A Great Commission

I saw a site in Scotland.

No, I am not speaking of the Loch Ness, nor of the loping, sheep-whisped countryside, nor of the centuries-old cobblestone Royal Mile of Edinburgh, though I saw all of these things.

This was a site you could see anywhere. And that is precisely the point.

On a commuter train from Glasgow to Edinburgh, I sat next to a man. A man in a suit. A man at work.

It is hardly news to find someone working away from the office. That he worked electronically is similarly passe to report. What struck me was that this man did his work, not on a BlackBerry, not on an iPhone—

—but on both.

At the same time.

Is it accurate to say I was next to this man? Can we even speak of being embodied in such a case?

Granted, he made good use of each. With the iPhone and its superior display he browsed, while with the BlackBerry and its superior keyboard he communicated. But what a sacrifice for such productivity!

Truly, the Space of Flows marches onward to the ends of the Earth. Amen and amen.

Personal Media Player Purchase - Philosophical Analysis

A couple of other concerns nagged at me about whether or not to buy an mp3 player.

It’s the earbuds.

iPod is actually a great name, because the device enables each person to disconnect him or herself from the rest of the world. Because of the portability and the sheer amount of songs you can fit on one of those things, it’s common for people to listen at any time in which conversation is not required.

Instead of listening to the sounds offered by his or her environment, an mp3 player gives its owner the option of piping in more agreeable or more stimulating or less confrontational media. Surroundings become muted. Anything that wants to get attention must fight through the chosen tunes.

So mp3 players encourage the impulse, part of human nature, to withdraw from the rest of the world into a universe in which we are the center. I’ve been part of at least one conversation in which I was competing with an iPod for attention, and it isn’t a good feeling.

To summarize, iPod --> solipsism --> uncomfortable Nick.

I went on a bike ride today, from my house out to a nearby track for a one mile run,* and I took my Sansa View. I was delighted to be accompanied by enjoyable music – it really is magical to have clear and beautiful music delivered by tiny buds which you hardly feel.

By my third lap around the track, the novelty had worn off. Rides are when the silence and the slowly changing landscape help me listen to God, away from the warring stimuli that usually block him out. I realized the last thing I wanted to do was take the stimuli with me during one of the few times I’m actively seeking to hear his voice.

All of that said, weighing all of these concerns I still decided to buy the View, and I really do like the nifty little thing. The experience of brushing my teeth was much improved by listening to The Grateful Dead, and earbuds beat laptop speakers by leaps and bounds.

In general, it’s great to be able to fill boring or half-occupied times with good listening. I just think there’s plenty about these innocuous seeming things to be cautious about.

*Run. Lumbering, panting jog. Same thing.

P.S. Another minor concern was the continuing trend toward more convenient but lower quality music. i.e. live performance --> vinyl --> compact disc --> mp3. But it's hard to argue with a format which allows such a variety of music with such portability. And you have to really listen for the difference at a reasonable bitrate.

Personal Media Player Purchase - Market Analysis

I got my new personal media player today – the 8 GB Sansa View.

This was the result of much deliberation and consternation. I spent many hours shopping online, comparing different mp3 players.

I began with the assumption that there were cheaper and better players than the iPod readily available. It turned out the story was not quite that simple. If you’re looking for a player with a hard drive with capacity on the order of 30 or 80 GB, options are somewhat limited. Aside from the iPod and the Zune (Microsoft’s version), there aren’t a whole lot of players out there. The alternatives that do exist cost about the same.

With flash memory-based players, with hard drives on the order of 4 or 8 GB, options are a little wider. Making a splash is the SanDisk Sansa brand. These are pretty straightforward players that boast a few extra features over the iPod, like FM radio and the ability to record.

The second biggest advantage the player I bought is that it operates on an open system. That means that the manufacturer doesn’t attempt to shackle you to its own media player and music store, like Apple and Microsoft do. You’re free to dump whatever music you want onto the player, provided it doesn’t have digital rights management. You don’t have to use iTunes (side rant: the Apple iEverything product names strike me as pretentious and annoying, if highly successful) or Windows Media Player or anything else.

The biggest advantage to the View I bought is its price. The MSRP for this player is a good $50 less than the equivalent iPod nano, and its features are equivalent or better in nearly every category.

So in the realm of flash players, there are undoubtedly cheaper and better alternatives to the iPod.

However, as I mentioned that is not necessarily the case when it comes to hard drive players. The iPod may very well be the best choice in this arena, and if it’s not the Zune probably is. If you’re okay with the closed system these giants provide, here mainstream looks to be the way to go.