Re:Would they consider ogg vorbis and or flac?
on
No WMA for HP iPod
·
· Score: 1
Well, AAC is part of the MPEG-4 standard. I don't know if you noticed, but subsets the MPEG standards tend to get pretty good treatment in the marketplace. After all, MPEG1 video was used for VideoCDs and all sorts of online content, MPEG2 video was used for digital cable boxes, some personal video recorders, and in DVDs, and MPEG1 layer 3 audio is synonomous with digital music. This is a pretty good track record for MPEG as a standards group, and is partially because the people in the MPEG are from the companies that make the media, and design the devices.
Ogg, on the other hand, is written by nobodys. Talented nobodys who have come up with a fabulous format that sounds really good, but nobodys none the less. Nobodys make standards all the time, and sometimes they do pretty well among hobbiests and fringe manufacturers. But for a standard to really MAKE IT in the industry, it has to be supported by the big guys...sony, philips, pioneer, etc...who won't be supporting OGG because they already have AAC.
Apple's decision was to go with the future industry standard over the intelligent hobbiest's standard. I think it will prove to be the right move. Because even though they had to pay a license fee, it was surely a pittance compared to what they've made off iTMS and the iPod. And AAC, as part of MPEG-4, will be EVERYWHERE in another year or so. It really is the next MP3...whereas OGG is the next, i dunno, VQF.
Re:Would they consider ogg vorbis and or flac?
on
No WMA for HP iPod
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Bottom line is, the more formats the player supports the more they'll sell.
I disagree. How many people are there who will ONLY buy an iPod once it supports OGG? Very few, I imagine. AAC sounds just as good, and is also a cross platform, industry standard file format with freeware encoders and decoders. In fact, the only people who need OGG on an iPod would be people who had massive libraries already converted to OGG. Are there enough people with OGG libraries who don't already have a portable music device and would prefer to get an iPod to cover the cost of producing an OGG plugin for itunes (both PC and Mac), an OGG plugin for the iPod, and cover support of both?
Absolutely not. Ogg is a hacker's format, and hackers do not buy the iPod because "it is too expensive." Apple's not stupid.
Flac, on the other hand, I could see, because I'm sure lots of show traders would love an iPod. But at the same time, Flac is hardly the only solution. A lot of people use Shorten, and other formats, which are incompatible with each other. Maybe when the lossless sector settles down a bit, you'll see one of these guys on the iPod. But at the same time...you have your CDs for lossless sound, guy. Transcode your Flacs into AAC -- that's what i do with my Bitchin' Tenacious D shows -- and play those on the iPod, which is (in fact) a lossy audio format player.
Except that programmers like myself write for the slowest currently marketted PC. We take advantage of the excess speed by increasing search capabilities, performing more intricate analysis, using higher quality fonts, sounds, graphics, etc.
Yes, MOST of what people really need to do can be done on a 500 MHz machine. Shit, most of what people do -- search for information, write email, word process -- can be done on a goddamn Commodore.
It is a fact of life that computers are going to get slowly faster, and people are going to expect these faster computers to have better software. Even if it's mostly superficial, we try to deliver that. Most of the time, though, a faster processor is a boon even to Joe Q. Homeuser. Consider a 3 megapixel camera, delivering photographs in excess of 1.5 megabytes. Time was we'd never THINK of doing graphical operations on that much information. Nowadays, it's so trivial that many photoalbums are processing 10 or more such pictures per second!
Anyway, for easy operations like file serving, running a firewall, serving 100,000 or fewer web pages per day, etc...your best bet is a processor with a fast bus and a slow clockspeed. It'll be cooler and more reliable than some 64 bit god (honestly, who needs 64 bits to send packets?)
We have something like this around here -- a number of small stores that buy obscure old broken hardware and warehouse it.
The problem is: unlike a junkyard, which tends to charge next to nothing, many of these warehouses charge OBSCENE prices for old parts. I was offered a 2D PCI VGA adapter for $80, a dual 486 board for $150, a 40 gig hard drive for $100, etc.
And of course they don't budge an inch on the price. Because if I can't or won't pay the price, chances are some business will have a critical machine of the same type go bad, and will pay rather than deal with the downtime. A junkyard only has so much room for cars, so they're looking to move stuff as soon as possible to get new cars on the lot...but these computer junk warehouses have nearly unlimited space, so they're better off waiting for the big score.
It's good business I guess, but it sucks for those of us hobbiests not willing to spend $80 on a proprietary pci riser. Perhaps an online free broken hardware classifieds site (something like www.thesamba.com does for us V-dubs) would be worthwhile...
Eh don't worry too much about this. Shortly after we become a third world nation, some first world nation will bomb the shit out of us, instill their own government, and ask all of our debtors to give us amnesty.
See? We're not violating the UN charter, we're setting an essential precedent!
Many people are taught that a comma is used to indicate a slight pause. Everytime I see a comma interrupt a sentance for no reason I have to wonder whether the writer is perhaps a really fat guy who maybe just ran up a bunch of stairs and is therefore out of breath.
Or maybe people just like avoiding run-on sentances like that one, even if they are properly constructed.
Hey, you're preaching to the converted, man. I'm a rhetoric grad -- rhetoric being the study of language-as-effective-communication (the nicey nice, "we read socrates and aristotle" side of propaganda), as opposed to literary criticism which is the study of language-as-an-artform.
Literary critics certainly are useful at helping people appreciate literature as art. But when it comes to what you're talking about, they're really about as effective as a web page designer offering advice on algorithm efficiency. Subconscious hypocritical aspects of discourse are hardly important when the focus is about something completely different.
Well, by definition a theory isn't ever "wrong." It can be unfounded or incomplete or poorly argued or based on bad information or just plain stupid, but it's no more "wrong" than any theory can be "right."
See, a "theory" is just an abstract hypothesis. It's that way in science too...you can never "prove" a theory, only show that a given data set is explained by the theory. Literature is the same way...there is data (what characters do and think within a story) and deconstructionism is an effort to explain it. Sometimes it makes sense, like when you call Moby Dick an allegory for the struggle of man again [whatever]. Sometimes it doesn't, like deconstructing To Kill a Mockingbird as black nationalist propaganda (I've seen it). But as long as it explains the data, it's a valid theory -- even if it's crackpot as hell!
I used to run a website called "A Hundred Lines." On it, I would showcase attempts by amateur poets, authors and programmers to hone their skills by writing one hundred lines of ANYTHING, from pseudocode to psychobabble.
It was pretty popular at my university, but alas, it took a lot more time than just tossing out your practice. Because when you put it on a website, you felt the need to edit -- or at least, compile -- what you'd written, and that's a completely different skill.
Yes. But this is a learning exercise to the same point as writing an essay on how the poem "Casey at Bat" is a metaphor for cold war politics (example stolen from a particularly awesome episode of "Northern Exposure").
In both cases, you are using skills that are important to your profession for a task which is not useful in furthering anything but experience.
I'm a big fan of experience for its own sake. I used to write a two page essay every day and throw it away (now I just post on slashdot...sigh), just to hone my skills. I feel deconstructions are about the same thing...only they're more colaborative, which is also a useful skill. Some of them can be quite brilliant, but that doesn't mean you should put them on the same shelf as Sausere and Aristotle.
Incidentally, it is not always the best written bot who wins Robocode style bot battles. A guy I used to work with used to submit entries to them that did nothing more than make completely random decisions...and he often got pretty far with them. Of course, a Wolfram-ite like myself might say that his randomness algorithm was more efficient than an intelligently designed one...
As an avid reader, I have to say that this entirely true. But then again, deconstruction is not about being intellectual. It's about SEEMING intellectual, when in fact all you are doing is rewriting somebody else's work using the tersist means possible. In short: deconstruction is creative writing for essayists. It is a tool for those learning how to write. And expecting something so masturbatory to be anything more than a bit of clever fun is going to result in anti-intellectual rage.
When you deconstuct a work, you create a paper which is impossible to fail on a theoretical basis, because each deconstruction is in fact its own theoretical entity. It's very hard to say, objectively, that a deconstruction is "wrong." And therefore, in the eyes of many professors, your grade on this paper can only be judged on its logical progression and its written style.
In short: deconstructions can be interesting, can be fun, and show off a person's analytical and prosaic talents. But no, they aren't going to further the "intellectual" pursuit of writing. But this is no different from a forensics meet, where people argue a position they themselves may not hold, to showcase their oration and research talents. This is no different from a poetry slam or rap battle, where people read disconnected passages to gain a subjective edge over other poets. And it's certainly no different from engineers engaging in robot battles, code obfuscation contests, or blog entries about how literary criticism is bullshit.
Incidentally, while deconstructionists can never be wrong because they write their own assumptions, literary critics in general CAN be. In fact, one of my favorite exercises in my 350 level discourse class was to rebutt a literary criticism from the New York Times magazine. Literary critics make mistakes in logic, levy unfair comparisons and make mistakes of intent all the time, and these often result in an unlikely hypothesis being legitimized. Hence the popularity of Ayn Rand!
My fuji can shoot at 6fps, works just fine with the microdrive. I rarely do so -- there's really only a few instances where I'm taking motion shots and need this feature. When I have to, though, I generally switch over to the SmartMedia card slot, anyway...smartmedia being even more delicate, and faster, than CF in many instances.
Mod parent up, please. +1, First Dick Joke Post To A Microtechnology Story.
Seriously folks. Dick size jokes are unfunny and inaccurate. If you're so nervous about being able to please a woman, maybe you should ask one what she prefers. In all my days as an objective researcher on the subject, I've never been told "a massive wang...on a guy who won't stop comparing it to a memory card!"
I disagree. I have been taking digital photographs for several years. In that time, I have had three smartmedia and two compactflash cards die on me. In the same time, I haven't lost a single hard drive. Furthermore, I've had a number of GOOD flash cards go nuts on me if I didn't treat them with TLC...some would lose their filesystem, and thus all my photos, if I didn't wait an extra second before ejecting them after my camera said it was okay.
I have never had a hard drive do this.
At the end of the day, all the claims of the reliability of solid state run contrary to my experience. And that kind of makes sense to me. I'd rather rely on a magnetic signal than an electrical one any day of the week...
Not really. I have mine connected at home, i don't use the dock. See, the line out port has the same electromotive force as the headphone jack at about 70%. So I just dial it down a little and plug it in. Using the dock to change songs requires me to hold one hand on the dock while i dial with the other, careful not to lift or push the 'pod or i'll undock it. Using the headphone jack, i just pick it up off of the little rest area beside my turntable, and dial one handed.
The dock is a cute idea, but for my listening style it's just not worth it.
FUD. I've run about 200 miles with my iPod in hand. Got some skips early on (never more than a few seconds at most) but it's been much better with the latest firmware (which added some nice new caching under the hood).
Actually, when you get that small, a fraction of an inch IS pretty impressive. The iPod is already the smallest hard drive multimedia player by volume by about 60%. The iPod Mini is about 60% of THAT by volume.
And let's also not forget that the software on the ipod, as well as on the computer, as well as the hardware buttons, are not to be found anywhere else. You can spend $250 on a much larger capacity unit from iRiver or Creative or Philips. And then you can spend most of your time managing the music on it;).
I will agree that there are many, many, much better music players if you only look at a single variable. I, however, learned the calculus so I didn't HAVE to look at just a single variable. And iPod still wins out overall.
iPod Mini...well, i'm impressed but i'm not buying one (I have a 30, still rocks your sorry ass). To make something so small, simple and PERVASIVE. The key to Apple software, something very few people GET, is that it is as consistant and inviting as a morning bowl of oatmeal with BROWN SUGAR. It's not what it does -- it's how it does it. And if you're content to do things the hard way, you'll NEVER get Apple, or its "expensive devices."
I disagree. If this new product is anything like last year's g3 iPod, expect to see a 2 gig unit for $199 within three months. I wouldn't be surprised to see a whole hock price drop of mini to $199, 2 gig at $150.
Just realize this: they aren't available for sale right now, no doubt they'll sell out at $250. When sales slack, they drop the price to $200. It's called a market economy -- demand dictates price. They'd be fools to release it now for less when those who will buy one for less will still do in four months.
(Incidentally...Steve, if you're reading this, I'll buy THREE of them when then hit $100 at any capacity. I have brothers and a wife who need this)
I'll stick with my 30 at the gym, thanks. I can't tell you how many times I've been slacking and all it's taken is some really rocking album I haven't heard in a long time to get me back to the bar. It's not that big. Hell, I use mine on my arm now -- with my iSkin clipped to a heart monitor.
I almost want to write a testamonial. "Dear Steve, the iPod has me in the best shape of my life, to the point that I'm thinking about wrestling in the amateur tournament this fall. If I get a medal I'll celebrate with this" Of course, that was before the last three holiday weeks of gorging and hectic schedules...
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Well, AAC is part of the MPEG-4 standard. I don't know if you noticed, but subsets the MPEG standards tend to get pretty good treatment in the marketplace. After all, MPEG1 video was used for VideoCDs and all sorts of online content, MPEG2 video was used for digital cable boxes, some personal video recorders, and in DVDs, and MPEG1 layer 3 audio is synonomous with digital music. This is a pretty good track record for MPEG as a standards group, and is partially because the people in the MPEG are from the companies that make the media, and design the devices.
Ogg, on the other hand, is written by nobodys. Talented nobodys who have come up with a fabulous format that sounds really good, but nobodys none the less. Nobodys make standards all the time, and sometimes they do pretty well among hobbiests and fringe manufacturers. But for a standard to really MAKE IT in the industry, it has to be supported by the big guys...sony, philips, pioneer, etc...who won't be supporting OGG because they already have AAC.
Apple's decision was to go with the future industry standard over the intelligent hobbiest's standard. I think it will prove to be the right move. Because even though they had to pay a license fee, it was surely a pittance compared to what they've made off iTMS and the iPod. And AAC, as part of MPEG-4, will be EVERYWHERE in another year or so. It really is the next MP3...whereas OGG is the next, i dunno, VQF.
Bottom line is, the more formats the player supports the more they'll sell.
I disagree. How many people are there who will ONLY buy an iPod once it supports OGG? Very few, I imagine. AAC sounds just as good, and is also a cross platform, industry standard file format with freeware encoders and decoders. In fact, the only people who need OGG on an iPod would be people who had massive libraries already converted to OGG. Are there enough people with OGG libraries who don't already have a portable music device and would prefer to get an iPod to cover the cost of producing an OGG plugin for itunes (both PC and Mac), an OGG plugin for the iPod, and cover support of both?
Absolutely not. Ogg is a hacker's format, and hackers do not buy the iPod because "it is too expensive." Apple's not stupid.
Flac, on the other hand, I could see, because I'm sure lots of show traders would love an iPod. But at the same time, Flac is hardly the only solution. A lot of people use Shorten, and other formats, which are incompatible with each other. Maybe when the lossless sector settles down a bit, you'll see one of these guys on the iPod. But at the same time...you have your CDs for lossless sound, guy. Transcode your Flacs into AAC -- that's what i do with my Bitchin' Tenacious D shows -- and play those on the iPod, which is (in fact) a lossy audio format player.
Except that programmers like myself write for the slowest currently marketted PC. We take advantage of the excess speed by increasing search capabilities, performing more intricate analysis, using higher quality fonts, sounds, graphics, etc.
Yes, MOST of what people really need to do can be done on a 500 MHz machine. Shit, most of what people do -- search for information, write email, word process -- can be done on a goddamn Commodore.
It is a fact of life that computers are going to get slowly faster, and people are going to expect these faster computers to have better software. Even if it's mostly superficial, we try to deliver that. Most of the time, though, a faster processor is a boon even to Joe Q. Homeuser. Consider a 3 megapixel camera, delivering photographs in excess of 1.5 megabytes. Time was we'd never THINK of doing graphical operations on that much information. Nowadays, it's so trivial that many photoalbums are processing 10 or more such pictures per second!
Anyway, for easy operations like file serving, running a firewall, serving 100,000 or fewer web pages per day, etc...your best bet is a processor with a fast bus and a slow clockspeed. It'll be cooler and more reliable than some 64 bit god (honestly, who needs 64 bits to send packets?)
We have something like this around here -- a number of small stores that buy obscure old broken hardware and warehouse it.
The problem is: unlike a junkyard, which tends to charge next to nothing, many of these warehouses charge OBSCENE prices for old parts. I was offered a 2D PCI VGA adapter for $80, a dual 486 board for $150, a 40 gig hard drive for $100, etc.
And of course they don't budge an inch on the price. Because if I can't or won't pay the price, chances are some business will have a critical machine of the same type go bad, and will pay rather than deal with the downtime. A junkyard only has so much room for cars, so they're looking to move stuff as soon as possible to get new cars on the lot...but these computer junk warehouses have nearly unlimited space, so they're better off waiting for the big score.
It's good business I guess, but it sucks for those of us hobbiests not willing to spend $80 on a proprietary pci riser. Perhaps an online free broken hardware classifieds site (something like www.thesamba.com does for us V-dubs) would be worthwhile...
Eh don't worry too much about this. Shortly after we become a third world nation, some first world nation will bomb the shit out of us, instill their own government, and ask all of our debtors to give us amnesty.
See? We're not violating the UN charter, we're setting an essential precedent!
Actually, the submitter is just a big fan of Keifer Sutherland's character from Dark City. That's how he always talks, especially during the tuning.
Many people are taught that a comma is used to indicate a slight pause. Everytime I see a comma interrupt a sentance for no reason I have to wonder whether the writer is perhaps a really fat guy who maybe just ran up a bunch of stairs and is therefore out of breath.
Or maybe people just like avoiding run-on sentances like that one, even if they are properly constructed.
Hey, you're preaching to the converted, man. I'm a rhetoric grad -- rhetoric being the study of language-as-effective-communication (the nicey nice, "we read socrates and aristotle" side of propaganda), as opposed to literary criticism which is the study of language-as-an-artform.
Literary critics certainly are useful at helping people appreciate literature as art. But when it comes to what you're talking about, they're really about as effective as a web page designer offering advice on algorithm efficiency. Subconscious hypocritical aspects of discourse are hardly important when the focus is about something completely different.
Well, by definition a theory isn't ever "wrong." It can be unfounded or incomplete or poorly argued or based on bad information or just plain stupid, but it's no more "wrong" than any theory can be "right."
See, a "theory" is just an abstract hypothesis. It's that way in science too...you can never "prove" a theory, only show that a given data set is explained by the theory. Literature is the same way...there is data (what characters do and think within a story) and deconstructionism is an effort to explain it. Sometimes it makes sense, like when you call Moby Dick an allegory for the struggle of man again [whatever]. Sometimes it doesn't, like deconstructing To Kill a Mockingbird as black nationalist propaganda (I've seen it). But as long as it explains the data, it's a valid theory -- even if it's crackpot as hell!
I used to run a website called "A Hundred Lines." On it, I would showcase attempts by amateur poets, authors and programmers to hone their skills by writing one hundred lines of ANYTHING, from pseudocode to psychobabble.
It was pretty popular at my university, but alas, it took a lot more time than just tossing out your practice. Because when you put it on a website, you felt the need to edit -- or at least, compile -- what you'd written, and that's a completely different skill.
Yes. But this is a learning exercise to the same point as writing an essay on how the poem "Casey at Bat" is a metaphor for cold war politics (example stolen from a particularly awesome episode of "Northern Exposure").
In both cases, you are using skills that are important to your profession for a task which is not useful in furthering anything but experience.
I'm a big fan of experience for its own sake. I used to write a two page essay every day and throw it away (now I just post on slashdot...sigh), just to hone my skills. I feel deconstructions are about the same thing...only they're more colaborative, which is also a useful skill. Some of them can be quite brilliant, but that doesn't mean you should put them on the same shelf as Sausere and Aristotle.
Incidentally, it is not always the best written bot who wins Robocode style bot battles. A guy I used to work with used to submit entries to them that did nothing more than make completely random decisions...and he often got pretty far with them. Of course, a Wolfram-ite like myself might say that his randomness algorithm was more efficient than an intelligently designed one...
As an avid reader, I have to say that this entirely true. But then again, deconstruction is not about being intellectual. It's about SEEMING intellectual, when in fact all you are doing is rewriting somebody else's work using the tersist means possible. In short: deconstruction is creative writing for essayists. It is a tool for those learning how to write. And expecting something so masturbatory to be anything more than a bit of clever fun is going to result in anti-intellectual rage.
When you deconstuct a work, you create a paper which is impossible to fail on a theoretical basis, because each deconstruction is in fact its own theoretical entity. It's very hard to say, objectively, that a deconstruction is "wrong." And therefore, in the eyes of many professors, your grade on this paper can only be judged on its logical progression and its written style.
In short: deconstructions can be interesting, can be fun, and show off a person's analytical and prosaic talents. But no, they aren't going to further the "intellectual" pursuit of writing. But this is no different from a forensics meet, where people argue a position they themselves may not hold, to showcase their oration and research talents. This is no different from a poetry slam or rap battle, where people read disconnected passages to gain a subjective edge over other poets. And it's certainly no different from engineers engaging in robot battles, code obfuscation contests, or blog entries about how literary criticism is bullshit.
Incidentally, while deconstructionists can never be wrong because they write their own assumptions, literary critics in general CAN be. In fact, one of my favorite exercises in my 350 level discourse class was to rebutt a literary criticism from the New York Times magazine. Literary critics make mistakes in logic, levy unfair comparisons and make mistakes of intent all the time, and these often result in an unlikely hypothesis being legitimized. Hence the popularity of Ayn Rand!
My fuji can shoot at 6fps, works just fine with the microdrive. I rarely do so -- there's really only a few instances where I'm taking motion shots and need this feature. When I have to, though, I generally switch over to the SmartMedia card slot, anyway...smartmedia being even more delicate, and faster, than CF in many instances.
Mod parent up, please. +1, First Dick Joke Post To A Microtechnology Story.
Seriously folks. Dick size jokes are unfunny and inaccurate. If you're so nervous about being able to please a woman, maybe you should ask one what she prefers. In all my days as an objective researcher on the subject, I've never been told "a massive wang...on a guy who won't stop comparing it to a memory card!"
I disagree. I have been taking digital photographs for several years. In that time, I have had three smartmedia and two compactflash cards die on me. In the same time, I haven't lost a single hard drive. Furthermore, I've had a number of GOOD flash cards go nuts on me if I didn't treat them with TLC...some would lose their filesystem, and thus all my photos, if I didn't wait an extra second before ejecting them after my camera said it was okay.
I have never had a hard drive do this.
At the end of the day, all the claims of the reliability of solid state run contrary to my experience. And that kind of makes sense to me. I'd rather rely on a magnetic signal than an electrical one any day of the week...
FBI Files and COPS tend not to show you cases where the perpetrator outwitted the victims *and* the police *and* the FBI.
Yeah. These guys get showcased in Jimmy Buffet songs instead. So you know, equal time.
Not really. I have mine connected at home, i don't use the dock. See, the line out port has the same electromotive force as the headphone jack at about 70%. So I just dial it down a little and plug it in. Using the dock to change songs requires me to hold one hand on the dock while i dial with the other, careful not to lift or push the 'pod or i'll undock it. Using the headphone jack, i just pick it up off of the little rest area beside my turntable, and dial one handed.
The dock is a cute idea, but for my listening style it's just not worth it.
FUD. I've run about 200 miles with my iPod in hand. Got some skips early on (never more than a few seconds at most) but it's been much better with the latest firmware (which added some nice new caching under the hood).
Except the case and remote suck (-$78) and the dock seves the same purpose as propping the thing up against your monitor (-$39).
Maybe if they upgraded you to those hawt new headphones...my ipod phones bottomed out the second week I had them!
They didn't tell you his name, because it was entered as "Elite H4X0R [mfs]." It takes a lot of balls to turn a hack into your best customer ;).
Not at the gym I work out at, sister. They will get you kissed.
(What can I say...they had the best rates and no contract. Just stay the hell out of the steam room!)
Actually, when you get that small, a fraction of an inch IS pretty impressive. The iPod is already the smallest hard drive multimedia player by volume by about 60%. The iPod Mini is about 60% of THAT by volume.
I'd say that's a big enough difference.
And let's also not forget that the software on the ipod, as well as on the computer, as well as the hardware buttons, are not to be found anywhere else. You can spend $250 on a much larger capacity unit from iRiver or Creative or Philips. And then you can spend most of your time managing the music on it ;).
I will agree that there are many, many, much better music players if you only look at a single variable. I, however, learned the calculus so I didn't HAVE to look at just a single variable. And iPod still wins out overall.
iPod Mini...well, i'm impressed but i'm not buying one (I have a 30, still rocks your sorry ass). To make something so small, simple and PERVASIVE. The key to Apple software, something very few people GET, is that it is as consistant and inviting as a morning bowl of oatmeal with BROWN SUGAR. It's not what it does -- it's how it does it. And if you're content to do things the hard way, you'll NEVER get Apple, or its "expensive devices."
I disagree. If this new product is anything like last year's g3 iPod, expect to see a 2 gig unit for $199 within three months. I wouldn't be surprised to see a whole hock price drop of mini to $199, 2 gig at $150.
Just realize this: they aren't available for sale right now, no doubt they'll sell out at $250. When sales slack, they drop the price to $200. It's called a market economy -- demand dictates price. They'd be fools to release it now for less when those who will buy one for less will still do in four months.
(Incidentally...Steve, if you're reading this, I'll buy THREE of them when then hit $100 at any capacity. I have brothers and a wife who need this)
I'll stick with my 30 at the gym, thanks. I can't tell you how many times I've been slacking and all it's taken is some really rocking album I haven't heard in a long time to get me back to the bar. It's not that big. Hell, I use mine on my arm now -- with my iSkin clipped to a heart monitor.
I almost want to write a testamonial. "Dear Steve, the iPod has me in the best shape of my life, to the point that I'm thinking about wrestling in the amateur tournament this fall. If I get a medal I'll celebrate with this" Of course, that was before the last three holiday weeks of gorging and hectic schedules...