious enough to consider doing sampling will just go out and buy a machine specifically designed to do so. for the MD to include a focus on sampling would mean, as you said for Sony to buddle in software. this ofcourse means more money. even if it was 150 dollars more (which is impossibly dirt cheap compared with all music making/editing software out on the market) that's probably 150 dollars the regular consumer doesn't want to spend. let's face it, not only do most consumers not have any interest in making music, or the novelty of sampling, frankly most consumers do not even have the interest of listening to GOOD MUSIC. they just need a machine that serves the purpose of helping them get through a bus ride without having to talk to the crazy lady sitting next to them- whether or not that means getting an iPOD is really up to personal preference.

2. even for people that use recording technology, like yourself, ask yourself really, How Often do you use that feature? my guess is not terribly often. and though it's handy to have when you need it, the cost of paying over a hundred dollars for a feature that will rarely be employed is just something an AVERAGE CONSUMER will be willing to concede. that's why i think the Sony Marketing people are not focusing on it. Plus let's face it, recording a boring lecture isn't going to make it less boring.
Now admitedly the iPOD's recording capabilities are lame at best (MONO MONO, get the MONO MONO) however, so far to the market, that's fine. you wanna know why? because most busy body business go-getter yuppies 1) don't go to concerts 2) don't know what a bootleg is 3) don't know what sampling is -so really they only need the recording for the board/bored-room.
now if it was up to me, hell yes i would have made the generation3 iPod with stereo recording, but, meh. i'm not losing sleep over not being able to record farts on ice.

3. to make the best of recording shit on the fly you need a good mic. now, Sony has made a nice little uni directional, pretty much the size of an iTRIP, but it's kinda costly - $100. that or you could carry around a nice SM57 everywhere you go. but that's not being reasonable. the other option is an onboard Mic, and those are always a question of 1) quality stand point, and again, 2) to the average consumer we're talking exta COST COST COST.

So really what i'm trying to say is the recording aspect is totally irrelevent to the Average Consumer. let's face it, if the Walkman in the 80s/90s came out with an onboard mic, or recording technology that feature would not have made it more appealing than a Walkman without. especially since it offers the possibility of recording over music that you actually want to listen to (what can i say, if you create the possibility of accident, it WILL occur)

the point that i take issue with your argument is that you're trying to use this rationale of how the Features of the MD are better than the iPOD, and that the only reason for the iPOD's sucess is the marketing, pure and simple. but i think this does not give the designers of the iPOD due credit.
frankly as it's been played out here the Features argument is debatable, and really depending on personal necessity, yes, one is better than the other depending on context (or even in Beck's case, neither one is the best option) - so really the Features is not what's at stake. True Apple's Marketing has been slick and ubiquitous and immediately recognizable, but i think much of the original success of the iPOD was simply the design and interface of the machine.
i'm not sure if you remember, but a year and a half to two years ago the mp3 player market was FLOODED with all sorts of different players. and prior to getting my iPOD i was considering the CREATIVE LABS NOMAD. the nomad actually offered quite a bit: 1) better sound quality - again to the average consumer unnoticable, but to the high end audiophille there's a difference. but i figured since i'll be sitting on a bus with shitty headphones anyways, i don't really need to hear "Gin and Juice" they way it was meant to be heard 2) Higher Capacity for a 3) CHEAPER COST . basically Creative's slogan was, $100 cheaper, 20 GIGS more. that's right the 40GB player a year and a half ago was still cheaper than the 20GB iPOD.
just as a reference, SONY at the time was offering it's best NET MD at something like 550 - to me, COMPLETE NONSENSE and THE principle reason Sony dropped the ball.

so what was it that got me to get the iPOD?

it's exactly what you said: the scrolly wheel.
the second you touch that shit you KNOW, it's solid, it feels good, and it's a beautiful design to how to navigate through all those songs. the multipurpose of that design, just brilliant. it was that, and when the backlit goes on, holy shit i almost had an orgasm the first time i saw that.

so i think it was the scrolly wheel, and the solid construction of the machine, PLUS the smaller size advantage, and the (possibly untrue) constructed notion of the iPOD being less fragile than the Nomad and other players that made it the number one mp3 player. after taking over the market, yes, you can chalk it up everyone else being a retard for being sold strictly on the marketing of the iPOD being ...no i wouldn't say Apple markets it as better. definately as cooler than anything else. and again, i realize that's what you take issue with. but again, it's not just about status, the features, frankly were and are never as important as we might assume them to be and this is the fallacy of our understanding of technology. to most people, it's just GOOD enough.

if Sony wants to get back into the game they've gotta do something more than just promote features - as what you were suggesting. for one they can try making they shit A HELL OF A LOT CHEAPER. that might convince people. *shrug. maybe something inovative like encorporating Blue Tooth - i mean, the only thing i can think of as being better than anything else would be if you have a portable player that is basically a reciever, and your Computer or a Network is the sender/provider - that way you're not bogged with capacity, you could potentially have a 500 GIG player in the palm of your hands- but that's not a reality just yet.

but hey, i know ...maybe less than 10 people (around 7) who own iPODs, and a lot more whom don't. NOW's possibly the only chance that Sony (or any other company) will have to beat the iPOD, especially when EVERYONE is now thinking of ditching their CD player to upgrade to a high capacity Player.