What is an MP3 player?

[Cynth]

I went to a forum and saw a link that said "The Best Mp3 Players", what are mp3 players and why does everybody talk about them?

Wow ... an amazing and surprising question.

I know that mp3 files are music files on my computer. And there are players on the computer that you can store them in, but you don't have to have one. I know some people have tiny electronic things with lots of music on them. That's all I know. wyatt1 is not alone. Except I don't want to know why everyone is talking about them. They don't talk about them to me, that's for sure .

[Jack]

......
Wow ... an amazing and surprising question.

I am not surprised by the question and I am not surprised by your surprise. I know about presumptions.

I live in a first world country. I don't have an MP3 player (unless you count my computer). I don't have a CD sound system. I play CD's through the DVD unit attached to my 3rd hand colour TV from 1979 or thereabouts.

I do have two flush dunnies in this house but I don't think that I am anywhere near as effluent as most Americans or the Swiss.

You reflect my sentiments exactly. Americans and Swiss (and most Western Europeans, Australians, Canadians, etc) are far, far, too wealthy compared to the "developing world." Or perhaps another way to put it is that most of the world is far, far, too poor. It's a total shame. There are people surprised that somebody doesn't know what an MP3 player is, and at the same time the rest of the world suffers extreme poverty. I don't own a CD player or an MP3 player (or a television or a car...) either. I blame capitalism for things being the way they are.

[talasiga]

yeah, we don't know much about wyatt1 at all.
He or she could be
an impoverished American,
a third world middle class person who can afford an MP3 but wants to know what it is,
a very young person,
someone who has just left an Amish community,
a "be courteous to newbies" investigative agent,
a joker,
etc.

I don't know why but this topic is making me really sad.

[Jack]

yeah, we don't know much about wyatt1 at all.
He or she could be
an impoverished American,
a third world middle class person who can afford an MP3 but wants to know what it is,
a very young person,
someone who has just left an Amish community,
a "be courteous to newbies" investigative agent,
a joker,
etc.

I don't know why but this topic is making me really sad.

It is making me really sad, too.

[ketida]

Don't let it make you sad.

There are way, way too many things to make you sad. This doesn't need to be one of them, I think.

Besides, you never answered my question. I know I have dust bunnies, and I think (?) I have flush dunnies. Are flush dunnies indoor plumbing toilets?

[talasiga]

[Cynth]

Don't let it make you sad.

There are way, way too many things to make you sad. This doesn't need to be one of them, I think.

Besides, you never answered my question. I know I have dust bunnies, and I think (?) I have flush dunnies. Are flush dunnies indoor plumbing toilets?

I don't know why your question would make talasiga cry. Flush dunnies, according to my painstaking research are flush toilets. I don't think they have to be indoors. Here is something interesting:

1982 The dual flush toilet - As dunnies have a celebrated status in Australia, it is apt that Australia has taken a central role in their evolution. In 1982, the dual flush toilet was responsible for savings in excess of 32000 litres of water per household a year. Pretty important in the world's dries inhabited continent.

http://tinyurl.com/czklf

I would like to see them where I live. What a good idea!

[MTGuru]

I live in a first world country.

As do I, though my parents did not.

I don't have an MP3 player (unless you count my computer).

Nor do I.

I don't have a CD sound system.

Nor do I.

I play CD's through the DVD unit attached to my 3rd hand colour TV from 1979 or thereabouts.

As do I ... except that my television is only 2nd hand, and dates from 1983.

I do have two flush dunnies in this house

As do I the equivalent in mine. Both water-conserving.

I am not surprised by the question and I am not surprised by your surprise. I know about presumptions.

As do I. And apart from superficial material details in common, I wonder what presumptions you have made about my innocent wonder and surprise?

yeah, we don't know much about wyatt1 at all

Nor about MTGuru. Cheer up.

[talasiga]

......

I am not surprised by the question and I am not surprised by your surprise. I know about presumptions.

As do I. And apart from superficial material details in common, I wonder what presumptions you have made about my innocent wonder and surprise?
.....

I PRESUMED your surprise was premised on a line of perception which can be sampled through the question,
"How could anyone not know what an MP3 player is?"

I cannot envisage a sort of totally innocent surprise in this context.
I deduce that the topic starter gives rise to your surprise and your post is the evidence of this, seeing as you quoted the enquirer's post and then expressed surprise about it.

I went to a forum and saw a link that said "The Best Mp3 Players", what are mp3 players and why does everybody talk about them?

Wow ... an amazing and surprising question.

Therefore your surprise is not at all innocent of a particular causation.

I presume that my deduction about your surprise and its causation, while not totally irrebuttable, is the sort of deduction any reasonably inrtelligent person would honestly make on reading your first post in this topic.

These are the some of the presumptions I can recognise myself as having.

[MaryC]

MP3 is a type of file that can be used to store music. An MP3-player is a device that will play these files, and has a jack for earphones or suchlike so you can hear what they're playing.

What no one has mentioned yet is that some MP3 players can also RECORD (the feature is generally referred to as "microphone"). This makes them particularly useful for someone who's learning.

(I didn't know what an MP3 player was until I decided on an extended period of travel, and wanted some way to take my CD collection with me. Pretty impressive: a hundred CD's worth of sound in a box smaller than your average cigarette packet.)

[amar]

...this is one very weird thread. sure ain't making me sad.

[crookedtune]

Good thing my lunch hour came. I ran out and bought something (I forget what) just to perk me up.

[Cynth]

Although I initially interpreted what MTGuru said pretty much the way talasiga did---as something that came across (even if unintentionally) as a sort of putdown, I think now that a person could just simply be surprised that, owing to the pervasiveness of popular culture---which one might even think was not an especially good thing, someone didn't know roughly what an mp3 player is. I think one could be surprised by that and not be implying that the person is out of touch with important things in the world. He is not surprised that wayne1 doesn't have one---that really wasn't the issue. I think I have a rough idea of what they are, even though I don't have one. I can't imagine how I know except that I have heard about them without even trying. I think this is one of those situations where a person's tone of voice doesn't come through the typing.

[fearfaoin]

I'll admit that I checked for links to determine if this was a spambot
account. It's not particularly surprising that someone in the world
would not have ever heard of MP3 players... The surprising thing is
that someone who is Tech savvy enough to have already frequented
Internet fora, and knew enough to at least figure out that an MP3
player was a music device (evident by the fact that they tracked
down a Music-specific forum to ask this question) couldn't bloody
Google it themselves... yeah, I still think it's an inside prank.

This is more the thing you see people writing to Ann Landers about
(or, at least you did before she died). Maybe it's a new era....

Care to weigh in, wyatt1?

[Tyler]

It's not particularly surprising that someone in the world would not have ever heard of MP3 players... The surprising thing is that someone who is Tech savvy enough to have already frequented
Internet fora, and knew enough to at least figure out that an MP3
player was a music device (evident by the fact that they tracked
down a Music-specific forum to ask this question) couldn't bloody
Google it themselves... yeah, I still think it's an inside prank.

ZOUNDS, What a concept!@
This should have been obvious to those made sad by this thread.