Fedi, who do you know who's the vintage MP3 player expert?
I'm asking Fedi because I have certain expectations and requirements that only Fedi can fill. I'm looking specifically to hear from That One MP3 Player Person, here.
There's definitely an era of Peak MP3 Player, the same way e-ink ereaders peaked in 2007-2008 in the Just Before Touchscreens Ruined Everything era - there's definitely an aluminium-body clicky-buttoned MP3 player that Just Plays MP3s and is tactiley perfect and beautiful in every way and probably unobtainum except with eBay and patience, and I want to know about it from The MP3 Player Expert.
I want the person with a display shelf full of MP3 players to infodump at me about when the buttons disappeared and everything carcinized into a phone and made them sad. I expect this person will tell me to look for something in the late aughts to early teens and know the part number for a replacement battery. If this is you, please give me a link to your website, and feel free to show me your socks as well because I expect they're cool as hell.
No need to tell me you use your phone for music or tell me the MP3 player that you already own is good, I don't care. I want to find The Vintage MP3 Player Person With Heavily Considered Opinions, and ask them questions that only they will be able to answer. I need the MP3 Player Librarian. I feel in my heart that this person is here on the Fediverse somewhere.
UPDATE: it's only been 5 minutes haha, alright here's what I want:
* no apple or apple-wannabe
* plug it in and it shows up as a USB drive, I won't install software
* takes SD or MicroSD
* just plays MP3s
* no touchscreen
* no capacitive controls
* preference: steel or aluminium
UPDATE: ipods are apple, I specifically don't want apple, I already know about ipods thx
UPDATE UPDATE: editing the question to make it more obvious that I'm looking for a person not a thing here, I don't want to know about your MP3 player, I want to know where the Vintage MP3 Player Wizard dwells
UPDATE 4: looking into Sony players around the tail end of the minidisc era, also this wee lad looks like a decent "modern" equivalent: https://binarydigit.city/a-simple-digital-audio-player/
Here is a template. If you follow this template for your binary file format's magic number, you will be doing it better than a depressingly large number of senior software engineers.
First eight bytes of the file:
0xDC 0xDF X X x x (0x01 0x00 | 0x00 0x01)
0xDC 0xDF are bytes with the high bit set. Together with the next two bytes, they form a four-byte sequence that cannot appear in any valid ASCII, UTF-8, Corrected UTF-8, or UTF-16 (regardless of endianness) text document. This is not a perfectly bulletproof declaration that the file does not contain text, but it should be strong enough except maybe for formats like PDF that can't decide if they're structured text or binary.
X X x x: Four ASCII alphanumeric characters naming your file format. Make them clearly related to your recommended file name extension. I'm giving you four characters because we're running out of three-letter acronyms. If you don't need four characters, pad at the end with 0x1A (aka ^Z).
The first two of these (the uppercase Xes) must not have their high bits set, lest the "this is not text" declaration be weakened. For the other two (lowercase xes), use of ASCII alphanumerics is just a strong recommendation.
0x01 0x00 or 0x00 0x01: This is to be understood as a 16-bit unsigned integer in your choice of little- or big-endian order. It serves three functions. In descending order of importance:
It includes a zero byte, reinforcing the declaration that this is not a text file.
It demonstrates which byte ordering will be used throughout the file. It does not matter which order you choose, but you need to consciously choose either big- or little-endian and then use that byte order consistently throughout the file. Yes, I have seen cases where people didn't do that.
It's an escape hatch. If one day you discover that you need to alter the structure of the rest of the file in a totally incompatible way, and yet it is still meaningfully the same format, so you don't want to change the name characters, you can change the
0x01to0x02. We both hope that day will never come, but we both know it might.
If you buy into the idea that the real "inventor" of something is the person who explained it so well that it never needed to be invented again, you can make a pretty compelling argument that there are entire fields of computation, tools and algorithms that are widely used right now, that still haven't been invented yet.
I have 15 minutes on friday to try to Inform my coworkers about the side of internet we like, ie the parts not run by large companies. I can say whatever I like, including try to sell them on some integrity stuff.
While I have a sketch of a plan: anything you would say in my situation that shouldn't be ignored? (Open question to see if I've missed anything)
Boosts welcome.
The PineNote is here! I'm planning on making a hands on video to share my experience. Let me know if you have any questions you want me to try and answer. I don't plan to do technical tests but open to collaborating on it.
First impression, feels like a quality and sturdy device. Feels good in the hand, the texture is a kinda soft grippy plastic. Pen felt good, the writing friction seems ok, I don't want to make any software qualifications until I update the device but still happy with the out-of-box experience. The wake from sleep time is essentially instant.
@PINE64 great work on the PineNote, I'm very impressed with the hardware!
"We're not sure exactly what happened, but there was a massive cyberattack to try to bring down the X system, with IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area," Musk said.
Without even looking, I will shave my head if Ukraine IP addresses were responsible for any significant amount of Twitter's problems. Dilettantes, wannabes, and bullshitters can be as easily dismissed as the nonsense they emit.
Umm, this is big COVID vaccine news. Nobody tell RFK Jr.
Original thread at link below.
THIS IS HUGE! Researchers at Stanford University have developed a dual-antibody treatment that remains effective against ALL SARS-CoV-2 variants by targeting a less-mutable part of the virus. This breakthrough could lead to longer-lasting therapies that OUTPACE viral evolution.
The study has been published in Science. YES, it is PEER-REVIEWED. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.adq5720
🧵 https://bsky.app/profile/sailorrooscout.bsky.social/post/3ljxftvw5x22h
Day 7 of Women's History Month 2025
Special #BandcampFriday Edition 1/3
A list of #WomenComposers on Bandcamp I support:
https://lisabelladonna.bandcamp.com/music
https://helenevogelsinger.bandcamp.com/music
https://badsnacks.bandcamp.com/music
https://debonairetoast.bandcamp.com/music
https://meganlynch.bandcamp.com/music
https://blixbyrd.bandcamp.com/music
https://skaly.bandcamp.com/music
https://anaalcaide.bandcamp.com/music
https://helen313.bandcamp.com/
https://zdiminished.bandcamp.com/music
https://caterinabarbieri.bandcamp.com/music
https://juliabondar.bandcamp.com/music
https://kydia.bandcamp.com/music
https://ambergrey.bandcamp.com/album/narrow-escape
Day 7 of Women's History Month 2025
Special #BandcampFriday Edition 2/3
A list of #WomenComposers on Bandcamp I support:
https://kilamanzego.bandcamp.com/music
https://samanthajanesmith.bandcamp.com/music
https://rachelunderspoon.bandcamp.com/music
https://mayayoussefofficial.bandcamp.com/album/finding-home
https://michellevynessa.bandcamp.com/music
https://starlingarrow.bandcamp.com/music
https://messicaarson.bandcamp.com/music
https://stephaniemerchak.bandcamp.com/music
https://amandachaudhary.bandcamp.com/music
https://polymerwitch.bandcamp.com/music
https://haniarani.bandcamp.com/music
https://kaitlynaureliasmith.bandcamp.com/music
https://patriciawolf.bandcamp.com/music
https://elianeradigue.bandcamp.com/music
Day 7 of Women's History Month 2025
Special #BandcampFriday Edition 3/3
A list of #WomenComposers on Bandcamp I support:
https://zheaerosemusic.bandcamp.com/music
https://suzanneciani.bandcamp.com/music
https://heatherstebbins.bandcamp.com/music
https://jakojako.bandcamp.com/music
https://dolorescatherino.bandcamp.com/music
https://avrilcadabra.bandcamp.com/music
https://nousklaer.bandcamp.com/music
https://jadewii.bandcamp.com/track/forever-south-live
https://sarahbellereid.bandcamp.com/music
https://frontevioleta.bandcamp.com/music
https://elaminus.bandcamp.com/music
https://thesynthwitch.bandcamp.com/music
Given it’s international women’s day, I’d like to encourage you all, but especially Dutch men to read these ‘anti-acknowledgments’ in a PhD thesis. This is not from somewhere else, it’s from Delft. And it’s not from the 1950s, but from the present. Unfortunately what academic life and culture in The Netherlands is still like. The author is just one of the few who actually spoke up about it, but there are many stories like it.
(Alt at https://pastebin.com/cqLvxX1f)
