To go where no Dawkins has gone before…..further into the populace with a funny movie. Due out in October this trailer is for Bill Maher’s movie about religion.
Category: General
Elephant paints a self portrait
Many destructive and cruel things are based on the idea that animals are non-sentient automatons. This youtube video of an elephant painting a self portrait is a very impressive counterexample:
Got my first MP3 player!
I got my first MP3 player!
The SanDisk Sansa m260 MP3 Player 4GB is completely GNU/Linux friendly. It is basically a sophisticated USB drive. You can move files on and off of it using whatever file management tools you use for anything else. It only took me about 5 min to install an extension on Ubuntu so that Sound Juicer would rip into MP3 instead of OGG files. Another 5 minutes to install EasyTag so that I could edit the ID3 tags MP3 players use to read and ( more importantly ) list MP3 files.
The controls are very easy to learn, you can get 85% there with 10 min of playing around. Nice size read out with no glare. Controls are nice and big for people who have real hands ( think about that Apple engineers! ).
It has a built in microphone. I can make recordings. I can listen to FM radio. It even has a stop watch mode. I wish I would have gotten an MP3 player sooner. I was so amazed that this thing that looks like a desk toy given away at a business conference has the sound and feature set of expensive stereo systems that typically take over a corner of a room. I’ve used Sony Walkman’s in the past and portable CD players. This MP3 player is so much less awkward. Wow.
All of this and it only cost me about $50. I got it refurbished. The Sansa m260 was over $200 new. Life is good if you can wait until you have the latest technology.
I remember a few years ago I wanted a key chain USB drive when they were new. There were so many choices I procrastinated about buying one. They went from $200, down to about $70, and I finally got a 1 GB USB key chain drive for *FREE* as part of a tech store promotional.
Sometimes it pays to wait.
I’m sure someday MP3 players will be found in boxes of Cracker Jacks 🙂